Sapphire (32 page)

She stepped back. “But I won’t watch you die.”

Orin exhaled and pushed himself up. The grin
beginning to spread across his handsome face slowly disappeared as
his eyes gazed into hers. She looked away before he could see any
more of the thoughts surfacing in her eyes. He couldn’t know what
Sirrush had told her to do. Not because she feared hurting him, but
because she feared him hurting
her.
But there she had been,
so close to becoming the one to commit murder. A wave of shock
almost brought her to her knees.
My God. I almost wanted to kill
him, like Sirrush said.

She gathered herself, turned, and her gaze snapped
up to find him an arm’s length away. The blood from his wounds was
crusting to a dark red. He took a step closer, his eyes never
leaving hers. She had sudden conflicting desires to kiss him and
knee him in the groin. He looked like he was wondering whether she
would kiss him or knee him. Before she could decide, he grabbed her
and pressed his lips against hers. Her mind fought her heart until
her mind found the will to finally pull away.

“Don’t,” she said, putting her hand on his
chest.

The expression on his face pained her.
Unconsciously, she leaned towards him again. He suddenly shoved her
into a chair that shattered from her fall. At first she didn’t
understand. Her head throbbed and her shoulder ached as she
stumbled to her feet and picked up her sword again. Then she saw
Orin, suspended on his back in mid air, his whole body contorted in
pain as he screamed. Lorna’s smile was savage with hysteria. Shawna
didn’t know what to do. He had thrown himself in front Lorna’s
spell, but Shawna was held just as captive as he was. She wasn’t
going to leave him. When Lorna realized this, she lowered her other
hand, and grinned.

“Aren’t you going to run, little girl? Or do you
want to save this wretch who’s conned you every step? Don’t tell me
you
believe
him?”

His clothing and hair were starting to smoke. She
was burning him like he was immersed in flame. His screams tore
through Shawna like shards of glass, and tears were beginning to
stream down her face.

“St…stop,” she stuttered. Orin was being mercilessly
tortured, and all she could do now was
cry?

“Then give me the necklace! His useless life for the
stones!”

She put tremulous fingers to the sapphires around
her neck. They were still cool to the touch. She didn’t wonder why,
at this crucial moment, they didn’t flare and come to life. All she
could think about were Orin’s wracking screams and the acrid smell
of hair beginning to burn. She tried to lift the necklace from her
neck. Her arms froze in place, her hands stuck to the leather
strap. The necklace wouldn’t let her remove it. Panic overwhelmed
her. Lorna’s face melted from excitement to anger. In that moment,
Shawna suddenly understood the power she held over Lorna. Lorna
couldn’t touch her or the stones as long as Shawna defied her.
Orin’s clothes caught fire and his screams were mad with pain.

Her eyes clamped onto Lorna’s like steel-traps. She
was the daughter of two powerful sorcerers. She had come all this
way, faced so many things, faced dangers and fears she never
thought she could survive. Despite everything, she had reached
three of the five realms, fought creatures of nightmares, and
gained far more than just a crystal sword and a necklace. Never
before had she felt such confidence in what she was about to do.
She squared herself to look directly at Lorna. Orin had passed out
and hung grotesquely suspended in the air. The smell of burning
flesh was sickening.

“What are you doing?” said Lorna. “He’s almost dead
as it is. Give me the necklace!”

Shawna reached up, grabbed it, and without
resistance flung it over her head. Lorna jumped like Shawna had
thrown a grenade at her, then stared wide-eyed as the beautiful
dark sapphires with their flaming centers landed in front of her.
She released Orin, and he crashed to the floor. His skin was
charred like his clothes, and all his hair had burned away. He
didn’t move. Though she wanted to help him, Shawna dared not move
as Lorna reached for the necklace.

She picked it up like it was made of spun-glass. Her
eyes reflected the sparkling gems. Warwick and Adhara ran into the
room then froze, staring between Shawna and Lorna. Adhara’s side
was stained with blood, but Shawna didn’t know if it was her
mother’s or the bear’s. Lorna seemed to have forgotten everything
around her. She was completely transfixed on the sapphires slowly
burning brighter and brighter in her palm. Adhara and Warwick
strode over to their daughter, not taking their eyes off Lorna, but
she paid them no heed. Orin moaned and, not caring what Lorna did,
Shawna rushed over to him. She tried not to retch from the smell.
His skin was nearly black in places, his eyes burned shut, and his
scalp bright red. Tears sprang to her eyes again, but she didn’t
let them fall, now was not the time. He needed her help.

“Orin?” she said, her hand hovering over him.

He made no sound other than his labored breathing.
He was dying. She thought about what he had done to keep her safe
despite his past, despite his lies. She thought about the true
passion she had felt in that last kiss. Her parents were at her
side, kneeling with her over Orin. Lorna was utterly mesmerized by
the slowly brightening stones like she was under some strange
spell. Warwick and Adhara kept glancing at her, but held their
hands over Orin.

“I don’t know if we can save him,” Adhara said. “But
we’ll try.”

Shawna nodded, and her parents closed their eyes.
His breaths were further and further apart. While they focused on
Orin, Shawna took a deep breath and placed both her hands inches
above his trembling body with theirs. Warmth spread from her chest,
down her arms, and out her fingertips. She kept her eyes closed,
imagining him healed, imagining him—she gasped as someone’s hand
grabbed her wrist.

Her eyes opened, expecting to see Lorna, but instead
found Orin looking up at her. It was like he had never been hurt,
even the bruises and deep cuts had vanished. Only his charred
clothes and dried blood were reminders of where his wounds had
been. Her parents broke their power, looked at their daughter, then
at one another. Shawna never saw the look of amazement pass between
them.

“About time you saved my life.” He grinned.

“Mira wasn’t going to do it anymore,” she said.
“Someone had to save your careless hide. Here.” She held up the
scorched remains of the protective cloth Faolon had given him.

Orin took it gently, running his thumb over it as
pieces fell away, then he tied what was left of it to his leather
belt again.

“Guess this thing works. Thank you,” he
whispered.

“Ava,” Warwick said to Shawna, looking past her.

They all turned their heads to see Lorna, or what
they
could
see of her. Everyone threw their arms over their
faces to shield themselves. Lorna screamed with triumphant joy that
quickly morphed into absolute terror as all the sapphires burst
into pure light, disintegrating Lorna’s whole hand into ash. Shawna
threw herself over Orin, Adhara over her, and Warwick over all of
them. Lorna’s screams flashed out of existence in a flurry of bone
and ash as the sapphire’s flared to life. They had heeded her
intentions; her intentions to destroy them.

“We can’t hold them much longer!” roared Antares,
creating a red lightning storm around all three of them.

When the molochs came swarming down the
mountainside, Mira, Antares, Lula, and Orin ran for their lives.
Then Orin had disappeared. He just flashed into thin air as Shawna
had, and everyone became even more frantic. Where had they both
gone? Would
they
all be next? All night they defended
against the creatures but now, exhausted and pinned against ancient
ruins, it seemed hopeless. Lula had nearly sneezed herself into a
seizure over losing Shawna and Orin before Antares grabbed her with
his big paws.

At first she stopped sneezing out of fear of being
eaten, but he only sat back on his haunches, held her gently, and
said, “Bless you.”

Lula smiled, patted him on the nose, and went back
to fighting molochs. By the time dawn was approaching, they had at
least created a protective barrier, but they were growing weaker by
the minute. Mira kept her horn lowered at the ocean of darkness
trying to break through their defenses.

Her circle of white flame was beginning to fade, yet
she kept shouting encouragement to the others. “Keep fighting!
Don’t give up!”

Her voice gave strength to Antares and Lula, who was
darting everywhere trying to help as best she could. She had
managed to create a tall circular wall of rose-stone beyond the
fire, but it kept cracking and crumbling almost faster than she
could repair it. They were completely surrounded on the hill. Only
the moss-covered ruins of an old castle and their determination
were all that protected them. The mountain top they had crossed
from Zev’s realm stood directly in front of them. Millions of
little red dots winked over the black landscape as far as they
could see. It would have been beautiful, like a ruby strewn night
sky, if not for the deadly reality of it. The entire mountain was
blanketed with molochs and their human victims; the taken.

More frightening than the giant bearish beasts with
crimson eyes, were the men, women, and children they had devoured
from within. A creature, once a little boy, was clawing through
cracks in the stone. Its red eyes were wide with the desire to
create what it had become itself. Its little curled fingers were
dripping a tarry liquid while more cuts oozed the thick substance
all along its nearly naked skeletal body. Lula saw it scrabbling
through before any of the others and stopped mid air, watching,
horrified. The next moment, Mira was upon it.

“No!” squeaked Lula, flying towards her.

With a glaring flash, white flame sprang from her
flailing hooves. The boy-monster screeched, held up its bony hands,
and burst into ash.

“It was a child!” Lula shouted, using her magic to
fill the hole.

“It is not!” One of Mira’s violet eyes reflected
Lula’s stricken face. “Inside it was only a shadow of the darkness
surrounding it. It was merely a husk of their creation.”

“It was a little
boy,
” Lula hissed.

Mira didn’t even flick an ear as she said in a flat
tone, “It will come back.”

She then cantered off in a circle, reigniting her
dying wall of flames while Antares continued to lash his lightning.
Lula stared at the patched hole where the boy had been. A low
rumble began to emerge under the deafening sound of millions of
growls and screeches outside their tiny haven. Antares stopped his
attack for a moment as the ground trembled beneath his paws. He
roared and leapt to the other side of their circle. The castle ruin
was tumbling. The large stones began to shift from their resting
place but did not fall. Mira and Lula turned around with Antares to
watch the ruins rising into the last of night’s cold breath.

Even the molochs on the other side quieted and did
not move, aware of powerful magic vibrating through the emerging
dawn. Every stone rose into the air, positioning themselves at
certain points, then they hovered there, creating an outline of
where a foundation and walls might have been. A low moan, like a
roaring wind, swelled up. Suddenly, every moloch surrounded by the
floating stones evaporated into dust. The molochs that remained
untouched howled, roared, and tried to back away, but they were
pressed into the danger from those behind them. Whenever a muzzle,
paw, arm, or body crossed under the stones it disintegrated. The
molochs were undulating like waves, trying frantically to get
away.

Antares, Lula, and Mira backed as far against their
own walls of protection as they could as new stones formed from
thin air, filling in the gaps between the old ones. Where the
mortar would have cemented them together, pure white light began to
shine. An entire castle held together by light materialized on the
hilltop as if it had never fallen.

The three of them did not notice, with their backs
to the crescent wall of rose-stone, blazing fire, and crackling
lightning, that their shields were failing. Part of Lula’s stone
wall crumbled and fell. A moloch, joined by another, then another,
stood right outside the diminishing flames and bars of lightning.
Mira turned her neck to look behind. The whites of her eyes gleamed
in the flickering fire as a moloch thrust its tusked head through
and roared.