Page 72 of HeartTorn

The flash of raw, red fire and hellish heat breaks through my battle rage, drawing my eye.

I look just in time to see the wild form of a hearttorn licorneir break free of one of the chaeora nets. Those dark fibers kept her fire subdued, but the heat, the energy, was all still there, increasing in pressure. Now liberated, that pressure erupts from the center of her being, a small core of light which expands to a blast strong enough to knock me from my feet.

I cry out. Somewhere nearby, Elydark roars just before a flash of pure magic races along our soul-tether and envelops me in protection. I land hard on one arm but roll and quickly pick myself up into a crouch.

The crimson cloaks lie scattered about me. Caught in the same blast, their cloaks are on fire, their putrid flesh roasted. Even as I watch, the red light ofnecroliphamagic bubbles across their rotten flesh, healing their wounds, restoring the reanimation spell to its original state. Some of them throw off their burning garments, and I see their faces for the first time—all faces I know, men and women who fought with me in Agandaur. Some are those who stood with Shanaera and clung to their virulium addiction. There is Nuviar, the one-eyed, and Minuvae, his ferocious wife. Riluan is with them as well, though the last I’d seen him, he lay spreadeagle on the Agandaur battlefield, blasted through the heart by a Miphates death spell. Black virulium poison had dripped down their faces in those final hours, warping them into fiends incarnate.

But the rest? These are people who were loyal to me. Good soldiers who fought bravely for the cause of Licorna. I recognize Kydroth, who used to sing as he fought, cleaving limbs and heads in tempo with his chosen song. And Jomaer, who could stir up a hearty stew out of a little tough game and herbs scrounged from seemingly nowhere. Every one of those faces sparks another memory—Sairdara and Alavar, Varoris and Corymar. All long dead. All under the thrall of Morthiel and the Miphates.

Cursing, I get to my feet, sword at the ready. The undead are momentarily stunned, and now is my only chance to escape.Elydark!I sing along our soul-thread. He answers at once. I turn to see him hasten toward me, mane and tail flying. He sports an ugly wound in his shoulder, torn by the horn of that undead licorneir. Silvery blood runs in shining rivulets down his leg, but he pays it no heed. He draws near, and I prepare to leap to the saddle, then pause.

Ilsevel.

My heart stops.

I know the truth. Suddenly and with absolute certainty. I know who freed that wild licorneir. I know who is responsible for that blast of soulfire.

Turning from Elydark, I shoot my gaze through the struggling dead, straight to that place where the chaeora net lies smoldering. There. Her small body, lying on the ground. Smoke rises from her charred garments, from her blackened skin.

“No.” The word falls from my numb lips, like a prayer, a protest.

I don’t know if it’s thevelrathat pulls me so viciously or my own sudden, all-consuming need to be by her side. Even if they had the strength to try, the dead could not have restrained me. I cross the distance between us so swiftly, my feet barely touch the ground, and collapse on my knees beside her in the ashen dirt.“No, no, no.” The words tumble from my lips as I lift her, as I draw her into my arms. Her skin is scorched. Red and black and raw. “Ilsevel,” I whisper.“Zylnala,can you hear me?”

She’s alive—she must be. I would have felt the moment thevelrabroke. But she clings to this world by a thread. My arms shake. My whole body and being rocks with horror, with rage, with sorrow. I want to crush her against my breast, to force strength back into her by sheer will.

Vellar,Elydark’s voice sings in my head,beware!

A shadow falls across me. I yank my head back and stare up at Shanaera’s hideous form. Her face is half-burned away, caught as she was in Nyathri’s expulsion of pent-up soulfire. But thenecroliphaspell works fast, pulling her rotten flesh back to the way it was when she first returned to this life under its thrall. She sneers as she looks down at me and the woman in my arms. “She’s useless now,” she says. “To you. To Morthiel. To anyone.”

I grind my teeth. I want to leap to my feet and throw myself at her, this abomination that was once the woman I loved. I want to take up my sword and run it through her gut, back through that same death-wound I dealt her three cursed years ago.

But that won’t help Ilsevel. She’ll die even as I spend my useless rage.

“I can heal her,” I say. The words are fumbling and most likely false. But I swallow back the despair lodged in my throat and look down at Ilsevel’s face, almost unrecognizable beneath those burns. “I can make this right.”In the same breath, I send my voice rippling along the soul-tether to my licorneir.Elydark! Help me!

He appears behind me, head bent, horn angled toward Ilsevel’s fluttering heart.I’m sorry, Vellar,he says, his song heavy with sorrow in my head.There’s nothing we can do.

There is!I respond fiercely.The Star Children sing the songs of healing. We’ve done it before, you and I. We can do it again.

Not like this,he replies, shaking his head.Once there was a time, perhaps. But those days are long gone—

They aren’t! You called me back from the virulium. I was nearly dead, but your song found me, restored me, healed me.I am frantic, desperate. I gaze up pleading into his eternal eyes.

But I sang with her,he answers gently,not you. And her voice is touched by the gods.

I grind my jaw to keep from cursing.I can do it. I can—

“Put the human down, Taar.”

I jerk my head up again, staring into Shanaera’s half-repaired face. “Let me sing over her,” I say, my voice rough.

She raises a brow. The gray skin around her eyes tightens.

“I can fix this,” I say, heedless of Elydark’s humming protests. “I can heal her. Then you can take her back to Morthiel, take her back to her own kind.”

“And what about you?”

I swallow hard, that knot of despair swelling so that I can hardly breathe. “I will submit to you, Shanaera. I will lay down my sword, surrender myself to your keeping.”

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