Martyr (18 page)

Tomás included.

18

Tomás
vanished into the shadows a moment later, saying he couldn't stay there anymore without attracting attention. Tenn sat, huddled on the floor, staring at the space Tomás had just occupied. The moment the incubus was gone, he felt cold, hollowed-out. It was like Tomás had come in and carved out every corner of emotion left in Tenn's body and swallowed it whole, leaving him both numb and raw at the same time.

Well, one part of him decidedly had feeling.

The shock from the break was wearing off, and sharp pain stabbed through Tenn's arm. He gritted his teeth. It wasn't the act of healing he was preparing for; it was the inevitable discussion with whomever came storming in to see why he was using magic. That meant working and thinking up a story, fast.

He dragged himself over to the bed. His arm dangled sickly at the side, and every lurch made his head swim with pain and nausea. He tried not to pass out. Then he'd never be able to explain it.

When he finally flopped down on the bed, he arranged the sheets around him with his good hand and mentally composed himself.

He gingerly touched his arm and found the fracture. Even with that one touch, he could tell it was broken neatly in two. A spiral fracture, he believed it was called. His arm flopped on the bed like a wet noodle. With painful slowness, he readjusted it. He clamped his teeth together to keep from screaming. Once it seemed like the bone was lined up, he opened to Earth and shot a lance of magic through his body, numbing his nerves. Another pulse of magic, and his fracture mended in a dizzying instant. He flopped back on the bed the second the tension released, and not a moment too soon.

The door burst open. In came the twins and the unnamed Priestess.

“Is everything okay?” Dreya asked the moment they were inside. Their eyes cast around to the shadows of the room, but of course, there was nothing to be seen. Not anymore.

Tenn feigned surprise and blinked. “What? Where am I?” He hesitated and looked around the room, let his voice drop. “Oh.”

He released Earth. A dull ache spread through him, but it was a small price to pay.

“I thought you were in trouble…”

Tenn shook his head. “I was scanning. Where the hell are we?”

“You seem to have calmed down,” the Priestess said. Tenn noticed she distinctly avoided the question, but she didn't avoid looking at him like he was an interesting specimen or a misbehaving child. Ironic, since she looked like she was barely fifteen. She stepped forward.

“Don't kid yourself,” Tenn said. “I still hate you for what you did.”

The girl shrugged. “Be that as it may, I
did
save your life. I suggest you lose the attitude before the Prophets see you.”

“Who are you anyway?”

“My name is Erin,” she said, giving a slight bow. “And to answer your previous question, you are in the temple of Maya, though I cannot give you its exact location. As I'm sure you understand.” She walked closer, now that it was clear Tenn wouldn't rush her again, and sat on the edge of his bed.

“I am sorry for your loss. We have all lost so many in this war, and I fear we have only tasted the beginning. But do not let that cloud your mind forever.”

Tenn wanted to be pissed at the girl, pissed at her and the Prophets and the rest of the Priests, especially since the Prophets seemed to have a death wish for him. But he knew they weren't the reason the world was the way it was. They weren't the monsters that would have taken Jarrett away from him sooner or later. His vendetta was against Leanna. No, his fight was against the mythical Dark Lady herself, the goddess and creator of the necromancers and their spawn. He knew revenge wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't bring Jarrett back. But maybe, just maybe, it would mean no one else would have to feel this way again. That alone was worth dying for.

“You said you brought me here because the Prophets wanted to see me,” he said. The twins exchanged a look, one he didn't even want to try and read. He knew his change in temper was unsettling, and he knew Dreya—always one for decorum—was probably dying inside because of his attitude. He didn't care. He just wanted out of here. He had some blood to spill.

Erin nodded. If she was taken aback, she didn't show it.

“They are waiting,” she said. “Would you like anything to eat first? It's nearly noon.”

He shook his head and forced himself off the bed. The ache in his arm was a little worse, but he couldn't risk using any more magic without having to explain it away. His stomach was already rumbling loud as thunder. He'd used far too much Earth in the last twenty-four hours. He needed to eat. To actually rest. But the last thing he wanted was to stick around here and make small talk with the girl who had inadvertently pulled him away from his only lifeline. He needed to keep moving.

More than anything else, he needed to make someone pay.

“We will be here,” Dreya said, “when you return.”

He paused. “You're not coming with?”

She shook her head, but it was Erin who answered.

“The Prophets will speak to you alone. No other is meant to hear their prophecy.”

Tenn's gut churned over again, and not from hunger. It was one thing to have people say you were being singled out. It was another to stand on the doorstep of finding out why. But he had some questions of his own. Like why they had used him as bait and why they seemed to fluctuate between wanting him killed and wanting him safe.

“Lead on,” he said. He did his best to steel his voice. He doubted it was very effective.

Erin stood and led him from the room. He was expecting long, dim corridors to await him outside the room, maybe even the sound of chanting, the whiff of frankincense. After all, the residents called themselves priests, right? But the moment he stepped out the door, his expectations shattered.

The corridor was long, yes, and there were torches in iron sconces along one wall. But that was only one wall. The other side of the corridor was edged with a wood-and-iron banister that reached Tenn's waist. And beyond? Green. Giant green leaves twice the size of his body hid massive ashen trunks that twisted out of sight. Vines curled and draped like wedding lace from the branches. The air in the courtyard was warm, thick, and filled with the sounds of birds and monkeys. Something flickered between the branches, something with scaled wings that was definitely not a bird. He couldn't see through the dense vegetation to know if there was another side, but the hall seemed to curve both before and behind him, so he assumed the entire place circled around this piece of jungle.

“Where are we?” Tenn gasped. He walked up and gripped the warm banister, staring as high up into the trees as he could. Although warm light filtered down from above, he couldn't actually see the sky.

“That…is difficult to explain.” She walked up next to him and stared out. “What do you know of Maya?”

“Not much,” he said, awe momentarily overtaking his thirst for revenge. “I thought it was just a myth.”

“If only,” she said with a small laugh. “Maya is no myth. It's the Sphere of spirit, the very fabric of everything within and without Creation. The other Spheres, the elements, they let us play with the forces of nature. Maya lets us play God.”

The way she said it…there was no humor, no lightness. Her words conveyed a burden Tenn could barely comprehend.

“As you know, one cannot be attuned to Maya, not like the other Spheres. One must seek it through practice, through devotion, and Maya must reach back. But playing God has terrible consequences, and even the greatest of mages may wilt under Maya's rules.”

“Rules? You said…when you brought me back, that you couldn't just return me there. Why?”

“It wasn't safe, for one thing,” she said. She glanced up at him. “My charge was to bring you here safely, not allow you to walk back into the arms of death. Too much is on your shoulders for such hasty decisions.”

“So you lied.”

“No, that was only part.” She looked out at the forest again. “To use Maya requires sacrifice. You think you understand the impact of changing the world through your use of the Spheres—the blowback, the drain. But Maya is worse. Maya requires an equal and opposite exchange.”

“What was the exchange for bringing us here?” he asked.
What did another stranger sacrifice for me?

“I didn't just move you by bringing you here. I tore you from your path, I gave you another chance. I changed the course of not only your future, but the entire world's. In doing so, I had to give up my own future.”

“I don't understand.”

She smiled sadly, but not at him. She didn't take her eyes off the trees.

“I am unraveling,” she said. “Slowly. It will take years, but I have given up the future I could have had in order to save yours. That is why I could not take you back. To use that magic again would have completely destroyed me before I got you there safely.”

She turned to him then, and her smile changed. The sadness left, replaced by pure kindness.

“That is the nature of Maya—sacrifice is our greatest power. Come. We shouldn't keep the Prophets waiting.”

She began to walk, leaving him no choice but to follow. He turned from the rail and trailed her down the long, curved corridor. More guilt settled in his gut. The girl, the poor, young girl, was going to die just so he could be here, just so he could stay safe. Just like Jarrett had.

A few corridors down, and the atmosphere changed completely. The warmth and humidity faded to a chill that crept under Tenn's clothes and dug deep into his skin. The hall ended abruptly in a set of iron stairs that curled down into a dim purple darkness. Erin didn't even hesitate. She took the stairs without looking back to Tenn, her feet echoing in the deep, tubular descent.

Tenn followed. The banister was rough and cold under his hand as he circled down. At first, he thought he was seeing things, but then he realized the faint flecks in his vision weren't illusions at all, but crystals. Hundreds of tiny, glowing crystals spiderwebbed across the tunnel's walls, constellations of pale purple and white that made his skin look ghostly. With every step, the lights grew brighter, as though they were descending into some mythical faerie kingdom. The fog that began to swirl around his ankles only added to that image.

Finally, the tunnel opened out into a cavern the size of his room. The walls were domed and covered in more veins of crystal, a spiderweb of glowing purple. More fog swirled over pools of water as still as silver. Black stalagmites thrust from the cavern floor, nearly reaching their twin stalactites dripping from the ceiling. Everything was black and purple and dusty white, as though the world had been muted down to only the basest of colors.

Erin paused beside a black wooden door that arched high above, like the entrance to a cathedral. Water poured from a small fissure in the wall and snaked its way down into a tiny pool below. Lights flashed within the water. They looked like tiny silver fish.

Without speaking, she bent down and picked up a small brass bowl near the edge and raised it to the fissure, filling it with water. Then she turned and held the bowl in front of her chest, head dipped as if in prayer. Tenn remained near the steps, one hand awkwardly gripping the railing.

“I call to the Ancients,” she whispered. Her voice sent chills over Tenn's skin. “To the Language None Shall Speak. Hear me.” Was it just his imagination, or did more light seem to glimmer off the bowl? Symbols flashed across the copper surface, quick sears of light that seemed to whisper in the gloom. When she looked up at Tenn, her eyes glinted purple.

“What you see within this hall is for you alone. The mysteries spoken may be shared, but those who speak your riddles shall remain nameless. Blameless. To this you are bound.” There was no mistaking it—there
were
lights flickering around the bowl, though Tenn couldn't sense any magic at work. “Do you accept these terms?” Erin asked.

“I…I do,” Tenn said. He walked the last few steps between them, compelled forward by a gravity he couldn't place. Erin raised the bowl out to him. When he placed his hands on the metal, a current passed between them. She didn't let go.

“Then to these terms you are bound, by earth and water, blood and stone and breath, from now until creation's end. Drink and know your words are sealed. May you find the answers you seek.”

She released the bowl, and he brought it to his lips after the slightest pause. The water was cool and electric as it passed over his lips, swirling down his throat and coursing through his blood. When he held the bowl out for her, he was surprised to find it empty. His whole body tingled.

She took the bowl and set it back on the ground. Without another word, she pushed open the door and gestured for him to enter.

He expected her to follow close behind, but the moment the door shut behind him he realized he was, in fact, alone. Not that he paid her absence much attention. No, his focus was on the barrage of sound that slammed into him the moment the door shut. Voices. Hundreds of them. For a moment, he thought he'd somehow stepped back in time, back to a place where large crowds of talking people were still an everyday occurrence. It sounded like he was in the midst of a train station. The mumbled conversation ebbed and swelled around him like waves of a sea, and for the first few moments, that was the only impression he had of the place. Then his eyes adjusted to the dim light, and he was able to begin to make out where he was.