Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

The nightmare continued to thrash for several minutes more, but gradually, his struggles grew weaker, until he looked more irritated than savage. After a while, the beast just stood still, snorting his foul breath on the air, as if unsure of how to react to the necklace, whether to regard it as a threat or a trick. One thing the nightmare hadn’t done was scream, but Ashok didn’t know whether that meant the beast couldn’t or whether he knew on some level that that power wouldn’t work anymore.

Ashok still danced on the edge of unconsciousness, but he managed to sit up and pull his chain close. He needed to have enough focus to teleport if the beast came after him again.

But the battle appeared to be over. The nightmare regarded Ashok warily but didn’t try to attack. His fire burned purplish blue against the roots of his mane. Ashok wondered if the necklace also suppressed his flames. He doubted it. The fire was part of the beast. That was why the flames couldn’t harm the nightmare’s flesh-they came from within.

Ashok looked down at the blistered flesh of his dead arm, the puncture wounds from the necklace, and wondered what his victory would be worth, in the end. He gazed at the nightmare and saw-Ashok told himself he must be imagining it-the wicked pleasure in the beast’s eyes. Ashok read the expression plainly. You may have bound me , it said, but now we’re brothers again .

Ashok didn’t need the beast’s aura to be afraid.

The beast let Ashok approach and climb onto his back. Gripping fistfuls of mane, Ashok fell forward against the nightmare’s neck, careful not to dislodge the bone spurs. His broken arm throbbed, and the burns caused waves of nausea to roll over him. He needed to stay conscious. The nightmare would not hesitate to dump him off if he lost his grip.

Despite the pain, the ride back to the portal was another world. The nightmare ran full out, as if he could outrun the collar around his neck. The gray shadows of the plain passed before Ashok’s eyes like smoke.

He brought the nightmare back into Ikemmu. Neimal and a cleric from Makthar waited for him at the gate.

“I thought you might need a prayer or two,” the witch said. She looked him over. “Any longer and you would have needed a resurrection.”

Ashok let the cleric lay hands on him. The pain slowly faded away, and when the cleric was finished, Ashok flexed his mended arm. “My thanks,” he said.

“Thank Tempus,” the cleric said.

“Of course.” Hours ago, Ashok declared to himself he didn’t need Tempus. He was a hypocrite after all.

He heard Neimal chanting. He looked up to see the witch make a gesture in the air around the nightmare. A breath passed in which Ashok’s vision blurred. He blinked, and the nightmare was gone. In his place stood a tall brown stallion, thick-bodied with tan fetlocks. The only evidence of his true nature was in the black roots of his mane.

Ashok stood next to the beast and ran his hands along his brown flank. He felt nothing of the aura of fear that he usually experienced in the nightmare’s presence, but his appearance was by far the most disturbing change.

“He looks almost pure,” Ashok murmured.

Neimal shrugged. “Humans and dumb beasts often see what they expect to see and nothing more,” she said. “But you will never forget what this creature can do, will you Ashok?”

He wouldn’t forget. Ashok knew the beast at least as well as he knew himself.

Ilvani awoke in her chamber. She’d dreamed of a brown horse. Something about it frightened her, but she didn’t know what. She rolled over and tried to sleep again, but the room was hot, and her linen shirt stuck uncomfortably to her skin. Giving up, she got out of bed and walked barefoot to the ladder that rested against her window ledge. She climbed up, tucked her legs close to her chin, and leaned against the window. Outside, the city went about its business, all sound muffled by the glass.

“Never more peaceful than now,” she said. “They’re so small, how could they hurt anybody?”

“But you hurt yourselves-it’s your nature.”

Ilvani looked up and saw a reflection in the window. The woman from the plain, the snow rabbit who’d disappeared into the storm, gazed back at her. When Ilvani turned, she stood on the ladder, her arms crossed on the topmost rung.

“You’re still dead,” Ilvani said. “Go away, snow rabbit.”

“You called me that before-why?” the woman asked. Her face scrunched up in consternation, but her eyes didn’t change-they were still dead.

“I saw it. The snow rabbit-spirit used to watch over you when you were a little girl,” Ilvani said.

The woman looked shaken. “How did you know that?”

“Someone whispered it to me. I don’t remember who.” What was it like for other shadar-kai, the ones who didn’t have to wonder what was real and what was a trick played by the shadows?

The woman started to come onto the ledge. She got a knee up on the stone before she saw Ilvani’s malevolent expression. Slowly, she lowered her leg.

“We’re not friends, are we?” the woman said. She didn’t sound angry, only curious. “You don’t like me.”

“The storm swallowed you,” Ilvani said, “but you keep coming back. You put things in my head, and I don’t have any room for them.” She opened her green pouch and took out the boxes, all the captured memories, and spread them before her. “These are all that matter,” she insisted.

The woman reached down and picked up a small wooden box with a gold latch. For a moment, her eyes seemed to come alive with a stream of thoughts. “I remember something like this,” she said. She stroked the smooth lid, a light wood inlaid with darker squares like a chessboard. “What do you keep in it?”

Ilvani reached across the space between them and opened the latch. She lifted the box lid, and the memory washed over her as if it were newly born.

She was learning magic. The woman who taught her-Ilvani couldn’t see her face-held a wilted rose in her hand. Ilvani saw herself wanting the dead flower, but the woman held it out of reach. Why wouldn’t she let her touch the petals? What was she hiding?

The woman made a gesture, and suddenly the rose sprang to life again, its petals red and dew-covered. Thorns grew from the stem, and Ilvani thought they would puncture her teacher’s skin. That was when she realized it was all an illusion. There was no rose. How could there be? Nothing like that ever grew on the Shadowfell.

“The day I learned that witches lie,” Ilvani said. She stared at the woman on the ladder-what had Ashok and the halfling called her? — the Rashemi. “That’s what I keep in the box.”

The witch on the ladder nodded thoughtfully. “Well, then, if we’re not friends, I suppose I’ll have to die again.” She slammed the box lid down on Ilvani’s fingers.

Ilvani cried out in pain and tried to free her hand, but the woman was all over her now, arms grasping and tearing at her hair. Her fingers elongated, and her nails became viciously sharp claws. The more Ilvani struggled, the more monstrous the Rashemi witch became. Her jawbone stretched, and her body warped into an emaciated husk, all the life sucked out of her at once.

“Please,” she croaked. “Help me. It’s coming … for me.” She wrapped skeletal arms around Ilvani’s neck and pressed withered lips to her mouth.

The kiss filled Ilvani’s mind with chaotic images. One breath she was in the pine tree forest where she’d first met the woman, and the next she soared high above a mountain range. When she looked down, she saw a white dragon fly up to meet her, but the scene changed again before she had time to be afraid. She saw a village on the shores of a lake. Boats with no helmsmen drifted through a thick mist. An owl flew out of the white cloud, its wings grazing the water. Then came another, and another. Symbols covered their bodies. Light so bright it burned Ilvani’s eyes flashed from the markings.