Paedrin’s heart shuddered with pain. He wanted to speak to her, to soothe her. He blinked, trying to gaze at her one last time. There were tears running down her cheeks. Her expression was fierce and full of wrath as she sent flames at the Cockatrice.
Khiara rocked back and forth, trying to remain conscious as she attempted to heal his mortal wound. She murmured a Vaettir prayer, singing to his soul as it began to slip away from his body. Her words were coaxing, pleading him to stay.
“Hettie . . .” he whispered, feeling his last breath slip away from his body, feeling the weight of his flesh sinking into the earth like a mother’s embrace.
She turned to gaze down on him, her eyes widening with shock. The flames sputtered in her hands and died. “No,” she moaned, shaking her head with disbelief. “No!”
Paedrin closed his eyes, unable to bear the look of her grief.
“I see no one,” Annon murmured. “But there is a stone at the base of the tree. It causes the mist.”
“Ah,” Tyrus said. “A spirit trapped there. Free it, and the mist will depart and the beast will be vulnerable. Go, Annon. Quickly!”
“Give me the Tay al-Ard, Tyrus,” Kiranrao said in a threatening tone.
“You cannot have it,” Tyrus answered vehemently.
The Druidecht glanced at the Romani, his face screwed up with fury and rage. There was a look bordering on madness in Kiranrao’s eyes. Annon backed away from him swiftly and then ran to the tree. He saw the stone, carved into a human face with a look of sorrow. The eyes glowed white against the rock, not brightly—he would not have even noticed it if the whispers hadn’t drawn his gaze that way.
Annon hunkered down next to the roots and reached into the small cave. The stone was heavy, the size of a bread loaf but weighing enough that he struggled to lift it out. As soon as his hands touched it, he heard the Fear Liath’s roar. The stone was suddenly cold in his hands, so cold it burned. He nearly dropped it and hissed in pain. His skin was turning gray before his eyes. Instantly, he summoned the fireblood and sent the flames pulsing into the stone, filling it with fire and heat. He struggled against its weight and the biting coldness. His hands were scorching with the cold, mixed with fire. Smoke rose from the stone and livid flecks began to seethe inside the rock. He channeled magic into the rock, trying to free the spirit trapped inside.
There was the sound of wild crashing in the woods. The Fear Liath was charging at him, undoubtedly aware that its defense was failing. Panic strained at Annon’s nerves. He wanted to hurl the stone and run for his life, but he battled down his fear and increased the heat and pressure. Slits began to form. Orange flames engulfed the rock, surrounding it like a living orb, but the flame was not hot enough yet. Annon drew deeper into his power, feeling the urge and craving for it grow with wildness inside his heart.
Cockatrice suddenly plummeted around him, landing on his back and shoulders, slashing him with their hooked claws. He felt their beaks stabbing at his head, and he knew the pain and the itching would drive him insane if the fireblood didn’t madden him first. He screamed in torment, sinking to his knees while clutching the rock to his stomach and filling it with fire.
“Annon, destroy it!” Tyrus roared.
The Fear Liath crashed into the grove, snarling with fury. Annon could not see it, but he felt the monster’s awful presence, its insatiable hunger. In a strange moment of sudden calm, he understood the beast’s nature. It fed on terror, literally. It was a cruel spirit that tormented its victims with shadows and roars before rising up terribly with claws and snout to eat them alive, creating a feast of fear that only sated its hunger a short while. Some of its victims it dragged back to its lair, where it nursed their fear with helplessness and misery, preying upon those terrible emotions.
The insight was quick, horrifying. But Annon understood its nature now.
Annon clutched the stone to his stomach, no longer having any feeling in his blackened hands. He drew deeper inside himself, using the fireblood to quench his fear. His grief at losing Nizeera and Neodesha was snuffed out. His rage at the Arch-Rike was extinguished. Calmness and peace flooded his heart.
The rock exploded inside his crippled hands. Burning chunks crumbled around his boots, snapping and hissing into the detritus of leaves. The blast sent the Cockatrice flapping again into the trees in full retreat.
Annon turned to face the monster as the Fear Liath’s claws raked across his cheek, whipping him aside and toppling him. He still clutched a smoking fragment of rock in his hand. The pain in his face was horrible, but he was not afraid. Not afraid of dying. Not afraid of anything. He tried to sit up, to stare at the ravaged eye sockets of the Fear Liath, to face his death with courage and defiance. As he blinked through the pain, he saw the mist was receding away from the woods, draining like a ruptured sack.