Between one step and the next, her presence in his mind disappeared. Sardelle had drawn Jaxi, and her blade glowed a silvery blue.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize she was contacting you.”
Therrik whirled around. “What?” He speared Ridge with his gaze.
“Not by my choice,” Ridge said.
“I told you she might continue to control him,” Therrik told Sardelle, ignoring Ridge.
“She’s not controlling him, and I’ll keep her from contacting him again.” Sardelle lifted her sword. “Jaxi will do her best to obscure our location from her.”
It was strange having them communicate with each other instead of through him, as they had in the past. Ridge eyed Kasandral—the blade’s glow had grown more pronounced when Therrik turned to face Sardelle and Jaxi—and stepped forward to stand between them, just in case.
Therrik sneered, turned his back, and continued down the hallway. He walked around a corner, disappearing from sight for a moment.
“We’re fine,” Sardelle whispered. “We have an understanding.”
“That your sword is bigger than his?” Ridge asked, not bothering to whisper.
More that her dragon is bigger than his, Jaxi said, smirking into his mind.
Sardelle smiled and shook her head. I’ll explain the dragon later.
He touched her on the back, comforted by how she always knew what he was thinking, whether she was using her telepathic skills or not. How lonely it had been in his head without her presence. He hadn’t even known to miss it.
You missed my presence, too, right? Jaxi asked.
Of course. Ridge walked around the corner with Sardelle.
Therrik had not continued far. He stood before an ornate wooden door with grapevines carved along the edges. He pushed it open, stared inside for a long second, then held up his hand as Sardelle approached, a warning not to come closer.
“There’s nothing you can do for them,” he said, reaching for the doorknob.
She frowned and blocked his hand so she could look inside. Her entire body slumped, as if with great weariness. Or sadness.
Dread settled in Ridge’s stomach as he leaned around the doorjamb. A meeting room lay inside, a massive oak table in the center, with men and women occupying chairs around it, their bodies flopped forward, blood leaked from their noses, their eyes closed or glassy and open in death. They were all dead. As were at least ten guards stationed around the room, now toppled to the floor, only a couple having drawn pistols or swords before dying in the same manner as the others.
Ridge turned away, leaning against the wall, his eyes burning, his stomach twisting. He had caused this. He had brought Eversong here.
“You’re right,” Sardelle whispered. “It’s too late. They died too quickly for a healer to help.”
“The witch did this?” Therrik snarled.
“It was done with magic, yes.”
“That’s Lord Arton,” Therrik said, pointing. “And Lady Morishan.”
Ridge leaned back in for another look and realized that he also recognized some of the faces, mostly from newspaper articles. “It’s the whole council, isn’t it?” he said numbly. “The leaders of every county. I’d forgotten they would be here this week. I...”
He stared at the bodies until his eyes burned, his throat tight with regret and recrimination. Had he forgotten? Or had he known they would be here for this meeting? Had the information been in his head, in the part he couldn’t access but that Eversong and Wreltad could? He sagged against the wall, the cold stone harsh against his shoulder. How had he allowed himself to be used so? Because they had saved his life? His life wasn’t worth the lives of all of the country’s government leaders. Who would they find dead next? Angulus? If Eversong killed him, who would be left to rule Iskandia?
Sardelle clasped his hand.
He resisted the urge to flinch away. He did not deserve to be comforted, but he could not bring himself to pull away from her. There had been too much away already.
Therrik shut the door. “This is frustrating.”
“An understatement,” Ridge whispered.
“I was tracking her with the sword, and she was down here, I was sure of it.” Therrik frowned at Kasandral, the blade still glowing a pale green.
“She was clearly here,” Sardelle said quietly.
“Yes, that’s what the sword thought.”
“I didn’t realize it had the ability to track a specific person. In the past, it’s been distracted by the closest magical target.” Sardelle touched her chest.
Distracted by, Jaxi said. Obsessed with…
“I’m a tracker. I told it to track what I wanted it to track if it didn’t want to be thrown in a chasm. It was doing a good job, but now...” Therrik’s gaze shifted toward one wall, then the floor, and then toward the other wall. “Over there.” He waved at the wall opposite the door. “She’s still down in this basement level, I think, but she’s all the way on the other side of the castle. Give me a second. This thing is—gods, that’s creepy. It’s communicating with me.” He stared down at the sword, looking more like a man thinking of hurling it across the harbor than someone communicating.
Another great crash came from somewhere above. “Sounds like the castle is coming down all around us,” Ridge said.
“It is,” Sardelle said. “The dragons are fighting.”
“Here?”
“I guess they got tired of doing it in the air.” She frowned toward the ceiling, her eyes growing distant, and a worried crease formed between her eyebrows. “It’s not going well for Bhrava Saruth,” she whispered.
Ridge reached up and touched her face, wanting to smooth that worry away. She blinked and looked at him. He pulled his hand away. He had probably interrupted her concentration. She might not want him fondling her face right now, anyway. They had Angulus to find and he was... tainted. In more ways than one.
“This way.” Therrik gave them a dark look. “I think she knows we’re after her and is trying misdirection. Either that or Angulus is the one doing the misdirection, leading her around the castle the same way you fly.” His gaze pierced Ridge as he stalked past, heading back toward the last intersection they had passed.
“How is that?” Ridge asked.
“Like you’re drunk, deranged, and scratching your butt at the same time.”
Another time, Ridge might have defended himself, but another crash came from somewhere above, and dust trickled down from the ceiling. Therrik broke into a run, with Sardelle following right behind. Ridge raced after them, his grip tight on his borrowed rifle.
“Can you tell if Angulus is still alive?” Therrik asked over his shoulder.
“I’ve been trying, but she’s been dampening my senses,” Sardelle said. “I haven’t been able to detect anyone down here.”
“Try again,” Therrik ordered.
“Just follow your sword,” Ridge growled, bristling at his presumptuousness. Even the king didn’t give Sardelle orders.
Sardelle was following nonetheless. She had that familiar, distracted look in her eyes, as she called upon her magic, even as they followed Therrik up a set of stairs and into a hall on the ground floor.
“A flier squadron is in the air,” Sardelle said. “They’re on their way to join the dragon battle.”
Ridge looked toward a window, but there was nothing to see out of it yet.
“The dragons aren’t my concern right now,” Therrik growled.
“I can’t sense Angulus, but others have seen him alive recently,” she said. “He was by himself, yelling for them to get out of the castle, to find safety.”
“Why wasn’t he doing that?” Ridge asked.
“And where were his guards?” Therrik added.
Dead on the floor of that meeting room, Ridge thought. He didn’t say it, didn’t even want to think about it. Later, if they survived this, he could mourn those deaths—and his role in bringing them about.
Therrik turned
left down a wide hallway, only to stop abruptly. The way ahead was collapsed, sunlight streaming in through the missing roof. A dark shadow flew past, gone as quickly as it had appeared. One of the dragons?
“It’s a damned maze.” Therrik cursed and ran back into the first hall, searching for another way around. “She could already have him.”
Ridge wished he could do something more than running behind Therrik. He felt so useless. But he couldn’t imagine what that something might be. A flier wouldn’t help here, and the only one nearby was parked on a tower in the courtyard.
Kasandral started glowing more brightly, and Therrik picked up his pace. They ran through the garden in the interior courtyard. Ridge gaped at the destruction around them. An entire wing of the castle had been flattened. Barely glancing in that direction, Therrik led them through a door on the far side. He charged down a set of stairs, the treads littered with rubble. He leaped the stones, barely slowing. They were under the kitchens, and they passed storage rooms full of barrels and crates that offered dozens of hiding places. Therrik kept going. He seemed positive about his destination now.
A great boom came from ahead, and Therrik faltered for the first time. Ridge had to grab the wall to keep from falling. Sardelle tumbled against him and he caught her, supporting her to keep her upright.
“That wasn’t the dragons,” she said, her voice barely audible. Somewhere up ahead, it sounded like a building was collapsing.
“A bomb,” Ridge guessed. Would Eversong have used a bomb? Or was Captain Kaika up there with the fliers, hurling explosives at the dragons? He clenched his fist. Finding Angulus had to be the priority, but he felt he should be up there, commanding that squadron.
A cloud of dust rolled down the hall toward them. Therrik swatted at it with Kasandral and ran into it. Most of the wall lamps had gone out or fallen to the floor, but Ridge could see by the unearthly green glow of that sword. The tiny group rounded a corner, entering a storage room so large that one might have kept a dragon in it. The back half had crumbled, a wall and several ceiling arches collapsing. Therrik stopped several feet from the pile, the glow of the sword playing across it. It rose higher than his head, and the level above was visible through the massive hole in the ceiling.
Ridge waited near the hallway, expecting Therrik to turn again to look for another way around. Then a rock shifted in the pile. More dust wafted up, mingling with what already lingered in the air. Ridge dabbed at his watering eyes and resisted the urge to cough.
Sardelle backed away from the sprawling debris pile. She put her hand on Ridge’s chest, taking him with her, toward the wall most distant from the rocks. He wanted to resist—he wasn’t some coward to hide in the corner—but the concern on her face warned him to go with her. She had power he did not, and if she was worried about what was coming out of that rock pile, what could he and his little rifle do?
Therrik shouted, startling Ridge, and ran to the rubble, slashing downward with Kasandral.
Ridge expected him to hit the rocks with a clang that would break the blade. Instead, the sword sank in, cleaving a huge slab from the ceiling in half. From higher in the pile, rocks tumbled out of place, clattering down the slope toward Therrik.
He jumped back, just avoiding one that nearly slammed onto his foot. Other rocks stopped before tumbling off the pile, coincidentally—or not—covering the slab he had cut into with the sword. Protecting what lay beneath it?
“She shouldn’t be able to harm him directly,” Sardelle said, “not while he holds Kasandral, but—”
A boulder the size of a man’s torso flew from the pile. It would have struck Therrik in the head had he not ducked quickly enough, moving with amazing speed for a big man. The boulder slammed into the wall beside Sardelle with enough force to shake it and the floor below.
“She can harm him indirectly,” Sardelle finished.
“Good to know.” Therrik grunted and danced away from another large boulder that flew at him. Had it struck, the speed would have broken bones—maybe his skull.
This one’s trajectory took it into the ceiling, where it thudded loudly, then toppled to the ground ten feet from Sardelle. She might not be as much of a target as Therrik, but just being a spectator here could get them killed. Ridge grabbed her hand, thinking to pull her into the hallway for protection as more rocks flew through the air, but she shook her head and rooted her feet.
“I have to help him. Therrik, try again. I’ll do my best to shield you.”
Therrik did not hesitate. He charged toward the rubble mountain, again aiming for that broken slab. As he cut downward, another boulder sprang from the back of the pile, spinning as it zipped toward his head. He started to duck, aborting his attack, but it bounced off an invisible barrier several feet in front of Therrik. He stared as a few more rocks crashed into the barrier, then nodded and hefted his sword.
Sardelle stood without moving, her gaze focused on him.
A snapping noise sounded in the ceiling above her.
Ridge grabbed her hand again, this time pulling too hard for her to resist. He yanked her off her feet and dragged her toward the hallway. More snaps came from the ceiling, and rocks tumbled down where she had been standing. Therrik yelled as a head-sized rock slammed into his shoulder, knocking the sword from his hands. With Sardelle distracted, the barrier around him had disappeared.
Therrik lunged for the sword right away, but his fingers never reached it. He was lifted from his feet, as if caught in a tsunami, and hurled all the way to the back of the room. He struck so hard that Ridge was certain he would be knocked out, if not killed outright.
Before he consciously knew what he was doing, Ridge sprinted across the chamber and dove for Kasandral. He was terrified it might turn Sardelle into an enemy to him, but he prayed he could keep it focused on Eversong.
As he landed, an angry force tightened around his windpipe, invisible fingers wrapping around his neck. A vision of his head being torn off flashed into his mind, but his hand wrapped around the sword hilt first. It flared to life, pale green light bathing the rubble pile. The force around Ridge’s throat disappeared, and he scrambled to his feet, the weapon in hand.
Rage and hunger filled his mind, emotions that did not originate with him. They came from the sword, along with instructions that beckoned him to attack the rock pile. Without hesitating, he thrust the weapon into the boulders, thinking he might skewer the sorceress buried within, the sorceress who had killed everyone in that room. The point dove in as if thrusting into a pile of sand instead of a pile of solid rock.
Don’t make this choice, Eversong’s voice spoke into his head. I will kill you.
Ridge hoped that was a bluff, that Kasandral would protect him, that she wouldn’t be able to touch him or manipulate him. Still, afraid some mental attack was forthcoming, he stabbed faster, harder. It did not seem honorable, thrusting a sword at a wounded foe, but this foe could hurl rocks—and people—even while buried. A hunger coursed through him, again seeming to come from the sword, and he didn’t know if he could have stopped if he had wanted to.
After one of his strikes, a muffled gasp came from somewhere under the rocks. Several boulders lifted from the back of the pile, and Ridge ducked. They flew toward him, but struck a barrier and bounced off before coming close. Sardelle stepped up beside him, her face caked with dust, but her eyes clear and bright. An angry feeling flowed up his arms from the blade, and for a second, Ridge struggled to see her as an ally.
“Keep going,” she said. “I will protect you.” She glared at the rubble, then spread her hands toward it, fingers splayed, intense concentration burning in her eyes.
She is an ally, Ridge told the sword, though he had no idea if it understood. With will as much as with muscle, he thrust the blade into the pile, aiming for the spot where the gasp had originated.
The entire pile trembled, as if an earthquake were striking. Even the floor shook. Would all of those boulders fly at him at once? Could Sardelle’s shield s
top that?
She growled deep in her throat, her eyes squinted shut as she made a tamping motion with her hands. Air swirled past Ridge, as if a breeze blew through the room, and the rocks settled.
Ridge thrust into them again. For a moment, nothing happened, and he thought Sardelle had won some victory. Then wind blew past Ridge again, this time more like a hurricane than a breeze. Strangely, it did not affect him, but Sardelle was flung backward, just as Therrik had been. Ridge reached for her, but was too late. She slammed into the wall and crumpled to the ground next to Therrik.
Therrik had risen to his hands and knees, but another wave of energy pushed him back against the wall. He might as well have been shackled there.
Sardelle surprised him by rising to her feet. She stared at the open area above the rubble pile where a ceiling had once been. Her eyes narrowed and a gust of wind swirled through the room. Dust and fine bits of rock swirled through the air, pelting everyone’s skin. Then the force seemed to sharpen and focus. It struck the ceiling on the floor above theirs. Groans and snaps sounded, and more and more rocks tumbled down onto the pile.
Ridge staggered back, pulling the sword out and shielding his eyes from flying shards of rock. As he did so, he glimpsed blood on the tip of the glowing blade.
“She’s injured,” he said, scarcely hearing his own voice over the roar of falling rock.
Squinting, he stumbled back toward the pile. Maybe dropping more stone on her head would finish her off, but they couldn’t assume that. Only the sword had proven that it could hurt her.
He drew back his arm for a mighty thrust when a new attack came. Not rocks or wind this time. A torrent of images cascaded into his mind. He was aware of Sardelle gasping behind him, but the images felt like daggers scraping across his brain, and he couldn’t do anything to help her. He fell to his knees in front of the settling rocks, grit and stone jabbing through his trousers. He barely noticed. His mind was locked in the past, in the barn that Mara had lured him into, to the hay bales that she had pushed him against. He saw what he’d forgotten from that night, them tearing off their clothes and having sex, her whispering into his ear, promising to make him king. Even though the engagement had been lust-filled rather than love-filled, it made him question what he was doing. Was he truly trying to thrust a sword into the woman he had slept with? What kind of monster was he?