Page 54 of Heart of the Shadow King

I watch, my mouth hanging open, my wounded hand pressed to my breast. Blood stains the front of my gown. Life seems to flood out of me. I sink to my knees, my throat closing tight. Tears fall, splash hot on the ground even as the last stone barriers surrounding my heart break apart and scatter. I stare at that place where thewogghahad stood.

I feel dirty. I feel sick.

Maylin regards me coldly, leaning on her walking stick. She says nothing. To her credit, she makes no effort to manipulate the emotions storming in my soul. But her face speaks her disdain more clearly than words.

“How can you be like this?” I ask at last, my words thick and fuzzy on my tongue. “How can you be so hard?” I don’t mean it as an accusation. Perhaps once I would have, but now? I truly want to know. Ineedto know.

Maylin grunts. Then she walks toward me and, to my surprise, takes a seat on the ground beside me where I kneel. She crosses her legs and rests her hands on her bony knees, gazing out across the lake to the shining falls. “We feel everything too deeply,” she says quietly. “It is the great burden of our gift. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can learn.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“You can. You will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because.” She turns her head sharply, catching my gaze in hers. Her eyes are two icy chips of perfect, clear blue. “Because I once boasted a heart equally as soft and tender as yours.”

22

MAYLIN

Many turns of the cycle passed after my coming to Mythanar as I honed my powers, aided by the priests and priestesses of the Deeper Dark. I labored so long and so hard, I began to forget my former life as an anchoress. That life was dreary, full of pain and loneliness. Not worth remembering. In this world I had strength, purpose.

My powers grew beyond the limits of what the priests could teach me, yet I had not begun to test the fullness of my strength. Who knew the gods had been so generous in their gifting? I pushed myself harder, farther, deeper, never forgetting the danger lurking beneath my feet. Over time my awareness of the dragon grew until I began to feel it. To feelher.Her pain, her torment. Even in sleep she suffered, and when she stirred . . . well, the stirrings were not so frequent as they are now. But they were devastating. And I wondered, even as you are wondering, how one such as me could hope to put an end to both her suffering and the peril which held the entire Under Realm in its grip.

It wasn’t until I discovered the secrets ofva-jorthat I began to see the way. At that time, it was little more than a theory whispered about among priests and priestesses. Thus, I had no teacher. But I learned, nonetheless.

I practiced on animals first: cave devils and bats and even the ghost spiders which dwell in the deeper caverns. The king—Gaur—was pleased with my efforts. He saw the potential ofva-joras I did and urged me to do more, to extend myself further. Such simple creatures are easy enough to wrap in stone. Hardly an accomplishment. To compare such things to the vast soul of a dragon? Laughable!

So, Gaur brought me a man.

He was a criminal. A murderer, convicted of killing his brother to take his wife and property. The inside of his mind was a dark, twisted, rage-filled place. He deserved death. And yet, I wondered if he deserved the fate I gave him.

Gaur offered me no choice. In the end, I sent him intova-jor.

After that a group of twelve rebels was brought to me. I gave them the same mercy:va-jorin place of thedrur’sax. The priests often reminded me in those days that stone is the natural trolde state, that these men and women might one day, in some distant millennium, be reborn as better versions of themselves. But I still remember their faces . . . the fear in their eyes the moment before . . .

Ah, but what is the use of such memories? It matters little. My powers increased, and so too did Gaur’s challenges. Once he gathered fifty convicts from across three cities and brought them to me. When he urged me to perform theva-jor,I told him I could not. I simply could not give enough of my own blood to power such a working. No sooner had the words left my mouth than Gaur took hold of one man by his hair, dragged him forward, and slit his throat.

His scream lives on in my head.

The sacrifice was sufficient. It fed the crystals, and I channeled the resonance to enstone the forty-nine survivors. But it wasn’t . . . good. I felt the wrongness of the magic, the strange, unsettled spirits captured beneath layers of rock. The dead man’s blood worked, but not so well as willing blood.

I struggled in the days which followed. Always before I could justify what I had done, but that death and theva-jorwhich followed? It haunted me. Even Zur could not give me comfort.

Yes. Yes, Zur and I were still close. I was much occupied with my studies and had no time for companionship, but it did not matter. For I had Zur. He always knew where to find me, always knew what to say when the pain was too great and the burden too heavy. But the day of that sacrifice, his words could not reach me. Not until I heard him say: “Gaur has decided to marry you.”

“What?” I cried, lifting my head from my hands. “What are you talking about?”

It was then I was told for the first time of an alternate version of theAthtar-garag,the very prophecy which had brought me here to begin with. The song speaks of thekurspari-glur,the Woman of Crystals. But in an older, less well-known tradition, it once said:kurspari-aruka.The Human Queen.

I am no queen. I am of lowly birth, devoted to the temple at my infancy and there forgotten by my own blood. I am as common asurzulcrystals save for the gift the gods saw fit to bestow upon me.

But it’s a simple matter to make a queen.

So, Zur informed me, I must wed Gaur. After my demonstration with the fifty convicts, the king was convinced my growing powers were indeed the very weapon he had long sought. He would marry me; then I would fulfill the prophecy and stop the rising tide of flame and destruction.

I was given no choice in the matter.

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