more ripples and tides of distortion, but little else. Within the disturbance, Bastun caught a glimpse of metal shining through the miasma. He stared at the spot, torn between thoughts of vengeance and any hope of saving those he left behind with Serevan. In the end, both were victorious as he crawled closer to the source of his dread.
Keffrass had told him, warned him, about this moment, though he could never have known what the choice would be-or where it would be made.
'You'-he tried to speak and coughed violently, tasting blood and morbidly thankful for the moisture it brought to his lips as he continued. 'You mean to go through with this?'
'Well, it would be an awful waste if I did not,' she said, pacing from one series of symbols to the next, narrowing her search with painstaking precision.
He kept note of her position, a blot of wavering shadow to his right, as he pulled himself across the floor. She continued speaking and he saw her voice more than he heard it, the sound vibrating on the air around him.
'A waste, especially, of time. Over two thousand years of secrecy and unrest. The wychlaren actually thought they could hold all of this in check.'
Closer now to the shining flash of steel that drew him on, Bastun suspected that time had beaten him as well. He could not know how long he had truly been inside the chamber. The unstable nature of the magic King Arkaius had wrought eroded the accuracy of his senses. Steam rose from his body as he crawled, the heat further damaging his ability to think clearly. Somewhere nearby Anilya still spoke, though he could only hear the discordant aftereffects of her words, a gibberish that helped him to maintain, kept him going.
With each gain of distance he felt time slipping through his fingers, like tiny threads being severed. He felt himself being undone, torn apart and burned alive, made ready for what was to come. There could be no regrets, no sorrow of the Magewarden, no guilt or hesitation. The thing he sought to touch understood few things about mortals and emotion, but it knew weakness and pain-and it knew hunger; it knew revenge.
It would devour any indecision, any soft thought, and destroy Shandaular anew.
Arcs of bright energy sped beneath him, Nar runes glowing an angry green while the more dominant Ilythiiri symbols radiated an aura of blackness. The light burned his eyes even as another swath of the pattern writhed and fell away, revealing a window on the dying city outside. Throngs of people ran through the streets, trying to escape the swords of the Nentyarch's soldiers. Ash and flame showered the crowded masses, cut down in splashes of violence as a massive plume of curling smoke rose from where the portal had been. Arkaius had saved as many as he could and many had escaped the fate of Shandaular, but he could not save them all and his sacrifice was not suffered by him alone.
'That is the history that will become Rashemen's future.'
Anilya stood a few paces away as the window faded back to stone. Bastun pushed himself up to sit on his knees. His head swam as he looked toward the durthan, his arms limp at his sides, though the bright edge of a simple pommel lay shimmering but an arm's span away. Through half-lidded eyes he watched Anilya pace, the first signs of frustration on her face as she examined more of the patterns. The room's vortex surrounded them at the center of the chamber.
'Overrun by its enemies,' Anilya continued, 'left to rot. Spent and useless. Created by cowardice to stand only as piles of stone, ash, and ruin.'
She turned, waving her hands over another stretch of the floor, each step leading her closer to the center of the pattern. Bastun leaned forward, stretching to reach the handle of the sword. His fingertips brushed the pommel, and his breath was stolen as Athumrani's spirit grasped at his hand. He fought the Magewarden's spirit, forcing the ghost's will to obey his own. The leather-wrapped handle was cold to the touch, a respite from the fever of the cursed ring.
As he pulled on the Breath, its blade scraped against the floor, a hollow screech of steel that disrupted the vortex of the chamber. He heard the durthan pause her low chanting and turn to face him. Fear gave him the energy he needed to lift the weapon and cradle it in his arms.
Anilya smiled, though a cruel amusement played through her eyes at what she saw. 'A sword, is it? Shall you run me through? Is this what you came for?' Incredulous laughter hid behind each syllable. 'You should have killed me when you had the chance-and the strength-to do so.'
He could not defeat her. He knew as much long before entering the Word, had contemplated the moment she would be successful in reaching it. A part of him always knew it would come to this, and that part frightened him more than the Word itself.
The spell he needed drifted and slid through a haze of pain in his mind. The words, the gestures came slowly, bit by bit. He struggled to ignore the screaming sorrow of Athumrani, the dull ache of his bleeding wound, and the pain of each rattling breath he forced into his lungs. The strength he needed was there-scattered and hiding throughout his body, but there.
Forcing his eyes to remain open, he watched as if in a dream as shadows gathered behind the durthan. They separated and settled, forming blobs of shifting and blurry darkness, though one appeared as she had in life. The Magewarden's daughter-her name unspoken in Athumrani's ravings, lost to time-did not truly look upon him, but he imagined that she saw him through the image of her father. Her lip trembled, her eyes begged him to stop, and he felt his strength wane.
'Forgive me,' he said, and the words were his own, not the father lost to sorrow and unreason.
The children faded as he focused on Anilya, saw in her the last fragment of strength he desired. He gathered it to him-all the anger and guilt, to be done with it and court freedom, to spend it all on one choice. On the edge of his own abyss, to stop his enemy, he must grant her desire.
'Forgive?' Anilya said, confused, and her eyes widened as he reversed his grip on the Breath, the blade angling down, point-first toward the floor. She raised her hands, her voice chanting the first syllables of a killing spell, but Bastun was more prepared.
The magic leaped from his hand, a simple incantation, but effective. An airy orb surged forward, thrumming loudly and striking Anilya in the chest. She fell backward, her own spell lost in the discordant sound as she slammed to the floor.
Bastun did not look down, the exact placement of the blade unimportant. Instead he kept his gaze fully on the durthan, his master's murderer. He fed on the anger that welled in him, grasped it and pushed on the sword, pressing it deep into the stone. The floor shook, and a terrible chill flooded through his hands. His fever was banished, the burning of the ring balanced by an unimaginable freezing.
Somewhere in the vast reaches of ice that appeared in his mind's eye, a consciousness stirred. Dull and slowed by centuries of cold, it reached for him and caressed his soul with a limitless evil.
Chapter Twenty-four
Bright spots danced at the edges of Thaena's vision, exhaustion's harbingers stabbing through her skull. She kept her balance despite all, staggering away from the hungry frost of the dead prince. Her spells-those that might have any effect at all upon the bleakborn-were nearly spent, and Serevan still stood, still stared at her as his face returned to a semblance of life. Syrolf and two others remained standing, their brethren on the ground breathing but unable to go on.
Thaena's hands curled into fists as the prince studied her. He squinted as if she were barely there, a figment of his imagination. He had defended himself with the same nonchalant grace, dismembering most of her magic and weathering the rest without a wound to show for her efforts. Syrolf and the others charged him, slashing and cutting before retreating from his feeding aura, yet his flesh only flushed at their efforts. Scars faded and pale skin grew anew. Despite the futility of the assault Syrolf would go back, again and again, urging his men on for the memory of fallen Duras-to keep the prince from the northwest tower.
As the runescarred berserker raised his blade and prepared to attack again, Serevan's expression changed. A wave of rippling force left his palm, laying the berserkers flat and sliding them against the far wall.
'Enough,' he said calmly, tilting his head as he stared at Thaena.
She endured the icy gaze, glancing away once to see that Syrolf was still conscious and trying to rise. Serevan shook his head, sheathing his sword and staring at the floor and walls as if with new eyes. He stumbled briefly, unbalanced, and Thaena nudged the blade of a dropped sword with her boot.
