Immortal sacrifice, p.18
Immortal Sacrifice, page 18
Sideon coughed and glanced away. “By drinking my blood. The Draconians learned long ago that they can absorb another’s power by drinking from them. It is why they took to drinking human blood, and why it is illegal. Cassian knows. It was his job to hunt the ones who did it down and kill them.”
Zamara gasped and reached for his hand, “Then let’s do it.”
“Know this Zamara, there are consequences.” Sideon searched her eyes, willing her to understand. “If you do this, there is no going back. It binds us together. We will always share a connection.”
He slid a throwing knife from its sheath at Zamara’s thigh and ran it along the length of his palm.
What in the hell are we doing?
…Drink it. This way he can’t kill us...
But then I also can’t kill him!
A terrible scream rippled through her port hole followed by an explosion. Red is out there. An image of the broken and shackled boy she found trembling in a cellar flashed through her head.
Damn the consequences.
She brought Sideon’s palm to her mouth and drew deeply. Power erupted from her core in a blinding white light, searing her from the inside out, scrambling her brain.
Zamara trembled in Sideon’s solid arms, sweat dripping down her face and neck. She could feel him running his fingers through her hair with soft, calming strokes.
Her frantic breathing slowed.
A shadow fell over the room.
Zamara struggled to lift her head and found Cassian in the doorway, fists clenched, jaw working.
“Trolls,” he said softly, “they targeted the cargo ship. The men and supplies that were aboard are either burnt to a crisp or lost to the river.”
“Gods.” Sideon exhaled as Zamara dragged her weary body into a sitting position and placed a palm on her aching forehead.
Cassian turned accusing eyes on Sideon and bared his teeth, “—but you got what you wanted. I should run my blade through your heart for what you have done, but that doesn’t appear to be an option anymore, does it? How convenient for you.”
His face softened as he approached Zamara. “Thankfully, your blast sent them away before they could torch anything else. The crew wants to know if we keep going or make camp. I need orders, Zamara.” He reached down and hauled her to her feet.
She closed her eyes, fighting away a wave of nausea. “We keep going for now. It is not possible to retrieve the bodies. We need to get out of this ravine and put some distance between us and the trolls. Once we make camp, we can have a ceremony and replenish supplies. Then we can figure out where to go from there.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with him.” Cassian curled his lip.
“I just saved her life. You think I’m going to hurt her now? After this?” Sideon raised his cut palm. “I can’t, and you know it. In fact, I just saved all your lives. I believe the correct words are thank you.”
“Not all.” Cassian snorted and crossed his arms. “You are probably the one that set this ambush up.”
“Cassian,” Zamara said softly, “go give the orders.”
He opened his mouth to argue but stopped, nodded, and placed his fist over his heart. He spun around and stalked out.
Sideon turned to her. “Zamara, I—"
“—Leave me, please, Sideon. I need to think.”
He pinched his lips together, nodded, and strode away.
Zamara hit the ground on her knees and sobbed into her hands. Her heart broke for the crew members and their families.
She stayed like that, unraveling on the floor of her cabin for some time when Merida snuck in, joined her, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “This is not your fault. Regardless of our losses, we need to keep going. Whatever it takes. Combining the stones is the only way.”
Zamara sniffed. “Our people are dropping like flies, and we haven’t even reached our destination yet.”
“Those sailors knew what they were getting themselves into when they signed up for this voyage. Don’t let their sacrifices be in vain.”
Zamara squeezed her eyes closed. She is right. Without the Akashi Stone, we have nothing. I need to pull myself together and move on, always forward. That is what our father would say. She nodded and wiped her eyes. “You are right. We need to keep going.”
“I know.” Merida rubbed Zamara’s back. “I’m always right.”
The corner of Zamara’s mouth twitched as she looked at Merida. A spark of mischief shone in her blue eyes.
A little bit of heaviness lifted from Zamara’s chest. “Do you know who the leader of the Magai is?”
“I do.” Merida nodded her head. “She is an old family friend. My piece of crap father found her after The Reckoning and took her in. He is the one who helped place her on the Magai throne. She isn’t my favorite person in the world.” Merida made a sour face. “She always flirts with Ander—and sleeps with my brother. But she has the last amulet, and we need her. Her warriors are very skilled. We need her army.”
Zamara’s heart stuttered. She didn’t know why the thought of Sideon with another woman bothered her so much, but it did. “Will she be hard to find?”
Merida shrugged. “I don’t know. Sideon is always the one who traveled to see her. He always found her, though. The sextant works. It’s just a matter of where they are. They move around a lot. It’s a big jungle.”
“Well, let’s hope we aren’t stumbling around forever looking for them. We are running low on supplies.”
Tired and hungry, they trudged on.
Zamara slogged after Sideon and Merida. It was slow going through the dense rainforest, humid and hard to breathe, like a wet towel smothered her face. She hadn’t been dry in days. Cassian and Scandronn were out scouting. The former hadn’t spoken a word to her since he learned she drank Sideon’s blood.
Nevrine and Red followed her, a steady presence at her back. Their small contingency of Magai warriors and Western Isles soldiers trailed behind them in a single file line. She instructed the others to guard the ships and replenish supplies.
The blisters on her soggy, aching feet complained with each step. They needed to make camp soon. We are going to starve to death before we ever find these rogue Magai. She growled.
They must be careful and quiet. Trolls had been tracking her company since they descended into the forest, and the beasts had an immaculate sense of smell. The stinking swamp mud her company rubbed all over themselves flaked and itched. Without it, the Trolls could catch their scents from a mile away.
Their pathway, if you could call it that, was uneven, overgrown, and soggy. She swung her Khannas and chopped through hanging vines. The thing about vines was they were not just pretty leaves. They were home to insects of all shapes and sizes. Some of them bit. Hairs graced some of their stems that got embedded into her skin, irritating it. She wished she could burn them, but that would be a beacon straight to their location. The rainforest was a glorious and unforgiving place.
She wondered if Sideon’s sextant worked. They had been at this for over a week. Her sister had been at the mercy of Kain for a moon. Zamara’s stomach twisted into knots, with hunger or worry, she didn’t know. Her heart was weary. She felt the absence of both Rose and Cassian. A ping of anger raced through her. They left her. They left her to carry this burden on her shoulders alone. The weight of the world, just like their father did. Her throat ached.
“Do you feel that charge in the air?” Nevrine stamped his staff into the ground, drawing her attention. He and Red had stopped. She halted and joined them. Nevrine continued, “We are close to the fortress. Which is good, that is where the amulets must be combined.”
“How is that good?” Red slapped his neck. “This damn jungle, it’s pointless is what it is. Without the other stone, this entire trip is futile.” He bared his teeth and snarled. “We risked our lives to get this sextant, and it doesn’t even work! The only thing retrieving it accomplished was assuring we would face an army on our way home. I knew we should never have trusted the pirate.”
“It works.” Sideon appeared at her side. His blue eyes flashed. His dark hair had grown to his chin. He wore rows of war braids to keep it from his face. With his shadow of a beard from their time spent traipsing through the jungle, he looked older somehow, more king-like. “They must be moving, probably to intercept us. They are close.”
“How close?” Zamara turned away from him and began walking the path again, needing to put some distance between them. She called over her shoulder. “We need to make camp and hunt.”
Sideon disappeared and rematerialized in front of her. She rebounded off his upper body. He seized her arms and whispered in her ear, “Remarkably close. The animals are watching us. We are in range of their leader.”
Zamara’s cheeks flamed. She took off walking ahead of everyone.
A jolt of energy zapped her skin as she tripped over a large tree root and stumbled into a clearing. Her lips parted as she gazed at a massive stone structure ahead. A moss and lichen covered fortress was nestled into the trees, overgrown and crumbling. Nobody has been here for years.
Gravel crunched under Zamara’s boots as she squatted down and snatched up a few stones from the ground. She weighed them in her hand. Once magnificent statues and pillars had been reduced to rubble. Not normal wear and tear, these are battle scars.
“What happened here, Nevrine?” Zamara stood and turned to her company. One by one, they stumbled through the invisible shield. Veins of static ran overhead, outlining a massive dome of energy.
Everyone but Nevrine and Sideon observed the grounds with wide eyes. Her Magai soldiers all took a knee, bowed their heads, and placed their fists over their hearts.
This is a sacred place for them. It pained her to see something that was once so great in such a defeated state.
Sounds of the jungle raged around them. It had claimed this space for its own once again.
“Kain happened here,” Nevrine said, “and trolls. The Magai lost their only source of protection. The shield is nowhere near as strong as it once was. It once prevented anyone without the Magai’s permission from entering. Now, it just renders this space invisible. We will have to set up a watch, but the dome will at least provide us some cover. I think this is our best option for camp. Give the orders and send out hunting parties. Then, I will take you to the temple.”
This place had more protection than Mystic Lake and look at what it has become.
…Ashes to ashes…
Dust to dust.
…Truly, nothing gold can stay…
Is this what will become of my settlements?
…Yes. If we don’t beat Kain, we will lose everything…
Zamara followed Nevrine into the belly of the beast.
They progressed along a rocky outcropping in one of the larger underground caverns. The scent of rotten eggs assaulted her nostrils, sulfur. Sweat ran down her face, soaking the scarf protecting her mouth and nose. She strived to keep her balance without touching the scalding rock face to her right. To her left, far down in a ravine, ran a river of lava. It was familiar to her somehow, like she had been here before, in a dream or something.
Nevrine led her past the source, a lake of magma, and to the temple of the sun goddess beyond, a large chamber with a circular well in the middle and lava that flowed beneath. The well was shaped to look like a bird’s beak. Their reflections looked back at them from a glassy floor of obsidian. The ceiling was vaulted. Statues of large birds with wings of fire adorned the walls.
“Come, child.” Nevrine steered her to the well in the center. “Once we get the fourth amulet, this is where it must be made whole again. There are some things I want you to know before you do this. I do not know who calls themselves the leader of the Magai now, but the only ruler before them was the daughter of the sun goddess, the Fenix, you. By right, these are your people, if you want them. I will stand behind you in whatever you decide. As I have done for millennia.”
What? I’m the leader of the Magai? A descendant of a goddess? The Fenix? What does that even mean? Besides I have been lied to by those closest to me for my entire life! This one, at least. She narrowed her eyes. “Who all knew about this? And why can’t I remember anything?”
Nevrine continued, “Every five-hundred-years, you burst into flame and are reborn from the ashes. The Akashi Stone, birthed in the Fenix Fires beneath our feet, right alongside you, has always been the source of your power. You have led many lives. The voices you hear are not demons of people you have killed but remnants of your memory’s past…and…I think it might have something to do with Cassian when you two were bound together. However, that is not my story to tell.”
Her eyes widened. She almost choked on her spit. “So, does this mean I am not mad? You say I am the daughter of a goddess. Who? Do I have two parents? Or am I just some weird experiment of the Fates?”
“Of course, you have parents.” Nevrine snorted. “You were born of the goddess Sol, she never divulged who your father is. Your mother bravely met her end in battle. After we lost her, the responsibility of your care fell to me. We came to Karth to start anew with our people. Your true name is Sunna. Cassian named you after the goddess of the Draconian sun, Zamara. I raised you. I am the closest thing to a parent you have ever had until the General came along. In each life, I am the one you entrusted to raise you from childhood until it was time for you to ascend or come into your power. You do that here. We will perform the ascension ceremony, hoping it also heals the Akashi Stone. Every re-birth you have had, has been right here in this very chamber. But this last time, things were different. This time a prophecy was involved. A seer warned me that a great evil would wash over our land, ending the world as we knew it. Right before it was time for you to reincarnate, I learned the Draconians came to steal you and use your power to restore their sun. The seer told me there was only one way to save our realm. A dragon would come for you, a dragon who had not yet been bonded. That he would raise you and protect you. It was the only way.”
“What sort of power? What does it do?”
“It gives you access to Akashi, the all-power. Akashi is the element of creation and chaos. It both heals and destroys. It is the element of the gods, and only a god can wield it. It can do anything. It can open portals between realms, given the right circumstances. I assume that is the reason Kain wants it. The problem is, not all gods are godlike. Their descendants can also use the power. So, in the wrong hands—"
“—chaos.” Zamara’s stomach dropped.
Nevrine nodded. “When you brought Xiao home, you and Rose caused quite a stir in Asyria. Your position and who you were was given away. We knew that it was only a matter of time before someone came for you and the stone. We decided that instead of having you ascend, we needed to cleave the stone and scatter the pieces. The power that was emitted upon breaking them apart was so magnificent, it caused Blackstone to erupt. I don’t need to tell you what happened next. It was Oberon and my decision. We are the reason for the Reckoning. It was our fault. It will take an equal surge of energy to reunite the stones. Which is why only one with a pure heart may do it. Why Kain needs you.”
“Well,” Zamara chortled, “we are all screwed then. I don’t know if you have realized this yet, Nevrine, but my heart isn’t exactly pure.”
“I know you better than you know yourself.” He looked into her eyes and placed his palm over the center of her chest. “Your heart is pure. You are the most stubborn entity I have ever known but your heart is in the right place. Stay true to yourself, trust in the Fates, and you will save us all. You need to let go of these doubts and believe in yourself the way we all believe in you.”
Zamara shuddered. “What if you are all wrong?”
Nevrine smiled. “The Fates are never wrong, my child.”
They ascended the stone staircase and entered a circular chamber where they found Sideon and Merida waiting for them. A cacophony of inaudible whispers drilled its way into her brain. It was like being in a room where everyone was talking at once. Only, the room was completely void of all life. Torches on the walls cast moving shadows throughout the room.
Firelight illuminated a border of large, scorched marble columns. Shadows lurked in the darkened corridors beyond. An iron chandelier rested askew atop a great round table. A large crack shot through the middle of its stone slab. Toppled chairs surrounded the table. Some of them littered the floor in pieces. The room was familiar to her. What was once opulent and solid was now an empty shell of pebbles and ash.
“This was the Magai’s council chamber. It has definitely seen better days…” Nevrine strode to an ornate chair and set it right. “This was your seat.”
Sideon drew his sword and took a defensive stance. He searched the blackness beyond. Zamara followed his gaze. The darkness stared back.
“What is it?” She drew her Khannas.
Merida shuffled behind her.
Sideon said, “We are not alone.”
Shadows danced beyond the torch’s glow.
Menacing growls erupted from the gloom and echoed off the pillars. Five snarling jaguars prowled into the light and encircled them. Her breath caught in her throat.
“I know it’s you.” Sideon took a step closer to her and readjusted his grip, “Show yourself, or I’m dispatching your cronies.”
The jaguar closest to them leapt at her. Sideon disappeared. The jaguar froze in mid-air like it hit an invisible wall as Sideon reappeared on top of it and plunged his sword through the back of the beasts’ neck. It hit the stone with a wet thud. Dead on impact.
The remaining jaguars put their teeth away and plopped onto their haunches.
“What the hell?” Zamara hissed.
“Their Queen is a shifter.” Sideon smiled as he wiped blood from his sword. “One of the rare ones that can control the minds of animals. A temporary gift that was bestowed upon her by my family so she could take the throne.” He raised his voice, “and this is how she repays me.” He jabbed his sword in the direction of the dead jaguar.
