Edge of Darkness ~ A Darkness & Light Novel Book Three (38 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Bolin stood in the center of an atrium, amid the scattered remains of a once glorious domed ceiling. Through the circular opening above, the evening sky shaded to a dirty red, as though a haze of cloud and smoke obscured the setting sun.

A long stretch of calm lucidity afforded him the opportunity to ease his way closer to the blinding, drawing his focus in, soft and quiet, until it lightly brushed the dark surface of the witch's working. The witch's magic moved just beneath the surface, and Bolin spent a long while doing nothing more than studying it. He couldn't feel it, but he could see it, something which had proven to be its own form of torture. It took every bit of concentration he could find, every bit of willpower at his disposal, to keep from charging heedlessly past it for even a brief touch of Nialyne's power.

He needed to feel magic so badly, he would have devoured the most insignificant bit. The witch's power, Darkness, made his mouth water. He knew the feel of it, had tasted it on his tongue and found it repulsive and alluring in equal measure. He would consume it as greedily as it consumed him. If he was being honest with himself, he would admit he desired it more than he had once desired Ciara's. Or perhaps just as much, but in a different way. Andrakaos had a youthful, unfettered feel, raw and wild. Bolin could have molded him into whatever he chose.

Darkness could not be molded, he saw that now, but it promised omnipotence. When the Goddess had come to him and, for a brief moment, he felt the width and breadth of her power, it had filled him with longing. Never before had he experienced anything even remotely similar.

Until now.

Bolin could no longer deny it. If the witch offered Darkness to him, he would take it. He stood firm in his resolve, however, that it would not take him. However much it pained him to do so, Bolin would use the power of the Greensward to subdue Darkness. He would have no more than a few breaths of time in which to draw up the entirety of Nialyne's gift and cage Darkness within it. Then he would destroy the witch, and this time, she would remain dead.

He drew his focus inward, against the terror lurking there. The shadow of the witch's power flashed across the blinding and Bolin reached for it. His fingers jammed against the ethereal wall as though it was made of stone. Sharp spikes of pain shot up his arm. He gritted his teeth and braced against it, leaning forward, throwing everything he had into the single act, the strength of his will all he could rely on.

It seemed forever before the wall dimpled beneath his fingertips. The pain spread across his chest. The strands of magic in the blinding sliced through flesh and bone as Bolin's hand breached its outer shell. Blood coated his palm and trickled down his wrist to drip onto the ground. The effort it took for him to close his fingers around the bit of Darkness when he felt it brush his skin, sent a tremor through him.

Bolin jerked his arm back from the blinding, a wisp of shadow clutched in his fist. It seared his flesh, waking an almost-forgotten ache in his left arm. Tongues of fire swept across him, and he clenched his fingers tight against the desire to fling the power away.

"And what is it you intend to do with that?"

Bolin looked up from under his brows. The witch stood before him, the breeze teasing her skirts around her legs. Beyond her, Berk stood poised by the door, his back to them as he looked out into the village, sword in hand, immobile. Specters flittered around her. Creatures Bolin could see, but not sense. For all he knew, they were nothing more than figments of his mind's degeneration.

"Can you feel the magic you hold so tightly in your hand?" the witch asked. "Or is it only the pain you experience now?"

"Funny thing," Bolin forced the words through teeth clenched so hard he swore his jaw cracked. "I don't need to feel it, to use it."

"No?" She squatted down in front of him, only then making him aware he had dropped to his knees. Her hand stroked the side of his face in a lover's caress. "Why do this to yourself? I feel your agony as surely as if it were my own. Let me take it from you. Give up the fight, and I shall undo the blinding."

"And replace it with another?"

She leaned in. "You have merely scratched the depths of the torture this blinding will inflict upon you. Already, I see the cracks. You see them as well. I know you do. Even the strongest tree will yield to enough wind. Have you ever heard the sound of a sturdy oak shattering in a tempest? You fight the inevitable. Either you will succumb to the madness, or you will join with me."

"You're forgetting, there's a third option." Sweat trailed from Bolin's temple and trickled spider-like down his neck. His hand was numb, yet he knew it still gripped the power. Using it, taking it within himself and altering it, he could do that in his sleep. Or so he had always told himself. Success, at the moment, depended upon the validity of that assumption.

The witch smiled. "You think to defeat me." Her fingers trailed down Bolin's arm to softly cover his hand. "Allow me an indulgence, before you make such a disastrous decision."

A whimper rose, unbidden, from Bolin's throat at the sudden, tantalizing waft of wild magic that drifted before him. A taste of nectar. The hint of a spring breath after the bitterest of winters. He closed his eyes and sank beneath the velvet touch. Pain evaporated. The torment ceased.

Then, just as quickly, the coldness clamped back over him, leaving not even an afterglow. He blinked back tears. Goddess's blood, no. He could tell himself he didn't need it, that he possessed the strength to survive without ever touching magic again, but those were lies.

"You see?" Her lips brushed his ear, and her whispered words sent a shiver down his spine. "I can give you all that and more. So much more. Enough for you to gorge upon and never hunger again. Come." She stood, offering her hands to help him to his feet. "Let us be done with this foolishness and claim what is ours."

"If I do this," he whispered. "What becomes of the others?"

She gave a loose shrug. "Do with them what you will. Their fates are of little concern to me so long as they do not stand against us."

"And the Goddess?"

"Pah! How is it your thoughts still run to her, when all she has done is turn aside from you? Do you still not see the truth of it? She cannot defeat me. The combined might of all this world cannot defeat me. You. You were her only hope, and now, I am yours."

Bolin took a deep breath and lifted his left hand to clasp one of hers. A sublime calm filled him. The tremors stopped.

"No," he said as he stood.

She lifted a brow. "No?"

"You are not my only hope."

Bolin brought his right arm up and thrust his palm flat against the center of her chest. He didn't feel the power race through him, had only the memory of how it would have infused him with strength, how he would have turned it from its original purpose to suit his needs. He sent those memories after it. His eyes locked onto the witch's as they rounded in surprise.

A flicker of panic raced through the violet depths. She gasped and her body jerked. Bolin followed her confused gaze downward to the hand span of Imperial steel jutting from her chest, dripping blood into the dust at their feet. The witch staggered a step or two but kept her feet as Berk wrenched his sword free. She drew her hand across her mouth, looking from her blood-smeared knuckles to Berk.

"You've tried this… before," she said as she lurched to the side.

The atrium spun around Bolin and someone grabbed his arm to pull him toward the doorway. Then Berk had him by the other arm, and they were dragging Bolin between them as he stumbled along in confusion.

"Time to go, General."

Bolin jerked his head to the left. Found Donovan there. He tried to pull away but couldn't manage it. His limbs moved woodenly, despite his best efforts to force them to comply with his wants, as opposed to whatever force controlled them.

"Release me," he said, his voice thick.

"Now is not the time," Donovan replied.

Bolin's head wobbled between his shoulders like a drunkard's as he turned it Berk's way. "That won't kill her."

Berk gave him a quick look, grim and determined.

"You should have put that steel through me instead," Bolin said. The words felt clumsy, as though his tongue fought against a mouthful of rocks. "You gave me your word."

"And you said I'd know the moment when I saw it," Berk said. "I didn't see it."

"We are attempting to affect your rescue, General. It will go better with less conversation."

Bolin rolled his head in Donovan's direction. "You're a traitor."

"Yes." Donovan turned them down a narrow alleyway between crumbled buildings. "At the moment, it is Darkness I betray, on your behalf. I trust you will recall that, should any of us survive this."

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Ciara whipped around, searching for the priestess. She found Ferris instead, on hands and knees instead, struggling unsuccessfully to stand. She ran to him and, with the Emperor's help, managed to get him to his feet. Blood trickled down his neck and from a gash across his temple, and he wavered unsteadily.

"Goddess's blood, I've never come up against her like before." A tremor ran through him and he coughed, then spat a pink-tinged gob into the dirt. "Where is she?"

Darkness remains close,
Andrakaos said. He landed nearby, his claws decimating the crumbling stone, wings spread in agitation as he settled amidst the ruins.
It searches for him

"Bolin?" the Emperor asked. "Where is he?"

"Hopefully still within the village," Ferris said, and rocked suddenly back on his heels.

The Emperor caught him, then cupped Ferris's face in his hands and peered intently at him. "Look at me."

Ferris blinked rapidly as though trying to do just that, and finding the Emperor's face too close to his own. He mumbled something in Cearnease and the Emperor replied in a tone thick with concern.

"Is he all right?" Ciara asked.

"I'm fine," Ferris replied.

"He's been channeling power quicker than he can get rid of it," the Emperor said over the Sciath's assurance.

"Is there anything I can do?"

Ferris shook his head and immediately thrust out a hand to steady himself against the Emperor. "I just need a moment."

He draws near,
Andrakaos said, a sense of relief coloring his words.

Ciara saw Donovan first, then Bolin held between him and Berk. Berk had his sword in his hand, and kept throwing looks back over his shoulder.

"Here I thought the blackguard ran," Ferris said, as though to himself.

"We need to get on with this," Donovan called out as they made their way across the square. "The priestess will not be far behind."

"She is not behind at all."

A heartbeat of time froze. All eyes turned to the woman who levitated above the fountain, swathed in roiling, hissing chords of shadow. A smile flirted with her lips, and her violet eyes burned with a blend of hunger and desire.

The heartbeat ended, and the air erupted. The shadows surrounding the priestess lashed out like striking snakes, one toward each of them. Ciara threw up a hand out of reflex and the tendril exploded against an unseen shield with enough force to push her back a step. The next one slammed into her even harder, and Ciara screamed as her wrist snapped beneath the assault. A deafening bellow followed her to the ground. Her vision went black, and she cradled her arm against her stomach, curling in on herself, tears streaming down her face. Beyond the pounding of her pulse… silence.

Ciara glanced up, surprised to see the priestess entrapped in an opalescent bubble. She looked toward Ferris. The Sciath wavered unsteadily, head bowed. The Emperor stood beside him, chin up, eyes dark as midnight, his power shimmering all around. Donovan stood off to the side with Berk slumped against the wall behind him.

"Where's Bolin?" Ciara asked into the eerie calm and her voice shook. She struggled to stand, head spinning, and asked the question again, louder.

"There," Donovan said.

Ciara followed his outstretched arm and her stomach lurched. Bolin stood with the priestess within the confines of the Emperor's power.

"You have to get him out of there," Ciara said. She staggered toward the Emperor, fear driving her pas the pain of her wrist.

"Not easily done," the Emperor said, clearly struggling with the strain of keeping the priestess contained. "Not without releasing her as well."

"What difference will it make if she undoes the blinding and turns him to her side?" Donovan asked. "Can you stand against them both?"

We must distract her,
Andrakaos said.

Ciara turned to him. For the first time, she knew exactly what he had in mind without having to ask. She just didn't know if it was possible.

It cannot be impossible,
he said.
It is what we are.

"M'lady?"

Ciara took a deep breath. She pulled her gaze from Bolin, gave Ferris a quick smile, and swiveled to face the Emperor. "When she turns her attention to us, get Bolin out of there, and undo the blinding."

Ferris stepped in, shaking his head. "Whatever you're thinking--"

"It's all right, Ferris. Trust me."

Ciara didn't give them any chance to debate, and didn't risk meeting anyone's eyes as she walked to where Andrakaos stood. Her wrist throbbed with each step, but she hardly noticed beneath the growing sense of anticipation coursing through her.

"You know how to do this, right?"

Andrakaos didn't answer. He reared back on his haunches and propelled himself skyward, then turned in midair, dissolved into his ethereal form, and streaked toward Ciara like an arrow. She caught one last glimpse of Bolin before her world vanished in a flash of brilliance.

***

They darted through the low clouds in a shimmering exaltation of flight, muscular wings effortlessly bearing them up until the ground became little more than a speck. Ciara had shared in the sensation of flying with Andrakaos, and viewed the world through his eyes before. This was different. This time, she was not merely a passenger. His body was hers, and her thoughts ran in concert with his, her impulses moved limbs, changed the angle of their flight, raised a triumphant bugle from their throat.

They tipped their head to survey the scene below. Tiny figures stood in the center of the village. There were men gathered at its edge, their horses panicking with the presence of the beast above them. Ciara grinned and lips pulled back from teeth sharper than the keenest blade.

"Time to end this."

They folded their wings and dropped back toward the fray, bellowing a challenge that sliced the air. A jagged shard of shadow jutted up to intercept them, but it fragmented against the sound of their roar like glass against stone.

The priestess jerked her head up. She opened her mouth, but instead of sound, a stream of black oozed from between her lips. It spiraled upwards, forming into a mirror image of Andrakaos, only far larger. Andrakaos was immense. The beast they faced outsized him by half again as much. Slower than them, it tried to smother them against its barbed chest as they darted in to rake a claw-f of talons across its stomach. It bellowed in pain and rage, and flicked its tail like a whip. The tip caught their wing and spun them around. Ciara lost herself to the maneuver as muscle reacted too fast for human thought. With a twist, and an arc of their neck, they were on the other beast's back, jaws clamped around its throat. The beast fragmented, scattering into black blobs, only to reform into two others, slightly smaller than the first.

"Well, that's not good," Ciara said.

The two dove at them from opposite sides. At the last possible moment, the world shimmered and Andrakaos shed their corporeal form. The priestess's beasts passed through them with a scorching blaze of heat and collided in a tangle. They dissolved and once again reformed into even more creatures.

A rumble rose from Andrakaos.
They are like the wyvern.

"Then let's give them the same treatment," Ciara said.

She gave herself over to the knowledge that came effortlessly through her joining with Andrakaos, pulled up their intertwined power, and spun it outward. They gathered the priestess's beasts within the shimmering net of a working and, with a single word that coursed from Andrakaos's throat like a growl, they crushed them into nothingness.

Nothing more took their place. Ciara angled a look toward the village below, hoping their distraction had been enough for the Emperor to free Bolin. Too much power swirled in a tangled mass for her to make sense of anything.

The mere thought of being once again on the ground, in her own body, put her there with shocking speed. A wave of pain and nausea came with it, a sharp reminder of her injured arm.

Ciara fell to her knees and vomited. Andrakaos curled around her, crooning, and with his touch, the pain subsided enough for Ciara to take note of her surroundings.

Her heart clenched. Bolin still stood near the priestess. The Emperor's power, shot through with something darker and sharper-edged, filled the square. Ciara followed the strands, surprised to see Donovan adding his power to the Emperor's. Both of them strained to cut through the dark shroud flowing around Bolin and the priestess. The Emperor stood a mere arm's length from Bolin. He leaned forward, as though braced against a strong wind, his face a mask of concentration. Each time he and Donovan managed to drive through another small fraction of the priestess's shield, the Emperor would move that much closer to Bolin.

"It's not enough." Ciara struggled to her feet. "We need to help them."

She took a step forward when she caught sight of Ferris. The Sciath stood like a pillar of calm, head bowed, eyes closed. Magic danced and sparked around him, yet he took no notice. His hands hung loose at his sides, his fingers moving as though to some unheard tune.

Ciara couldn't breathe. Ferris meant to carry out his oath and she had no way to stop him.