Chapter Twenty-Two
Jarok
Jarok’s rage rushed through him, cold as the wind he commanded. He’d sensed it rise in him when Cylian had taken an arrow to his hand. Then Gem took a sword to the gut and his wind snapped out like a rope, twisting around the Fae who’d done it, twirling him in the air as if he were nothing. Snapping the Bender’s neck.
He’d been so focused on what he did, wanted to do, to the Fae, he’d taken his eyes off Gem. Off Piris. Only when Darin cried out a warning did he look away from the dead man and his wind lowered to the ground. Piris, knocked out. Gods, he hoped only knocked out. Flung across the shoulders of some dirty Bender, who’d bounded quick as a flash through the fighting toward the cave mouth.
His wind knew no calm at the sight. It became a tornado tearing through the clearing without course or reason. His only thought: get Piris. Save Piris. Kill whoever touched her.
The problem was he had no control in his anger. His winds flung friend and foe alike in its wake, leaving only him standing, the eye of the storm. Cylian’s yells and Darin’s curses did nothing to stop him as the wind whipped toward the yawning mouth of the dark cave, the same end point the Fae toting Piris had. Only when a cry of pain ripped up from Gem did he hesitate, looking back and seeing his cousin being dragged along the icy, rocky ground. A bloody line led from where she’d fallen to where his wind moved her.
Jarok blinked, the wind dying down as he calmed some. Calmed enough for Cylian to come up and grab him by the shoulders. “Think, Jarok. Think!” he growled in his face.
Shaking his head clear of the howling rage, he looked back toward his cousin, who was even then trying to get up from her bloody spot. He was running to her, to comfort her or yell at her for moving, he didn’t know, when a cry from above them brought a sliver of hope.
Darin was already fighting with a Bender hand to hand, despite the arrow he’d snapped off his chest. Cylian, his dagger hand injured, was using his rapier to block the path of a Bender barreling at them. They were not safe. Piris was not safe, surely, but she’d been taken for a reason. A purpose. He had to believe she would be kept safe for the same purpose. For a time, at least. More time than the remaining party had, except their soldiers were cresting the hill, a force large enough to overwhelm the remaining Benders. If they got down here in time.
Jarok rammed into a Bender in his way, dodging the dagger the man held close. He twisted his arm, hard, and heard the snap of bone before the dagger went limp in his hand. He took his own falchion and buried it deep in the Fae’s neck and let him fall to the slushy, slick ground. He didn’t look back, thinking of getting to Gem only, when another Bender came upon her, sword raised high to land a killing blow. She bared her teeth up at him, wild courage and will releasing in a war cry that nearly rent his heart in two. The man’s eyes widened, then a glint of silver rammed through his neck, courtesy of one of their soldiers.
The rest of their men flooded the area around the cave, cries and clanging steel ripping through the air. Jarok moved to Gem and scooped her up in his arms. “Gem,” he croaked, unable to think of anything else to say.
She smiled at him, her teeth bloody and fierce. “Another scar, cousin,” she said between gasps of pain. “Nothing more.”
He shook his head, the rage and pain winding its way up in him once more, threatening to bellow out again, when one of their soldiers dropped to his knees beside him. No, not a soldier. A healer, from the large roll she wore on her back, which she hastily brought around and unfurled.
“Prince?” the woman asked, gesturing toward Gem.
“Give the pretty woman room, cousin,” Gem called around a cough and gasp.
“You will do all in your power to save her.”
The healer didn’t even look up at him. Nor did she acknowledge the imperious threat in his voice. She stared at him and said, “I need more room, Prince Jarok.” A dismissal if he ever heard one. He didn’t mind, as Gem grabbed his hand and squeezed. Hard.
“Get her,” she said, her eyes hard and angry.
Jarok nodded, patted her hand in his, and looked at the healer, who was already mixing some concoction to help his cousin. “I have her, Your Highness. She will heal. I give my word.”
He didn’t think twice after, already up and running full out toward the cave, flinging away arrows with his winds as he made his way to the dark hole.
He heard Cylian shout, “Jarok!”
He spared his friend a glance then, only to see if he was well. The lord of Autumnlands still fought, no sign of slowing. As did Darin, despite the hole in his chest from a Bender’s arrow. The tide had turned. Their soldiers swarmed and took on Benders more than one at a time. They would have this in hand. He trusted them, his friends and the Volesion fighters, to do what needed to be done here. He, however, needed to do more inside the cave. Jarok raised a hand in acknowledgment, ignored the curses and calls to stop, and sprinted into the cave, letting the darkness swallow him.
The eighteenth time he stumbled into a wall in the dark, Jarok thought to himself maybe he should have waited. It became clear he was lost, turned around by the dark, dank endlessness of this cave. There was no light and no sound to guide him, unless he counted the battle noises he could still faintly hear from toward the entrance. He couldn’t go back though. Jarok’s only choice, based on the wind whipping in his gut, was to move forward. To find Piris. To make sure she was safe once again.
After long minutes, he noticed a sliver of light in front of him. He followed it, winding his way down, down, down. The cave grew colder, more still, with every step. He then heard the trickling of water, followed by a deep boom of a voice. Piris’s tone, cutting and snide, sent a shiver of relief through him. He couldn’t see her yet, but hearing that tone, the one she’d once used with him every time they spoke, comforted him. Jarok clung to the wall of the cave, sliding along slow and cautious as the light grew brighter.
“Prince.” The boom echoed around the cave walls. “Come. No need to slink through the shadows.”
Jarok pulled himself up, tossed on his other armor, and strolled into the space as if he had not a care in the world. If Engad Monti wanted a cruel and dismissive prince, he would get one.
He gave a nod with a quirked brow, insolence dripping off every gesture. “Engad,” he said, not giving the man title or even the last name he’d derived from his people.
Both hits landed, the man’s chest puffing and his eyes narrowing. Monti’s hands went to his sword, though he kept it in its scabbard at his side. “Should I bow then?”
Jarok never expected bows, much less desired them from his people, so the intended target was off. He shrugged, moving to lean against a stone jutting up from the floor. He examined his dirty, bloody nails, flicking away what he could, letting the silence echo instead of words.
Engad Monti seethed, his anger rising with every silent second between them. Jarok knew he’d expected a direct attack, like Prince Ghel had given him on the Ice Plains. “Your brother met me in open combat on the battlefield,” he called, after long moments of nothing between them.
“I am not my brother.”
“Obviously,” the rebel said, the word biting and harsh. A true hit, but Jarok stuffed it down.
“What is it you want from me, Engad? Am I to fight you here and now? Or do you wish to talk?”
“Are both not appropriate, given the circumstances?”
Another insolent shrug, as if he didn’t care in the least. “Very well. Let Lady Volesion go, and we can talk or fight, whichever you wish.”
Piris, lying on her back on the floor, let out a cry of protest. Jarok avoided her gaze, knowing looking at her could end his charade in a heartbeat. He saw her from the corner of his eye, bound so the rope cut into her flesh, no care given to her wrists or her comfort. To think of a rope used to harm, to hurt, made the wind rise in him again, but he squashed it as quickly as he could, remaining cool and aloof on the outside.
Monti, with his shrewdness, picked up on the shift in Jarok regardless. He smiled then, moving to Piris and hoisting her up by those bound hands. The jerk to her feet would have hurt her, Jarok knew, but Piris only flexed her jaw, keeping her reactions and feelings clamped down tight.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I keep her as a bargaining tool, for her father and the princess.”
“You come at my father, he’ll strike you down without hesitation. As would Prince Ghel if you dared try to manipulate the princess. I’d think you, of all people, wouldn’t want to take on Prince Ghel’s wrath once again.” Words as sharp as knives, spit right in the face of a man who held her captive. She didn’t care, could never back down in the face of a fight regardless of who she fought, and it made Jarok love her more. It also made him quake for her.
“The prince bested me, it’s true, but only because of his magic.”
Piris snorted and gave a long sideways look at the Fae. “Tell yourself whatever you have to in order to feel better.”
Monti shook her by the bound hands, his lips curling as he said, “I’d be less mouthy if I were you.”
“Please stop the endless prattle,” Jarok drawled, trying his best to keep his wind and rage at bay when he saw the pain flicker across Piris’s face. “We have things to do.”
“Yes, Prince. That we do.” The rebel threw Piris back to the floor, where she landed on her butt, the hard fall shaking up and down her body. Still, she showed no signs of pain. All she let Engad Monti see was anger and dismissal.
The Monti turned his back on her to step closer to the prince. He didn’t pull his sword. He stood still, his feet planted shoulder-width apart and his arms crossed at his chest. His eyes assessed and considered.
“The adopted prince, from a great warrior clan. I expected more from you.”
“What exactly did you expect?”
“More of a fight. Can’t say I’m sad to see you go. I am, however, disappointed it was so easy.”
A rock plowed into Jarok’s stomach then, doubling him over in pain as the air gushed out of him. Monti had apparently decided to use his magic instead of having another duel with a Winterlands prince. Jarok sucked in some of his wind to gain his breath, but not before another stone pelted him, driving him a few steps back, away from the cave entrance.
Piris screamed, high and shrill and desperate, but her words were drowned out by a deep rumble. Jarok flung up his wind, slowing the fall. Yet the stones continued to fall, one by one, regardless. Giant, ancient stones loosened from their resting places in the cave.
They tumbled down, burying the prince. He looked toward Piris one last time before he was buried and said, “I love you.” Then all was crushing black.