Star Mage (Book 5) (4 page)

“When?” She pushed herself up and stared at him with insistent eyes.

“A long time ago, before we had tried to hunt a boar. It was late spring and the roses were in bloom. We had snuck out of some stupid royal ceremony and were running around in the gardens. You wore this white, lacy dress with embroidered patterns of the Goddess Nacrea.”

Mara gave him this serious, entranced look and her eyes sparkled in the firelight. “You paid attention to what I wore all the way back then? And you never once told me? I hated that dress and thought for sure you’d make fun of me for wearing it. I remember that day in my mother’s gardens, and you tickled me so long I almost peed myself. I was furious at you.”

“But you were smiling the whole time,” Talis said, and chuckled as Mara rolled her eyes. “Your face had this pretty combination of rage and delight. That’s how I always picture you in my mind.”

She went suddenly still and stared up at him. “You think I’m pretty?”

“No,” he said, and paused to watch her face fall in disappointment. “I think you’re beautiful.”

Mara felt herself go from heart-broken to heart pounding in an instant.
Talis thinks I’m beautiful?
They had always teased and flirted with each other, and were incredibly close—especially after their long journeys together—but to hear him tell her that he thought she was beautiful caused her mouth to gape in amazement. He must have noticed her stupid expression for his eyes twinkled mischievously and he let out a nervous laugh.

“I’m really happy to have you on this journey with me,” Talis said, and paused as his face turned cloudy. “But I’m scared at the same time. A large part of me wanted to heed the Builder’s words and go west with you to the Ursulan Coast. To be honest, I’m pretty confused and uncertain as to what path to take. I’m really not sure what we’re doing here.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” Mara felt her face flush after she was unable to stop herself from blurting out the words.
What’s wrong with me that I can’t hold my tongue?

His face flowered to a broad smile filled with warmth and what Mara hoped was love. Did he feel the same way? “I should have insisted we go west.” He scooped her hands up and she shivered as the heat and electricity danced through her at his touch. “Of course I think you’re beautiful, Mara. You’re more than beautiful, you’re literally everything that is important in my life. I realize that now and I wish I had before we’d agreed to go on this insane journey. I thought the people of Naru and my family were important, and keeping our city safe, but now I know I was really just trying to protect you and our home.”

“Our home?” She pictured a mansion of their own rising high in the sky next to the temple of the Goddess Nestria, with Talis by his side as they stared east and watched the sun plummet beneath the Nalgoran Desert.

“Yes, our city and our home, the place we grew up together and where our family and our people live. If that’s destroyed then what else do we have?”
 

We have each other,
Mara thought,
no matter where in this world or another we find ourselves.
But she just gave him a reassuring smile and squeezed his hands, disappointed that he didn’t yet share the same vision as she.
Maybe one day he will…

The night mist fell and sent a cold chill shivering through her. She snuggled into Talis’s arms and he wrapped her with a woolen blanket from his house. The familiar sweet smell of Talis’s skin entered her nostrils and she held her breath, devouring every scent as if at any moment someone might take him away from her. Sleep came soon, and so did the nightmare.

The wind howled over a putrid plain stained with sulfuric-smelling ash.
And graves, and the shambling feet…
Hands seized her ankles and started pulling her under the ground as fibers wriggled around her body and searched for her mouth and ears and nostrils to invade and ingest her lifeblood.
Talis!
She screamed and shouted his name, and begged for him to save her. She spotted him off in the distance and shouted again for help, but he ignored her and sauntered off into the mist with that witch Lenora. His laughing eyes glanced back only once at Mara, and he was gone.
 

She found herself yanked down deep into the devouring earth, the hands still squeezing her ankles and tugging her down on the descent into darkness. Loamy soil no longer surrounded her, replaced instead with the cold air of a cavern. Out there in the vastness she sensed a malicious presence lingering in the inky blackness. She waited and waited in a tense, anxious silence, trying to spot the thing that was out there. But nothing ever came and the cold chilled her to the bone until her teeth started chattering.

“Why did you leave me?” she cried, the betrayal driving deep into her heart. The image of the beautiful and mysterious Lenora appeared in the cave, her laughing, sensuous eyes taunted her. How could Mara ever appeal to Talis the way she could? The stupid expression of lust on his face when he first saw the witch in that inn.
He desired her in a way that he’s never desired you before
, a voice told her.
How can you ever believe that he’ll want you like he wanted her?
You lack the figure that boys crave
, the voice said,
but you can kill them all and keep his affection
.

Princess Minoweth’s green dagger shone eerily in the blackness of the cave, and the blade stabbed over and over again into Lenora’s white neck, causing beautiful bursts of brilliant red to explode and stain the air as if splashing onto a black canvas.
You’re missing your dagger, dearest one,
the voice scolded,
would you like to feel it in your hand once again?

Mara shook her head and shouted an agonizing “no” over and over, but the more she squirmed and fought the more she felt the power of the dagger blossom once again inside of her. She remembered the sickly strong feeling, the rage and the craving for blood, and the howling fury that seethed through her mind. The power possessed her as it did once before.

She flipped her eyes open and the brilliance of starlight caused her to wince in pain. Hands that held daggers covered the moons, shielding the blinding light from her face.
Why in the name of the gods are there daggers in my hands?
Mara found herself whimpering in horror, and she jolted up and glanced around, feeling comforted that Talis snored peacefully beside her, but she found herself terrified at the strange blades in her palms.
 

Lifting the daggers to her inspection under the bright light of the moons, her heart pounded inside her chest at recognizing the design.
But the dagger was destroyed in Vellia!
Here it was, though, and twins this time, twin replicas of Princess Minoweth’s dagger.
The feeling of the dagger is the same, and the power stronger!
She dropped the daggers and they dug deep into the sandy soil, but eerie green filaments of light still poured through the air and into her palms. How could this be happening? Was she still having a nightmare?

“Talis,” she hissed, and shook him hesitantly on the shoulder, half expecting him to open demonic eyes to stare at her.

He stirred groggily and groaned, then sighed and went back to sleep.
At least I know I’m not dreaming,
she told herself. But that knowledge made everything so much worse. How in the name of the gods did she acquire the daggers? From the nightmare?
The voice and the darkness, the Nameless
. Did the voice read her mind and cause the creation of the blades?

She thought of Master Goleth and his words about the Nameless.
The Bane of Light, the Unknowable…
Were all the practitioners of magic in the Jiserian Empire adherents of the Nameless Master?
And farther across the world, even to Darkov, perhaps?
How far did his power extend? All the way to Vellia now, with his apprentice Aurellia and his odd, heart-felt reunion with his brother? Was it all a ruse?

A fear seized her heart. Talis couldn’t find out about the daggers. He would recognize the design and believe the curse returned to her. She had to hide them from him, stash them away deep in her backpack and never let him find them.
Why not leave them buried here in the desert,
she told herself,
and release yourself from the torment of livid power within the daggers.

So she tried, and stood and separated herself from the blades, testing out distances farther and farther away until a pain grew in her womb and she gasped and collapsed to her knees as a burst of crippling agony surged through her. In quick response she crawled back to the daggers and found the feeling fading away. A low ache and a burn still buzzed in her belly, and she vowed to never again leave the daggers.

She shoved the blades into her pack and lay back down next to Talis, knowing that sleep would be difficult to find. In her memory she pictured Jeremiah the Starwalker stealing Princess Minoweth’s dagger, and the feelings of rage that had possessed her. Nikulo had killed the Starwalker with the fragment and had caused her to sleep just as she was about to reclaim the dagger.
Did Nikulo steal the dagger?
But Talis had told her that the blade was vaporized by a blast from the fragment.
Maybe he lied, or maybe Nikulo fooled him?
But then why did she now possess twin blades of the same design?
The Nameless feeds off memories
, the same voice from her nightmare told her.

What if she controlled her mind and hid her memories from the voice? Would she save herself from the pain and torment? She winced at the flood of images pouring into her mind, of Elder Relech’s cackling face, of stabbing and slicing innocents in the dark, of raging in jealousy over Lenora’s ability to steal Talis’s attention. It all tumbled inside in an uncontrollable torrent.

This Unknowable Master of Nightmares, this Order of Rezel that demanded vows of blood, they both conspired to weave a web of constriction and choke the life out of her. But she would not be defenseless, not with the daggers close to her side. And she would not be controlled by the blades again, not that she now understood the power and could name it rage and malice and jealousy. She would conquer those emotions and train herself in the ever-mindfulness of the observer.

Constant and consistent control she would learn from the masters of Ishur. She must contain the power and not allow it to rule her mind.

Even at the cost of her life.

Nikulo followed the voices into the desert like a raving lunatic absent of memories and hope. He had killed the uncompliant caravan owner and turned his young wife into a slave—her weak mind failing to provide much resistance to the magic of his mental suggestions. The other slaves in the caravan barely raised an eye at the unexpected change in ownership.
Likely I’m their fourth or fifth master over the length of their bitter life
, Nikulo told himself, and found an unfamiliar laugh escape from his mouth.

The pain had left him immediately upon exiting the city. His bliss and wild fervor had been so great that he celebrated with a raging domination of the muscular caravan owner’s mind. The man seemed gleeful as he sliced his own neck. His wife had tried to stem the flow of blood from her husband’s gushing throat but she only managed to paint her white silk dress red. Nikulo’s cruel thoughts came quickly into his corrupted mind.
Pretty little thing decided a wet rouge matched her ruddy cheeks…

The voices inside gave clear instructions:
go west to Ursula and find a ship sailing to Carvina.
From Nikulo’s recollection, Carvina was the capitol of the Jiserian Empire, where the Emperor sat upon the Ebony Throne. Though Ishur was rumored the largest city in the Jiserian Empire, it was said that the Emperor preferred to keep a distance from the power of the various orders of magic housed inside Ishur.