Chapter Forty-five

Khyven

“Lorelle!” Zaith said, and the name took the wind from Khyven’s chest.

He stared at the Nox woman, and his stupefaction fought with his Ringer training. He should kill Zaith or secure him somehow, render him unconscious, but Khyven’s sword point dipped.

Lorelle? Impossible. He blinked at the Nox woman’s height, her bearing, her slender build… Everything except her midnight skin and hair looked just like…

“Lorelle?” he blurted.

She looked at him with no expression.

“Keep your wits about you, Khyven the Unkillable,” Zaith warned softly, his surprise giving way to suspicion.

“What did you do to her?”

Something moved behind Lorelle. A figure rose from the smoke and shadows, coming up the back side of the hill. The man’s head appeared first, rising higher as he climbed. Then Khyven realized the figure was no man. Stride after stride, his head and shoulders emerged taller and larger until he stood by Lorelle’s side, towering over her.

“Um, that’s a Giant,” Slayter murmured.

The presence of the creature pushed at Khyven. He couldn’t seem to look directly at the thing’s eyes. Its glare was like staring into the sun, and the face, with its lip curling in derision, reminded him of Harkandos, the statue Slayter had brought to life.

“That’s Tovos,” Slayter said excitedly. “That’s got to be Tovos.”

“Shut up, Slayter.” Khyven fought to look the Giant in the eye, but his heart hammered. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He grunted and looked away, focusing on the Giant’s chest.

“What did you do to her?” Khyven demanded.

“She has come home,” Tovos said. “She doesn’t belong to the lands of daylight anymore. She belongs to me.”

Khyven clenched his teeth and his knuckles turned white on the hilt of his sword. “That’s what you think,” he growled.

“Khyven wait,” Slayter said.

Zaith slowly stood and faced the Giant, crouching on his good leg and dragging his wounded leg upright. He hadn’t removed the dagger.

“You have failed me for the final time, Glimmerblade,” Tovos said. “I have come to express my displeasure.”

“You’re a liar…” Zaith whispered. “You don’t deserve to be our Lord, Tovos. You killed them all…”

“Told you,” Slayter said wonderingly. “Tovos.”

“Shut up, Slayter,” Khyven said.

“Take care how you speak to me, Glimmerblade. I’ve come to pass judgment upon you for failing me. But there are worse things than death.” Tovos started down the rise, his long legs covering an enormous distance with each stride. He made it to the bottom in three steps. Lorelle came after, still staring blankly ahead.

“Yes, I know that now,” Zaith said, his eyes glittering.

“You released Jai’ketakos,” Tovos said. “If you’d completed her bonding like I commanded, that would not have happened. Do not blame me.”

“You sent us to the dragon’s lair!”

“To bolster your weakness.”

“My weakness…”

“Kneel. Take your punishment like a true servant of the Dark,” Tovos said.

“I should never have knelt to you in the first place,” Zaith said through gritted teeth. He leaned down and recovered his sword. “I should have fought you from the first. I should have died that day beside E’lan. I won’t make that mistake again. Kill me now, you horrendous aberration. Or glance over your shoulder for the rest of your unholy life.”

“Kill you? I wouldn’t give you the honor of dying by my hand.” Tovos sneered. He made a gesture and Lorelle leapt forward.

During the bizarre confrontation between Zaith and Tovos, questions abounded in Khyven’s mind. Horrendous aberration? Wasn’t Zaith Tovos’s servant? Why did he suddenly seem like a potential ally? And Lorelle… Obviously she was under a spell. Could Slayter, or even Khyven, break it somehow?

Khyven’s Ringer training reengaged and the blue wind swirled around the entire group. In the Night Ring, questions didn’t matter unless they could be answered in the split second before he had to react. These couldn’t. That meant they were just baggage.

Khyven jumped to meet Lorelle’s charge, making it seem as though he was going to stop her.

At the last second, he swept past her and charged the Giant.

It worked. A half dozen dark funnels appeared all over the Giant’s body. Khyven jumped high, sword cocked back, ready to plunge the point into Tovos’s neck.

While in midair, a hundred spears came at him from every side, so close he didn’t see them in time, so quick he couldn’t dodge them. The very air of the noktum came alive, shooting forward as dark tentacles.

Khyven shouted, thrusting desperately at the blue funnel over Tovos’s neck—

The point of his sword came half an inch from his target, but the tentacles of shadow yanked him up short, then slithered around him. He spun like a spindle gathering thread until he was completely bound in shadow.

“You should have stayed in your castle,” Tovos said.

Khyven grunted as the shadows tightened, squeezing so hard his back popped. His right arm, trapped against his body, dropped his sword. His left, caught away from his body, dangled over his head at an awkward angle. Slayter cried out, and Khyven craned his neck to see the mage also wrapped in solid shadows.

“The rest of you are now my servants,” Tovos said. “Watch closely. This is what happens to those who fail me.”

Lorelle approached Zaith, who raised his sword, but without conviction.

She knocked his sword away with her blade. It broke from his grip and landed on the grass, just out of reach. Lorelle pirouetted behind him, grabbed a handful of Zaith’s hair, and yanked his head back, exposing his throat. She laid her short sword against his throat.

“Lorelle, I’m sorry.” Zaith didn’t resist. “I’m so sorry.”

“Lorelle, don’t!” Khyven struggled against the grip of the shadows. He was no stranger to death, no stranger to killing. But Lorelle was. “Don’t let him control you!”

Lorelle glanced at Khyven, her blade poised over Zaith’s throat. Her eyes were completely black, like oil had seeped across her eyeballs.

Zaith didn’t make any attempt to defend himself.

The blue wind swirled toward Khyven, around his bound body and up to his neck…

And formed into a single blue funnel over his right shoulder.

It wasn’t a target, not on Khyven’s enemy, at least. It wasn’t at the Giant’s neck or chest. It wasn’t on Tovos at all. Instead, the blue funnel swirled directly around the hilt of the Mavric iron sword on his back.

The sword whined in agreement.

Free of the shadow bindings, Khyven’s dangling left arm could draw the sword.

This was more than just seeing weaknesses or attacks. It was as if the wind was suggesting an alternate course of action. It had never done that before.

Khyven glared at Tovos, but the Giant was ignoring him, focusing instead on Lorelle and Zaith.

But Zaith was looking directly at Khyven, almost as though he could see the blue wind also, as though he knew what Khyven was contemplating.

“Don’t,” Zaith said. “Remember what I told you, Khyven the Unkillable.”

“Now,” Tovos commanded.

“Khyven!” Lorelle shouted in anguish, as though his name was the only word she could say. Her face, directly behind Zaith’s, remained impassive.

Her single golden lock flared so bright it was almost white.

She slashed the short sword across Zaith’s throat.