Trial of Fire (70 page)

Damn it, damn her, how could she do this, how could she betray him again? Why hadn’t he stopped her? Why hadn’t he given in to the Bonding and made sure they were one for life? Because he’d been afraid, and now his fear was coming back to haunt him.

Jenn had tried to make him understand, and Nash had told him she was
his
Ally, and everything he’d ever learned about the Prophecy said that he couldn’t trust her. But his heart thought differently, and always had, and now it was too late to stop what should never have happened in the first place.

His heart pounding, he ran the last few yards and came to a halt at the entrance to the Key’s cave.

Too late indeed.

The whole cave was lit with an unholy glow emanating from Nash, who was frozen in his stance at the opposite end. Light coursed through him, rising up the sloping wall and into the tall distance beyond. He had his hands on the Key, his flesh was red and burned, but sustaining the power. Robert could feel it without difficulty. The air tingled with it, the floor beneath his feet thrummed as though the mountain was alive.

‘No!’ The shout was barely out of him before he saw Jenn, standing before Nash, backing away from him. She turned to see Robert standing there, and her whole face lit up with hope. That one look was enough to make him pause.

‘You did this deliberately,’ he whispered harshly.

She took two steps towards him, her hand reaching out to him. ‘Yes, I had to. Robert, we don’t have much time—’

‘Why?’ he whispered. ‘Why did you …’ But he couldn’t find the words. The demon filled his chest, swelling inside him, closing his throat, making his whole body vibrate with an anger he had kept reined in all his life, an anger he’d ignored and denied, knowing that to let it free would be to ensure that the Prophecy—

It
was
too late. And she had known it would be. She had risked everything to force him to this point, to make sure he would be here, at this time, in this moment, ready to use the power the Prophecy had given him.

Even though it would mean her own death.

‘No,’ he whispered this time, his feet taking him down the rocky slope until he was standing before her. Though all the light was behind her, he could see her clearly.

‘You don’t have a choice.’ She looked up at him, her eyes deep blue. She was ready and that knowledge chilled him. ‘We should do it because we
don’t
have a choice. Every time we have choices, we’ve made the wrong decisions. This is what we were born for, Robert. This is what the Key made us to do.’

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, though a quick look at Nash rippled horror through him.

‘Yes,’ Jenn whispered urgently, her hands taking his and holding them around the sword hilt. ‘Thraxis made us, gave mankind sorcery, and at the same time, he knew that one day, someone like Nash would rise. But he also knew that we would be able to defeat him, given enough time, enough power. You and I were
made
to do this. We were Bonded so that we would conceive Andrew, so that he would rule after us—’

‘We can’t know that for sure.’

‘It’s true,’ she urged. ‘Please, Robert, we don’t have much time. The more power he absorbs, the more difficult this will become. If we don’t stop him now, it will be too late. If he absorbs all the power from the Key, he’ll also have all the knowledge in the Calyx – and the Word of Destruction – then nothing we can do will ever stop him.’

‘No. I won’t believe it. There has to be another way.’ With that, he put her behind him, raising his sword, feeling the air rippling around him, buzzing with a power that was too close now. Jenn was right about one thing – if he didn’t stop Nash now, then it would be too late. And if he got the Word—

‘Robert, please, don’t—’

Only once before had he been this close to the Angel of Darkness, and now, as then, his skin crawled, itched and burned, screaming at him, lighting the darkness inside him. Who was the Angel here, and who was the demon? Light fell off Nash, in thick, sickly waves, his body stiff and immobile, his face twisted in some sort of agony – but there was life there, and recognition – and
laughter
.

A blast of something icy split the air of the cave. Robert brought his sword up just in time, defending by instinct alone – but that touch was
more than enough. Without thought, the demon inside him howled in triumph and in a heartbeat, blossomed forth in a blaze of fire that consumed the man before him. For the first time since the demon had been born, he made no attempt to stop it, to contain the flow. It felt too good, absolute. He would destroy both of them utterly, in the one deadly furnace. His hands shook with the effort of holding his sword, keeping the blast at full strength, his eyes stinging with staring at the white-hot incandescence. He could do it … he
would
do it. He would—

Another icy blast struck his sword, followed by another, and another. Each blast grew in strength, making Robert back away, still protecting Jenn behind him.

‘Robert, please, no!’

Her hand touched his arm and, abruptly, the fire was gone. Dizzy, he almost stumbled then. He looked at her and then at Nash. No longer under attack, the Angel of Darkness had ceased his own defence; his concentration had returned to absorbing the Key’s power.

He appeared completely untouched by Robert’s power.

‘You can’t destroy him that way. You know it’s true. You’ve tried before; by the gods, he’s told you himself that it won’t work. There’s only one way we can beat him.’

‘Jenny, you don’t understand that I can’t do this, I can’t. I love you.’ The words were wrenched out of him, draining him.

‘Oh, Robert, it’s because you love me that we
can
do this, that it will work.’

‘No,’ he murmured yet again and pulled her to him, dropping his sword and wrapping his arms around her. They were beyond forgiveness now, beyond begging for it. He had failed and he knew it. Nothing he said now would change that, nothing would save her.

She shook in his arms, burying her face against his chest, holding him as tightly as he held her.

And he felt her love then, felt it flowing through him, filling him with wonder and joy, despair and sorrow; with all that weight on him, he said, ‘How?’

Her face was invisible to Nash, her words beyond his hearing. ‘Complete the Bonding.’

‘By the gods!’ If he did that, he would feel everything he did to her, he would
feel
her death … but his objection died in the steady glow of Nash’s rise. Looking once more upon his enemy, the enemy of all life, he nodded.

He had never had a choice – but she had understood that all along. Perhaps that was her role, to believe, where he would always have doubted. That was why she’d drawn him here, knowing that he would come.

He drew away from her a little, until he could see her face, her eyes glistening with tears she was too brave to shed. She smiled at him, but this time he didn’t give in. There was nowhere left for him to run.

‘I love you,’ he said firmly, his voice deliberately loud to fill the glowing cavern. And then he kissed her.

Instantly, he felt it as he allowed himself to be drawn into her, just like that first night so many years ago. He was no less afraid of it now than he had been then, but at least this time he understood what it was doing to them. He kissed her again, opening his eyes enough to catch a glimpse of the blue glow emanating from their bodies, then shut them again, choosing now to go where she led, to go to that place where they were one, where they were together, where nothing could ever separate them.

I’m so sorry, Jenny, for all that I have done to you. I should have listened, should have asked about Andrew, but I was afraid that he was my son, that I would have failed to defy the Prophecy so much that I left you with our child, in Eachern’s care, and by the gods, I hated him so much, hated that I wasn’t the one to kill him, hated the possibility that Andrew was his son and not mine, that Eachern had you and I didn’t—

She drew him down further, into that place where words died away and only peace could reign.

And there she was, exactly where she should be, smiling at him, glowing with a love he had never really understood, until now. She had sacrificed absolutely everything she had ever held dear in order to protect him, to help him, to make sure that he would survive so that he could find this place and still have the strength to do what had to be done.

We are one, Robert. We will always be one.

He opened his eyes. She watched him. He smiled and she replied with her own smile. He could
feel
the Bond between them, making them one, allowing him to almost read her thoughts, but she spoke them anyway.

Use the Word, Robert.

Yes
. Even in the joy of finding her, he would let her go. She was ready to sacrifice this; he could not refuse her.

He took her face in his hands, giving her one last soft kiss, knowing she understood the love with which he gave it.

Then he let her go. As he did, he let his shoulders slump in defeat, only partly feigned.

Though she turned and walked away from him, the Bond between them was still strong, and would be until the moment she died. It tied them; her heart beat with his, she breathed in time with him; they were two halves of a perfect whole. She walked towards Nash. Bound up with the Key, he could barely move; but Nash watched her nonetheless, his eyes wide with
disgusting pleasure. He knew what this was, knew her surrender was his success – Robert could see all that in Nash’s face.

With his heart swelling with pride at her courage, Robert watched her move to Nash’s side, reach up and touch his face, turning his head towards her. Trapped between the Key and the Ally, Nash could do nothing to stop her – but at the last, horror filled his eyes as he saw what she was about to do.

Jenn smiled. Then she stood on her toes, opened her mouth a little and pressed a kiss to Nash’s lips.

And in that moment, Robert let loose the demon, let it flow across the Bond joining him with Jenn, let it flood her as it flooded him, let the desperation and the fury course white-hot until it reached its destination.

With the last breath of Prophecy, Robert opened himself and, using the mindspeech he’d shared with Jenn for so many years, spoke the Word of Destruction.

The ground rumbled beneath his feet; the mountain groaned with the power he’d unleashed. Choking dust trickled down from the ceiling, making Robert cough, but before he could move, he was knocked down by a blast of wind tearing through the cave. The shuddering grew stronger as ancient stone ground together, unable to contain the force of the Word; Robert tried to cover his head to avoid the falling stones and rubble.

Then the power hit them. Blinding white light flared and blossomed, consuming both Nash and Jenn, and though he’d known it would happen, Robert cried out, staggering to his feet, reaching forward to save her from it, even though he could no longer see her.

‘Jenny!’

The roaring wind knocked him sideways as it fed the incandescent fire before him, making it grow brighter, stronger, until it almost consumed the cave. But he wouldn’t leave: if he was destroyed by it as well, then so be it. The ground beneath his feet heaved and groaned, then split suddenly as a gaping hole appeared in the floor between them. He fell back again, but pulled himself up onto his feet, ready to leap across the divide. More rocks fell around him now, threatening to collapse the cave completely, but he stayed, unable to leave Jenn to Nash.

And then he heard a sound that sent a chill down his spine: a scream, low at first, and deep, seeming to pierce the very rock itself, coming from Nash, alongside another voice that could only be Jenn. And the sound was pure terror, an inescapable agony, a pain Robert could feel inside him. The screams rose and rose, joining with the groaning mountain, with the flaring white light, until, with a deafening explosion, the cave erupted.

Rock showered down from above, knocking him over, making him roll in a ball, forcing his powers up to protect him, though why he should care if he lived, he didn’t know. Still the wind seared the feeling from his flesh, blinded him, tore the breath from him.

And then, suddenly, it stopped.

For a moment, silence reigned; even as he uncurled himself and looked up, the ceiling again began to crumble, and he rose to his feet, stumbling forward, leaping over the crack in the floor.

There, half-hidden by the blinding dust, sat the box containing the Key and the Calyx, all glow from it gone. And beside it lay Jenn, her body still, her face white, her chest not moving.

Nash was gone.

Robert didn’t pause. He ran forward and picked up Jenn, putting her over his shoulder so he could grab the Key/Calyx. Then he turned and ran, leaping over the hole, dodging boulders that hadn’t been there when he came in. Hardly stopping to breathe, he ran up the slope and kept going, hearing the cave crash and crumble behind him, deafening as, in one mighty explosion, the roof fell in. Dust flew past him in a cloud, but he kept going, gasping for air now with the effort, running uphill, racing against time. He turned one corner after another, paying no real attention to where he was going, letting his feet decide, until finally he saw light, and the entrance.

Patric and Joshi stood there waiting for him, both bloodied and injured. With a warning yell, Robert ran past them and the bodies of dead Malachi, going on until his legs would no longer hold him up. Then he collapsed to the ground, dropping the Key so he could place Jenn’s body on the ground carefully. Patric and Joshi were not far behind as the mountain moved again, spewing more dust out of the entrance. Another groan and suddenly there was silence.

Robert knelt on the ground, one hand holding Jenn’s, gasping for air that wouldn’t fill his lungs, blinking against tears that drove the dust out of his eyes. As he came to, he found Patric and Joshi crouched next to Jenn, both breathing heavily too.

‘Malachi?’ Robert managed to croak out.

‘Gone. The last just turned and ran.’ Patric swallowed. ‘About twenty of them, Joshi says. And Nash?’