Chapter Fifty-Two

  Tanuzet had been airborne within seconds.

  There were no shouts, no questions, only action and in the chaos, Inerys had offered herself up as a distraction. Her plan may not have been particularly well thought out, but it was simple: she would draw Vesryn’s focus from Rhydian in an attempt to give him some sort of opening while Cydan snuck in from behind as a contingency. After all, she had been the subject of his ire from the start. If anyone could capture his attention, it would be her.

  Everyone, with the exception of Ephaxus, had agreed, not that she’d given them much choice. What alternative did they truly have? One moment, everything had been fine. Then, Vesryn had buried his blade in Rhydian’s gut. The suddenness of the attack had left little room to strategize a proper response. She trusted the others enough to handle whatever escalation might arise and had accepted the risks.

  But then her passenger had stirred.

  You have the power to stop him yourself, it had said.

  All she had to do was embrace her gift, leverage her voice the way her predecessor had that day in the woods. With it, she could simply order Vesryn to release him. Quick. Easy. No one else had to get hurt.

  It would even help her use it.

  An alluring prospect, but one Inerys had been hesitant to accept. She had been on the receiving end of that power before. How could she inflict it upon someone else? There had to be another way, but as she’d set eyes on Rhydian, kneeling and bleeding at the mercy of an already stained blade, she realized they were well past the point of reason.

  So, she’d accepted her passenger’s help.

  It waited, content, it seemed, to follow her lead as she spoke. However, the moment Vesryn ordered the others to bind her, something within her shifted. It was not the subtle stirring she’d grown accustomed to whenever the entity roused or even the sudden onslaught she’d experienced in Rhydian’s annex, but something else.

  The presence swept over her mind like a shadow, melding its thoughts and desires with her own. Within the span of a breath, determining where her passenger ended and she began became nigh on impossible. There was a dissonance between them, an alienation, yet they spoke with the same voice. Succumbing to its guidance was easy, like being led along by a trusted friend and she hadn’t resisted. It shifted her perspective and sharpened her focus until some innate ability began to rise within her.

  Inerys had been prepared to antagonize Vesryn, to a point, but her passenger took it a step further. Her awakened power expanded at its command, reaching, much like her newfound awareness, to pierce the cloud of mental energy that surrounded the sage in an invisible haze. She was not in his head, exactly, but rather, reading the torrent of thought and emotion potent enough to escape the confines of his mind. His fears unfurled themselves like the pages of an offered book.

  And she’d preyed upon them.

  Spirits, the things she’d said . . .

  Everyone stared in stunned silence.

  Vesryn was dead.

  The satisfaction radiating from her passenger turned her stomach more than the scene laid out before her. She shouldn’t have trusted it, not after it had betrayed her and seized control mere hours prior, but she’d been desperate. And she’d gotten a man killed.

  He made his choice and he paid the price, her passenger said.

  The flanging, feminine voice had the hair along the back of Inerys’ neck standing on end. She’d heard it before, she just hadn’t registered the fact it had spoken to her. Her knees nearly buckled when its influence receded. The contentment, the comfort and relief of a threat neutralized, went with it, leaving Inerys as dazed as she was mortified.

  Though his touch was gentle, Ephaxus’ mental nudge made her flinch, Viper–

  I’m fine, she lied, and stumbled toward Rhydian.

  Heat blasted her face and snapped her lagging senses back into focus. Her awareness tingled, sensing a surge of essence that, for once, wasn’t hers. Heat radiated from Rhydian’s body in waves and while the temperature was not hot enough to burn, it had wilted and darkened the grass within a three meter radius around him. He sat, staring down at the sage’s body as if he didn’t truly see it, limbs trembling, skin slick with sweat.

  Inerys’ brow furrowed as she stared.

  Had he–

  He scrambled back and vomited black, putrid bile into the grass. Inerys’ own body gave an involuntary heave, for between his purging impurities and the scents that had arisen in the aftermath of their fight, her nose was all but overwhelmed. She grit her teeth as she forced her body back under control. She could be sick later, process later, but right now, she needed to remain strong.

  Inerys dared a step forward.

  Caution, viper, Ephaxus warned.

  One of her ears ticked back as she heard his tail whip through the air.

  I’ll be fine, she promised, then murmured “Rhydian?”

  He didn’t so much as flinch at his name. His shoulders quivered and she reached a hand toward him, but hesitated. Four fledgeling horns, reminiscent of Tanuzet's, peeked out along his scalp. Two sprouted near his temples while the others stemmed from just within his hairline above his forehead. They were short, no longer than the tips of her fingers, but present nonetheless.

  He’d advanced.

  With his shirt utterly soaked in his own blood, it was nearly impossible to tell whether or not he was still bleeding from his abdomen. However, his face appeared to have healed. The scarring was minimal, mostly limited to his cheekbone and eyebrow, but if she looked closely enough, she could trace the full path of the original wound. Had his advancement been responsible for the rapid healing? Did the body consider wounds an impurity? Whatever the case, it was a relief.

  Though it burned her eyes, she did her best to ignore the pungent scent of iron and sweat and rancid bile as she crouched beside him. She placed a hand upon his shoulder and offered what she hoped was a measure of comfort through their bond. Tremors still racked his body as the last of his retching subsided, his gaze fixed on his blood stained hands. Though most of it was likely his, she imagined all he saw was Vesryn’s.

  “It’s yours,” she whispered to him, “not his.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I killed him,” he rasped.

  A few tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she slipped one of her hands through his and squeezed, “He didn’t give you a choice.”

  He shook his head, “I should have disarmed him. Should have–”

  Tanuzet pressed her snout into his side and closed her eyes.

  It was you or him, dear one, she murmured.

  He choked on what might have been a sob, “It wasn’t supposed to end like this. I came down here to talk, to try to understand him.”

  “And it looks like he stabbed you for your trouble,” Ayduin said, having climbed down from Vaelor’s back to inspect the body for herself. Her lips were thin, face pale, though the look in her eyes when they met Inerys’ promised they would be talking about what happened after this was all sorted.

  I’ll tell you everything after we get Rhydian back to camp, she promised.

  There was no point in trying to hide the truth.

  Ayduin gave her a curt nod, then turned her attention to Cydan’s approach from where he’d been positioned in the treeline.

  “Is he all right?” He asked quietly.

  “We’re not sure,” Ayduin said.

  Despite the heat of his rysk, his fingers had gone clammy in Inerys’ own. Distantly, she could sense him teetering on the edge of exhaustion. He leaned his head against her shoulder, breath shaky as it escaped his lips.

  I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else, he said.

  She gave a start when she heard his voice in her head, but she eased and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

  We’re all safe, thanks to you. You gave us all quite the fright, though. Tanuzet, most especially, she said, glancing to where his other hand rested upon the wyvern’s snout.

  Tanuzet’s hackles rose, I would have torn him limb from limb, were his blade not at your throat.

  Deep down, some part of Inerys shared a similar sentiment, but she buried it.

  “We should get you cleaned up,” she said, “Sorisanna needs to have a look at you.”

  He didn’t protest.

  Without a word, she released his hand and helped him to his feet. He staggered, at first, but nodded as he found his footing. Tanuzet monitored his progress, snout poised to stabilize him from behind, if need be. For a creature of her size, she was remarkably gentle and ever mindful of even the smallest of actions. She guarded the pair of them as if they were her hatchlings even though the threat had passed. Inerys couldn’t fault her for it, though. She’d nearly lost her bondmate.

  You have my gratitude, she said, before coaxing Rhydian down the shoreline.

  Of course, was all Inerys could think to say in answer.

  “I’m going to make sure his wounds are fully closed,” Sorisanna said, voice as distant as the look in her eyes. She trailed after them without another word, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  Inerys watched them go with a small sigh, though she turned her attention to Ayduin and Cydan when they came to her side.

  “We should see to the body while Sorisanna’s checking him over,” Cydan said, the first of their trio to break the silence.

  “Agreed,” Ayduin said, “Can you help? Or do we need to get you back to camp?”

  At first, Inerys wasn’t entirely sure what the woman meant, but then she followed her pointed look down to her hand. Some of the blood had smeared along her skin where she’d held Rhydian’s hand. Was she asking if she could control herself?

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured, “It’s not going to send me into a frenzy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Good. It’s been a shit night already. I’d hate to add to it.”

  “You and I both,” she muttered.

  Sighing through her nose, Ayduin crouched beside Vesryn’s corpse, then saw to freezing the wound in order to stop the bleeding and any further mess.

  “Do we know how this all started?” Cydan asked.

  Inerys shook her head, “Not yet. Rhydian’s understandably shaken. I wasn’t about to interrogate him on top of it.”

  “Fair enough. He’s alive, at least. I’ll take that, for now.”

  “What I want to know,” Ayduin said as she rose, “Is how you managed that little trick with your voice.”

  “Trick?” He asked, confused.

  “Our resident vampire used the same vocal command that woman used on those wyverns from command,” she said.

  His expression tightened, “You did? How?”

  “That’s a bit of a complicated answer,” she admitted, “it’s not like I wanted to use it, but I didn’t think I had a choice. I’ve been on the receiving end of it myself, remember. It’s what got me into this whole mess to begin with.”

  “Explain,” Ayduin said, crossing her arms.

  Inerys worked her jaw, trying to decide how best to explain the fact she had a parasite in her head without sounding completely and utterly mad. She sensed Ephaxus’ own anticipation too. She should have told him about it before and the guilt of having kept it secret began to gnaw at her.

  “I’ve had this thing in my head,” she said, clawed hands flexing as she gestured to herself, “I’m pretty sure it's been there ever since I woke up. When I first noticed it, I thought it was some sort of instinct or survival mechanism. It was mindless, in a sense, but now . . . now it’s turned into something else. An entity or a parasite. It’s dormant most of the time, but every now and again, it wakes up. Usually when I’m in danger.”

  Ayduin’s eyes narrowed, “What makes you say it’s turned into something else?”

  Inerys took a deep breath, eyes passing from her, to Ephaxus and back again.

  “While we were trying to figure out how to save Rhydian, it . . . talked to me.”

  Ayduin and Cydan exchanged looks.

  “What did it say?”

  “It said I could help Rhydian without anyone getting hurt. I didn’t even know I had the same vocal ability until it showed it to me,” she said.

  “And you humored it?”

  “I know it sounds stupid of me, but it’s helped me in the past. I trusted it, to a degree. Until this afternoon, at least.”

  Ayduin was silent for a moment before she said, “That fit you had in Rydian’s annex, that was it’s doing, wasn’t it?”

  She reluctantly nodded, “It’s never taken control like that before.”

  “Did it happen again when you were having your stand off with Vesryn?”

  “Not like the way it did earlier, no. There was a measure of influence, but we were both in control. Mostly, anyway. What I said was . . . mostly it's doing.”

  She hoped, anyway.

  The woman rubbed at her temple, “And here I was, thinking you’d come up with that creepy little act all on your own. I wasn’t sure if I should have been impressed or concerned. I should have gone with the latter.”

  Inerys fidgeted before she caught herself, “About what I said–”

  “About us being under your control?” She guessed.

  She wanted to say yes, yet her words failed her.

  “I’ll admit, for all your weirdness and . . . unsettling bits, your heart’s in the right place. I’m not worried about being used as a puppet. No offense, but even if I was, you’re not near as strong as I imagine you’d need to be to have all of us under your spell. So don’t go thinking whatever that thing said is true. It isn’t.”

  “I’ll try not to,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself.

  Ayduin sighed, then cursed as she opened her arms wide, “Oh, come here and leave some of that trauma for the rest of us, hmm?”

  Inerys stepped into the woman’s embrace without so much as a moment’s hesitation.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her.

  “Much as I want to toss you into the lake for not telling us sooner, I’ll let you off easy. But don’t let it happen again, yeah? Next time, you and I will be settling things in the sparring ring.”

  “I promise.”