Chapter 37 The Binding Stone
THE BINDING STONE
When she awoke, blurry figures moved around the throne before her.
The throbbing in her arm had dulled to a consistent ache, her skin had swollen tight from the break.
She moved slightly, and the stabbing pain immediately radiated out from the break to just past her wrist. Lark bit down and forced herself to focus.
Venrick was standing next to her. Careful not to move her arm, she sat up, taking in Venrick in his current state. His face was a drawn tight into a firm expression as though internally he was struggling with something painful. His body twitched slightly as he stood stiff as a board.
She now looked ahead toward where she’d seen the throne. Five shallow steps led up to a dais. The throne had evidently been moved and in its place, someone had produced a single slab of onyx granite.
A binding stone, she realized and remembered the repercussions the instant she saw it.
Behind the stone, tall stained-glass windows depicted scenes of dragons gathered around similar stones.
In one picture, glowing mystic orbs hovered above the dragons.
The colorful windows reached up almost as high as the fortress wall, the clear night sky open above.
Crisp cold air filtered in from the open-air dais.
Two live dragons peered in, their claws gripping tight to the perch the barrier wall provided.
On either side of the binding stone stood the mage and the enemy rider.
The mage was wearing a new white robe with a pattern like frost stitched in black thread, adding texture to the fabric.
His pale, glossy head was shaved bald, hood pulled back to expose him to the cold night air.
The rider, the same rider Lark had faced in the storm, stood stock still.
He wore black brismil plate armor, a copper cape hanging loose at his back, and a horned helmet that disguised his features.
Nix hovered next to him, her flame-hot head bowed in shame.
She glanced at Lark, revealing that her eyes were no longer the white they’d been when this same rider had evidently controlled her in the firestorm.
She shied away when she noticed Lark glaring at her.
Together the rider and the mage placed the brismil scale and Stormbreaker on opposite ends of the binding stone.
Nix, Lark thought toward the fae.
She looked up, her flame red eyes leaking tiny drops of liquid fire.
Nix, help me stop them.
Nix bowed her head. Then she scratched her clavicle, an act that seemed out of place.
A woman in a hooded fur cloak emerged from behind the dais.
Her two thick blonde braids fell below the edge of her collar, a pair of glacial blue eyes peered out from the hood.
She carried a chest embossed with runes , similar to the one Venrick had in the wagon.
A blue light glowed under the lid, pulsing in time to the beat of her heart.
Lark now pushed herself up to her feet, ignoring the pain in her arm. “Sasja, don’t do this,” she implored.
The mage’s attention flicked to Lark, while the red light on both Sasja and Venrick’s amulets flared. Venrick’s arm shot out, his hand locking around Lark’s bicep to hold her in place.
The necklaces are controlling them. They cannot tap the power from them on their own, she thought. It’s been that way all along. Is that what you were trying to tell me, Nix? Lark directed these thoughts toward the fae, knowing she could still hear her.
Nix returned a sad smile.
“Stop,” Lark shouted, taking hold of the amulet around Venrick’s neck with her good arm.
“Ella,” the rider said, his tone somber, scolding even, almost like a disappointed parent.
The mage held up two fingers to silence him. “If I may,” he said.
The rider nodded.
“Take it off him and your sweet Venrick will die,” the mage said with a sinister note.
Is that true? Lark checked with Nix.
Nix nodded.
Lark pulled tight on the chain, threatening to break it regardless.
“Go ahead, take it off him. You’ll be doing me a favor. I was going to kill him eventually anyway.”
“Joc,” the rider said with a twinge of concern.
“This doesn’t concern you, Barrik,” Joc snapped.
“You’re not thinking right, Ella,” Barrik said, removing the brismil scale from his skin to reveal his hidden identity.
Seeing his brown hair pulled back, the wide flare of his nostrils, his flat lips drawn tight, and his prominent brow scowling at her jogged her memory.
Lark staggered and loosened her grip to keep her balance.
He was so familiar. She recalled that he had influenced her when she was growing up, almost like family.
When will I break through this amnesia! The thought came with crippling frustration.
“Your memories, they have been displaced, hidden from you. But Joc and I can set them free. Let me show you who you are,” Barrik offered.
“Not before the ceremony is complete,” Joc argued.
“If she remembers, she’ll know why we’re doing this. I can help her clear the fog tainting her judgement,” he said.
“We had a deal, Barrik. What will your King Greggor think if he knew you and I had gone behind his back and summoned forth the rimeshade?”
Rimeshade? Lark thought. Those are the frost wielding shades that Sasja, Cheyanne, and I were opposing.
“She has a right to know why,” Barrik said.
“Break our deal and the sanctuary they offered is gone. Skol will have no longer be protected against the invasion brought on by the Flashover. The dragon, too, will be gone. You and your people will be back to the position of fighting against the rimeshade. Do you want Skol to end up like the others you’ve betrayed?
Like what’s been happening in Elderice and Fjern?
Like what will happen to Wintermire and Lamar next? ”
Barrik’s shoulders sagged, then he clasped his brismil scale back into place, transforming in an instant to the armored figure Lark had faced in the firestorm.
“Bring forth the Hyalite,” Joc said.
Sasja hesitated, her hands trembling as though she might drop the chest. A moment later, she lurched forward, her movements unnatural and not at all like her own. Watching her, Lark struggled against Venrick’s grip but the power controlling him kept his grip firm.
Suddenly, Lark noticed that Nix had vanished. She’d disappeared from the room. The rider and the mage were too focused on the ceremony to notice.
Sasja presented the chest to Barrik, who ran his finger along the embossed markings. The lid opened and Joc wasted no time in placing open box holding the Hyalite in the center of the onyx binding stone.
What happens when they bind the Hyalite with the brismil set? Lark wondered.
“Now the dragon,” Joc said to Barrik.
The rider stiffened and a moment later the black dragon with white eyes hopped down off the ledge. It sat on its haunches next to the stone.
Lark, Nix said through her thoughts.
Nix, why are you helping them do this?
I don’t have much time. Joc can’t see me in here and Barrik can’t sense me when he is warging. Use your power. Destroy Joc and you end the curse he has on Venrick, Sasja, and the Morsythians.
How?
The necklace, Nix’s said, her voice fading at the end.
Lark drew back on her instincts, feeling for the bond that tethered her to the flow of magic she’d used before. Ingamar’s touch and energy were nowhere nearby. Lark’s bond with her dragon, completely unknown to her now, also was absent. But something else resonated inside her.
Joc lifted his arms and the red lights in the amulets dwindled, flickering when he spoke in a foreign language.
The light from the Hyalite glowed brighter as red tendrils of light crept through the air from the mage’s fingertips.
These red lights extended like little streaks of lightning, shocking in and out from his fingertips, ending a hand’s width from the Hyalite, and finally arching around the blue orb.
Joc snorted in frustration; green veins bulged from his temples and forehead as he spoke the chant again, louder this time.
The dragon beside the stone flinched, then reared away, his eyes turning back to gold for a second before Barrik let loose a force of energy. The dragon’s eyes turned white again, and he relaxed. Something about the sight was surprisingly familiar to Lark.
“Binding the power of brismil with that of a Hyalite creates a third power. One that they are using to control others,” Lark whispered, remembering now.
She was momentarily taken back to the moment when Barrik first explained it to her.
She blinked, to bring herself back to the dais and binding stone.
“They’re trying to create a new rider that they can control with this curse,” she realized aloud.
“Lark,” Venrick said under strain.
“Venrick?” Lark replied, hoping he’d broken the curse somehow. His strained expression, though, told her that he was only able to speak while Joc’s attention remained consumed by the spell he was attempting that would combine the brismil with the Hyalite and force it into the dragon.
“Peel my fingers back. I think I can force myself to let go of you,” he whispered through a frozen jaw.
Lark did, careful not to break his fingers as she wrenched.
“Break them if you must.”
Lark heard three of his fingers pop, before his grip was weak enough for her to pull her arm free.
Venrick’s eyes watered in pain though the curse’s control seemed to have lingered for the moment.
Lark spun away from Venrick as his body acted against his will.
Lacking a weapon, Venrick assaulted Lark with hand-to-hand combat.
He kicked at her torso. She dodged. He spun, exposing his back.
Lark pummeled his kidneys. The hits would’ve brought him to his knees had he not been controlled by Joc.