Collide and Seek: Act 4-5 (Bitter Ashes Book 2) (11 page)

“You'll feel me die, Madeline!” Diana threatened as skeletal hands clamped down on her aged skin.

She was right. I could feel people's wounds like they were my own, and even muted, Diana's death was going to be a horrible one. Alaric squeezed my hand hard enough to make my knuckles pop and I was able to look away from the scene.

“Focus on me,” he whispered.

There were tears in my eyes as I nodded, and then the dead began their work, tearing Diana limb from limb. I fell to the ground with the pain of it as she continued screaming in vain, but Alaric kept my hand gripped tightly in his.

I focused on him, and felt a measure of calm, but Diana's emotions of pain and fear were much stronger than calm, and they leaked through until I was screaming with her. I curled up into a little ball, with one arm raised above to retain my hold on Alaric.

Suddenly her screaming stopped, and mine cut off just as abruptly. The only sound that could be heard was from the corpses dropping pieces of Diana to the ground.

They all turned empty eye-sockets to me again, with the Norn still smiling behind them. I noticed blood on skeletal hands and tatters of clothing as the corpses began to shamble in my direction. They had done their part, now it was time to do mine.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and kept my eyes averted from Diana's remains, which wasn't really difficult with what equated to mostly decomposed zombies stealing the show. I pulled away from Alaric and stood as the first one reached me and waited silently. It was a man's corpse, and I wasn't just judging by the size of the skeleton. I could still feel the energy of who he once was, trapped inside his bones.

Sick curiosity got the best of me, and I leaned down and forward to look through his ribcage. Sure enough, a perfectly preserved heart gently pulsed inside, long since abandoned by the other organs. Estus had once told me that the heart was the key to it all. Release the heart, and the spirit could fully move on.

I reached out and placed my palm against the man's ribcage. As I did so, the heart within reacted. Instead of the fear and rage I was used to from Estus' victims, I felt an overwhelming exhaustion, tinged with sadness. My knees almost buckled at the sensation. Without thinking about it, I released the heart, willing away its melancholic hurt. The bones crumbled to the ground, no longer possessing whatever magic had held them together.

The expected rush of energy wiped away my fatigue, then the next corpse came into view. I released each of them, and felt the energy build inside me as each set of bones fell to the dark earth. The Norn watched it all impassively, but made no move to interrupt.

When I was done, I turned back toward Alaric, feeling almost drunk on extra energy. It was even more of a high than what I'd felt after releasing all of Estus' long tortured hearts, letting me know that the people who'd died to keep the charm in place had been very powerful indeed.

He looked down at me with a mixture of awe, and maybe a little bit of fear as I touched my fingers to the chains that bound him. They fell away at my touch, and I had to help steady him as his feet hit the ground.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me for several seconds, tight enough that it was hard to breathe, not that I really minded.

“You are a little bit amazing,” he whispered against my hair.

“Just a little bit?” I whispered back, still feeling giddy.

We turned, hand in hand, to face the Norn. The tall creature inclined her head in our direction, then said something in her strange language.

I looked to Alaric for a translation.

His expression was thoughtful as he said, “She asks that you approach her,
alone
.”

I oddly wasn't afraid. I was still riding on waves of stolen energy. It was dizzying, yet made me feel somehow safe. I let go of Alaric's hand to approach the Norn, maintaining eye contact with her as I went. Once I reached her I had to crane my neck upward to still be looking at her face.

She smiled and reached her long fingers out to me. It was only then that I realized she only had four of them, and her hand was actually shaped more like the foot of a hawk with three fingers in front and one in the back. The fingers were tipped with pointy black talons.

The talons came to rest on the side of my face, finally causing my pulse to quicken. I only had a moment of fear, though, as images began to flash through my mind. She might not speak my language, but she could communicate in pictures, just like the corpses.

The images flashed so quickly that I couldn't make out half of them. I saw many faces I didn't recognize, violence, and scenes of ritual. Finally the images stopped to rest on a gathering of other Norns like the one standing in front of me.

As the final image faded from my mind, the Norn pulled her talons away and moved past me toward the tree that had once held Alaric captive. I turned to watch her as she stopped in front of it, looking much like a tree herself with her tall, narrow form, and loose, shape-stealing robes.

I made my way to where Alaric had gone to stand, close to the wall and off to the side so that we could see the Norn's face as she reached her hand out to the tree, placing it gently on the bark. Her other hand dove suddenly into her own chest, the talons cutting easily through her skin and clothing. Her arms were long enough that she was able to reach underneath her rib cage to search upward.

Alaric and I watched in horrified silence as she withdrew her hand to reveal her still-beating heart, perfectly removed to remain whole. She turned and held the heart out to me as blood stained her robes and she fell to her knees.

I rushed to her side with Alaric following on my heels. I had no idea how she was still alive, but the Norn looked up at me with a pained expression on her narrow face. She held the heart up, then bowed her head in pain. Understanding what she wanted me to do, I reached out and placed my fingertips against the heart, releasing it.

The deer-like horns on her head touched the soil as she slumped to the side, dead, then I was hit with energy like I'd never felt. It coursed through me, dropping me to my knees by the prostrate form of the Norn. Her pooling blood dampened my bare knees, but I barely noticed, as I looked around frantically for some way to release the energy.

It felt like it was scorching my brain, and filling my lungs with hot steam; far too much for me to hold. Seeing no other option, I placed my hands against the nearby tree and willed the energy away. I didn't picture something happening like I normally would, I just
pushed
, desperate to feel normal again.

The energy left me in a steady current, and we had just a moment of stunned silence before the world started moving again. The tree shot upward with new growth, twisting like a serpent as its bark expanded, too fast for the eye to follow. I collapsed in a panting heap beside the tree, too tired and delirious to move away.

Suddenly Alaric was there, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his arms desperately around me as we both stared up in awe at the tree. When it reached the ceiling of the space, the branches diverted away from each other and began curving back down toward us.

We tried to scramble away, suddenly afraid of being impaled by the tree, but then the branches slowed and stilled, all except for one. One tiny, hair-thin branch reached down until it was mere inches in front of my face. At its end was a small, black, metal key.

Alaric and I reached out our hands in unison as my head rested against his chest. His hand closed around mine, as mine closed around the key. It pulled away from the branch easily, and our hands came back down. We opened them, and in my palm was the key. It felt so small and mundane in my hand, but I somehow knew it was the charm that everyone was searching for.

Alaric obviously knew it too, because he softly asked, “Now that we have it, what on earth are we going to do with it?”

I looked down at the little key, then over to the Norn who had given her life to release it. Her energy had shattered whatever ritual bound it to smithereens.

I gripped the key so tightly that its edges cut into my skin. “We destroy it,” I whispered.

Alaric pulled me in a little closer as we rested in the cool soil, surrounded by bones. “As my lady wishes,” he replied, half-joking, though I knew he meant what he said.

I knew in that moment that this whole ordeal had only just begun. It would have been easy to use the charm as a bargaining chip for our own lives and freedom, but after what first the corpses, then the Norn had shown me, I couldn't just give the charm away.

Destroying it would not be easy, but I knew it was possible. The Norn had shown me how. Unfortunately, it would require many,
many
deaths. I paled at the thought, but those deaths would be nothing compared to what would happen if the charm fell into the wrong hands. It was a tool of chaos, and needed to be destroyed. The only question was, did I have the heart to do it?

“How will we destroy it?” Alaric whispered as he kissed my cheek.

I pulled my head back slightly so I could look up at him. “We're going to start a war.”

He grinned, and it was a little frightening given the context. “Why Maddy,” he said mischievously, “that just so happens to be my specialty.”

“War and Death,” I mumbled. “Partnership at its best.”

I rubbed my thumb across the key in my palm as I considered the possible consequences of such a plan, and all I could think was that things looked bleak, but . . . didn't they always?

“I
break all of my nails getting down here, and you two are just lying in the dirt!” Sophie exclaimed as she came rushing into the room.

I sat up and pulled away from Alaric, but still didn't feel steady enough to stand. I gripped the charm in my hand, feeling oddly protective over it, and not liking the feeling one bit.

Alaric laughed. “It's about time you came to the rescue. Maddy nearly killed me.”

Sophie sighed as she looked around the room, undisturbed by the piles of bones that had once been Vaettir. Her eyes came to rest on the Norn.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked, voice awestricken.

“It
was
,” Alaric corrected.

“
She
was,” I corrected on top of his correction.

I felt oddly sorry for the Norn, even though she had nearly let Diana sacrifice us. For some reason, I felt like the Norn knew all along what would happen. Norns were supposed to be weavers of fate, after all. Maybe she knew I would end up with the charm all along. Hopefully that meant I actually stood a chance of destroying it, since the Norn had given her life for that purpose.

“Can we please get out of here?” I asked weakly.

Alaric stood and helped me to my feet.

“Where's Diana?” Sophie asked as she eyed us both expectantly.

Alaric gestured with the hand that wasn't around my waist to the bloody pile in the corner of the room. Sophie looked down at it with distaste as Alaric asked, “Any sign of James?”

Sophie looked back at us and shrugged. “I left him unconscious up above. When you guys fell in the hole, the door slammed shut and wouldn't budge. I had to dig the damn thing out and rip it off its hinges.”

Well that explained the broken nails. “Can we
please
get out of here?” I asked again.

“Did he attack you?” Alaric questioned, ignoring my question as well as Sophie's griping about the door.

Sophie snorted. “No. He actually acted like he wanted to help me, but I wasn't about to leave him at my back.”

Alaric smiled knowingly at his sister. I wasn't sure what the smile was about, and at that moment, I didn't really care. I looked at them both expectantly, hoping we could finally leave.

Sophie rolled her eyes at me. “We should search this place for supplies first, unless you care to give me back my shoes?”

I cringed, supplies would be nice, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it if it meant I had to stay there a moment longer. I was rather disturbed by the whole ordeal, especially with the part I'd played, and what it meant for me in the near future.

I finally really
looked
at Sophie and realized with a start that there was now a way out of the room, since she had walked in so easily. I looked behind her to see a shadowy doorway where once had stood nothing but solid wall. The Norn's death must have unbarred the room.

“Let's go,” I instructed when Sophie just stared at me like I'd grown a second head.

She turned and led the way out of the room, but I instructed Alaric to help me over to the bloody pile that was once Diana instead of following Sophie out. 

His eyes widened when he realized my intent. “I can't believe I almost forgot,” he said, embarrassed, “ . . . though she kind of deserves to stay here and rot.”

I shook my head, thinking of the souls that had guarded the charm for far too long. “No one deserves that fate.”

With a nod of approval, Alaric helped me to kneel beside Diana's remains. Her limbs and head had all been ripped free of her body, but her torso was still mostly intact, wrapped in the bloody fabric of her clothing and cloak. I reached my hand out toward where her heart should be, but stopped as I felt something tickling at my bare leg.

I looked down slowly, hoping to whatever I should hope to that a mouse or some other creature had made its way into the underground lair.

My hope was dashed as Diana's hand, still attached to most of her petite arm, wrapped its fingers around my leg right above my boot and dug in. In an instant, Alaric was gone from my left side to pull at the dismembered arm on my right. He began prying the fingers off one by one, face calm, since I wasn't in any mortal danger. Still, having the thing clamped on my leg gave me the serious heebie jeebies, and it was hard to turn back to the task at hand.

Diana's emotions coursed through me as I reached my hand out toward her chest again. I had expected anger and hatred, but all I felt was fear and confusion. She had been alive a very, very long time, and had not expected to die, especially in such a simplistic way. She didn't want me to release her soul, because she was still clinging to whatever life she might have. Alaric pried the last of her fingers away, freeing my leg from Diana's grasp, but I barely noticed.