Page 49 of Heart of the Shadow King

“Have I upset you?” The witch stops within a pace of two of me, her lips drawn back from her teeth in a snarl. “I feel it all, everything roiling inside you. Weakness and foolishness and inadequacy. Everything that tells me you aren’t enough. Not until you’re willing to let go.”

She takes hold of my wrist. Only then do I realize that she’s gripping a handful of crystals. They cut into her flesh, and blood runs down the hard edges. I feel the weight of every word she’s said, feel the ultimate failure which has defined both my life and my death. What good was accomplished by sacrificing myself to free the cave devils? It wasn’t enough—a temporary stay, buying a little time. Who did it save in the end?

Useless.

Images fill my head. Trolde cities crushed under rock, filled with molten fire. Other images as well. My own world. Villages burned, people scattered. Children starving as raiders pillage and rape across the land.

I could have prevented it.

It was my fault.

And everything that is coming?

My fault as well.

“Go deeper, child,” Maylin growls. “Let yourjorsink beneath these petty ideas. Who cares for fault and guilt and blame? These things will not serve you. You must become impenetrable.”

How can I? I’m not strong enough.

“Not yet you’re not. But you can make yourself stronger.”

What about Vor?

Maylin snarls, flashing her teeth. “Vor needs a warrior, not a shrinking flower. Make yourself into what he needs. Something new. Something dangerous.”

I’m afraid.

“Fear will not serve you. You must not feel. No fear, no hope. No love. Wrap yourself in stone, child. Heart, soul, body, mind. Go deeper and deeper, then deeper still.”

Blood runs along my arm, drips down my gown, pools at my feet. The Urzualhar stones respond, vibrating with a low pulse that throbs red in my head. I grab hold of that pulse, pull it inside me, down into places I’ve scarcely dared venture before. I feel as though my flesh is parting, my own blood pouring out, running down planes of faceted stone. Still, I keep pulling down, down, down to my own shining core.

Suddenly, I gasp.

My eyelids are weighted stone. I open them slowly, heavily. When I peer out, the world is shining and somehow distant. Multi-faceted. Cold.

I look down at my body. Covered in crystals. Every inch of me, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I can scarcely move, not like this. It takes all the will I can summon just to lift my head, to face Maylin.

Her eyes shine like two bright suns. “Impressive,” she says, clenching her bleeding hand tight. Then she reaches out, taps me on the head with her stick once more. It makes a bright, ringing note, which reverberates through my skull and echoes among the Urzulhar.

Though my face is hard and fixed, my mouth slowly curves in a faint, triumphant smile.

20

VOR

Magic stains the horizon, like smoke rising from a great conflagration. All the hues of this world and others beyond the range of mortal vision whorl in a display of light and chaos, thickening the atmosphere above the distant ruins of what was once the City of Evisar.

“The city itself was long ago abandoned.” Mage Artoris stands beside me on the ramparts of the fortress in which my people have taken shelter. He and the other mages will not ride with us at nightfall to face Ruvaen’s forces. Instead, he offers me what advice he can from the safety of these walls. “It was once the capital of this gods-blighted nation. But when the river dried up, the people dispersed, leaving it to decay. That was nearly a century ago. The citadel which Ruvaen now besieges lies on the far side of the city, built in the shelter of a great mountain.”

“And what defenses has Ruvaen placed within the ruins?”

“Hobgoblins.” Lines of disgust deepen on either side of Artoris’s mouth. “The savage brutes run wild. No organization, no leadership that I can discern. It’s like Ruvaen set loose a pack of rabid dogs. Only these rabid dogs are impervious to both iron and mortal magic. They’ll swarm a man and skin him in moments, then keep him alive for hours after, dragging out his death for their pleasure.” He shudders. “Nasty blighters.”

I nod coldly. “I am familiar with hobgoblins.”

Artoris raises an eyebrow. “Indeed? Well, I hope you’ve got some miraculous means of breaking through their line. We lost a lot of good men on our first approach. And our second. We hadn’t courage enough for a third.”

“What about air defenses?” I ask, scanning that tumultuous sky. It’s difficult to imagine flying through such a storm, but it’s not impossible. “Has Ruvaen a flying force?”

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