Through the Ashes- The Complete Series, page 56
part #1 of Through the Ashes Series
Still, Bells felt utterly confident. In an instant, several plans swept through her mind, each one deadly and effective. Then she froze and her eyes became unfocused. It took only a moment, but in that time, she had a lengthy conversation with Shmsharatsh, and she knew what to do. She didn’t want to kill anyone, and the sword wasn’t going to force her to.
Before anyone could rush her again, Bells said, “Stop.” Her voice echoed from the walls once again with the odd chorus-like effect. Then she spoke in her own voice, saying, “I don’t want to kill anyone. I refuse to dominate anyone on the Council or the Crown, though it would be painfully easy to do. So, Tallon, I will surrender the Sword of Fire, but only to you. I believe you would focus all your energies on using this weapon to find a cure for the people it has touched who have dropped. But I remind you, the sword’s purpose is to cause peace, not war. If you use it for any selfish reason, believe me when I tell you that I can take it back anytime I want, no matter where you hide or how far you run.”
Tallon’s eyes went wide, but then the tip of his sword dropped a half an inch. With her new-found sword fighting experience, she saw how that took him out of a killing-attack stance. She knew what his answer would be.
“Of course,” Tallon said. “My priority is the victims, always. The people are our responsibility. No one has been harmed, other than you, so I will leave it to Mikah to decide what to do with you, as a member of his house.”
She desperately did not want to give the sword to him, but its voice in her head told her it would be all right, that she should go ahead. Reluctantly, she lowered the sword and then handed it to Tallon, hilt-first. As soon as it left her hands, she felt something missing in her head, and the sword’s voice was silenced. Maybe what was missing were the tendrils. That would explain the silence in her head.
Jaekob took a step toward her and Tallon, but Mikah held him back with an arm across his chest. Bells ignored Jaekob, keeping her eyes on Mikah. She stepped toward him and met him in the middle.
Sword in hand, Tallon stepped back from Bells with a grim expression on his face. He looked her in the eyes and nodded once. “Thank you. You’ve done the right thing, giving the sword to me. Imagine the good that can come from this now.”
Bells wanted to say the only good that would come from it was for Tallon’s traitor son, but bit her tongue. The sword had told her not to worry. She said, “Use it well. Save the victims.”
Tallon turned and raised the sword enough for everyone in the room to see that he had it. “Now, you see, we—”
He stopped, suddenly quiet, and his body went rigid. Bells thought she saw a purple aura all around him, very faintly, but when other people in the room gasped and several stepped away from Tallon, she realized it wasn’t her imagination—and it wasn’t his aura.
The glow brightened and began to shine from his eyes like spotlights aimed at the sword he stared at. He said, “Wait, what do you mean?” Then, he muttered under his breath as though talking to himself. The other people in the room looked concerned, and the werewolf backed up even farther away from him. Bells wondered what the sword was saying to him.
Tallon kept mumbling and the light grew brighter and brighter. It looked like the light was coming through his teeth, his nose, even out his ears. Brighter still, his skin seemed to bubble and boil away in spots to let the light out. Even Bells found herself backing away from him.
Tallon stopped his muttering and looked up with a confused expression on his face. He said out loud, clear as day, “Yes, but why?”
Suddenly, the light streaming out of him and making his skin glow turned a sharper shade of purple. It looked as though it were devouring him from the inside out, continually glowing brighter.
Bells let out a surprised squeak, staring at Tallon in horror.
His skin formed cracks like shattered glass, the light streaming out from them. Then more cracks, and more still. He screamed, but the agonized sound stopped abruptly, just as the purple light did. When the light vanished, every part of Tallon was coal-black, even his clothes. The arm holding the sword slid off, noiselessly. When it hit the floor, the sword bounced to the middle of the room, but Tallon’s arm exploded into a cloud of dust. The rest of him seemed to simply collapse in on itself, crashing into the floor in a dust cloud. All that remained of him was a pile of ash.
Bells looked around the room, but no one made any move toward the sword, and several were backing away from it, putting their backs up against the nearest wall.
All eyes turned toward her again. Damn that sword.
Bells could have heard a pin drop in the utter silence that followed Tallon’s disintegration, everyone staring either at the pile of ashes that had once been the man or at Bells.
In that silence, Bells realized as if from a sudden epiphany that it was quiet in her head, as well. There were no other voices echoing in there, just her own thoughts swimming around all alone. And those thoughts were suddenly clearer. It was though they had been edged with static that she hadn’t even noticed until that moment. Overwhelming relief washed over her. Just as suddenly, she remembered everything that had occurred in the last few weeks. Her memories of those events were more vivid now than at the time they happened. Free of the sword’s influence, her own memories rose to the forefront.
Along with her own memories, however, the voices of every single soul she had turned with the sword came flooding back to her. It was enough to make her eyes well up, and she wiped them on her sleeve.
Someone cleared their throat, a short elf whom she recognized as Tallon’s assistant. Well, she had assumed he was the assistant. Clearing his throat again, he said, “It seems I now represent the elves for the Crown of Pures. I’d like to officially propose that we give the artifact to Jaekob for safekeeping. He—”
Jaekob snarled, “You’ve got to be kidding. No way.”
The elf said, “I’m sorry, it’s just that you held it before without… side effects. At least with you, we would know it was safe and sound, meaning the rest of us would be safe, as well.”
Mikah said, “I’m not putting my son at risk. I refuse to allow this, votes be damned.”
Jaekob shook his head. “With all respect to the Crown, we can’t simply assume it wouldn’t affect me the same way. Bells had it in her position for quite a while.”
The elf shrugged. “And?”
“And, I think it somehow bonded with her. I don’t believe anyone can pick it up, now, except for her. I never liked this sword, but I would take it if I thought it would help. I don’t think it would, not anymore. There’s very little point in me dying also, just to find out whether I’m right.”
“I agree, but that leaves us with a dilemma,” Mikah said. “Who should get the sword, now, and how?” He smiled and looked at Bells. “Obviously, I think it should go to the one person who has demonstrated the ability to carry this thing, but who, at the same time, has proved she won’t use it to seek power over others.”
Bells froze, startled—not by his suggestion, but by her immediate strong reaction against it. She didn’t want it. “Thanks, but there’s no way in Creation anyone can convince me to pick that sword up again, not until I have had time to think on it.”
Jaekob cocked his head and looked confused. Bells considered telling them about the sword’s side effects, but that might only create more distrust. They might not believe she had only just realized the sword’s effects on the wielder… No, she’d just talk to the new bearer when someone picked it up, if they lived. She’d explain it to Jaekob later, too.
Mikah took a half-step toward her and raised his hand, saying, “Bells, may I—”
Jaekob put his hand on Mikah’s arm, silencing him. “Bells, may I please speak with you out in the hallway?”
She took a deep breath. Well, she was going to stand her ground. He wouldn’t be able to convince her and talking to her in private wasn’t going to change her mind. “Of course,” she said, bowing her head. She hoped that came across as merely professional to everyone else in the room. Her instincts told her not to bring attention to her personal relationship with the dragon heir at the moment.
The door Guardians parted, giving her plenty of room as she left the conference chamber.
In the hallway, Bells looked both ways to make sure there was no one around. To her surprise, though, Jaekob didn’t stop in the alcove outside the conference room, but led her down the hallway. They passed one door, then another. At the third door, he opened it and held it for her. “After you,” he said.
Once they were inside and the door was closed, she found herself in a smaller version of the room they just left. How many conference rooms had some rich human needed? Another mystery she would never solve.
She turned to Jaekob. “Okay, now you have me all alone. What did you have in mind?” She thought back to that morning, waking up with his arm around her, the memory coming unbidden. The odds that that was what he had in mind were just about zero, sadly.
He smiled and leaned up against the table, patting the spot next to him. She turned around and put her hands on it to lift herself up, and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
“So, I understand you have some reservations,” he said as he slid his arm around her waist. “I don’t know if you’re afraid it’ll disintegrate you like it did the elf, but I would bet my own life you’d be safe. I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself.”
She really wanted to be mad at him or to argue that she did believe in herself, but then doubt crept in. Why didn’t she want the sword back? Plus, he had such enthusiasm when he told her he believed in her that it made her want to believe in herself. But no, she decided, that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want it.
“The thought crossed my mind,” she said. “It sure didn’t look pleasant, watching him burn from the inside out. I think, though, that the real reason is just that I don’t want the responsibility anymore. No one trusted me with the sword even after I saved the city again and again. Everyone wanted it for themselves, right up until it might cost them something to have that power in their hands, and now they want me to take it back? I’m tired of how everyone tries to manipulate me into doing what they want with it. Everyone but you. And Mikah, I suppose.”
His hand dug into her hip as he gave her a brief squeeze. It was reassuring, and she rested her head on his shoulder for a moment.
“If you won’t take it back,” Jaekob said, “we still need to figure out what to do with the sword. We can’t just leave it lying on the conference room floor. Any ideas?”
She grinned. “Maybe we should just give it to the Black Khan and roast some of those delightful marshmallows over his flames when it obliterates him.” She was only half joking. After all, the marshmallows ran out a long time ago, being a favorite pixie treat. Pixies got into everything, like rodents, and a swarm could pick a convenience store to the bones in minutes.
Jaekob laughed out loud, his eyes sparkling. “Ha! Give it to the khan. That’s hilarious. And it’s almost a good idea, except that bursting into flames is not what happened the last time the Black Khan had the sword. Actually, I’m a little afraid that the only reason the sword acted this way today is that it was in your possession for so long.”
She hadn’t thought of that. It was an interesting idea. Speaking slowly as she mulled the idea, she said, “That’s… an interesting possibility. I wonder, did the sword pick up some of my traits while I picked up some of its? Maybe Tallon was just too different from me for the sword’s energy to… I don’t know, harmonize? I’m not sure that’s the right word, but that’s how it felt when I first picked it up.”
“Maybe. You would know better than I. But whether or not that’s why Tallon went out in a blaze of glory, it seems likely that someone will be able to pick it up eventually. I really do hope they have to be like you for that to work, though. If that’s the case, we would all be much safer.” He smiled again.
Bells cocked her head, then leaned it on his shoulder again, this time keeping it there. “Why do you say that? You think the sword likes really short women who feel like they’re totally in over their heads?”
He snorted and shook for a moment, jostling her head. “Is that really how you see yourself? And yet, you survived this far and you’ve done incredible things, things no one else in the world has done. Everywhere we go, you get people to go out of their way to help you—even determined cynics like me. Heck, even Mikah, and you have no idea how rare that is.”
“Thanks?” she said, her voice rising up at the end as if in question. What other response was there? He was describing somebody completely different. She, the real Bells, had just been along for the ride while he led them into doing things no one else had done, things she never would have done without him.
He paused for a moment. Then, he let out a long sigh. “Bells, half the reason I brought you into my life was just so that you wouldn’t get yourself killed here in the city. People aren’t nearly as kind as you imagine.”
“And I think people helped me—us—because most people are kind if you give them the chance to be. Well, maybe not elves, but everyone else. They saw I needed help so they gave it. It’s what decent people do. You make it sound like being kind is a terrible thing.”
He let out a long, slow breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe people have been nice to you, but that’s just what I’ve been saying. You bring out the best in people, without even realizing you’re doing it. And there’s nothing wrong with being kind, but it tends to get you taken advantage of more often than not. There are plenty of people out there who view anyone who’s kind as an ideal victim.”
“How terrible to go through life thinking that,” she replied. Something terrible must have happened to him to make him feel that way. Maybe it had something to do with his mother’s death? Whatever the cause, she was glad to bring out a better side of him. “The only people who ever made me a victim were every elf foreman the Crown of Pures put in charge of my village, the same for every fae everywhere.”
“Be that as it may, as I was saying, I thought your pure heart was a weakness before. But in the time I’ve known you, you’ve changed my mind. I think it’s a strength, your greatest strength, in fact. I wish I could be more like you, but a prince has no business having a pure heart. The best I can do is just try to be better, try to be somebody I think you would be proud of. I don’t always get it right.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Bells enjoyed that calm before the storm of returning to the conference room. At last, though, their responsibilities couldn’t be put off any longer.
Reluctantly, she said, “I suppose we should figure out what to do with the sword now. Is there any chance we can just leave it in the conference hall for a while? You said we can’t, but I wonder. Either way, I need time to think, unless you have a great idea right now.”
He shrugged, then took his arm from around her waist and stood. He helped her down from the table. “No, I don’t have any great ideas. Not about the sword, anyway. I’ll see what we can do about leaving the sword where it fell.”
As they left the room and headed back down the hallway, Bells couldn’t take her eyes off of Jaekob. Before her eyes, he seemed to change, growing taller and squaring his shoulders back. There was a tension to him that she hadn’t noticed before but now realized was always present—except when he was alone with her. He was far more bitter than she had realized, and he had said as much while they talked. Wanting to change and actually doing it were two different things, and she hadn’t realized the Jaekob she knew was the one “trying to do better,” as he put it, rather than the authentic person. Or was her Jaekob the authentic one, trying to get out?
As they walked through the doorway into the conference room, she had more on her mind than when they had left.
Jaekob
Jaekob pushed his food around on the plate with his fork in one hand, resting his cheek in the other with his elbow on the table. Food was the last thing on his mind. He had always found it hard to care much for other people unless he got to know them, but if he was honest, he cared for Bells far beyond the level of merely knowing her. He had acted out of character with her from the very first moment he saw her, back when she was the first person he met at the dragons’ Rising back into the world.
It troubled him that it was so hard for him to care about others the way she did. Almost as troubling, he had slowly begun to see people through her eyes. Her point of view was having an effect on him simply because he was aware of it. He wondered if he had the same effect on her. He hoped not.
He pushed such thoughts away. Why couldn’t he get her out of his mind? Obviously because… No, that just couldn’t be. He shoved the thought back before he’d even finished it, and attacked his food angrily, spearing his eggs with his fork and imagining they were a yellow Black Khan, despite the fact that the khan was under dragon authority just as the Crown of Pures was. That was the theory, at least. In reality, the khan was almost as dangerous a subordinate as an enemy.
Pushing aside thoughts of Bells didn’t help. He had the overwhelming urge to go see her. The only way he was going to stop being so distracted, so miserable, was to just lay the truth bare to her if he could find the courage. How strange that he’d rather face a troll in battle with one hand tied behind his back than face telling Bells the truth.
He rose from the table, smiled at the attendant coming to clear the table—had he ever done that before Bells came along?—and headed to her room. She was an early riser and would already have eaten, and her habit was to read a chapter each day from one of the many books in his personal library. Apparently, fae didn’t have much time to read or even access to books, and it was one of the things she enjoyed most about being in Philadelphia with him.
His heart beat a little faster as he pictured her in his mind. He could see her petite fingers carefully turning each page, stroking the book cover, feeling its texture, or absentmindedly brushing a stray lock of hair over her ear as she read. It made him walk a little faster.
