Gail Martin - The blood king

My soul is forfeit, Tris made his confession. I've failed my family, my friends, and my people.

Not yet. Istra's voice sounded in his mind, impossibly sweet, defying mortal description. You must return.

Tris felt the spirits that clustered beneath the cloak enfold him as his own strength failed him entirely. Borne up by the spirits, supported in the arms of the Dark Lady, Tris surrendered to the darkness.

TRIS WOKE TO find himself in his own room, the darkness lit only by a bank of candles. At first he wondered if he had truly returned to himself, or whether he might find himself a witness to his own funeral. But the bed beneath him felt solid, and the bandaged wound in his shoulder throbbed. When he turned his head, the pain nearly made him lose consciousness.

In the near-darkness, Tris could make out two figures near the fire, and realized that both Carina and Taru were keeping a vigil. He wanted to call out, but he found he lacked the strength even to do that, and his power felt out of reach entirely.

Maybe this is the Lady's judgment, Tris thought, closing his eyes. Maybe She won't take me until I've lived the visions, until I've lost everything, and felt the pain. Maybe I'm damned.

Three days later, after the chills and fever of the wormroot left him and he was able to leave his bed, Tris sat by the window of his room, huddled in the deep window frame, looking out at the snow-covered city below. The food on the table beside him was cold, untouched. Carina had pleaded with him to eat, but he felt no hunger, and while the gash in his arm was nearly healed and the poison in his system was gone, the images of the sendings haunted him. He had not slept.

Carina, worried because he would not speak to her, had finally left him alone. Tris was too numbed by his own grief and failure to find the words to answer her questions. He could not look into her eyes without seeing the noose and the gibbet. He was resolved to neither share his visions nor allow them to come to pass, but how to stop them from happening he did not know.

The door behind him opened. Tris did not turn. The worst that can happen is that someone sinks a shiv in my back, he thought. Perhaps it would be for the best.

He sensed Taru's power before she spoke. "Carina asked me to come," Taru said, moving toward him in the darkened room. Tris neither waved her away nor bid her closer, never taking his eyes off the falling snow beyond the window.

"Something else happened in that room that Carina didn't heal."

Tris didn't move. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You have to."

"I said I don't want to talk about it!"

"I don't think Arontala expected to kill you through Alaine. Oh, he could have gotten lucky- and he certainly came close. But he can sense your power. You've turned him back before, without training. No," Taru said, "he didn't really expect to kill you. And at a distance, he couldn't possess you. So it had to be something else. Something to break your will, make you question your purpose, lose heart."

Tris kept his back turned, so that Taru could not see the tears that filled his eyes.

"You saw something in that room, didn't you?"

Tris nodded wordlessly, unable to trust his voice.

"A mage of Arontala's power could project a vision through a vessel like Alaine," Taru went on quietly. "A dark sending can take the heart of a strong man," she said. "Once, I saw a great general throw himself off a cliff because a dark mage convinced him that his wife, his children, had been slaughtered."

"Jonmarc, Carina, Carroway-I saw them die," Tris whispered. "I saw Kiara taken-" his voice failed him and he bowed his head.

Taru moved to stand behind him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Wormroot poisons the body," Taru said quietly. "But a dark sending poisons the soul. Tell me-were the images you saw clear, as if they were happening in front of you?"

Tris nodded, swallowing hard as the images came again to him, real and overwhelming.

"Real scryings of the future are not so clear," Taru said. "A real scrying sees a future that is always in motion. To see what's happening at the same instant is one thing, but to see into the future with certainty-that is for the Lady alone. A clear future vision is not even given to seers, whose gift is the magic of foresight. Even they get fragments, not sharp images. That's part of their gift of divination, to know what those pieces mean.

"Arontala meant the sending to break your will," Taru said gently. "It's a soul poison, pulling from your own fears. As long as you hold it inside, it will do its work."

"I can't tell Carina. I can't-"

"Carina is a powerful healer, but she's young in her gift," Taru said. "And she has scars of her own that, until they are healed, limit her power. She isn't the only healer at the citadel." Taru drew up a chair to sit behind him. "She is also not yet a mind healer. I am."

Tris wondered if she saw madness in his green eyes. "I can't sleep," he said, choking back tears. "I can't close my eyes without seeing the visions. Last night," he confessed, his voice a tortured whisper, "last night I reached for Mageslayer. I thought that I might save them if I didn't come back. I thought that I might end the dreams." He held out his hand that was clenched against his body, and Taru gasped at the blistered burn on his palm. "Mageslayer knew. It wouldn't let me draw the blade."

"Show me the visions." Whatever she saw in his eyes, she did not turn away. "I've seen more than you can imagine, both of battle and of death. Open your mind to me, and let me see."

She held out a hand to him and Tris grasped it in both of his, heedless of the pressure against his scalded palm. He felt warmth as Taru placed her free hand on his head, felt that warmth move from her hand into his scalp, through flesh and bone into his mind, and deeper into his being. Tris could feel Taru's presence in his thoughts as he could feel the presence of the ghosts on the Plain of Spirits. He shut his eyes and let the images of the sending wash over him, hearing himself weep as if from a distance. His shoulders shook and he gasped for breath. He held back nothing, sparing her none of the details of the deaths he saw, nor of his vision of the Dark Lady.

Tris felt Taru's presence shield him, her power absorbing the dark sending, as if the images were pulled into the light that was her magic. As the images faded he felt the dread and grief recede, leaving him raw and spent. When the darkness was gone, Tris felt Taru's power like a balm, washing over him, healing the wounds of memory. Then he felt the presence fade, until he became aware that he was rocking back and forth, Taru's hand clasped in a desperate grip.

"I still remember," he whispered.

"But you remember a nightmare-not a reality," Taru said. "The danger still exists-but not the certainty of their fate, or of your own. The poison of the sending is gone. What remains you can handle without being consumed." She paused. "The other image, of the Dark Lady-that came after Alaine's death?"

Tris nodded.

"You weren't breathing when Carina and I reached you," Taru said quietly. "For a moment,

Carina thought you were dead. She pushed against your ribs and breathed into your mouth, and you came back to yourself. Truly, I hadn't seen the like, though she swore it wasn't magic, that it was like pushing on a bellows, something she learned from a battle healer, long ago." Taru paused again, longer this time. "What you saw of the Dark Lady, that was a true vision. I can feel the remnant of Her power. And I believe that you've glimpsed Her before."

Tris swallowed hard and nodded. He dragged his sleeve across his red-rimmed eyes. "Some hero, huh?"

He could not read the look in Taru's eyes, but her expression softened. "Only madmen are unafraid. Even the dead-and the undead-feel pain. Arontala knows that your love for your friends is your weakness-as your grandmother's love for Lemuel was hers. He can't understand that it's also your strength."