The Living God, page 13
The wooden door behind them creaked, standing three inches open when Rowe knew it had been shut before. In the loudness of his thoughts, he hadn’t heard anyone enter.
“Was it Keleir?” Rowe asked, throat closing.
“I don’t know … I can’t feel him. Rowe, if he heard you say that—”
“I’ll find him.”
SEVENTEEN
KELEIR STARED ACROSS the bay at the glint of the setting sun. The wind blew harshly across the balcony, tossing his white hair about his head to the point that it stung his cheeks and blinded him. When he leaned against the railing, the roar of the wind filled his ears loud enough to war with the voice inside his head.
The powerful Fire Mage slumped forward against the stone, lowering his head and clenching his eyes tight. He buckled to his knees, a broken man, while the priest’s words played like a never-ending song, a constant reminder of his doom.
He was the bringer of destruction, the monster that children feared, doomed to hurt the ones he loved, and nothing could stop him. Time would be his undoing, and the one person who could control time no longer had the power. If she could not stop him, then …
With longing eyes, he took in the waves crashing against the rocks.
Death is not an escape, the Oruke whispered. I am here, no matter if your soul leaves this body. It will not die.
“Can you use a body that does not function?”
Bodies heal.
Keleir glared at the waves. “Why?”
Quiet. Seconds ticked away, and he felt the aching scratch of the Oruke thinking. This doesn’t have to be horrible or painful. Listen to me, Keleir, my brother in body …
Keleir laughed. “We are not brothers.”
Let me show you why this has to be.
“You’ve shown me lots of things, Oruke.”
But you won’t listen. You won’t trust in what I show you.
Keleir lifted his gaze to the ocean beyond the cove. “Death. That is all you show me.”
You will see soon enough that the people you love—these humans you want to protect—are as twisted and dark as the rest of them. It was true what the priest said. This world will meet the same fate as the Third. But we can stop them. We can save what there is left to save.
“By killing?”
By redeeming. Some will die, this is true. But what I intend for the world is something much better. Humans are imperfect, selfish creatures … but they can be made better. From the ashes of what we must do, they will rise anew. They will rise cleansed and stronger. They will be perfect.
Keleir shook his head. “Perfection is impossible.”
Nothing is impossible.
The Fire Mage roared, “I don’t want any part of this! I just want to be with Saran and Rowe, somewhere quiet. If the world burns around us, so be it. As long as I have them …”
You are part of it, Keleir. There is no escape from this.
Keleir glared at the horizon, his eyes burning. The world before him disappeared into a watery blur. He gripped the banister beneath his hands until his knuckles whitened. “Save me,” he whispered to the wind, to the gods, to anyone with the power to stop him. “Save me!”
“You are saved,” came a voice behind him. With tears brimming his eyes, Keleir glanced over his shoulder at the man in the doorway. The Oruke stared at him, holding out a hand, sorrow in his eyes. “Trust me. I have never lied to you. I will never lie to you.”
Keleir looked away to the cresting waves below. The rocks, jagged and menacing, reached up to him, calling like a siren, waiting with open arms to greet him at the bottom.
Better to be dead, he thought, than hurt the people he loved. Better to be dead than fail to protect them. Keleir turned to the Oruke and sat on the railing, giving a solemn smile. “You want to cleanse mankind? Do it alone,” he said to the creature, and he let himself fall back.
The wind roared up around him, deafening in his ears. He was not afraid. Instead a feeling, placid and soothing, coursed through his veins, easing the tension and releasing him from the horrible prison he’d walled himself in. Freedom and peace wrapped about him, welcoming him to his oblivion.
Electric-blue light crackled in the air, and a harsh grip clutched his waist. He fell into warmth and reappeared kneeling on the balcony floor with Rowe hovering over him, shaking him furiously.
“Keleir! Didn’t you hear me? Why would you …”
Keleir looked at his brother’s pale face and then flopped back to lie across the floor, staring up at the darkening sky. Confusion filled him. It replaced itself with realization, knowing that the man in the doorway speaking to him had been Rowe all along. Profound hollowness replaced the peaceful serenity that he’d momentarily found in his ending. This soon faded to resentment. “I heard you …”
“Why?”
The Fire Mage didn’t answer. His brother didn’t trust him. How much would that trust worsen if Rowe knew that he now saw visions of the Oruke in his waking life?
“The brother I know would never give up. He would never do something so cowardly as to take his own life. He would never abandon Saran or me!”
Keleir laughed. It rumbled up from his chest like a growl. He stood, dusting his pants. “The Keleir you know is dead … dying, at any rate.” He turned his dull eyes on his brother. The look sent the Lightning Mage back a step.
Rowe frowned. “Perhaps …”
“Trust.” Keleir waved a finger at Rowe, an acidic smirk twisting his handsome face. “That’s what we lack, right? Fine. I’ll prove my loyalty to you, Rowe. When I have, I will do what I wish with what remains of my life, and you may do what you wish with yours. You no longer have to be my shield or my watcher. I was wrong to depend on you so. I see now that it has been too hard on you.”
“That isn’t …” Rowe frowned.
“Go away,” Keleir muttered, leaning back against the railing.
Rowe’s expression hardened. “Will you throw yourself off the balcony when I leave?”
Keleir looked down at the crashing, frothy waves. “Not today.”
The Fire Mage listened to the echo of his brother’s boots across the stone floor until he could no longer hear them compete with the sea. He sat with his back to the railing, his legs stretched out before him, until night fell and the world encased him in darkness.
The moon offered little light to see by, so it surprised him when Saran emerged from the darkness of his room, wrapped in a white sheet. She limped, favoring the leg her father injured. Her hair, once done up nicely, now hung half-pinned from all her wallowing. Loose strands of curls tangled in the wind while pain pulled her normally happy face tight and worry creased her brow. Keleir could barely see in the night, but her pain glowed angrily at him. Guilt wrapped like a vise around his heart, and he hung his head so not to see her.
“You should be resting,” he whispered, staring at his hands. She stepped between his legs until her feet crowded his vision. She had petite feet, small and narrow, with long toes. Monkey feet, she called them.
“I couldn’t rest. No matter how hard I tried. I worried for you,” she replied and tugged the blanket tight around her shoulders. “Rowe told me what happened, but he wouldn’t let me see you. I had to wait until he fell asleep.”
She slipped down to her knees, clenching her teeth against a cry of pain. He turned his face away from the awful expression she made as she knelt between his legs.
“Is it true?”
Keleir nodded without meeting eyes.
“Why?” Her voice crackled unsteadily from her lips. He heard the pain, and it tore his eyes from the floor. A tear rolled down her cheek. She reached up and wiped it, turning her face from the wind so that it tossed her hair up like a shield. “Why would you do that?”
He swallowed the hard lump growing in his throat. “No reason will ever be good enough for you.”
She took his face in her hands. “You’re right. It won’t be. I can’t understand your pain, so I can’t understand why you would want to leave. But while I can’t understand the pain, I can respect it. I can recognize that it is there. I cannot save you from it, but I can help you through it … somehow. I can listen. I’m good at listening.”
Keleir nodded. His eyes burned. “You are.”
“I want to hit you,” she said, managing to look at him again. “But I won’t.”
“You can hit me,” he whispered eagerly, wrapping his hands around hers. “Please do.”
She shook her head. “No.”
Saran leaned forward, making an awful sound as she did. Her forehead pressed against his, and she draped her arms over his shoulders. “Don’t leave me. I know that’s selfish to ask, and I don’t care if it is a lie, but promise me you won’t go.”
Keleir swallowed and nodded, rubbing his nose against hers. “I won’t leave you, I promise.”
He reached forward and placed his hands on her hips. He lifted and turned her so that she sat sideways against him, alleviating the pressure on her wound. She let out a tight scream as she moved, biting into the fabric at his shoulder. He whispered, “Sorry,” until the tension in her subsided and she breathed with less agony.
When the pain passed, she smirked. “If only I had your tolerance.”
“I’m glad you don’t. My tolerance comes from several years of practice.”
“By practice, you mean torture?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “I mean torture. I want you to always be safe.”
They sat together for several minutes, listening to the wind howl around them. Keleir’s fingers locked around Saran’s hand as she snuggled closer to him because his element always provided heat. A human fireplace, is what she called him. “Are you warm?”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, nuzzling her nose against his neck. “You’re very warm.”
The Fire Mage gave a self-satisfied smile.
“Keleir …” Her voice faded as she admired his face in what little light the stars offered. “I trust you.”
His stomach rolled over. He wanted to see her face better, to look into those trusting eyes. He wanted to hear the words over and over, repeated until they blotted out the blackness in his mind.
“I believe in you,” she continued.
“Saran …” His throat closed. He could barely breathe, half expecting this to fall away into another trick or nightmare, so he held her tighter just in case she slipped away.
“So listen to me, Oruke …” She bent her face close to his heart. It raced inside his chest, hammering in his ears. “One day, I will save him from you. I will erase you—this is my vow.”
The Fire Mage’s jaw set tight, and he looked up to the stars. All day he’d fought these emotions, fought to bury them, to be stronger than he was. Her words broke him as easily as thrown glass. He gasped, hoping a deep breath and swallow would remove the hard brick in his throat. Instead he cried. Keleir wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her hair, and she cried with him.
“I love you,” he choked. “Gods, I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll be better. I swear it. I’ll fight harder. I won’t give up. I promise you.”
After they calmed and lay against each other for close to an hour, he gathered her in his arms, careful of her leg. “Let’s get you into bed.” As gentle as he tried to be, her occasional huff of pain stabbed at his heart.
Instead of delivering her back into Rowe’s protection in the medical ward, he carried her to his bed. He cared very little for his brother’s concern, and Rowe was smart enough to assume where she’d gone when he woke. Keleir let himself be selfish with her. He held her and gave into exhaustion, and for the first time in many days he did not fear sleep.
He would be stronger.
This is my vow.
EIGHTEEN
SARAN LIMPED ALONG as fast as her wounded leg would carry her. The skirts she wore tangled around her legs, and she fought with the fabric to keep from tripping. When she reached the council chamber, she burst into the room to find that the meeting had ended, and the only two people left were Keleir and a servant cleaning up her father’s birdseeds strewn across the floor.
“You can’t go to Mavahan,” she exhaled, wincing as she came to rest against the table.
The servant looked up from his sweeping and, seeing the furrowed, sweating brow of the princess in the presence of her husband, gathered his dustpan and fled the room.
Keleir turned his gaze from the map of Mavahan to his wife. “I have to go.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Saran, if I don’t go to fix this, we may gain the kingdom only to lose it to Mavahan. They will not tolerate your father’s games, and they will not forget the slight of being denied a queen. When we destabilize Adrid, they will attack us. I have to go. I promised I would make this right.”
Keleir pulled out a chair and urged her to sit.
She glared at him. “You’re too close to the edge to go to Mavahan. Keleir, you don’t know what the Deadlands would do to you right now.” Keleir pressed his hands to her shoulders and attempted to guide her down into the chair, but she shook off his hand. “Stop trying to make me sit. I’m standing if we are going to have this argument. You are not going to Mavahan.”
“I am.”
“No, you are not. You could cross the border and be completely lost to us! I can’t bring you back again, Keleir. I don’t know if it works twice.”
“You don’t know what you did, remember?”
“Exactly!”
Keleir frowned. She knew that look. His red eyes peered through her, thinking and plotting his next move. Sometimes arguments with him were detailed chess matches, and she didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to play right now.
“I don’t care what happens to this kingdom,” she admitted. “Do you understand me?”
“Rowe cares, and you’re lying.”
“I won’t lose you,” she told him. “Don’t go.”
“I made a promise, Saran,” Keleir whispered. “I promised Rowe I would finish this. It’s the only way I can prove to him that he can trust me.”
Saran knew he understood why she was asking this of him. She also knew that he wanted to go to Mavahan because it was a Deadland, and he thought he might find peace from the Oruke there. Saran shook her head, tears in her eyes. “There are other ways.”
“Not for Rowe,” Keleir murmured. “If I lose the battle with the Oruke … I want to have lost it with his trust and with his love. He’s my brother, Saran.”
“And I’m your wife.” Panic filled her eyes. He’d never denied her anything she asked for. He couldn’t … “Don’t go.”
Keleir appraised her, his lips working on a retort. Her heart lifted when she realized he would stay, but then he brushed past her and gathered the maps on the table. “I have to do this. It will earn Yarin’s favor and perhaps, when I return, I can convince him to give me the key to your Bind.”
Tears brimmed Saran’s eyes. Would he hate her if she locked him away? How could she possibly hope to stop him from leaving in her current state? She hated feeling so helpless.
“If you return, you might not be yourself. Do you understand that?”
Keleir nodded, not meeting her eyes. “If I stay, I may not be myself.”
“I can fix you. I just need to get this Bind off. I need the key.”
Keleir clenched his eyes and gathered the maps under his arm. “We both know Yarin isn’t going to give that key to you. He may give it to me, though, if I have the right ammunition. If I can lay an entire kingdom at his feet, maybe that will be enough payment for your freedom.”
“Keleir, please …” She had no idea what he meant by his words, what he meant about bringing an entire kingdom to her father’s feet, but she knew that there was little chance that the Keleir she knew would come back to her once that mission was over. If by some chance he did, he would not last long.
“I leave in the morning,” Keleir murmured. “I’ll be gone three or four weeks.”
Pain splintered in her chest, and she clenched her eyes to block him out. Shaking her head, she left him with his maps in the council chamber. Saran nearly made it back to her room before a wave of anxiety struck her. It almost brought her to her knees, but instead she pressed her forehead into the rough stone of the corridor wall.
She heaved deep breaths, unable to wrangle her fear and anger. Her thoughts raced wildly for a solution, but Keleir was right. Her father wasn’t going to give her the key, and nothing she’d read about had led to a way of removing the Bind without one. The only way to get it off was to somehow find the key or …
Saran lifted her hand, admiring the Bind. She sprang off the wall and hobbled quickly to her room, where she slammed the door behind her. Saran went to the fireplace, to the hatchet tucked against the side of the stone hearth and knelt there with a cry of pain.
Saran reached out with her bandaged, throbbing hand and grasped the hatchet handle. She winced as she forced her fingers to curl around the wood and lift the heavy weight. The princess pressed her opposite hand against the hearth and flattened out her arm against the warm stone.
Sweat beaded on Saran’s forehead as she pressed the sharp edge of the hatchet to her wrist, just before the Bind.
“Okay,” Saran said. “You can do this.” She lifted the hatchet. Her hand barely had the strength to hold the thing. She would need more strength than that to break the bone and sever her hand.
“Okay, okay, okay …” Saran pressed the blade to her wrist again, carefully measuring. “Come on, Saran, you’ve been burned to a crisp by an Oruke possessed Fire Mage. Nothing hurts like that. This isn’t going to be so bad. You can do this.”
Saran lifted the hatchet high into the air. Her hand trembled violently, and her fingers ached at the grip around the handle. Seconds away from bringing the hatchet down on her wrist, she screamed her rage and tossed it away. The princess cradled her aching broken fist, angry at its weakness and angry at herself for lacking the conviction to follow through. How many hits would it have taken with such a weak strike? Two? Three? Couldn’t she endure that? What if she bled out before she’d even finished hacking her hand off?
