“So you would leave a potential Unmarked human at large?” He used her term even though it galled him to do so.
“Do you want your friend caught?” She looked at him incredulously.
“No, but without your help, he’ll die,” Rohan said bitterly.
“Then I’m afraid he will die,” Ryleth said. “For I cannot leave these people or send one of our own to go get him.”
“The people could stay safe behind the walls! It will take less than an hour to get to him!” Rohan cried. Panic flooded him at the thought of leaving a dying Finn behind.
“The walls do not cover the whole village, Rohan. Spiders can climb trees and lower themselves behind walls with their webs,” she said. “We cannot wait a moment more.”
“He’s good! Innocent! He doesn’t deserve this fate!”
“Nor do most, Rohan,” Ryleth told him, and she dug her feet into the sicen’s sides and rode farther up the caravan.
Rohan felt his heart fall. He slammed his back against the cage in frustration. Finn was going to die. Serxio was going to die. Leonid was going to die. He, too, was going to die unless he found a way out of this, and that possibility looked increasingly bleak.
Where there’s life, there’s hope, he repeated to himself. There’s still hope.
TAKE
Finn gasped as if emerging from deep water as he lost his connection with Rohan. His back arched once more, and he collapsed down in a heap. His body shook. Sweat poured down from his hairline and along the length of his spine. He drew in deep breath after deep breath. His eyes fluttered open.
He was back in the clearing in the Lupine Woods. Except, he knew he was not really here, he was simply trapped in some kind of magical dream. He heard a stirring to his right and turned his head. Marikoth was staring at him intently.
“You need to let me out of here,” Finn pleaded.
“Why? What happened?” Marikoth asked.
“I saw… I saw Rohan. He’s been captured,” Finn got out between gasping breaths. “He killed a--a spider. A gigantic spider, but they’re not grateful… they should be, but they aren’t. Something is wrong there.”
Marikoth’s eyes widened fractionally. “Something is bad there. Things are out of balance, you see.”
“Why do you sound happy about that? You’re Fae. Those are your lands. Your home.” Finn’s breathing was still so ragged. The side where his wound was burned like fire, but he had to find the strength to get up and to get to Rohan.
Marikoth’s red-eyed gaze became distant. “It was my home. It should have been my empire, but… I was sent away. Exiled. Father thought that was a kindness.”
Finn was only half listening to Marikoth’s musing. His vision was starting to tunnel. With cold terror washing over him, Finn realized he was a hair’s breadth from death. He could almost see it.
In the blackness surrounding the center of his vision, there was movement. Great black birds--ravens--flapping their wings. Then he realized that the last part wasn’t some hallucination--at least any more than the rest of this was--as a raven had fluttered down from the sky and was seated on a nearby branch. It tilted its head and regarded him out of black eyes.
“... you see it will all fail eventually. Life without death. Death without life. I used to care about balance, but now I just want to see it all burn,” Marikoth finished.
Finn tried to focus on the Fae’s face. Marikoth’s words--and he had clearly missed some in the middle there--made no sense to Finn. Death? Life? How could one exist without the other? They couldn’t.
“You’re not long now.” Marikoth leaned down and studied him.
Finn could see the strange raven over Marikoth’s right shoulder. He should have been focused on the Fae--who was bird-like in his own right, and rather like a vulture--but he found himself staring at the raven.
The bird did not look right. It appeared to be made of old bones and ancient feathers, and there was a mist of sorts--black and glittering--that seemed to hold it all together. Its eyes occasionally glowed a white-hot blue and were still fixed upon him. It flapped its wings, and a single feather drifted down to the ground. Finn was able to track it. Where it landed, the already blighted land utterly died. The grass blackened and flaked away. The brown earth beneath became gray, even the moisture in it disappeared.
What is this? Finn wondered.
“You’re not paying attention to me, little bird.” Marikoth caught Finn’s chin and forced Finn to look at him. “Are you glimpsing beyond the Veil? The Great Beyond? Well, why don’t I help you get there a little easier.”
“No,” Finn cried weakly.
There was a rapaciousness in the Fae’s eyes now. A hunger. It was almost obscene. Marikoth lightly placed a hand around Finn’s throat.
“There’s so little life left in you. If I take a sip you will just slide away into death. No more worries. No more concerns--”
“No!” Finn struggled, but it was like a kitten under a mountain lion’s paw. “Please! I have to get back! I have to save Rohan!”
“Even if you did get back, little bird, and somehow managed to survive, even if you tracked Rohan down, you couldn’t save him or anyone,” Marikoth said with a toss of his head. “You are completely untrained in how to use your magic. What could you do against Battle Mages? Hmmmm? Nothing. Better to just go into death’s sweet embrace now and give me a little taste of you.”
My magic…
Finn took life from one place and fed it to another.
Finn took life…
His eyes went to the bird. It rustled its feathers again. Was it like Marikoth, a visitor from death? Or was it from his own mind reminding him of what he could do? But it didn’t hold life either way. There was only one thing--one person--who he could take life from.
Marikoth...
For a moment, the Fae’s eyes grew unfocused as if he heard Finn’s call. The raven cocked its head to the side. Finn’s right hand reached up, and he ran the back of it down Marikoth’s cheek. The skin was smooth. Silky. Different from human skin. Not as rough. There was a faint crackling electricity from where he’d touched the Fae. And Finn felt a pulse of energy.
It worked… oh, gods, it worked. I can do this… I can take life from him into me and keep it.
Marikoth shook himself and his eyes narrowed. “What did you do, little bird?” His voice was rough and angry. “Did you try to take life from me?”
The Fae tipped his head back and let out a laugh that sounded more like a snarl.
Finn’s mouth was so dry, but this time it wasn’t altogether from blood loss but from thirst of another kind, from another source.
“I wouldn’t have to take--to take that much to recover,” Finn said. “I’m just asking for a chance--”
“A chance?!” Marikoth’s eyes flared with anger.
“To save Rohan,” Finn explained. “I won’t h-hurt you. You can make sure I don’t. I just need--”
“You fool! You think I’m going to give you life?! You think to drink from me?!” Marikoth fumed.
He’s not going to let me do it willingly, Finn realized in no uncertain terms. But I need what he has. I need just a little of what he has…