CHAPTER NINETEEN
The unfamiliar road stretched out ahead
A rocky path to walk laden with snares
The thought of a companion left her stunned
And unexpectedly, caught unawares
But bravery became her driving charge
The Scorpion embraced the waiting dark
—THE BOOK OF UNVEILING
Kyara waited in the shade of the school building, a chorus of agony singing through her veins courtesy of the wound on her chest. The pain made her eyes water, but she took it as her due.
Darvyn turned toward her, heading back to the school. He stopped at a well a few paces away and splashed his face with water from the bucket. Rivulets rolled down his cheek and neck, disappearing beneath his tunic.
“I used to wish for a different life,” Kyara said, her ragged tone almost obscene paired with the laughter of the children just out of sight. “If I had any other choice, I would make it. I am so very sorry, Darvyn.” Tears that hadn’t made themselves known in years welled in her eyes, but they had forgotten how to fall.
Darvyn approached her, his face all concern. She couldn’t take it any longer and lashed out, connecting to the Nether in the closest crops, magnifying it and relying on the residual effects to incapacitate Darvyn.
The green shoots shriveled and died. Darvyn would sicken and she could collar him and then the whole business would be done.
But when he should have bent down and vomited, he merely frowned. She reached for his Nether, so small and weak. Not enough death energy to be affected.
She didn’t want to kill the entire field—the children would still need to eat—but the pain in her chest pushed her to try harder. She risked targeting him directly with her power. Pulling at the tiny wisp of Nethersong within him and enlarging it.
He clutched his stomach, wincing. What should have been a death blow for anyone else, left Darvyn only slightly pained.
The blood spell screamed for more.
Desperate, she reached for the Nether present in the scrubby, dry desert grass around the field. Darvyn simply didn’t have enough Nether of his own to manipulate. The additional energy gave her enough to work with, enough to push into him and increase.
It was the reverse of what he had done to her to keep her alive. She forced Nethersong into him, struggling against his innate power and the strength of his Song. Finally, she was able to grab hold and multiply the death energy within him.
Darvyn collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He fought against what she was doing, and some part of her—maybe the largest part—hoped he would win. But death was inevitable. Life could not fend it off forever, no matter how strong.
He fell to his side, and his eyes involuntarily closed.
A single tear slipped down her cheek.
Even unconscious, his body fought her. She sensed no lasting damage within him, but perhaps killing him would be kinder. Whatever Ydaris and the True Father had in store would no doubt make him wish for death. However, the torment of her wound allowed only what she’d been ordered to do.
Her pain eased as she pulled the collar from the sack and moved toward him. She crouched, ready to slip the noose around his neck, when she noticed it.
Darvyn’s tunic had fallen open, revealing the leather cord he wore. The collar fell from her fingertips, freeing them to pull at the cord until she could better see the pendant. Half a pendant, actually, the image of a jackal crudely emblazoned into the metal. Its legs were chaotic, mismatched and pointed in the wrong direction. The broken edge of the metal had been worn smooth with time.
A curse escaped her lips.
“Miss Kyara, what’s wrong with Mister Darvyn?” a little voice behind her asked.
Kyara whipped around to find Ilynor standing there, a rag doll hanging from her fingertips.
The wound flared. Kyara’s Song surged forward, menacingly.
“S-stay away from me. Don’t come any closer.” Kyara strangled her Song with as much control as she could muster. It wanted to complete the mission. Collar Darvyn. Prevent interruptions.
She ignored the hurt on Ilynor’s face and backed away both from her and the man on the ground.
“What happened to him? Why won’t he wake up?”
Another tear fell from Kyara’s eye, and then another. Fire burned from the inside out as the wound made its displeasure known. She looked from Ilynor’s confused concern to Darvyn and the pendant laying over his heart. Her fingers felt twice their size as she hitched the leg of her trousers and unwound a length of leather from around her ankle. Tied to the strap was a matching pendant bearing the other half of the jackal. She’d kept it there for a decade, never believing she’d find its owner.
At least there was this. A broken promise now kept.
The pain was making it hard to concentrate, and harder to keep her Song under control. Kyara spotted the diesel crawler a short dash away. The world swam and spun around her as she grew dizzy. Sweat gushed from her pores.
She tossed her pendant at Ilynor’s feet. “Make sure he gets that when he wakes up.” Her voice sounded hoarse.
Asla came around the corner, her ever-present smile turning to horror as she saw Darvyn sprawled on the ground and Kyara, bent over, looking close to death herself with blood now seeping through her tunic as the wound made its demands.
“What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
“Stay away!” Kyara shouted. “I’m not here for you.”
Asla looked again to Darvyn, then to Kyara before grabbing Ilynor’s shoulders to hold the girl close.
Kyara made a run for the crawler. The buzz of children’s voices invaded her head, their rhythm pulsing in time to the agony on her chest. The wound saw the students as threats to her mission. She had to get out of here before she lost control.
The crawler felt like it had grown wider. She swung her leg over the seat twice before making it. And there was Asla, screaming at her side.
“What did you do?”
The sounds of play quieted. Vaguely, Kyara was aware of the other teachers gathering the students. Kyara tried to get the engine to catch, but her hands were clumsy, her vision narrowing.
“Stay away from me. Tell them to get out of the way,” she growled at Asla. When the woman went to grab her, her Song took a swing. Asla turned ashen and fell to the ground vomiting.
“There’s so much I need to tell him,” Kyara mumbled. Fire gnawed at her skin. It ate up almost every bit of her consciousness to withstand it. “I only wish I could.”
Two male teachers approached as the crawler’s engine finally roared to life. Kyara held out a hand. “I’m the Poison Flame. Now get your children out of my way.”
The men froze. Kyara gripped the accelerator, and she was in motion. Students scattered as she took off.
She fought for each breath. Her vision tunneled until there was only a tiny point of light in front of her. All she had to do was get far enough away to save him, to save them all. She had kept the promise she’d made ten years earlier … Well, not entirely. But she’d found him and he had the other half of the pendant. Now all she had to do was get far enough away to no longer be able to cause him harm.
Soon the spell would take her mind and her breath. She would drive into the desert until she could drive no more, and then, perhaps, she could finally die.
Darvyn roused with a jolt. A lightning strike of pain fired into his head; his eyes danced open to meet dim light. He sucked down one labored breath and then another, until the stuttering in his lungs stopped and air flowed more easily. Moaning, he raised a hand to his head, attempting to stop the pounding inside.
“You’re awake.” A match was struck nearby, the sound releasing another crashing wave of pain to his head. Light quickly suffused the space, revealing the room he’d slept in the night before. Asla’s face drew close to him, her eyes glowing in the lamplight.
Darvyn’s mouth tasted like ash. He opened it, trying to speak, but Asla forced a cup of water against his lips, so he drank.
“What’s happened?” he said after ending the drought in his throat.
Asla pursed her lips. “You were betrayed.”
Kyara’s apology came back to him, as well as the solemn look on her face and the bizarre weakness that had overtaken him just before he’d blacked out.
“Kyara?”
“The Poison Flame. You brought a viper to us, Darvyn, and almost paid the price.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She nearly killed you.”
Kyara’s confidence, her poise—those things that drew him to her could also have a different explanation. But it didn’t make sense. The ache in his head still pounded, scrambling his mind. His connection to Earthsong was strong, but his body was taking a long time to heal.
“Kyara is the Poison Flame? How am I alive?”
Asla’s normally kind face was carved from stone. “She left this behind.” She held up the ruby-red collar, and a shiver went through Darvyn. He’d seen those before but had been fortunate to never have been separated from his Song by one.
“And this.” Asla opened her fist, revealing a pendant attached to a strip of leather.
Darvyn’s breath stopped short. He plucked the necklace from Asla’s grip, then his hand immediately went beneath his shirt, scrabbling to find his own matching pendant. He pressed the two pieces of metal together. Aside from the worn edges, they fit perfectly. An image that he’d only seen half of for decades was now whole.
The two jackals faced each other, their legs and tails intertwined. He pulled the two apart, and each jackal was just a head and a mess of limbs.
“She gave this to you?”
Asla nodded.
Darvyn struggled to sit up, causing the room to pivot around him. He feared he would vomit but forced the bile down. “What did she say? How did she get this?”
“She didn’t say anything. She left on the crawler. But the way she looked, I can’t imagine she made it very far.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was ill. Her chest was bleeding through her tunic.”
Darvyn fought his way to his feet. He swayed until the room stopped spinning. “Which direction did she go? How long ago?”
Asla stood gripping his shoulders. “She nearly killed you. Not to mention the threat she posed to every child in the school. You need to rest. Heal. Please sit down.”
“You don’t understand. I need to find her.”
“You’re being hunted by the True Father’s assassin.” Her words held venom.
He paused and scrutinized Asla’s worried face. “She didn’t harm any of the children, did she?”
Asla shook her head. He may not have known Kyara’s identity, or her allegiance, but at least he’d been right about her heart.
“The Poison Flame.” He shook his head. “The True Father has been after me my whole life. I’m surprised he didn’t send her sooner. I know you can’t understand, but … I need to know how she got this.” He held up the pendant in his fist. “Who she really is.”
“Whoever she is, it’s the past. Whatever her story is won’t change the future. Or what she did.”
Darvyn couldn’t explain it to her, he just needed to find Kyara. He couldn’t go on knowing that answers to the mysteries of his life may exist and he’d missed out on them.
“She knows where we are. She could have told someone,” Asla said.
He shook his head, the certainty lodged within him. “If she were going to kill me she would have. She wouldn’t have left me here if she was being tracked or if there was danger.” Asla’s skeptical gaze bored into him. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but you have to trust me. She saved my life for a reason.”
“I trust you. It would be foolish to trust her.”
He slipped the second pendant over his head. The two pieces of metal clacked together softly against his chest.
“I need answers. For me.” What did her having the pendant mean about his mother? This was the closest he’d ever come to learning what had happened to her. How could he explain that after a lifetime of wondering, the chance to find out the truth was impossible to ignore?
Asla’s expression closed, her body language grew rigid, but she stood aside as he gathered his things. The effects of whatever poison Kyara had used on him made him sluggish and unsteady, but Earthsong was strengthening him minute by minute.
He walked out of the school and, by the moonlight, regarded the tracks where the crawler had smashed and flattened the bushes and tough vegetation. Following her would be easy.
“There’s nothing I can say to stop you?” A frown worried Asla’s normally easy features.
Darvyn went back to her and drew her into an embrace. She had always been a friend and was a born nurturer. But he’d been in danger before. When was he not?
“Take the swiftcycle, then. And be careful.” She pulled away and walked back inside without another look. Darvyn felt her sorrow and worry rippling before she slammed a shield around her emotions, blocking him out.
He rounded the school to one of the smaller outbuildings that held farm equipment and wagons. The teachers always had to be ready for an evacuation on short notice if their location ever was compromised. Darvyn passed the carriages and carts until he reached a smaller vehicle. It wasn’t much more than a box on wheels, thick rubber tires ensuring it could maneuver in the desert terrain. A lever jutted from the front to control the direction, and a metal pole, double his height, rose into the air with a canvas sail attached.
The swiftcycle was one of the Keepers’ inventions. Meant for traversing the brush, it could only be piloted by an Earthsinger able to call the wind into the sail to propel the vehicle. Darvyn pushed it from the outbuilding and got in, holding the steering lever with one hand and the rope attached to the sail’s rudder with the other.
He sang a simple spell to build the wind, gather it into the sail, and propel him forward. The swiftcycle shot out across the desert, following Kyara’s tracks. Darvyn sang another spell to cover the tracks in his wake. Just in case.
The pendants clinked together when he moved, dangling close to his heart. He’d never taken his off, not since it had first been placed around his neck.
He’d awoken that night, twenty years earlier, filled with the force of his mother’s sadness. It had raged inside her like a rainstorm and set him on edge. She’d been crying, but scrubbed her tears away and held him close.
“You have to go now. They’re coming for you. They know what you can do,” she whispered into his hair. “The Keepers will keep you safe.”
“How long do I have to go for?” he asked.
She stroked his chubby cheeks. “For a while. But I will find you again.” She removed the necklace she always wore and held the pendant between her thumbs. Her knuckles stretched with effort as she pressed on the round, thin circle of metal until it snapped in two. She took the half with the cord still attached and placed it over his head. “This will lead me back to you. As long as you have it, you’ll know my love is never far.”
A man appeared in the doorway to their tiny cottage. He was hidden in shadow, but Darvyn sensed his kindness.
“This is Turwig. He’s one of the Keepers of the Promise. He’s going to look after you until I can come and find you.”
Mama lifted Darvyn up and deposited him in the man’s arms. “And I will find you again. The Master of Jackals will be my guide. Remember, I love you more than the sun,” she said as Turwig carried him outside to a waiting horse. The man climbed on, securing Darvyn against him with a heavy arm and then rode off into the night.
Darvyn no longer remembered the exact planes of his mother’s face or the melodious tone of her voice. All he had of her were scraps and clouded memories—a scent that brought on a wave of nostalgia and a few bars of a lullaby that caused an ache within him.
But he’d believed her when she said she would find him. And he would never stop looking until he learned the truth of why she hadn’t done what she’d promised.
No matter what Kyara had done or why, he needed to find her. He needed to hear her story.