Gail Martin - The blood king

"Find Carina," Soterius told the vayasb moru. "She's in the courtyard, with Carroway. Get her up here as fast as you can."

Gabriel nodded, looking at Tris with a sober expression that only fed Soterius's panic. Then the vayasb moru stepped to the balcony, and disappeared. When Gabriel returned in a few moments, he had Carina with him. The healer looked slightly shaken as she stepped off the balcony, away from Gabriel. She glanced around the room, confused over who needed her most. Kiara's clothes were covered with blood, but she waved Carina away. Vahanian, his leg at an unnatural angle and his sword arm badly broken, shook his head. Then Carina spotted Tris. With a gasp, she ran to kneel beside him.

Soterius stripped off Tris's tunic, revealing the knife gash on Tris's upper arm and the seeping burn where the poker had struck. But when he lifted away Tris's cuirass, Soterius caught his breath. Beneath the bloodied shirt was a deep side wound.

"Sweet Mother and Childe," Carina said to Soterius. "What happened?"

"Tris put up one hell of a fight with Arontala and the Obsidian King," Vahanian supplied. He turned to the soldier who was trying to move his stretcher. "I'm not going anywhere-not until Tris is patched up." Kiara likewise refused their assistance, moving behind Carina where she could see. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle her cry.

"The energy from the blast when the orb exploded-and the battle-would have been a significant drain," Gabriel observed. Soterius realized that the back of Gabriel's coat was burned and tattered. Gabriel's skin, which had been blackened in places and covered with cuts and gashes when Soterius first entered, was healing before their eyes. As the skin healed, it pushed out the bits of broken glass from the orb. They fell to the floor with a crunch at the vayash moru's feet.

"Speaking of that-thank you," Vahanian interjected. "I don't heal nearly as quickly as you do; I'd be a very dead pincushion by now if you hadn't put yourself between me and that bloody ball!" Gabriel inclined his head in acknowledgement, and returned his attention to Tris.

Carina looked at Soterius. "I'm going to need to draw from someone. We don't have time to wait for

Carroway."

Soterius met her gaze. "Use me. Take whatever you need-my life if you must-only tell me what you require."

"Do you trust me?" Carina asked.

"Completely."

"Then open your mind to me, and I'll have what I need."

Soterius closed his eyes and laid his hand on Carina's shoulder. She connected with him and he swayed, then regained his balance. Carina frowned and moved her hands over the knife wound in Tris's side. "Dear Goddess," she murmured. "He's lost so much blood."

Carina slipped into a healing trance, drawing on the energy Soterius lent her. The side wound had pierced no vital organs, but the blood loss was substantial. Wormroot made the healing more difficult. Worse was the drain Carina could sense in Tris's life force, from the injuries, the poison, and the strong magic he had worked despite the wormroot. She could feel his life thread flickering. Tris's skin was gray, and his breathing shallow. A rapid, irregular pulse sounded in Carina's mind and she threw her energy into the healing. Tissue knit and sinews repaired under her touch, but replenishing blood would take time. Carina knew she was racing death.

There was something else, there in the darkness of the healing trance. Another presence, old and strong and essential, a Summoner who was not Tris. The image of a man with golden blond hair and green eyes like Tris's own came to her mind: older, saddened, with a haunted look in his eyes. His power was helping to sustain Tris's life. Carina was sure of it, just as she was certain that Tris was very close to death.

"Don't let go," she whispered, unsure whether she was talking to Tris or to the stranger. "Just don't let go."

TRIS SAW HIMSELF on the Plains of Spirit but the spirit realm felt different, more solid. Tris looked backward, toward his own body. As if from a far distance, Tris heard the cries of the soldiers. Tris saw Soterius, panic-stricken, grasping his unresponsive body by the shoulders, shaking him and calling to him. He wanted to respond, but the power to do so failed him. I'm dying, Tris thought. Or perhaps, I'm already dead. He felt the palace ghosts, newly freed from their exile, swirling past him and through him, bearing him up with their power, rallying around him.

Do you want to live? The question came in the stranger's voice, and Tris saw the man again, walking toward him. His green eyes bored into Tris's soul. Tris met those eyes, and knew.

Lemuel, Tris said, and the tall man bowed. So grandmother was right-the Obsidian King did possess you, but he didn't destroy your soul.

Tris could see the weight of that horror in the man's eyes, and Lemuel nodded. I foolishly thought I could control power that I should never have sought. The price I paid was possession, and the torment of seeing my own body used for the working of one abomination after another.

Tris found the courage to ask the question that lay between them. How is it that your eyes are so like my own?

I can answer that. Another spirit joined them, and Tris knew his grandmother's presence. He was surprised to see her, not as the old woman he had always known, but much younger, still in her second decade, determination and character in her features.

Bava K'aa's spirit stood beside Lemuel on the Plains of Spirit, and Tris could sense the bond between the two. In the last days of the Great War, I was captured by the Obsidian King. 'The armies of three kingdoms and the Sisterhood laid siege to his castle. The Obsidian King wanted to knoiv hoiv to make the elixir that would extend his life. He wanted to be immortal.

Why didn't he become vayash moru? Tris asked.

Because vayash moru are beholden to their makers for many lifetimes, until the fledgling gains the strength to survive the destruction of its maker. The Obsidian King didn't want to answer to anyone- not even to the Lady Herself.

During my imprisonment, the Obsidian King did everything he could to force the secret from me. He thought that if he broke my spirit, and my body, that I would tell him. And he used every weakness that he could exploit. Including rape.

Can you even imagine what it was like, Lemuel said, his expression pained, to have your body used, against your will, to inflict pain on the woman you love? I had no choice but to witness everything, knowing that it was my body used as his instrument. It made the act that much worse because of it.

I believe the Obsidian King also hoped to break Lemuel, and destroy him, if from grief alone, Bava K'aa said gravely. Yet all the while, even during the worst, I knew that it was not Lemuel.

Lord Grayson rescued me-we three had been friends all our lives. I knew that Grayson loved me and stepped aside for Lemuel. But he would not let me die. When Elam healed me and he knew that I bore a child-your mother, Serae-Grayson swore to wed me and raise the child as his own. He told no one, until the day he died and I made his passage to the Lady. Tor a lifetime, we kept that secret.

Now do you understand? I couldn't free Lemuel's soul, but I couldn't destroy him, knowing how greatly he had suffered.

Bava K'aa met Tris's eyes. I knew that magic often skipped a generation. When Serae showed no power, I knew you would be my mage heir-you, whose blood descended from the two strongest Summoners of their age.

You haven't answered my question, said Lemuel. Do you want to live?

In the distance, on the Plains of Spirit, Tris could already hear the soulsong of the Lady, the sweetest thing he had ever heard, pulling him toward his rest. Here in the realm of the dead the pain of his wounds was gone, and he knew the freedom of pure spirit. Below, as if in a distant dream, he saw Carina rush toward his body, felt her power stretch out, struggling to heal him. Holding his spirit to his body was a thin blue thread, sustained not by his own life force, but by Lemuel.