Soul of the Blade Read online

  They went back to the abandoned campsite, which Raeb and the girl had little trouble getting back into shape. Many of their supplies had been hidden under piles of pine needles and sticks—once removed, these were used to rekindle the fire.

  The two -taken moved as if they were well accustomed to this ritual, though their eyes darted from each other to Dragana in clear worry. Dragana hung back, arms crossed in front of her chest, the Bok’Tarong held in a tight grip along her left leg.

  Soon a pot of stew simmered over the flames. The girl offered Dragana a bowl, which she took as if handed a venomous snake. She sat at the -takens’ fire but didn’t eat.

  Aeo could feel how much Dragana hungered for real food. Her mouth was salivating. Pride, rather than true suspicion, kept her from eating. If it was me, I wouldn’t waste an opportunity like this. What I wouldn’t give to be able to eat again …

  Raeb explained their situation between large, greedy spoonfuls, starting with the still-unbelievable we want to destroy the Entana and following that up with a lot of technical details on some kind of ritual and a very elaborate plan. It left Aeo with more questions than answers. But as soon as Raeb began telling them of a journey to the spirit world, Aeo was fascinated.

  “How did you get to this Entana hive?” Dragana asked.

  “I was taken there by the Keeper of Secrets. He’s a sort of ambassador between the Entana and the humans,” he added before Dragana had to ask.

  “Why did he do that?”

  Raeb shifted, betraying his discomfort with the subject. “He sensed I was trying to reach the Entana. He wanted to humiliate me, I guess, for my useless attempt.”

  How was he trying to get to the Entana? Aeo asked. Dragana voiced his question.

  The girl—Saydee—responded. “He was using me.”

  Dragana looked at her. “What?”

  Saydee glanced at Raeb, who gave a tiny nod. She took a deep breath, falling into a relaxation similar to Dragana’s meditative mindset. A second later her form shimmered, like she was merely a reflection in an agitated pool. A glamour, falling.

  Dragana gasped as she recognized the Entana eyes.

  “Because of my magic, little though it is, I have a two-way connection to the Entana. I can see and hear them. Raeb was trying to use that connection to send his spirit to the Entana and find a way to destroy them.”

  Aeo could barely follow Dragana’s thoughts. She was so overwhelmed by this information it took her several seconds to decide which of her many questions to ask first. “How did you become -taken, if you’re a mage?”

  “I’m not powerful enough to be a mage,” she said. There was a distinct sense of regret and anger in her tone.

  “Even so, you should have been immune to the Entana. How did this happen?”

  Saydee’s voice turned cold. “I’d rather not say.”

  Dragana’s hold on Aeo’s hilt tightened. “If the Entana are learning how to take mages, then I need to know how.”

  “Our agreement was for a truce and a proposition to work together,” Raeb interrupted. His mouth was set in a stubborn, angry line. “Our personal pasts, for good or ill, weren’t included in that deal.”

  Icy silence fell over the group.

  “This could have huge repercussions,” Dragana replied with forced calm. “The Entana are already changing their tactics and waging a war of their own. Knowing how they came to possess a mage could be a key to helping us figure out what they’re up to and how to stop them.”

  Raeb held up a hand to pause Dragana’s justifications. “The Entana are waging a war?”

  Dragana shut her mouth in an eerily similar mimic of Raeb’s earlier expression.

  They told us part of their story, Aeo said. We should return the favor and tell them what we’ve learned.

  You are too trusting, Dragana told him.

  This isn’t trust, this is logic. We don’t always get to choose our allies. Even if you don’t like them, you have to work with them. Dragana huffed. We’ll never get anywhere if you don’t share anything. Especially something as vital as this.

  Dragana, seething inside, told them about the Mage General and the -taken berserkers in short, clipped sentences. “Not only is the king breeding -taken for his war, but these people are accepting the possession of their own free will. We were told by one of them the Entana were planning to spread to the entire world, and their willing servants were growing in strength and numbers. We think this might not be the king’s war after all, but some machination of the Entana.”

  Raeb shuddered, and Saydee looked like she was about to lose her supper. “Why would anyone accept the Entana?” he asked.

  “Many are on the brink of death when the offer is made. The Entana save their lives.”

  “At the cost of their souls,” he spat back.

  “I wasn’t condoning it,” Dragana said, a hint of ice in her tone.

  “Of course not. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath, and Aeo could almost see his thoughts whirl in his mind. “If the Entana are working through a human army, the Keeper of Secrets must be behind it.”

  “If the Entana ambassador is involved, he must be working with someone who has the power to command Arata’s army,” Dragana said. “Which means the Entana are working with the king.”

  With the Mage General, you mean, Aeo corrected. The king is ruler in title alone. The real power behind Arata is the Mage General, which means he’s the one responsible for the -taken soldiers.

  Dragana told the others Aeo’s comment, and Raeb nodded. “That sounds about right.”

  “So if the Entana are using human armies to conquer more people, that means in no time the entire population will become -taken,” Saydee said. “There won’t be anyone to stop them.”

  “Yes, there will,” Dragana said, hefting Aeo so his blades reflected the firelight. “The Bok’Tarong and I will stop them.”

  “Not alone,” Raeb said. “You need our help to do it. You won’t get anywhere without us.”

  Again, silence. The wind through the trees was the only sound. Even the light was dying as the sun set, as if the group’s anger was darkening the world around them.

  Aeo could feel Dragana’s simmering rage at the thought of working with -taken. Raeb didn’t seem any more pleased at the thought than she did.

  Well, this should be fun, Aeo thought.

  This isn’t the time for jokes, Aeo.

  Nor is it the time to push away possible allies, no matter how much you want to. Didn’t you hear the things Raeb has done? There’s no way we could do that on our own. His abilities give us the best chance of destroying the Entana. It doesn’t matter where or how he got them. He’s willing to let us use them. We should accept the offer.

  They are -taken, Aeo. How can I trust them?

  I didn’t say to trust them. I said to work with them. There’s a difference.

  Dragana clenched her teeth and her grip on the Bok’Tarong tightened. “What were you planning?” she asked Raeb. “And what to do need us for?”

  “We want to get back to the hive, with the Bok’Tarong. If we take the weapon to the source, we should be able to destroy the hive and the Entana.”

  Dragana glared at the -taken. “Why can’t we do that without you?”

  Raeb returned the glare. “You’ll need Saydee’s connection to the Entana to get you there, and you’ll need my help to get into the hive. The Keeper of Secrets and I have … a history. I can get us past whatever defenses the Entana might have and into the heart, where it’ll be vulnerable. Besides, one warrior and a sacred blade won’t be enough. You’ll need another blade at your side.”

  Raeb drew out a blade unlike any Aeo had ever seen—a horizontal hilt surrounded by five dagger blades in a semicircle. They radiated from his fist like a deadly sunburst. Aeo sensed a great deal of magic coming from those blades, magic that was almost as oily and evil as the Entana. The last of the sunlight disappeared, leaving the forest as dark as the dread Aeo felt.

>   I don’t like that blade, Aeo told Dragana. There’s something evil about it.

  She gripped the Bok’Tarong a little tighter, holding it close. “What is that?”

  Raeb’s eyes were glued to the blades in his hand. His eyes reflected the firelight as if they were glowing. “I call it Sunray. It reveals magic and the spirit world. It can absorb magic, and unravel enchantments.” He paused for a moment, and behind the admiration in his voice Aeo caught a deep hatred for the weapon.

  They were silent for a while, all eyes on the dark Sunray. Finally Raeb looked up and caught Dragana’s eye. “The Bok’Tarong is needed to destroy the Entana, but without a distraction, something that’ll hurt the Entana enough to keep them occupied, you’ll never get close enough to strike. Sunray and I will be that distraction for you.”

  It sounds like we really do need them, Aeo said.

  The surge of bitter frustration he received in reply told him Dragana knew it, too. She just didn’t want to admit it.

  She paused, glancing at Raeb and Saydee. They both did their best to look casual and uninterested, though Aeo knew they were anxiously waiting for Dragana’s decision.

  They’re both keeping a lot of secrets.

  We’re all keeping secrets from each other. That’s just the way these kind of things work.

  She groaned. “If we kill the hive, the individual Entana will die as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will happen to the -taken?”

  “They’ll be freed. Some will be beyond saving, but they shouldn’t be the murderous lunatics they would be otherwise. The rest would be able to continue with their lives, or create new ones.”

  Dragana stared into Raeb’s eyes, perhaps sensing his brief hesitation before responding. “Are you sure of this?”

  Raeb and Saydee shared a look. “No,” Raeb admitted. “But everything I’ve learned suggests it will.”

  Dragana glanced around, as if searching the trees for any other option. Beyond the light of their fire, nothing but the night waited out there. She sighed. “I can’t walk away from an opportunity to destroy the Entana, no matter how improbable it seems. But I also can’t put my trust in two -taken, one of them being the Taronese traitor.”

  She’d kept most of the venom from her tone, but Raeb still flinched when she named him that way.

  “You’ll have my help, and that of the Bok’Tarong, as long as I’m sure this isn’t some kind of trick. If you betray our alliance, you will feel the sting of the spirit-blades. I can promise you that.”

  Aeo watched their reactions. He had been very good at spotting cheats and traitors in his life, and he didn’t see any hints of that in them. They were serious about this plan and their alliance, and their relief at Dragana’s acceptance was palpable.

  He conveyed this to Dragana, and she acknowledged by relaxing slightly. She left the Bok’Tarong in her lap and took a tentative bite of the stew Saydee had given her. She perked at the first taste, then took another. Soon she was eating with relish. “Good food.”

  The new allies settled into the camp, but talk was limited to necessary questions and uncomfortable, forced chatting. When Dragana lay down to sleep, she kept Aeo close by. Watch over me, she said. Make sure they don’t try anything.

  Aeo smiled. Dragana might not fully trust him, but she trusted him more than the -taken across the fire. It was a start.

  13

  Raeb woke to the scent of breakfast. He lazed about for a moment, stretching, wishing he could catch a few more minutes’ sleep. It couldn’t be too early, given the softness of the light seeping through his eyelids and the chill of the breeze. The morning held a whisper of oncoming winter. It made him want to bundle deeper into his cloak and ignore the responsibilities waiting for him out there.

  He cracked open an eye, just to see what the others were up to.

  Then the thought registered. Others. Plural.

  Memory jolted him from the ground. They’d lured the Bok’Tarong and its bearer to them yesterday. Raeb swore. Here he was, sleeping in striking distance of a woman with good reason to kill him, and the only thing that woke him was the smell of bacon!

  “Good morning,” Saydee said. The cheeriness in her voice was forced.

  Raeb swore to himself again and toddled over. Saydee had made breakfast, but sharing food hadn’t done much to break the strained silence. The Taronese warrior—Raeb didn’t even know her name—was watching Saydee suspiciously while Saydee pretended she was relaxed. Raeb almost laughed at the awkwardness of the situation.

  Almost.

  He took a place at the fire and helped himself to the food. He ignored the tension in the air and the malice in the woman’s brown-red eyes. Most of all, he tried to ignore the Bok’Tarong sitting in her lap.

  Gazing at that sword sent shivers up Raeb’s spine. For all of his youth he’d longed for the blade, but during the centuries since he’d learned to dread the sight of it.

  He took a few bites, but his appetite had fled in the presence of the Bok’Tarong.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  She didn’t meet his eyes. Nor did she sound at all pleased by the question. “Dragana.”

  He dipped his head in a nice-to-meet-you gesture. He searched for something else to say, but couldn’t think of anything. What did one say to an antagonistic Taronese warrior who wants to kill you?

  “So what’s the first step in this grand plan of yours?” she asked, saving him the trouble of continuing the awkward conversation.

  He put his plate down, though it was still more than half full. “Saydee’s connection isn’t strong enough for us to ride it all the way to the Entana hive. We have to find some way to strengthen it.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  He looked up at the trees, glowing with morning light, and breathed deeply. “One of the

  -taken I know was researching a way to diminish the connection from the Entana to a mind. Maybe by now he’s found something we can use.”

  “That won’t do any good,” Saydee said. “We need to strengthen my connection to them.”

  Raeb nodded. “I know. I’m hoping he’s figured out a way to diminish a connection, so we could do the opposite and strengthen yours. He must have found some kind of information that would help.”

  Dragana snorted. “That’s your plan? Hoping someone else has done all the work and then, what, praying you can find a way to make it do what you want?”

  “I’d love to hear any better ideas you might have.” Raeb matched the hatred in her brown-and-crimson eyes. “Even with all your lofty talk, the Taronese have never come this close to finding a way to destroy the Entana, have you?”

  Dragana’s knuckles whitened around the hilt of the Bok’Tarong. Her eyes narrowed. He’d hit a soft spot, he knew, but that didn’t stop him. Maybe he’d needed to say this more than he’d thought.

  “You’re more than willing to persecute the -taken and slay them on a whim, but I’m trying to save them, which is more than you’ve ever done. My idea may not be perfect, but at least it’s something more than spilling the blood of every innocent -taken around.”

  Dragana was on her feet with the Bok’Tarong raised before Raeb could even register the motion. Maybe he’d gone too far, but he didn’t regret a single word.

  Her voice was deadly calm, but he could hear the tremor in it. “You of all people should understand what we do. Without the Bok’Tarong, the Entana would have turned this entire world into -taken by now. Destroying them one at a time is better than doing nothing at all.”

  “But you weren’t doing any good! All you’ve done is amuse the Entana and kill their victims. The Entana you thought you killed returned to take another person, so in actuality you were spreading the Entana.”

  “You can’t hold us responsible for doing our best with the knowledge we had. At least we were doing something instead of running away from our people and our responsibilities.”

  Her words struck Raeb li
ke a physical blow. He felt the pain of them in his chest, a pain that took his breath away as surely as a punch to the sternum would. Running had been all he’d done for so long, he wasn’t sure he remembered a time when he’d had a place to call home. He’d come close once, but he’d become so frightened of staying in one place he’d run from that, too.

  But, of course, that was the place he was proposing they return to.

  The spirit in the Bok’Tarong must have been calming Dragana, because she sat back down. She still looked furious, but at least the blades were no longer pointed at Raeb.

  Saydee leaned forward, thrusting herself into the argument. “If we’re going to have a truce, we can’t keep fighting like this,” she said. “None of us can do everything on our own, which means we have to start putting a little faith in each other. No matter what we think of each other’s pasts, we need to work together.”

  Dragana moaned. “That’s almost exactly what the Bok’Tarong said to me.”

  “At least we know two of us would have gotten along,” Raeb muttered. He took a calming breath, forcing as much frustration out of his voice as he could. “I may have run away from my life before, but now I’m facing these problems and trying to fix them. You can’t blame me for that.”

  The Bok’Tarong raised an inch off Dragana’s lap, then lowered back down. Her grip didn’t loosen.

  “What do you want from me?” Raeb asked, stepping away from the fire and pacing. Maybe moving would help calm some of the frustration simmering inside him. “It’s not like I invited the Entana into my mind. You say I betrayed our people, but what did I do? It wasn’t bad enough to become a -taken, but then my own people chased me out and hunted me like some kind of disease. You blame me for running when it was the only thing I could do to save my life.”

  Dragana was quiet for several minutes, though Raeb knew she was talking with the Bok’Tarong. He continued pacing, hoping the spirit saw things more clearly than the bearer. It had convinced her to spare him once before. Maybe it had a bit more sense than she did.

  Finally, she exhaled. “Where is this man and his research?”