“Everything in here is to be changed, from the tapestries to the furniture. It must look like another room entirely, understand? And if she still doesn’t want to come back here, you find her another room altogether.”
“And for you, my lady? What are your orders regarding your own chambers? Would you move or stay where you are?”
For her? What did that matter?
What did any of it matter?
“I’ll survive. For as long as I have to.”
And that was all that mattered really.
“What are you planning?” the voices of her ancestors asked.
But she didn’t know. She simply didn’t know.
Through the ether, Shan heard her call. Or felt it, perhaps. Hard to tell in a world where magic ruled, where minds joined and flowed together, and where the Otherling consciousness was all.
“I have to go.” The Otherlings didn’t like that. Perhaps there was more of Fellna to them than he had thought.
“We are only six. We should be together.”
“She’s my mate.”
They paused and he felt their reluctance to admit that, let alone accept it. Otherlings didn’t have mates. Didn’t need mates. They had each other.
That was something else he knew.
But he needed Jeren.
He tried to explain it to them, tried to show it, but they weren’t willing to understand, they wouldn’t accept it.
There was only one choice, only one thing he could do. He tore himself free of them. And failed.
Hands caught him, pulled him back, held him in their embrace. They didn’t hurt him, but they weren’t letting go. Not so easily.
Jeren needed him, wanted him. He could sense her heart crumbling before the destiny she bowed under.
His ties to her were stronger. Had to be stronger.
He reached out and found the only mind with as strong a connection to him as Jeren. The wolf cub, Naul. His friend.
Five Otherlings were too strong for him to fight alone. Far too strong.
But with the mind of a wolf, with the heart of a wolf. Even one so small.
Shan tore himself free and threw himself at the walls of their cocoon. The shell shattered, sending shards of obsidian out in all directions, flying like missiles and disintegrating on the walls of the chamber.
He crouched in the centre of the devastation, Holtguards and Shistra-Phail sprawled around him, groaning, bleeding.
Naul darted towards him. At least he was unhurt. The frantic ball of fur and teeth hurled himself at Shan, dancing around him ecstatically. Shan reached down and the wolf stilled, sniffing his outstretched hand suspiciously. A little growl came from deep in his throat, but then he started to lick Shan’s fingers.
“Where’s Jeren?”
With a yap, the cub careened off, heading for the doorway out of this forsaken place. Shan, and the Otherlings, followed. They surged around him, their shimmering skin alive with the blue and black markings.
“Where do we go? What can we find? Will it bleed? Will it cry out?”
Shan held his breath as their need to explore the world took yet another dark turn. “I won’t let you hurt them. None of them, understand?”
“What are they? How are they made? How easily do they die?”
He cursed, the sound soft and low, reverberating in the tunnel as he led them away from those already wounded, as others raced ahead of them, crying out warnings, raising the alarm.
Monsters were coming.
Things from Andalstrom, things from the prison beyond, creatures of Khain’s imaginings. They called out for the guards, for Jeren to defend them with her magic, for the Shistra-Phail to stop the monsters.
Monsters who killed all in their way. Led by the most terrifying thing the poor humans had ever seen.
And then, he realised, they meant him.
As he stepped out into the courtyard above, the setting sun painted it red and gold, gleaming off the pools and fountains. His eyes winced in reaction to this light and the Otherlings made sounds of dismay.
“Where is the darkness? How can we see in this? How can we hunt?”
“It will be dark soon.” But even as he said it, he regretted his words. The wild joy that surged through them, through him, at the thought. The hunt would beckon once darkness fell, and there were so many living things here to hunt, to kill.
God and goddess, what have I created? He clenched his teeth, fighting to regain control of himself once more. What have I become?
“And what is wrong with what we are, brother?”
An abomination? Monsters that had to be stopped? Creatures born in blood, driven by the need to kill? What could possibly be wrong with that?
“Then teach us otherwise. Show us.”
Shouts ahead alerted him to Shistra-Phail blocking their way, closing off the exits from the courtyard into which they had emerged. His heart heavy as a stone, Shan gazed at their sleek and flawless faces, at the bewildered antagonism in their eyes.
“There were some such as these below. What the cocoon didn’t kill, we finished.”
The Otherlings killed as they passed, if they felt like it. A shudder of revulsion ran through him again.
“The Fellna prolong the kill. There is no pleasure in torment, brother. There is pleasure in the hunt, in the kill. That moment, and this.”
He held them back with his will alone. “Not this time.”
Confusion, but no anger greeted his spoken command. And Indarin appeared from the ranks of their people.
No, not his people anymore. Shan could see that in their faces too. He could never be Shistra-Phail, or even Feyna again. To them, he was a monster as well. To everyone but the Otherlings.
“Are you... are you still in there?” asked Indarin, his eyes trailing over Shan’s marked body before fixing on the blackness of his eyes. Studying him, trying to see the man he had known.
“Yes.” Even as he said it, his voice sounded alien to his own ears. Indarin did not look convinced. None of the Shistra-Phail lowered their weapons.
“What have you done, Shan?”
“Someone had to take control. To stop them, or everyone would have died. They know only death and war. They don’t know how to stop.”
A slight frown wrinkled Indarin’s brow. “Was it true, what you told me about Ylandra?”
Shan nodded but said nothing more.
“Why?”
“Because she asked me. She didn’t want to become— They were torturing her, Indarin. They would never stop. And she was already changed. She knew it, as did I.”
“She was our Sect Mother. You gave her a good death.”
And he bowed, a fluid and graceful movement, gratitude and most unexpected of all, forgiveness.
Something hot and wet scalded Shan’s face. Tears he realised after a moment. His own tears. “We must go. Leave this place. Before it’s too late.”
And then it was.
Jeren stepped out of the doorway opposite him, dressed in white and grey, her sword at her side, her eyes widening with alarm when she saw him. And something else. Relief? Could that really be relief?
“Shan?”
Even as she said his name, the Otherlings cried out in anger. “She wants to take you from us. She wants to separate us.”