Soul of the Blade Read online

  He kept his pace strong, refusing to look back. The night swallowed the village behind him. Out here the desert was still and silent, without the tiny sounds of wind in leaves or animals settling into burrows. There was nothing here but an expansive emptiness and millions of stars overhead. The silence was unnerving. Raeb fought the urge to return to the village, to safety in numbers. Out here he felt too exposed, too vulnerable. Too alone.

  The sound of light footsteps coming from behind made him cringe. Perhaps not too alone.

  The girl trotted up, slowing enough to keep pace with him as if she’d been invited along.

  “You aren’t very good at listening, are you?” he asked.

  “My father always said I was too stubborn for my own good.”

  “I can see that,” Raeb growled. “What do you want?”

  “I’m coming with you.” She shifted a small pack from one shoulder to the other, perhaps hoping to impress him with her forethought.

  “No. You aren’t.”

  “Yes, I am,” she said, paying no mind to the authority in his voice.

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know where I’m going or why I’m going there. And you aren’t going to find out.”

  “You don’t understand. I am coming with you.”

  It took all of his willpower not to lash out and hit the girl. “Go away.”

  “Look, I’m not leaving. I’m not sure what exactly you are, but I know you’re different than the rest of us.”

  Raeb’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

  “You aren’t like all the others taken by the Entana. You might have been at one time, but now you’re … special.”

  Panic, like he was punched in the gut, choked him. “How do you know that?”

  “I can tell.”

  Raeb glared at her. That response didn’t tell him anything. It could be a bluff, for all he knew. Perhaps she didn’t know anything after all, and was hoping he would give something away. That would make much more sense than whatever she was suggesting being the truth.

  He turned off the road, trudging through prickly cactus and shrubs dried crispy by the sun. The girl followed, continuing to chatter.

  “They’ve lost their hold over you. They can’t control you anymore, and that’s what I want. I’ll help you if you help me.”

  “How could you help me?”

  He heard her footsteps stop, then clanging as she rummaged through her pack. Raeb continued to hike through the dry land. Maybe if he got far enough, she wouldn’t be able to find him in the night.

  A soft yellow glow cast his shadow in dark relief before him. He turned back to find the girl grinning in triumph, a lantern held high before her. “How about a light, for starters?”

  She had spunk, he’d give her that. He carefully kept his face impassive.

  She closed the distance between them, holding the lantern down near their feet. She stood as tall as she could, which came to Raeb’s shoulder, and looked directly into his strange Entana eyes. He was impressed she didn’t flinch at the sight. Most people cowered from his gaze, if they ever saw it.

  “I know you’re an Entana-taken. You have some business with them, and I’m guessing it’s something you don’t want them to know about. Otherwise you wouldn’t be skulking around like this. And if you’re trying to hide from the Entana, then you need me. I know more about them than anyone.”

  “I doubt that,” he muttered. She looked at him, but Raeb refused to elaborate. “Why do you believe you have this special knowledge?”

  She poked a finger at her temple. “Because they’re in here.”

  That made Raeb pause. He peered at her and began to notice the subtle signs the Entana left on their victims. Paranoia. Exhaustion. A sense of hyper-alertness that even weariness couldn’t dim. “You don’t have the eyes of a -taken,” he said.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. Relaxation spread through her muscles, and a vague shimmering slid from her body. Raeb had seen it before—it was the indication of a falling glamour. Once the glamour was dispelled, she opened her eyes.

  Entana-taken eyes. They were shadowed and haunted, and their color was a bit off. The pupils were slightly elongated, and they were no longer true black. The irises were more gray than white. She was indeed possessed by the Entana, and had been for a long time.

  “Got some rogue mage to give you an illegal glamour charm, eh? How much did that cost you?”

  “It’s not a charm,” she said. “It’s mine.”

  “Yours? As in … your magic?”

  She nodded.

  “Entana can’t take mages.”

  “I’m not a mage. I’m not powerful enough. My application to the Mage’s Academy was rejected in record time. They wouldn’t even see me. They said my power was just a fluke and that I should take up street entertainment and sleight-of-hand.”

  “That’s the Mage’s Academy for you. Bastards through-and-through.”

  She chuckled, but there was very little joy in the sound.

  Raeb looked around, even though he couldn’t see much in the darkness. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t really looking anyway.

  “So your magic wasn’t strong enough to keep the Entana at bay.”

  “Obviously not.” Her tone was as cold and distant as the stars.

  Raeb nodded, but her slight shift in position and defensive tone said much more than her words. There was more to that story she didn’t want him to know. Interesting.

  “The point is I have some magic power. I am a -taken, but I’m not their slave. I can slow the Entana down so they don’t take me as fast. I can see them. Sometimes I can even hear them.”

  That piqued his attention. People couldn’t defend themselves from the Entana. All they could do was wait until they were fully -taken or too lost in madness to care. The Entana were untouchable, a mystery that murdered without any way to protect against them.

  But here was this girl, a minor mage at best, an Entana-taken who could see and hear her tormentors. Raeb had been researching the -taken for two centuries and never found anything like this before. If she was that in touch with the Entana, then maybe she could help him. She might be the key he’d been looking for to gain his freedom. If she could really do what she claimed, then she was right. He might need her.

  But that also meant she was dangerous, to herself and to everyone around her.

  Raeb scrubbed his face in his hands. Everything in him warned against taking this girl with him. He’d been a loner for decades now, and the last time he’d taken on a partner he’d carried the guilt of her death for years. He couldn’t afford a liability like that.

  But if what she said was true, he might never find a way to freedom without her. “What’s your name?”

  “Saydee.”

  “Do you have any skills?”

  “I can look really threatening with a dagger.”

  Raeb raised an eyebrow. “You’re a minor mage who can cast a glamour to hide her Entana eyes and all you can do is wave a dagger around?”

  “If I could do more, don’t you think I’d be a mage by now?”

  He raised his head and leveled a stare at her. I’m going to regret this.

  He turned his back to her without a word, pushing the entire situation from his mind and focusing his attention on forging a safe path through the cactus. If only his life was as easy to navigate as the desert.

  The light from Saydee’s lantern danced at his back as the girl followed.

  4

  Aeo slowly returned to consciousness. The pain in his head was crushing, enough so that he wished he’d slip back into the blackness of oblivion. He didn’t.

  His entire body felt cold and rigid. He opened his eyes, but saw nothing. Just the same oppressive darkness. What the hell? he thought. Have I gone blind?

  For several minutes he lay still, wondering if he was trapped between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. In some way he couldn’t explain, he felt less than
alive. Less than human.

  He tried to stretch, but his muscles didn’t respond.

  Dear gods, he thought, I’m paralyzed!

  Could it get any worse? This was a fate worse than death. The Bok’Tarong had stolen his strength, his pride—his entire identity—but had refused to take his life. Instead it had taken the ultimate revenge and left him no better than a helpless beggar. How long would it be before he starved to death, alone and forgotten in the wilderness?

  Maybe I am dead after all, he thought. What else could have happened to me?

  [Maybe you’ve forced yourself into a place you don’t belong.]

  The thought startled Aeo. Where had it come from? It was like someone had whispered in his ear, though he hadn’t heard anything. That voice sounded familiar, patronizing and insulting, but it was close. As if it was sharing his mind.

  Oh shit.

  All of a sudden, he knew. He wasn’t dead, nor was he paralyzed. He was in the blade.

  He was the Bok’Tarong.

  Aeo wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or terrified. He was alive, in a sense, which had to be better than death. But still, the thought of living as a sword was frightening in its own right. How could his sanity survive as just a consciousness, without a body to breathe and move and see and feel?

  Hello? Aeo called. Can you hear me?

  Silence. Aeo waited, called again, waited some more. Nothing. But not as if it refused to answer—more like it was no longer there. The whisper had been weak, earlier. Was that all it had been able to manage?

  Damn it, don’t leave me alone like this.

  The voice left him alone.

  Time passed. Aeo couldn’t tell if it was days or weeks that went by. The loneliness and seclusion of being trapped in a blade haunted his every moment. He relived his life over and over in his mind, but the stories of his past only deepened his sorrow. He couldn’t experience new things or move on with his life. He couldn’t even keep himself entertained. At this rate, his sanity wouldn’t last long.

  His greatest dream—to be one with the blade—had become his living, hellish nightmare.

  He was lamenting his existence and cursing the day he saw the Bok’Tarong when a faint speck of light entered his vision. It was as bright as an ember, but after so long in utter darkness—believing he was blind, no less—it was brilliant and beautiful to Aeo’s eyes. It slowly grew in size and brightness until it expelled the blackness from his sight.

  Aeo felt as if he was basking in the sun for the first time. He was warmed to the soul by its mere presence.

  A firm hand grasped his middle, and his eyes were opened beyond his black prison. The shapes and colors of the outside world swelled his heart with joy. He’d never seen such beauty as the trees above him or the sun shining in the bright blue sky. If metal could shed tears, Aeo would have cried.

  He studiously avoided looking down at the crumbled, decaying heap of his body.

  Turning his vision to his new partner, Aeo gasped. Before his eyes was a strong warrior—and the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Her generous curves announced her femininity, but there was no question as to her strength of body or mind. Powerful, well-trained muscles enhanced her figure rather than hid it.

  Her hair fell in tight ringlets, half warm brown and half fiery red. Her dark brown eyes were also striated with crimson, accentuating the fierce gaze within them. Her clothes were made of soft leathers and fitted to her form. Around her upper arm she wore an intricate band of carved, opalescent green stone that glittered in the sunshine.

  “Bok’Tarong, I have found you at last!” she breathed, raising the sword before her. Her hands were gentle, as if handling a fragile, priceless treasure. “I’ve followed your call for weeks.” She rested her forehead on the wide face of the blade, sending a shiver through Aeo. It felt as if she’d caressed every inch of his body with silken hands and soft lips.

  The warrior-woman pulled away from the blade almost instantly. Her eyes widened, then narrowed in suspicion. “You are not Taronese,” she said. “Who are you?”

  Aeo, he replied, not knowing whether he said or thought the word.

  “I don’t understand. You cannot be the spirit of the blades. They are wise and instruct the bearer in the ways of the Bok’Tarong.”

  Aeo wouldn’t have called that voice ‘wise’. What had happened to it? I think I might have evicted it, he thought. Whatever brief message he’d received when he awoke, he felt alone inside the sword.

  The warrior-woman stared at him. “You spoke with the spirit of the blades?” She looked up, sighing and casting her eyes about. “Start from the beginning. How have you, uninitiated and unworthy, joined with the Bok’Tarong?”

  Aeo could feel the rage building under her confusion. Her hands tightened around him as she waited for an answer. He was tiptoeing a line he dared not cross. I won the sword from a man and later killed myself with it, he explained.

  “You won the sword?”

  He’d hoped she would let him skip over this part, but he didn’t dare refuse to answer that tone. I’m the king’s assassin. This man was my target.

  She pursed her lips. “Was the man your target, or the Bok’Tarong?”

  Aeo shuddered. Her voice had gone cold and quiet, like a predator before the kill. The bearer. I was told the sword would be my reward.

  For a moment, there was no reply but frigid rage. “How did he die?”

  I lured him into a trap and stabbed him when he was following a false trail.

  “You denied him an honorable death?” Her grip tightened, until Aeo gasped and choked. How could he choke without a throat, or the need to breathe? Nevertheless, the warrior-woman’s hand felt like it was clamped around his stomach, squeezing until he’d explode. “You should have at least allowed him a death from the spirit blades. Then his life would have come to its end in the way every Taronese warrior has prepared for. Instead you have cast his life away as if it was worthless and taken his place in the Bok’Tarong!”

  She gritted her teeth, visibly trying to control the boiling rage within her. “Do you have any idea what a terrible crime you have committed?”

  Aeo sat speechless before the warrior-woman’s anger. He didn’t know if it was possible for him to die again, but he was certain this woman would kill him if he misspoke now.

  “When the bearer of the Bok’Tarong is killed, his spirit is taken into the blades. It is a process we have been trained for, one that requires a great deal of strength and submission to accomplish. How your worthless spirit managed the process is beyond me.” She squeezed the hilt as if wanting to punch him. “The knowledge of the bearer is combined with those who came before. Every single warrior to fight the Entana since the blades were created. It is a guide for the current bearer, a master and teacher beyond any living today. And in one thoughtless act, you have evicted it?”

  Sadness now mixed with the anger in her voice. Aeo wasn’t often shamed, but he felt sheepish now.

  “What else did you destroy when you forced your way into the spirit blades? Does the magic of the Bok’Tarong still survive? It’s possible your invasion has destroyed that, too, which would be a tragedy far worse than anything you could ever imagine.”

  She sighed, the sound full of frustration and uncertainty. “And yet, I have no choice but to continue on. Perhaps … perhaps not all is lost.”

  It can’t all be lost, Aeo said. If the magic was gone, how could I still be stuck in here?

  She glared at him, as if astounded he’d dared to speak. Her crimson-streaked eyes burned with rage. “You have defiled the sacred Bok’Tarong. You have obliterated the wisest, most extensive resource on the Entana in the entire world. Because of your greed, you may have doomed every human alive to the fate of the -taken.”

  Aeo had no idea what she was talking about. That sounds a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?

  “This isn’t a joke. The world is at war, assassin, and I don’t just mean the Halkron invasion in the west. Our
entire race is at risk. If we don’t stop the Entana, they could consume the minds of every human in existence. The Bok’Tarong is the only defense we have, and you treated it as some kind of valuable trinket to add to your collection. Now you may have destroyed it as well.” She paused, taking a deep breath to calm the anger growing in her voice. When she continued, her tone had gone cold and quiet. Aeo thought it was far more frightening. “I can never forgive you for this. The very least you could do is shut up and try not to ruin anything else.”

  The warrior-woman took the baldric from Aeo’s body and buckled it across her back. When she slid the sword into the odd, strapless sheath and released the hilt, Aeo was locked inside the blades once again. The light of her presence remained. With it he could still make out shadows of the world around him, though color and sound were gone.

  It was better than nothing, Aeo had to admit, though his heart ached and his mind reeled from the woman’s anger and the danger she’d hinted at.

  What had he done?

  It was still difficult for Aeo to distinguish time and distance, but the shadows he could see gave him some idea of their surroundings. It looked like night was approaching and they were cutting through the brush, probably looking for a spot to camp.

  Aeo was starting to sort through the deluge of new sensations now that the warrior-woman had found him. There was a strange kind of connection between them that went beyond anything he’d ever thought possible. He could sense her emotions and feel her heartbeat. He could even hear a few of her thoughts if he concentrated.

  Can you hear me, too? Aeo thought.

  “Yes.” Her tone said she wasn’t happy about that.

  What’s your name?

  She didn’t answer, but he heard her thoughts say, Dragana.

  Aeo wasn’t sure if he should reply to a thought. But then again, she heard his thoughts too. You know I’d have figured it out sooner or later. No need to be coy.

  Dragana sighed and pulled the Bok’Tarong from its sheath. Aeo could now see her clearly, and she looked directly at the blades as she spoke. “There will be little we will not share in one way or another. The relationship between the Bok’Tarong and the wielder is a partnership that binds the two souls together. Over time this bond will get stronger, until we will be two minds in one soul.”