Starborn. Katie MacAlister

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      “You challenge the Eidolon?” The words seemed to roll around me like the growl of a cave bear.

      “I do not challenge. I simply seek information. If you won’t answer my question, then I must search the crypt.” I gripped my swords and sent a little query to my patron goddess Kiriah. There was no answering warmth, just a claustrophic sense of being buried deep in the earth. I held onto the panic that wanted to rise at the knowledge that somehow I’d displeased the sun goddess, and she was withholding her blessings from me, and instead reminded myself that I had fought deadlier enemies than a single spirit.

      But then I’d had Hallow and our friend Deo at my side.

      The rush of air behind me gave me less than a second to respond, but it was enough to send me whirling to the side, both of my swords flashing. The thane emerged from the shadows fully formed, his body encased in ghostly armor from at least two millennia in the past, and his translucent white hair flowing around him as if it had a life of its own. But it was the sword he raised that held my attention, and I barely had one of my own narrow blades up in time to block the blow that would have sundered me in twain.

      I leaped to the side, clambering onto one of the sarcophagi as he swung his sword low; the visible section of his near-translucent face was frozen in a snarl, his eyes all but spitting black ire at me. I didn’t attack him, using my weapons only to defend myself, but my breath came short when I spoke.

      “I know you’re annoyed at being disturbed—” I dove off the stone structure when he leaped up, his sword held high overhead, only to stumble backward when he lunged after me, my swords dancing in the air to parry the lightning-fast blows that seemed to rain down on me. “Goddesses above, how is it that spirits are able to move so quickly? I just want to know if you’ve seen the moonstones! Ow! Oh, now you’re in for it!”

      That last was in response to the tip of his blade scratching across my upper arm when I swung both of my swords upwards, crossed in order to stop another of his two-handed blows. He snarled something, but I hadn’t survived the battle of the Fourth Age for nothing. I dove downward, my blades slashing as I rolled past him, only to leap to my feet and watch with satisfaction as one of his legs collapsed. Although I couldn’t kill a spirit, I could attack the energy he used to become corporeal, and I had just weakened the stream of energy that flowed up the thane’s left leg.

      He collapsed with another snarl, kneeling on his good leg to glare at me.

      “I’d say I’m sorry for hurting you, but we both know that you’ll be fine just as soon as you rally enough energy to restore your leg,” I said, panting a little. “Now, perhaps you’ll answer my question—”

      A faint breeze behind me stirred my hair. To my horror, the fallen thane smiled, then stood up, his damaged leg apparently whole again.

      Fear gripped me good and hard then, along with the awareness that I had done something extremely foolish, and if I didn’t get out of there, I might well join him in the spirit world.

      “It is too late,” was all he said before he melted away into nothing. I turned and gazed down a long hallway made up of graceful white stone arches, receding as far as I could see. The fact that I could see them sent another wave of fear through me, gripping my belly with a cold hand; from the light that illuminated the length of the crypt came the slowly emerging Eidolon, members of the thane’s company. Men and women who had fought two thousand years before, arcanists and soldiers and wielders of magic long since lost to our kind, all formed wispy grey figures. The stone ribs of the crypt were visible through their bodies as they started forward.

      Toward me.

      “Kiriah’s ten toes,” I swore under my breath, and spun around to run for my life.

      A war cry rose from behind me, echoing down the long hallway and catching me as I was partway up the thirty-nine steps that led to the cellar under the tower of Kelos. I didn’t dare glance behind me to see how close the spirits were, having had ample proof from my brief skirmish with the thane to know that spirits can move very quickly when they choose to do so. But a cold breath seemed to touch the back of my neck when I reached the door. I sheathed my swords and yanked open the portal, then slid through the opening, slamming it shut just as the nearest spirit swung his sword.

      Panting so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything but the beat of my own heart, I clutched the circular iron link that served as an anchor for a chain that normally stretched across the door, holding tight in case the spirits tried to follow. The runes that had been engraved into the iron bands that crisscrossed the door flared to life with a dull white glow, then faded. I tried to catch my breath, well aware that my hands were shaking. After taking a moment to control myself, I wound the chain through the anchor, and locked it into place.

      The captain of the guard was waiting when I turned around, his arms crossed, a slight smile on his lips. I relaxed at the sight of him, one part of me marveling that I had grown so comfortable with the spirits—the captain included—who resided above ground in Kelos, although they were often a trial to Hallow, they had given me no problems.

      Except for the captain, who took offense over the fact that the first time we’d met I had separated his ghostly head from the rest of his body. It had taken him a good hour to generate enough power to become corporeal again; a fact that almost a year later, he still held against me, often setting me difficult challenges to overcome.

      Like the Eidolon. With the memory of just how close my escape had been, I glared at the captain.

      His smiled broadened.

      “If Hallow wasn’t busy trying to find those blasted moonstones, I’d so tell him you set me up,” I informed the captain, handing him the key to the locks.

      His eyebrows rose. “I take it that you had no luck?”

      “No, I didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me that the spirits down there were Eidolon?”

      His smile became even bigger. “You said you wished for more practice with your swords than my soldiers offer you. Who better to hone your skills that the most feared warriors of Alba?”

      “The thane I could handle…mostly…but there were hundreds more of them that came pouring out of their resting places,” I said, with a glance back at the door. I hesitated before climbing the second set of stairs. “Er…you’re sure that’s going to hold them? They were more than a little annoyed when I fought their king.”

      “Oh, the door isn’t scribed to protect us from the Eidolon,” the captain said blithely as he preceded me up the stairs. “It’s to keep other spirits from bothering them.”

      “It just keeps the spirits out?” I shook my head. “That makes no sense. If they wanted to remain solitary, why wouldn’t the protection extend to keeping everyone out?”

      He paused and cocked an eyebrow at me, a gleam of amusement in his faded eyes. “No mortal would be foolish enough to annoy an Eidolon. I assumed you knew that.”

      “Oh, you did not…gah!” I said rude things under my breath as the captain marched upward, but at the same time, I felt twitchy until we emerged into the open, climbing out of the cellar of an outbuilding next to the master’s tower. I turned my face up to the sun, and sent a query up to the goddess, but other than a slight warmth that was my awareness of her, Kiriah seemed to keep her blessings from me.

      My heart fell. It seemed that every day since the battle that ended with my channeling Kiriah СКАЧАТЬ