Carousel, page 13
“He also needs you. He wants what you have. Let him think you are bringing what he wants right to him. He will not harm you.”
“You don’t know that! He might want to kill me! He killed my mother and he loved her! My power will falter... I know it will.”
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Rias said, seeing the panic flashing in me. “Maybe I can...”
“No,” Wade cut him off. “Sel, this is not new information. You can do this. You faced off with him before. You can do it now. This is what you have been training to do. I have urged you in this direction ever since your mother’s death. Can you face off against Pellarian? No, not while he has the necklace. But that is why you will not be alone. You have forged enough armor for the others to wear, and you will protect yourself against his azurecasting enough to deflect his emotions back at him.”
“I’m sorry, his what?” Rias asked.
“Azurecasting,” Wade said. “A form of Passion casting. The others will get to him while you distract him. Pellarian will wear the pearl on the end of a long chain around his neck.”
When my father said that part, my thoughts flashed to when I had stood on the stairwell with Pellarian and I saw the edge of the chain around his neck. So much was tied to that pearl, the small trinket that took so much. It held great power and made him so much stronger, possibly unbeatable, I thought. I also knew how many men Pellarian had guarding his house after they ushered all the people outside that night.
“What about all his men?” I asked.
“His men are paid thugs,” Wade said. “I have plans for them.”
“And what of Dás?” I asked. “What is he doing?”
“I don’t trust him,” Wade told me flatly.
“I’m sorry, what else does he have to do? Oh right, he’s never saved your life, so of course you don’t trust him.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Carousel.”
Rias and Claire had the same look of concern as I did. It did nothing to ease my anxiety.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have preparations to make,” I told them and turned in the direction of the doorway.
I marched up the stairs that led to the stone garden where Dás was on patrol. I needed to get a breath of fresh sea air in my lungs. As I stepped out onto cobblestones, the frosty night breeze calmed my thoughts.
Images of the inside of Pellarian’s estate took over my mind. I saw the huge, hulking entry doors and the magical, wondrous shelves of books, volumes that I would never get to read in that library. And then I pictured the grand ascension of stairs that climbed before me in the great hall. I saw the immense room of paintings of myself and the single one of my mother that sat by his bed. What was that sort of Passion? How can a feeling so warm as Joy or Love turn someone so dark?
Off in the distance, the moon sat high in the sky, moving behind some clouds. I turned my attention to the stone courtyard, surprised that I hadn’t run into Dás yet. I had the feeling that Dás was typically astute, and a person walking around while he was on guard duty would draw his attention immediately. But on this night, there was no sign of him. I turned to look for him, thinking that I would see him standing post on the other side of the garden, but there was no sign of him there either.
Movement caught my attention and I flinched at it.
“Wow, Sel. It’s only me,” Rias said, putting his hands up in a defensive posture. His look was apologetic and his brows lifted. “What is it?” He asked, seeing the emotion flash over me.
“Dás is gone,” I said frantically.
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
The darkness suddenly felt thick with the moon cloaked behind clouds. I brought forth some of my light, weaving my Fear into a blazing ball of orange that pushed back the blackness. Light illuminated the open space before us and we ran from one side of the stone garden to the other, my heels falling loudly.
“There’s just no sign of him,” I said. “Would he move beyond the garden?”
“Who knows? He’s so odd, that one. But I don’t think he would do that. The garden is the only entrance to the tunnels on this side of the island. The other door is locked,” said Rias.
“Then where is he?”
Rias didn’t have an answer to that. Then there was a sound like a soft whistle carried by the gentle night air. I stopped in my tracks when I heard it.
“Do you hear that?” I moved away from Rias, venturing forward slowly. There was a whispering, a murmuring soft and distant somewhere in the dark. I was sure of it. I slowly stepped in the sound's direction and it grew somewhat louder the closer that I drew to the center of the stone garden.
“I hear it,” Rias said following behind. We moved, inching forward to the sound. After several more steps, I came to what looked like an air vent on the ground. I froze on the iron grate in the stonework. It took me several heartbeats until it registered what it was. I dropped to my knees as Wade's voice seeped out of the vent to me. I could hear Claire and Wade talking in the dining room below.
“Oh no, no, no,” the words seeped out in a moan of realization. I looked up to Rias. Clearly we had reached the same conclusion.
“If Dás heard us talking about not trusting him, or if he heard Pellarian wants you dead?” Rias said, dropping next to me.
“Then he knows everything that we said. He knows we were planning on going to the estate and not taking him with us.” In a flash, I was on my feet again. I moved to run, but Rias’ hands grabbed at me.
“Sel, no!” Rias seized my arm.
“Let go of me!” I roared at him, ripping my arm free of him. “If he’s gone after Pellarian, then I have to go after him.”
“No, Sel. He can take care of himself. He’s the best fighter we have. You don’t even know him that well. Why would you risk...?”
“I don’t care,” I cut him off. “He saved my life. For the Kingdoms, he saved your life too. Get the others. I’m going,” I yelled behind me, sprinting over cobblestones and leaping over marble flower pots, my dress nearly tripping my feet.
“Sel, wait!” I heard Rias call behind me.
“No. I have to get to him!”
In a blaze of light, my dress transformed around my legs. It pulled tight around my calves and thighs, and by the fourth step, I was wearing pants fiery with Fear. In an instant, the large stone arms of the Blouxas Bridge rose before me. Wind pushed against me. I raced up the steps of the giant bridge. The stonework all around me burned orange. My Fear erupted from me in fiery illumination as I reached the peak of the bridge and finally saw into the Rixu district. As I climbed the stairs, I held on to my hope of seeing Dás, but now truth manifested into Fear. There was no sign of my protector.
The power within me bubbled over like a boiling, overflowing pot of water. Light pushed all around me, and my feet left the ground in a desperate leap, clearing the last steps of the bridge. I took off in a flat-out run. I aimed my steps directly for where I knew the estate sat high on the green hillside.
Dás was a good one, I cursed at myself. Now he rushed headstrong into a situation that he did not fully comprehend, and it was all my fault. He was an amazing warrior. I knew he could handle himself. But could he really handle Pellarian and all his men?
I rounded a corner and slipped down a narrow alleyway engulfed in blackness. Inky darkness was pushed back by the glow of Fear illuminating all around me as I sprinted down the cobbled road. I pushed on more of my neverending Fear. Running, my body felt lighter than it ever had. I leapt over a stack of crates laying in my path with ease. This power that came from me now was like nothing that had been in me before. I didn’t have time to analyze my ability to push emotions in any direction around me. I didn’t have time to think about how such ardentcasting could aid me. All I thought about was getting to Dás as fast as I could.
Large buildings came and went in a blur as I raced down and around street after street. With each step, I drew closer and closer to Pellarian and Dás. Water splashed at my face as I moved over a small bridge arching over a snaking canal. I nearly slipped on the sodden wooden planks of the bridge. My limbs were getting shaky. I tried to catch my breath, my lungs heaving in and out, and my heart ran like a wild horse, thumping under my chest.
“For the love of the Kingdoms, Dás, what are you doing to me?” I cursed, finally coming into sight of the estate. The immense stone walls of the house looked like a hulking bear silhouetted in the moonlight.
I came to a stop in a crouch at the mouth of the opened gates of the house. There was no sign of the gate guards or any evidence of security, I cautiously passed the open bars of the gates.
Was he really that adept at getting past security, at moving unseen? Had he fought his way past them, slashing through them like so many pieces of paper? Maybe he was more capable than I first thought. I hoped I would find him alive inside the house, with his sword in his hands.
The front door to Pellarian’s estate was wide open. As I moved up to it, a blaze of tangerine shone out into the night, lighting the grounds in front of the house. Dozens of lamps burned inside as I peered into the shadows.
“Dás,” I whispered, but there was no response.
I slipped past the door and skirted the far wall that led to the library.
Inside the library, everyone’s emotions came in too many colors for me to keep track of or ignore. Every cloud of emotion pinpointed a person in that room in more detail than I wanted. Faces with Anger and skin that looked more leather. These were the faces of the countless hard men that I had seen working the ports more than once. I had felt nothing like it before, I thought, moving into the library. I couldn’t breathe in this house. The emotions pushed against me and I felt as if the walls of the house were breathing and I was being crushed by the pressure of it. I resisted the emotions. I clenched my fists again. I was not a mouse, I was a cat. My brows furrowed and I swallowed hard. Just then, it happened. The strike was powerful and the blow sent me reeling.
13
I flashed Fear, cutting the space before me. The meaty hand released me and I went stumbling backwards. It wasn’t until I pushed myself up off of my elbows that I got a good look at the chaos. The dazed man that slumped before me was large and fat. Hair as dirty as I had ever seen, long strands of black stuck to the side of his face as he pushed himself back to his feet. I pulled on as much Fear as I could and threw it at him. His enormous frame slammed back down on the wood floor again.
As I stepped through the doorway, bodies lay strewn out like discarded bits of garbage on nearly every surface of the library. Long cuts from what must have been a sharp sword gouged deep into the bookshelves. I was sure I knew whose blade had made those cuts as I moved past them.
I came up the steps through the door in the back, banging my shoulder on the door frame as I moved. I stepped over another body slumped on the steps, red coloring his stomach. His hand grasped at the gash as he desperately attempted to keep his insides from spilling outside. I twisted around the turn of the small staircase, lifting me up to some unknown part of the house. I followed the spots and sprays of red painted before me, leading me upward.
The mouth of the stairs opened up to a long walkway. The air was icy as I slipped out from the stairwell under the quilt of darkness. No lamps burned as I lit a blaze of Fearful light over me. Dás had come this way, his razor-sharp blade cutting a path for himself.
I had never thought in a hundred years that Dás would be such an accomplished swordsman as this, I noted, staring out at all the motionless bodies strewn about before me. To count this man out from our plan was wrong, I thought. If we would have simply brought him into the fold, look at the damage we could have done. If we could have all attacked at the same time, we would certainly have won. And if we somehow didn’t win the battle, we would at least harm Highlore so badly that he might think twice about coming after us.
I lingered, my feet finding the sides of unmoving lumps in the hall, the ground slick and sticky. When I came to an unlatched door, I gave it a slight shove, swinging it open. Flames flickered on a candlestick in the breeze, the yellow wax running down the long wooden candle holder by the door and dropping to the floor. Muffled sounds of voices rang out in the yellow glow of the darkness in the room. I slunk down in the shadows. One left turn and then a right into the next room. The voices grew louder and louder. Voices that I recognized. Pellarian and Dás were close.
I almost tripped over the first of them. The man leaned against the doorframe of the room I had just entered. His hands shot out like a coiled snake striking its victim. I lurched backwards out of his reach, flaring Anger into his throat, piercing his neck. I kicked out, striking him in the groin, and he dropped to his knees in a whimpering sob.
The other guard of the tower moved to raise the alarm. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling over his friend, and I unleashed all the Fear that I could, letting it sink deep into the man’s flesh. It struck the armored soldier in his chest plate, sheering it in two. The man dropped to the floor, face down. I stood still as stone, unsure if I should move. The sound of his massive frame falling made a solid thud on the floor. I was sure it would bring more large, armored men running through the doorway, but it did not.
The small window above the top of the door was a high one, forcing me to go up on my toes to peer inside. I focused on the two figures conversing on the other side of the door. I didn’t understand just what I was seeing at first. The door muffled their words, but I could hear the familiar tones of Pellarian Highlore. It took me a moment to suss out who the other man was, but when Pellarian finally stepped back, Dás came into focus.
My mind swam at the possibilities, at the betrayal of it all. I drew my ear closer to the door, attempting to hear what they were talking about so intently. I was so focused on what they said that I didn’t hear the footsteps of a man creeping up behind me. When the powerful blow to the back of my skull came, all I saw was black. The room spun and came crashing down around me.
“Do you want to know my secrets?” the voice came in my mind again.
Oh, for the Kingdoms, I silently cursed. I thought I was rid of this. I knew the truth. The gods don’t give. The gods take.
Whatever secrets that the goddess of Wrath might have inside of her, she would keep them to herself. And only when I was utterly desperate would she share them with me, and only if I swore to free her, to call her to me. She would devour me until there was nothing left but a goddess.
I could see her form once more. She approached me. She slid slowly to me. She didn’t move her legs. She didn’t walk to me, but she floated to me, gliding along the ground. Suddenly she was much larger, looming over me with Rageful red eyes that stared through me. My breath fled from my lungs. Whatever calm that I might have felt before this was gone, stolen from me.
Without warning, a storm of screams rose up around me as if a thousand pleading souls cried out for relief. The goddess lurched forward and seized my arm, her long black nails digging into my flesh.
“From Ash and Embers, I was born.” Her grip tightened. “Like the firebird rising from the ashes, I was born of the gods. From the worst parts of them.”
“Doooon’t,” I moaned.
“I rose up out of the Hatred and Jealousy of the world. One day, you will call upon me. One day soon, you call for my power. And on that day, the power that comes to you will be more than any human can resist. You will want more. You will demand more. Then I will have you. I will possess you. You will ignore all warnings in your mind and you will call me to you fully.”
“Never.”
“We shall see.”
When I awoke again, my head screamed for relief, the thumping in my skull intense and painful. I didn’t know if it was from where I had been struck or a side effect from my encounter with the goddess of Wrath.
My eyes focused on my surroundings. I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Dark shadows consumed velvet silk that hung over my face. Pillows molded around my body. I was in a bed as big as I had ever seen in the history of my life. A small shaft of moonlight pushed its way into the dark of the room from a high window, illuminating several picture frames around the room. More paintings of me it seemed. But this was not the same room I had seen before. This was not the room of Pellarian Highlore. This was something else.
I wondered if Dás was still alive. Had he betrayed me? Was he dead?
I looked down at the chain at my chest, to the heavy links wrapped around my arms and stomach. Were these simple chains or were they emotion cast as well? I wondered. How many things in this place were emotion cast? Could I uncast something that was cast using someone else’s emotions? Did it work like that?
I closed my eyes and attempted to find the emotion within the chains. After a time, I admitted I had no sense of emotion in the small room.
“I must not be able to cast something that another has previously cast,” I whispered to myself. “There has to be something that I can do. Why do I have no power in this place? What has he done to me?”
I sat up in the bed as well as I could with the bonds around me. My gaze spilled around the room and I wondered why I had not begun to feel my emotional cost take effect inside me. I had pulled on a lot of emotion in the last few hours and surely by now the cost of that would hit me. I was sure of it. But there was nothing.
A blue glow formed around the black stones of the walls of the room as a Sadness took hold over me. I could feel the Despair of the place. The air of it felt off. Fetid and stagnant Sadness. I could feel it infect me again, as if I took it in with every breath. I could feel my discouragement turning into a deep, dreary hopelessness that suffocated me in the dank, dark cell. I tried to take hold of it, to pull at it, but it was resisting me.
I didn’t know how long I sat in the dark by the time I heard it. Hours, maybe minutes. But when the surge of a grunt and the distinct sound of a body hitting the floor outside the doorway of the room happened, I was on my feet.
