Eraeth glanced toward Siobhaen, who nodded, and then, as if they’d planned it, both sheathed their swords and pulled the bows the forest had gifted them from their backs. Feet planted at the supple wood’s base, the two Alvritshai strung them in the space of a breath, Eraeth turning toward Colin, face taut and grim.
“You take care of Walter. We’ll deal with the sukrael.”
Neither waited for an answer, sprinting away from their location at the Source in two different directions, both reaching for the strange arrows the forest had left as they ran. Colin couldn’t remember how many arrows each carried, but he hoped there were enough to kill all of the Shadows that surrounded them. He counted at least fifty, perhaps as many as a hundred.
“Use the bows as staffs when you run out of arrows,” he shouted, brandishing his own staff. At the top of the steps, Walter drew a sword. “And remember that the sukrael perish if you can throw them over water.”
He caught Siobhaen’s first shot out of the corner of his eye, the shaft catching one of the Shadows and nailing it to the stone wall behind. Its supple, glistening blackness tinged with gold writhed and tattered as if it were cloth caught in a tempest
And then Walter moved, slowing time, his form blurring. But Colin had been waiting for it. He reached out and seized time as well, used it to find Walter, the flows disturbed by Walter’s presence, by his manipulations. Colin focused on the disruption and raced across the stone steps to meet his old tormentor from Portstown. Images of the abuse he’d suffered under Walter’s hand flared across his mind-the beatings in the streets of the fledgling town, the humiliation of the penance locks, and his sly smile when both had thought Colin would hang at the gallows in the town square. All of it came rushing back as if it had happened yesterday, instead of decades ago. He’d allowed his hatred to seethe inside of him, unquenched and unsatisfied for so long. That hatred had driven him to halt Walter’s awakening of the Wells, had taken him to battle against the other Wraiths and Shadows when they attacked the Alvritshai and dwarren afterward, had finally motivated him to create the Seasonal Trees to halt their destruction.
But all of that had been defensive. His hatred had not been sated. He wanted Walter dead, wanted revenge for the deaths of his parents, for the death of Karen and all of the others who had set out in that wagon train onto the eastern plains, driven there by Walter’s father because of what Walter had done.
He let all of the frustration and rage that had accumulated over the span of nearly two hundred years out in a roar as he closed on Walter, the Wraith charging toward him with a twisted smile on his face. Raising his staff diagonally overhead, he brought it down with all of his strength.
It cracked into Walter’s blade, the staff vibrating in Colin’s hand as Walter lurched left under the force of the impact, but it didn’t break. Without pause, Colin pulled back, shifted his grip, and swung the other end toward Walter’s feet, but the Wraith danced back out of range, sword snicking in toward Colin’s fingers. Colin hissed and pushed forward, aiming for Walter’s hands and arms now, trying to knock the sword from his grasp, but Walter was too quick, slipping back and forth through time, slowing and speeding up, just enough to remain out of reach. Colin matched his pace, keeping them in synch, the effort causing sweat to break out on his face and slick down his back. They shifted up and down the steps, circling the Source, its blue pulse deepening as dusk began to descend.
Around them, the battle between the Shadows and Eraeth and Siobhaen proceeded in juttering spurts as the two humans danced with time, but Colin couldn’t watch, didn’t have the time or energy to spare. The two Alvritshai were on their own. Walter’s actions were too quick, his strikes too sudden. Colin couldn’t afford to look away.
He hissed as Walter’s sword cut a smooth line across the back of his hand, blood welling even as Walter smirked, spun the blade in his grip, and brought it sharply across Colin’s exposed throat. Colin seized time as he lurched back with a gasp, the blade slowing a moment, giving Colin a fraction of a second longer before Walter compensated, the sword tip passing within a finger’s breadth of his neck, so close he felt its passage beneath his chin. He swallowed down the bitter taste of fear, stepped back, and tripped over a massive slab of the crystal debris that littered the floor, his back slamming to its surface with enough force his breath gushed from his lungs.
Walter shouted in triumph, leaping up onto the surface as Colin choked on air. Sword raised, the Wraith brought it down two-handed, attempting to plunge it into Colin’s chest, but Colin rolled. The tip of Walter’s blade caught the back of his shirt, the edge slicing a thin line down Colin’s shoulders that burned, but Colin didn’t stop moving. He tore free, the tip of the blade skittering across the crystal’s face, nicking Colin again in the side as it jerked in Walter’s hand before he drew it back. Colin swore, heard Walter laugh, the sound reverberating through the chamber-
And then he rolled over the edge of the crystal slab.
He hit the stone floor, felt grit, stone, and smaller crystal shards cut into his side, but flung out his arm to halt himself. His legs swung out over empty space and he sucked in a shaky breath. They’d somehow circled back down to the Source, the gaping, lipless mouth of the Well yawning to one side. His momentum and the weight of his legs nearly pulled him farther into the pit, but he jerked back, scrambling up onto the lip. He had a moment to catch his breath, leaning on one elbow, and then he heard Walter’s feet grinding into the grit behind him.
He shoved himself up into a seated position, free hand slapping into the wood of his staff. He twisted and drove it hard into Walter’s stomach. At the same time, he seized some of the Source’s power-a power he could feel escalating toward its peak-and sent it through the wooden shaft.
Walter screamed and reeled back, hitting the same slab that Colin had stumbled over. Satisfaction surged through Colin as the smug expression on Walter’s face contorted into a snarl of pain and hatred as he wheeled and fell. His sword clanged into the slab, jarred from his hand, and returned to real time, caught in mid-bounce. Walter swore and dragged himself to the far side of the crystal. His movements were slower, the clothing where Colin’s staff had hit him in the chest scorched.
“You weren’t expecting that, were you?” Colin climbed to his feet. He winced as he pulled himself upright with his staff, the blood from the cut on his hand trickling down his arm. The slice across his back stung with sweat. He grinned. “I’ve learned a few tricks since we last fought, there on the Escarpment.”
Walter glared, pushing himself up into a low crouch. One hand went to his chest, near the burn mark, hand cupped strangely.
Then he smiled. “So have I.”
He thrust his hand forward, palm out. Colin tensed, saw a ripple on the air like a heat wave-
Then something slammed into his chest and flung him backward. He crashed to the floor, scrabbled for purchase, then felt himself slipping over the edge of the Well again. His free hand grabbed at the lip. The fingers of his other were crushed between staff and stone. His entire body slid over and dangled against the edge of the Well, held only by the arm holding the staff and his fingers. He tried to swing his legs up to the lip, gasping with the effort, failed and pulled himself up to his chest instead, keeping himself stable, the lip underneath both armpits. He glanced down, the Lifeblood pulsing with bluish light not far beneath. It was nearing the point where it would be full. If it awakened completely, he wasn’t certain he could reverse the process.
He was running out of time.
He snapped his attention back toward Walter, the Wraith coming toward him with hand cupped to his chest again. Walter paused long enough to return to real time and retrieve his sword, body stilling unnaturally for a single short breath, then continued toward him, a malicious smile touching his lips.
Colin clenched his teeth and heaved himself up and out of the Well.
Siobhaen drew and fired as she ran, the bowstring a consistent twang in her ears, setting the wood in her hand humming. The sukrael streaked down from the sides of the chamber, like black cloth blowing on a wind. Her first three arrows took out four of the Shadows, snagging in their silky folds and carrying them to the surrounding walls where they were pinned to the stone, the third hitting two of them as they converged on her. A shiver of surprise ran through her that the arrows didn’t shatter against the stone, but punched through it as if it were wood. She smiled in cold satisfaction when the sukrael began to writhe and tatter beneath the shafts as if being torn to shreds by a tempest.
To one side, she caught Shaeveran and the other Wraith blurring in and out of focus as they fought, their figures jumping from step to step, vanishing and appearing again twenty paces distant, sword and staff thrusting and lunging back and forth, until the disjointed fight began to make her head ache. Sounds of the fight intruded as well, oddly distorted as a grunt or shout began before fading or cutting off sharply as they disappeared.
She shoved their battle aside and focused on the Shadows with grim determination. She reached, pulled, and fired one last arrow, the creatures getting too close, then swung the bow in a sweep across her body. She felt the wood catch in their forms, the bow jerking in her hands as those closest were caught, but she solidified her stance and flung them out over the emptiness of the Well at her back. They fell into the pit, a high-pitched keening piercing through Siobhaen’s head, but she didn’t watch to see if they died. She dodged left and sprinted around the Well, trying to put some distance between her and the others.
As she ran, she felt a surge of power from the Source, the light throbbing like a heartbeat, the power within pushing against her skin. Beneath that massive force, she felt another power, recognized it as Aielan’s Light, the white fire burning deep within the earth here. She reached for it unconsciously as she ran, drew it into her body as she had done at the Well in the White Wastes. But there the pool of white fire hadn’t been as strong. She had been forced to dig deep, to root herself in ritual learned as an acolyte at the Sanctuary in Caercaern. It hadn’t come easily, and she’d only been able to draw upon it enough to create the wall of fire that had protected them from the Wraith and the sukrael that had attacked them.
Here, the white fire came willingly. It filled her, burning beneath her skin. She exulted in its power, the emotions of her first immersion in Aielan’s Light deep within the mountains beneath Caercaern smothering her. She cried out at their intensity, laughed as they seared her inside and out. She halted and spun, arrow placed and fired before any of the sukrael behind her could react. On the far side of the Well, she saw Eraeth doing the same, his face twisted into a snarl. But the sukrael were too fast, coming in from too many sides. They couldn’t cover their own backs, and there was nothing in the chamber they could use-
Except themselves.
She grimaced in distaste, but shouted, “We need to cover each other!” even as she pulled and fired again and again, spinning on her heels.
Across the Well, Eraeth grunted. “Agreed.”
He broke off his attack and ran, leaping up onto chunks of the crystal and jumping to the stone steps, weaving a path toward the opposite side of where they’d begun, where Shaeveran and the Wraith were still fighting. Siobhaen risked a glance in that direction, saw the Wraith appear long enough to snatch his blade out of the air as it fell, then blur away. She shot three arrows in succession and then bolted toward Eraeth.
They met in the middle of the steps, the sukrael streaking after both of them, perhaps forty remaining. Positioning themselves back to back, but with enough space between them to make drawing arrows easy, they began picking off as many of the sukrael as they could. Siobhaen listened to Eraeth’s breathing as she focused her attention outward, adjusting her stance left or right as Eraeth shifted. They were keeping the sukrael at bay, and distracted from Shaeveran, but it wouldn’t last long. Desperation crawled up from Siobhaen’s gut as she fired, her mind frantically searching for a solution.
As if reading her thoughts, Eraeth said, “We can’t keep this up much longer. I’m running out of arrows.”
“So am I.”
“What’s our strategy?”
Before Siobhaen could answer, light pulsed up and out of the Source, so intense she saw flashes of darkness on her vision even though she hadn’t been looking at the Well. She swore and blinked rapidly, catching one of the Shadows as it reared up before her. At the same time, the power of Aielan’s Light flared up inside of her, as if reacting to the pulse from the Source. Her heart surged at the sight of the Shadow so close, adrenaline sizzling through her skin, tingling in her arms. Without thought she released the arrow already nocked.
The arrow and the flare of the fire in her gut coincided. As the bow’s string hummed, the arrow burst into white flame and streaked toward the Shadow. It shrieked as it was caught, then burst into a fiery white conflagration, the arrow carrying it away like a shooting star. Where its flames touched the other sukrael, they also burst into white fire, flailing as their shrieks joined the others.
Siobhaen sucked in a breath in shock. She had never called Aielan’s Light without the use of a ritual before, but she had never felt so saturated in the Light before either. Whatever lay beneath the ground in this wasted, ruined city, it was more than simply a source for the Lifeblood of the Wells. Aielan’s Light resided here as well, a more powerful conflagration than what lay beneath Caercaern.
“What happened?” Eraeth shouted from behind her.
“I called on Aielan’s Light.”
“I meant what happened to the Source?”
She felt her shoulders prickle at the derision in his tone, but turned her focus on the Well, keeping one eye on the Shadows. The sukrael had halted their attack on her, hovering a short distance away as those caught by the white fire writhed in their death throes on the stone steps. Eraeth continued to fire arrows on his side.
The Source’s light pulsed from within the Well, brighter and faster than before. She could see the Lifeblood within now. It had risen nearly to the surface.
Her chest tightened in horror. “I think the Well is almost awake.”
Eraeth grunted. The twang of his bowstring halted. She turned.
“I’m out of arrows,” he said.
She reached and grabbed all of hers that remained, handing them over. “Take them,” she spat when he resisted. “I’ll use Aielan’s Light instead.”
He nodded once, then grabbed the arrows and shoved them into the quiver on his back. There weren’t many left.
She spun, reaching deep down inside herself, reaching deep inside the earth as well, down toward the source of Aielan’s Light beneath the city.
Then she called it forth.
Colin jabbed his staff into Walter’s stomach and unleashed a burning pulse of power as it connected, even as Walter brought his sword down across Colin’s chest and threw a wave of power from his other hand. The sword nicked Colin’s chin as he jerked his head away, cut into his arm on the downswing, and then the power hit him full force and flung him backward. Walter screamed as Colin’s blast burst from the end of the staff before disengaging. Both of them hit the floor and scrambled to their feet, breathing hard. Walter was covered in scorch marks-on his chest, stomach, arms, and back-his clothing seared and smoking. Colin’s entire body ached with bruises from the energy punches Walter had flung at him. Scores of nicks and cuts riddled his body. They glared at each other across the debris of the crystal dome, night sky above, the chamber lit only by the heartbeat of the Source at its center.
That heartbeat pulsed through Colin’s blood, seethed through his skin with its urgency. The Well was filling; it was nearly awake.
Walter leaped across the distance separating them and dove at Colin with an overhead swing. Colin barely caught it with his staff, the force of the blow driving Colin and Walter to the ground. Colin’s back slammed into the debris, stones and shards of crystal biting into his back, but he heaved upward with the staff and flung Walter up and over his body using all of his strength. As soon as Walter’s weight lifted off of him, he rolled into a crouch. He heard Walter grunt as he hit the ground, turned in time to see the Wraith slam into the side of one of the chunks of crystal, and then he pushed forward with his feet, bringing his staff up and around.
It cracked into Walter’s wrist. Bones crunched, and Walter screamed as he lost his grip on the blade again. But Colin didn’t back off. Before the sword had halted in mid-fall, his staff pounded into Walter’s chest, into his side, his legs, his shoulder. He pummeled his age-old nemesis, primeval pressure building in his chest, escaping in a wordless cry of pent-up frustration riddled with childhood fears, with the rage of youth, with grief and nearly two hundred years of hatred. Through the tears coursing down his flushed face, he beat at Walter’s head, pounded the staff into the bully’s body, seeing the youthful Walter who’d kicked the shit out of him in Portstown. He saw the blurred image of an older Walter, face swirling with blackness and speckled with blood, after he’d slaughtered the Tamaell of the Alvritshai in the parley tent at the Escarpment. He vented all of the stress of searching for him in the years since, following in the Wraiths’ footsteps as they awakened the Wells, trying to catch them, to destroy them, only to have them slip away, as insubstantial as the Shadows that had tainted them.
And then he heard Walter laughing through his own strained and shortened breath.
Colin jerked back, breaking off his attack, his breath coming so fast and so short that he felt light-headed. Weakness shook his arms, his body, and he coughed harshly, trying to seize control of his hyperventilation. His skin was flushed and he felt hot and nauseous, his whole body trembling. The sensation was familiar, and he suddenly realized that this was how he’d felt after attacking Walter and his cronies with the sling back in Portstown, when he’d been only twelve years old.
And still Walter laughed. Face bloody and bruised, bones cracked, he still sucked in breath after breath and laughed. From his crumpled position against the slab of crystal, the Source’s light pulsing blue against his black-swirling, blood-spattered skin, he watched Colin, his grin cutting into Colin like a knife.
Colin straightened as Walter’s laughter faded into chuckles. When Walter tried to shift and grimaced in pain, Colin could see his teeth were stained red with blood. But still he chuckled.
Colin frowned in confusion. He stepped forward, stood over Walter, the Wraith staring up at him from where he’d collapsed.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked, although the question wasn’t for Walter. He didn’t expect the Wraith to answer, was surprised when Walter did.
“Because you’re too late,” Walter said, choking on blood as he spoke. He swallowed, face twisting in pain, and yet he grinned his bloody grin, saying more forcefully, “You’re too late.”
The Source suddenly flared with light, Colin turning as it pulsed upward and out, surging up through the floor and through Colin’s body. The heartbeat that had been escalating reached its height. Partially blinded, Colin could still make out the Lifeblood that had nearly reached the lip of the Well. At some point, while fighting with Walter, or attempting to beat him senseless, he’d let his hold on time go. They were in real time now, and as they fought, the process that Walter and the Wraiths had started had neared completion.
The Source stirred from its slumber.
With a sickening twist of rage, Colin realized it had all been a ruse. The entire fight between them had been nothing but a distraction. Walter had simply been keeping Colin occupied while the Well continued to fill.
Colin snapped his attention back to Walter to find the Wraith watching him.
“You can’t kill me,” Walter said. “We can’t die.”
“No,” Colin said, shifting his grip on his staff. He felt something deep inside him harden. “Not yet. But I can hurt you.”
Fear flickered for a brief moment across Walter’s face as Colin lifted his staff and then drove its end into Walter’s chest two-handed, releasing the power of the Lifeblood that coursed through him through the living wood in a flood. He held nothing back, the shame that had caused him to halt his attack with the sling in Portstown and had sent him staggering from Walter here in this ruined city a moment ago burned away. Walter screamed, louder than anything Colin had heard before, the pain in the sound reverberating in Colin’s head, in his bones, and yet he ground the staff harder into Walter’s chest. Walter writhed beneath the onslaught, arms juddering against the floor and crystal slab, legs kicking, heels drumming a staccato rhythm against the stone.
When the scream died, Colin jerked his staff away, Walter’s body arcing on its side as residual energy coursed through it, then collapsing back to the floor, the Wraith unconscious. Beneath the blackened and charred circle where his staff had connected to his body, Walter’s chest still moved. He still breathed.
Colin nearly drove the staff into him again, but wrenched himself away from the body and stalked toward the edge of the Well. The Lifeblood lapped within a few inches of the edge of the stone, but it had not fully awakened. There might still be time.
He raised his arms, staff in one hand-
And then sank into the power that coursed around him, into the eddies and flows of the Lifeblood, down and down into the Well, diving deep into the reservoir and the Source beneath. He let the Lifeblood fill him. Through its power, he felt a sudden flare, although it was distant and removed. He tasted it, recognized it as Aielan’s Light, and relaxed. Siobhaen must have called it. She was the only one he knew of in the chamber besides himself who could control it.
He wondered briefly why she’d needed it, but then shoved that concern aside. He didn’t have time. The Well was almost full, almost awake. Its power had escalated and was reaching its crest. It would peak within moments. He needed to halt it, or he would never be able to stop the attacks on the Seasonal Trees. If the Wraiths managed to solidify this power, they would be able to use it for years against the three races, decades perhaps. It might take him that long or longer to bring the rest of the Wells into balance enough that he could protect its power from the Wraiths.
He searched the Source for a way to halt the awakening. Lifeblood surged from the reservoir below into the Well, the currents of the underground lake and the surrounding streams that fed and stemmed from it forcing the water higher. He knew from his attempts to balance the Wells to the west that cutting off the flow along one branch or widening it along another would affect the entire system. It had taken him years of experimentation to figure out how it had worked. The introduction of the reservoir had complicated that system immeasurably. Yet he had only a few minutes to figure out how to stop it now.
He paused his frantic search of the currents and focused on the Well in the ruined city. Trying to calm his thundering heart, heightened by the pulse of the awakening, he let himself sink into the flows beneath the city. The Lifeblood coursed through a maze of tunnels and chambers, like those the dwarren used beneath the plains. Those corridors lay everywhere, connected to the lake far beneath. All he needed to do was find which currents would ease the pressure on the one filling the Well and then divert them.
He tried to calm his breathing, tried to relax.
There.
Excitement cut through him, but he forced it back, focused on the one channel he’d chosen and then began pouring power through himself into the flows there. He pushed them to one side, tried to divert them into a new passage, as if he’d taken his hand and plunged it into the edge of a stream to affect the currents.
The Lifeblood reacted, swirling around him as if he were merely a stone, creating new eddies, but not blocking the main channel feeding the Well. The stream was too large. He needed more power.
Opening himself up further, he let more of the power of the Wells course through him, felt his presence expand in the stream, but it still wasn’t enough. He needed more. Shaking with the effort, he opened himself wider, and wider still, felt his control of the power trembling in his grasp. He had never extended himself this far, had never absorbed and held this much within himself, had never allowed so much of the Lifeblood to flow through him. He shuddered in ecstasy, on the verge of allowing it to carry him away, tasted its coldness to his core, the scent of ice and loam and earth overwhelming him.
And it wasn’t enough.
“I can’t,” he murmured, trying to push himself further, to block the flow of Lifeblood. “It’s too far along. I’m not strong enough. I can’t stop it.”
His voice drew his awareness back to his body, drew him back to the edge of the Well, the Lifeblood a finger’s breadth away from the top now. He felt Aielan’s Light burning around him, felt Siobhaen and Eraeth’s presence on the far side of the Well, heard Siobhaen shouting something, her voice thick with warning.
“I can’t,” he whispered, trying to answer her, despair beginning to wash through him.
The Wraiths were going to succeed. Walter was going to win. They’d planned everything too well, Colin and Aeren and the dwarren reacting too late.
Then pain punched through the despair, a white-hot, ragged pain that began in his back and erupted from his chest, searing through his body as it arched, someone grabbing hold of his shoulder to keep him steady as the pain widened, gripping his entire chest, sending sheets of fire into his arms and legs. He glanced down as blood gurgled up in the back of his throat, coating his mouth, and saw the end of Walter’s blade jutting out of his chest.
Walter’s breath blew hot against his neck as the Wraith whispered, “You never did open yourself completely to the Lifeblood and all it offered as I did, did you?”
The white fire of Aielan’s Light leaped from Siobhaen’s hands in an arc, burning into the outer ring of sukrael instantly, setting them afire. Their shrieks filled the blue-lit chamber as Siobhaen pushed the fire outward, the Shadows twisting and writhing as they tried to escape. Eraeth had an arrow nocked and ready to shoot, sight trained along its length as he swung it back and forth, searching for any of the sukrael that might break free, but there was no need. Siobhaen could feel them through the fire as it seethed through her, knew where to direct the tendrils of flame. They were like voids in the living world around her, pits of emptiness.
She filled those pits with fire.
There were over twenty of the sukrael left and they all died within the space of ten heartbeats. Their black bodies flapped in the white furnace that Siobhaen called forth, burned to embers as the Light flowed through her. She found herself murmuring prayers to Aielan, litanies from her youth coming to her lips without thought. She prayed to her ancestors, to the flames beneath Caercaern, to the fire she drew upon now, and when the last Shadow had ceased to exist she felt that fire taper off and die within her.
Weakness shuddered through her and she collapsed to her knees, then back onto her heels.
“Siobhaen!”
She turned toward Eraeth’s voice, removed from her body, hollowed out and burned to a cinder. She tried to smile in reassurance. “It came too easy,” she said, and her voice trembled. “I couldn’t control it.”
“You controlled it enough to kill the sukrael.”
She shook her head. He didn’t understand. “I could guide it, but I couldn’t control its power. It was too much. It burned me out.”
She could tell by his scrunched up look that he still didn’t understand.
Then movement caught her eye. Movement on the far side of the Well.
Shaeveran stood at the water’s edge, arms raised, staff in one hand, but his eyes were closed, his face tense with concentration. To her burnt-out senses, he appeared to be throbbing, as if he were greater than he appeared, filled to bursting. The bluish light of the Well washed over him, casting him in strange shadows.
But the movement came from behind him and to one side.
“Eraeth,” Siobhaen said in horror.
The Protector spun at the warning in her voice, bow already rising, string creaking as he drew the arrow back, fingers near his ear. But the Wraith had already risen, had already slipped behind the oblivious Shaeveran.
The human’s eyes flickered. His mouth moved, as if he were speaking.
Siobhaen couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to, too drained by Aielan’s Light. But she could still talk.
She drew in a deep breath and screamed, “Shaeveran! Behind you!”
And then the tip of a blade burst from Shaeveran’s chest. He arched back, but the Wraith’s hand clamped onto his shoulder and held him as the blade twisted and the Wraith murmured something in Shaeveran’s ear.
With a jerk, the Wraith withdrew the blade and let Shaeveran fall to the side.
Siobhaen couldn’t breathe. Her chest had constricted, her throat locked shut, mouth open. Horror tingled through her body, paralyzing her.
But not Eraeth.
She heard the twang of the bowstring, saw the first arrow streaking across the now completely full Well, the shaft shimmering with light from the water beneath. She felt it sink into the Wraith’s chest as if it had struck her own instead. She jerked, drawing air through the constriction, something painful tearing deep inside. A second and third arrow were already speeding across the Well after the first, the sound of the bow somehow amplified in her ears. The Wraith’s body had twisted, the force of the first shaft throwing him back. The second arrow hit him high in the shoulder, kicking him in the opposite direction, the third taking him in the throat.
The fourth took him in the eye.
He fell, Siobhaen so attuned to the chamber she heard his clothes rustle, heard the thud of the body hit the stone. Then Eraeth’s hands were under her armpits, heaving her up and slinging one arm across his shoulders so he could support her. She instinctively pulled away, not wanting his help, disgusted at the presumption, but when she dragged her feet under her, they would not support her weight.
“Come on,” Eraeth growled. “I don’t know how long he’ll stay down.” He began hauling her around the edge of the Well, heading toward the bodies. She noted he unconsciously veered around the blackened ash where the sukrael had died.
“He isn’t dead?” she asked, her voice dry and ragged.
“No.”
Stunned, she let Eraeth carry her for a moment, then began struggling to regain her footing, her legs tingling as the bloodflow returned to them. She hissed at the sensation, but by the time they’d reached Shaeveran’s side, she could stand on her own.
Eraeth let her go and dropped down beside Shaeveran, rolling him onto his back.
Siobhaen sucked air through her teeth.
The hole in Shaeveran’s chest still leaked blood, a large pool of it already surrounding his body, his clothes plastered to his side, his hair matted with it. More blood than Siobhaen had ever seen. Some of it had reached the edge of the Well, curling red-black in the water before dispersing. Shaeveran’s face was ashen, his hands pale, his lips blue. And yet he breathed. If she hadn’t seen his chest moving, she would have known by the bubbles of blood that formed at the hole in his chest. But his breathing was slow, perhaps one breath for every three of Siobhaen’s.
“Is he alive?” she asked.
Eraeth gave her a scathing look. “Of course.”
Siobhaen tensed at the derision, but Eraeth had already dismissed her, was digging through his satchel. He pulled out one of the waterskins, uncapped it, and upended the water onto the ground.
Siobhaen lurched forward. “What are you doing? We need that! We’re in the middle of a desert!”
He thrust the skin into her hands. “Fill this with water from the Source as best you can. He may want it when he awakens. Don’t touch the water. Don’t even touch the waterskin where it gets wet. And for Aielan’s sake, don’t drink any of it.”
He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed him, turning back to Shaeveran instead, ripping the bloody shirt apart over the wound and beginning to clean it, not being gentle. As soon as he cleared it, the wound filled with fresh blood. Dark blood, rich and vital. Eraeth swore and continued working, motions frantic.
Siobhaen shuddered and turned away. Shaeveran had told her he couldn’t die, but she hadn’t believed it until now. He shouldn’t still be alive. Any Alvritshai with a wound like that would have died before he hit the floor.
She gripped the waterskin in her hands, then made her way to the Well, stumbling only once on her weakened legs before kneeling. She made to dip the entire skin into the water, then remembered what Eraeth had said. Gritting her teeth, she held the skin along one edge and dipped the mouth beneath the smooth surface, the Well still pulsing with bluish light. Air bubbles escaped and rose to the surface, but she couldn’t get much of the Lifeblood into the skin, not without reaching into the water.
She tried a few more times, then swore and pulled the skin from the Well, holding it as if it were made of glass, letting the liquid drip down one side. She could feel the power of the Lifeblood, as if she held her hand out to a fire. It smelled of earth and loam.
When she turned back, she caught sight of the Wraith.
He’d fallen on his back, the four arrows jutting up from his body-chest, shoulder, throat, and eye. She grimaced at the last as she moved to stand over him. The sword that he’d thrust through Shaeveran’s body lay next to his limp hand, slick with blood. She kicked it farther away, afraid to touch it. Then she knelt down beside the body.
Unlike Shaeveran, the Wraith’s skin roiled with darkness, like ink. Blood stained his clothes as well, seeping from around the strange wooden arrows. His chest rose and fell in the same slackened pace as Shaeveran’s, but somehow it seemed more unnatural to Siobhaen. She reached her free hand toward the end of the shaft that had sunk into the Wraith’s eye socket, but couldn’t bring herself to touch it.
She stood abruptly, spitting a vitriolic curse at the body, then hurried back to Eraeth’s side.
“The Wraith isn’t dead,” she reported. “He’s still breathing. Even with that arrow through the eye.”
“It will take more than an arrow to kill them, even one given to us by the Ostraell. Be thankful that it’s hurt him enough to knock him unconscious.” Eraeth stood, staring down at where he’d bandaged Shaeveran’s chest, the cloth over the wound already stained red. He glanced toward the Well, then Siobhaen, narrowing his eyes. “We need to get him out of here.”
“What about the Source?”
“Without Colin, there’s nothing more we can do. And I don’t want to be around when the Wraith wakes.”
“But-” Siobhaen turned to stare at the Well, at the bluish light that was beginning to dim.
Eraeth gripped her shoulder. “We won’t go far. We’ find someplace in the city to rest until he heals enough to tell us what needs to be done.”
“Can anything be done now?”
Siobhaen’s heart lurched with pain at the grim expression that flickered across Eraeth’s face. Despair washed through her and she suddenly wondered if events would have turned out differently if she had turned on Vaeren before they had reached the Well in the northern wastes, if she hadn’t wavered between her duty to the Sanctuary and Lotaern and her duty to Aeilan’s Light and what she’d felt in her soul was right.
The thought that they would have, that Shaeveran would not be lying at her feet, his heart’s blood staining the stone beneath them, sickened her.
Eraeth squeezed her shoulder, then glanced down at the waterskin she clutched in one hand. It was still damp with the Lifeblood.
He snatched up his satchel and opened it. Siobhaen dropped the skin inside and he cinched it closed and threw it over his shoulder. He motioned toward Shaeveran. “We have to move. Now. Help me with him.”
They each took one of Shaeveran’s arms beneath a shoulder, the human surprisingly light, and began dragging him up the steps away from the Source toward one of the openings that led to the outskirts of the building. Behind, the bluish light of the Well continued to recede, night reclaiming the broken dome’s interior.
At the top of the steps, they paused to look back, the water of the Source placid, the light within as faint as moonlight now, washing the stone debris and the cracked walls of the chamber. The Wraith’s body lay still and shadowed.
Siobahen’s stomach suddenly clenched and she turned toward Eraeth, Shaeveran’s body between them, head sagging forward. “What about the dwarren? And the humans to the south? What about the Seasonal Trees?”
The same pained, grim look flashed through Eraeth’s eyes.
He didn’t answer.
“Is that the last of the Cochen’s forces?” Quotl asked. His voice still sounded odd to his ears, throbbing deep in his chest, and many of the dwarren who rode past gave him strange looks. Nearly all of them reached for the totems woven into their beards, some muttering prayers and raising them to their mouths to be kissed. Even those wounded, covered in blood and battle-weary, paused a moment before being ushered on by the shamans who tended them.
Quotl tried to ignore them, as he had ignored the reactions of Azuka and the others on the battlefield. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to brush the looks aside.
Azuka nodded. “The last of those in the main group have entered the cavern, including the Cochen, the clan chiefs, and the Archon.” Azuka shot him a sidelong look as he mentioned the Archon, which Quotl also chose to ignore.
“Then seal the warren.”
Azuka opened his mouth to protest-the order should have come from the Archon or the Cochen-but stopped himself, casting another glance at Quotl before nodding and kneeing his gaezel forward through the throng of dwarren toward the main entrance. Quotl remained behind, his gaze sweeping over those that filled the wide tunnel without really seeing them. A sense of inevitability enfolded him, numbed him. The power that had suffused him on the battlefield had waned, but his connection to it had not broken. It had merely subsided into the background.
He didn’t know what had happened, didn’t understand what it meant, but he was beginning to think it was more than simple chance. He’d overheard some of the rumors that were already threading their way through the dwarren ranks. Whispers that he’d been touched by the gods, that Ilacqua worked through him, even that he’d become a god himself.
He’d snorted in contempt at that last. But it was a troubled snort.
From far down the tunnel, he heard a rumble of stone that escalated and grew. He reached out to touch the wall beside him, his gaezel fidgeting beneath his weight as it felt the rock trembling. The roar of falling rubble increased, then peaked. As it began to fade, a cloud of dust and grit suddenly engulfed the entire corridor, moving swiftly past all of the gathered dwarren, the Riders crying out in alarm and breaking into fits of coughing. Torches guttered in the gust of air, a few sputtering out. Gaezels shifted restlessly. Quotl held his breath as long as he could, then sucked in a lungful of air, tasting the dry dust of stone in the back of his throat a moment before his lungs protested and he began coughing as well. As soon as the cloud of grit passed, it began to settle, everyone covered in a light gray-white film. Riders brushed themselves off and the hacking and wheezing faded.
“Who ordered the collapse?”
Quotl winced at the outcry, the voice instantly recognizable, a sour taste twisting his mouth into a grimace. He straightened, ran a hand down his dust-coated face, and prayed, wishing fervently for his pipe.
“I did,” he said, raising his voice to be heard even though the Riders that were within range had fallen silent. “I called for the collapse of the entrance.”
He turned to face the Archon.
On the far side of the tunnel, at least a hundred strides away, Kimannen spun in his seat, face contorted in rage. He stood with the Cochen, the clan chief covered in blood, his arm held out to the ministrations of one of Red Sea’s shamans. Two of the other clan chiefs-Corranu of Painted Sands and Asazi of Broken Waters-flanked the Cochen and the Archon, also wounded.
“The sealing of the warren is the Archon’s responsibility,” Kimannen spat. He dragged his gaezel around and headed toward Quotl, the Riders between parting before him, their gazes flickering back and forth between the two.
Quotl stiffened, reaching forward to still his gaezel when it snorted in defiance. “You were preoccupied with the Cochen and his wounds, although I see that one of your shamans has seen to them.”
Kimannen glared at the mild rebuke, halting a short distance away. “You overstep your bounds, Quotl. You always have.”
At the threat that underlay the words, the Riders surrounding Kimannen stirred, a grumble of discontent rumbling forth. The Archon did not appear to notice.
Quotl’s eyes narrowed. “Would you have left the warren open?”
“Of course not. We cannot allow the Wraith army access to the tunnels, to the Confluence.”
“Then I have merely anticipated your orders.”
“That is not the point!” the Archon shouted, trembling slightly. But when the murmur of dissent rippled among the Riders at his tone, he shot dark looks to either side. Confusion passed across his face, and he drew his gaezel back at the looks the dwarren were giving him, looks as dark as those he’d flung at Quotl.
He returned to face Quotl, the glare becoming a glower of hatred, of resentment.
He edged his gaezel closer, so that they stood side to side. His features smoothed, the anger draining away, although this close Quotl could still see it simmering deep in the Archon’s eyes. He drew himself up to his full height and said, “You wielded the power of Ilacqua I sent you well on the battlefield today. I can feel it inside of you still. I see now that I was mistaken. It was Ilacqua who guided you in sealing the warren behind us, yes? As it was Ilacqua, through me, who guided you at the Break?”
All eyes were on Quotl. Doubt had crept into the murmurs of dissent from the Riders, doubt Quotl knew he could crush with a few words. He could challenge Kimannen here and now, seize the Archon’s position before all of those gathered. It was not how the Archon was chosen, but this was the Turning. The world was slipping toward chaos, and perhaps that was the best reason to wrest control from Kimannen. They needed a strong Archon now more than ever.
But they also needed stability, especially among the clans. Kimannen hadn’t kept control for so long because he was powerless. He had allies among the clans, knew how to manipulate them to get what he wanted. Most of the shamans knew that a few were more powerful than Kimannen when it came to Ilacqua’s blessings, knew that Kimannen’s personal communion with the gods had been slipping recently. But they couldn’t afford a dispute among the shamans at this time. Not after the battle.
Quotl allowed himself to relax, his hand moving to calm the gaezel he rode. “Ilacqua guides me in all things, Kimannen, here and on the battlefield.”
Kimannen’s nostrils flared at the use of his name, rather than his title, but he answered, “As I suspected.” His gaze raked those watching. “The warren is sealed by Ilacqua’s will! Prepare to depart!”
Then, attention back on Quotl, leaning forward, so that only Quotl would hear, he said coldly, “You are not the Archon.”
He jerked his gaezel’s head around and headed back toward the Cochen. Oraju and the other clan chiefs had remained silent, but watchful. Corranu caught Quotl’s attention and nodded, the motion subtle but laden with respect. Oraju’s expression was impossible to read.
As soon as Kimannen turned his back, Quotl sighed. Tension in his shoulders drained away.
“Kimannen did not send you Ilacqua’s strength on the battlefield,” Azuka said from behind him.
Quotl started. He hadn’t heard the shaman return. He frowned at him, as if his inattention had been Azuka’s fault. “Who is to say? The Archon was distant. Perhaps he appealed to Ilacqua to aid us.”
Azuka’s penetrating stare didn’t falter. “The shamans know. And most of the Riders on the field. They saw you.”
A queasy unease ran through Quotl’s gut at the intensity in Azuka’s voice and his hand twitched toward his pipe. He waved his hand in frustration. “What did they see? I am nothing but a shaman, an old one at that, well past my prime.”
Azuka smiled. “True. But you’ve changed.”
“How? How have I changed?”
Azuka’s eyes widened. “You can’t see it, can you?”
Quotl answered with a heated glare and Azuka settled back in his seat. His brow creased in thought.
“It’s hard to explain. I’d have said that you glowed, but that’s not accurate. You appear the same, and yet there’s more. More life, more energy, more you. I can sense you even when I cannot see you, and what I feel emanating from you is…” He groped for a moment, then sighed, shoulders sagging. “What I feel is hope.”
Quotl remained silent. Azuka’s words made him uncomfortable, the stares of those Riders around him were worse. Throughout the chamber, dwarren began to pick themselves up and remount, those who were being attended by the shamans now finished. The clan chiefs were issuing orders, preparing to ride back toward the Confluence. They would need to discuss strategy, need to decide which of the warren entrances would have to be collapsed to keep the Wraith army at bay. Patrols would have to be established on the main routes in the east, a warning system put in place, supplies organized and all of the clans coordinated in the defense of the Confluence and the Lands.
The amount of planning and preparation staggered Quotl.
“You have been touched by the gods, Quotl, whether you like it or not.”
Quotl would have protested, but realized he couldn’t. Not when he could still feel the power he’d found on the battlefield coursing through him. Not when he could still feel the Lands beneath his feet.
Gregson stiffened, his heart aching, his throat hot and tight. He stood on the third wall of Temeritt in the darkness, the night sky open above, the stars brittle and clear. He’d been on the walls for hours, weary from the fighting, from the long, arduous march from Cobble Kill, the horrifying collapse of the Legion’s defenses near the Northward Ridge and the flight to Temeritt. But he could not sleep. He’d come here seeking solace, the familiarity of the Legion, the camaraderie of men who’d trained in the barracks here in Temeritt, beneath the GreatLord’s eye, in the shadow of the Autumn Tree.
He would not find any solace tonight. No one in Temeritt would.
The Legion manned the walls to either side, armored, with spears and pikes held straight at their sides. Between them stood other men-some of them no more than boys, really, ten or twelve, but men now-clad in odds and ends, with whatever armor they could find that would fit them, carrying weapons that were unfamiliar and unwieldy at their sides. A gasp had run along the length of the wall moments before, some men shifting forward, others back. Some had fallen to their knees while others signed themselves with Diermani’s skewed cross and muttered prayers beneath their breath. A few were weeping.
They all watched what Gregson watched, what all of the citizens of Temeritt watched, even though he couldn’t see them in the city below. He knew they were there, standing at windows, or lying on rooftops. He could feel them in the city that sprawled to either side and behind. He could smell their fear, like rank sweat, could smell their horror.
For below, on the low hills that surrounded the city, the fires of the Horde’s camp flickered. Thousands upon thousands of fires.
At the center of the Horde’s army lay the Autumn Tree.
And the Autumn Tree burned.