Tears of War (42 page)

There, a seam, but tightly closed.

“How long until it Separates her from her dragon?”

“It didn’t say. I had hoped it would have already,” Azurynn’s silky voice answered.

Kirynn’s eyes snapped open as dread clawed up her spine. Separate her from Syrakynn? What did that mean?

Azurynn cocked her head slightly to the side as she tapped one finger against her lips. “I sense the bond has weakened, though not as much as I would have liked.” She met Kirynn’s eyes. “I wonder if you will feel your dragon’s soul being torn away from you?”

Lose Syrakynn? Oh Fates, she had to get out of this. She couldn’t let Syrakynn be taken from her. Why would the bond be weakening? Kirynn wrenched against the rope, kicking at the creepy woman, ignoring the pain as the fibers cut into her wrists and blood trickled down her arms. “What have you done to her?” Fury rose up and buried the fear.

“Done to her?” Azurynn’s eyebrows rose slightly. “We have done nothing to her. But the chain you wear around your neck cuts you off from her and your magic, and it will eventually tear her soul away from yours. Already the ties that bind you two together are weakening. It’s quite fascinating really.”

Kirynn arched against the wall and pushed off, kicking her foot out again. Satisfaction flooded her as she clipped Azurynn’s chin. The other woman’s head snapped back as she fell, landing hard on the stone.

Kirynn smiled coldly as her body slammed back against the cold stone. Whether or not they succeeded in tearing Syrakynn from her, they were dead women. Azurynn picked herself up from the floor, hatred filling her ugly eyes. Sulwyna laughed. “I told you to stay back. If you would stop playing with her and use your senses, you would have known what she was planning.”

Azurynn rubbed her jaw and glared at the other Shadow Rider. “You could have warned me.”

Sulwyna shook her head. “It is your problem if you are not paying attention. You’ve been training as long as I have. I’m not here to hold your hand.”

Pain flooded Kirynn’s head. It felt like a metal spike being driven through her forehead. She groaned as the pain built and darkness pressed in.

Azurynn’s voice rang in her ears. “Sulwyna, if you break her soul shield, I won’t be able to observe the effects of the chain on her. She’ll be too far gone to register any of it.”

The agony lessened until nothing but a dull ache remained. Panting, Kirynn glared at the two women. She would get out of this.

Sulwyna laughed. “If only looks could kill, right Guardian?”

Kirynn took a deep breath, letting it out slowly while she centered herself and went back to her exploration of the barrier in her mind. It only took a moment to find the seam this time. She began to work at it, searching for a weak spot.

Syrakynn burned a long line of Kojen, doing her best to avoid the front line where Border Guards mixed heavily with the creatures as they attempted to beat them back.
“Kirynn! Where are you?”
she sent, trying to desperately to reach her missing rider. It had been hours and still only silence met her.

A ripple of weakness washed through her long body.

“Syrakynn,”
came the sending from Shryden.
“You’re fading!”

The red tried to clear her suddenly sluggish mind as she struggled to maintain flight, anguish crushing her heart. Kirynn must be dead. Namir roared in protest. Syrakynn managed to clear the combatants on the ground before crashing and sliding across the sand. She could barely lift her wings.

Paki landed next to her as Taela ripped away the safety straps. Another wave of weakness flooded Syrakynn and she laid her head on the ground. Taela appeared in front of her, putting her hands on either side of Syrakynn’s snout. “Please don’t fade, Syrakynn.” Tears swam in Taela’s eyes. “Your rider isn’t dead. I can’t find her, but I can still sense her. She isn’t far and she lives.”

Syrakynn reached out for Taela, the unused path to her mind unfamiliar,
“I have no control over it. Something is tearing me away and I can’t stop it.”

“You have to fight it Syrakynn,”
Taela sent back.

A heavy weight pressed down on Syrakynn as she closed her eyes.
“There is no fighting Separation…”

Taela’s sobs filtered through the thick fog settling over her mind. The roars of the other dragons in the battle filled the air. Syrakynn took a deep shuddering breath as a sharp, painful tingle ran through every nerve. Her soul was coming loose.

She sighed deep and waited. There was nothing else to do. Nothing else she could do. Syrakynn only hoped Taela was wrong and Kirynn was dead. She didn’t want to go to Maiadar alone.

In the darkness that slowly pulled over her like a blanket, something stirred. A trickle of awareness. A tiny thread of a connection. Kirynn! Syrakynn reached for it and held on to it.

So faint it was barely audible in her mind, she heard her rider.
“Don’t leave me, Syrakynn. I’m here; I’m trying to reach you.”

Another thread slipped through whatever kept them apart and Syrakynn felt a little bit of strength return. More threads slipped through allowing a connection the size of a thick rope. Strength raced through Syrakynn’s legs and wings.

Taela gasped. “Syrakynn, your color is returning.”

She opened her eyes and stared at Taela standing before her.
“She is clawing her way back to me. I can sense her now.”
More connection pushed through the weakening wall between them. Syrakynn wished she could help, but she didn’t sense what Kirynn fought against.

Kirynn ripped another hole in the seam and another. Syrakynn’s strength and love poured into her.

“She’s breaking it,” Azurynn growled.

Sulwyna gave Azurynn a flat look. “You messed it up.”

Kirynn ignored them and forced the seam wide open. The barrier fractured all the way around the dark hole. She attacked it with her mind. It shuddered then crumbled. Her bond with Syrakynn flooded her along with her magic. The presence of the red roared into her mind as Kirynn opened her eyes.

Flames raced up her arms to the rope. She hit the floor with a thud, her legs not ready for the sudden need to hold her up. Azurynn bolted from the room, but Sulwyna narrowed her eyes.

Pain burst behind Kirynn’s eyes but she didn’t care. Fueled by rage, she focused past it and threw a weave at the woman. Sulwyna screamed as fire erupted from every pore in her skin. The Shadow Rider fell to the floor, thrashing.

A rush of wind gusted past Kirynn as if something had sucked all of the air into the other chamber. She climbed to her feet and stumbled past the now silent and still burning form of Sulwyna. The muscles in her shoulders screamed from having the weight of her body pulled against them for so long. Kirynn rolled her arms, wincing as she stepped into the cavern. Azurynn and her dragon were gone.

A harsh scream filled the cave, echoing off the walls. Covering her ears, Kirynn turned toward the sound. A black dragon thrashed against the dark stone wall as its body collapsed in on itself. It withered and crumbled until it was nothing more than dull black scales stretched over the skeleton.

Kirynn stared at it. The thick, sickly sweet smell of burning flesh drifting on the smoke from the alcove clogged her throat and nose. Coughing, she pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose and glanced back at the body. She could put the fire out, but she wasn’t going to. Let the pile of Kojen-dung burn until there was nothing left.

Kirynn looked around. How in the name of the Fates was she supposed to get out of here? She stepped to the edge of the water. It was a massive underground spring. A large tube ran diagonally from one side of the spring up into the stone wall. That didn’t get there by accident, which meant there was a way in and out of here.

She’d just discovered rough stairs cut into the wall when Syrakynn reached out to her,
“Stay right there. I am coming for you and I don’t want the edge of the Slide to hit you.”

Kirynn sighed with relief and sank down onto the stairs. The air over the spring began to swirl like a whirlpool. The Slide widened until it cut through the ceiling and the side walls. Syrakynn’s beautiful, red body came through with Serena on her back. Paki and Taela came through right behind her.

They landed with a splash in the shallows where the water lapped at the rock. Relief and love flooded Kirynn.
“I thought I might never see you again,”
she sent.

The red gazed at her with her big, bright green eyes.
“Next time don’t take so long to answer me when I call for you.”

Kirynn laughed.
“Hopefully, there won’t be a next time.”

Serena and Taela ran up to her. Serena knelt on the step below, examining Kirynn’s wrists. “What happened to you? And what is that around your neck?

Kirynn reached up and felt the thick links of chain for the first time. She tried to pull it away and winced. Serena stopped her. “Don’t, it’s embedded into your skin.”

“How do I get it off?” Kirynn’s skin crawled. What had they put on her?

Taela looked at her with worry. “Kellinar is Sliding to Galdrilene to get Emallya. Whatever that is, it’s evil. I can see the symbols in the weave on it. It makes my head ache to read them, but I believe this came from the Kor’ti.”

Kirynn’s heart sank. Azurynn had created the chain. They had someone who could read the shadow book.

Puzzled, she looked up. “Why is Kellinar here? For that matter, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Haraban or Trilene or something?”

“We were supposed to be on our way to Trilene right now, but while you were down here lying about, there was a battle with a swarm of Kojen. We came to help since you were missing.” Taela smiled.

Kirynn frowned. “Azurynn and Sulwyna said I was their experiment. The Kojen must have been a diversion. I heard a man’s voice, but I can’t remember it well enough to recognize it but it seemed familiar. I was still coming around from whatever they had drugged me with. He wanted to leave and one of them told him he could go back to pretending.” She tried to bring the memory into focus but it wouldn’t come. “There is a rat among the Council it would seem.”

Serena frowned at the wounds on Kirynn’s wrists. “Why do you think it’s someone in the Council?”

“It had to be someone pretty high up to allow them entrance.” Kirynn glanced up at Taela who was staring at her. “What?”

“What was that name you said?”

“Azurynn?” Kirynn asked. “She was one of the Shadow Riders here. She can use the shadow side of Spirit magic. I was going to kill her but the coward ran.”

Taela shook her head. “No, the other one.”

“Sulwyna. She used Spirit magic too.”

“What happened to her?”

Kirynn shrugged. “I killed her. Why?”

Taela looked around the cavern. “Where is she?”

“In that alcove over there.” She waved her hand toward the arched opening.

Kirynn looked at Serena as Taela walked away. “What was that about?”

Serena shook her head still looking at the wounds. “I don’t know.” She sounded as if she had barely paid attention to the conversation.

“Are you trying to see if you can heal by frowning?”