A sickening crunch.
Pain shoots up my ankle, a white-hot line that shocks the breath from my lungs. I fall, limbs folded under me, and land in a heap on the gravel path below the window. Curses leap to my tongue but cannot get past my grinding teeth. Sucking in a determined breath, I brace my arms, push myself upright. Somehow, I get to my feet, but when I put weight on my left foot, pain spikes again, and I crumple.
Somewhere, far off, Hael is shouting. I cannot make myself hear her. All my concentration is on rising again, hobbling forward three agonized paces into the garden. The circle of tall stones feels like a whole world away to my pain-sparked gaze. I must reach it. Somehow.
Heavy breathing. A low, guttural growl.
I spin to my right. A cave devil approaches. It creeps along with its belly close to the ground between clusters of crystals. Just as I spot it, it seems to become aware of me. Its nostrils flare, and its tongue tastes the air in little flicks. Then it crouches. Powerful muscles bunch, prepare for a single, deadly spring.
I have one moment in which to act. I can either try to flee on my damaged ankle, be knocked flat before I’ve taken two steps, have my spine snapped by those powerful jaws, or . . .
I drop to the ground. Plant my palm.
Even from a distance, the deep resonance of the Urzulhar stones vibrates beneath me. It calls to all other urzul crystals in the vicinity, great and small, draws their voices into a profound harmony. The vibration wraps around me, a small maelstrom lashing at my soul. I take hold of that power, that energy. Raising my other hand, I point at the cave devil. Just as it begins its leap, I send the resonance rippling out.
It catches the monster in midair. The beast drops to the ground in front of me, its mouth open, its hideous claws tensing and relaxing. It breathes out a long gurgle as its purple tongue spills over the cage of its teeth.
So we remain—me in a crouch, one hand to the ground, the other extended—the beast before me, held in stasis. Even its mind, so full of savage bloodlust, stills. But underneath that stillness . . . trapped beneath the resonance of the stones . . .
Something rages.
Something dark.
Something terrible.
Something . . . other.
Who are you? I whisper.
The darkness within the monster roils, thick and black as smoke. I struggle to peer into it, to discern the truth, to see—
A flash of bright red light. I cry out, fall backwards. My limbs scrabble in the dirt and gravel. When my vision clears, Hael is there. She stands over the cave devil’s decapitated body, sword in hand. Her face is blood-streaked, her eyes wide and pale beneath her stern brow as she lifts her gaze to me.
“It should have killed you. It had you.” She shakes her head slowly, her expression mingled wonder and fear. “What did you do?”
There’s no time to explain. I pull myself up. My limbs shake, my bad ankle throbs, and pain explodes in little lightning bursts inside my head. But I draw my shoulders back, meet and hold Hael’s gaze. “Take me to the Urzulhar Circle.” Her lips part. I feel her urge to protest, to demand answers. “Do as I say, Captain.”
Hael clamps her jaw shut. The next moment, I’m in her strong arms again. She races through the garden, her breath hard and fast. At this close proximity her fear is almost blinding. My head whirls with nausea, and I fight to suppress the bile rising in my throat. I’ve got to hold on. I’ve got to be strong. Because if I could hold one cave devil then maybe . . . maybe . . .
There are devils all around us now. Long, low, loping bodies, darting through the crystals and rock formations. Mothcats screech as they flee, but their fear is nothing compared to the cloud of terror that rises from the city and throbs through my soul. I cannot take much more of this. I grip my pendant hard, praying all the desperate prayers I can utter through pain-clenched teeth.
Hael has just left the path and begun the final climb up the rise when she stops. A single word snarls from her lips: “Juk!”
I lift my head from her shoulder, peer up the rise. Three devils stalk toward us, one from directly above, two more from either side. It’s like they knew we were coming, like they knew my mad, foolish plan. Or like someone else knew and sent them on purpose to intercept us.
Hael sets me on my feet. I stagger, stumble, only just manage to keep from collapsing yet again. “Courage,” she says, but more to herself than to me. Her fear is like knives, slicing at my awareness. But she draws her sword again, braces herself in front of me.
The first devil launches at us. Hael roars a wordless battle cry. Her blade flashes in the crystal light as it carves a terrible arc. It strikes the devil a ringing blow, cuts a deep gash into its gray, sagging flesh.
The second devil leaps before Hael has a chance to recover her balance. She drops her weapon, turns, catches the beast as it comes. With a powerful lunge, she hurls it over her head directly into the third beast. They crash in a tangle of limbs, but are up again a moment later, spitting foam from their sagging jaws.
“Go!” Hael casts me a short glance over her shoulder. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
I don’t have any choice. I race up the steep rise. Pain explodes in my ankle every time I put weight on it, but now survival instinct bursts in my veins, driving me harder, faster. I cannot move swiftly enough. All I can do is keep going as long as I have breath. When I can no longer run, I crawl upwards, pull myself along on my hands and knees, drag my bad leg behind me. Hael’s vicious roars echo in my ears while the fear of the city reverberates in my head.
But the gods are with me. For the moment at least. I reach the summit, am within just a few paces of the crystal grove. I’m sobbing now. Tears stream down my face even as a gleam of hope lights my heart, breaks across my face in a smile. I surge forward, ignoring all other pains, and scrabble into the shelter of the crystals.
Teeth clamp down on my dragging foot.
I scream, shocked at this new burst of pain, and writhe around. A devil holds me fast. It bleeds from multiple wounds dealt by Hael’s sword, but madness has driven it into a frenzy. It shakes its head, dragging me across the ground. My hands desperately grasp the crystals, call on their resonance to aid me. There’s too much pain, too much fear, too much, too much, too—
A bolt of brilliant color streaks across my vision. The next moment, a mothcat lands on the cave devil’s back. Tiny claws scrape and gouge, and the devil, startled, throws back its head and bellows.
My foot falls free. Bloody, mangled. Frantically, I twist around and crawl on my belly into the circle of stones. They pulse gently, their deep inner song a low thrum underneath the cacophony of pain and terror in my head. Sobbing, tears and mucus dripping from my face, I peel the heavy black gown from my body so that I may lie naked.
A cool wash of the crystal song bathes my soul.
Slowly, slowly, the darkness of all those feelings—Hael, the devils, the denizens of the city—flows out from me. Flows into the mighty crystals. They draw it all to their centers, and they’re big enough, strong enough to hold it.
I close my eyes, wishing I dared simply lie here and let that resonance bathe me, heal me, make me new. But I can’t. I’m not here to save myself.
Pulling to my knees, I plant my palms hard in front of me. My long hair falls across my bare skin, framing my face like a veil as I close my eyes, close my ears, close off every sense but my gods-gift. Down into the resonance I plunge. Down into the deep, pulsing song of those ancient stones. Each note of that song is a thread of light—so many lights, so many individual notes, indescribably complex and beautiful.
But there are dark threads too. All those shuddering, shivering, poisoned souls. The devils. Each one unique, a life bound in torment. There are so many of them. Far more than I realized. Hundreds, thousands maybe. All those bloodthirsty fiends, savaging the city. Suffering and bringing suffering. Can I reach them? I don’t know.
But I have to try.
I stretch out my awareness. Even as my body crouches there, naked, surrounded by the great blue stones, I extend my spirit, my soul. Gathering up one black thread, then another, then another, on and on and on. Each one I grasp sends a new jolt of pain through my spirit. I won’t let them go. I catch them, first in ones and twos, then in handfuls, more and more, a hundred at a time, until at last I hold them all. Hold their pain, their anger. Hold their fear, their rage. Hold them with my soul, supported by the resonance of the Urzulhar.
Something stirs. Deep down, beneath the madness of the devils. Something dark. Something vast. I recognize it. I’ve felt this presence before. The source of the despair that so consumes these monsters, which so nearly consumed Vor.
It begins to move. To writhe and resist. The threads in my hand tense. I won’t be able to hold them much longer. I must do something with them before they’re ripped from my grasp. But what? Can I push this darkness from the devils’ minds the way I pushed it from Vor’s? That instance had nearly killed me. And he was only one man, one tormented soul. I can’t possibly manage so many souls at once! I can’t, I can’t, I simply . . .
Must.
Will.
My jaw firms, teeth gritting hard. Sweat drips from my forehead, spatters on the stones under my bowed head.
I will save Mythanar.
I will save Hael, my brave defender.
I will save the refugee children playing among the priestesses’ huts.
I will save Trill and the market vendors. The minstrels, the dancers.
I will save these people. I will save their city.
For you, Vor.
For you.
I summon all my strength, more than I knew I possessed. All the feeling in my heart, built up over so many years of hiding and protecting myself. It all had to go somewhere. I pull it forth now, let it roil to the surface, mounting pressure, like a dam ready to burst. My body shakes. The song of the crystals booms in my head, pulses through my veins.
Then I send it out—all that rolling reverberation. I pour myself in a long stream of life and soul, down to the last drop. The threads I have gathered vibrate and sing as my gods-gift flows along them and touches the minds of each and every mad beast.
My body spasms. The tall crystals above me flicker, go dim for a moment. Then they flare brighter than ever, a blaze of clear blue light, like a star fallen into this world under stone. Their light, their song burns me from the inside out. But I don’t stop. Not even when a ragged cry tears from my throat. Not even when I feel my soul being slowly ripped in half.
The whole of Mythanar cavern fills with light, brighter and brighter. The stones sing out their triumphant song, and every crystal answers back, from the largest, most complex formations to the tiniest granules of grit. Their voices fill the world, down to the fiery river below the chasm, up to the highest stalactites of the cavern ceiling. All the shadows, all the darkness of the Under Realm, are put to flight.
The last of my strength flows out from me. I have so little left. Just enough to cling to strands of life. Did I give enough? I cannot know. What if what I gave was only almost what was needed? What if, by holding on to life, I doom them all?
I can’t hold on. I must give it all.
Vor’s face appears in my mind, behind my tightly-squeezed eyelids. I wish I’d had a chance to tell him the truth. To tell him I love him. To tell him that nothing else that had happened between us matters. Only my love. The love I chose. The love I will go on choosing. Forever.
I draw a deep breath into my lungs.
Then, with a final, shattering scream, I give the last of my strength over to the song. A burst of light explodes within my head and then . . .
. . . oblivion.
