Death's Queen (In Deception's Shadow Book 4), page 9
A cursory scan of the corpse turned up none of the acolyte taint. Her Larnkin rallied enough to confirm the acolytes had only fed and killed this poor soul, not planted the spark of evil that would grow into a new acolyte. The body should be burned just to be safe, but she didn’t have the time, nor did she want to waste a drop of magic that might be needed in the fight with Trensler.
Tightening her fingers around her sword’s hilt, she eased past the second sarcophagus, looking for other surprises.
The room was otherwise empty of both the living and the dead. Moving forward, she advanced out into the corridor and spotted another tomb guard’s body about twenty paces down the hallway on her right. There was nothing she could do for him either, but she knew she was on the correct path and began to run.
As she continued farther down the path, the sounds of distant battle reached her ears. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only battle being waged. Lamarra’s head started to pound, and she found focusing on objects difficult as if her eyes had forgotten how they worked.
These new symptoms could only be caused by the damage to her bond and would only progress if she didn’t find Soryn. She shoved the weakness aside and turned her attention back to the danger she could fight. One problem at a time. Find the location of the battle and see if she could destroy Trensler before he escaped or killed even more innocents.
Undoubtedly the enemy had caught the tomb guards of this world by surprise, and the Elementals would not know that the acolytes couldn’t be destroyed by magic.
She sprinted down another corridor and soon encountered more bodies. There was a stronger trace of acolyte taint here and smoldering marks upon the walls, floor, and ceiling where fire magic had raced down the hallway. The nearest bodies were untouched by flames or other wounds. Characteristic of an acolyte’s feeding.
These guards were a mix of lupwyn, phoenix and gryphon. Eying them, something nagged at her consciousness.
Ah.
They weren’t painted with the grays, blacks, and whites of tomb guards. No, these were regular Elementals. Her adrenaline-fueled run must have pushed her faster and further than she’d thought and she’d crossed some invisible boundary between Sorrow and the living city of Grey Spires.
If the acolytes made it to the surface…
Lamarra broke into a run. Coming to a branch in the tunnel, she slowed until her Larnkin urged her up the left-hand fork. A handful of strides farther down the corridor, she spotted more fallen guards.
Halting beside the substantial body of a gryphon, she was shocked to see an Elemental she recognized. Raikena. She was still alive. As was a second unknown guard with her. Lamarra didn’t know the male lupwyn, but she paused long enough for her Larnkin to confirm that both had been fed upon by acolytes and wouldn’t live for much longer without immediate and intensive healing.
She needed to find Trensler. That was her duty. Anything else was a distraction she couldn’t afford. But she couldn’t just leave Raikena. Besides what happened if she didn’t stop and heal this gryphon? What if she never became a tomb guard?
‘The future will change in ways even I cannot comprehend,’ her Larnkin whispered. Lamarra felt relief that her Larnkin seemed recovered enough to speak coherently.
Seeing no other options, she knelt down between the gryphon and the lupwyn. Hunting down Trensler and the other acolytes would have to wait a little longer. Gently, she reached out and laid her hands upon the two Elementals. The lupwyn was unconscious, but the gryphon started to thrash at her touch.
“Easy, Raikena. My Larnkin will try to heal you.” She closed her eyes and ignored her own pounding headache, and her body’s growing weakness as her Larnkin channeled magic into the two fallen guards. Her magic rose to dance along her skin and as she watched, an observer in her own body, her Larnkin began repairing the damage done to the other two Larnkins.
Slowly, after what she judged to be a quarter of a candlemark, the ragged spiritual wounds were mended and the other Larnkins, while nowhere near as strong as they once were, would survive.
Rising to her feet, she fought off a wave of dizziness and started away, back on the hunt for Trensler.
‘I know you.’
The words whispered directly into her mind were weak, but audible. Glancing behind, she watched as the gryphon blinked open her eyes and squinted at her. After another moment, Raikena rolled to her feet and wobbled unsteadily. But that didn’t deter the gryphon from her questions.
‘I know your Larnkin’s power. How is it possible that I know a dead queen?’
That’s when Lamarra realized Raikena wasn’t painted. She wasn’t a tomb guard in this life. Not yet at least.
Lamarra swallowed that bit of knowledge to digest later.
“You did know me once. I can only tell you that I have followed a great evil back in time. These creatures are like nothing the Elementals have ever faced. They do not belong here, and I intend to hunt these acolytes down and destroy every last drop of their taint.”
‘You saved my life.’
“And you once saved mine.” Lamarra looked back toward the sounds of fighting. “I must go, but know you are safe. Once I’m able, I will send others to help you.” With that, Lamarra started down the hall, her swift pace slightly slower than it had been at first. Already lethargy was spreading throughout her body, and she knew she was running out of time to heal the taint she could already feel growing in this time.
Trensler was fleeing towards the surface, likely trying to escape the Elementals and perhaps the city itself. She couldn’t allow him to make it outside the walls. There was no telling where he would go if he did. There was also the danger that he would taint others, creating more acolytes. Putting on a burst of speed, she drew closer to the shouts of warning ahead.
Lamarra paused when the corridor she’d been following intersected with another, wider one. The distant sounds of battle, of sword on sword, echoed along the tunnel, making it nearly impossible to determine where it originated. But this new pathway looked less abandoned than the ones she’d been running down. She recognized the beautifully painted motifs on the walls here. Even the elegant statues lining the walkway were the same as in her own time. Stepping into the new corridor, she started up the gentle slope, already knowing this had to be the way Trensler had gone.
She hadn’t even made the first curve of the wide sweeping spiral of the corridor when a sudden flare of agony brushed across her mind, causing her to stumble to a stop. Another mind and Larnkin connected with her for the briefest of moments and then was gone almost as quickly. The links to her bondmate flared with agony.
What, by the Light, was happening now?
Was that Dead King Soryn attempting to reach her?
The only certainty was that his Larnkin had reached for her because he was in desperate need of help and hers was wild with panic. A chaotic mix of emotions rolled off her Larnkin, and it took Lamarra longer than it should to understand Soryn was dying.
Her stomach dropped to her toes and cold fear sliced through her soul. Soryn from her own time had been hard-pressed to overpower the acolytes. In this time the dead king had no warning at all.
Larnkin and host reacted as one, breaking into another all-out run. Her blind, terror-filled dash brought her to some kind of hall with polished stone floors and filled with a group of shouting, panicked guards.
Her Larnkin’s mad rush nearly landed Lamarra on the sharp point of a sword. Only a tomb guard’s fast reflexes knocked the point away at the last moment. With a growl of warning, the lupwyn tomb guard stepped between her and the other Elemental.
She took in the scene swiftly, stepping out around the tomb guard protecting her—apparently tomb guards would protect any dead ruler without question or comment. The guard opposite, the one who had nearly impaled her, wasn’t a tomb guard at all. He wore the colors of a Grey Spires garrison guard. Presently he was eying her nervously but held his ground. Other guards flanked him, forming a protective circle around a hive of activity at its center.
“The King needs a healer now,” an unknown male voice shouted.
Those words jarred her back into motion. She stepped forward, causing sword tips to flick back up defensively.
There were more shouts. Orders issued. Calls for something to carry the King on.
“Get out of my way!” Lamarra yelled, feeding power into her limbs to strengthen them and force the other guards to the side so she could pass. She needed to see with her eyes what her Larnkin was telling her.
It was true. However surprising and impossible she found this new revelation, she couldn’t mistake her bondmate.
That was King Soryn there on the cold stone floor, circled by an ever growing pool of his own bright red blood. A living Soryn, or actually a dying one.
The sound of pounding feet on the stone floor would have had her turning to face a new threat under normal circumstances, but as of this moment, the only thing that existed in her world was Soryn and the way he labored for life and his next breath.
Lamarra dropped the crystalline sword and rushed the second group circling King Soryn protectively. Like the first tomb guard, the others instantly recognized and acknowledged her as a dead queen even if she was not their own. However, the other Elementals—King Soryn’s personal bodyguards she would guess—tightened their hold on their weapons and called magic to them.
Ignoring their protective posturing, she knelt beside Soryn. She and her Larnkin disregarded everything around them even as more guards and what must be elders rushed into the room. Her Larnkin only had one focus. King Soryn. Lamarra reached out to her bondmate, magic already flowing between them, allowing her to learn more about his condition. The news wasn’t good.
He was dying. She could feel it. Worse, she wasn’t sure if her Larnkin had strength enough to heal what the acolytes had done to him. She couldn’t lose him, not to Trensler’s deceitful, underhanded manipulations.
From the shadows, two robed and masked figures stepped forth, surprising Lamarra. Her Larnkin recognized them, though and wasn’t concerned by their arrival. Ah, the dead rulers of this time. After giving them a quick glance, she turned her attention back to Soryn as her Larnkin continued to feed power to him.
There was a frantic desperation behind the fast-flowing magic. When her Larnkin expanded her awareness further afield, beyond this tunnel, Lamarra came to understand she was looking for aid, the healers that had undoubtedly been summoned.
“Get healers here now. Use a Gate.” Lamarra barked out the order.
‘Defensive magic protects against a Gate being summoned within these corridors.’ It was one of the dead rulers, the queen, who answered. ‘But I feel the healers approaching. Keep your king alive until they get here and all will be well.’
Lamarra wasn’t certain if anything would be ‘well’ again, but didn’t utter that thought aloud.
Again the dull ache of her frayed bonds set up a steady pounding in her skull that threatened to disorient her. Yet her Larnkin was like a wolfhound with its jaws locked around its prey. She and the spirit creature were in agreement in that at least.
Neither of them would give up.
Soryn would live.
They wouldn’t accept any other outcome.
“My Larnkin doesn’t have the strength to heal his physical wounds,” Lamarra said, dread growing in her chest. “It’s all she can do to keep his Larnkin from returning to the spirit world. What can I do?”
‘Bind him to you now. Bond with him. It will give both Larnkin and host the incentive they need to hold on.’ This time the hollow-sounding words belonged to the dead king. ‘If you do not, Soryn will die, and he has not yet undergone the rituals that will ensure he’ll rise a dead king.’
Chapter Fourteen
Bond with him? She only had a rudimentary understanding of how the bonding ceremony was performed since she’d completed it but one time. Cold dread continued to swirl in her chest. She’d barely survived her first bonding ceremony and that time she’d had Dead King Soryn to guide her.
Her eyes flitting over Soryn’s form, the ugly stomach wound, lacerated forearms where he’d tried to defend himself when his magic had been ineffective, and there was a nasty-looking contusion on his forehead. Any one of those individual injuries could have been fatal, but what Trensler had done to his Larnkin was what might yet kill him.
Yes, the dead king of this time was correct on one point. Soryn didn’t have much time. She and her Larnkin moved as one, swift and decisive. Lamarra helped the tomb guard bind his wounds to slow the bleeding while her Larnkin continued to feed him power.
Her basic healing knowledge told her that he’d already lost a great deal of blood. Likely more than a mortal would have been able to survive. Lamarra withdrew her knife and started slicing pieces from her robe.
Her Larnkin continued her work, healing the fissures torn into the other spirit creature. Lamarra watched with her mage sight as the two magics worked in tandem to fix what the acolytes had inflicted. At least spiritually. Physically Soryn was still growing weaker.
His skin was cold and clammy, something likely truly unnatural for a phoenix, Fire Elemental that he was. “Get blankets to keep him warm. He’s going into shock.” Lamarra glanced around at the assembled group. “Where, by the gods, are the healers?!”
One of the tomb guards, a female lupwyn that was working on staunching the flow of blood from one of Soryn’s many wounds, looked up at her. “They are coming, my Queen.” The lupwyn tilted her muzzle toward the corridor to her left. “See, they come.”
Lamarra followed where the lupwyn’s gaze led and sure enough, a group of five Elementals came rushing to her side. The guards surrounding Soryn moved aside to allow the healers room to work. No one was stupid enough to ask her to move. Besides, her Larnkin was still feeding Soryn’s, and nothing short of an earthquake would shift her from her work.
The healers swiftly uncovered the wounds and then laid their hands over the worst of Soryn’s injuries as they called on their power. From her close vantage point and her Larnkin’s mental and spiritual link to Soryn, Lamarra could both ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the physical wounds being healed. His injuries would take longer than this one session to completely mend, but the worst of the bleeding slowed and then finally stopped. Thank the Light.
Once the gaping wounds closed, and she started to believe he might actually survive this day, she looked at him. Truly looked at him as a whole, not just the physical and spiritual wounds that needed tending. He was slumped on his side. One wing sprawled out behind him while the other one had collapsed at an awkward angle under his body. The thick crest of plumage that covered his scalp had fallen across his face, hiding some of his features from her.
When the flow of power coming from the healers’ Larnkins lessened at last, they drew back and started discussing if Soryn was strong enough to be moved.
‘King Soryn must remain here,’ the dead king of this time said in his softly hollow voice.
“Our King needs rest, care, and very careful watching. He’ll receive better care in the healers’ quarters.” It was one of the healers that spoke, a gryphon. The other Elemental eyed the dead king and seemed to notice the tall masked figure for the first time and shifted away. Her wing tips flicked against each other, and the slight quiver of her tufted ears hinted at the depth of the big Elemental’s unease. Not that Lamarra could blame the female. “If he remains here, his life will be at risk.”
‘The young king will remain where he is until the apprentice queen completes the bond with him.’
At the dead king’s words, the tomb guards edged closer while King Soryn’s personal guards grew edgier in turn. Two of the other healers took up where the gryphon had left off, but Lamarra didn’t pay them any more attention. Instead, she took the opportunity to gently arrange Soryn’s wings into a more comfortable-looking angle. Only then did she study her bondmate in more detail. He looked just like her ghostly bondmate but seemed bigger or maybe it was because he was more substantial in the flesh.
A new batch of guards emerged around the bend in the tunnel on the heels of the dead king’s order and seeing him, none came closer.
Had she not been wearing the garb of a dead ruler, she likely would’ve been challenged long since. That was one benefit to her new station in life, she supposed. None dared question her.
Which was good since the headache stabbing through her brain was threatening to render her witless. And it wasn’t going to get any better until she re-established the bond.
“Bring me what I need for the bonding ceremony.”
She hadn’t issued the order to anyone in particular, so was pleased to see three tomb guards run off to get what she needed.
While she waited, her Larnkin continued to feed power to Soryn. He looked so pale and weak, so fragile. Yes, the healers had done what they could to seal the wounds, but shock was still a very real possibility. Had her own survival and all the future not been in the balance, she would have waited to re-establish the bond until he was stronger. But she didn’t dare risk the wait.
‘Are you sure he’s strong enough to complete the bond?’ she asked her Larnkin.
‘Yes,’ her Larnkin whispered back into the privacy of her own mind. ‘Once you are bonded, he will be able to draw strength from me much easier. Our bondmate will be well again, and together we will undo whatever taint Trensler has managed to plant in this time.’
Her heart hammering in her chest, Lamarra offered heartfelt thanks to her Larnkin. Rarely did the spirit creature speak so openly. Lamarra was grateful for the reassurance.
A shifting in the ranks around her heralded the return of the tomb guards. They carried two great urns full of the magic-laced water from the pool at the base of the Oracle Tower and pots of the herb paint used to paint the symbols of bonding upon the hosts’ flesh.
Silently they placed their items within arm’s reach of her and then bowed and backed away. That’s when she noticed the dead rulers were forcibly escorting everyone else from the immediate area.
