Page 15 of Heart of the Shadow King

The song creeps into my bones. It hums there, a deep vibration connecting me to the stones. It’s as though that song, sung by all those hundreds of voices, activates the life force within theurzul. I wish I understood it. It’s like a language I cannot quite comprehend. If only I had someone who might teach me, who might guide me. Then perhaps I might be able to help . . .

I blink. How much time has passed? It feels suddenly as though I’ve been here for hours, as though the song and the hum of the crystals pulled me in deep, wrapped around me, and held me transfixed. But something startled me back out again. Frowning, I shake my head, refocus my gaze on Vor.

He has sunk to his knees.

My heart lurches. What happened? He should not look like that, like the weight of that crystal is crushing him. I look around at the courtiers lining the walls. They’re as deeply sunk into their stonelike trance as ever and don’t seem to have noticed. But there’s movement in the gallery above, shifting bodies, flashing eyes. The witnesses are uneasy. They too know something is not right. I turn to Vor again. All around him, theurzulcrystals in the water flicker. They no longer shine with clear, bluish-white light but a harsh, deep red. The glow in the center of the crystal he carries burns like fire.

“Vor,” I whisper, my voice lost in the ongoing rumble of the trolde song. I take a step.

A hand falls on my shoulder.

“Gurat, kurspari.”

I tip my head back to meet Sul’s terrible gaze. His eyes reflect the red glow of theurzulcrystals. “Let me go,” I say.

His lip curls. “You cannot interfere,” he says, slipping into my own language. “It will ruin him. Vor must prove that he isttarmok,that he may bear the pressures of the world.”

I shake my head. “It’s crushing him. He’ll die.”

“If that is the will of the Deeper Dark.”

“No!” I struggle against his hold. “I will not stand by. I can help him.” Resolve hardens my voice. “It is what I was sent here to do.”

Sul’s grip on my shoulder tightens as though he’d like to shatter bone. “Morar juk!”he snarls. “You were sent to be the end of him. But don’t think I will stand by and let you—”

He breaks off abruptly as a large, pale hand wrenches him back. We both turn, surprised to find Queen Roh standing before us. Her stone hide has melted away, revealing once more her pale and pristine features, illuminated harshly in the glowing red of theurzulcrystals.

She snarls in troldish at her son.“Mar!”he begins to protest, but she cuts him off, roughly shoving him to one side. He curses and pulls the front of his garments straight, his eyes flicking from me to her and back again. Roh ignores him, turning instead to me. I hold her gaze, my blood rushing. She is not my friend; I have reason to believe she is my enemy. She does not seek the salvation of Mythanar or the Under Realm, but rather its ultimate destruction. And she certainly does not support Vor or his rule.

She stares down at me now, a figure of both ferocious power and furious impotence. A queen who is no longer queen in a world on the brink of doom. She studies my face. Then her gaze slips down for a moment to the pendent resting against my heart.

“Go to him,” she says. Her eyes snap back to meet mine. “Do what you must,kurspari-glur.”

I shift my uneasy gaze from her to her son. Sul stands several paces back, his face a mask of ill-contained rage. Hael is beside him now, resting a steadying hand on his arm. I catch my bodyguard’s eye for half a moment. There’s something behind the stoic immobility of her face, a glimmer of desperation perhaps. I see it even without the aid of my gods-gift. After all, her brother was among those who died; his soul hangs in the balance here.

But Hael was there when I climbed to the Urzulhar Circle and connected to those great stones. She was there, and she saw what happened. The power that went out from me, turning the tide of destruction. She may not fully understand, but she knows enough.

For a count of five long breaths, Hael holds my gaze. Then she nods. It’s all the encouragement I need.

Turning from the three of them, I approach Vor and the pool. His head is bowed, his face mere inches from the water. If the weight of the crystal presses him any further down, he will drown. I pick up my skirts, weaving between the wrapped bodies of the dead, ignoring Sul’s voice calling out behind me. He’s soon drowned out in the rumble of the ongoing song. The ground under my feet hums with all the hidden crystals brought to life in this chamber.

Aware of the staring eyes of all the watchers in the gallery, I toss aside my heavy headdress and the cumbersome ornate collar before plunging into the frigid pool. The water is nearly up to my waist by the time I stand before my kneeling husband. What should I do? I have no experience, no knowledge from which to draw. But Vor is in trouble. I can feel it. Soon his soul will crack under this tremendous weight. I must do something. Anything. Closing my eyes, I reach out and cup my hands around the sphere he holds.

Immediately I plunge headlong out of this world.

8

VOR

Mist engulfs me.

Or rather, not mist. Mist should be accompanied by a sensation of dampness on the skin. This is formlessness. Moving and ebbing, whirling. Obscuring vision only to offer brief moments of revelation.

I have stepped outside my body. I can see it through this veil, standing on the pool’s edge, holding that stone. It hardly seems to belong to me, but when I reach out to it, I find I am still connected to it by a gleaming, tethering thread. If I pushlike this, I can make it move. Grinding, stiff movements, like some sort of puppet being. But it works well enough to get him—me—going.

He—I—that physical frame in which I have hitherto dwelled—steps down into the pool and proceeds to walk as he is meant to. Uncertain what else to do, I follow, passing through the mist and foam of the falls without sensation. I do, however, sense theVulug Ugdth.The song reverberates through the crystal in his—my—hands, joined by the answering hum and harmony of all the crystals in that pool. In a strange way, I feel as though they are giving me existence. As though my being in this realm is held in place by the pulse of those stones and the drone of those voices.

So, I follow my body, skimming across the surface of the water even as he wades from one end to the other and comes at last to stand at the far side of the pool. Watching eyes peer out from the galleries overhead. I lift my awareness, try to catch some glimpse of the onlookers. My people, citizens of my fair city, come to observe their king as he performs the sacred rites of death and soul-passing. But I cannot discern them. This roiling obscurity is too thick. Nor can I see my ministers and courtiers. Even Faraine, dear and beloved, is hidden from my eyes.

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