Darkborn (Shattering of the Nocturnai Book 4) Read online

  “I said, kill her, you incompetent fool!” Avilet screeched.

  The man stepped forward, his knee giving and bending at an unnatural angle. But still he kept coming, forced by Avilet’s words.

  “The rest of you. Attack her!”

  At once, everyone in the clearing moved toward me.

  Rot, Lilik! Run! Tyrak yelled. He filled my body with strength, nudged my gaze toward a gap between the advancing attackers. I couldn’t help but lock eyes with Raav. Profound pain darkened his gaze as he stooped to pick up his short sword.

  The gap was too small. There were too many of them. I wouldn’t make it. Whirling again, I judged the distance between Avilet and me. Four long strides would bring me to her throat, but Daonok crouched between us.

  “Daonok,” I said in a low voice. “I need you to resist. Remember your daughter. Do this for another father who’s waiting for his child to return.”

  The struggle was plain on his face. His cheeks twitched as he fought. From behind, a hand fell on my arm. No time left. I shook free, dashed forward. As I darted around Daonok’s crouched form, I tensed, expecting a blow from his dagger. None came, and I shouldered into Avilet.

  We tumbled into a tangle of snarebrush, the recurve thorns gouging my hip and arm. Avilet’s flesh was hot, burning everywhere it touched mine. She shrieked. Ignoring the pain, I rolled her over, pressed my elbow into her throat, jammed my knee into her gut. Smoke and steam rose from the points of contact.

  “Call them off!” I yelled. Behind me, I heard quick footsteps. Growls. In just moments, blades would slip between my ribs.

  But Avilet just grinned, charred lips pulling back from blackened gums. “And return to Mieshk a failure? Never.”

  Someone grabbed the back of my tunic and yanked me off her. I struck behind me with an elbow. Hit flesh and heard a grunt. But whoever it was didn’t release their grip.

  Yelling, I kicked and slashed with Tyrak. Hit nothing. The needlelike point of an edged weapon pressed against my lower back. I felt the first, sharp pain as the blade entered my flesh.

  Sprawled before me, Avilet laughed.

  Desperate, I threw my mental walls aside and reached into the aether. Only Heiklet and Mavek answered my call. A duskweaving of three.

  Even as I tried to bind our energies, the blade bit deeper, shattering my concentration. The spiritbinding fizzled as I cried out in pain.

  No! Mavek called into my thoughts.

  An instant later, I felt her vanish from existence. At once, the aurora flared, its power strengthening as Mavek’s life force joined the shimmering lights. A burst of energy rattled the area. Above Avilet, a boulder teetered on its perch atop a rock shelf. With a grating sound I felt in my molars, the boulder rolled, tilted, and smashed down atop Avilet as she writhed in the brush.

  The massive stone crushed Avilet’s chest, pinning her so that only her head and shoulders stuck out from beneath her new tombstone. The moment stretched out while her mouth opened then shut. The red glow left her eyes and the cracks in her charred skin. I felt the sensation of her sudden absence as if a bubble had popped. At once, the night air felt cooler. Calmer.

  At once, the hand holding my tunic relaxed, and I collapsed to the ground. Behind me, someone coughed.

  “Mavek failed in life, and again in death,” I whispered. “But in the end, she sacrificed herself for us. That’s how I’ll choose to remember her.”

  A strangled sob came from behind me. Rolling over, I looked up into Raav’s wounded eyes. My blood darkened the tip of his sword.

  “Tides, Lilik. I couldn’t stop.”

  I blinked.

  “I nearly had control twice,” he cried, voice tight. “But the impulse was too strong. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

  His fingers uncurled, and the sword hit the ground. Raav collapsed to his knees, staring in horror at his blade. Another cry escaped his throat.

  It wasn’t his fault. Heiklet hadn’t spoken since the fight began, and her voice in my head shocked me again. None of them could fight her. I’ve watched.

  I started toward Raav before the thought struck me, a cold dagger of apprehension through my chest.

  Heiklet? Is it the same with Mieshk? I asked. As a nightcaller, Avilet had wielded just a fraction of Mieshk’s talent. If Avilet could command Raav to kill me, what hold did Mieshk have on her followers? What horrors could she force my small army to commit? I thought of Mieshk’s sentries, rigid on their watchtowers. Her other followers scrambling from place to place as if the alternative was fire.

  It’s worse, Lilik. For both the nightstrands and the living. I’m sorry. Like you, I can resist. But the other strands… At least Paono made them safe.

  I jerked to a kneeling position. You know where he is?

  Not anymore. At first, I was able to talk to him. But now he’s closed.

  Closed?

  Confusion joined Heiklet’s thought as she responded. I don’t know how to explain, Lilik. I know he’s there, but I can’t reach him.

  Before me, tears streaked Raav’s face. I shuffled across the final distance between us on my knees, the wound on my back pulling and burning with each motion. Yet I felt it knitting back together already—as before, it seemed my injuries would heal unnaturally fast. Once close enough, I wrapped my arms around Raav’s torso.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m okay.”

  “I’ll never forgive myself,” he said.

  I cupped his cheeks in my hand. Laying a gentle kiss on his lips, I tried to soothe him with my eyes. “There’s nothing to forgive. It was compulsion. You had no choice.”

  He swallowed, grimaced, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he spoke. “I needed to be stronger.”

  “Raav… I’m healing already. Look.” I tried to turn to show him, but he was already pulling away.

  “Show me later,” he said. “For now… there are people who need to die.”

  As Raav grabbed his sword and stood, the embodiment of rage, the ambushers who still lived dropped to their knees and raised their hands.

  “Raav, wait!” I called. “They had no more choice than you did.”

  Tkira jumped in front of Raav. “Listen to her. She’s right.”

  Raav trembled, fully in the grip of his anger. Tkira laid a hand on his arm. After a long, tense moment, Raav’s shoulders relaxed.

  Daonok regarded him with a steely expression. “We’ll get revenge. But these are not the ones who deserve the punishment.”

  Raav’s voice was flat when he spoke. “I will personally pull Mieshk’s heart from her chest.”

  I licked my lips. “Let’s bind them and take them to the ships. We can question them there.”

  Face grim, Jet surveyed the clearing. The man Daonok had clubbed on the head was stirring. Three other attackers had fallen.

  “Too late for these two,” Jet said, gesturing at the ambushers who’d had their throats slit.

  The final wounded man, the sailor with the slashed-open belly, struggled feebly. I pressed my lips together. Even with the best healer in the Kiriilt Islands, a wound like that was fatal.

  I shuffled forward and knelt beside him, placing my hand on his forehead. He turned terrified eyes to mine. “You know there’s no healing this, right?” I asked.

  A tear leaked from his eye as he nodded. His lips parted, but he lacked the strength to speak.

  “Listen to me. You’re going to die, but that’s not the end. You may be scared when you enter the aether. But I’ll be here, a voice in your thoughts. Stay close to me, and I’ll keep you safe from Mieshk.”

  He blinked as he nodded, just a tiny twitch of his head.

  “It hurts,” he whispered.

  “I know.”

  “I’m ready. Make the pain stop. Please.”

  I swallowed. Tyrak’s blade whispered against the leather sheath as I pulled him free. The man’s eyes had gone distant with the pain, and he thrashed weakly before me. Clenching my jaw, I laid Tyrak against his throat an
d screwed my eyes shut.

  A hand landed on my shoulder. “I sailed with this man,” Tkira said. “It should be me that does it.”

  Ashamed at the relief that flooded me, I scooted back.

  Knees cracking when she crouched, Tkira pulled her blade across the man’s throat. “Proud to have shared the sea with you,” she said as his blood spurted. Within moments, he relaxed, his pain finally gone.

  Immediately, I threw aside my walls. I gasped. The spirits of the three dead men dove toward me, begging and gibbering.

  Just fight it! Heiklet called through the aether. Mieshk wants to feed you to the fire. You can resist this!

  Through the vastness of the aether, I heard a cruel laugh. A wave of arrogant conceit washed my thoughts. Avilet. Her spirit was still here.

  Just look at them cowering around their would-be gutterborn savior, she snarled.

  Around me, the new nightstrands shrieked.

  Avilet’s trying to force them to Mieshk. It’s tearing them in two, Heiklet yelled.

  I could feel it, the sense that their souls were being shredded. Like Nyralit had, Avilet retained her power of compulsion even in death. The pain of the strands’ rending echoed through my spirit, reminding me of the tearing and clawing of the Ulstat nightstrands on Araok Island.

  Resist her! I cried. But it was no use. Between Mieshk’s pull and Avilet’s compulsion, they were being torn from me.

  Desperate, I fell deeper into the aether, spreading my awareness wide and allowing my perception of the physical to fade.

  Lilik, Heiklet gasped. I feel something different. It’s like you Need me.

  I nodded, focusing on the sensation of binding the souls to me. More than before, I felt the individual nightstrands stretch and meld with tendrils of my spirit.

  No! I refuse! Avilet shrieked. She tore herself from my grasp, and I unfurled, spreading wider to catch her in my net. I snared the edges of her nightstrand, gently tugged it into my duskweaving.

  Avilet chose fire, sacrificing herself to its power. My vision doubled as I struggled to perceive the physical as well as the sea of possibility that rippled around me in response to the duskweaving. With a detonation that boomed in my chest, the boulder atop Avilet’s corpse cracked in two. A pillar of flame spouted through the gap, briefly rivaling Ioene’s glow. The wave of heat fell over my face as the tangle of brush surrounding Avilet’s body burst into crackling flame.

  As quickly as the fountain of flame had come, it vanished. Avilet’s body was gone save for a few, smoldering shards of bone.

  I shook my head. Nothing to be done about it. Instead, I refocused on the spiritbinding. As the scene before me faded, I felt fortune begin a slow revolution around me. Only four strands had joined my weaving. My Need might be strong, but my spell would be weak. It didn’t matter; I’d only hoped to shield the souls from Mieshk’s pull.

  There’s a path, Heiklet said. Do you see it?

  I did. Amongst the slow march of possible futures, a single passage beckoned me. A solid path through myriad uncertainties. Nodding, I chose to follow my Need.

  My awareness returned to my body. I glanced around. Nothing noticeable had changed. I still crouched near the body of the sailor who’d died by Tkira’s final act of mercy. My friends clustered nearby, staring at the site of Avilet’s final choice. Heat from the smoldering brush washed gently over us.

  Raav stepped up behind me, his hand hovering near my shoulder as if he were afraid to touch me. Reaching up, I grabbed his hand and squeezed. But I still didn’t understand what spell my duskweaving had worked. I extended a thread of perception into the aether and felt the souls of the dead men lingering near. My binding still held them close; I could sense the structure of the weave. Was the spiritbinding unfinished?

  “I knew these men,” Tkira said finally. “Knew their families. I’d like to be able to tell their loved ones that they were buried in proper ceremonies.”

  Jet cleared his throat, still glancing sidelong at the cracked boulder. “We’ll bring the bodies and captives back to the ships.”

  Daonok had pulled a length of silken cord from his rucksack and was busy binding wrists. “I assume we’ll want them locked in the brig,” he said.

  Finally, I stood. Breathing deep of the night air, I felt a faint change in the tingle coming from my scars. At first, I thought it was the continued effects of maintaining the duskweaving. The force surrounding me tugged ever so gently at my scars, itching rather than hurting as it did when I bound thousands of strands. But as I took a step toward the edge of the clearing, the sensation strengthened.

  Heiklet? Do you sense it?

  It’s your Need, Lilik. You must follow.

  Follow. As in go where the force urged? I took another tentative step forward, and the pressure against my scars seemed to tremble in confirmation.

  Tyrak? I asked. Advice?

  He threaded confidence into my thoughts. You must trust it. We have few advantages here, and this may be your only chance.

  I turned to Daonok. “Yes. Put them in the brig, but treat them kindly. And have them help you carry the bodies back. We’ll decide what to do with our captives when I return.”

  “Wait,” Raav said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not sure. But I know I must continue on.”

  “Not alone, you shouldn’t,” Daonok said with a glare.

  I ran my gaze over my friends’ faces. Given Mieshk’s ability to turn them against me, I would be safest alone.

  Stepping over to Raav, I slid my hand into his. He was hurting, drowning in guilt. I hated to abandon him, but the longer I stood here, the more urgent the pull of my duskweaving felt.

  “I have to go. I’ll be safe. I promise.”

  Raav’s gaze fell away from me. The sadness on his face broke my heart.

  “But—” Daonok began.

  I cut him off with a sharp look. “My decision stands. See you in a few hours.”

  Chapter Nine

  I TREKKED THROUGH the jumbled interior of the island, stumbling across scree slopes and shoving through thorn bushes. At every point where the ancient path intersected another, I stopped and closed my eyes. As if urged by thousands of gentle fingers, I felt my Need choosing the turns. The route wound deeper inland and higher up Ioene’s slopes. After maybe two or three hours, I realized I’d never make it back to the ships by moonset. Imagining Daonok’s disapproving glare and Raav’s anxious pacing, I forced my legs to march faster.

  The wound on my back ached at first, but it soon stopped. Occasionally, I arched my back and craned my neck to examine it. Like the cuts and scrapes I’d received on my first trip to Ioene, the gash had closed already, leaving a shimmering scar.

  Aurora-blessed. Is that what Mavek had called it?

  Can you hear me? I asked into the aether, directing my thought at the strands I’d woven to my spirit.

  What’s happened to us? one asked. Though I had no image of him, just a voice and the bewildered emotion that accompanied it, I got the strong sense I knew who spoke. I had a vague recollection of the man from our voyage on the Nocturnai. Small and quick, he had often been the crewman sent aloft to contend with snarled rigging.

  I tried to express this faint sense of familiarity as I sent my next thought. You were killed after ambushing us.

  I remember, he said. We didn’t want… We couldn’t help what we did.

  I know. It was Avilet. And I’m sorry for what happened to you. You’re in the aether now, and I’ve bound your energy to mine.

  I’m following because you Need me. I feel it.

  A long-dead tongue of lava had flowed over the trail ahead, leaving twisted stone that reminded me of the corded muscles in a sailor’s arms. When I reached the edge, I held my hand close to make sure the flow had cooled. The rock felt like rope beneath my hand, knotted and smoothed by the time. As I paused, my Need tugged more insistently.

  “Straight over it is,” I muttered. My stomach was rumbling, but the urgin
g of my Need was stronger than my appetite.

  You almost went to Mieshk before I bound you, right? I asked.

  I remember you, Nightcaller Boket. You’re young, and may not have felt the sorts of temptations that tear at a man. But that’s how it felt. It hurt to try to remain with you.

  When I release the duskweaving, the temptation will likely return. You have to be strong.

  He didn’t respond at first, and when he did, uncertainty colored his thoughts. If I’d been strong, I never would have followed that Ulstat. The things she did to us… Revulsion followed his thought.

  I grimaced, glad that he didn’t seem eager to share the details. After scrambling across the frozen lava flow, I descended to the trail again. The path was wider here, and the flagstones more closely set. Finally, after a last turn, the path dead ended at a dark opening in the side of a cliff.

  As I drew near, the urging of my Need abruptly quit. I nearly stumbled in its sudden absence.

  I eyed the yawning cavern warily. Too bad I hadn’t bothered to bring a torch. As I edged closer, wailing filled my thoughts.

  Mieshk has them again! Heiklet cried.

  I staggered, reaching desperately for the duskweaving. I hadn’t realized it had dissipated when my Need had been abruptly fulfilled. Feeling nothing, I threw my walls completely aside and grasped for the souls, but the nightstrands felt like eels, oily and slipping away. I couldn’t get a solid grip on them.

  Help! one yelled. I can’t resist her!

  I leaped again, a desperate grab, but caught nothing. The strands were gone. Choose calm! I yelled through the aether. Go to the aurora!

  I can’t—I’m sorry! came a distant cry, while another of the strands’ screams ended in inarticulate garble.

  But one of them heeded me. A wave of tranquility washed me as a single soul chose dissolution into the aurora over Mieshk’s command. But the other two were gone, in thrall to Mieshk once again. Shoulders hunched, I waited for the growl of the volcano when Mieshk sacrificed the souls to strengthen its fire. But nothing came.