Chapter 5 #2
Lory’s head swam, her shoulder still painful from Enya’s grasp, and the side of her neck dripping blood, but the leonthor insisted, “Not run from the choice she can. Choose she must, so it may begin.”
“What must begin?” she whispered, forcing herself to push back onto her hands and knees.
Another flash of orange and yellow consumed the cave, burnishing the fighting forms in fiery hues as if they were made of flames themselves. Lory strained to find the source of the fire, but the glow had already vanished once more.
“Not speak of it we must,” the leonthor once more evaded a direct answer, fucking bastard. “Free us she must.”
“Not without answers, I won’t.” Lory could barely think straight, her stomach turning from what must have been a concussion, but she was clear about this one thing. “I’m not doing anything without knowing why.”
Beneath her palms and knees, the ground trembled as Lory tried to keep her eyes open, following the dizzying movements of the three people in rags and the two in uniform, perhaps another symptom of her concussion, but the deafening roar echoing through the cave wasn’t.
As if trapped by invisible strings, Khayrivven’s sword arm stopped mid-motion, not getting low enough to stop the blow Hadrick’s knife would have dealt, had the man not been frozen himself.
Enya’s legs stopped running, time seeming to slow, and so did Ycken’s and Olive’s movements until all five of them stood still, expressions of terror on their faces as they discovered the massive creature stepping into the cave mouth, his antlered outline gilded by the morning sun.
The leonthor’s split tail swished, strands of sandy-beige hair following the movement like an afterthought. With massive paws, he stomped the ground, the entire cave shaking in response.
“The savior or the downfall of her people the Flame will be,” the leonthor thundered into Lory’s head, ignoring the others as if they were nothing more than an inconvenient decoration of his cage.
“The savior or downfall of Brestolya.” He took a looming step closer, his breath laced with the stench of rotting meat fanning over her face, making her insides turn until she retched onto the floor.
“Free we will be if she chooses right. If wrong she chooses, in blood Brestolya will end.”
Lory’s vision blurred as a wave of orange and gold swallowed the leonthor, but she refused to close her eyes.
In a gust of heat and shadows, the leonthor seemed to dissipate as he stalked out of the cave.
With everything she had left, Lory pushed to her feet, stumbling toward Hadrick, who was still rooted to his spot, as were the rest of them. Lory seemed to be the only one capable of moving freely, while the others’ eyes kept following her every step.
Over Hadrick’s shoulder, she met Khayrivven’s eyes, the panic there second only to her own as she reached for Hadrick’s knife and pulled it from his grasp before slipping under his arm to stand beside Khayrivven.
She barely made it there when time seemed to continue in its flow, and Khayrivven’s saber sliced into Hadrick’s forearm, unchecked.
Blood sprayed from the wound, and Enya’s cry of fury as she attacked the captain was accompanied by a burst of golden flames surging for Khayrivven so fast Lory didn’t think as she willed them to change course and spin into a column of dancing fire at the edge of the cave, right where the leonthor had stood a minute ago.
“Surrender,” Ycken demanded, Olive in a headlock of some sort of invisible magic Lory hadn’t known he possessed.
Hadrick was pressing his hand to his wound to staunch the blood flow, and Enya stumbled to a halt at the sight of Khayrivven’s saber at the man’s throat.
“Didn’t really think you could win this, did you?
” A cold smirk etched his features, and he didn’t as much as glance at Lory, who was swaying on her feet, but she could sense his inner turmoil.
It was in the set of his jaw, in the tightness of his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip he had on his weapon.
The appearance of the leonthor had shaken him to the very core.
Whether he’d heard the creature’s words, he didn’t let on.
Ycken reached behind his back, pulling a short length of rope from a hoop on his belt, and tied it around Olive’s hands.
“One wrong movement, and your companions die,” he panted, more winded from the fight than Lory believed possible.
The woman shot a pleading look at Lory, who could barely stand on her own but refused to allow her fingers to slip from the knife’s hilt.
“I knew we couldn’t trust her,” she eventually spat when Lory showed no sign of helping them.
Hadrick responded in a grunt while Enya just stood there, seething at Lory and Khayrivven, who shrugged as if fighting his own kind and capturing them to be interrogated, probably under torture, was his regular morning activity.
“Now let’s get you all to your new quarters, shall we?
” he drawled, but Lory noticed the slight tightness of his shoulders as he produced a piece of rope from the side of his belt and tied up Enya’s hands first, ignoring her struggles and the wisps of fire flickering at her fingertips; no matter how often she tried to use her powers, Khayrivven seemed to suffocate them with his own magic before they could take form.
He didn’t look at Lory, ignored her flinch when he shoved Enya toward Ycken, beside whom the air seemed to have turned into a translucent cage, and pushed her into the magical enclosure after Olive.
Hadrick was last. With a sigh through his nose, Khayrivven stepped in front of the man, ripping off a strip of fabric from his tunic and wrapping it around his cut forearm.
“Don’t mistake this for kindness,” he growled at the man. “I’m keeping you alive so you can meet the torment that is the edge of Eroth’s Veil when the God of Death is not yet ready to receive you and the man making you teeter on the Veil’s threshold is not ready to let you go.”
All color drained from Hadrick’s face as Khayrivven grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him to Ycken’s magical cage.
At least, that was what Lory believed she saw. Her vision was no longer reliable, and the throb in her skull prevented her from straight thought. Any thought, except for, Khayrivven is alive.
The captain only allowed a look of concern onto his features when he prowled back to Lory, sweeping her into his arms with a stiff movement that was so unlike the man who’d kissed her, whose hands had caressed her skin, who’d made her scream her pleasure, that she wondered if she was hallucinating, but before turning around, while his back was still to Ycken and the three Flame-born in the magical cage, he leaned down and whispered, “I’ve got you, Lory. You’re safe.”
When Lory woke in a narrow bed in a sparsely furnished wooden room, her head was all but killing her, the throb so much worse than initially after Enya’s blow to her head.
Carefully, she sat up, wincing at every movement, and reached for the glass of water on the overturned crate beside the bed that served as a nightstand.
She hadn’t imagined the cave or the trial or the mythical creature trapping her for days when all she’d wanted was to return to the people who’d tried to break her. All for Khayrivven, to make sure they didn’t hurt him.
The creature’s words echoed through her mind like a sledgehammer: The savior or the downfall of her people the Flame will be. The savior or downfall of Brestolya. Free we will be if she chooses right. If wrong she chooses, in blood Brestolya will end.
That had been a nightmare. It had to have been.
With a groan, she led the water glass to her mouth and drained it, eager to find more clarity behind her skull, before setting it back on the crate. Then, she dropped back into the stiff pillow, rubbing the spot between her eyes in hopes of making the pain go away.
Instead of it disappearing, a different sort of headache spoke loud and clear, nearly making her bolt upright in her bed.
“Good morning, Thornling Vednis.” His tone was that of nightmares, the sound alone enough to drive her pulse into a frenzy of terror.
“Master of Whispers.” She managed a facsimile of a nod in the general direction of the voice, spotting Espetto Lenya sitting in a simple chair in the darkest corner of the room, the man’s silhouette nearly melting into the shadows.
“Welcome back to the outpost. We have been awaiting your return.”
Lory didn’t know what to say; neither did she remember how she’d gotten there. Khayrivven’s arms and the thundering beat of his heart were the last thing she could summon in her memory before she’d drifted off to the rocking of his steps.
“According to the Master of Steel and the Veiled Hand, you have quite a story to tell.” A curious black eyebrow wandered up on Lenya’s deep umber forehead as he leaned forward, observing Lory’s every movement like a predator.
On his shaved head, the pale light of what could have been the morning sun or the last light before nightfall reflected, making it look like part of his skull was made of polished metal.
“Quite a story,” he repeated. “I’ve heard parts of it from General Ycken and from Falcrest, but there is one thing neither of them could tell me.
” An eager shimmer entered his dark eyes that made Lory wonder if he was curious about what truly happened, or if he was waiting for an opportunity to catch her lying and have her head for it after all.
Steeling herself, Lory shoved the pain beyond the threshold of her perception, focusing on Lenya and Lenya alone.
She’d done it before, compartmentalizing physical sensations until she convinced herself they weren’t there, and nothing was a better motivator than the Master of Whispers, who wouldn’t think twice about discarding her.