House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(90)

It was Rutherook, I understand now, not Yew. He was feinting earlier, making me think he was no more than a bumbling apprentice.

“Don’t damage the bat, I want it,” Eline says. He’s walking across the room, but still not in view. Warm liquid is dampening my back against the wall, and I can smell blood, hot and coppery. My hands and feet are growing colder, my head heavier, but still I cannot move. There’s no feel of Jannik’s magic. Snuffed out. I don’t want to think what that means and I can’t even open my mouth to speak, to say some last word to Jannik, to tell him that I’m sorry, that it shouldn’t have happened like this. I try think it, hoping that it will wing its way from my house of the imagination to his, but there is no sound of sand, no whispering of birds.

The pressure is building against my face, keeping even my eyes open. They’re drying, an itching burn that is somehow worse than the numbness at my back.

“There’s a lot of blood,” Eline says. “Keep them from bleeding out.”

“I’m doing my best,” Rutherook grunts. “Yew could help, were he so inclined.”

“Could I,” drawls Yew, bantering as if we were all exchanging barbed pleasantries at a party.

Eline walks into view. He touches my face, carefully slapping one cheek to see if I will move. The pain is sharp, but distant. “Still there.” He glances across to where Rutherook must still be sprawled, like a spider watching an insect in his web. “You can keep her alive?”

“Of course.” Rutherook’s voice is deep. “The bat will be harder. I didn’t expect it to hit that damn Narlet. Bloody man always had a thing for sticking spikes on everything he made. Tore a hole right through him.”

Tore a hole right through him.

No.

I step out of this reality, and into the crumbling house inside my mind. I do not want to hear them discuss how long my Jannik has to live. The pain drops away as if it never existed. I sit down on my childhood bed, and twist one arm behind my back to feel along my spine. There are no wounds. Why should there be? I stare at the stone walls, and watch the mortar sliding from the cracks. Outside there, back in Eline’s glass-covered room, I am dying.

Jannik may be dead already. I run my fingers along the coverlet. My face is wet. I’m powerless. I never could save the ones I loved. I wonder how long it will take me to die. Bonded, I should be able to feel his ending. But here in my room, I am safe from that, at least. Will I just stop breathing outside, and here in this too-small memory of my childhood, will everything go black? A quiet nothing of an end.

No.

If this is how we will go, at least it will be us together. I bring down the walls of my room, let them fall. Let them go. There is pain. Voices buzz. I can’t feel my legs.

“There, she’s conscious again.”

I manage an agonizing sip of air and hang on to my calm. Not all this pain is mine. I pick between them. He has been pierced, I feel it now – a second-hand cramping in my stomach, like a reminder of what I did to Carien. He’s there, still alive, still magic. And if he is, I should be able to reach that and use it. So why then can I not?

It takes me a moment before I realize it’s because I’m bound in a way that is worse than iron or ropes. Jannik is doing this to me. Or rather, Jannik’s approaching death. The magic that should be at my command is cut away from me, and strive as I might, I can just barely feel it, like the edge of a feather against my face. Mentally, I grasp at that touch, try to pull it into me. Give me the slightest bit of power and I will tear these four into so many scraps of flesh that the sharif will not be able to piece the bodies together again.

There. Again. The feather touch. I cling. I will hold to this if it takes the very last of my breath from me. Before Jannik dies, before I do, Eline will know what a Pelim’s revenge feels like.

The feather slips away, fading.

No. I refuse. With all my will concentrated so that the sound of Eline’s and his cohorts fades, I follow that feather.

“Can she breathe?” Eline says.

“Barely,” Rutherook answers. “But if I give her any more leeway Gris knows what she’s–”

Light burns out my mind, blinding me, leaving me aching and hollow. I blink and try to shake the white glare out of my head. I can move. I’m on my hands and knees, glass crunching like grit into my palms. They’ve let me fall.

Why then can I hear nothing but the faint whisper rustle of sand grains tumbling over each other? I manage to open my eyes. There is a wide blue sky overhead. Empty of everything, no sun or clouds, but somehow light fills the space. Golden sand is all around me, stretching blankly for miles around. There is no house of sand, no rivers or singing birds. I stand, the grains falling from my dress in a soft shower. The dunes roll out endlessly on every side, their sides rippled like the ribs of half-buried mammoth creatures.

“Jannik?” The word is weak, dying. My voice cannot pierce this desolation. I turn around. Nothing. It doesn’t matter which way I walk, they all present the same nothingness.

A hot breeze sends more sand falling over the lips of the dunes, making the grains look like the spray of sea-waves. Something small and black drops before my bare feet. I crouch down to catch the tiny piece of fluff between my forefinger and thumb. It is soft, downy. A breast feather of some dark bird, a raven perhaps. Holding the feather tightly, I walk into the wind and let it sear the dried tear tracks from my face.