The star-metal spun in a wide spiral, digging and smoothing and leaving a faint coating of itself on the tunnel walls. It didn't diminish as quickly as Mrillis had anticipated. There was enough room in the cleared tunnel for four horses to walk abreast, their riders' outstretched arms never touching. The pace permitted by the star-metal was like a stately march, not hurrying, but never letting them pause for a moment as the battle wedge pressed forward. The ground tingled and hummed under his feet, and he felt the presence of the star-metal coating it, spread as thin as air.
Each member of the team reached into their neighbors' packs to pull out skins of water when they grew thirsty. They would do the same with packets of bread, meat and dried fruit, and eat as they walked. At the midway point, where they would meet the tunneling party from Lygroes, legend stated there was a way station built in the rock, with a spring of fresh water for drinking and a hot spring to provide water for bathing. The few records that spoke of the tunnel said a series of interconnected 'bubbles,' formed when the rock was molten eons ago, provided rooms for sleeping.
At the beginning of their second hour of work, just after Le'esha reported that the fourth layer of magic blocking the other end of the tunnel had fallen, Mrillis smelled blood and burning and the rot of a gangrenous wound.
The stench brought on a cascade of memories. Memory flung him backwards in time, to that battle for control of the starshower.
Careful. The Nameless One is close! Mrillis shouted to all their minds. He had let go support of the star-metal to Endor just a few steps before. Though weary, he was free to reach with his mental hands, grasp the Threads and use them to search for the presence of their enemy. Though the Nameless One couldn't use the Threads once he turned to blood magic, he couldn't hide himself from the Threads when he actively used his power.
This was the chance they had waited years for. Mrillis only wished it hadn't come now, of all times.
Le'esha screamed.
Mrillis understood in an instant and fury wiped away his weariness. The enemy didn't attack them. He attacked Breylon and Le'esha and the elders of the Rey'kil, bound together in an intense magic that required their full concentration--and left them vulnerable.
"Mother!" Ceera shouted. Her voice echoed strangely through the tunnel behind them, but it couldn't drown out Le'esha's voice, ringing in the depths of their souls.
The star-metal lump erupted in a geyser of silver-blue sparks and the wall ahead of them melted like wax. Ceera turned to face him, and in her eyes Mrillis saw her desperate need to go to Le'esha, to protect her. He saw her helpless fury and the realization that more than a day of travel through the tunnel still lay before them. They had yet to reach the end of the plug built by the Noveni.
They would never reach Le'esha in time.
We don't have to be there in our bodies, Mrillis cried, and resisted the urge to grasp Ceera by her shoulders and shake her. He reached with a tendril of his thoughts and spun her around, to face forward.
Ceera understood. Her face twisted in a mask of utter concentration and anger. The star-metal glowed blinding bright. Mrillis felt the controlling cage around the lump shred like wet parchment under a hail of arrows. In an instant, Ceera picked them all up in a gust of wind that chilled their bones and scorched their clothes.
Mrillis knew he stood still, one hand outstretched to support Ceera, yet all his awareness hurtled forward with Ceera. They were an arrow, a sword, a flaming spear cutting through the rock as if it were rotted cheese. The smell of blood and burning and corruption drew them forward like a lure drew a fish.
The rock vanished and flames flickered around them as their unified minds hurtled through the dank, sour air trapped in the tunnel below the sea. Mrillis gasped, fighting the sensation of suffocation that wrapped around him even though his body wasn't there.
They passed through the bubbles in the rock where travelers had once rested during their long journey between continents. The remains of chairs and blankets, metal and wood plates, bronze kettles and stacks of abandoned firewood flared up and went to ash in the heat of their passage.
Be my sword! Ceera shrieked, and Mrillis looked ahead of her to see a wall of sparkling, sizzling power.
Together, Endor cried, and hurtled forward with Mrillis.
Their two mental bodies merged into a blade brighter than the stars, harder than hatred and an unforgiving heart, hotter than Ceera's infuriated fear for Le'esha.
The last layers of shielding magic, established by the ancients at the far end of the tunnel, shattered at the first piercing blow.
Mrillis gasped, feeling his physical body rise up in the air, pulled forward by a drawing wind so intense, he thought they would all be turned inside out. He used all his power to find Ceera, to hold onto her and shield her with everything he possessed. Then, when he was sure she was safe, he reached for the others.
They seemed to fly forever in a place with no air, no light, no heat, no sound. The impact with the ground jolted shrieks out of all of them. Mrillis felt as if he had suffocated in a lake of flame.
The stink of burning and blood and rotted flesh filled his physical lungs.
It hurt just to open his eyes, but he did it. The tower of Bo'lantier rose up into the mid-afternoon sky above him, to his right. Mrillis swallowed the groan that filled his throat and choked him. Every fiber of muscle in his body protested, but he got to his feet anyway.
"Blessed Estall, what have we done?" he whispered, and looked around a scene of carnage that made him want to vomit.
Blood streaked the ground. Bodies lay in heaps. Encindi warriors lay in scorched, smoking piles. Rey'kil enchanters lay in small, bloody heaps where enemy swords had cut them down.
The force of the blast that had brought their band of young Rey'kil up from the tunnel had marked the ground, scouring it clean down to the rock. Mrillis swayed, trying to understand the pattern formed by the force that pushed bodies dozens of paces from the tunnel mouth.
"There you are." Kathal stumbled out of the forest, limping on a leg that glistened with blood. He clutched his sword in one fist.
"I thought this place was hidden, so no one could find it!" Mrillis wailed. He didn't care that he sounded like a child one-third his age.
"No one but those who have been shown the way." The warrior gestured for him to come. "It's all right. We managed to drive the main host away." He tried to smile, but only managed a death's head grimace. "Where's the Little Star?"
Mrillis nearly went to his knees when he turned too quickly to search for Ceera. She had just risen to her knees, and she clutched at him, her face white, her mouth pinched with the effort of getting upright. Kathal helped Mrillis support her, leaving the tower behind. They headed into the forest.
"We were betrayed. There was no working of magic, either clean or blood magic, to take down the shield or break through it," the warrior snarled.
"One of us showed the Nameless One where the tower and tunnel were hidden," Ceera whispered. "Mother?"
Kathal didn't answer, didn't try to reassure them, and wouldn't meet their gazes. That was the worst sign of all.
Breylon walked in a slow circle around the inside of a circle of oak trees, weaving a barrier with Threads. It gleamed in the shadows of the forest, to ward away the enemy. Mrillis suspected he had left the barrier visible to comfort the injured protected inside it. The High Scholar faltered when he saw them. The pain that bowed his shoulders gave way to stunned realization, as he visibly understood what they had done. Then pride gleamed in his bruised face and he stood straighter as he watched them hurry through the trees toward him.
"Thank the Estall," he murmured, as the three came through the barrier, which sparked green and purple and stung them.
Ceera moaned and went to her knees. Mrillis reached for her, positive she had overextended herself. Then he saw the blood-soaked figure she gathered into her arms.
"Lady," he choked. "Mother."
Le'esha's robes were slashed, soaked with blood and mud, blackened with char. Her fingers were burned and blackened from the force of the power that had flowed through her. Mrillis knew she had not held back, even at risk to her own body, in the effort to protect those around her. Even in the shadows of the trees, her usually pale face looked like a chalk carving, streaked in blood. Her long white hair hung loose, torn free of the braids and scarves that usually adorned it.
"Mother," Ceera sobbed. "Don't leave us."
Le'esha's eyes opened. The green jewels were fogged as if with a Seeing, but Mrillis knew it wasn't the future she saw. She smiled, the movement faint from weariness.
"My darlings. I saw what you did," she whispered, so softly Mrillis thought he imagined the sound. "Strong. So very strong. Skilled."
"We failed you," Mrillis groaned, and dropped to his knees beside Ceera. The girl shuddered as he wrapped an arm around her. He could barely keep himself upright, but he fought the sick, draining sensation for her sake.
"No." Le'esha's smile widened a little more. "If not for you, we would not have been able to fight at all." A tiny movement caught Mrillis' attention. He saw her try to lift her hand. He caught it up, holding it, shuddering at the icy feel of her flesh. "See?"
"The bracelet I made." Ceera inhaled deeply, rapidly, fighting sobs.
The star-metal had melted from the force of the power that had flowed through it, through Le'esha. It was embedded in her flesh, perhaps even into her bones.
"You made it possible. We defeated our enemies because of the tools you made for us," Breylon said. He sank to his knees at Le'esha's other side and caught up her hand. "More than half of us are unharmed, other than burns and bruises. More than three-quarters of us live. Only those who stood closest to the tunnel were hurt at all, in the first wave of the attack."
Mrillis nodded, imagining clearly how it must have been. Le'esha had shared the focal point with Breylon and walked with him, hand-in-hand, toward the shimmering, solid-seeming curtain of power that blocked the entrance to the tunnel. Encindi soldiers had appeared as if out of nowhere, sliding through the protective curtain around the meadow as if leaping from darkness into light. They had cut down those closest to the tunnel mouth and began to work their way through the column of enchanters who had joined together to dismantle the magic barrier.
"Someone among us is a traitor," Mrillis whispered. He raised Le'esha's hand to his cheek. "Mother--" He choked. How many chances had he missed to address her as his mother, to tell her he loved her?
"We will find the traitor," Ceera said, her voice thick with the sobs she held prisoner.
"Yes, you will," Le'esha said, her voice like a fading breeze. "But do not promise me revenge, my dears. Promise me instead that you will be happy and you will love and you will work for peace."
"Anything," Mrillis said. "Just don't leave us."
"I have never lied...never lied to you...my dears." Her eyes slipped closed and it seemed that the hand he held lost some of its substance.
"Mother." Ceera bowed her head, so her forehead touched Le'esha's unsullied shoulder.
"I have always loved you, as if you were of my own flesh and not just my heart."
In later years, Mrillis could never be quite sure that she had spoken with her voice or her fading spirit. He only knew that he heard the echoes for decades afterward when he felt most discouraged and in need of strength and had nothing inside himself to let him continue on.
The three sat there, ignoring the sounds of people recovering from the attack, the breeze rippling through the leaves overhead, the harsh sound of their own breathing. He held Le'esha's hand, feeling the chill soak into his own flesh. Her bones seemed to grow as frail and light as bird bones.
"Go gladly to the Estall, my dear friend," Breylon said, his voice cracking with pain as it shattered the silence.
"No." Ceera shuddered. She raised her head and wiped tears from her eyes with her fist. "No. She can't. I won't let her."
"You are Queen of Snows now, Little Star," Breylon said, "but you should learn from the beginning that some things are beyond even your great power."
Mrillis drew Ceera close as she shuddered and went limp, as if Breylon's words were a blow. Nausea twisted through him as understanding and grief stabbed him like two sharp knives.
Le'esha was gone. Ceera was Queen of Snows.
Ceera wept silently, shuddering until Mrillis thought she would shake her bones out of her flesh. He held her through the long afternoon and longer night. The tears never stopped until she finally fell asleep at the first light of dawn.
* * * *
Mrillis and Ceera turned their talents to healing the wounded, and turned the tower of Bo'lantier into a healers hall. The last dead body was removed by mourning family members the same day the painful, frustrating news came from the Rey'kil headquarters on Moerta.
Someone had also attacked the Rey'kil enchanters on Moerta at the same time the Encindi attacked at Bo'lantier. All the star-metal jewelry Ceera had made had been stolen. Four strong enchanters and six scholars were dead, along with half the soldiers who guarded them. Among them was Candon.
Mrillis watched Ceera when she received the news. She said nothing, but her eyes seemed to be burned into her head for days afterwards, and he saw a few silver tears trickle down her cheeks long after he thought she had wept herself dry.
Mrillis prayed that Ceera hadn't been pushed so far and bruised so deeply by grief that she would never recover. She was Queen of Snows. Lygroes and the Stronghold needed her. The Rey'kil needed her. The World needed her.
He wished he could tell her that he needed her, but it sickened him to contemplate how selfish that would be. Their feelings for each other would have to wait, once again, until this crisis passed.
If it ever did.