10: VOL KAROTH’S SHADOW

“Seriously?” Kihrin narrowed his eyes at Thurvishar. “My mother?”

Thurvishar smiled. “You’re not even slightly curious what happened to your parents?”

Kihrin scoffed. “Fine. I’ll admit I am a little curious. But I didn’t need…” He sighed. “Anyway, where did I leave off? Oh right, everything had just gone to hell.”

(Kihrin’s story)

No one could truly see Vol Karoth. He formed a man-size hole cut from reality, a silhouette of absolute, perfect blackness. His appearance offered up the final, absolute proof of my worst nightmares: Vol Karoth was free.

As Vol Karoth appeared, everything around him died.

It all happened without warning. I couldn’t even be sure how many died. A morgage group had been sitting near the spot where he appeared, and then they simply … weren’t. I didn’t think they’d had time to dive out of the way. Four morgage men standing too close started to scream before they disintegrated, falling to ash. The pillar’s stone edges flaked away; the floor crumbled under Vol Karoth’s feet. The universe itself cringed at his presence. He was anathema.

I felt sick. The black flaking ash mimicked what had happened when I’d touched Rol’amar. It looked exactly the same, which implied I’d been wrong about why I’d been able to hurt the dragon.¹

Judging where Vol Karoth’s gaze fell was unimaginable. Gauging his expression was unachievable. It was impossible to discern any information about him at all.

But I knew: Vol Karoth was looking at me. The silhouette reached out a hand in my direction.

Come to me. Join with—

Time sped back up. The voice stretched back out into an indecipherable low drone.

“Kihrin!” Teraeth tackled me to the ground.

I’d started walking forward, you see.

Screams and shouts rang out. No matter how brave the morgage might be, this was different. Who could fight Vol Karoth? This wasn’t something you could kill or defeat. This wasn’t someone you could slay. Vol Karoth didn’t even have to try to kill. All he had to do was exist.

Bevrosa stared at Vol Karoth with wide, panicked eyes and then turned back to us. “You’re all Hellwarriors.” She said it like both accusation and revelation.

“So it would seem,” Thurvishar replied.

“Follow the tunnels,” she ordered. “I don’t know where they lead, but we’ll hold the line for your retreat. Take the food and water and go.” Bevrosa looked directly at me. “He mustn’t take you.”

Janel started to protest but then simply nodded. “Thank you.” She picked up the packs the morgage had dumped at our feet and began walking backward toward the tunnel.

“That’s not him.” I said the words aloud as soon as I thought them.

“What?” Teraeth pulled me to my feet, but didn’t release me. Words cannot describe how glad I felt he didn’t let me go.

“Vol Karoth’s not here,” I insisted. “That’s an echo.”

Teraeth scowled. “That echo is going to kill everyone here if we stay.”

I shook my head. “If he were really here, it would already be too late.” I grabbed Teraeth’s robe. “We need to leave right now.”

“I’m trying,” Teraeth growled. This proved the second time I could remember seeing Teraeth look scared, and I wasn’t enjoying the experience any more with repetition.

Teraeth kept a firm hand around my waist, another on my arm, as we ran.

“No, wait!” I called out. “It’s the other way! We need to go the other way!” Panic lanced inside me; the pure certainty the way to safety lay behind us.

“No good,” Teraeth said. “That way takes us past Vol Karoth. Not happening.”

I looked back over my shoulder. Bevrosa stood tall, Wildheart in hand, summoning up plants that crumbled to ash before they reached within ten feet of Vol Karoth. She couldn’t possibly win this fight or even survive it. But she still fought.

I didn’t know I could ever be that brave. I could only marvel at the morgage tribe, and mourn them too. I didn’t think they could survive this. I wasn’t sure we could either.

Then Teraeth led me into the tunnel, where millennia-old stonework blocked the morgage tribe’s fate from my view.

---

I couldn’t tell how long we ran. Small globes embedded in the tunnel walls provided minuscule amounts of light, enough to see the ground but not much more. I felt like these lights hadn’t turned on in response to our presence, like the lights in the main hall outside, but had just always been on. Always on, for millennia, since before Karolaen’s destruction and Vol Karoth’s creation.

Apparently, the voras really knew how to weave a spell.

I couldn’t hear Vol Karoth’s droning plea anymore. “He’s gone.” I stopped running. “Wait. Let me catch my breath. It’s safe.”

“Oh, thank the gods.” Thurvishar bent down and put his hands on his knees, chest heaving.

“Are you sure?” Teraeth asked me. He hadn’t released me yet. I didn’t want him to. He felt safe.

Still, I removed his hand and leaned back against the curved tunnel wall. “Yes, I’m sure.” I felt sick, not physically but soul-sick, numb. No matter how one measured such things, I’d had a bad couple of months. I was still reeling at how quickly everything had gone wrong.

And how much of it had gone wrong by my own hand.

“Are you all right?” Janel asked.

I stared at her.

She winced. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid question.”

I took deep, slow breaths. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t know he could home in on me like that. I just didn’t think—”

“Vol Karoth’s never been free from his prison at the same time you’ve been free from him,” Thurvishar said. “Every other time he’s escaped, your souls were still trapped. No one could have predicted how he would react to your absence. Personally, I would never have assumed this would be his response.”

“He wants me back,” I said. “That’s the droning sound I’m hearing: Vol Karoth calling to me. He’s just speaking too slowly for me to understand what he’s saying.”

Thurvishar raised an eyebrow. “Slowly? Oh, now that is interesting.”

Janel crouched down and began rifling through the packs she had grabbed, separating supplies and cloth bundles. “Is it?”

“I’ve seen similar sound distortions while trying to communicate magically with someone while I’m inside the Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor,” Thurvishar explained. “Remember, time moves extremely fast there. That’s the whole reason why Empress Tyentso couldn’t contact you”—he pointed to Teraeth—“after you followed Darzin there.² She sent the message, but in comparison to your perception of time, you didn’t recognize it as speech.”

“But time’s moving normally for me,” I said.

“Indeed. So it must be Vol Karoth who is experiencing a slowed temporal state. In fact, I’m wondering—” Thurvishar blinked.

“What?” Teraeth said. “I don’t like it when you get that look on your face.”

“I’m wondering if the gods were mistaken,” Thurvishar said. “Khored said Vol Karoth is awake but still imprisoned. But what if the imprisonment is nothing more than this slowed temporal state?”

“Oh Veils. As if I wasn’t already having nightmares.” Teraeth glared.

“You did ask,” Thurvishar said.

“I just wish I could say you’re wrong, but I can’t.”

“I get that a lot.”

“An echo,” I insisted. “A mental projection. He wasn’t really there.”

“He shouldn’t have been there at all, Kihrin. The Eight told us that with a crystal destroyed, he was awake, but still imprisoned. I don’t think that’s true.”

I swallowed bile. “You think he’s free?”

“Not free, exactly. But what if the ‘prison’ isn’t what we assumed? What if the voras trapped Vol Karoth by freezing him in time? Technically, he was never trapped, time just moved so slowly for him that seconds became eons. With a crystal shattered, time is moving faster for him. Why, he might even take a step in a few months. That’s why he hasn’t gone on a rampage yet or even left the Blight. This explains so much.”³ Thurvishar started to look excited.

“Thurvishar.” I gazed at him dully. “He moved faster around me.”

Thurvishar started to say something and stopped himself. “Yes, so it’s just as well we’re leaving.”

Janel dropped satchels and waterskins on the ground. “There,” she said. “One for each of us. That way if we’re separated, we won’t starve or die of thirst right away.” She made a face. “Although to be honest, what the morgage consider food isn’t for the fainthearted. Trust me when I say we’ll want to eat the meat we took from the pack animals first. Also, we’re a little light on blankets, so let’s hope it stays warm down here.”

Teraeth turned to her. “Can we talk about what happened back there?”

She paused. “Which part? There are so many options.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and prayed Teraeth wasn’t about to do what I thought he was.

“You running headlong into a damn dragon without so much as a word to the rest of us,” Teraeth said. “What did you think was going to happen?”

And there it was.

Janel cocked her head and stared at him. “Ah, I see. So you mean the part where I ran forward because I knew the only way the morgage would share food and water with us would be if I—the only ‘woman’—impressed them with my bravery. Good to know.” Her voice was deceptively mild. “You do realize why morgage targets are always female, don’t you? They think they’re attacking our leaders.”

Janel wouldn’t use the word woman to describe herself normally. By her culture’s definitions, she wasn’t a woman even if she admitted to being biologically female. It made for some interesting semantical discussions.

“I know how voramer physiology works, thank you,” Teraeth snapped.

“So what exactly is your problem?”

I sighed. Teraeth hadn’t made any secret about being interested in Janel romantically. But he seemed to be having trouble coming to terms with the idea Janel didn’t need to be placed on a pedestal and protected. Which honestly made me laugh; under other circumstances, she would have been exactly Teraeth’s type, no pedestal required.

Of course, she was my type too. So that was awkward.

Anyway, Teraeth needed to drop it. And Teraeth would absolutely not drop it.

“You put us all in danger,” Teraeth insisted.

“I put us all in danger?” Janel pointed back up the tunnel. “Were you with us back there? Vol Karoth showed up for a drink and a friendly chat. I put us all in danger? Say that again.”

Teraeth’s eyes narrowed. “That business with you being in charge—”

“Oh, so that’s what really upset you.” Janel picked up her waterskin and a satchel. “Not running ahead, but claiming idorrá over you.”

Teraeth frowned. “I don’t even know what that word means.”

“Oh, it’s a Joratese idiomatic expression…” Thurvishar started to say, but he trailed off as he noticed me making frantic slicing motions across my throat. “But that’s not important right now,” Thurvishar said in a much softer tone.⁴

“You should have consulted with us,” Teraeth insisted. “I’m used to him running off without warning—” He pointed to me.

“Hey,” I said. “You usually have a little warning.”⁵

“—but I can’t babysit both of you,” Teraeth continued, locking glares with Janel.

She stood nearly a foot shorter than he, and yet she still took up all the space. I found myself reminded of her father, High General Qoran Milligreest. Mostly of her father’s temper.

Did the room seem warmer just then? It seemed like it to me.

“Babysitting? Who told you I needed a babysitter? Who made that your job?” Janel flicked a thumb and forefinger against Teraeth’s chest. “Listen up, because I am only going to explain this once: I do not need your permission to do the right thing.” She smiled, though not in a friendly way. “Now that I ponder the matter, it occurs to me I do not need your permission for anything.” She slung her waterskin over her shoulder. “Rest’s over. We should keep moving.” Without waiting for us, she began walking down the tunnel.

I wasn’t wandering anywhere near that argument, and she had a point about moving, so I picked up my supplies and followed. After a brief hesitation, Teraeth and Thurvishar did as well.

Teraeth caught up to me and sighed. “She is definitely starting to remember our past life together.”⁶