Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles Book 1) (29 page)

He pulled his pistol from the holster at his hip and pulled back the hammer. The Elsiran soldiers tensed almost as one. The general closest to Joren pulled his sidearm, as well.

Brigadier Joren chuckled. “I will harm no Elsiran. This is between me and my countrymen,” he said in Elsiran. The general nodded but continued pointing his own pistol at the man.

The brigadier produced a pocket watch, and though Jasminda was at least a dozen metres away, she could feel each tick of the clock like a beat inside her chest.

The minute that passed felt like the longest of her life, until it ended and Joren grabbed a random refugee from the crowd. Gray hair, a stooped stature . . .

Gerda.

Jasminda barely stifled a gasp. When Joren lifted his pistol to the old woman’s head, Jasminda hurtled into motion. Her body acted without thought, but she struggled against an immovable object while trying to get closer to the woman. She looked down to find hands wrapped around her waist, squeezing painfully and holding her in place. Wrenching her neck around, she stared into Rozyl’s hard eyes. They were wet with unshed tears, but Rozyl’s face was implacable. Jasminda turned back to the front. Through the crowd, Gerda met her gaze and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Jasminda squeezed her eyes shut.

The shot rang out.

“No!” Jasminda’s scream echoed in the wake of the gunshot, reverberating off the mountain peaks. Many things could be healed with Earthsong, but a close-range shot to the head was not one of them.

Rozyl didn’t let go, tightening her embrace and forcing Jasminda’s head down.

“Someone has something to say? The location of the artifact perhaps?” Brigadier Joren’s voice was self-satisfied. Nausea swept over Jasminda. Her empty stomach heaved, but nothing came out. The Elsiran general looked horrified, but made no moves to stop the executions.

The clock continued to tick, and Jasminda couldn’t watch another person die. She couldn’t be responsible for the death of one more innocent.

This time Brigadier Joren pulled a young girl from the crowd, out of the arms of her shrieking mother. Jasminda slackened her body, and Rozyl’s hold weakened slightly. Taking advantage, Jasminda broke out of the woman’s arms and shot to her feet.

The brigadier’s gaze landed on her, and Jasminda opened her mouth to confess. Before she’d taken a breath, Rozyl shot up beside her.

Turwig was next, moving faster than a man of his age rightly should. One by one, the other Keepers she’d met in the cave and at the camp stood, and even Lyngar, a man she’d suspected of having no emotions whatsoever, had tears in his eyes as he looked at Gerda’s lifeless form sprawled on the ground.

Brigadier Joren was not impressed at the show of solidarity. “The artifact. Where is it?”

“I have it,” Rozyl called out, her voice strong and clear.

“I have it,” Lyngar said.

The statement was repeated by every Keeper standing.

“I have it,” Timmyn said, taking to his feet. Other refugees, children and mothers, the young and the elderly all stood, proclaiming to have the caldera. Most of them had no idea what they were even admitting to, but Jasminda was moved all the same. She had thought she’d known misery and heartache since the loss of her family, but she had nothing on these people. She’d also thought she truly understood love, but the actions of the other refugees humbled her.

Her hands shook, and she stuffed them into her pockets, brushing against the photo of her family. Fingering the smooth paper, she felt her family now extend to everyone here. They were all in this together. These people that she never thought she’d fit in with were acting as one with her. Standing together in the face of almost certain death. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she swiped them away.

Osar grabbed her hand. Without even thinking about it, she reached for Rozyl’s hand, as well. When their skin met, like before, Jasminda was thrown forcefully into a connection with Rozyl’s Song. She instinctively slammed down a shield. Rozyl startled. Through her energy, Jasminda sensed the Songs of the others crowded around her vividly, in sharp contrast to the bleak, emptiness of the many Songless.

The caldera pulsed again, vibrating through the layers of fabric, warming Jasminda’s skin. The spell Yllis had taught Oola in the vision tickled her memory.

A blood sacrifice.

Gerda’s blood bathed the ground beneath her body.

A powerful Song.

Rozyl’s Song was intense, stronger by far than Jasminda’s own father’s. She knew from linking with Osar before how strong he was, as well. Many of the other children, as well as the Keepers, held Songs of varying strengths.

“Osar,” she whispered. “Can you send a message to everyone to link with me?”

His big eyes shone as he nodded. Like a ripple spreading through a pond, every refugee took the hand of the ones next to them. Jasminda felt each link expand the pool of power she had access to by orders of magnitude.

She felt every heartbeat inside her body, every breath. Insects burrowed deep under the ground came into crisp focus. Every blink of every eye of each of the thousands of soldiers surrounding her was loud as a camera’s shutter. The brutal rainstorm drifted off to the west. Access to every living being within a million metres was at her fingertips. Power raced through her. Every Song linked with her was at her control.

She centered her attention on the ground beneath their feet and reached for the memory of Oola’s spell. Through the link she could almost taste Gerda’s blood mixed with the dirt and sand. She twisted the energy of Earthsong, mixing it with the woman’s lifeblood.

The power swelled within her as she wove the threads of the differing energies together. The spell came to her as if channeled from another mind—in a way it had been. The complex fabric of intermingling energies was nothing she could explain, but she sang the spell as if possessed.

When she was done, she looked up, breathing heavily, coming back into the knowledge of her surroundings. Below her feet, the ground had become glassy and smooth. Dark as midnight, it extended all around them, like fast-spreading molasses. Soon, the earth beneath the soldiers, both Elsiran and Lagrimari, was transformed to the polished rock surface of the caldera. Just as in the caves.

Shouts of alarm rang out around them as the soldiers took in the transformation. Jasminda’s vision, blurred from the heavy strain of working magic far beyond her experience, came back into focus. Then the shots began. She did not know which side fired first, but a hail of gunfire whizzed around her, heralding the beginning of the war.

The refugees shrank back as a group, scurrying to move out of the line of fire as the bullets flew. Jasminda’s feet were leaden, but she was dragged along with the others, still hand in hand, as they moved backward to allow Elsiran troops to fill in the gap they created.

Some refugees fell, struck by bullets as they made their retreat. The others ran toward the squat buildings of the Eastern Base, taking cover behind them. Here, the ground was hard and shiny, as well. The massive caldera extended far beyond the base as far as she could see.

Jasminda placed a palm on the ground and caught a subtle trace of the wrongness she’d felt in the cave. She recognized it now as the residue of magic that required death. There was something unnatural about it that made a shiver go up her spine.

What had she done?

She peered around the corner of the building to view the fighting. The Elsirans were pushing forward against the overwhelming number of Lagrimari. Tanks and weaponry felled many a Lagrimari where he stood. She sighed and slumped against the wall, all energy draining away.

“They’re not using Earthsong,” said Rozyl, watching the fighting unfold.

“They can’t,” Jasminda breathed. “This land is like the cave now. No one can sing.” She let out a hollow chuckle, then winced and grabbed her stomach in sudden pain. Looking down, she scrunched her brow in confusion. Her palm came away coated in blood.

“You’ve been shot,” Rozyl cried, kneeling before her. “I’m no good at healing. Osar!” she called, looking around for the boy.

Jasminda shook her head, then placed her hand over Rozyl’s. “No one can sing but me.”

Recognition sparked in Rozyl’s eyes. “Then sing. Link with me.”

“Making this—” she tapped the hard ground beneath her “—even with the link . . . it took almost everything I had. I can’t link again or heal myself.” The last vestiges of her Song’s energy were dwindling.

“Then we’ll get you off this bloody thing. How far does it go?” Rozyl looked around wildly.

“Too far,” Jasminda whispered, struggling to breathe. The pain was a haze. It seemed far away but she was losing control of her body. Her arms were so heavy. “Rozyl, my pocket. I can use the last of my Song to read the caldera one more time.”

Rozyl sat stubbornly motionless, her face a mix of betrayal and hurt.

“Please.” Jasminda opened her palm, her fingers fluttering. “This is the last chance.”

With a resigned expression, Rozyl reached into Jasminda’s pocket, pulling out the photograph and the bundled caldera. Jasminda smiled at the photo but reached for the caldera. Rozyl unwrapped the stone carefully, then placed it in Jasminda’s hand.

This is good-bye
. The last time I will see my brother.

We have given him everything he wanted. We stand at the border of what will now become two lands, two peoples. Songbearer and Silent, separated for all time.

Once Yllis’s barrier spell falls into place, there will be no crossing—those were the terms of the treaty. That stipulation was put in by our side. Many Songbearers have grown weary of the fighting. It is against our nature. Some feel if they never see another Silent, it will be for the best.

Already I miss the way things were, but this was my decision and I must stand by it.

“Will you embrace me one last time, sister?”

The odd, smooth bracelets adorning his wrists hold the magic of Yllis’s binding spell. The blood magic that ensures Eero doesn’t use whatever stolen Song may be left inside him. He can cause no further harm before the Mantle is erected.

His eyes shine, and I see the boy I once knew within them. One last time could not hurt.

I step closer. My arms wrap around him. We came into this world together, and I thought we would stay that way forever.

A sharp pain pierces my side. I pull back from him and stare at the dagger sticking out from between my ribs. I gasp up at him in horror, but Eero’s face is a mask.

I reach for Earthsong, trying to knit the wound, but something is wrong. My Song is weakening, slipping out of my grasp like a wisp of smoke. I breathe in, and in some more, but the breath never makes it to my lungs. Eero whispers a string of foreign words, and I fall to the ground.

Everything goes black.

Voices call my name.

One voice.

Yllis.

“Oola! Oola! Please come back to me. My love, please.”

He is mine again after being so cold for so long.

He begs and pleads, apologizes and bargains.

I try to go to him but am locked in place. My breath is gone, and I am separated from my body.

Three archways loom before me. The widest leads back to my body. Another leads to the World After.

But the third calls to me, though narrow and ominous. I step through it, sealing my fate.

The World Between is a smoke filled antechamber full of endless images of the living. Neither here nor there, it is vast and lonely, only grazed by the living in their dreams. Some believe all dreams take place here.

For me, it is a nightmare.

From here I bear witness to my body on the ground. Eero smashing the bespelled bracelets. He is full of my Song, stolen from my last breaths.

Yllis gives a great cry. He gathers a swell of Earthsong and sings the spell to create the barrier between the lands. Eero steps away from his Silent followers, over to the band of astonished Songbearers. Yllis is too focused on his spell to notice. The barrier slams into place leaving him holding my body on one side with the throng of Silent and Eero, bursting with my Song, on the other with the rest of the Songbearers.

This was his plan all along.

He never wanted to be shut up along side the Silent forever. He merely wanted to have an inexhaustible supply of Songbearers to steal from.

Eero stands at the barrier, expression smug. “Worry not, Yllis. She is not dead. She will awaken at any moment and live quite a fine life without her Song. She will know what it is like to be me.”

Two archways still stand behind me, the one leading to the Living World pulsing brighter than the sun. Calling to me. Pleading with me. I am being given a choice.

Eero’s look of triumph changes to a frown. “She will awaken,” he says, a tremor invading his voice.

Yllis growls and pulls my body closer.

Eero tries to move forward, but the barrier stops him. He beats against the invisible wall with a fist. “Oola! Oola!” he screams.

Both archways dim and begin to fade. I must make my choice quickly.

If I go back to the Living World, I can resume a life without my heart. The World After holds no appeal, though Mother and Father are there. How can I face them with what I have done to Eero?

Here, in the World Between, I may watch. That will be my punishment.

Justice finally served for my crimes.

I will watch.

The archways fade and disappear.

I watch Yllis bear my body back to the city and cut a chamber into the mountains to house me. Above the chamber, the Silent construct a magnificent palace.

Yllis chooses a loyal Silent to rule. A young man of character and honor, Abdeen Alliaseen, to lead the people in the absence of their queen.

Yllis makes Alliaseen promise to ensure that history is kind to me and bears no recollection of my fault in the start of the war. He spends weeks, months, years locked in his laboratory, scouring the libraries of the Cantors, searching for something. Doing what he does best, studying magic.

I watch on the day he finds what he has been seeking. He chants words in the ancient tongue of the Cavefolk, words I don’t understand. He takes the pendant bearing my father’s sigil, the one I always wore around my neck and cuts himself, spilling his blood over it. He calls for Alliaseen, who, when asked, spills his own blood on the sigil without hesitation, binding the spell. The blood congeals and the magic grows, encasing the pendant in a blood-red stone.