Page 71 of HeartTorn

“This is a defilement,” Taar says. His voice sounds very strange, like something in him has just died. “It’s a desecration of all Licorna holds most dear.”

“You’re one to talk,” Shanaera snarls, rounding on him. “I heard rumor you took for yourself a human bride andshakhedher, no less. I didn’t believe it at first. My betrothed, forsaking all his vows and binding himself to one of our enemies?” She turnsto me then, for the first time acknowledging my presence. “Only here you are. Alone in the wilds with a human woman. And not just any human—Larongar’s own daughter.”

“What?”

The word bursts from Taar’s lips, but I can scarcely hear it over the sudden pulse of blood in my ears. The ground has dropped out from under me. My knees buckle, and I sway heavily, trying to keep my balance.

Shanaera’s dead eyes turn from Taar to me and back again. Then she throws back her head and laughs. “You didn’t know? Well this is an unexpected delight! Did you think Morthiel would send one of his most promising mages from the safety of the citadel for just any human bitch? The Miphates do nothing without purpose, Taar. Which is more than I can say for you. You’ve always been impulsive to a fault.”

Taar’s eyes are on me. It’s as though he’s forgotten we are surrounded by his own undead people. Forgotten that we are likely to be slaughtered any moment and will be lucky if our bodies are too hacked up to be used fornecroliphonexperiments. No, he’s looking at me as though I am the most horrific thing ever to set foot in this horrific realm.

“Taar—” I start to say. But Shanaera strides toward me, dragging my attention to her. She circles me slowly, looks me up and down, then stops in front of me, narrowing her dead eyes as she studies my face.

“How did you like it, little princess?” she asks. “How did you likeshakhingmy man? I wonder if his technique has improved. Not that I ever had cause to complain.” She drops her gaze to my bosom, my loins, then up to my face again. A sneer lifts the rotten corner of her lip. “Something tells me he held back. A puny creature like you couldn’t stand the true force of a Licornyn king’s passion.” She looks back over her shoulder. “Was it any fun for you, my love? Or were you too afraid you’d break her?Did you miss being able to unleash yourself with a woman your equal?”

Taar’s eyes are on me. I try to meet them, but it’s like staring into the burning face of the sun. I can feel the thoughts, the ideas spinning through his head as he puts together all the little pieces of my story I’ve dared to share with him.

Shanaera laughs again, a wild, manic sound. “Well,” she says, “maybe the little princess is more entertaining than she looks. Artoris was keen onshakhingher too, said he had some unfinished business which he intended to resolve. But ultimately it’s the gods-gift she carries which interests Morthiel. That’s why he sent his best man to fetch her.” She shakes her head then, looking at Taar. “Did you not know? All Larongar’s children are gods-gifted. It was the reward the gods bestowed on him for slaying the dragon on Mount Helesatra, if the stories are to be believed. It’s all a bit of a laughingstock, and most of the gifts aren’t worth anything. Buthers”—she points a finger at my face—“might be made into something by a man who knows what he’s doing.” Her dead eyes gaze into mine, as though she would penetrate my brain if she could. “Artoris will be delighted at the return of his lost prize.”

An inhuman sound erupts in the air. Shanaera whirls about, startled, and I look beyond her to see Taar suddenly in motion, his mouth open, bellowing in fury. He ducks the reaching hands of the crimson cloaks, eludes a swinging blade, grabs the arm of his nearest attacker, and, with a heave of muscle, throws him into two of the others. Elydark, responding to his rider’s soul, lashes out with his horn, skewers an undead and tosses it aside. It picks itself back up again, red mage-light gleaming in the wound, but a temporary path is cleared.

Elydark rushes to Taar, who whips his sword from its sheath and pivots just in time to slice the head off the nearest approaching undead, hood and all. Others swarm him, but hefights with his whole body, slashing with the sword, kicking, shouldering, even butting skulls. They fall to his blows, but rise again, save for those he manages to decapitate. But they know their own weakness and don’t give him opportunity for the killing stroke.

Shanaera gestures sharply toward the dead unicorns. One of them lurches into motion, plunging toward the fight. Immediately Elydark places himself between the hellish beast and his rider. He lowers his horn and meets the undead’s charge. They clash like stags before rearing up and tearing at each other with their hooves. My vision clouds as my gods-gift surges forward, overwhelmed by the force of Elydark’s soulfire song and that oozing un-song reaching out from the dead thing with hungry, grasping fingers.

I look down at the knife in my hand. It seems so small, so useless, and my understanding of how to use it next to nothing. But I can’t let Taar and Elydark fight alone. Shanaera’s attention is turned from me, watching the battle with grim glee. I can’t cut her head off with this small blade, but maybe I could—

A piercing burst of broken song fills my head.

Despite the mayhem, the horror, I whip around. Everything in my soul and essence fixates on that new song, that sad, broken dissonance. I know it. I recognize it at once. Coming from one of the netted bodies, lying not too many yards from my position.

“Nyathri,” I whisper.

The next moment I’m running. The crimson cloaks are so busy throwing themselves at Taar, no one notices when I break from the throng and sprint through the tall grasses. I throw myself on my knees beside the net and am suddenly eye-to-eye with a burning, tortured gaze. It’s her—I freed her from the altar, and she fled back to Cruor and joined the wild unicorns, only to be hunted down, trapped once more under these awful, dark-woven ropes. Why did they not kill her like the others? Isit because she’s not as far gone tovelrhoar?Do they intend to make her like one of those un-song monsters?

I set my teeth. It won’t happen. I won’t allow it to happen.

“I’m here, Nyathri,” I say and set to work cutting at the net. My knife, which sliced through the ropes at the altar easily enough, struggles with this much thicker, knotted braid. The fibers give, but much too reluctantly.

“What the hells are you doing?”

Dead fingers latch hold of my shoulder, yank me off my feet. I scream as I rise, but don’t lose my grip on the knife. Even as I’m spun around, I lash out, driving the blade straight into a gray-filmed eye.

Shanaera stands over me, her mouth gaping in shock. Her fingers do not relax their grip on my shoulder, but her other hand rises slowly to touch the skin just under the socket from which my blade protrudes. “You’ve got a little spirit in you after all.” Her other eye flicks to my face. “But you’re not the queen Taar needs.”

“Maybe not,” I snarl and wrench the knife back out of her skull. “But at least I’m alive.”

I lunge for her throat without hesitation, driving all the force I possess into my arm. She blocks me easily and hurls me to the ground with a single backhand. Nyathri screams, struggling within the netting. Little spurts of flame erupt across her body. I turn to her, feel the heat of song against my flesh. Once again I’ve managed to keep a grip on my knife.

Shanaera steps toward me. “It would give me great pleasure to kill you, little one,” she says. The words echo with the rasping hiss of un-song. “But Morthiel needs you. And we must keep the Miphates happy for the time being.” Her withered hand reaches for my throat.

In a last desperate wrench, I roll toward Nyathri’s thrashing form, toward her song. Soulfire washes over me, burning. Iscream with pain even as I slash at the net with a final, vicious stroke.

The unicorn surges up in an explosion of flame that knocks even Shanaera off her feet. I throw my arms over my head as her fire bursts free and consumes me, an inferno of broken, furious dissonance.

34

TAAR

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