Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (The Last Days of Tian Di #3)(4)

Alone under the desert sky, she knew she had to tell him, here, now; that there would be no better time for it. But fear froze her tongue.

Have courage, she told herself sternly. You are a Sorceress, and you have done far more difficult and dangerous things than confess your feelings to a boy.

But he wasn’t just a boy, of course. Not literally, for he was a Shade, a shapeshifter, but also because he was Charlie, her beautiful Charlie. What could she say to him that would not sound ridiculous? She took a deep breath. It was her birthday. They were apart from the others, hidden by the dark. Suppose she said nothing. Suppose she just took his hands, stepped a little closer, and kissed him.

“Are you sure you like it?” Charlie asked, becoming uncertain. “You look a bit funny, aye.”

“No, I’m…it’s something else. Charlie…”

His expression changed and he took her hands in his. “Eliza! You’ve got me worried now. What’s going on?”

There. He was holding her hands. All she had to do was step closer. Why couldn’t she? Well, she couldn’t. So she would have to speak.

“I’m sorry,” she said feebly. “This is strangely difficult.”

She was cut off by the jolt of her heart and the screaming of ravens, wings beating all around them. The ravens were her Guide and they were telling her something but in her shock and confusion she couldn’t make it out. A sudden fog slithered around their ankles and up, engulfing them. She let go of his hands, reaching for her dagger.

“Stay still,” she said.

A faint whistle and something skimmed her ear. Out of the mist, leaping, somersaulting, flying, came a horde of beings as graceful as acrobats, their clothes and skin and flying hair ash-white. They had no eyes or mouths, just strange blank faces ringed with streaming hair like white flame. Some held curved, glinting swords, others large powerful bows from which arrows rained. Eliza raised a barrier around herself.

“Foss!” she shouted. She had lost Charlie in the fog, didn’t know where to put her barrier around him. “Foss!” she cried again. Then she saw Charlie face down in the sand.

As quickly as it had fallen, the fog lifted. The beings were gone, leaping and spinning over the edge of the dune. She ran to Charlie’s side and turned him over.

He was riddled with arrows. He had not even had time to change into something else.

Foss and her father were at her side in seconds, Nell following close after hollering: “What? What? What?”

“Where are the healers?” Eliza pushed her father back towards the camp. “Get the healers!”

“Oh, the Ancients.” Nell sank to her knees at Charlie’s side. A mottled, smoky substance poured from his mouth and nose and eyes.

“A spell, Foss, a spell.” Eliza’s words spilled out of her like tears. The Mancer’s hand was heavy on her shoulder.

“It is too late for spells and healers, Eliza Tok,” he murmured.

“No.” She shook her head.

“Oh, the Ancients,” said Nell again. She held Charlie’s limp hand in hers and looked up at Eliza, her face ashen. “He’s dead, Eliza. He’s dead.”

She shook off Foss’s hand.

She thought: No.

Ravens filled the sky, covered the ground, their wings stirring up a great wind.

She opened her mouth and screamed and when she screamed the ravens screamed with her. They screamed words she had never learned, didn’t know she knew, and with those words she tore a hole in the world and stepped through it.





Chapter

~2~

The Supreme Mancer Aysu was looking into the Vindensphere. In it she saw the boy lying dead in the desert, the others surrounding him; she saw Eliza frantic, shouting orders. Then the Vindensphere filled with ravens and went black. She looked up, staring into the darkness of the room.

“Oh, horrible,” she murmured. “What has happened to me? How have I become a murderer?”

A voice behind her rumbled, “He was a spy among us here once and a threat to the continued line of the Sorceress. You have done what was necessary.”

“Necessary?” She laughed a brittle, unhappy laugh. “This is madness, I am mad! What if she learns that the Mancers are behind the murder?”

Her eyes flared brighter and she tried to stand. Kyreth’s hands on her shoulders pushed her back down into the chair. She felt all the strength drain from her body. What did it matter? What could she do? She remained seated, slumped forward slightly.

“That is what will bring her back to us,” he said.

~~~

Cold beneath her feet. Not cold stone or cold grass or cold anything she could name. Only cold. The darkness engulfing her was not an absence of light but a thing in itself – a thing with purpose and a kind of hunger. There was no air – that was the thing she noticed first. She rasped a spell, conjuring enough to breathe. Her heart beat against a kind of pressure, as if a strong hand were wrapped around it. A whisper of wings led the way and she followed. She sensed a great number of other beings walking near her but she couldn’t see or hear them. She murmured another spell and conjured a light but the light was swallowed instantly by the hungry dark.

She walked with the soundless, invisible others and gradually her eyes adjusted. She saw shadows all around her, walking. Some of the shadows were shaped like people, some like animals or other beings. They kept pace with one another, neither hurrying nor loitering. They kept their eyes straight ahead, fixed on the encompassing dark. Eliza could hear running water.