was a mere shadow of that Light.
It passed on, left him behind as it advanced on the Shadows. They writhed, their forms flaring left and right in uncertainty.
Then the fire halted. Colin heard shouting from behind, heard Siobhaen cry out in a strained voice, “I can’t! I can barely hold it where it is now!”
And then a wave of nausea folded over him. He wavered, light-headed, tried to remain upright but couldn’t.
He slumped to the side, hit the stone with jarring force and rolled halfway onto his back, pain raging from his side. He screamed again.
Through the fog of pain, he heard more shouting, heard the scramble of feet. Faces loomed over him-Aeren, Eraeth, Petraen, others-and then they grabbed him by the arms and legs, hauled him upright with a wrench and dragged him back toward the Well. He could feel the pulse of the Lifeblood coursing through his body, sensed Aielan’s Light through the stone beneath him. His vision wavered in and out, a film of yellow passing over his eyes, throbbing with his heartbeat.
Voices. He blinked, found himself on the ground at the base of the Well. Aeren ripped his shirt away from his side, swore, barked to his only remaining Phalanx member, “Cloth! We need to staunch the wound!”
The guardsman scrambled for the packs. Eraeth stood over his lord, his blade drawn, his gaze cast outward, his mouth pulled down in a dark, vicious frown.
His grip tightened on his cattan. “Don’t,” he said, his voice black with warning. “It isn’t yours. It was never yours.”
At the tone of his voice, Aeren’s remaining guardsman turned, then dropped the pack he held and drew his blade, stepping up on Colin’s other side.
Colin frowned in confusion-
And then gasped, a hollow of anger and disbelief opening up inside his chest, flowing outward, shoving away the haziness of the pain.
The knife. He’d dropped the knife.
Teeth gritted, he rolled onto his side, Aeren reaching out to support him with a sharp look. But he ignored the Alvritshai lord, glared instead toward Vaeren, the caitan of the Flame flanked on either side by Petraen and Boreaus, all three with cattans drawn, the quickened knife in Vaeren’s other hand. Neither Petraen nor Boreaus wore the easy, friendly grins Colin had seen around the campfires on their trek to the Well. Their faces were deadly serious, their eyes cold.
Siobhaen knelt to the left, near the Well, facing the white fire that still blazed in a circle around them all, the Shadows writhing back and forth along its length. Her face was slick with sweat, her hair plastered to her skin. Lines of strain etched her eyes and cheekbones, turned down the corners of her mouth.
“It was never his either,” Vaeren said, holding the knife carefully. His gaze shot toward Colin. “It belongs to the Order.”
“To Lotaern, you mean,” Colin said.
“To all Alvritshai! It can help us destroy the Shadows, the Wraiths. That is how Lotaern intends to use it. He should never have let you keep it, never have let you take it from the Sanctuary and risk losing it to them.”
“Lotaern will not use it for the good of the Alvritshai,” Aeren said, his voice calm. “He will use it only to further his own purposes.”
Vaeren scowled. “And you would use it otherwise, Lord of the Evant? Forgive me if I feel better with it in the hands of the Order and the Flame.”
Petraen stepped forward with the chain mail cloth. Vaeren sheathed his cattan, taking the cloth and wrapping the knife quickly, tucking it into his satchel. Eraeth made a move forward, but Petraen and Boreaus followed suit, halting him before he’d managed a single step. He growled low in his throat.
Vaeren smirked, drawing his cattan again. “Siobhaen, let the Light go. It’s time to leave.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Siobhaen said, “No.”
Vaeren shot her a dark look. “Let it go! We have the knife, and Shaeveran’s staff. We can fend off the sukrael ourselves.”
Siobhaen glared. “But they can’t.” When Vaeren merely straightened, she added, “He is Shaeveran. He risked his life for us at the Escarpment, he has protected us since then, provided us with the Winter Tree, fought for us here, and he is no condition to protect himself or the others now.
Vaeren’s eyes narrowed as the two stared at each other and the silence stretched.
Then Vaeren scowled. “Petraen, Boreaus, we’re leaving.” He motioned to the two, Petraen shooting Siobhaen an uncertain glance, but the three backed away, eyeing Eraeth and the other guardsman warily as they did so. When they were twenty paces distant, they turned and raced along the edge of the ring of white fire.
Siobhaen’s shoulders slumped, but the determination in her face did not fade.
“Should we follow them?” Eraeth asked tersely. His hand flexed on the handle of his cattan.
Aeren looked down at Colin.
“No,” Colin rasped, allowing Aeren to lay him onto his back again. “Let them go.”
“But the knife-” Eraeth began.
“I can get it back!” Colin choked on blood at the force behind the words, at the anger that seethed in his chest. In a quieter voice, he added, “Lotaern won’t hold the knife for long. He knows this. I can take it whenever I wish.”
“Not if you don’t recover,” Aeren said harshly. He motioned toward the guardsman, who resheathed his blade and grabbed the pack again. He drew out clothing, Aeren picking through it, stuffing a shirt to Colin’s side and pressing hard.
Colin moaned, as Eraeth finally lowered his cattan. The caitan glanced toward Siobhaen. “How long can you hold the fire?”
She grimaced. “Not long enough. Not if the sukrael don’t leave.”
“Tighten the circle,” Colin said through clenched teeth. Aeren had begun tying the shirt to his chest with strips of torn cloth. “Bring it closer to the Well. It will be easier to manage.”
Siobhaen nodded, closed her eyes in concentration. Colin felt a surge of power through the earth, but the sensation was distant. The adrenaline over the loss of the knife was already fading. He could feel his arms beginning to tingle, the weakness pressing in on him from all sides. The light-headedness had returned.
“And then what?” Eraeth asked, frustration tainting his voice.
“And then,” Colin said, darkness closing in fast now, weighing him down, drawing him into its vastness so fast he couldn’t finish.
But he heard Aeren say from far away, “Then we wait.”
PART 3
8
“Will he survive?”
Aeren looked up at Siobhaen from where he sat feeding wood into the fire. Eraeth and Hiroun, his only remaining House guard, had gone in search of game outside, through the cavern’s tunnel. They’d left that morning, after waking to discover that the Wraith’s body had vanished. They’d left it where it had fallen so that Shaeveran could look at it when he woke, burning the two Rhyssal House Phalanx who had died the day before instead.
Now, Aeren wished they had tried to take care of the Wraith as well.
Because of that, and because of the betrayal of Vaeren and the other Flame members, Eraeth had not
