Paedrin plunged forward, pointing the sword where he had last seen the Romani, and it struck into the earth harmlessly. He stopped his flight, kneeling on the ground, breathing fast, beginning to feel the first vestiges of panic. His heart thumped wildly in his chest and he tried to calm it. He listened, trying to hear the sound of fleeing boots. Nothing. He realized that he had never really heard Kiranrao’s movements when he was engulfed in his shadow-cloak. Closing his eyes, he reached out to discern the Romani through his blind vision.
Nothing.
Wild panic began to throb inside his mind. What had he done? Crouching on the rugged earth, he began to gasp with fear and dread. He lacked Hettie’s skills, could not track a man through the woods. His decision to hunt down Kiranrao was purely born of hatred and raw emotion. He had never trusted Kiranrao—had never understood why Tyrus insisted he come along. Murdering Khiara had been the ultimate betrayal, the ultimate sign of the lack of Tyrus’s wisdom. Their whole world had been shattered, and he had felt such a raw surge of hate and vengeance that it made him forget everything a Bhikhu ought to be.
With mounting agony, he could almost see Master Shivu’s scolding eyes, his look of disappointment and disapproval. This was not how he was trained. This was not what he had determined to be. And even worse, he had left Hettie behind screaming.
Paedrin regretted his decision immediately. He felt the shock of the abandonment. They had left him. Turning, he launched back the way he had come, shooting past the trees, hurrying to return to the place where the group had huddled near the broken Dryad tree. After several moments, he nearly went mad with panic, wondering if he was already lost. Which way was it? The trees all looked the same.
Movement fluttered in the trees ahead. He could hear the coos and clucks of the Cockatrice, fidgeting in the tree line. What had he done? What stupidity, what recklessness! He cursed himself a thousand times, wending through the trees, trying to find the place of the massacre.
His robes were still damp with his own blood. He touched his skin, feeling not even the trace of a scar. But inside his heart, the wounds were deeper, bleeding, ravaged. How could he have been this foolish? How could he have lost himself so utterly?
There.
He saw the broken Dryad tree. Skeletal. Abandoned.
Dropping down to a low crouch, he saw where the others had been standing before they vanished, drawn away by the Tay al-Ard. His mind whirled to make sense of it. If the Tay al-Ard was working, why hadn’t they escaped the fight with the Cockatrice and the Fear Liath? Tyrus had summoned them to him and it hadn’t worked. Was that real? He realized how little he understood about the operation of the device or its limits.
Blackness swam in his vision. Or was Tyrus mad? Had he lost control of himself? Had he lost himself to the madness of the fireblood? He remembered the warning that Annon and Hettie had shared with him about using their magic. He remembered seeing the look in their eyes—like a craving.
Paedrin knelt, plunging the blade into the ground, and rested on its hilt, breathing heavily. The others were gone. There was not a sound from any of them. With a swallow, he realized the Fear Liath’s lair was nearby, probably a cave where the sunlight would not penetrate.
The fluttering of wings sounded in the treetops above him. Spasms of agony pierced his mind. He was alone in the Scourgelands. He had forsaken the quest and his companions in a fit of blind rage. And when the dark came, the Fear Liath would emerge from its den and begin to hunt him.
What have I done?
There was a noise behind him, the crack of a twig.
Closing his eyes, he drew on his blind vision, expecting Kiranrao to be sneaking up behind him with the dagger. He readied himself to swing around and cut the Romani in half.
No one.
He whirled, swinging the blade around in a broad circle. He stood still, poised, a bead of sweat dripping from his nose.
He heard a voice, a little distant and full of pain.
“Help.”
Baylen.
When Phae had squeezed the carved stone in her fist, she had felt its magic begin to swell. With the Fear Liath snuffling over her, the stone’s magic had drawn part of her—the living part of her—inside its peculiar facets. She lost all connection with her body, but strangely out of all her senses, she still possessed her hearing. The pain from her wounds was gone. It was strangely blissful, like a deep yawn that went on forever. There was no breath, yet everything had an airy quality. She sensed the Fear Liath sniff at her, smelling for a sign of life, but there was none. Then its snout sniffed against her arm and began nudging it, trying to loosen her hand from her pocket.
“Get back!” Shion threatened. She could not see him, but she sensed his presence, like a shaft of light in the dark, too bright to even look at. The Fear Liath snarled in savage anger and the two collided again. She could hear the huffed bark, the snarl of anger, and Shion was thrown again, smashing into the tree next to her.