Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

Ashok stiffened. “You’re lying,” he said automatically. “The ritual-”

“Is happening as we speak,” Sree said. “I can feel the presence of my sisters, the power of the circle. I feel Ilvani too. When I take her, I swear to you it will be fast and painless, just as your death was.”

“No,” Ashok snarled. He took another step forward.

“You can’t harm me here, Ashok,” Sree said, but Ashok saw the uncertainty in her eyes. It gave him hope. His limbs trembled with suppressed anger. He let one end of his chain drop to the raft and snapped the other to strike at Sree’s face.

“Let’s find out,” he said.

The witch dodged the blow but not completely. A red line appeared on her right cheek, and a thin stream of blood ran down her face. She pressed one hand to the wound, and her eyes filled with fury.

“I should have known a creature of shadow would cling to this realm tooth and claw. I’ll see you dragged to the void!” She threw up her hands and spoke words filled with power.

Lightning struck the lake and gathered into a blinding ball that rolled across the surface of the water. Sree clenched her fists, and the ball split and took on the shape of two great hawks-birds made of lightning that swooped down upon Ashok.

Out of instinct, Ashok fell into a crouch and raised his chain. He realized, too late, that metal was the worst defense against such magic. The birds struck him in the chest and legs. His muscles trembled uncontrollably as waves of pain rolled through his body. His heart stopped beating-he couldn’t catch his breath until the white fire rolled through him and dissipated.

Ashok fell heavily on the raft. The pain sharpened his wits, but the lightning still affected his muscles. His body wouldn’t respond when he tried to push himself up. All he could do was curl into a ball as the witch strode toward him, her hands outstretched.

“Some spirits still answer my call,” the hathran said with renewed confidence. “I am the protector of hearth and home, and I have fire too.”

Ashok managed to roll onto his back. He met Sree’s eyes, but then his vision filled with the flames descending from her hands.

Ilvani opened her eyes and found herself in the heart of the storm.

She stood on the raft while the water churned and lightning split the sky. She felt the shock of it in her breast. The sky was black and starless, a void that centered on the lake and moved toward her, swallowing everything in its path.

Yaraella’s monster, Ilvani thought, the force that denies us both peace.

She looked down, and her heart leaped.

The child Elina crouched beside her, a tiny speck in the violence. Ilvani reached for the girl, meaning to put herself between Elina and the storm. The child squirmed away from her grasp and pushed instead toward the heart of the storm, her arms outstretched and eyes full of desperate longing.

In that instant, Ilvani understood everything, and cursed herself for a fool.

Grabbing the child by the arm, Ilvani dragged Elina behind her. Thunder roared across the lake, deafening her, but Ilvani watched the black void descend upon her without fear.

“Little snow rabbit,” she said. “You had more power than I thought.”

Ashok rolled away from the flames, though he smelled his own charred hair and flesh. Again he absorbed the pain-the flames did not burn as hot as those in the nightmare. He laughed aloud.

“Poor, insane creature.” Sree’s voice followed him as Ashok crawled to the edge of the raft to put the flames out in the water. “Haven’t you had enough of pain and suffering? Why won’t you lie down and let the shadows claim you?”

Ashok bent over the side of the raft. A flicker of movement in the deep waters caught his attention. Human shapes rose up all around the raft, floating toward the surface, long pale hair drifting around their beautiful feminine faces. Ashok thought he heard whispers coming from the water.

They were the voices of the spirits-Ilvani’s whisperers.

“You don’t understand,” he told Sree mockingly. He rolled onto his back to extinguish the flames. “You’re not one of our people.”

“Thank the gods for that,” Sree said. She raised her hands again, but a sudden explosion of water extinguished the fire that rolled from her hands. The lake spirits rose up-Ashok counted at least five of them-and snatched at Sree’s hair and cloak. Hissing and cooing, they dragged her across the raft.

“No, wait! I must-” The hathran’s screams echoed in Ashok’s ears. She hurled fire at random. The lake spirits hissed in pain. Two of them dropped back into the water. “I must finish my task!”

Ashok whipped his chain out. The end snagged Sree’s arm. Her casting disrupted, the witch fell to her knees under the weight of the spirits.

“How does it feel to have them clawing at you?” Ashok said. Ruthless, he pulled his end of the chain. Off balance, Sree stumbled to the edge of the raft.

Her eyes wide with shock and terror, she focused on Ashok an instant before the telthors pulled her into the lake. They dragged her beneath the churning water.

Exhausted and trembling, Ashok closed his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to fight them if the telthors decided to take him too. A breath later, he heard the spirits dive back into the depths of the lake. The water from their passing fell on Ashok’s face.

Ilvani, he thought, as his awareness started to fade, the path is clear now. Tempus, grant her peace.

Ashok felt a burst of bitter amusement, that his final thoughts should include Tempus after all. Uwan would be pleased.

“Enough,” Ilvani shouted at the void. “I know your name now-bitterness, rage, pain. Face me and answer for what you’ve done.”

Lightning struck the raft at Ilvani’s feet, throwing her back. The force tore Elina from her-the child cowered at the raft’s edge, terrified. In the wake of the lightning, the void shrank back, and Yaraella stepped onto the raft.

Her hair was wild, and a bloodstain covered the front of her dress. Something of the void lingered in her eyes, turning them black and fathomless like a shadar-kai’s.

“It’s done,” she said, her voice full of such dark satisfaction that Ilvani shuddered. This was not the same woman she had encountered in the pinewoods. Hatred consumed this twisted creature. “I felt her die. Now we can be together, the three of us.”

“You were the monster,” Ilvani said. “No spirit prevented you from passing on from this world.”

“You’re right,” Yaraella said. “I stretched out my hands, and you took them. You anchored me to the world-you and Elina.” Her gaze rested on her child, and the shift in her emotions was stunning. Her face filled with love and tenderness that for an instant transformed her into a pure soul. But Ilvani wouldn’t be fooled again. She knew the threat Yaraella posed now.

“You used my hands for your vengeance,” Ilvani said. She discovered her voice was strangely calm, remote. “Your hate burst out of me and the child and corrupted all it touched. It was my fault,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I didn’t know how to see through you. What will you do now, snow rabbit? You have no one left to hate.”

“I will live on in my child and in you,” Yaraella said. She went down on her knees and reached out for Elina. “Our spirits are entwined.”

Ilvani stepped forward to grab the child before she could run to her mother. “It will drive her mad and destroy us just as you’ve destroyed yourself. You’ve been here too long, little dead rabbit. You don’t have a body to go back to, and this child’s is too pure for you.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Yaraella said, her eyes alight with amusement that sickened Ilvani. “I need a vessel that’s already been tainted. What a mad, powerful witch we would make, Ilvani. Wychlaran and shadar-kai-the fey realm and the shadow. No world could hide from us.”