Lorelle of the Dark, page 30
Or he didn’t.
The whispers pushed him upward and he felt like he was flying. The thrill, and the fear, of freedom coursed through him. The wind rushed and just kept going and going. As he flew, his eyes slowly opened, and he began to be able to see in the darkness, to see with more than just his eyes, to see with the power of the darkness itself. The blackness resolved into a myriad of dark colors, indigos and purples, snatches of yellow and deep blue.
He didn’t know how long his journey lasted. He swept through the entirety of the Great Noktum. He saw the land of the Nox. He saw a chasm that seemed to span the entire continent, its depths so dark even the noktum looked illuminated by comparison. He saw the edge of the noktum where the Lux had cracked it like a glass egg. He felt the power of an immense being hiding in a cavern near that place and avoided it at the behest of the whispers. He saw castles of old, vacant nuraghis awaiting masters who would never return. He saw the tiny filaments of the Great Noktum connected to every splatter of noktum across the entire continent of Noksonon.
It seemed like he traveled for years, perhaps for centuries, when he saw something that brought his journey to an end. A sparkle in the darkness caught his attention, a golden light on the head of a young Luminent, racing quickly hand in hand with a young Human woman. Before he could look closely at them, they left the noktum.
And that jogged a memory for Vohn. He had once lived beyond the noktum, too. That thought brought him closer to the ground for the first time in as long as he could remember. As he neared the ground where the two young women had been, he noticed sparkles there. He descended even lower to inspect them, and he found a singular amulet with the symbol of Noksonon engraved upon it. Aside from the girl with the golden hair, it was the only thing that seemed to have a flicker of natural light in this place, and it reminded him of his previous life.
He reached out with his intangible hand to touch the medallion and a lightning shock went through him.
Suddenly, he was back in his body. His indigo noktum-vision vanished, replaced by flesh-and-blood eyes, a flesh-and-blood body.
He gasped, gripping the amulet in his fist. He clutched it like it was the rope that he’d meant to use to pull himself out of the noktum a lifetime ago. With the amulet in hand, he was himself, he was Vohn and not the wind of the noktum.
He was close to the edge of the noktum, and he fled the same direction the two young women had. He burst into the sunlight of a bright day, gasping at the glorious warmth.
What he would only understand later was that he had traveled the length of Noksonon to emerge from a noktum just outside the crown city of Usara. Nokte Shaddark was nearly two thousand miles to the south.
And twenty years had passed.
But at the time, Vohn didn’t know that. All he knew was his fear and the certain knowledge that he had nearly lost himself forever. If not for the girl with the golden hair and, subsequently, the amulet, he would have remained the wind of the noktum for another twenty—or two thousand—years.
The two young women, one Luminent and one Human, lean and muscled from living in the woods for half a decade, found him not long after that. They took care of him, helped him reintegrate with the world. The golden-haired Luminent’s name was Lorelle, and her friend, Rhenn, claimed she was the rightful queen of the nearby kingdom of Usara.
They had a purpose, and Vohn had just lost the entirety of his life. So, he started a new one with them and soon their purpose became his purpose. While he eventually told the young women where he’d come from, he’d never told them how he’d come so far north, and they never asked.
Five years later, Khyven the Unkillable swore to chase down that golden-haired Luminent into the heart of the Great Noktum, and Vohn accompanied him into the place that frightened him more than anything else, a place where the amulet that had returned him to himself might fail. Once it did, Vohn knew he would have no protection against the whisper. That terrifying moment would come for him again, and this time it would claim him forever.
When the arrow struck Vohn’s chest, that terrifying moment arrived at last.
Chapter Forty-eight
Vohn
When the arrow hit Vohn, he thought it was something else. Up to that moment, he’d been trying to calm the situation, find a way to keep it from becoming a bloodbath.
“Khyven,” Vohn warned, trying to get the hot-tempered Ringer to stand down for once. There were too many questions unanswered to simply hack and slash. What if Lorelle had sent these sentries to look for them? Except this damned Shadowmaster was more interested in picking a fight. He needed just a few more moments of talking to draw the truth out.
“I understand my choices,” Khyven said, oblivious, or uncaring, of the danger. “I don’t think he understands his.”
“Khyven!” Vohn warned again.
“Is that a dragon?” Slayter suddenly blurted, pointing up in the sky with his free hand. Vohn glanced that way, wondering what Slayter meant. It could have been an intentional attempt at distraction, but Vohn doubted that. Slayter was ridiculously literal for a man who had somehow been a spy in Vamreth’s court for years. Most likely, the comment was a random thought that had escaped Slayter’s constantly moving mind.
Or the third possibility, of course: there actually was a dragon.
That’s when Vohn felt the sharp impact in his chest. He thought Khyven had elbowed him. The man was so hot-tempered and fast to react, Vohn assumed he’d pivoted back and wasn’t watching where his big arm was flailing.
Then everything exploded into fire.
The blast knocked Vohn back and he slid to a stop on his back. Stunned, ears ringing, he belatedly realized several things at once.
First, there actually was a dragon.
Second, there was a fading nimbus of orange around his body and he couldn’t feel the heat from the raging fire that had engulfed the forest where he’d just been. The mage had somehow protected them from the blast.
Third, it didn’t make sense that Khyven had elbowed him in the chest. Didn’t make sense at all. As volatile as Khyven was, the man was incredibly precise. He didn’t flail. He targeted.
And finally, something long, thin, and dark was sticking out of his chest.
That’s an arrow, Vohn thought. I’ve been shot.
He tried to sit up, but his body only got halfway there before he fell back to the ground. Slayter hobbled over to him and laboriously sat down next to him, awkwardly managing his prosthetic.
“Oh, well…” Slayter’s hands fluttered over the shaft, but didn’t touch it. “Well, that’s… that’s an arrow.”
“Such a keen… mind,” Vohn said, annoyed that his voice came out so weak. He also noticed he could barely draw a breath.
“I think maybe I could…” Slayter rifled through the cylinder of disks at his side. “I don’t… I don’t have anything.”
“I… just need to sit up,” Vohn said. Again, he tried but couldn’t.
“Khyven!” Slayter called.
No answer.
“Khyven get over here,” Slayter yelled again, worried this time. “Khyven!”
“I’ll be fine,” Vohn murmured, but Slayter’s usually amused expression was solemn.
Khyven slid to his knees next to Vohn, that intense expression on his face that he always wore when in the midst of battle. He assessed Vohn and, unlike Slayter, his expression didn’t change.
“I knew… I knew if I… was friends with you long enough, Khyven… it would be the death of me,” Vohn joked.
“We need to get help,” Khyven said. “We need Lorelle’s medicine kit.”
“We don’t know where Lorelle is!” Slayter said.
“Then someone’s medicine kit.”
Vohn smiled. “You never give up, Khyven. I love that about you. You never give up…”
“Battle shock,” Khyven growled. Something exploded to his right. Slayter winced, half-ducking his head behind his arm as bits of flame rained down on the grass around them, but Khyven didn’t. He glared at the explosion like he was going to hurt it if it did that again.
Vohn giggled and his chest seized. It felt like a giant claw was squeezing it.
“I think… I’ve been shot,” he tried to joke again, but neither of them laughed. They were so serious.
“We’re going to run,” Khyven said. “We’re going to run like hell and hope that we can find help for him, otherwise…” He trailed off.
“Who are we going to find?” Slayter asked.
Khyven bent his lips into a smile that Vohn supposed was meant to be reassuring. “I’m going to pick you up, Vohn. You’ve got a… little wound here.”
“Only a little one, eh?” Vohn asked. Finally, he’d got them joking.
“It’s a bite. It’ll pinch when I pick you up, but you stay awake, all right?”
“Stay… awake…” Now that Khyven mentioned it, Vohn felt very tired.
“Just stay awake,” Khyven insisted.
“Yes… good idea.”
Khyven gently put his arms beneath Vohn’s knees and behind his shoulders.
“Khyven, I need a moment,” Slayter said.
Khyven shook his head. “We have no moments. Keep up.”
“Yes,” Slayter said, casting about them. “Yes. Yes, of course.” He grabbed a charred piece of the tree smoldering in the grass, winced at the heat, dropped it, then patted it with his ripped sleeve and picked it up again.
Khyven stood, lifting Vohn effortlessly, and started into a smooth jog around the burning edge of the forest. Slayter levered himself to his feet and pursued, head down and scratcher in hand. He was carving something into the charred part of the log.
“He’s making a spell,” Vohn murmured, but his voice came out odd, unintelligible. He wasn’t sure if Khyven heard him. The Ringer stumbled, recovered, but the bounce made Vohn wince. Stars exploded in his vision.
“Stay with me, Vohn,” Khyven warned.
“I’m right here…” Vohn’s words came out garbled. Darkness followed the sparkles, and the world swirled away.
* * *
He was jolted awake when he hit the ground. With a gasp, he felt the twist in his chest first. Pain. So much pain he couldn’t breathe. He tried to look around, but he was so weak his head merely fell to the side. He blinked his eyes.
Houses smoldered to his left, burned down to the foundation. Beyond them, more structures flamed. A city. They hadn’t been near a city before. The last he remembered, Khyven had been carrying him next to a burning forest. Something had happened. Vohn had lost consciousness and time had passed.
He tried to sit up, but his muscles were limp sails without a breeze. Sparkles rose in his vision, followed by sweltering black dots of unconsciousness, threatening to take him down, down, down. He felt a chilling foreboding about that. If he slipped into unconsciousness this time, it would be the last time.
He fought the sweltering black dots and managed to bring the indigo sky overhead into focus again. He tried to piece together his situation.
Vohn painstakingly turned his head and brought his hazy vision into focus.
A Nox woman was holding a dagger at the throat of a Nox man. To the right of them… Gods of Light and Dark! That towering creature was a Giant. Tovos! It had to be the Giant Rauvelos had warned them about, the one who was Lord over the Great Noktum.
The enormous creature looked at Khyven and Slayter with a sneer of disdain. Vohn’s two friends were suspended in midair by some magical force holding their legs and arms pinned like they were swaddled in an invisible blanket.
“Khyven!” the Nox woman said, and she spoke with Lorelle’s voice. With cold horror, Vohn realized the woman actually was Lorelle. What he’d rushed here to do, what he’d hoped to stop from happening had already happened. The Dark had taken her, had made her its own.
Khyven did what he always did, he fought. He struggled against the inevitable, but this wasn’t some Ringer he was fighting. It was a Giant. Even Khyven couldn’t fight Giant magic. Giants possessed the ability to use all five streams of magic at once. Even gods feared the Giants.
“No,” Tovos commanded.
“Khyven!” Lorelle shouted, and she slashed the dagger across the Nox’s throat.
If Vohn had had the strength, he would have screamed. Lorelle didn’t kill people. She’d never killed anyone.
“I’m sorry…” the Nox whispered again, then his body slumped to the side. Lorelle sheathed her bloody dagger and walked stiffly to stand at the Giant’s side. Khyven and Slayter also floated to the Giant, who opened his cloak.
Darkness coalesced around them, wrapping Khyven, Slayter, Lorelle, and the Giant into its folds. The darkness condensed, growing smaller and smaller, twisting into a convoluted ball.
And then they were gone.
Vohn was left alone with his predicament.
I am dying, he thought. And no one can stop it.
No one except me.
Again, Vohn tried to sit up, tried to roll over, tried to do anything, but all he managed to do was move his arms, hands weakly grasping at the grass. He had less strength than a newborn baby, and even that meager strength was waning. The swelling black spots returned and grew. It wouldn’t be long now.
Unless…
Vohn suddenly had an idea, and a spike of fear came along with it. When he’d escaped the noktum five years ago, when he’d grasped the amulet that now rested against his chest, he’d sworn he would never take the amulet off again, never tempt the whispers of the noktum.
But the idea took hold. When Vohn had transformed into the dark wind, he hadn’t aged. When he’d grasped the amulet and his physical body had reformed, twenty years had passed for the world, but not a second for his body.
That might stop my death. Becoming the wind might freeze my body in time.
The thought beat in his head like a heart, pumping, pumping…
He could become the wind, but he might lose himself forever. The terror of it gripped him, but if it worked, he might be able to do something to help his friends.
Vohn’s hands trembled as he tried to make them move. He shouted, which came out as a pitiful, bloody gurgle. His shaking hands moved up, up, and grasped the chain on either side of the amulet.
Gurgling louder, blood coming from his mouth to trickle down his cheeks, he forced the amulet over his head and let it fall to the grass.
The effort sent lightning bolts of pain through him and his arms went limp. The black dots expanded over his vision. They grew and grew, covering him, and his eyes slid shut.
“Vohn…” the noktum whispered.
Chapter Forty-nine
Lorelle
Lorelle beat her hands against the door until they were bruised. She tried to escape through the window, but it was barred shut. She even tried—as loathe as she was to do it—to use the shadows to escape beneath the door. She’d never tried anything like that before, to move through a space that small, and it didn’t work. The lantern just outside the door ensured there were no shadows to be seen.
Finally, she collapsed to the floor, exhausted, barely able to lift her arms. She drifted in and out of consciousness as she lay slumped against the cold stone. She didn’t know how long she huddled there, the same thoughts circling through her broken mind over and over and over again.
Vohn was dead. Rhenn was dead. Zaith was dead by her own hand. She still bore the blood on her fingers, even though she’d wiped most of it on her dress.
Khyven and Slayter were imprisoned, and Tovos would never let any of them leave this place alive.
She’d come to the Great Noktum to achieve a singular goal: To collect the Plunnos and save Rhenn, to protect her family—control the danger, limit the risk to herself alone so no one else got hurt.
It had been a long shot from the beginning, and there had been moments where she thought her quest had failed, like when the dragon had caught her, but then she had the Plunnos. She’d escaped death. All she needed was the knowledge to use it correctly. It had all seemed possible. She had envisioned returning to Usara in triumph, to show her friends she’d succeeded. To have everything go back to the way it was supposed to be.
But they’d followed her. Those beautiful fools had followed her into the Great Noktum. She hadn’t controlled anything. She’d just dragged everyone she loved into a pit where they were going to die.
Lorelle had thought her life was over when Nhevaz had abducted Rhenn. She’d thought nothing else mattered. But she’d been so wrong.
Her unlikely family had been broken, yes. They’d been grieving, yes. But they’d still been there, and she hadn’t acknowledged that simple miracle. And now, because of that, she’d destroyed it.
She pushed her fists against her head.
Just like she’d turned her attention away from protecting Rhenn at the most critical instant, she had turned away from Khyven, Slayter, and poor Vohn when they’d needed her most. They’d needed her to stay, to work with them, to allow them to help find Rhenn, and she’d abandoned them to do it herself.
Lotura’s Eyes…
And now the Giant Tovos had her. Her bond to the Dark, so glorious at first, was actually a trap. Zaith had led her right into it. Tovos had used her.
She could still feel the jerky quivering of the short sword as she’d dragged it through Zaith’s throat.
“Zaith…” she whimpered. She wanted to die. She deserved to die.
It was Vohn’s voice that floated to the surface of her broken mind. Vohn’s quiet voice. Vohn, whom she had killed.
“We do the best we can, and that’s all we can do,” she heard him say in that kindly, cultured voice of his. “You did your best.”
“I shouldn’t have run. We should have stayed together…” she murmured.
“There’s still time…” Vohn’s voice said.
“Not for you…” she murmured. “Not for you. You’re dead.”
“Not yet…”
Lorelle sat up. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness, but she suddenly realized she wasn’t just thinking about Vohn’s voice. She was hearing it. It was… vibrating into her like the voice of the Dark.
