Daybreak (67 page)

“Hold on!”

Braver’s powerful legs turned at her command. His hooves left gashes in the earth as he cut to the side — narrowly escaping the grasp of an enormous set of claws. Elena’s eyes blurred and her hair whipped back from her face as the hawk
whoosh
ed past them.

Another came at them from the front. She watched its horrible, blackened eyes grow closer. One of her hands went to her bandolier while the other gripped the reins. She held their charge until the last possible moment.

When Braver tore to the right, Elena made her throw. Dirt lashed them in a stinging wave as the hawk’s enormous body crashed into the ground beside them, a knife hanging from its throat.

They wove through the hawks’ attack, moving ever closer to Declan. He’d finished the last of the soldiers and was now charging towards the castle walls. Braver turned and went into a straight sprint. If they didn’t break pace, they might be able to cut him off before he came within range of Midlan’s bows.

They were still several yards away when Elena caught something out of the corner of her eye: a flare of purple light growing upon the ramparts. Strange words filled the air, stoking the light to a blaze.

“Mage!” Elena gasped behind her. She wrenched Braver to the left, cutting him steeply towards the castle wall. “Get ready,” she roared.

Aerilyn had already begun to move. She leaned forward and lodged her heels across Elena’s ankles, wedging them in to keep from being jostled off the saddle. There was some rattling as she freed her bow and pulled an arrow from its quiver.

Midlan’s archers stepped eagerly up to the walls, every bow drawn and waiting for Braver to come within their range. Elena knew they would only be able to survive for a moment. Once they crossed that line, a hail of arrows would fall upon their heads.

At the ramparts, the light was about to burst free.
 

“I’m ready!”

“You’ve got one shot —”

“I know!”

“Then don’t bloody miss!”

“I’m
not
!”

Elena flinched as the bow’s string twanged beside her ear and the arrow shot away. She ripped Braver to the side when Midlan’s archers fired, and sent him into a headlong sprint for Declan — her teeth bared against the hissing swarm of bolts that thudded into the ground behind them.

Aerilyn missed.

Elena turned in time to see the arrow strike the wall beneath the mage’s feet. The force of the explosion knocked him backwards. It shattered the wall and set his robes aflame. The mage toppled into the courtyard, screaming as the fire engulfed his body. He managed to hold onto the purple spell as he plummeted down.

But when he reached the bottom, he must’ve lost his grip.

A second explosion cracked through the air behind them — a purple burst that shook the ground and sent the archers upon the ramparts soaring into the field. Their bodies sprayed out like foam across a ship’s bow and crunched into the grass. The walls swelled outwards beneath the force of the spell. A web of fissures raced across the stone and mortar. But remarkably, it held.

The noise terrified the hawks. They stopped their attack and scrambled off in every direction, like ducks from a stone. Braver’s eyes rolled back and Elena held on tightly as he broke into a jagged run for the trees. But at least they’d managed to stop Declan.
 

His crazed roaring ceased as the earth shook. The black seemed about to leave his eyes when Brend tackled him from behind.

“Calm yourself, you great silly midget!”

When Declan continued to struggle, Brend grabbed a fistful of dirt off the ground and flung it into his face. The black left his eyes immediately, widening into confused portals of stony gray.

“What —?”

“No, never you mind about what’s happening behind us,” Brend said as he dragged Declan to his feet. “Just keep your eyes straight and your feet facing the trees. Go on, now — don’t make me tie you up!”

Brend shoved Declan ahead of him, using his shoulders to block Midlan’s walls from his sight. Elena kept Braver trotting behind the giants’ jog.

They were near the forest when Brend twisted to look back at them. A grin split his wide face when Aerilyn waved. “That was a good shot, wee lass — a
mightily
good shot.”

Elena could practically feel the heat from her blush as she replied: “Yes, well, I have my moments.”

“And what a grand moment it was.”

They found the giants and the mots a little ways into a thicket. It wasn’t difficult: all they had to do was follow the crushed earth and the noise of Nadine’s indignant yells.

“Put me on my feet! I cannot help if I am dangling off the ground.”

“You couldn’t help with your feet
on
the ground, wee mote,” Declan grunted.

She cried out at the sight of him. Her legs were already spinning when the giant set her down. Nadine charged up to Declan so zealously that it looked as if she might fling herself into his chest. But at the last moment, she pulled to a stop.

“You are filthy.”

“Yeh, I know it. I’ll go wash.”

She touched his arm as he passed and watched as he thudded away — which made it easy for Elena to slip up behind her. “What in Kingdom’s name are you doing in Midlan?”

Nadine didn’t hesitate for a moment to throw herself into Elena’s chest. “Where have you come from? You are always turning up to surprise me.”

Most people annoyed her with their touch. But Nadine’s embrace was always warm, her arms wrapped in a way that was more comforting than tight. She seemed to understand that Elena didn’t like to be touched — but she also didn’t care.

It was a strangely … endearing, trait.

“I can’t help that our paths keep crossing. It seems as if we’ve had the same ridiculous idea.” Elena looked over the top of Nadine’s head. Her heart searched hopefully and her eyes strained to see, even as her stomach twisted with dread. The moment she thought of asking, her lips sealed tight.

Luckily, Aerilyn asked it for her. “Is Jake not with you? I expected to see Midlan burst into flame at any moment.”

Nadine’s dark eyes lost their light suddenly, and her smile faded back. “No. I thought … I thought your coming here meant that you had heard.”

“Heard what?” Aerilyn said.

Elena froze. Every drop of her blood ground to a halt inside her veins. She read the answer in Nadine’s eyes long before she spoke, long before she pulled the cracked spectacles from her pocket and placed them in her hand.
 

But she held on desperately to the moment. It wasn’t until her words struck that the world came crashing down.

“Jake has been taken from us. He is being held in Midlan.”

There were windows set high into the walls above her. The warmth spilling in through their faces was a welcome relief from the cold stone on her back. Kyleigh kept her eyes shut tightly as the last of the fire left her bones — her mind fixed upon a single, steadying thought:

Kael was all right. There’d been a few hours when the Kingdom had shaken, when the colors of the world began to fade. But Kyleigh had never doubted for a moment that he would survive.

Now when her eyes opened, they sharpened upon colors that were warm and fierce. The evening sun poured down upon her through a strain of glass. It cloaked the grand room, washing the vaults of the ceiling and the flattened tops of the cobblestone in gold. Even the mortar lines were stirred to brilliance beneath its light: they seemed to glow and pulse when the colors touched them — the veins of some quiet, unshakeable beast.
 

Kyleigh’s chest swelled along with the colors. Her strength came storming back. There would be a moment when her captors blinked, when they lowered their guard. Several days had passed while she waited to find a crack in Midlan’s armor. At most, she thought she might only have to wait a few days more.

But it was taking everything she had to stay patient.

“How do you feel, Dragongirl? Are you feeling more obedient?”

Ulric’s voice swam up to her through a haze of pain. Every bone in her body had been snapped from its place, her muscles stretched to breaking. She’d bared her teeth as her skin split against the rise of her scales — but she never once cried out.

She refused to give him anything to grin about. No matter how many times Ulric forced her body between its shapes, she would never make a sound.

“I’m feeling a bit bored, to be honest,” Kyleigh said the moment she caught her breath. Her limbs shook so badly that she knew trying to stand would give her away. Instead, she sprawled out where she’d collapsed upon the floor and tucked her hands behind her head. “You’d think the King’s archmage would be able to come up with something a little more exciting than changing shapes.”

“Is having your every bone crushed not exciting enough?” Ulric said.

Kyleigh shrugged. “I suppose I was just looking forward to the freezing and the singeing — you know, the more
complicated
spells.”

There was nothing Ulric hated more than having his spells insulted. She supposed that was why he’d gone crawling to Crevan in the first place: as long as all the mages in the realm were bound, there would be no one left to laugh at him.

So Kyleigh resolved to laugh as much as she could. “It’s my own blasted fault, really. I came in expecting so much from the
arch
mage that I forgot about the fact that he’s never been anything more than a potion vendor —”

“I’ve become far more than that,” Ulric said sharply.

She studied him for a moment — which gave her the breath she needed to stop her legs from twitching. “You had one brilliant idea a long while ago. But the curse itself leaves a lot to be desired, doesn’t it?” She tugged pensively on her collar and had to fight to keep her face smooth as the magic bit her. “I’d say it’s rather shoddy, at best.”

“Shoddy?”

“At
best
,” Kyleigh corrected him. “At worst, I think it does more harm than good. Look at you,” she forced herself to grin, “you’re sweating more than I am.”

That seemed to push him over the edge.

Ulric’s eyes bulged and the tips of his overgrown ears turned red. She swore the beads of sweat that rolled off his chin hissed as they struck the already-darkened ring around his collar. When he spoke, his words sounded as if he’d strained them through his jutting teeth:

“Well, perhaps I ought to make this a little more …
challenging
.”

Kyleigh held her grin as he stomped towards her. She had to force herself not to look at the spell that flared upon the tips of his fingers, not to think about what sort of horror was coming for her next.

Ulric’s dark eyes shone mercilessly from the deep pits of his skull. The light of the spell struck his face and gave his skin a burning sheen. He fixed the spell between her eyes, nearly blinding her with its glow. But just before he could loose it, one of his bat-like ears began to twitch.

The spell shrank back. Ulric glared and ground his teeth until the twitching stopped. He brought the spell back to life — just as his ear twitched again. “What?” he snapped, spinning to glare at the wall. “Figure it out for yourself. I’m in the middle of —”

Something like a roll of thunder boomed over his words. It shook the grand room and blasted the glass from its windows. Kyleigh threw an arm over her head as a storm of razor shards fell down upon them. When the storm ended and the thunder’s echo faded, she looked up and saw a thick cloud of purple smoke rolling through a row of shattered windows.

Ulric scrambled back from the smoke, nearly tripping over Kyleigh in his rush to get away. But it evaporated quickly — disappearing before it struck the ground.

“Take the Dragongirl to the northern tower. Do not let her out of your sight,” Ulric screamed, jabbing his finger into a darkened corner of the room. Then he grabbed Kyleigh by the front of her jerkin.

There were little bits of glass stuck into his face and neck. It was obvious by how many veins bulged from his head that he was trying to lift her. But his feeble arms had no chance against her bones. “Should I come up a bit?”

“I don’t care what the King says,” Ulric growled, bringing his sopping, bloody face a mere inch from hers. “When I get back, I’m going to send you to the under-realm —
in pieces
.”

“As long as you promise to make the journey interesting.”

Ulric’s roar faded into swears as he stormed from the grand room. The spell that burst from his hand knocked the door off its hinges — and sent the guards on the other side sprinting from his path.

Kyleigh grinned when she heard the clattering of more doors being blasted away, as Ulric’s swears became more potent and inventive. She didn’t know what had caused the explosion, but it was obvious that Ulric was rattled by it. Perhaps her moment had finally come.

She was so busy listening that she didn’t hear the slight noise of the man from the shadowed corner padding to her side. “You’re brave, Kyleigh.”

She looked up and saw that Devin stood over her, watching intently. “No, I’m simply annoyed. Ulric’s such a twit that I feel bad if I
don’t
heckle him.”

“He’s going to find out, you know. He’ll hurt you until you let him in.” Devin scratched at the spines that’d begun to sprout from the dark crop of his hair. He looked away, and a shadow crossed his eyes as he added: “He’ll figure out what hurts you the most … and then it’ll get worse. The curse will tighten, you won’t be able to fight it off so easily. Not even the pain will clear your head. You’ll just be trapped … trapped forever. Hold on for as long as you can.”

Kyleigh knew what he meant. In the moments her pain was fiercest, she’d been able to hear it: the noise of hundreds of voices filling her ears at once. They wrapped her in a cloud of their worries, their fears. They drained her of all hope. She felt as if she sat upon the edge of sleep, while the voices tried to drag her under.

But she knew there would be no rest in the world that waited beyond — only torment.

“He can’t kill you, just so you know. He’s as trapped as we are.” Devin crouched at her head. Though his gaze was soft, there seemed to be about a thousand little thoughts swirling inside the stark blues. “I’ll never understand why someone so powerful would choose to be bound.”