Chapter 95
95
G RAYLIN SEARCHED THROUGH the fiery debris of the Hálendiian barge. Bodies lay among the wreckage, burned, broken, or in pieces. They had all witnessed the destruction of the ship. The splinter of its hull, the explosion of its forges. Parts of the barge had fallen through the dome’s door and crashed into flaming pyres.
Daal kept alongside him as he combed through the piles. “She can’t be dead.”
Graylin nodded. Though it was the hundredth time that Daal had made that statement, Graylin didn’t discourage the young man. It helped stoke his own hope.
Still…
“Where can she be?” he asked, and turned to Daal. “Are you certain it was Nyx riding that beast?”
Daal nodded, but his face looked as if he hoped he was wrong.
Graylin searched the breadth of the dome. Much of it remained smoky, hiding corners and areas he had not yet hunted.
A handful of raash’ke stirred out there. Two wafted the air, testing their bruised wings. A few more shifted through the smoke, moving like pained shadows, but they were alive. A meager five or six. Daal had told him how Nyx had been trying to get them out of the air. The survivors must be the few who had heeded Nyx’s warning, sweeping lower or landing as the debilitating screams of the bat struck.
Before they moved on with their search, the pounding of boots and panting breaths drew Graylin’s attention to the tunnel of a copper leg. He grabbed hold of his sword’s hilt and shifted closer, ready to defend this space, remembering that a batch of Hálendiian raiders had escaped in that direction. He also recalled that agonized scream from down that tunnel, the one that had drawn the bat.
From the smoky mouth, Darant appeared, flanked by Vikas and Perde. The trio looked exhausted, bloody, and spent.
Graylin crossed to them as they surveyed the fiery destruction.
“Looks like you’ve been busy,” Darant said, shaking blood from his hands with distaste, as if not even wanting to wipe them on his pants.
“The other Hálendiians?” Graylin pressed him. “Commander Ghryss?”
Perde answered. “Seems the bastard choked to death on a couple things. Not that they were that big, mind you, but he still couldn’t quite swallow them down.”
Darant shook his hands a few more times. “Can’t say I’m not a man of my word.”
Before Graylin could inquire any further, Jace ran up with Krysh. They both looked excited and hopeful, two emotions far from Graylin’s heart at this moment.
“What is it?”
Jace nodded to loosen his tongue. “Shiya has the turubya calmed down. It’s still shivering some, but it’s already settling back to its cradle.”
“Once that happens,” Krysh said, “she believes she understands what she needs to do.”
Despite the hope in those words, Graylin frowned. “Have her hold off for now.”
Jace’s enthusiasm dimmed. “Still no sign of Nyx?”
A savage cry split the dome, making them all wince and duck. Above, huge black wings carted wide. The monster had returned. The bat swept a tight arc and dove at them.
Graylin waved everyone toward the tunnel. “Get back!”
They all fled, but one member remained behind, still standing, staring up.
“It’s Nyx,” Daal said.
Graylin skidded to a stop and squinted up. In the claws of the monster, a body hung there, slack and lifeless. He immediately recognized Nyx. Still, his heart clutched.
Has the bat killed her?
The beast landed hard into the smoke. Its wings buffeted the pall aside, clearing a space around it. Nyx lay on the floor. The bat leaned over her, balanced on its wingtips. It swept its head low through the air, screaming a warning.
Blood spattered from its head, revealing the wounds there. The steel helm was gone, along with most of the copper needles. A few still glinted from its shaved scalp.
Off to the side, Daal stepped toward the beast.
The bat noted his approach and snapped its neck around, hissing ferally.
“Stay back,” Graylin warned.
Daal continued forward. “I must try.”
D AAL CROSSED TOW ARD the huge Myr bat. It shifted warily on its wingtips, hunching low over Nyx. He read the defensive posture in that stance.
“You’re protecting Nyx,” he whispered, seeing a twitch of its wings at her name. “I know that.”
He approached, as he did with the raash’ke, leaning on the memories of his ancestors who handled and bonded with such fearsome creatures. Though this bat was from Myr, it could not be that different. He kept his gaze askance, his head low. He lifted his hands, palms raised.
“I want to help Nyx, too,” he assured the beast, emphasizing her name to reach through the madness shining in its eyes.
Daal touched the fire inside him. He had recovered some of his flames, but they remained mere flickers. Worse, he had little true skill with bridle-song. Though he had been altered by the Dreamers into a font of heightened strength, they had not honed any talent of song to match. Instead, he leaned on Nyx’s memories that had been shared with him.
He followed her example and hummed softly. He reached into his fire and stirred a golden glow over his raised palms. “Nyx needs me. I will help her.”
The bat hissed at him with a frisson of apprehension, but not about his approach.
You’re worried about her, too.
Daal frowned.
But why?
He hummed his hands brighter, while reaching into the shared memories inside him. He found a melody, one that Nyx often sang, one with roots in a lullaby from her father. Something to soothe. He tightened his throat and molded his tones to match that lullaby. To his own ears, his efforts sounded tinny and far from melodic, but it was a fair approximation.
He read the effect. The bat’s neck stretched out, and its hissing lowered to a whispery whistle, nearly inaudible, but Daal heard it trying to join him. It was the quietest harmony, like a dream just out of one’s grasp.
You know this. You’re struggling to remember.
Again, a question persisted.
How does it know this?
A nose reached to his raised palms, while the bat continued whispering that haunting tune.
Daal fought not to cringe. He stared at the raw scalp of the monster. Blood flowed black from the holes where the copper needles had once stood. A few spikes still poked high.
The soft flaps of that questing nose sniffed at the glow about Daal’s fingertips. As contact was made, he sensed the storm under the ruins of that scalp. It shone with corruption and an emerald fire. But further back, a well of golden light shone, struggling to quash those malignant energies.
Deep inside him, a memory stirred out of Nyx’s past, as if drawn up by that golden light.
—she cradles the tiny bat in her lap and reaches a finger to brush the velvet chin. She lowers the dagger to his throat. She does not want him to feel the sting of this blade, so she keens, a quiet song to her brother to soothe him, stirring a dream of them nestled in slumber…
As this memory stirred, Daal heard that same quiet melody echoing in the bat’s whistle now.
“You know this song, don’t you,” Daal whispered. “You’ve heard this before.”
He now understood why this memory had risen again. He knew why this bat protected her so diligently, even in the storm of madness.
Daal now grasped who this bat truly was.
Not a monster—
“Bashaliia,” he said with shock.
The bat shivered away from that name, hissing in confusion and fear.
Daal wouldn’t let him go, stepping forward. “You’re Bashaliia. Remember. You are Nyx’s little brother.”
The mauled head turned away, as if trying to deny his words.
Daal took another step. “Let me help you. Let me help Nyx.”
The bat drew back from him, but then bent down and nudged the limp body toward him, rolling Nyx closer, but not out of its shadow. As the muzzle rose, fiery eyes glared at him, challenging him to prove himself. A glint of poisonous fangs firmed the cost of failure.
Daal crossed low to reach Nyx, dropping to his knees. Her face was pale, her hair frosted with ice. She had been out in the cold for too long. He reached to her hand, expecting the snap of fire that always merged them. But there was nothing. Just the ice of pending death. He rubbed her hands between his palms. He pushed all his fiery energy down his arms and into his fingers.
“Nyx, please wake up.”
He pushed his fire into her, forcing her to take it. As he did this, like with Bashaliia, he sensed the madness deep inside her, roiling with emerald fury, trying to burn Nyx away.
He saw her thrashing inside there, ripped and burned at her edges.
No…
He flashed back to the Mouth, when the horde-mind had torn itself apart after being freed of the spider’s control. Unfettered and rudderless, it had needed a new anchor. Nyx had raised a maelstrom as a beacon to draw its pieces together, to preserve its sanity. She had offered herself as a new anchor.
I must be that for her now.
Daal closed his eyes and cast his fire into that fiery storm of emerald madness. He gathered his flame and burnished it brighter, a golden beacon in the center of that gale.
See me.
He felt her struggling toward him, but the tides had too firm a hold of her. She was still too weak to fight its pull. He dug deeper, emptying more of himself into that flame.
She drew closer, gathering what was left of her own song. Still, at the outer edges, she frayed. The fiery emerald current tore at her, a breath away from ripping her forever into its tide.
He refused to accept this, to lose her to that madness. He poured everything into her. With every breath, with every pump of his heart.
Take it, he urged her. Take all of it.
Still, Daal sensed that fire alone wasn’t enough. She needed more than just power. She needed an anchor that was more substantial than any flame.
Let me be that.
Daal opened himself fully, offering her not just his power, but all of him. He burned himself atop the pyre he created—until only his heart remained, shining in that flame. With each beat, he cast himself out to her, over and over again.
We need you.
I need you.
D EEP INSIDE, N YX heard a faint refrain calling to her. She drew closer. It guided her lost ship, a lighthouse in the storm. Its lamp was a flame of pure gold, shining through emerald fires. Its horn was a promise of safe harbor, of the strength of warm arms.
As she closed upon that distant shore, she found clarity coalescing out of madness, a calmness out of chaos. Memory formed out of oblivion, allowing her to remember herself more fully. A word formed inside her, a promise to herself and another.
Never.
With this purpose clutched close to her, she swept faster, gathering light to her. But much of it was corrupted, etched deep with emerald. It weighed her down, tried to slow her. But the shine of the lamp ahead burned that sickness away, leaving something even purer afterward.
She rolled like a wave, growing taller, unstoppable, dousing and drowning away the emerald fires around her.
Ahead, a figure stood in that lighthouse, limned against that flame.
She rushed toward that light, toward him.
Remembering all.
Who she was.
Who he was.
She struck that shore, reaching for him, for that safe harbor—and most importantly, the strength of those warm arms.
D AAL FADED AS she rushed toward him. He smiled at her joy and relief. Her golden essence burst against him, throwing him back into his body. He carried her with him.
As the smoky world returned, she was in his arms. He had not seen her move. She was simply there, as if she had always been there, hugging tight to him.
“Thank you,” Nyx whispered in his ear.
He pulled her closer with the last beat of his heart.
You’re safe.
Knowing that, he let go—of her and the world.
N YX HELD D AAL as his head fell to his shoulders and his arms draped to her sides. She felt his weight lean into her and his last breath brush her skin.
No…
She hugged and shook him. “Daal.”
His open eyes stared blindly.
She let go of his body and shifted her hands to his cheeks, drawing his eyes back to her. She sang her grief into a glow, fueling it with his flames.
I won’t let you go.
The others came rushing up, but Bashaliia hissed them back, protecting the two of them. Nyx sensed the madness there, but it would have to wait.
She reached her gift into Daal, passing through the nothingness that was everything. She swept into his empty spaces, drew energy from those vibrating hard motes. She drew upon his heart and fed it back his fire. She willed it to beat, wrapping it with energy and verve.
But it remained still and dark.
Nyx had made a promise to two—now she added a third. She put all her strength into her demand, her will, her resolve.
Never.
Still, she was refused.
“Daal… please…”
A shadow passed over her. A soft nose nuzzled her crown as Bashaliia sensed her distress. She wanted to rub his ears to reassure him, but she refused to let go of Daal. Still, the reflex to reach to Bashaliia reminded her that touch could be more powerful than any gifted song. A simple touch—fingers brushing a cheek, a hand on a shoulder—was often the start of that indescribable, wordless sense of connection, of a wholeness that could only be found in another’s heart.
So, she obeyed what she had wanted to do for a long time. She no longer hid it. She pulled Daal to her and kissed him, the most intimate of touches, sharing heat and breath. In the past, she had been wary of touching him, while at the same time desiring it, fueled by the hunger of the dark abyss inside her.
This touch had nothing to do with any darkness.
Only hope.
She warmed her lips with her song, humming her need into him, passing forth a plea—not a demand—the same she had shared with Bashaliia.
Come back to me.
She closed her eyes and sang to him, into him. While she never felt his heart begin to beat again, she didn’t have to. She knew the truth as she sank into him, merging with him once again, returning to where she belonged. She allowed his fire to wash back and forth between them, warming them both fully back to their bodies.
Once done, she sighed between his lips, offering him no more magic than her heart.