The Legend of Oescienne--The Reckoning (Book Five) Read online

  Someone was calling his name, a voice that was familiar.

  “Jaax! Stop! You can’t break those chains!”

  He ignored it, let the din of the battle, now pouring into the city below as the Tyrant’s troops were pushed back by the allied forces of Ethoes. He had to break free. He had to help. He had to save Jahrra.

  A figure jumped in front of him, waving his arms. Jaax snarled, expecting an enemy, and readied a bout of fire. It would burn him since most of it would remain trapped between his teeth, but he no longer cared. He had to do something.

  “Jaax, don’t!” Ellyesce cried, leaping back as Jaax tried to lunge. “You’ll wear yourself down!”

  Only the knowledge that Ellyesce was a friend stilled his frenzied struggling, but then a flash of brilliant red hair filled the corner of his vision. Jaax immediately thought of Shiroxx, and his rage rose again. That evil woman. She had traded her soul to become human again. And for what? She now lay among the dead. He had seen that red gown beneath a pile of fallen soldiers, soldiers who had been stopped with the breath of a Creecemind dragon. But it wasn’t Shiroxx at all. The Mystic Archedenaeh, coming to stand beside Ellyesce, in an attempt to placate a Tanaan dragon.

  Jaax rumbled deep in his throat and jerked his head to the side, trying to loosen the torturous collar snapped around his neck.

  Denaeh held up her palms, grime and blood staining her arms, and gave him a solemn look.

  “Jaax, Jahrra has to do this on her own. You cannot help her now. Stand down. You have brought her this far. You have done your part.”

  Jaax’s eyes turned fierce, unwilling to listen to the woman’s words. Mystic she may be, but Jahrra was so much more than a pawn in this game. So very much more. Letting her face their greatest enemy alone grated at his heart, his very soul.

  No. He couldn’t say the words, but he was certain Denaeh knew his answer. No.

  The Mystic frowned, and let her arms fall to her sides. “Help him, Ellyesce. I’m almost entirely drained of magic, so I’ll watch your back.”

  She turned and faced the melee before them, waiting to see if anyone dared challenge the Magehn as he tried to free their friend. Most of the soldiers had fled upon seeing Ciarrohn rise like a cloud of death, but some of his most loyal servants had stayed, defending their god king until the end.

  Jaax watched as well, eyes sharp. One of the Tyrant’s soldiers darted across the stone terrace, a spear clutched in his hand. He ran toward Jaax, but before he could get close enough to be considered a threat, an arrow took him down. Where it had come from, Jaax had no idea, but he was grateful, nonetheless. The spear clattered to the ground, and the Tanaan dragon would have paid it no attention except for Denaeh’s reaction. She went utterly still, then, like a ghost from the realm of the dead, she stepped forward and lifted the weapon in both hands. She turned her face towards the roiling cloud of black smoke, the turbulent air blowing her hair back over her shoulders. Something twisted deep in his gut at the look on her face. Denaeh’s vision … Had it changed? Was an important piece of it unfolding? Jaax renewed his struggling as Ellyesce cursed.

  “Hold still, Jaax! Curse you!” he snarled, moving to hold his hands over one of the ropes of metal keeping the dragon’s front feet secured to the ground.

  Bright magic bloomed between the Magehn’s fingers, brilliant blue and white. The elf gritted his teeth and sent it in a straight line towards the thick link.

  “Give me a minute, and this should melt through the iron,” he panted, the effort to channel that much magic clearly draining his strength.

  Jaax tried to remain still, but Denaeh had started moving toward the whirling column of darkness, spear in hand. What did she mean to do? What had she seen? Jahrra was lost within that evil place, and he could do nothing about it. His heart thrummed in his chest as he thought over and over again, I am the one who is supposed to die, not her, not her, not her …

  * * *

  Jahrra was trapped in another realm, between life and death, perhaps. Memories of her past danced and swirled, mingling, blending, tearing apart again, like sand paintings swept up against the interior of a churning funnel cloud before disappearing altogether. Memories from her childhood, both good and bad: Her Nida and Pada, working together in their small cottage, visiting Hroombra for lessons and stories, meeting Gieaun and Scede for the first time, enduring Eydeth’s and Ellysian’s torment at school, feeding Phrym crisp apples in the fall … Was she dead, then? Had her life been snuffed out the moment Ciarrohn’s evil taint washed over her?

  Pressing against the icy stone floor, Jahrra rose to her feet, gasping at the pain coursing through her body. Perhaps she wasn’t dead, after all. She lifted her head, blinking away tears, and found herself surrounded by swirling darkness. Fear pierced her heart. Where was she? She had been swallowed by the blackness, but was she still on the castle roof? She could not hear the battle, couldn’t smell the metallic taint of blood in the air. And, her sword was gone as well.

  She spun around, careful not to move too quickly, and her eyes fell upon a figure slumped against a basalt throne some fifty yards in front of her. Somehow, a splinter of light had worked its way through the impenetrable midnight to land upon the man. His face was unnaturally pale, the dark hair falling around his shoulders in a mess of tangles. The fine, royal robes he wore looked loose on his sickly frame. Jahrra sucked in a breath. Cierryon.

  She limped forward, propelled by some instinct she couldn’t name. She had to reach him, had to finally get that answer to her question: How do I defeat Ciarrohn? Cierryon did not stir as she climbed the stairs leading up to his dais. Dark circles pooled beneath his eyes, and a trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. He looked dead, and Jahrra would have thought as much, if not for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Behind him, a thin tendril of inky darkness swirled and spun upward, a thread of power connecting Ciarrohn’s essence to his.

  Before Jahrra could contemplate it much further, Cierryon drew in a rattling breath and turned his head, both eyes cracking open ever so slightly. A tear fell from one, tracking down his cheek and washing away some of the blood caked there. Carefully, so carefully, he lifted up one arm, as if doing so drew on every ounce of strength left in his body.

  “J-Jahrra,” he rasped. “Please.”

  Jahrra froze for a moment, but then, acting on pure instinct, offered her own hand. She grasped his wrist, wrapping her fingers around the base of his forearm, and he did the same. Instantly, she was flooded with memories. His memories this time. She drew in a breath, gasping hard as Cierryon’s emotions, her emotions, pummeled her. Sorrow, pain, anger, regret … Glimpses of a distant childhood fluttered freely now within the hollow space of Ciarrohn’s power. Punishment for disobeying a cruel father, lessons to squeeze the kindness from his heart, Cierryon’s first experience in battle, the gradual drain of empathy from his soul … The memories, and the emotions that came with them, churned within her, and Jahrra felt the heavy weight press down upon her.

  And then, as the recollections grew worse, more violent, more cruel, that tendril of power, that last thread of Ciarrohn clinging to his host, reached out towards her. A frisson of horror coursed through her as she realized the god of evil and death was trying to leash himself to her soul as well. Gritting her teeth, Jahrra willed the horrible memories to cease. Sweat broke out on her brow as she fought against the pain and anguish. She would not succumb to Ciarrohn. She would rather die than become his next anchor to this world. So, as she willed her soul to break free of the evil god’s grasp, she focused on remembering the good from her life. She pushed away the sorrow and the pain and instead envisioned her foster parents in the little cottage where they lived. Nida … Pada … Wasting away with the fever that claimed their lives. No. Her first taste of death and loss. And in this strange realm, the bitterness tasted as fresh as if they had died yesterday. No! Jahrra fought the darkness, her breath growing ragged, but then the scene began to change, fading but shifting to s
omething she created. Nida in the kitchen, making bread and humming a cheerful tune as Jahrra helped fix dinner … Pada in the orchard, Jahrra up one of the apple trees plucking ripe fruit to drop down to him … Listening to Solsticetide tales recited by her father as her mother sat and knitted before the fire.

  Tears streamed down Jahrra’s cheeks, but she smiled, the overwhelming ache in her heart shifting, transforming into something else. A distant screech of frustration scraped against her ears, but in this strange place, it registered as nothing more than a faint wisp of sound.

  The scene shifted, and Hroombra’s face emerged. Jahrra knew what would happen next. Ciarrohn would dig deep to find the memory that caused the most pain, but she had figured out his game. Jahrra pushed against his power once again, the memories of Hroombra only happy ones. Learning Kruelt by the fireplace, camping in the Longuinn Valley with Gieaun and Scede, their visit to the Castle Ruin.

  The tears continued to flow down Jahrra’s cheeks, her fingers still tightly wrapped around Cierryon’s arm. If she could, she would share these happy thoughts with him, this mortal man who had been cursed with the burden of his father’s greed. His body, or maybe it was his spirit, drifted across from her. Pain, regret, terror, and anger still flowed from him, just as they had in those few instances where the man, and not the god, was allowed to surface.

  Then, she remembered, the idea, the truth, blossoming in her mind like a rose in spring. And, in that instant, she knew, without a doubt, what must be done. Ciarrohn, this god, this demon who fed on pain and sorrow and death, could not be defeated in the same way. To hate him and wish to destroy him through violence and rage would only feed his power. And no wonder the Tanaan king and later, his son, had failed. They had gone after Cierryon and Ciarrohn with anger and vengeance in their hearts. Jahrra couldn’t blame them, but it had only fueled the god’s malice.

  Jahrra drew back from her racing thoughts and looked Cierryon in the eye. Maybe it was because she finally, truly understood, or maybe it was the strange power of this other place, but for the first time she did not see the presence of the evil god in his eyes, could not detect his wrath. In this place, in this moment, as the god of hatred tried to add her soul to his collection, Cierryon was who he should have been before his father poisoned him with his curse.

  Cierryon’s lips formed a word, the same word he had spoken before, but no sound accompanied it. That didn’t matter. Jahrra understood. He hadn’t been asking her to take his hand, he had been asking her to free his soul.

  Please.

  Before Jahrra could so much as draw breath to answer, the muffling whirlwind of memories threw them both back into their bodies. Jahrra sucked in a sharp gasp of shock, the pain of her injuries screeching in her mind. With considerable effort, she lifted her head to find Cierryon, slumped in his throne, his fingers wrapped tight around the ends of the stone arm rests. Jahrra glanced down to find she was now partially sprawled against the black steps leading up to the dais, mere feet from the Crimson King. And the black, swirling cloud of Ciarrohn that had blotted out the world had lifted.

  Jahrra tilted head back to find the visage of the demon god rising high above the mountains, his wide arms stretching across the sky, his almost corporeal horns piercing the rainclouds above. All around her, the clash and roar of the battle flooded back in, overwhelming her senses. Jahrra blinked back sweat, tears, and what might have been blood as she turned her attention back to the Crimson King. That look was still in his eyes, that same pleading expression of despair and something else: the tiniest glimmer of hope.

  Jahrra pushed forth, crawling up those steps because she had lost the strength to walk. She made sure to keep eye contact with Cierryon, to let him know she wasn’t about to give up. He still appeared lucid, still looked mortal. Even though they were both back in their own bodies, she could tell Ciarrohn had released his hold of the man, and Jahrra knew, without a doubt, Cierryon would not be free for long.

  The god’s overwhelming presence churned around them, but Jahrra blocked it from her mind. Instead, she sent up a silent prayer to Ethoes: You can do this, Jahrra. This is the most important thing you will ever do in your entire life. If it is your fate to die here tonight, so be it. But for the gods’ sake, you must not die before you finish this.

  Only a few more steps, just a few more. Almost close enough for Cierryon to read her expression, to understand what she so desperately needed to tell him. Close, so close. And then, it would all be over.

  * * *

  Denaeh’s magic was waning, her power drained so severely her fingertips had gone numb, but she could still feel the rough wood of the spear in her hands. She recalled picking it up, but had been so overcome by the sudden rush of images from her vision, the acknowledgment that everything was clicking into place, that she had lost track of time. She blinked back up towards the cloud of Ciarrohn, only to suck in a breath of surprise. The dark column of mist and wind no longer surrounded the throne, but rose far above the battlefield and the mountains themselves, the hideous facade of the evil god mingling with the storm clouds above. But now Denaeh could clearly see the Tyrant’s throne before her, and something was happening at the foot of the dais.

  “Jahrra!” Denaeh breathed.

  The young woman lay sprawled at the foot of the steps, her arms struggling to drag her body up towards the throne. Her face was pale, strands of her blond hair plastered to her cheeks. Blood streamed down her neck, from a head wound, Denaeh guessed, and her eyes were locked with Cierryon’s.

  The Mystic’s heart sank as she cast her eyes upon her son. He was looking at Jahrra, and for the first time in over five hundred years, he resembled the boy he’d been before his father corrupted his soul.

  “Cierryon!” Denaeh cried out, instinct driving her forward.

  “Denaeh, no!”

  Ellyesce’s arm whipped out, preternaturally fast, and his fingers formed a steely cuff around her wrist. He had managed to get one of the chains restraining Jaax free, but her attempt to leave his side had distracted him.

  “Ellyesce, he is my son!” she cried.

  “And, you know what you must do,” he replied, tone grim.

  Denaeh turned to find pale green eyes full of sorrow and apology studying her face. She drew in a deep breath and steeled herself.

  “I know,” she muttered. “But, you must let me go so I can be where I need to be when the time comes.”

  He searched her face one last time, nodded, a frown tugging at his features, then pulled her flush against him. They were both filthy, bloody, and weary beyond measure, but whatever magic and strength Ellyesce had left, he poured into the kiss he now pressed to the Mystic’s lips. Their breathing was ragged when he finally broke away, but he kept his forehead pressed to hers.

  “Do what you must, my love. Then, you come back to me, do you understand? You come back to me. We have suffered for far too long to be denied a bit of happiness now.”

  Despite her tumultuous emotions, and the bone-rattling fear of what awaited her, Denaeh mustered a laugh. She ran her hands up Ellyesce’s chest, her palms coming to rest on either side of his face.

  “Daring Ethoes to grant you a fate other than your own choosing? You play a dangerous game, Magehn of Dhonoara.”

  Ellyesce copied her movements, his fingers tilting her head back so their eyes met.

  “And, a chance at spending the rest of my immortal life with you, beloved, is worth the risk.”

  Tears spilled down Denaeh’s cheeks, and he wiped them away. With one more gentle kiss, he breathed, “Go, and know that I will wait for you, either in this life or the next.”

  She nodded fiercely, bolstered by his declaration, accepting whatever fate Ethoes did wish to grant them from this moment on. She had found him again, after believing him dead for these past centuries, and she had been blessed enough to earn the love she had once taken for granted. She would never turn her back on that gift again.

  “I love you, Ellyesce.”

&nb
sp; And then, Denaeh slipped free of his hold, stepping out into the melee of death and violence and sorrow. With a strange calmness, she made her way to the king’s throne as Ellyesce turned back to help Jaax.

  Denaeh so badly wished to drop the spear, to fling it from her as if it were a venomous snake intent on biting her. All she wanted to do was run to that throne and take her broken son in her arms and comfort him. But that was not the role she was meant to play. She promised to do her part, and she must, as difficult as it would be. With fresh tears spilling anew down her face, the Mystic Archedenaeh strode towards the Crimson King’s throne, intent on killing her son.

  * * *

  Jahrra was mere feet away from Cierryon now, and the throbbing from her various wounds, and the agony lingering in the very core of her being, had her drawing breath as if her lungs were half filled with water. This was too difficult. She could not go any farther. With a final bout of strength, she collapsed at the Crimson King’s feet, exhausted, both mentally and physically. The memories from before, the terrible ones Ciarrohn wanted her to remember, wanted her to see so that he might stir her anger and sorrow, the memories that would open her soul to his taking, were too heavy.

  Don’t let him win, Jahrra! she screamed to herself as her head ached to the point of splitting. You are stronger than him! You are stronger than hatred, more powerful than despair! You, the human girl raised by dragons, trained by elves, loved by parents who took you in as their own. Do not let the darkness of this world steal the light of your own making. Fight. Fight. FIGHT!

  With a cry of anguish and determination, Jahrra lifted her head and caught Cierryon’s eyes with her own. He still looked down at her, his lids barely cracked against the weight of his own struggle, the demon clouding his soul still absent. The god Ciarrohn was too busy gathering his vast power, power he had accumulated over the past five hundred years so he could defeat the good people of Ethoes once and for all. Too busy preparing for the final blow that would wipe them all from the face of the world, but also too arrogant, too sure of himself, to notice the broken, but not defeated, human crawling to the foot of his throne.