Sands (Sharani Series Book 1) (25 page)

“I’ve never understood you, Beryl. Neither did my father. Why will you not leave the warren? Your abilities are strong enough to kill even a marsaisi, I’m sure. You were the one who showed Kaiden how to manipulate metal. You’re the most powerful mystic alive.”

Beryl growled, a low, deep sound of earth trembling beneath their feet. A marsaisi? He could tear one of those apart with his bare hands. He didn’t even need his powers for that. Only the karundin would give him pause. But that wasn’t because of what the Rahuli slaves thought, one of the voices whispered. What would stop Beryl, the smith, would be the memory of what the creature had once been. The memory of its creation. Khari took a step back as Beryl leveled his gaze on her.

“I will not go. This is your fight. I fought mine long ago and lost. I’m still fighting it every day. Go, fight your fight. The lances will be ready.”

In the back of Beryl’s mind, a small voice begged him to go. It yearned to fight. It screamed at him.

“I will not go!”

Khari backed away, clearly shaken. Beryl growled again and picked up his hammer. The metal had cooled enough that shaping it with the hammer would be useless. He struck it anyway, the sound masking the door shutting behind Khari’s retreating form.

He laughed suddenly, a strange, short bark of a laugh that held neither humor nor any hint of levity. It was the laughter of a broken man, a man whose existence and sanity danced on the edge of a knife. The laughter of a man doomed to eternal creation and eternal damnation. He was a bringer of death, a supplier of the implements of destruction.

Inside his mind, one of the voices screamed.

We have had success again! These are already much larger than the first, much more robust and of far greater stature. I released a number of the first into the sands despite the clans’ objections—the enemy will soon encounter this new threat. Let them taste fear. Let my creations haunt them as they haunt me. Let them take revenge for Briane. The enemy is vast—but then, so are my creations.

-From the Journals of Elyana

Lhaurel knew she was alive because she felt the pain. Not just the physical pain from the dozens of minor wounds that covered her body from head to foot, but also the pain of failure and loss.

Darkness surrounded her on all sides, wrapped her in its loving embrace and swaddled her in the soothing arms of confused forgetfulness. The last thing she remembered was Fahkiri’s death. Everything else was shrouded in a red, misty haze, like a fog painted with blood.

The blackness and the pain mingled into a swirling vortex of black and red, twisted in her vision, and did nothing to lessen the confusion or deaden the pain. If anything, both intensified.

Lhaurel’s ears started working in slow bursts of sound and silence, each sounding more loudly than the last. The silence was loud. The following sound was quiet. Yet mingled in with the quiet whispers of ghost voices and calumnious shouts was a soft, rustling laughter. A laugh that grew from the silence of not-so-distant memories and resolved into the painful intensity of the present.

Her eyes opened from blackness into nightmare. A gap-toothed smile filled her vision, and hot breath that smelled of rot filled her nose.

“Taren.”

“Hello, my dear,” he said, stepping back slightly so that she could see more of him in the dim light. “It’s been a while.”

Lhaurel blinked and closed her eyes, willing this to be a dream, a nightmare. How had Taren gotten here? Where was she? There was blood on his face that looked like it had been hastily cleaned.

“I would think by now you’re wondering where you are,” Taren said slowly, stepping back again so the most of him was lost in shadows. Whatever dim light it was that filled the chamber barely had the strength to illuminate the small section of it where Lhaurel lay and didn’t reach much further. “You’ll just have to keep on wondering, my dear wife.”

The words brought a rise out of Lhaurel. From somewhere deep within her, a small burst of strength and spirit flared.

“I am
not
your wife,” she spat.

From the shadows came the sound of steel clearing leather, a sound that caused Lhaurel’s flesh to crawl and a small shiver to run down her spine. She swallowed a momentary flutter of panic and steeled her expression. If she was to die here, she would not do so clouded in fear, huddled and weak. She would not back down before Taren.

Light flashed off steel as a thin blade spun through the distance separating them and buried itself in the sand a few inches from Lhaurel’s face.

She spat sand. Her eyes focused on the quivering blade before her. Did he miss? Recognition answered the question for her. It was the sealing dagger.

“Your blood in my veins says differently.”

In response, Lhaurel spat at him, though the spittle fell far short. It was futile, a waste of pure water, but it made Lhaurel feel less helpless.

Taren laughed, cold and hard, and sunk down to his knees. “Ah, Lhaurel. You are such a fool. You could have been part of something great. You really could have. Even before Jenthro approached me to petition for our union, I had my eyes on you. Stubborn. Strong. Willful. The perfect match for a future king. Once you had been properly broken, of course. Even then the plan was in place. Marvi helped me with that, though she didn’t know what she was doing. The correct pieces were moved to prepare for this final day. I wanted your power for my own. But your blood wasn’t good enough.”

Lhaurel was trying her best to ignore him completely. There was blood on the dagger, fresh blood that shone red in the flickering light. Despite her best efforts, Taren’s voice rang through her closed ears.

“My blood?”

Taren grimaced, pointedly scratching his arm where the sealing dagger had left its mark five different times. “The magic you mystics have has something to do with your blood. We thought mixing blood during a sealing would work, but yours was too weak. He said that’s why they wait to take women until they’re older, for the mixing of blood.”

He stepped forward and retrieved the dagger, his expression hard.

“If the choice had been mine, this would be your end, too, along with the mystics and Roterralar, but alas, the choice is not mine.” His voice remained flat and emotionless.

It took Lhaurel a moment to realize that something was off about what he had said. Her brain wasn’t working like it should. It was as if her thoughts were trying to run through loose sand.

“The mystics?” she asked. What did Taren know of the mystics?

Again Taren answered with a laugh, though this one seemed to carry a genuine, if minuscule, amount of humor to it. “Come, now, Lhaurel. Don’t play dumb. We both know that you’re anything but dumb. Yes, the mystics and the Roterralar, supposed protectors of the seven clans. Rulers of the sands and keepers of the magic that keeps us safe. Those that do not join us today will die here upon the sands.”

Lhaurel’s head pounded with each beat of her heart, which only heightened her confusion. Taren was suggesting that he would kill the Roterralar? He may control the seven clans now—or five, now that two were missing—but even with all of the several thousand people, Khari could wipe out most of them herself. Kaiden could kill them all before they ever even came close enough to lob a spear at him.

She tried to lick her lips, but her mouth was dry and all she managed was to crack the scabs and dried blood that lined them. She tried to rally the strength to sit up, but she couldn’t find the will. Her muscles refused to respond. Even her thoughts seemed sluggish.

Taren leaned forward, his eyes suddenly gleaming and his voice filled with eagerness. “And when the Roterralar have fallen or been pulled back into the fold,” he said, “then I will be king, standing at the head of the clans when we face the enemy at the gate. And at my side will be one who can stop them.”

“You’re mad.”

“Not mad,” a familiar voice said from the shadows. “Just fervent.”

Kaiden stepped out of the darkness. Lhaurel looked up at him, eyes wide and mind clouded with confusion and a sudden, overwhelming sense of relief. He was here to save her. Blinking, she waited for him to draw a sword, or manipulate metal and attack Taren, but he simply stood there, watching her. Watching how she would react to seeing him there.

Taren glanced over at him and nodded once. Curt and low enough that the deference was plain.

Realization dawned with the cold fingers of dread clutching at her heart.

“Leave us, Taren,” Kaiden said.

Taren’s face contorted for a moment, eyes narrowing, but he stood without a word and walked into the shadows.

A creak of iron hinges sounded in the shadows and then the soft thunk of a wooden door slipping into the embrace of its frame. Then silence.

“I am sorry about Fahkiri,” Kaiden said at last.

Lhaurel nearly laughed at the sheer, mad impossibility of it. “That’s what you have to say? You’re sorry about Fahkiri? You’re in this with Taren. You’re behind the genesauri too, aren’t you? It’s you. It’s always been you.”

Kaiden nodded.

“How? I heard them in the council meeting. They said no one was powerful enough to control the genesauri.”

Kaiden smirked. “They think too narrowly. They always have, Lhaurel. I don’t have to control them when I can simply change the direction of their flight.”

“What?” Lhaurel strained against her bonds, but they wouldn’t budge. Why couldn’t she feel her powers?

“Sarial explained it to you. The genesauri fly using a form of magnetism. The Oasis walls are filled with magnetic metals that have pushed against the genesauri for as long as anyone can remember. Since the Oasis was created, actually. I simply changed it so the genesauri were drawn toward it instead.”

“Why, Kaiden? Why? Do you know how many people you’ve killed?”

In reply Kaiden raised his arms to show his tattoos, flicking the sleeves so that each of them were exposed. “I know how many I haven’t been able to save,” he said, “and I know how many the Roterralar let die in their own ignorance and fear.”

“And you think if they hadn’t hidden they could have saved more? You’re as mad as Taren.”

Kaiden shook his head and crouched down beside her, pulling out a waterskin and holding it up for her to drink. She almost refused, but the sensation of water so close was simply too much to ignore. She swallowed gratefully and felt strength surge through her.

“Is it mad to want to protect everyone? Is it mad for a shepherd to kill a diseased goat before it can infect the others? And if he can use that diseased carcass to also kill the predators that hunt the other goats, how much better is it? Would that shepherd be considered mad or visionary?”

“We are not goats.”

“Some are sheep and some are shepherds,” Kaiden said. “And some who are shepherds are really sheep. And some sheep are really shepherds who have simply forgotten who they are.”

For a moment, Kaiden’s words resonated in the depths of her mind and stirred her soul, tugging at emotions and anger that had grown dormant in the time she had spent with the Roterralar. And then an image danced through her mind. A rashelta dying, purple blood dripping into the sand. Broken crockery across the floor. An image in red.

“You can burn in the fires of the seven hells, Kaiden.” Lhaurel closed her eyes. She steeled herself for the blow she knew would come. She waited. The crunch of sand beneath booted feet reached her ears as Kaiden slowly walked away. She opened her eyes as he passed out of the light and was lost in shadows.

He shot a parting retort over his shoulder toward her over the creak of hinges protesting their use.

“Ask yourself which you want to be, Lhaurel. A sheep or a shepherd. Our understanding of this world is about to change. The enemy is coming.”

The door closed.

*              *              *

Saralhn swallowed hard and felt a tremble in her calves as they threatened to give out beneath her. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and a sudden dryness afflicted her mouth. But she didn’t move.

“I said, stand aside,” the warrior said between gritted teeth.

Behind Saralhn, the young woman she was protecting whimpered and hugged her face in both hands, trying desperately to cover the bruise that was slowly blossoming across her cheek. Fruits lay scattered across the sand, toppled from the basket next to the young woman. A crowd gathered around them, some curious, others afraid. Only Saralhn stood between the soldier and the young woman.

“What did she do?” Saralhn asked, raising her chin to look the man in the eye.

He scowled, a scar on one side of his face twisting and making one of his eyes squint. “None of your business, woman,” he said, brandishing his spear.

Saralhn felt a small flicker of fear but didn’t let it show. She wondered why no one else in the crowd even glanced at her or the young woman behind her. For a moment, she thought them cowards. But then she stopped herself. A fortnight ago she had been just like them. That Saralhn seemed like a memory. She understood now why Lhaurel had always seemed so frustrated with her when she wouldn’t help with any of the schemes and chores that would have labeled her a rebel.

Things were different now, though. Her message had gotten no response. For all Saralhn knew, Lhaurel was dead. There wasn’t anyone else here to defend those who needed defending.

“I am making it my business.”

“Get out of my way.” Holding the spear like a quarterstaff, the soldier moved to push Saralhn out of the way with it.

Saralhn grabbed the wooden haft and pulled forward, using a trick she had seen one of the soldiers use during one of the early scuffles in the power struggle. Having expected resistance, the soldier overbalanced as Saralhn’s pull yanked him forward. Instinctively, she twisted her grip and wrenched the spear from the soldier’s grip. He overbalanced and landed face first in the dirt.

“Run,” Saralhn said to the young woman behind her. She didn’t need telling twice. The girl grabbed her fallen basket, not bothering to grab any of the fruit, and scurried off into the stunned and silent watchers.

Turning back to the soldier, who was cursing and getting to his feet, Saralhn tossed the spear aside, scattering stunned observers in all directions. Her palms were sweaty and her hands trembled, but her stance remained firm and resolute. The soldier righted himself and spun on her, spitting curses, hands balled into fists.

She raised her chin.

The blow struck her with enough force to knock her to the ground. Her ears rang and her head pounded with blood that rushed to color her cheeks. Blinking against the sudden brightness of the sun, Saralhn put her hands beneath herself and pushed off. She was halfway up when a booted foot caught her in the side and sent her rolling across the sand. She gasped from the pain and sucked in air in great gulps.