Shan knew the sensation, remembered it. When Anala died, he’d thought his soul had been taken with her. The pain, the horror, he could recall it all. Their bond was failing. No, their bond was being torn to shreds.
Indarin pushed on.
“What’s he doing?” Leithen asked.
“Magic, I fear.”
Indarin had almost reached her now. His body took on a faint glow of its own, a diffused light which nevertheless was dwarfed by the Shimmering itself. He reached out and now Shan could hear his voice. The words were another language, harsh and grating, something so old it sent chills through him. Even hearing them made Shan’s mind recoil from listening let alone translating.
Old magic. Feyna magic. Forbidden.
Like the songs the Fellna had sung, in their dark nests far below the ground. He shook his head to drive off the nightmare memory.
Indarin put out his hand, stopping at the edge of the glow. His fingers burned with a pale light. Shan could see the bones beneath the skin as clearly as if they had been laid open with a knife.
Indarin glanced at him. His eyes were wholly black, more Fell than Fey, and Shan started back in shock.
“Be ready,” Indarin rasped, not his voice either, not really. Part was, but it distorted with the magic filling it.
The Shaman thrust his hand into the depths of the Shimmering and the spell he had been brewing within his body ignited. Blinding light, brighter than the dark magic encircling Jeren, burst from every pore. The Shimmering twisted, recoiled and then surged forwards to envelope him. Indarin’s hand closed on Jeren’s upper arm and he threw her clear, taking that single moment to rescue her before the Shimmering snapped shut around him and his light was snuffed out.
Jeren hit the ground hard. Even Shan was too slow to save her that. Blood ran from her mouth and her skin was slick with cold sweat, too pale for a human. Her chest rose fitfully.
“Get help!” Shan yelled at the others. “Send for a healer, get the Ariah. Hurry!”
The Shimmering swirled around Indarin’s taut body, extracting his magic, smothering it inside him. Agony lined his face, but he didn’t cry out. For a moment Shan thought he saw something else in his brother’s features – redemption, release.
Shan gathered Jeren against him, cradling her. Limp and unresponsive, she hardly breathed at all. Not enough to sustain her. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Yet here he was, helpless, useless, and all because of magic. Magic he didn’t have, couldn’t combat, and never could understand.
A voice rang out through the camp, a woman, strident and outraged. Shan didn’t understand the words, didn’t need to. The air throbbed with raw power – divine energy, sent by the goddess herself, channelled through her representative to the Feyna, the first children of the gods. The Ariah stepped out of nowhere, or so it seemed, four healers in attendance. She flung out both her arms and white light surrounded her. Indarin’s magic flared bright in response, reasserting itself. He threw back his head and cried out, his voice broken, a thin and anguished sound.
As if someone had smothered the sun, everything stopped. The Shimmering crumbled to sparkling dust and Indarin fell, a puppet with cut strings. The Ariah sagged where she stood, her face drained and worn, strangely young. Lara’s face again. She waved off an attendant irritably.
“See to the Shaman,” she said, and with a shock, Shan recognised Fethan, the leader of the Seers, the very healer who had refused to heal a human when last they met. Lara hated him. What was he doing with her now that she was the ruler of all the Feyna?
The Ariah caught Shan’s look and scowled.
“Don’t ask. We sensed the Shimmering and came as soon as we could. Does she live?”
Shan glanced down, his hand stroking Jeren’s cheek. “Barely. My brother?”
Fethan’s head jerked up from Indarin’s chest. “He lives too, but I... there’s a lot of damage.”
“Get them to shelter.” The Ariah closed her hands to fists at her sides. “Quickly. There’s no time to lose.”
Then they heard it. “Devyn!” Doria’s voice rose in a wailed lament. “Sweet gods, my Devyn!”
The boy lay sprawled on the stony ground, his eyes staring blankly at the sky overhead.
“Do something!” Doria tried to pull him up, tried to shake him to wakefulness. “Please Ariah... Lara! Do something!”
The Ariah’s face froze and Shan saw Lara through the veneer of power and command once more, Lara grief-stricken as she had been when she learned of her father’s fate.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but everyone in the camp could hear her voice as if she leaned in close to their ears. “I’m so sorry, Doria. There’s nothing that can be done.”
As Doria’s keen rose into the air, as Leithen rushed to her side, the Feyna leader turned her back and began the task of directing help for the survivors.
Pain. Everything was pain. Needles prickled her skin, piercing her at every follicle. Jeren tried to cry out, but fire filled her mouth, her throat and her lungs. It boiled the blood in her veins and held her in vices of iron so there could be no escape.
She could see them, for a moment, through a swirl of gold and a red haze. Devyn, thrown back with the force of a giant’s blow, Indarin stopping Shan from the same fate and then her teacher approaching, warily, reluctantly.
“No,” she wanted to tell him. The only coherent thought she could form. “No, Indarin. Don’t.”
But she couldn’t speak for the agony eating through her. And he wouldn’t have listened if she could. Not even if he could hear her.
Indarin reached for her, his hand brushing her skin like acid and she screamed. Light burst around her, even brighter than before, stealing her sight and sending her tumbling into darkness.
All was still. She tried to move, but her body was still held by irons, stretched out and immobile. There could be no movement, no escape.
When she tried, metal cut into her skin and she realised that this time... this time the iron was real, not magical.
A sob filled her chest, ripped its way out, but it wasn’t her voice. It sounded like a child, lost, terrified, beyond hope.
Footsteps echoed through damp halls on cold stone. In the distance, a roar of water reached out to her memory. Water permeated everything here, the rock, the air, her shivering form. It dripped down from overhead, running insidious fingers across her skin.
No, not mine. I’m not here. This is some kind of enchantment, some kind of dream.
Or a nightmare.
The footsteps came closer and light grew from the shadows.
“You’re certain it worked?” Gilliad asked, his voice, though low and even, filled with an undercurrent of dark excitement.
Jeren’s breath caught in her throat and she shrank back within herself. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. She was in Sheninglas with Shan. She was safe, far away from this madman who had once been her brother.
Her world twisted again, as another voice filled the air. One she would never forget.
“Of course, Lord Gilliad. Just as I promised.”
The Enchassa strode around the corner with Gilliad at her side. Jeren’s voice burst out in a hiccough of fear and denial at the sight of the Fellna enchantress who had once tried to enslave Shan.
Gilliad grinned. “She can hear me, yes?”
Jeren tried to speak, but was abruptly reminded that the body and the voice were not her own. A thin, high whimper of terror came out as she struggled, tearing the skin holding her on the metal restraints in an effort to escape them.