Descendant (36 page)

“Sacrifice, my son. We must all make sacrifices if we hope to ever be free of our bondage.”

I move away from the door, hoping—needing—to see Eric’s face when Tynan tells him that the next thing he has to do is kill Kye and me. “What kind of sacrifice?”

Tynan whirls around, narrowing his eyes into slits. “We meet again, Raina. Ironic and, I suppose, fitting that the woman who sealed the tomb should also be the one who re-opens it.”

The floor is still tossing and I brace my hand on the wall for balance. “I’m
not
here to free you.”

His brittle laugh tinkles around the room like bits of broken glass. Thousands of echoes escalate into a chorus of laughter. “Aren’t you?” He turns back to Eric. “In answer to your question—and for your future knowledge—my powers have increased by three parts out of four. That is, three of the four original guardians have been sacrificed to strengthen my power. Their Gifts now belong to me for as long as I possess their hearts.” He rips open his shirt and reveals a chest that crawls like something living is trapped inside it. Bright red scars crisscross his skin, radiating a purple glow. Power flows in his voice when he says, “Finish this, my servant, my son. Raina is here now. The time is right. Spill her blood and permit her heart to become the final Key.”

Eric’s breath hitches and his eyes flick toward me. “Kill her?”

“Take the dagger,” Tynan says. “Cut out her heart and place it in the opening. When her powerful blood has pooled at the base and her heart beats in my chest, the seal will be forever broken.”

Hearing Tynan’s words, my muscles contract and I shrink back,
my fingers flexing against the hard rock. Eric staggers toward me, clutching the dagger in one hand and holding his stomach with the other. It might be the lighting, but his skin has a greenish hue. “Father, Tynan, I—”

“DON’T!” Tynan roars. “Don’t tell me you can’t do it. Do not tell me you love her, or that you did love her, or that you wished to love her. She doesn’t love you. She never did. Raina married Theron. She bore Theron’s child, not yours. Remember how she broke your heart into pieces? For that alone she deserves to die. Kill her, my son. Mete out your justice now, even as you did then. Use your anger to free the only person who ever truly loved you—I, who have become your soul father.”

Expressions race over Eric’s face as he crosses the room and grabs my arm. Rage, hate, love, heartbreak, and then terrible, aching sorrow. His chest heaves and his Adam’s apple bobs as he clears his throat and attempts to speak. When he finally does, it isn’t the youthful voice I know as Eric’s, but instead a weary, aged one.

“I never understood why you sealed them in, Raina, any more than I understood how you turned away from me, your childhood love, to marry Theron. I loved you outrageously, obsessively. And you knew. We could’ve been happy together. So happy.” His voice breaks. “Why couldn’t you love me back? What does he have that I don’t?”

Centuries of memories flood my mind, and suddenly I understand. Eric—whose name in that time was Erim, servant of Tynan—loved me. In that time when I was Raina, an orphan who worked at the palace of a tyrant. As Erim and Raina, we shared a special friendship, and I did love him in the way a sister loves a brother. I did. But he loved me so much deeper, and I knew. Erim was there, hiding in the bushes near the pathway between worlds the day of the hunt. The day I—Raina—met Theron and the whole world changed.

I swallow fresh tears, pouring emotion into my voice, into my eyes for him to see. “I’m sorry, so sorry I hurt you, Eric. I did love you, just not the way you wanted.”

With a sound I can’t identify, he grabs a handful of my hair and pulls my head back, the dagger poised against my throat. I won’t close my eyes. I intend to make him look at me, to see what he’s
doing when he slices the knife through my neck. So I stare at him, into him, and wait for him to kill me and be done.

Instead, his eyes fill with longing as his face hovers inches from mine. The dagger slips lower, and before I know it, we’re so close I can feel his breath on my cheek. His free arm slips around my waist. “Just once,” he whispers, pulling me close. “I’ve loved you for an eternity. I can’t ... I need ... just one taste.” He crushes his lips against mine. I don’t return the kiss, won’t return it while he’s holding a knife to my throat, so I stay still, wide-eyed, and stare at Kye—still unconscious—praying for strength and shaking as Eric’s lips assault mine. A tear rolls down my cheek, threading to my lips where Eric laps it up and jerks away like I’ve slapped him.

His fingers clench more tightly in my hair and he stares, horrified. My eyes fill with more tears. The look on his face is the most frightening thing I’ve seen all day. “Please,” I plead. “Eric, please don’t. Don’t do this. I did love you. I still do.”

He blinks away the shock of my rejection, weary all over again. “Not enough. Not the way you love him.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathe. My voice shakes when I tell him, “My gram used to say ‘the head cannot choose what the heart will feel.’ I loved you in that life. You were my best friend. My heart bled for the pain I caused you.”

“And now, it will bleed for the pain you’ve caused me.” Tynan moves closer. Bits of onyx and cinnabar rain on our heads and in my eyes as the walls tremble. “It’s time, Erim. I’ve allowed you to have your goodbye moment. Now, set me free and you’ll have your choice of women to love.”

Eric draws my head back again, and once more I wait for him to slit my throat. Something out of my line of vision crashes and I close my eyes, no longer able to watch. He draws the dagger down to my chest where it hovers for what feels like several long minutes until his grip on my hair loosens and he brushes his hand through it, caressing.

My eyes open, watching his gaze as he follows the curve of my throat, lower, then returns to my face. A sad smile plays on the corners of his lips. “I killed you before, but it wasn’t on purpose.” He lets go of my hair, his hand drifting to the small of my back, and he pulls me into a hug. “It was supposed to be Theron. I meant to kill
Theron, but you wouldn’t let him die. Why wouldn’t you just let him die?” His voice breaks. “You sacrificed yourself to save him, and I never understood. Until now.” Eric slips the detoxifying crystal from his neck and loops the strap over my head, bending his face to mine. I think he’s going to kiss me again, but instead he whispers in my ear, “In ten seconds, duck.”

“Enough!” Tynan bellows. “It’s time.”

We break apart, and Eric grips the dagger with both hands and raises it high above his head. “I’m sorry,” he shouts above the din. His voice echoes with force I’ve never heard. “I’m so sorry.”

I duck, and he brings the dagger down with all his strength, stabbing it into the stone where my ring opened the gateway to hell. The ground heaves once more, opening a three-inch crack that runs across the cave and under the rock walls. An icy wind blows around the cavern, circling until it turns into a furious cyclone, pulling in the mist, the loose minerals, and everything around it. Tynan screams. “You are not my servant or my son! You are a coward. I knew you would fail me, and still I put my faith in you, loved you as my own flesh and blood. How could you do this?”

Eric grabs my hand as a mournful wail blows through the image of Tynan, who then flickers and vanishes. The cyclone circles, swirls, gathers into itself, and then disappears.

When the frenzy dies, the silence is eerie. No more demons come through the cracks, but the boulder doesn’t move back into place. My breath feels stuck in my chest and my heart beats so hard I wonder if everyone in the room can hear it. Eric drops the dagger and sinks to his knees, head bowed. His pale face reflects the horror I feel.

A low moan breaks the awful silence, filtering through the partially opened magical door. Eric raises his head. “We should close that.” We work together, pushing and shoving at the heavy boulder.

Juri coughs as he’s coming back around. “Am I alive?”

Eric snarls at him. “Yes, you idiot. Now get over here and help us reseal this door.”

Juri sits up. “Reseal it? No! Tynan’s coming through with a royal procession. That’s the plan. It’s been the plan for five hundred years. You can’t change your father’s plan.”

Eric leaps at Juri, draws back a fist, and punches him in the face. “Shut up. You just shut up about Tynan being my father. I’m not his
flesh and blood. After being locked up for four hundred and fifty years, he still knows nothing about loyalty. Or love.” He gazes at me. “But I do. That’s why he’s in there, and I’m not. And that’s how it has to be.” He sighs again. “It’s just how everything has to be.”

He drags Juri to the door by his collar and shoves him against the wall. “Stay.”

Juri doubles over, clutching his face and wailing about his nose being broken.

The two of us heave the boulder into place, then Eric backs up so I can turn all the Keys counterclockwise until a green glow snakes around the opening once, twice, three times. The cracks around the door fill with mortar, and then all goes still. I clasp the pendant around my neck and close the glowing stone in my fist.

Eric wrenches the dagger from the center just as the door becomes a solid wall and disappears altogether. “Well, that was fun. Let’s not do it again for at least another five hundred years, huh?”

I pat his arm. “Deal.”

On the far side of the cavern, Kye stirs. “Abby.”

My breath hitches. I rush over and fall on my knees next to him with Eric right behind me. “I’m here, Kye. Right here. Are you okay?”

“I’ve seen better days,” he rasps. His eyes flutter open, the deep blue irises cloudy as his pupils struggle to focus.

Eric strides over, yanks the white stone off Juri’s neck, and hands it to me to tie around Kye’s. “Do you think you can walk?”

“Traitor.” Kye growls, a wolfish sound. “I’ll kill you if you hurt her. Abby, whatever you do, don’t open that door.”

The sound that ripples from my throat is too brittle to be a laugh. “Okay.”

As I help Kye sit up, he takes in the chasm in the floor and the broken bits of onyx and cinnabar scattered everywhere. “What happened?”

I scoot closer to him and lean against the wall. “Long story.”

Eric walks back to the door and runs his hand down its length. “I’ve failed you again.” His voice is weighted with emotion. “I couldn’t go through with it. I just couldn’t kill her, Tynan. Not this time. I’d rather see her live, loving another man, than go through the agony of watching her die again.” He touches a small crack—the
only indication that the door ever existed—then slides down to the floor, sobbing.

Kye and I avert our eyes to give him privacy. For now.

Blood pulses in my throat, and that odd sensation of danger prickles along the back of my neck. I think Kye feels it too, because his body tenses as I help him stand.

Juri, still leaning against the far wall, glares at us. “Thirty years I’ve devoted to tracking down those Keys,” he says. “Thirty years. I even brought Tynan the hearts of the guardians and passed them through the seal. I gave him vials of my own blood to help strengthen his powers.” He’s yelling now. “What have you done? What the hell have all of you done? You’ve destroyed everything! Everything I’ve worked for is ruined. Ruined!”

In a blur of movement, the skin peels back from his arm, becomes the sword again, and he lunges at me, screeching. Kye dives between me and the blade, and time slows as I watch the gleaming sword pierce the front of his chest until the tip comes through his back.

Kye’s face goes paper white and he gasps. “Abby.” Juri pulls the sword out, grinning, while Kye falls to the ground, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding from his enormous, gaping chest wound.

Juri’s
  sword drips Kye’s blood in two thin lines along the floor as he paces back to the tomb, wearing a vicious grin. “I wonder if
his
blood would be enough to reverse the seal? There’s certainly going to be enough of it.”

Eric’s eyes are wide, his expression one of stunned panic. “Not again. It’s happening again.” He turns to me. “No.”

Juri taunts him. “You’ve always been a coward. Why do you think I’m here? Master knew you wouldn’t go through with killing her. You never do. But this time, I will.”

Eric hangs his head, looking defeated.

“You can’t change fate, boy. No matter how many times you try.”

Juri dives for me and Eric lunges, dodging the sword as it slices the air, and manages to wrap his hands around Juri’s throat. “Run, Abby. Go now and don’t look back.”

I’m frozen in place, my legs shaking because I know I’m not leaving. “I can’t. Kye’s dying.” My voice catches, breaks. “I have to help him. I have to try to Heal him.”

Eric closes his eyes, his jaw tightens, and his throat works with emotion. “Okay.” His energy field glows blue and his fingers squeeze, flexing when Juri slices a gash in his leg, and then in one of his arms.

The cavern crackles with cold as a gust of frigid air swirls around them. Ice forms on the tips of their hair and in their eyelashes and a
thick block of it wraps around Juri’s sword. He opens his mouth to scream, but Eric has him frozen from the inside out before he can make a sound.