Page 72 of Heart of the Shadow King

And I receive the full blast of her fear.

“Aruka,”she says in that deep voice I know so well. “I bless the Dark which brought you here. I bless as well the fate which has led me to this place. May my sacrifice prove worthy.”

I try to say her name. My heart pounds against the encasingjor,which has become a terrible weight in my breast. But I cannot move, cannot speak, cannot feel.

Targ leads her to that space between the two tallest stones where Roh stood a short time ago. The priestesses from the procession appear, cords of shimmering silk braid draped in their hands. These they use to bind Hael’s wrists. Then, crossing her arms in front of her, they toss the lengths of cord to loop through hooks affixed high on each standing stone. I had not noticed these before. Have they been there all along, or were they hammered in place in preparation for this ceremony? The women hoist Hael up. Their muscles strain under her weight, but they pull relentlessly, hand-over-hand, until she hangs suspended, her arms crossed over her face. She looks like a carcass hauled back from the hunt, waiting to be bled.

The priestesses secure the cords, then set to work binding Hael’s ankles. Now her body is spread in the air between the two stones. The Urzulhar pulses in eagerness for what is coming. Hael trembles. She cannot disguise the terror rippling out from her soul. She is willing; that doesn’t make her fearless.

Maylin’s hand clamps down on my shoulder. I jump, turn to her, eyes wide. “Yourjoris faltering,” she says. “You must be brave now. The Urzulhar will be strongest while the blood is fresh. Most of the work must be done while the sacrifice lives. Remember what you learned in Murzush. Let the power flow through you. You are but a channel. Wrap your heart injor, girl, or the channel will break, and disaster will follow.”

She draws her lips close to my ear. “Do this for Vor. It is what he needs. It is what Mythanar needs.”

Somewhere in the back of my awareness, someone is screaming, pleading, begging for this madness to stop. But I cannot hear it, safe as I am behind my barriers. The task must be accomplished, mustn’t it? What other choice do I have? How else can I become everything I am meant to be?

It is all very simple in the end.

Hael murmurs in troldish, quick short words that sound like prayers. Her fear is palpable now as she waits for the first cut of the knife. But how is that my concern? She gave herself willingly, did she not? We all have our parts to play.

“Are you ready?” Maylin whispers.

I nod.

Targ holds out one hand. Roh steps swiftly forward and presents a knife. The black diamond blade shines in the light of the Urzulhar. Targ takes it, approaches Hael. He rests the tip of the knife at the divot of her clavicle, just below the hollow of her throat. A bead of blue forms. Hael’s body tenses. He draws the knife slowly, slowly down between her breasts. A line of blood lengthens, drips. Hael strangles a cry, twisting in her bonds. The first drops of blood land on the ground beneath her, and the Urzulhar reacts, sucking in the lifeforce of that offering. Their resonance amplifies, continuing round the circle until every stone, both big and small, hums with power such as I’ve never felt before. It lures me, so tempting, so readily available. I want to taste it, to make it mine.

“Remember,” Maylin’s voice cautions, “you are a channel.”

“I remember,” I reply.

Then I drop to my knees, plant my palms flat to the ground, and draw that resonance up through me, permeating the very pores of my bones. I cannot hear Hael’s moans, cannot see how she writhes under Targ’s knife. I am caught in that flow of power, like the pulse of the living world. Were it not for myjor, it would have killed me within the first moments of connection. As it is, I must constantly reinforce my protections, never letting them falter.

The souls of the living vibrate around me, each a uniquely individual note of a tremendous song. Maylin’s soul right behind me, Roh’s close at hand. The priestesses still holding the ropes, the drummers beating their skin drums. All those gathered on the hill, spread through the garden, both the hopeful and the fearful, on and on, to the palace, the courtyard, the city streets. I expand my reach, further and further, drawing each new soul as I find it into this growing swell of profound, complex, interwoven vibrations. A symphony of soul energies.

And every one of them must go to the stone.

I close my eyes, send out a pulse. Small at first, a mere ripple of tentative power which expands from where I kneel in the circle. It flows out, singing from crystal to crystal, all those connectedurzul, both large and small. They take up the song, take up the vibration, carrying it with them through the city. No one can escape it. It passes through all barriers, both physical and spiritual, leaving stone in its wake.

I draw in more of what the Urzulhar gives me and send out a second pulse. This time I meet more resistance. Some have realized what is happening and fight for their fate. By the third pulse, that resistance has grown. I meet minds which slam doors against me, souls which roar with rage at the prospect of the peace I offer. But the power of Urzulhar flows through me. There is no stopping this.

A fourth pulse. A fifth. Hael’s blood runs in blue rivulets down her body, and the crystals lap it up like dogs. The world around me darkens. I see nothing, feel nothing but the red thrum of the Uzulhar and the flashing fury of the souls resisting me. They are already beginning to waver. Soon they will all be in my hold, all those brightly singing strands of life. I clutch them tight, send out a last great pulse of power, and then—

A scream splits my awareness.

In a series of hideous bursts and flashes, the vibration of the Urzulhar shatters and falls around me in broken shards. The physical world comes back into focus. Sounds, movement, chaos. The taste of copper on my tongue, stinging my nostrils. Trolde voices, no longer chanting, but roaring. Maylin’s cry, high and wrathful, “Kill him! Kill him!”

I lift my heavy, crystal-encrusted head.

Hael’s bleeding body hangs at an odd angle, one of her bindings cut. Her face, wreathed with pain and fear, is visible through a veil of blood-matted hair. One of the priestesses lies on the ground before her, blood pouring from a gut wound which the Urzulhar accepts with greed. And standing beside Hael, over the fallen priestess, his hands gripping avirmaerblade much too large for him, his face spattered with blue trolde blood . . . Theodre.

He looks directly at me. “Fairie!” he cries, the name like a knife piercing straight to my heart. “Fairie, what are you doing?”

Targ moves. It is slow, purposeful, and inevitable. One moment my brother stands there, staring at me, his question ringing in the air between us. The next Targ’s great stone fist strikes his skull.

Theodre falls inert to the ground beside the gasping priestess.

Targ turns to Hael. Heedless of her screams, he lifts his black blade to her suffering flesh once more.

I don’t plan it. I don’t think at all. Some force beyond my will possesses my body, lifts up my arm, levels my palm straight at the back of that massive priest. All the power of the blood-fed Urzulhar is in me now, and it comes at my call, bursts from my core, aimed in a blast of profound resonance, which strikes Targ between his shoulders, transforming him to solid stone in the space of an instant.

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