Soulblade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Romance (A Dance of Fire and Shadow Book 4)
Soulblade: Chapter 31

THE FIRST BODIES APPEAR, lying where they fell across the trail just below the first courtyard. A few of them are grey-clad Eldrin, but many more wear the grey and silver livery of the Samaran army. Marin checks the nearest for any sign of life. He looks up at me and shakes his head.

“Cold. He could have been killed more than a day ago. But what I cannot understand is why the Eldrin would summon the regular army for reinforcements? We do not bring them here. If Maratic was under threat, Jantian would recall our own people from their support roles with the army in the provinces, where they’ve been distributing food, reinstating villages and farms.”

“We should look further.” I don’t want to say more but I know we are all thinking the same thing. The Eldrin would make their last stand at the entrance to the training cave, the source of their power.

We step over more bodies in the outer courtyard. Even more lie within the tunnel that leads to the other side of the pinnacle, making our progress slow and difficult. As I feared there are more Eldrin here, and even more on either side of the entrance to the training cave. It is as if the corpses have been tossed aside to make way for… whoever has done this?

I still do not want to think about the likely perpetrator who has the deadly strength to wreak this havoc. I follow Marin inside, a cold feeling of dread gripping the pit of my stomach.

No one in military uniform. Only Eldrin, maybe fifty of them, lying almost shoulder to shoulder in the central area beneath the source of Maratic’s power. Marin runs to the nearest grey-clad body and feels for a pulse.

“She’s alive! But only just. Check the others. We may be able to save them.”

I stoop to touch the nearest unconscious warrior.

“This man is the same. But…”

I don’t want to say it, but Marin guesses immediately.

“I know. You can’t heal so many without Shadow’s help. But if the three of us try to give just a little for each one, we might keep them alive long enough to work out what to do next.”

I hesitate, watching Deris respond immediately to the order. But now I am remembering how it felt when I pledged allegiance to the Eldrin and felt the power of Maratic awaken the Soulblade in my weapons and myself. I walk slowly to the heart of the great arch of glittering cave.

“Ariel, no!” Marin has guessed instantly what I am planning. “Taking more than the fraction permitted at your initiation will surely set off the kind of craving that Deris and I have been cursed with for so long. It’s already getting worse for me now we are back here.”

I turn to look at him. “Maybe that’s fair and just, seeing as I delivered that curse on both of you. Even if it was by mistake.”

I raise my hands above my head, and wait. For a brief, still moment it seems that nothing is happening––and then the jolt of ice-lightning stabs through me and the flame-lit walls dissolve into rainbows before fading into darkness. I feel Marin’s arms around me, breaking my fall before I hit the floor.

“ARIEL, WAKE UP!” MARIN’S anxious face above me in the uncertain light.

“Ugh. How long was I out that time?”

His hand feels cool on my fingers.

“Only a few minutes. Deris and I were able to take enough of that power from you to stop it killing you. We used it to keep the wounded Eldrin here stable, but they are still unconscious.”

“I’ll do it again.” I struggle to sit up but he pushes me back down.

“No you won’t. Not yet anyway. I thought your heart would burst when you did it just now. When Deris and I had to learn control with it, to prepare for the battle with the Rapathians, Jantian spent days training us. But now it no longer seems to work.”

I follow his gaze to where Deris is sitting propped against the cave wall.

“What happened to him?”

“He saw what you had done and tried the same thing––but it hit him too hard and he gathered less power than you did.”

“Is he all right? He looks terrible.”

“He thinks he’ll recover. But it does look like the balance of everything has changed since Shadow left you for Alina.”

“He thought I was dead––”

I break off, angry with myself that my instinct is still to defend Shadow even after he has committed this monstrous crime. The anger grows, replacing some of the energy Marin must have borrowed from me. I struggle to my feet.

“Fine. I’ll find Jantian and ask for some new training! I’m sure he can work out how to adapt the method…”

Marin’s face says it all, even before he speaks.

“Ariel, we found Jantian.”

Every moment of anger I have ever felt for our stern commander flashes through my mind and dissolves in a cloud of regret. Of course Jantian would have been here in the last desperate defense of Maratic.

“Can I see him?”

Not much use making your apology to someone after they’re dead but I have to do something.

“Over here.”

Marin leads me to the edge of the array of bodies.

I kneel beside Jantian and lay my hand on his neck, wondering why I am unable to let go this one last hope.

“Marin, was he the only one you couldn’t save?”

“Yes. I think he must have pushed himself too hard after he was wounded, trying to bring as many of his people in here as he could, clinging to some desperate hope that he could save them.”

If I give up on Jantian now, I know I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life. I lay my hands over the bloody gash across his ribs, ignoring Marin’s protests that it is too late and I should save my strength for those still alive…

And just as everything is starting to go black and hazy, I hear his voice change.

“Ariel, I found a pulse. Stop now, before you pass out again or you’ll be no use to anyone. Try to give Jantian more later––”

He looks round. I don’t even need to look, to know exactly who is striding through the entrance in a cold swirl of black robe and dark wings. Even though the binding between us has changed, I can still sense his presence now he is so close.

His voice is that familiar low, bitter rasp––and yet it has changed in subtle ways I don’t understand in this disorienting scene of chaos.

“Ariel! What are you doing? I could feel it from the far end of the Vale.”

Anger gives me the strength to scramble to my feet. I draw both blades. The hiss of crysteel has never sounded so powerful.

I walk steadily across the floor to face him.

“Traitor! I won’t even bother to ask what you have been doing––the evidence is all around me!”

If I can hold back my fury and steady my blade as it brushes his throat for just a few more minutes…

I know I should end this now, instead of waiting to hear his clever denials, the selective shreds of truth he uses to deceive me. I have no clue whether the four of us will have any chance of defeating him but we have to attack before he ruins Samaran forever. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Marin and Brac trying to help Deris, but he is struggling to even stand.

Hell’s Gates! Only three of us with any fight left in us…

But what makes no sense at all is the way Shadow is sinking to his knees at my feet, his voice no more than a faint whisper.

“Ariel, please…”

A tangle of conflicted emotion scrambles my thoughts.

This is not the Shadow I know. He would never beg. The most formidable fighter in the whole of Samaran has no need of anyone’s mercy. But it satisfies my anger to see him kneel, one pale hand raised as if to ward off a deadly blow from my arm.

Instead of a deadly stab from my blade?

Something strange is happening here. But I don’t care. I want to hear him confess his crimes so the others will know exactly what we are fighting for. And probably dying for…

Except that now I can feel a faint echo of Shadow’s agony––

“Ariel, stop! You’re killing him!” My sister runs in through the arched entrance and halts, a slender dagger in each hand, her fine-woven mailshirt gleaming in the torchlight.

“Not just yet I’m not. I’m about to get started on that exercise soon, though. Very slowly. Extracting as much pain as crysteel can muster.”

Shadow turns to her, barely able to force the words between gasping breaths. “Alina, go! I told you to wait outside where it’s safe.”

Her gaze darts from him to me. I can sense her inner conflict as she tries to decide whether to approach us or walk away.

“Ariel, please. Back off. Move away from him. You’re tearing him apart!”

I stand my ground. “He betrayed us. Forswore his oath and killed Eldrin, after he vowed not to harm them.”

“He did not! He saved as many as he could.”

“And now he has corrupted my sister as well.”

A familiar voice comes from behind me.

“Ariel. Back off. That is an order.”

“Jantian?” I turn around. He still looks half-dead, supported by Marin and Brac, his face a mask of pain.

Stunned, I walk back a few paces.

“Jantian, please, You have to…”

“Ariel. Move.”

I cover the rest of the distance to stand in front of him. When I turn back Alina is kneeling at Shadow’s side, one arm supporting his shoulders, the tears on her face shining in the torchlight.

This is too much. Everyone is acting strangely, as if some weird enchantment has infected the whole of Maratic while I was away in Rapathia.

Shadow’s dark eyes are still focused on me. He seems able to speak a little more clearly now I am not quite so close.

“Ariel, please. Let me go. Release me.”

I stare at him, uncomprehending.

Alina tries again, pleading.

“You died, Ariel! He had no choice except to weave a binding with me. And then you come back and tear everything apart and it hurts so much…”

I have never been able to ignore or resist my sister’s pleas. Not since we were children playing together in a village where nothing exciting ever seemed to happen.

“Shadow. I release you. If that is all you need?” I still fail to see how words that have no meaning for me can make a difference with anything… but as I slowly work them through in my mind, I finally start to understand.

I have not been letting him go. Quite the opposite. Ever since the moment I saw him with my sister in the flames of a Rapathian marsh-pool, the thought of him has been haunting me. Jealousy, fear, need, love and hate have all conspired to keep me clinging to all the conflicting things he has meant to me since that first day when I faced him in a dark glade deep in the forest.

It is not only Shadow who needs to be released. If I let it fester, this haunting will grow to an obsession even more destructive than the yearning for more of Maratic’s power I can already feel taking hold of my body and mind. I sheath my blades, feeling the last threads of the binding fade to a whisper.

It leaves an empty void inside me. I want to reclaim that feeling, that connection, even though I know it would destroy all three of us.

Marin’s arms are around me again. “Ariel. You don’t need it. You can let it go. Remember your Eldrin friends will always be here for you.”

“Yes. Of course. I can tell it’s for the best.” I’m sure Marin knows as well as I do that it will be a while before my words are truly genuine, but for now it will have to suffice. “What happens now?”

Alina seems to relax a little. “We don’t know. Shadow says this has never happened before. People aren’t supposed to come back from the dead!”

I bridle at the implied criticism. “It was complicated!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean I wish you’d stayed dead.”

“I know.” And then we are both laughing as if all this has been no more than one of those stupid tricks we played on each other as children––or maybe just from relief that we are still both alive and back together again.

One look at Shadow convinces me that reconciliation with a stubborn Elemental is not going to be such an easy transition. Not by a long way. He is back on his feet now, glaring at me as if I am the sole cause of his suffering. Which I suppose I am.

The laughter dies inside me as I notice for the first time the half-healed cuts on his hands and arms, the dark stains of drying blood in his jet black hair. Considering how quickly he can recover, these must have been serious wounds when they were inflicted.

He was fighting for his very survival against Samaran’s traitors and almost lost.

And then I almost killed him.

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