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  Jin jerked suddenly, as if she’d tried to move and was pulled up short. She grimaced, her body suffused with a whitish light. Stumbling forward, she raised a kali stick, aiming at Ma’s unprotected back.

  Before Char could shout a warning, Ma spun. She brought her hands together and then snapped them apart with a strange twisting motion. Jin screamed. The bottom half of her body seemed to shrink, her legs shortening, while the top half sank in upon itself, muscle and flesh mottling, withering as she watched. It was the work of years done in seconds. Jin lay on the floor, the tiny feet of an infant poking out of grey bandages, while the heart of a hundred-year-old woman faltered and died in her chest. Her clouded eyes, when she turned them on Ma, were disbelieving and full of horror.

  The remaining warriors looked from Ma to Jin’s crumpled form. They stared at Char, at the bodies of their comrades that lay in a bloodied circle around him. ‘Throw down your weapons,’ Ma told them, breathing hard. Char thought she deliberately avoided glancing at Jin.

  The du-alakat looked to their leader, who stood outside the battle surrounding Kyndra. The woman’s eyes were fixed on the Starborn as she turned some object over in her hands. Half a dozen warriors were down, some little more than smoking piles, others literally frozen solid, or bleeding from missing limbs. But Kyndra couldn’t fight forever. Those du-alakat still on their feet were wearing her down second by second, fast enough to avoid many of her attacks, which were growing clumsier. She might have the power of the stars, Char thought, but Kyndra was no warrior. He’d seen that plainly enough when he’d tried to teach her the sticks. And he’d heard the story – Kyndra had told him herself – of the time she lost control, obliterating half a thousand men, rending up the very earth. In such a confined space as this, perhaps she feared to call on Sigel lest she hurt him and Ma.

  Instead of throwing down their weapons as Ma had demanded, the du-alakat surrounding them disappeared, rematerializing in the throng around Kyndra. They were fighting on the edge of the mandala. Although their feet touched the pattern of sand, it did not scuff, as if the dragon’s blood somehow fused it to the stone.

  Jin’s death had stolen the hard mask from Ma’s face, but now it returned. ‘They have chosen their course,’ she murmured. She looked at Char. ‘We take out as many as we can. Every death weakens the eldest.’

  He nodded, and they moved towards the fray. A gap opened up and Char saw Kyndra, her face a grimace of concentration. In her left hand she held ice; in her right, wind, which caught up the nearest Khronostian, hurling him over the heads of his comrades to smash into the chamber wall. Their eyes met in that instant, blue to yellow, and Char knew what was about to happen before it did. He opened his mouth to roar a warning, but the Khronostian leader was already there.

  Swift, steady, the woman’s hand flashed out … and clamped something on Kyndra’s wrist. Kyndra spared it only a glance before she plunged her own hand into the woman’s chest.

  Everything stopped. The battle halted. The Khronostian glanced down at the arm embedded in her flesh and up at Kyndra, who snarled and pulled her hand back, clutching the woman’s heart. Although blood gushed from the wound, the Khronostian’s eyes strayed to Kyndra’s left wrist and she smiled as she toppled backwards.

  As if her death were a signal, the du-alakat sheathed their weapons, joined hands and were gone in a wisp of whitish light.

  The sudden silence was disorientating. The sharp stink of blood and spilled human offal mingled with the older scent of dragon until Char’s sensitive nostrils could barely stand it. He breathed through his mouth instead, tasting the same blood upon his tongue. Unlike animal blood, it made him feel sick.

  Kyndra looked at her wrist where the Khronostian had clamped an ugly iron bracelet. ‘Kyndra,’ Ma said sharply, ‘don’t touch—’

  Kyndra gestured; the bracelet glowed yellow-white as if returned to the forge and melted, dripping harmlessly off her Tyr-covered skin.

  ‘… that,’ Ma finished too late. Because there was a pattern hidden in the tarnished metal, a pattern that ominously resembled a Khronostian mandala. It pulsed once before sinking into Kyndra’s wrist.

  The effect was immediate. One by one, Kyndra’s fingers began to wrinkle, the skin sagging, the knucklebones standing stark. She gazed at her hand, first perplexed then horrified, suddenly no more than a teenage girl. Ma seized Kyndra’s hand, pressing one of her ouroboros-patterned palms against the Starborn’s. Kyndra gasped, squeezing her eyes shut, while Ma muttered under her breath. When Ma took her palm away, Kyndra’s fingers were still wrinkled and crooked, but the deterioration seemed to have stopped.

  ‘That was foolish, girl,’ Ma snapped. She looked exhausted. ‘Why don’t you think before you act?’

  Kyndra’s cheeks were ashen as she stared at her changed hand. ‘What … was that?’

  ‘They needed you to destroy the bracelet – it was the only way to activate the mandala.’ Ma shook her head, chiding. ‘I should have known the eldest would try to compromise you.’

  ‘And what has it done to me?’

  ‘It’s based on the same mandala that binds the Lleu-yelin,’ Ma said with a glance at the dragon behind them. ‘A time trap powered by your own life force.’

  ‘But you’ve stopped it, haven’t you?’ It was the most emotion Kyndra had shown in weeks, Char thought.

  ‘Only slowed its progress. It will kill you … eventually.’

  Kyndra’s dark eyes widened before turning introspective; she must be speaking to the stars. Abruptly her body dissolved into shadow and light, as it had done on the day they’d fought the Khronostians. Even without her flesh, the mandala remained as a serpentine coil, circling her formless wrist. Char and Ma watched silently until she reappeared as herself, the determination fading from her face. She closed her eyes once and opened them slowly. ‘They don’t know what to do,’ she whispered. ‘They do not know this magic.’ She glanced at Ma. ‘It’s as you say – the power is tied to my life. Only death can end it.’

  ‘Not quite true,’ Ma said grimly. Her eyes strayed to the grey-bandaged bodies that made a bloody battlefield of the chamber. ‘If you can kill the person who created the mandala, it will stop the corruption.’

  ‘The eldest,’ Kyndra said softly.

  Ma nodded. ‘If you needed another reason to oppose him, to follow him into the past, you have it.’

  Kyndra turned her palm up, frowning at the crooked fingers of her left hand. ‘How long do I have?’ she asked matter-of-factly.

  ‘Weeks,’ Ma said. ‘Perhaps a month or two – it depends how potent the binding is.’

  Kyndra took the news with equal serenity, but Char saw her swallow as she clenched her fist and lowered it to her side.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said with a hint of her old defiance, a defiance he was glad to see. It was a foolish thought, but Char missed the other Kyndra, the Kyndra who was unsure of herself, but did what had to be done. The Kyndra who, like him, had struggled vainly against her fate. The Kyndra he had kissed by the little stream, who had told him, fiercely, that he wasn’t a coward.

  But that Kyndra was gone. That Char was gone. They were both changed and there was no going back.

  ‘I don’t feel as if we’ve won much of a victory here,’ Kyndra said, looking around the chamber. Her eyes came to rest on the tortured form of the dragon. ‘Can we free the Lleu-yelin?’

  ‘If that was the best the eldest could throw at us,’ Ma replied, ‘I fear you were his true target. The return of the dragons isn’t something he would want to see, but if his plan succeeds, this future won’t even exist.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we are freeing them,’ Char said, unable to keep the growl out of his voice. His wounds itched as they began, slowly, to heal. It would take only a few days for the scales to grow back, but that wasn’t swift enough for him. He rolled his bleeding shoulder at Kyndra. ‘Can you do something about this?’

  To his consternation, she shook her he
ad. ‘I’m not Nediah,’ she said. ‘You don’t just need power to heal, you need knowledge. I don’t know the first thing about the body, be it human or dragon.’

  ‘But surely the stars do.’

  ‘They aren’t mortal. They have no flesh, no blood, or beating heart.’

  ‘How do you shift your form back and forth, then?’

  Kyndra shrugged. ‘That’s different. It’s a pattern. My pattern. I can always find it. I don’t know anyone else’s though.’ She paused. ‘It’s also why I can’t get rid of the mandala.’ She hefted her wrist. ‘I can’t change my pattern.’

  ‘So it’s not entirely true about Starborn being all-powerful,’ Char said. ‘The tales people told of Kierik …’

  Kyndra smiled somewhat bitterly. ‘I don’t know all the tales,’ she said, ‘but I know what Kierik could do. It was far more than I can.’

  ‘You just need practice, girl,’ Ma said absently. She was kneeling down, fingers stroking the concentric lines of blood and sand.

  ‘Will you free him now?’ Char asked her.

  Forehead wrinkled, Ma moved her gaze to the frozen, spread-winged dragon that filled the chamber and sighed deeply. ‘It is the only way,’ she said after a moment.

  ‘What is?’ Char recognized her expression; it was the one Ma had worn most often over the years they’d lived and worked as slavers: reluctance, resignation. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Ma stood. ‘He is the focus, Boy. It is his blood, his life, which sustains the prison.’ She glanced back at him. ‘The link must be broken.’

  ‘You’re going to kill him.’ Char felt that familiar rage uncoiling in his belly; little sparks shivered over his scales. ‘I can feel his suffering, and you’re going to kill him.’

  ‘It is the only way,’ Ma said again; almost a snap. ‘As long as his blood feeds the mandala, the Lleu-yelin will never be free.’

  Char turned his back on her, moved to stand before the dragon. His talons left scratches in the stone, but did not disturb the mandala atop it. The trapped Lleu-yelin was larger than he and far older. The mane that lay sleek and full against Char’s neck was a handful of bristles on the ancient dragon. His blue scales had faded, in places, to dun, and blood glistened between the cracks in his skin. The eyes, though, deep and dark, alight with anger kindled in the moment of attack. The mandala was killing him regardless; a slow death, a withering. It was not a death those eyes deserved.

  The rumble that left Char’s throat was somewhere between rage at what had been and grief at what had to be. ‘End it, then,’ he heard himself say. ‘End it and be done.’

  4

  Brégenne

  That was not an experience she wanted to repeat.

  The shock of the Lunar being torn from her grasp stayed with Brégenne, mocking the control she’d worked hard to hone. She’d never heard of a weapon that could counter a Wielder’s power. They had to find out more about it and fast.

  She rubbed a weary hand over her face. Her legs ached and her eyes were sandy from lack of sleep. Ash coated her clothes; her hair felt full of the fine dust. Brégenne found herself fervently wishing for a bath.

  When she looked round, Kul’Das still stood silently, gripping her broken staff.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Brégenne asked her.

  Kul’Das raised her head, fresh tears on her cheeks. ‘My staff,’ she whispered, turning the shattered piece over in her hands. ‘He told me it was powerful, that it had magic.’ She swallowed and her voice hardened. ‘He lied.’

  ‘Your mentor?’ Brégenne asked carefully. She’d tried to get this information out of Kul’Das before to no avail.

  The blue-eyed woman jerked her chin. She threw down the remains of the staff, its pale wood ill-at-home against the charred earth. Her hand was no longer bleeding, Brégenne noticed. The bolt was gone, but the flesh around the wound was puckered and still seeped red. Kul’Das had clearly tried to heal it herself.

  ‘I’ll look at your hand later,’ Brégenne promised. ‘As soon as the moon’s up.’

  Kul’Das ignored her, staring transfixed at her injured hand. Slowly, as if they were climbing out of her skin, golden flames curled up and filled her palm. A smile split the woman’s usually sour face, a fierce, joyful smile that set Brégenne’s teeth on edge. That was all they needed – an overzealous, untrained Wielder.

  ‘Those women,’ Gareth said suddenly, ‘who do you think they were?’

  ‘I’m more interested in their weapons,’ Brégenne replied. The day was growing warmer; she shrugged out of her cloak, rolled it up and secured it to the pack at her feet. Beneath it she wore scuffed leathers over a shirt and knee-high boots. Still angry at the thought of that strange blue energy, she brushed herself down and then vigorously unbraided and rebraided her hair.

  ‘As am I,’ Kul’Das said, seeming to break from her reverie. ‘That forked dagger – she didn’t stab me, just rested it against my skin. The pain …’ Her eyes clouded. ‘I could not move.’

  ‘And the same power managed to dispel my shield twice.’ Brégenne frowned, struck by a thought. ‘Could this be the energy Kyndra described – the one the Sartyans use?’

  ‘But those weren’t Sartyans,’ Gareth said. ‘That’s who they wanted to sell you to.’

  ‘It did not work on you, Kul’Gareth,’ Kul’Das said abruptly.

  Gareth looked uncomfortable and Brégenne remembered the feel of the arrows as they came free of his dead flesh. ‘I didn’t feel anything,’ he said.

  ‘If it weren’t for you, they’d have captured us.’ Brégenne’s attempt at a reassuring smile did not feel at home on her lips.

  ‘I ran away,’ Gareth said. His eyes grew unfocused, as if he saw something she and Kul’Das could not. ‘There was little courage in it,’ he added softly.

  ‘Until we know more about those weapons, it was the right thing to do,’ Brégenne said, suddenly keen to change the subject. Whenever that distance entered Gareth’s eyes, he seemed less … himself.

  ‘I would like to put a little more space between myself and those women.’ Despite the words, Kul’Das looked weary at the thought of more walking and Brégenne didn’t blame her. ‘I’ll not sleep soundly until we’re out of this infernal wood.’

  Kul’Das got her wish: by sunset, they’d left the Deadwood and its dangers behind. The trees had continued to thin, eventually petering out into rocky moorland. They’d had only a brief view of the landscape; now it was utterly dark, the moon obscured by dense cloud. No lights flecked the horizon. The only thing moving was the grass, agitated by the wind that swept down from distant hills to the north.

  Brégenne had walked a little away from their camp on the pretext of setting wards, but truthfully she wanted some time alone to practise. Now a curving slice of moonlight hung in the air before her. Brégenne frowned at it. I know it’s possible. This would be so much easier if she had Solinaris’s resources, but all the useful texts had long been destroyed.

  She sighed, gestured, and the shining curve contracted into a flat disc. It was similar to the supports she’d made to assist with the reconstruction of Naris’s bridge. When the disc measured roughly three feet across, Brégenne stepped onto it. So far so good.

  She was three metres off the ground before an audible gasp reached her from somewhere below. Brégenne looked down. Eyesight sharpened by the Lunar, she quickly picked out the shape of Gareth, hiding among some rocks. Feeling a faint flush in her cheeks, she dropped lightly back to earth and the disc vanished.

  Gareth climbed sheepishly from his hiding place. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry, but I’ve never seen …’ He shook his head. ‘Was that levitation? I thought the ability was lost with Solinaris.’

  Brégenne folded her arms. ‘It’s not perfect yet.’

  ‘It seemed pretty good to me.’

  In the light of the Lunar, Gareth’s skin looked even more corpse-pale than usual and, though it wasn’t fair to him, Brégenne experienced a fervent desire to be elsewhere. ‘I n
eed to finish the wards,’ she said.

  He frowned. ‘I thought you just did them.’

  ‘A few more won’t hurt.’ She swept off into the darkness, leaving him standing there, perplexed. She rounded a cluster of rocks and sank down on one, biting her knuckle. Gareth’s intrusion had cut short her nightly practice. Practice which served to distract her from a thought that grew stronger with every step she took on Acrean soil.

  Nediah was here – somewhere.

  She’d worked hard to put him from her mind. She’d had plenty to keep her busy, after all – what with the Trade Assembly, Ümvast and Gareth’s gauntlet. But now, with the end of their journey in sight, Brégenne’s thoughts turned to the future. She and Nediah had parted in such strained circumstances. He’d told her he loved her and she’d told him to leave, while she stayed behind. Brégenne bit harder at her knuckle. She’d stayed and Kait had gone – Kait, who had once been Nediah’s lover. They’d travelled together for months now. Who knew what might have happened between them?

  Why should I care? Brégenne threw at the image of Kait’s pleased little smile. It doesn’t make any difference to me.

  She stood up and strode angrily back to camp before her own voice could tell her she was a liar.

  They had their first sight of Ben-haugr the following morning.

  Gareth had led them, his steps unswerving, across the moorland. A herd of wild ponies frisked to the south, legs obscured by the long grasses. The day was as grey as the great stone tors that thrust up from the earth around them.

  ‘We’re close now,’ Gareth said tensely, clutching the gauntlet. Brégenne noticed little wisps of cold rising from its frozen surface and the strange sigils began to thrum audibly like a low note on a lyre. They climbed a small rise and there, on the other side, lay the overgrown necropolis of Ben-haugr. It was a vast network of grassy mounds, linked by shattered stone. Some of the mounds had shed their green caps, showing bare roofs that curved down beneath the soil. Brégenne was silent. They all were, smothered by the pall of loneliness that hung over it all.