move toward me, but I flicked the fingers of my left hand and sent him sprawling again. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
“Kara!” Mzatal took a step closer to me, extending to me on all levels. He held his blade in front of him as if to shield himself from my power. “Kara, you must stop.”
I was trying. Couldn’t he feel that? Another tremor shook us, accompanied by the sharp crack of splitting stone. The demons had all gone to ground, huddling with wings folded close against the fierce gusts of wind. With unnatural speed, dark clouds shot through with purple lightning filled the sky. Rhyzkahl pushed himself back to his feet, teeth bared as he took a step toward me, posture bowed as if leaning into a heavy wind. The sigils burned and throbbed with the triple potency, and I knocked him back again, grinning ferally as he went tumbling.
My vision grew weird, as if everything was far too bright, but with no way to squint or shield my eyes. I felt Idris working frantically behind me, dispelling his circle and then peeling away the layers of my own diagram.
My breath hissed through my teeth. I felt and saw the power coming off me in misty tendrils. It probably looked cool as all hell, but I also knew it was seriously fucked up.
“Here,” I whispered, clinging to Mzatal’s essence-touch. It felt as if the echo of our merged energies was the only thing holding me together at all. He took a step back as Idris dispelled the diagrams. Rhyzkahl stood again, blade held in front of him. As he took a step forward, the sigils on my torso flared, sending searing razors of pain through me. I felt the bindings, the wrenching of my shoulders, those ten heartbeats when he brought the pain.
Crying out, I lifted my hand. I only wanted to hold him back, but the power came from me in a heavy wave, knocking everyone flat again. Behind me, Idris let out a choked scream as he lost hold of the pattern. The diagram fractured with a whine that felt and sounded
Gasping shallowly, I shook my head to clear it.
“Here!” I cried out. My eyes found Mzatal’s. “Mzatal, help me. I can’t stop it!”
Mzatal struggled to his feet again, nose streaming fresh blood. “We will stop it, Kara,” he said in a calm voice that I both felt and heard. He took another step back, toward Rhyzkahl.
Amkir and Vahl both sprawled on the ground as though injured, while Jesral clawed up to his hands and knees. The black and violet clouds boiled overhead. Tremors rolled ceaselessly. The sharp bite of the air increased a hundred fold, setting hair standing on end.
Mzatal turned to face Rhyzkahl as the pale-haired lord moved up beside him. Their eyes met, antipathy and intensity literally sparking in the potency between them. The wind continued to rise to near hurricane strength. The ground heaved, and I staggered to stay upright. A massive crack of stone sounded above the clangor of the columns. Glancing left, I sought its origin, then stared in horror as the western tower lost much of its foundation to a wide crevice. The tower sheered vertically, half of its mass crumbling in a low rumble of stone on stone into the depths of the rift. Flashes of color marked furnishings, paintings, and statuary lost in the tumult. Szerain’s studio. His personal chamber with its hundreds of memories captured in sculptures. All gone. Even amidst all the tumult, my heart clenched at the loss.
The two lords continued to stare at each other for a half dozen heartbeats, and then turned in unison to face me as if they’d come to a truce. Mzatal approached me with Rhyzkahl a step behind. I focused on him, vision shifting strangely. The power burned within me, completely beyond my control, but with it came an awareness of
Mzatal reached and grabbed my right wrist, calling deeply to me, touching me through our shared connection.
I sucked in a breath as my blade responded to his. Vsuhl emanated a tone that soared through me, lifting, potent. Not audible, but
Mzatal called to me, and I answered:
He froze, hand on my wrist, eyes locked on mine, acknowledging. Rhyzkahl stepped forward with a scowl. My gaze shifted to him. I saw him. All of him. Crystalline leaves adrift on swirling water, far from the tree. Pushed by inexorable winds into foul depths. “Dear one,” I whispered. “So lost.”
He straightened, face going liquid for a brief flash before returning to the mask of determination. Vsuhl extended to Rhyzkahl’s blade, to Xhan, and then recoiled violently sending a crashing wave of discord through the entwined melody of Vsuhl and Khatur. I trembled with the discordance, grateful that Vsuhl withdrew. The blade song wrapped around me, wrapped around us. Vsuhl, Khatur, Mzatal, me. I expanded. Xhan sought to join, but the
“All of you, so lost,” I whispered. The wind ripped my words away, yet I knew they carried to all corners of the courtyard. “Foolish dear one.”
A syraza appeared behind Mzatal, laid a hand on his shoulder. Ilana. Not the one I wanted. Needed. Not
Mzatal shifted his grip so that it covered my hand over the hilt of the blade. I returned my burning gaze to him. “Take it from me.”
Mzatal’s mouth pressed into a hard line as he gripped Vsuhl’s hilt and tried to wrest it away, backing it with potency when he found it immovable. “Ah, zharkat,” he murmured such that it touched my very essence with its sorrow. Ilana stepped back, vanished.
My expanded awareness flared an instant too late as Jesral threw his dagger at my exposed back. I jerked hard as the steel buried deep, piercing my heart. Rhyzkahl gave a cry of rage and cast a powerful strike at Jesral, sending him into a tumbled heap. Pain seared through me even as deep memory stirred. Time swirled and slowed. I slid between the moments.
My entire body convulsed as the memory collapsed into darkness, the Elinor aspect recoiling. “No!” I screamed at everything, needing to see beyond this moment, recognizing in Elinor of then an echo of what raged within me now. Vsuhl vibrated against my palm, whispering just beyond my understanding, its tone shifting and winding through the grove energy. Whispering.
I knew who had the answer. Knew who’d stood at the center of the destruction of the world. Knew who wouldn’t look at what came with the pain. Burning, I felt Mzatal and Khatur calling to me, through me, Mzatal’s hand wrapped around mine, around Vsuhl, around us. I willed time to slow. Slid between. Called up the pain, called to Elinor.
I sank to my knees, this pain eclipsing the roiling power. Vsuhl whispered.