Myth and Storm, page 1
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Myth and Storm
Copyright © 2021, Megan O’Russell
Cover Art by Sleepy Fox Studio (https://www.sleepyfoxstudio.net/)
Editing by Christopher Russell
Interior Design by Christopher Russell
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Requests for permission should be addressed to Ink Worlds Press.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
The Inker’s Tale
1
2
The Guilds of Ilbrea series returns with Viper and Steel
Escape Into Adventure
About the Author
Also by Megan O’Russell
To the ones trapped in the storm.
The shore will be worth the waves.
Myth and Storm
1
Ena
I had always loved being surrounded by the scent of flowers.
Not for the beauty of the blooms. Pretty things can be damaged, ravaged by disaster and cruelty. Fragile beauty is too weak for a world that’s caught fire.
I loved the petals for what they could do. The right bloom could make an ink so vibrant it seemed born of magic or be ground into a balm that could save a life. A skilled hand could turn a few petals into a poison that could change the fate of a kingdom.
To a girl who could wield that weapon, the scent of flowers offered a promise of power.
But as I spent days sitting in the window in the library, looking out over Ilara, I grew to hate the floral perfume the Guilds had fabricated.
The healers and sorcerers that passed through the head scribe’s sitting room never glanced toward the common rotta girl perched on the windowsill. They bustled in and out all day, always speaking in hushed voices. Always hurrying as though one lost moment might change the scribe’s fate.
I tried not to watch them, not to draw the attention of the paun. I didn’t know if they chose not to notice me, or if the gods had somehow made me invisible.
I wished I had turned into a shadow no one could see. I had no faith the gods could ever be so kind.
It seemed the whims of gods and men had bathed the whole world in blood and cruelty as I spent my days staring out over the ruined capital of Ilbrea.
The flames had gone out after the first night. Then word came they’d killed Cade and his demons. The paun announced it so proudly, as though killing a few dozen men would somehow stamp out the hatred the common folk carried for the Guilds.
By the end of the second night, the smoke had stopped drifting into the sky.
That’s when the stink had begun. The putrid stench of rotting flesh filled the city as the bodies of the common fallen were left unburied.
That morning, the maids brought flowers. Dried flowers, fresh flowers, oils that had been made from flowers. They filled the scribe’s rooms to cover the scent of death that soiled the grand city of the paun.
But the bright scent of the blooms didn’t banish the stench of decay, not from my seat by the window.
Death himself swam around me with every gust of wind off the Arion Sea. Death would not let us forget what had been lost in Cade’s foolish uprising.
I stared out the window as the sun crept high in the sky, bringing a warmth that would only ripen the horrible stench. I couldn’t see any of the bodies from my perch on the third floor of the library. I could peer over the wall that surrounded the scribes’ home and into the square with its pretty little fountain that had been left untainted by the flames. If I stood on the windowsill, I could catch a glimpse of the merchants’ shops that had been burned, but Death did not mar my view.
“You should eat.” Taddy held a plate out to me.
A healer had stitched the worst of the wounds on the boy’s face, but his left eye was still swollen to barely more than a slit.
“You should eat, miss.” Taddy dared to take a step closer, holding the plate right under my nose.
I wanted to smack it out of his hands and scream that my eating should be the least of any paun’s worries. But the boy looked so sad and earnest, I didn’t have strength to do anything but take the plate and give him a nod.
Taddy pulled a chair closer to me before claiming his own plate from the tray. He took a few bites of roasted meat before looking back up at me.
“Eat, miss.”
I took a deep breath, trying to convince my body I was alive enough to eat. The scent of decay rushed into my lungs.
Taddy furrowed his brow as I shuddered. “At least take a few bites of the bread.”
The plain bread I could manage.
Taddy smiled, wincing at the movement of his swollen cheek.
The door to the scribe’s bedroom opened, and two women in healer red came out. They kept their heads close together, murmuring words I couldn’t hear as they crossed through the sitting room and out into the corridor beyond.
“He’s all right,” Taddy said after the door to the hall had shut. “They would have said something if he wasn’t all right.”
I wanted to go into the bedroom and see the scribe. See what they’d made of him. If they’d left him as the man I’d known or turned him into another paun monster.
But I’d been counting the ones bustling in and out of his room. There was still a sorcerer in with him.
I made myself finish the rest of my bread.
Taddy had taken the plate away and tried to offer me another meal before the sorcerer finally left the scribe’s bedroom.
Every bit of my body ached as I unfurled my limbs and climbed down from the windowsill.
None of the healers had even tried to come near me, and I hadn’t found the will to tend to my own wounds.
I was too hollow.
Finding the supplies I needed. Undressing myself. Making myself look at the damage Cade had done.
The pain I could bear. I’d felt worse before. But my loathing of the Guilds and revulsion at Cade’s contamination drove me into a numbing madness that left no room for reasoning through the necessary tasks. I was grateful for the void my hatred offered.
Taddy followed close behind me as I crept toward the scribe’s bedroom door.
I hesitated before touching the doorknob as the foolish notion that the sorcerers had plotted to keep me away from him swept past my reason.
No shock of magic shot through me as I twisted the knob and stepped into the room.
He lay on the bed as though he’d fallen asleep. The sorcerers had banished the bruises and cuts from his face, leaving him without a mark, despite all the damage Cade’s chivving bastards had done when they’d beaten him.
His chest rose and fell in a steady, calm way, like the sorcerers had stolen his cares when they’d stolen his wounds.
“I’ll get you a blanket then,” Taddy whispered.
I didn’t tell my feet to move, but they carried me to his bedside. I grazed the back of his hand with my fingertips. Not because I thought he’d feel my touch, just so I could convince myself he was still alive.
I leaned over him to whisper in his ear. “Wake up, you chivving paun.”
His breathing didn’t change.
“You have to wake up.” I rested my cheek against his.
He would have reached for me if he could. Or blushed. Or stammered as he tried to pretend he hadn’t fallen in love with me.
He didn’t move at all.
Hopeless fear dug deeper in my chest.
“I will not let you leave me. I am not done with you, scribe.”
I went to the wide couch in the corner where Taddy waited for me with a blanket. I curled up on the fancy upholstery while Taddy slept on the carpet.
I would flee to the windowsill again when the paun came back to check on their precious head scribe. They would preserve the heir of the Lord Scribe, use all the magic and might the Guilds possessed to keep him alive.
2
Tham
His shoulders had grown numb to the pain of swinging the ice axe. His hands clenched the handle so hard, his fingers could no longer move.
He couldn’t let go. He would never let go. He would keep swinging the axe until the gods stole the breath from his body, or until he found her. There were no other choices.
He would not leave her, no matter how badly the others begged.
Elver’s shoulders sagged as he staggered a step back, leaving only Tham’s axe cracking against the wall of ice. Elver’s panting breaths grated against the rhythm of Tham’s swings.
Tham pounded the axe into the endless ice even harder.
“Careful,” Elver wheezed. “We’ve got a limited supply of tools. We can’t afford to keep breaking them.”
Tham took a breath, forcing his arms back into a steady swing.
“You need a break.” Elver coughed the words as he reached for his waterskin. “Tham, drink something.”
“Everything all right?” Kegan called from the main passage where the dogs had been penned away from the men’s work.
“Just trying to get him to drink,” Elver said.
“Tham, take a chivving drink.” Kegan stomped down the narrow passage they’d managed to carve through the ice.
It only reached forty feet.
He’d been pummeling the ice for the gods only knew how many days, and he’d only made it forty feet.
But forty feet should have been far enough. She’d just slipped through the wall of ice, been pulled into the blue like it wasn’t even a solid thing.
He’d tried to dive after her. He’d begged whatever magic lived in the ice to give her back. He’d prayed to the common gods, Dudia, and Saint Dannach himself. But the ice kept her trapped. Somewhere in the mountain, hidden by the blue.
Carving his way through the ice was the only choice he had left. Even if he had to dig his way to the heart of the mountain range, he wouldn’t stop. He would find her. He would not let his war with the ice end until he had her back. In his arms. Breathing. Alive.
She is alive.
He roared his rage at the mountain as he turned back to the wall he’d been battling through.
Inch by inch.
He would find her.
His hands had bled through his bandages again by the time Kegan dared to try and make him pause.
He touched Tham’s shoulder. “Go clean your hands and eat something.”
Tham struck the ice again.
“The wall will still be here once you’ve eaten,” Kegan said.
“You can’t hope to reach her if you’re dead.” Elver stepped sideways, blocking the part of the wall Tham had been striking. “Food, water, bandages.” Elver reached for Tham’s axe. “I’m not half so scared of you swinging that axe at my head as I am of having to explain to Mara that you died of exhaustion.”
The sound of her name drove pain through Tham’s chest.
“Go.” Kegan wrenched the axe from Tham’s grip and turned to strike the wall.
Tham clutched his bleeding hands to his chest, forcing his fingers to curl into tight fists, needing the burst of pain to keep him from screaming.
The steady pounding of the axes rattled through his brain as he left the roughly carved tunnel and stepped into the smooth passage of ice that led up the slope to the outside world.
Storms could be raging just beyond the passage. Or the gods might have burned the mountains with the fury of Tham’s grief. He never bothered climbing far enough to see.
The outside world meant nothing now.
Tham could not leave the halls of ice. He had too much experience with magic. Leaving a place like this might mean never finding a way back in.
Kegan and Elver had tried to convince him to go to Whitend and ask for aid from the villagers. But he couldn’t, they couldn’t, not when she was still trapped in the blue.
Her eyes had been wide with fear when the ice had swallowed her. She’d been reaching for him, but he couldn’t save her.
I will find you. I swear I will find you.
He thought the words over and over as he climbed up to where the passage of smooth ice widened enough for Kegan to put up a pen for the dogs. The supplies were laid out on the sled. Water, next to hardtack, beside a roll of bandages and a bottle of tonic for cleaning wounds.
Elle whimpered as Tham sank to the ground.
He stared into the white dog’s charcoal-rimmed eyes.
Elle whined and sniffed the air.
Tham closed his eyes, trying to imagine a hint of Mara’s scent filling the tunnels.
The pain in his chest sliced deeper, cutting all the way up into his throat so he could hardly breathe.
He made himself drink the water, forcing himself to swallow past the fear and rage that threatened to break him.
He unwrapped the pulpy mess of his hands as he chewed through the hardtack. The tonic stung as he dripped it onto the places where his skin had torn free. The Healers Guild had brewed the concoction to keep infection away, but it couldn’t regrow the skin he’d lost. Nothing but a sorcerer could do that.
Tham shut his eyes, forcing away the unfathomable thought that a sorcerer’s presence could have saved Mara.
A sorcerer would have doomed their journey from the start. Kept them from making the true maps to preserve a record of all the places they’d found magic the Sorcerers Guild would gladly destroy.
Tham had come with Mara on this journey in search of undiscovered magic. She’d dedicated everything she was to creating the true maps, risking her life with every step. Choosing to risk death with every journey.
Wishing for a sorcerer would mean wishing Mara’s choices away.
He couldn’t do that. He had no right.
He would just have to keep digging. He would find her. He wouldn’t stop until he found her.
The sudden silence yanked Tham from the blackness that had swallowed him. He opened his eyes and leapt to his feet, racing toward the tunnel they’d carved with the bandage only half-wrapped around his hand.
His boots slipped on the ice of the floor as he bolted into the tunnel. He caught himself on the raggedly carved wall. His hand left a smear of blood behind.
“Tham, I―” Elver began.
Tham shoved him aside, not caring for anything but seeing why they’d stopped. Needing to know if they’d found…
She is still alive. I will find her alive.
Tham took a breath before letting his mind understand what Elver and Kegan had uncovered.
Solid stone cut through the ice, blocking their path forward.
Tham pressed his hands against the stone, wishing he had the power to crumble the whole mountain.
“You said she fell through the wall in this direction.” Kegan spoke in an even, bracing tone. “And we’ve kept our path true. If whatever magic is in the ice pulled her straight back, we’d have stayed right in line with her. But she isn’t here. Mara didn’t get pulled straight back. And if she didn’t go straight, there’s no way of knowing which direction the magic carried her.”
Tham yanked the axe from Kegan’s hand.
“We can’t carve through stone,” Kegan said. “You’ll break the rest of the axes, and we won’t be able to dig at all anymore.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.” Elver backed away a step. “You’ve said yourself this is magic we’re dealing with. None of us possess magic. This is the stuff of gods and sorcerers, not lowly men.”
Tham tightened his grip on his axe, letting the pain of his unbandaged palms anchor his mind to reason above the blinding panic that threatened him.
