Lorelle of the Dark, page 32
“Save him? He’s alive? Where is he?”
She gave a weary smile. “In fact, he’s talking to me right now. He says you should—”
“Talking to you?”
“He says you should shut up and listen to me.” She gave them a weary smile.
“Lorelle, how?” Khyven asked.
“The Dark. There’s… so much we don’t know about the noktum. Vohn says… He says you should trust me, that we should go. And now.”
“Can I trust you?” Khyven asked. “Are you even still Lorelle?” He gestured at her ripped and bedraggled party dress, at her midnight skin and raven hair. “Can I?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered brokenly, absently pulling at the cloak. “I don’t trust myself anymore. Not here in the noktum, at least. But I swear to you, I’ll get you and Slayter back to Usara safely.”
“And Vohn.”
She closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Yes, and Vohn.”
“We’re going to talk,” he said. “A lot. When we get back.”
Tears welled her eyes. “By Lotura, I swear it. Everything and more.” She reached out a hand toward him, like she wanted to touch him, then hesitated and started to let her hand fall.
He caught it before it did, held it. “You should have told me,” he whispered. “About the bond. I’d have done it.”
Her tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I know,” she whispered. “I know you would have…” She trailed off. “I… I just couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk Rhenn’s life on my own hope you would succeed.”
He squeezed her hand. “All right. It’s all right. We’ll talk about it later.” He put his arm around Slayter to help him up the stairs. “Let’s go home.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” a deep, dark voice said from behind them.
Khyven whirled, pushing Slayter away and reaching for his sword—
That wasn’t there.
Stooped and gritting his teeth as though he’d just pushed out of teleportation hell, Tovos emerged from the shadows beneath the staircase.
Chapter Fifty-one
Khyven
Khyven bared his teeth. The blue wind swirled around Tovos, a deep, dark blue. Every time the wind turned dark, it meant the danger was greater, the strike deadlier. Khyven had never seen the entirety of the wind this dark blue.
He wanted to leap at the Giant, to fight like he’d never fought before, to give Lorelle and Slayter a chance to escape.
But he had no weapon.
He glanced past the Giant at the mountain of treasure. Jeweled hilts stuck up from the gold. Khyven slowly, carefully sidled away from his friends.
The Giant might be powerful, but if they could flank him, they might be able to gain a tactical advantage. Now he really wished they’d spent that extra second to grab the Mavric iron sword. The way Khyven figured it, a sword forged by Giants probably had the best chance to kill Giants.
“I’m going to gut you,” Khyven growled.
“You have nothing that can even hurt me,” the Giant said. “You are weaponless.”
The Mavric iron sword dropped from the air and stuck into the rock step in front of Khyven’s foot. It wobbled back and forth, the hilt vibrating next to Khyven’s hand, and it whined excitedly in his mind.
Khyven stared at the thing, dumbfounded.
Never once in his days as a Ringer had he wasted an opportunity. If an enemy stumbled into Khyven’s path, Khyven didn’t trip over them, he used them as a step. If a dagger spun past his face, Khyven didn’t flinch, he grabbed the weapon and hurled it back. He had trained himself to instinctively push past surprise at good fortune or bad and to use it to its highest advantage, because to waste even a second might cost him his life.
But he stared at that Mavric sword, which had literally appeared out of nowhere.
Lucky for Khyven, Tovos also stared at it, like he was trying to comprehend why the sky and the ground had suddenly switched places.
Three things happened at once.
Lorelle shouted, “Vohn!”
Slayter laughed.
Khyven snapped out of his stupor and snatched the hilt.
The heat of the sword’s dark power flowed into him, burrowed into his muscles and his bones. The six-foot blade leapt to guard position.
“Go!” he shouted, and he charged the Giant. “Get out of here!”
Khyven suspected he wasn’t going to defeat Tovos through skill, but he didn’t need to prove he was the better swordsman. All he needed to do was fight the creature long enough for Lorelle and Slayter to get through the Thuros.
And a one-in-a-hundred lucky shot might put a crimp in the Giant’s arrogance.
Khyven let his eyes lose focus, keeping only a vague awareness of the steps and ground and treasure pile, so his inner eye could better see the blue wind.
The wind wove before him, different this time, more complicated than it had ever been before. Three blue spears launched from Tovos and a blue funnel opened up on the Giant’s shoulder, but something new appeared, too. A glowing blue step hovered three feet in the air, just in front of Khyven.
He didn’t question. He surrendered himself to the wind and leapt at the step.
Though there was no step there in real life, Khyven’s foot hit it, and it was as though the air was solid beneath his foot.
He propelled himself high, spinning as two of the blue spears just missed him.
The sword whined, and the whine turned into a word.
“Good…”
Khyven flew at Tovos, and the Giant looked surprised. Khyven brought the Mavric iron sword down with all his strength, shearing through the metal plate protecting Tovos’s shoulder. It cut through metal, flesh, and stuck in the bone.
Tovos screamed.
Khyven flipped over the huge shoulder, using the static blade to whip his body around and slam his feet into the Giant’s back. Tovos screamed again as Khyven kicked hard and ripped the blade free. He flipped backward and landed on his feet at the edge of the gold pile.
Tovos’s brows furrowed in fury, bunching inhumanly large folds of flesh above his blazing eyes as he turned and gestured at Khyven. A spell. Perhaps the same crushing, paralyzing shadow spell the Giant had used before.
The blue wind formed a shield in front of Khyven, and he instinctively whipped the sword up to align with the hovering blue light. Something Khyven couldn’t see hit the sword and the blade vibrated, sending the impact up Khyven’s arms.
In Khyven’s mind, the sword’s whine sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Whatever spell the Giant had thrown died on the Mavric iron.
Three funnels opened on the Giant. At his knee, in his gut, and on his throat.
Khyven surged forward, and the Giant’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. His left arm hung limp at this side. He shouted and made another gesture.
Seven thin spears launched at Khyven, preceded by a blue wave. Another blue step appeared and Khyven jumped on it, launching himself over the blue wave.
He swayed and twisted, but three of the thin spears grazed him. An instant later, three slivers of metal cut him as they flew by. One on the thigh, one along his side, and one on his left shoulder. They all hurt; none were mortal.
Khyven flew over the blue wave. A split second later, a chunk of volcanic rock erupted from the floor like it had turned to water, then turned back to rock as it tried to crush Khyven.
It missed him, but Khyven was forced to change his course, and the blue funnels flickered and faded as he landed, rolled to his feet, and charged the Giant.
Tovos snarled, his good hand pointing at Khyven like a claw. Dozens of thin spears launched at him—
Tovos screamed. Lorelle materialized out of shadow, standing on his shoulder, a jeweled dagger buried to the hilt in his neck.
The dozens of blue spears flickered and vanished, and half a dozen funnels opened up on the Giant. Khyven stabbed at them.
There was a thunderous clash of metal on metal. A ripple of red light flashed out from the Giant. The whole cavern shook.
Khyven lost his footing and stumbled. The blue funnels on Tovos flickered and vanished. A stalactite crashed to the ground and dust sifted down from the ceiling.
“I got him,” Slayter shouted. “I got him! I got him!” Khyven flicked a glance down at the Giant’s feet and spotted the mage. He was kneeling next to one of the Giant’s great boots, and he’d just fastened the glowing red manacle of the Dragon’s Chain around Tovos’s left ankle.
Tovos roared and swatted at Lorelle, but she vanished, leaving the jeweled dagger sticking out of his neck.
More funnels opened up on the Giant. Khyven circled, ready to pounce.
“No! Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!” Slayter shouted, scrambling on his back like a crab, trying to get clear of the Giant.
Tovos snarled, clenched both fists, and pointed them at Khyven. His eyes blazed as he gestured, and Khyven whipped up his sword, bracing himself for the spell.
But no spears of blue wind came. No spell triggered.
“What?” Tovos roared. He made another gesture, this one at Slayter, but nothing happened.
“Get away! Get away!” Slayter said, and Khyven jumped back, giving the Giant a wide berth.
“I will crunch your bones with my teeth!” Tovos snarled, and he lunged at Khyven. A blue shape, roughly the size of Tovos, flew at Khyven. He dove to the side as the Giant swiped at him, but Tovos came to the end of the chain—which was suspended in midair, tight like it was attached to something Khyven couldn’t see—and it pulled the Giant up short.
Khyven rolled to his feet, just out of range.
“Leave him. Don’t touch him!” Slayter repeated.
“What did you do?” Khyven asked.
“The Dragon’s Chain!” Slayter said excitedly. “I didn’t know if it would work on a Giant. But elder dragons are Giants, so I thought it might and it did!”
Lorelle materialized from the dark next to Khyven, looking dead on her feet.
“I told you,” Slayter said excitedly. “Giant magic. Made by Giant wizards. It was meant to hold a dragon.”
“You’re all going to die!” Tovos roared and spun about, grabbing at the glowing red chain. The links swelled, growing larger, thicker, as thick as Tovos’s arms as he strained against it.
“How long?” Khyven asked.
“How long what?” Slayter asked.
“How long will it keep him chained?”
Slayter’s chuckle bubbled up his throat like a burp. “A thousand years,” he blurted.
“A thousand years!”
“Just don’t touch him. You touch him and the spell will… Look, just don’t touch him.”
“What about his magic?”
“No magic. All he can use is his physical strength. And that won’t break the chain.”
“Slayter, you’re brilliant!” Lorelle said.
“I tried to tell you,” he said.
“So, we don’t touch him. That’s all we have to do?” Khyven asked.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s leave,” Lorelle said. All three of them started up the stairs.
Tovos hauled on the chain, kicked at the air. The chain didn’t budge. He tried another spell—or that’s what Khyven assumed from the forceful hand gesture.
Nothing.
They were halfway up the stairs when Tovos turned his red-eyed gaze on them.
“You’re not going anywhere, Lorelle of the Dark,” he growled.
Lorelle stumbled. “No!” she said in a strangled voice, then fell to her knees on the steps.
“Lorelle!” Khyven knelt next to her. She crouched, twitching, as though her limbs were fighting themselves.
“I thought you said he couldn’t use spells!” Khyven shot a glance at Slayter.
The mage looked worried. “I-I don’t know,” he said. “He shouldn’t be able to. I…”
Khyven turned to Lorelle in time to see a line of blue wind slash at him. He lurched backward, another dagger, clenched tightly in Lorelle’s hand, swept past his belly, barely missing him.
“Khyven!” she shouted, anguished. Her face had gone slack, but her voice was raw. She turned and started down the stairs one stilted step at a time.
“Come here, Lorelle,” Tovos commanded. “Touch my hand.”
Chapter Fifty-two
Lorelle
The Dark took hold of Lorelle again, and Tovos smothered her control.
“No!” She fell to the steps.
“Lorelle!” Khyven knelt next to her.
She fought it. Lotura’s Mercy, she fought it with everything she had, but her soul belonged to the Dark. She’d given herself to it.
And Tovos controlled the Dark.
“I thought you said he couldn’t use spells!” Khyven said.
He doesn’t have to cast a spell, she thought. He doesn’t have to cast anything. I bound myself to him. I’m part of him.
“I don’t know,” Slayter said. “I-I don’t know. He shouldn’t be able to. I…”
Run! Lorelle tried to shout the word. It was such a simple word. She should have been able to shout something so simple, but it wouldn’t come out. Instead, her body jerked to life, drawing her dagger and stabbing at Khyven. She felt Tovos’s desire to kill him, to see his guts spill out on the steps.
But Khyven was fast. Lotura be praised, he was so fast. Somehow, he saw the strike coming. The dagger slashed through air, just missing him.
Run! she tried to shout again, but it came out as, “Khyven!”
“Come here, Lorelle,” Tovos commanded again. “Touch my hand.”
Her body started down the steps. Now she couldn’t see Khyven or Slayter anymore, and while she prayed they’d leave her and save their own lives, she knew they wouldn’t.
A muffled whisper slithered through the dark, a tiny voice behind the weight of Tovos’s domination. She recognized it, the only other voice that spoke to her through the Dark, vibrating in that strange way that translated into words in Lorelle’s mind.
Vohn.
He was trying to help her! But he was such a small wisp compared to the thudding strength of Tovos’s voice.
She focused on Vohn, made way for him, like a tunnel through the Dark, and the word became clear.
“Bond,” Vohn whispered to her.
Her anger flared at Vohn stating the obvious. Yes, she had soul-bonded with the Dark. She didn’t need him to explain that. She needed a solution—
Then it hit her.
Vohn wasn’t stating the obvious. He didn’t mean her bond to the Dark. He meant her previous bond to Khyven. He was pointing at what she had ignored. The five burning threads!
She dove into herself, found those five burning threads, that small, frayed part of her soul that remained unattached to the darkness.
They glowed fiercely, hating Tovos’s control as much as Lorelle did.
Those threads still longed to reunite with the other half of her soul within Khyven. They had been screaming his name ever since that moment. That was why his name was the only word she could say when Tovos took control of her. Those threads were free of the Giant’s influence. They wanted one thing: the only thing they’d ever wanted.
She felt a strong hand grab her arm.
“You can’t have her,” Khyven snarled, hauling her to a stop.
Her body spun into the grab, the dagger slashing out, but Khyven caught her wrist. He twisted. Nerves fired and her body reflexively let go. The dagger clattered to the steps and Khyven slipped behind her. His strong arms wrapped around her waist, pinning her left arm while his right wedged itself under her shoulder and around her neck, immobilizing her right arm.
“Kill him!” Tovos commanded.
The Dark surged inside her, and her body fought Khyven like a feral cat, twisting, thrashing, kicking. Khyven wrapped his legs around hers and they fell to the wide, flat steps.
“Not this time,” he said through his teeth, immobilizing her. “I’m not letting you go this time.”
“Lorelle!” Tovos thundered. “Come here!”
Tovos strengthened his hold, and her body struggled vainly against Khyven’s strong grip.
“If we go, we go together,” he growled. “We stay together.”
Lorelle ignored him, ignored Tovos. She let him have control of her body and plunged deep inside herself, deep into her soul, into those five burning threads.
She vaguely felt Tovos making her body fight Khyven, but all she saw was darkness and those glowing threads.
And then something else pierced that darkness.
Above her, something glowed blue, something that wasn’t her five threads, but blue threads, twisting downward, questing. There were only ten of them, and they seemed timid and thin compared to her five thick golden threads. The blue threads looked querulous, lost, searching in the dark.
It was Khyven! He was attempting the soul-bond! The blue threads were his soul reaching out to her!
Her consciousness had been huddled low around the final five threads, protecting their golden glow like she would protect a fire in the wind, but now she let them go. She released all control, letting them do what they had longed to do for weeks.
The golden threads shot desperately into the darkness to intertwine with the blue. The moment the first golden thread touched the first blue thread, all the blue threads quivered and coiled like snakes on the golden threads. Two to one, the blue threads wrapped tightly around the golden.
As soon as they twined together, blue and golden light exploded like a multicolored bonfire and chased back the shadows, illuminating the black threads of her soul, revealing the entirety of the tapestry.
The gold and blue threads wove deeper and deeper into the black threads, turning a third of the black threads gold and blue.
It disrupted her bond with the Dark, and the force of Tovos’s commands shuddered under this new power.
Lorelle gasped and opened her eyes, her real eyes. She could see the cavern, the stalactites, Khyven’s face above hers, holding her tightly. Lotura, she could feel herself again. Khyven still had his large body wrapped around hers, arms and legs and even his head against her collarbone. But her body had stopped fighting him. Her body. Hers.
