Chapter 52 #2
One of ours, defiling yourself in such a manner. Maybe we should kill you now.
‘I am not one of yours.’
Laughter again ripples, but this time it’s not in my head and it’s not just one woman. All of them offer the same sharp, mocking snigger as they encircle me.
‘You ride an animal,’ she replies aloud, drawing my attention to exactly which of the Torailians it is who infiltrated my mind. Though now that I know, it is a wonder I didn’t work it out for myself.
Taller than Caz, her movements are economical as she slings her bow across her back. ‘You let an animal inside your mind. Bonded with an animal. You are a disgrace to your power and your heritage.’
Heritage.
The way she spits the word makes my skin crawl, as if I am beholden to it, to them.
Fen bares his teeth.
Say the word, Little Raven, and I’ll happily rip them to shreds.
Not yet, I respond, praying he can’t hear the doubt in my voice. After all, we’ve just spent this entire fight trying to rip them to shreds. Yet they evaded us. Sank into my mind and knew our every move.
If I’m right, then the only way to defeat them will be to separate the bond between Fen and me, and right now, that’s not something I’m willing to do. Not when I already know they consider him disposable.
Instead, I meet the woman’s gaze. Her garnet eyes cause a ghost of a memory to flicker somewhere in the back of my mind.
‘You don’t get to decide what I am,’ I spit.
She scoffs as she tilts her head to the side. ‘No, your blood does. Your Torailian blood.’
The words hit like a strike between my ribs.
To my right, a crash of thunder bellows through the air, and I twist to find Kyor there, well within hearing distance as he battles two Torailians at once – although they seem to be striking him more to distract than to kill.
Or perhaps they are just poorly trained. Though that hardly fits with what William believed about their arrows that never miss, or the professional manner in which they surrounded us.
You carry our blood, she continues directly in my mind, as her face twists in a moue of distaste. A quarter Torailian, I suspect. It is enough. Enough to matter. Enough to be our responsibility.
‘No,’ I snarl aloud. ‘I don’t belong to you.’
‘Belonging is not a choice,’ she replies. ‘It is a fact.’
Something ugly and furious coils in my chest. No, it’s not. I belonged more in the slums than I ever did in the High Hold, despite being born there. And in the Retterheld there were plenty who thought I didn’t belong there either.
And yet it is their powers that were returned to Mortidem. Not mine.
‘Then try it,’ I say softly, meeting her gaze. ‘Try to take me.’
She smiles. She doesn’t raise her hand or call out, and yet in the same instant that her lips rise, the fighting explodes.
Another two dozen Torailian soldiers appear from the weathered landscape, moving seamlessly, covering one another and rotating positions without hesitation. Every strike is countered, every flame dodged. They know where we’re going before we do.
So much for the fallacy that the Torailians do not have magic. It might not be demonstrable or seen or felt with the senses, but that makes it even more dangerous.
Sickness curdles within me. They can read our minds, anticipate our moves, sense our feelings. Just like I sensed the kraken’s emotions in the Retterheld.
Just like I felt Fen’s distress long before I saw him.
Just like my father took on a grief heavier than that of one person when Florian died.
Goosebumps rise.
Fen is still leading and twisting as he evades the nets, yet I can barely even feel him as my mind struggles to accept the truth.
If she’s right, I’m not just part Issen – I’m part Torailian, too.
You’re an abomination! the leader spits into my head, there even now, reading the thoughts the moment they form.
FUCK YOU! I scream at her with all that I have, and for the first time I see an effect as she flinches, recoiling away from me as she holds her head.
Despite my warning, the lightning has started again. Kyor raises bolts from the ground, drawing on the charge within the earth and air as his blade continues to blur from one strike to the next.
He fights them like he knows what to do.
Because he does.
He has fought the Torailians before. He must have. But when and why?
We are at war with the Issen, but never the Torailians. Or at least, that was what I believed.
But everything I believed is falling into ash around me.
As my gaze shifts towards the other bonded pair, Fen takes an arrow to the shoulder. Yet rather than retreating, he winces once, then pushes any pain down before he tears through their line with brutal grace.
We need to think less and act more, Little Raven.
For a moment his words make no sense. After all, we are fighting for all we are worth to evade these fucking nets and stop any of the others taking an arrow to the chest. But then, it clicks.
Of course! If I can’t anticipate what is going to happen, then neither can the Torailians.
It is not like when I channelled the vines to grow to secure Fen or when I wrapped them around the Rottings’ ankles before the Myrkr siphoned my powers. This time is unlike any time I have ever used my magic before.
All restraint is gone, and in its place there is only rampant recklessness.
I tear at the ground and roots snap up, throwing the Torailians off balance.
Then I will the weeds to explode with bristling thorns that twist this way and that, without reason or direction.
Such randomness ruptures the earth, taking even me by surprise, and that’s a good thing.
Because if I don’t know where the plants are coming from, then they don’t either.
‘Shit!’ Ruben yells as a blade skims his ribs.
Benny is there instantly, back-to-back with him.
‘They’re trying to box us in!’ Caz shouts.
Kyor fires back and a thin streak of lightning bisects the sky. But it’s too thin. He’s running out of energy and needs to stop. ‘Rose,’ he shouts. ‘They want you. But they’re not here to kill you.’
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed,’ I shout back drily.
‘They want to take you.’ He looks across at me, eyes fiery with passion. ‘I won’t let them.’
Nor, I think, will I.
A Torailian lunges for me, but Fen intercepts, jaws closing inches from her throat.
She stumbles back, horror etched across her face.
They have never touched him, I realise, a flicker of hope sparking in me.
They have shot arrows at him, tried to pull me off him, but never touched him physically or mentally.
As if to touch his mind directly and not access his thoughts through my knowledge is something that they cannot or will not do.
Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter.
The wolves are our advantage.
‘You sullied yourself for such a foul creature,’ the woman snarls at me, but I don’t dignify her with a response.
I’m going to disconnect from you, I warn Fen, so they can’t read your intent through me, through our bond.
I feel his chagrin. I should have done so already, he says gruffly. My apologies.
It’s hardly the best situation within which to disentangle my mind. Steady breaths are never easy to take mounted on a moving dire wolf, but definitely not one that is moving as erratically as he is. But this is it. This is our only chance. I don’t have a choice.
Trusting that he will keep me safe, I close my eyes, draw in the earthy aroma of the air around us, and disentangle my mind from Fen’s.
I bury my hands into his fur and strengthen the grip of my legs around his body.
‘Attack them, Fen!’ I say aloud to my wolf.
He needs no further command. He surges forward, causing my body to lurch and slam into his back.
Without the connection, staying astride is a thousand times harder.
There’s no way of knowing where his paws will land or which direction he will twist his body in, but I cling on with determination as Fen tears into our attackers with malicious glee.
And they, unable to anticipate his moves through me, fall.
Blood drips from his maw as he launches himself through them. The random turbulence is almost fluid, as if he too has fought them before – with Zelle.
‘Give me space!’ Kyor shouts from where he slices a sword through a Torailian just seconds before it fires at Caz. ‘I need space.’
‘No, you—’
‘I’ve got this, Thorn. Trust me,’ he yells.
Fear grips me. If he overuses his magic, he’ll be drained. Permanently.
Unless I can stop that from happening.
I don’t give myself a chance to think. To second-guess.
Instead, I pull at the magic which lingers there in the twisted plant roots that burst through the earth.
I drag it upwards, freeing it from its confines before I push the magical energy into Kyor.
I don’t want to do too much – he’s already got so much power that giving him more could be just as detrimental – but just enough.
Enough to stop him from draining himself.
Because if he burns himself out, there’ll be no coming back from it.
No getting his power back, ever. And even though I’ve given him a boost, with the huge amount of energy he’s about to release there’s still the chance that he could drain himself dry.
But he didn’t hesitate when I asked him to trust me with the Myrkr, and I owe him the same level of trust now.
My silence, he knows, is my acceptance.
Kyor detonates.