Betrayal's Price (In Deception's Shadow Book 1) (28 page)

“Itharann,
fight him. We’ll all die if you sacrifice yourself.”

Itharann’s
thunderous look said he was enraged to be used by Dakdamon, but was helpless to
fight. In a moment of clarity, Ashayna understood he needed something besides
duty to fight for.

“Itharann,
fight—or Sorntar and I will die with you. As much as you show disdain for your
host, I know you still care for him. He’s a part of you, integral to you. And I
know you loved her, the one I was created from. I’m not her, but if you loved
her as completely as you say, you’ll fight to save what remains. Together, the
three of us can defeat Dakdamon.”

He met her
gaze, his expression torturous. Her words had penetrated.

“Sorntar, now.”
She poured all her magic into him.

Itharann loosed
a howl of pain as Sorntar broke the Larnkin free from Dakdamon’s control.

The wardstone
lashed out, a currant of power slammed into Sorntar’s chest. He flew backwards
and struck the cavern wall with a bone jarring thump, then slumped against the
stone floor. His head turned in her direction and she met his gaze. Sorntar’s
spirit looked out.

He tried to
communicate something to her across the silence.

Ashayna didn’t
need to be told twice, and bolted into motion. Reaching down, she grasped his
unresisting body and dragged him to the portal.

“Now, get us
out of…,” his rattling breath failed for a moment and he was unable to finish
his sentence.

She cradled
Sorntar in her arms and looked back over the distance to where Dakdamon stood
watching. He was no longer mist and shadow. Now he stood on two feet, massive
talons tearing up the stone under his feet. Ashayna didn’t want to stay and see
more. Calling her power, she willed strength into her muscles and lifted
Sorntar’s limp body until he was draped over her shoulder. His wings and tail
dragged along the ground, threatening to trip her up. She made her way over to
the crystal gate. Under her hand it warmed, and then the shield flared once.
Blinking, she found they were back in the first chamber. Thank the gods.

Scrambling to
her feet, she adjusted Sorntar’s weight. She needed to get him away from
Dakdamon. There was no telling how far Dakdamon could project his influence. If
the stone figures submerged in the lake were any indication, then perhaps
farther than she could hope to get before Itharann awoke and took command of
Sorntar again.

She made her
way back up the slippery tunnel. Losing her footing, she went down hard.
Unfortunately for Sorntar, he broke her fall. A gasp of pain alerted her to the
fact he had regained consciousness. Pausing in front of the shield holding back
the lake water, she helped Sorntar slump against an algae-coated boulder.

“I don’t know
what to do. Please, Sorntar, I need your help.”

“You can…do
this,” his whispered reply was barely audible. “You are…the Destroyer. Shields
are your gift. Your power…to undo damage.”

He fell silent
and his head lolled to one side. She collapsed next to him, searching his
throat for a pulse. It was there, a shallow but regular rhythm.

“I can do this.
I must do this.” She chanted the words as she gathered magic to strengthen her
muscles. With a grunt, she lifted Sorntar back over her shoulder. He was a hard
carry, long and lanky, even his wings threatened to trip her up. She stood a
moment before summoning a shield around her. Willing it to be solid, completely
watertight with a generous quantity of air, she took a firmer hold of Sorntar’s
legs and stepped free of the tunnel’s ledge, out into the green depths of the
lake.

A great
pressure descended on her mind. She fought panic and concentrated on
maintaining the life-giving bubble. The sense of pressure decreased after a
while, replaced by one of drifting. The strange life raft bobbed from side to
side as it rose. Their speed increased, carrying them towards their destination
faster by the heartbeat. She steeled herself for their eventual surfacing.

The surface was
dark, not light. What had happened to the day? It hadn’t seemed like they had
been down in Dakdamon’s prison for more than a candlemark. Then in the next
breath, she remembered a turbulent thunderstorm had been chasing them. The
surface would offer them no more safety than the lake.

Sorntar
struggled feebly and she lowered him to the pale glowing floor of her shield.
His eyes tried to focus on her, but blood from a cut on his forehead dripped
into his eyes. She linked with him and his thoughts came to her. She felt his
determination to remain lucid in what could be their last moments together. “Oh,
Sorntar, I’m so sorry.”

He smiled
weakly and formed an image in her thoughts, a possible escape. The complexity
of his plan boggled her mind, and likely required magical strength she lacked.
The effort to maintain the shield while calling a gate into being was beyond
anything she had attempted in practice.

“And under the
surface of a magic-summoned lake, with the father of all demons practically
under my feet.”

“Ash, my
bondmate, it is not so grim.”
Sorntar’s thoughts
were as weak as his physical body and Ashayna leaned closer out of instinct,
even though it would do nothing to aid her hearing.
“You have power. Focus
your will, it will do your bidding.”

“What of him?”
Ashayna pointed down, beyond her feet, to the dark reaches of the lake bottom.

“If he could
stop you, he’d already have done it. All he can do is hope he’s planted enough
self-doubt to cripple...”

“He succeeded.
I can’t do this.”

“You can.
Summon power…direct it to form a gate. Should we survive, heal me. He broke
something inside.”
His thoughts becoming more and
more disjointed.

Tears rolled
down her cheeks, feeling abnormally hot against her cold skin.

“It’s all
right, Ash.”

“No, it’s not!
I’m not all right with you dying here in this place!” She grasped his face in
her hands and tilted his head back to look into his eyes. “I’m not all right
with anything that monster said or did. I’ll get us out of here, I promise.”

“Gate…to
santhyrians,” Sorntar said. His eyes drifted shut and she thought he’d lost
consciousness. Then his mind brushed against hers.
“You can do this, my
beloved.”

She nodded,
tears spilling down to splatter on his face. Ashayna held him tighter and
gathered the last of her power. Rage for the injustices Sorntar had suffered
fueled her strength. Magic arced and snapped out from her body and coalesced
directly in front of her bubble. The gate took shape, fluctuating and flaring
as she fought to control it and maintain her shield. She thought her mind would
split in two. She held on until the gate formed then willed her bubble through
the gate.

The darkness of
lake and storm vanished. Power teetered unsteadily on the edge of escaping her
control. The shield failed with a popping sound, and her stomach plummeted as
she fell half a body length to the ground. She lay there, stunned. The grass
under her cheek prickled and when she turned her head, her cheek brushed
feathers. Mildly astonished, she looked around.

 Summer Flame
stood looking down at them, with Winter’s Frost only a few paces farther off.

Sucking in a
breath, Ashayna inhaled a lungful of powdery dirt. A racking cough assaulted
her, causing a sharp pain to lance through her side. Her vision blurred, fading
in and out of focus until her eyes remembered how to work together.

Winter’s Frost
stood over Sorntar with her head bowed. A pale healing magic flooded the area
around them. Earlier discomfort forgotten, Ashayna struggled to her feet and
then ducked under Winter Frost’s neck to kneel next to Sorntar. Ashayna kept
her hands at her sides, afraid if she said or did anything it would distract
the mare and do Sorntar greater harm. A quick survey of the immediate area
showed Summer Flame nosing through a pack. Using his teeth, he pulled out an oil
wrapped package. After tossing the packet next to her, he retrieved a water
satchel and dropped it in her lap.

“Eat, drink,
and regain some strength,”
Summer Flame said. He
bobbed his head at Sorntar. “
We can keep him alive for a short time, but
Itharann is hemorrhaging magic. He is beyond our abilities to fix…you must find
the resources within yourself to heal him or you will both die.”

Ashayna looked
back to Sorntar. His skin was as wax, worse than with the wardlen’s bite. He’d
reverted back to himself at some point. Itharann must be close to death if he’d
surrendered control to Sorntar so completely.

“Ashayna,
don’t just stand there looking dim as a new foal. Do something.”
Winter’s Frost swiveled an eye in Ashayna’s direction. She pawed
the earth with a hoof and snorted.
“When Summer Flame said we could keep
Sorntar alive, he meant we could give Sorntar more time by sacrificing
ourselves. I’ll give my life to protect my friends, but I’d prefer to find
another alternative, all the same.”

“Tell me what
to do,” Ashayna pleaded.

“What
happened to Sorntar is beyond our understanding,”
the mare replied.

Ashayna sighed,
and closed her eyes. She laid her hand flat on Sorntar’s chest. The faint
rhythm of his two hearts gave her some hope. If she could lend him some of her
strength, as the santhyrians had been doing, perhaps he could heal himself.
Filling her lungs with deep steadying breaths, she willed her magic to respond.

It came to her
command like a loyal war steed. Magic swelled, hurtling itself up through her
body before breaking through the inadequate barrier of her skin, where it
awaited her command. If only she knew what to do with it.

If she was to
believe Dakdamon, she wasn’t even human, but some unnatural hybrid—the remains
of a Larnkin married with the bits of her shattered soul. It explained so many
strange occurrences.

She shook her
head in denial. “I’m not that. I’m Ashayna Stonemantle. A human woman, not some
monstrosity brought about by the games of gods!”

“Not
monstrosity…my beloved,” Sorntar sighed out the words.

While she’d
ranted denials, her magic had gone ahead and blanketed him. His injures
remained unhealed, but he was awake and looked at her with such love it made
her squirm.

“Please tell me
how to help,” she begged. “How can I save you?”

“Trust
instincts,” he whispered. The effort to keep his eyes open proved too much and
his lashes drooped shut again.

Ashayna lay
down next to him, curling her body around his. With a whispered prayer to the
Great Mother, she closed her eyes. For the length of ten heartbeats nothing
happened. Then something within her awoke, remembering what it felt like to
expand her senses free of her body. She became aware of magic leaking from
Sorntar, as Itharann slipped closer to death. Following his escaping magic, she
navigated the dark below the ground, hunting and gathering the essence of
Itharann as she went. Finally, when she held every scrap she could find, she
flowed back up the current of magic leaking from him, gathering it to her as
she returned.

She flowed into
Sorntar, and ran head-on into Itharann. He had folded himself down into a
tightly bound ball of energy, but it did little to stop his life force escaping
from the ragged hole she felt in his spirit. Ashayna pondered her options a
moment. Then with a mental shrug, she shoved all the power back at Itharann. He
twisted and coiled, a rolling mass of magic.

“Hurts, does it
now?” But she didn’t stop force-feeding him. Willing or not, he absorbed the
power back into himself, gaining strength with each passing moment.

She continued
until she’d returned his magic, then started sharing hers. He uncoiled and
stretched within Sorntar, causing his wings to shift and his limbs to twitch. She
could feel him growing in power and was glad she couldn’t ‘see’ how he
controlled the host. The damage inflicted by Dakdamon showed like an eroded
riverbank, dark against surrounding healthy energy and diverting it from its
natural flow. For now, feeding him kept the tide of power flowing into him, but
as soon as she stopped it started rushing out.

“Curse it,” she
growled. “What am I supposed to do now? Stay like this for an eternity?”

Itharann
continued expanding out around her. She didn’t like being surrounded—even in
her mind—and pulled away.

“You need to
mend the torn parts, or else all your loving work will be for nothing.”
Itharann chuckled.

 Humor on his
part must mean she was doing something right. “Some suggestions would be nice.”

“You’re doing
fine.”

“Bastard.”
Since she lacked a body, she couldn’t even glower at him properly.

“Well, since
you don’t require my help, I’ll just busy myself elsewhere,” Itharann informed
her a moment before he began a weaving.

She didn’t know
what spell he wove, but by the feel of the fine thread-like strands of power he
spun around her, it wasn’t good for her continued freedom. “Never did like
spiders. Or double crossing, misbegotten, manipulative…,” She paused. He’d
given her an idea. She drew her swirling power to rein and began to spin it out
like spider silk. When she had a length of it, she concentrated on the rift.

“I really have
no idea what I’m doing, but you seem altogether too relaxed, so I must be on
the correct path. I hope I give you a good scar, at the very least.” Taking the
length of magic thread, she began ‘sewing’ Itharann’s rift shut. Slowly, the
power flowing from the wound choked off until only a little leaked between the
sutures.

“Thank you, my
bondmate. It’s appreciated.” Itharann purred. She felt him strengthen his
weaving another notch.

“Whatever you’re
doing, it better not be preparing for some unnatural Larnkin mating ritual or I’ll
gut you and let you bleed out again.”

Surprisingly,
Itharann didn’t come after her, but let her slip from his magic’s grasp and she
found herself back in her body. She collected her wits and shook the last of
the magic webbing from her mind.

Indigo-colored
wings blocked out a good portion of the light and strong arms held her close.
She stiffened. “Let me go. You can pretend to be Sorntar all you want, but I
know it’s you.”

 “Rest,” he
said. “Sleep now.”

Ashayna tried
to fight his compulsion, but her magic didn’t consider Itharann’s weaving a
direct attack. Her eyelids grew heavy and she succumbed to his command.