“She was trapped,” Ghaelya whispered, wide-eyed as the long years of the sirine’s imprisonment became apparent. She shivered, feeling eyes upon her even as she turned to the rising shadow on her right.
The gUttering blue-black eyes caught her and held her still as Teseaeril’s face appeared in the ethereal light of the cavern. The bright orange energy lines of her sister’s fire were gone, replaced with jagged designs. of pulsing green. Fleshy vines wove in and out of her pale blue flesh as she pulled herself along the rocks at the sirine’s edge. Her blue lips trembled, mouthing silently, the song an unstoppable torrent flowing from between them. A knot formed in Ghaelya’s throat, both relieved and repulsed by the sight of her sister, but she leaned forward, shaking her head slowly in disbelief.
Tessaeril’s torso, unclothed and bound by dark tentacles of vine, was cut off at the waist. Beneath the almost translucent flesh of the sirine, Ghaelya could make out a faint silhouette of bone, perhaps the shape of lost legs. Shock kept her from crying, left her eyes dry of tears as she fought to understand what she was seeing. Tessaeril supported herself with a wet hand upon the rock, her long, webbed fingers straining with the effort as she tried to speak. Her teary eyes were unbound by the shock that held Ghaelya in thrall.
She spoke softly at first, her voice an undertone to the song as she found the will to form words in its haunting tune. The song lessened for several heartbeats, as if being drained by Tessaeril’s Use of its spellplague amplified power, but it bore no compulsion, no demands beyond the ability of her will to resist. The sounds gathered, fighting their way through melody until the words formed and stole quiet shock from Ghaelya’s mind, hurling her headlong into nightmare.
Kill me.
Before Uthalion could react to Khault’s sudden rage, Brindani charged forward. His sword flashed through Khault’s reaching arms, stabbed at tentacled growths, and drove the broken farmer back to the edge of the clearing with a vengeance. Uthalion circled the blur of writhing limbs and quick steel, the whistle between his teeth, keeping Khault effectively blind. But Brindani was too close, too easy a target for the singer’s fury.
Khault roared, the force of his voice slamming into Uthalion’s chest like an anvil and throwing him back to the edge of the crystal forest. He fought to regain his breath, and was scrambling to get back on his feet when Brindani landed nearby, slammed into the low wall of the clearing. Khault, bleeding and growling, slithered back into the shadows of the city, crouching low as he shook his scarred head and spat sweet-scented blood on the ground.
Brindani’s black eyes rolled as he sat up, leaning forward on his arms like an animal waiting for a challenger to reappear. His skin had grown paler, and arcing blue veins raced in thick knots through his wrists, creeping up along his arms. The half-elfs muscles bunched and twitched uncontrollably as he raised his sword; blood ran across his fist from new and old wounds alike.
“Brin?” Uthalion asked, sitting up and cautiously pulling away from the infected half-elf.
“I’m fine,” Brindani answered. “Now go find Ghaelya and finish this.”
“I won’t leave you here,” Uthalion replied, cursing as he realized he’d dropped the aranea’s whistle. “Not while those things are”
“You will leave me here!” Brindani growled, his voice rumbling dangerously as he flashed Uthalion a black-eyed stare. “I’ve run from this place a thousand times. This is where I should be, and while I still have the ability to choose, I choose to fight!”
“Brin”
“Go!” the half-elf snarled, his eyes softening for a breath. “She’ll need you more than me. Get her out of here.”
Uthalion hesitated, but he could see the toll of infection racing through Brindani’s body and the way he clutched at his stomach, wincing with pain.
“I’ll tell them you’re on your way,” Uthalion — muttered and backed toward the spires.
“Just do the work,” Brindani replied. “Keep moving, don’t think, and do your job.”
Uthalion met the half-elf s gaze for a heartbeat and nodded once before running into the crystal forest, following the vines and hating his own practical honesty. He pondered their luck and brushes with death across the wilds of the Akana and lied to himself, convincing himself that all would be well. As he neared the wide clearing in the forest, he slowed, watched by a ring of glassy eyes along the edges of the spires.
The dreamers sat, quietly watching gentle ripples flow through the mist-grass as the powerful song poured from the depths of the deep pit. At the edge of the pit, his bone-sword laid across his lap, Vaasurri regarded him with a hard, solemn expression. The dreamers did not react as Uthalion entered the clearing; but merely sat with strange looks on their humanlike faces, sniffing the air before settling down calmly on their haunches.
Despite the song, Uthalion was struck by the eerie silence. Vaasurri said nothing, merely shook his head as he looked down into the pit. As frightening roars echoed from the north, Uthalion took a deep breath, and knew that all would not be well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
12 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Ruins of Tohrepur, Akanul
Uthalion stood over the flickering shadows of the cavern as Vaasurri told him of what lay slumbering inside, of the fate he suspected the Choir had intended for Ghaelya. Uthalion swayed slightly, caught in the endless current of song that ran hungry tendrils of searching melody over his skin and through his flesh. It demanded everything of him, crooning for him to abandon all else and end his days amid blooms and blood. Forcefully he pulled himself away, gasping for breath and shaking away the instinct to dive into the cavern and dash himself on the rocks below for just one glimpse of the beauty that called to him.
He tightly gripped the gold ring upon his finger, determined to not become another of the sirine’s nnt. het. in fools her crimson-stnineH Flock.
“Has she been down there long?” he asked.
“No,” Vaasurri answered. “Not long for what she faces. And Brindani?”
Roars of boundless rage and-sibilant screams rang shrilly through the crystals, vibrating in the ground and sending choppy shivers along the wavy tips of the mist-grass. Uthalion gripped his sword, expecting monsters to come pouring through the forest at any moment, knowing that even if Brindani could fell Khault, he could not face the whole of Tohrepur alone.
“He’s… on his way,” he replied, turning, careful to keep his distance from the pit. “We’ve got to get her out of there. If she touches that thing”
“Then we know what to do,” Vaasurri said. And though the killoren seemed not to move a muscle, his gleaming bone-sword shined briefly in the moonlight as if the weapon itself knew its own purpose. “One way or another, we know what to do.”
Uthalion knelt, staring into the dark thoughtfully, sobered by the idea of striking down the girl he’d led to this place. But he could not let the sirine’s songher infectionspread. He imagined Ghaelya striding among the warrens of the aranea, an army of beguiled spiders in her wake, drawn to the sirine’s flowers and terrible caress. He saw her at the opening gates of Airspur and thought of the throngs she might enchant, a silver-tongued conqueror succeeding where the armies of the Abolethic Sovereignty had failed.
Twirling the gold band round and round his finger, it was evident what had to be done should things go badly. But like any decision that rested on the edge of a sword and a man’s determination to do the right thing, he didn’t like the taste of it.
“It’s always blood,” he muttered, stony eyed.