Energy pulsed around them the moment she agreed. The old Alpha had half-circled them while they had their internal argument and he had found another of his bone weapons, the shadows were sending tendrils of warning Adda's direction.
If she could feel his movements through the shadows, so, too, could Nex, but he seemed unconcerned. More shadows pulsed, a wider sphere, and then they were charging toward the old man, an unstoppable current.
The old Alpha staggered backward, his arms flailing. He leaned his upper torso forward, bracing himself and trying to keep his position, but it did no good. His feet slid along one of the smooth sections of the cave floor, forcing him to lean so far it would have been hilarious were it not for the situation.
A grunt of effort, combined with surprise, or maybe concern, left the old man. He scrambled his feet, but without purchase he slid backward.
A temporary lull in Adda's mind alerted her to the truth of what Nex had told her. He was weakening. The shadows strained harder, increasing their push against the old Alpha.
The weapon he held fell from his fingers as he slipped, and then flew through the air, feet removed from the ground. He smacked the back wall of the cavern, the solid blow of flesh against stone came from where he hit, partway up, and stuck, like some fly caught in a spider's web. The shadows continued to flow against him, holding him in place, eddying around the remains of the cabin to return to the stream, so that there was a constant flow.
Adda marveled a little at the power, and was frightened by it. The old Alpha didn't stand a chance. Who could fight something incorporeal? It looked as if the he might be trying; he swung out into the darkness, but he passed right through it. Yet, they were solid enough when they pressed against him.
Nex's presence waned, the energy he spent on the current draining the last vestiges of his control. More than that, he was losing consciousness...if that was possible. With a last burst from the shadows, Nex flung energy upward. The Alpha dropped roughly to the ground. Apparently, Nex did not have enough strength left to continue both streams. The old man lay crumpled for a mere breath and then struggled to rise, but it was too late, far too late. The shadows that Nex pressed upward slammed again and again against something above them until an ominous crack shattered the air within the cavern. Then, as it had below, the rumble of stone reverberated and boulders the size of her head began to tumble to the floor.
She froze. Just what was Nex doing? The deal was the old man was to be left alive.
Alive, I concede to. He will not be dead when you leave this place. He will not, however, poison our path again.
More stones fell, until it was obvious that they would continue for some time. Nex moved her body backward, out of range and toward the door to the outside.
Behind the growing wall of stone from the cave in, Adda could hear the Alpha's shout, no longer firm and hateful, but a frightened elderly man. But Nex edged out of the chamber, still strategically slamming shadows along the ceiling. By the time they reached the door of the entrance, there was nothing left of what had been the cavern. Stones filled the passage ways, so many that it was beyond the realm of possibility that the old Alpha might escape once more…or survive much longer.
Despite Adda's struggles with the old man, guilt filled her. It would be evil, indeed, to wish even her enemies to be buried alive. Death, no doubt, would have been more merciful.
Adda directed her anger toward Nex. This was not what she had bargained for. But something was wrong with the Quatori. He paid her little heed, and seemed somehow to have trouble retaining any form of conscious thought whatsoever.
An image flashed into her mind, clear and forceful enough that she felt like Nex was trying to fix it to her memory permanently. Then, with a last desperate flash, he was gone. Absolutely gone. Adda couldn't even feel him lurking any longer.
Gaining back control of her body was glorious. Her conscious stretched from the cramped spot it had been forced into, slowly filling the container of her body. The experience was odd, because, for a moment, she could really feel like her body was a container: she was in it, yet still disconnected from it, and for that time, she partially understood what Nex was saying. How it seemed like a small point to loose the vessel.
Adda blinked at herself for the thought. She did not want to lose her body. Besides, where did one's conscious go if the body was lost? Was it the same as death? She wasn't ready to find out, but maybe Nex wasn't, either. If she forced him out, would he simply cease to exist? Did he fight for his life, the same as Adda did hers?
An odd concern tapped at her. Not that she cared about the demon, because she didn't.
She sighed. Things had become so confusing. She didn't like Nex, and she certainly didn't want to care about him, but being pushed to the back of her own mind had given her insight that she had never possessed before.
She was worried, though, about the fact that he had apparently and suddenly made himself so vulnerable. His entire goal, so far as she knew, was to gain power over her, her body, not to lose it. So what had changed? Or, was she mistaken to begin with?
What if Nex's goal had never been full possession to begin with? It felt ludicrous even thinking about it, like she was looking forward with too much hope, false hope, yet it fit. He had mentioned that he picked her because she would not give over easy, and he had not brutalized her to gain access, as seemed to be the norm with his kind. Even the trick he pulled after their use of the shadows was halfhearted in comparison to Vou's destruction.
The problem was, she had no clue what Nex's goal was. And that was not good.
A mental nudge, or maybe it was just one of the passing shadows—they felt somewhat the same—reminded her of where she was, and that freedom of control over herself was only good if she used it to stay alive.
She was at the entrance to the cavern now, the door nearly directly behind her.
Streams of bright sunlight filtered lazily past the slats of the wooden door, dancing along the myriad of dust motes. Beyond her tunnel, the sound of the collapse continued sporadically.
She was free. And alive.
Her relief was so palpable she could taste it, but it mingled with the regret of what she had done...or caused to be done. She hesitated there in the entrance for a moment, considering whether she might save the man buried within, but such an attempt would be fruitless. She had not the power, physically, to move that much stone and, even if she did, by the time she reached the old Alpha he would have suffocated.
She had killed. It was overwhelming. She didn't even know who she was anymore. Nearly...nearly, she collapsed to the ground, ready to give up this pointless fight and surrender to the forest that called for her death. Nearly, but there was a part of her that still, despite what she had done, wanted to live.
Another little nudge from the shadows confirmed her choice. She did want to live. And to do so, she had to move on. So she turned and ran.
She burst past the door, catching the sun-warmed wood in her hand before it cracked against the stone behind it. The forest was still filled with predators that hunted by sound, the last thing she needed was to alert everything to her presence.
She closed her eyes against the searing pain. White hot light filtered down from what was now the mid-day sun, torturous and miserable after her time in the soothing darkness. Blind, she forced her way forward, stumbling over roots and undulations in the earth. The crystal chose that moment to pulse, a pounding of tingling energy against her palm.
Her stomach dropped. She had forgotten about the gem, the imprisonment crystal. She was reminded immediately of her purpose. She had to get the symbol away from the cave. A long distance away, because if she was concerned about Nex's desire for this temple, she knew with absolute certainty that she never wanted to discover what Vou would do with the knowledge.
It pulsed again, calling. Adda cracked her eyes open a slit, fighting past the pain. The forest around her glittered with harsh jewels of light, and for a moment, she could see nothing else. Then, the world settled a little and she made out shapes and colors of trees, and heavy undergrowth laden with dark leaves and several rows of bright flowers.
Moving as quickly as her limited vision allowed, she headed west. If she had her bearings right, the cave was straight north of the village, and Breakfoot path was northwest. It must be the base of that mountain range that she could see above the trees and was the only place she could think to take the glyph.
She pictured the image Nex had firmed in her mind as she ran. A crude picture, one from farther along the wall of paintings she assumed, since she hadn't seen it that night in the shadows. But yet something about it tickled her memory.
It seemed slightly scattered, as if painted in a careless hurry. Or the painter was being purposely vague. A dark section formed at the center. It wasn't marked in any way that would denote a building, or temple, and had she been anyone else, without her experience with Nex, she might have considered it a smudge of lantern residue and nothing more. But the swirls of the smudge were very particular, almost perfectly chaotic, with nothing coalescing into a pattern, even by chance. Which meant that the artist, or oracle, had gone to great lengths to depict it so.
That, Adda decided, was the temple itself, an odd representation of the sun above it and to the right cast a ray its direction. Around it were the same abstract trees as had been presented all along the wall, except there was something about them as well, the placement of the trunks and branches were off somehow. In the center of all was a round spot, one that hadn't been painted, or where the paint had been cleaned from the stone. Not something she would have noticed, had she been looking at the painting herself, but this was Nex's memory, and that spot was the entire focus of his interest. It was perfectly round, and light, like the sun above the temple...or an orb. Her breath caught, the orb? Was it possible that Nex was after the orb all along?
She realized she had closed her eyes, focused on the memory for too long, when she sprawled forward, losing her footing, and landed against the ground. Hard. Her breath left in a pained groan and her hands shot outward, the pendant toppling from them in her attempt to catch herself.
She fought back the ingrained shame of a Shifter who forgot the forest. It was one of the first rules learned as a child, after hiding ones emotions from the Lords: Never forget the forest.
An odd twanging sound above her caught her attention and she rolled slightly, trying to force her lungs to draw breath back in. Her gaze caught on the violent movement of an arrow, vibrating in the trunk of a nearby tree, the dark wooden shaft and black fletchings familiar.
Illaise's pack.
Adda scrambled to stand, but found herself unable to separate her legs from one another. Whatever she had tripped on had wound around her feet. It wasn't until she tried to scratch the tangle off that she realized why.
A bola. Two bundles of stones tied together with a long length of sinew, usually reserved for tangling the feet of prey on a hunt.
She supposed that was what she was. Well, at least she could forget the shame of falling on her own.
A warrior stepped forth, naked except for a wide band of leather supporting a fat pouch that hung around his neck. He was fit, as most warriors were, with black tangled curls that stuck out at odd angles from his head, just long enough to give him a slightly wild look. Thick black brows came together over his dark eyes, and what would be full lips were pulled into a thin line. He seemed both younger and older than her at once, as though his age did not match his life experience. Adda supposed the same was likely true of her now, too. How long had it been since she had seen a mirror?
He had a bow aimed toward her chest, but it was his expression that helped her to recognize the man. He was the one who had cared for the youth that his Alpha had casually discarded.
“You missed,” she bit out.
“You're welcome.”
He stepped forward, and despite his words indicating that he intended to spare her life, he kept his bow trained at her chest.
She studied him as he edged toward the tree. He seemed to consider her back, before lowering his bow, arrow still knocked, and worked his first projectile from the trunk.
“I hope this means you've reconsidered helping me,” she ventured, nodding to the lowered weapon.
He glanced her direction, his dark eyes sliding along her, assessing but not lingering. He did not move closer, instead he moved in front of her, half crouched, and picked something up.
The symbol. The imprisonment crystal, as Nex and Vou called them.
“Ah...I'm not sure you should touch that, I haven't quite figured out how they get out yet.”
He considered her words, tilting his head to indicate he had heard, before dropping the crystal in his pouch.
Adda frowned. “That's a bad idea,” she tried again. “That possessed human, she seeks that. It calls to her, I think. She's going to be all over you.”
“Then my Alpha will be even more inclined to possess it. She is highly vexed with that...creature. Almost as vexed as she is with you.” He nodded toward her.
“Well that's hardly fair. I haven't even done anything to her.”
“You exist. That is enough.”
She shook her head. “She has reason to fear that woman, the possessed. She has no reason to fear me. Why kill an innocent with no proof of wrongdoing?”
“My Alpha is many things, but she is rarely wrong.”
“Even when she's about to sacrifice one of you? What she did to your pack-mate, was that right?”
“My brother.”
“What?”
“He is my brother. And my judgment of right and wrong is skewed with him, I cannot be expected to see the truth.”
“I have a feeling you are rarely expected to see the truth.”
He grunted, but it wasn't an agreement, more of a dismissal. Then he paused, an uncertain expression crossed his features, as if he was debating.
“If she finds out I let you go, she'll end my life.”
“Yes, I can see why you follow her. Definitely a good Alpha, letting you have your own free will and everything,” Adda bit out dryly.
It was his turn to frown. “You don't understand. She's the only one that is willing to do anything about the plague. If you had ever watched someone you love tear themselves and those around them apart...”
His words faltered, she guessed he had remembered who he spoke to. Indeed, he sighed his frustration and fiddled with the bow.
But her eyes weren't on the weapon. Oh, that was a threat, though he hadn't raised it at her again, and she was willing to bet that he wouldn't. As faulty as his Alpha was, she could tell he still held to the rules of honor, at least when acting alone and out of her sphere of control.
What she did worry about, however, was that crystal. It had been calling before she dropped it, and she doubted it had stopped. Neither of them had very long before Vou tracked it down and she still hadn't moved it very far from the cavern.
Adda pulled her feet toward herself and started unwinding the bola.
“Look, I'm sure she has lots of great qualities...like insanity, but that isn't going to help either of us if we don't get that crystal out of here.”
A burst of fire punctuated her last words. It seared the tips of the trees above where Adda lay.
“For example,” she flung her hand toward the flames. Morakamouth was not in sight, but she had to assume he was there, somewhere. Again she wondered what had become of Strale. Morakamouth may have bested him, but there was something profoundly wrong with thinking of such a vibrant Lord as simply ceasing to exist.
She didn't have long to dwell upon it. A branch toppled from the high reaches of the canopy, still burning, and landed several feet from her. Other debris joined it, and her sense of self-preservation forced an urgency to her fingers. Stupid bola. It wasn't any less tangled than when she had started, and worse, it was cutting into her legs, making the skin below the sinew an odd purplish color. Panic didn't make the untangling any easier, and she vowed the first chance she got she was going to get herself a sword, or a knife at least. Nex hadn't been kind enough to grab one of the black swords when he left the cavern.
Another burst of fire, a broad stroke, lighting the trees to the north. This time, Adda could see the Dragon. He looked a little worse than their first encounter, his wings tattered at the edges. He tossed his head back and forth and she sensed he was searching, though without eyes he couldn't see them as a true Dragon might.
He didn't need eyes, though, not if that crystal was calling to him. And he didn't seem concerned about burning the forest down around them to get to it.
She couldn't tell if it was just her imagination, or if the fire was already increasing the ambient temperature, but to her the heat was already becoming an issue.
Her gentle twisting and untangling became a more desperate scratching, as she tried to pull the knots and twists from her skin.
A blade entered her focused vision, startling her. She had forgotten about the Shifter, dismissing him when he didn't appear to be taking action and didn't seem inclined to help her, either. He must have kept the small knife in that pouch around his neck. He sliced at the sinew, releasing her feet in jerks as the material gave beneath the blade. She rubbed her skin briefly, working the numb feeling away, and then scrambled to her feet and ran several steps into the forest before looking back.
The Shifter stayed crouched, however, not meeting her gaze, not looking at her at all. His posture was one of defeat, as if the decision to release her had been his last.
If he didn't move soon, he would die like that.
Adda tried to tell herself that she didn't care. He had tripped her to begin with, after all, and he was wrong about her. They were wrong about her.
But the way he sagged dejectedly pulled at her guilt, which, in turn, incited her anger. She should not feel guilty for choosing life, and he should not have to pay for it. Great Six she didn't need another life on her head.
“You want to make a difference against the Quatori?” she called to him.
He remained still, but he was a Shifter, with all of the qualities one possessed, and she was certain he could hear her. She was also certain that she wouldn't get that crystal back, and that trying would be pushing too far. However, that didn't stop her from trying to meet her goal another way.
“Take that crystal and get it as far away from here as possible, drop it in a crevasse, but keep it away from that Dragon, and the woman, too.”
Still he didn't move.
Of all the stubborn fools.
She edged her way back toward him, the stupidity of doing so forefront in her thoughts. If Nex was aware, no doubt he would have had many things to say, none of them flattering.
Still, she couldn't just leave the man there. She wanted to live, yes, but why was everyone determined that it should be at such a heavy price?
As if to punctuate her foolishness, a wave of heat beat against her front. Above them, Morakamouth roared, still circling, still blasting flames downward. Why wasn't he landing?
The heat from the fire stole all the moisture from the air, her cheeks ached, and the knuckles of her hands burned. She could imagine her skin shriveling and cracking as she crept forward, and if she felt it so intensely, then the warrior must have felt it tenfold. He was farther toward the center, still several paces in front of her. And, oddly...he was still frozen in the same position.
Adda slid closer, meeting with unexpected resistance. A change of pressure, as though she passed into a bubble of thicker, heavier air. It weighted upon her, making movement, and reaching the warrior, impossible.
Each breath shot needles into her throat and chest, spikes of heat that warned that getting any closer, or even staying where she was, would be deadly.
She squinted toward the warrior. His head was bowed so that she could not see his expression. She suspected that it, too, was frozen in place. This was no self-punishment for failing his Alpha. No man had the strength to withstand such torture silently. No, this was something else, and Adda feared she knew what.
A grizzly popping noise preceded a long wound that opened along the warriors back, from his shoulder to his waist. The scent of burning flesh reached her shortly afterward.
She struggled to breathe through her rising fear. Great Six it was happening. The Demon was possessing this man.
Morakamouth roared, reminding her that she was not the only one invested in the spectacle before her. The question was, was there anything she could do now?
A second wound opened in a similar fashion to the first. Still, the warrior was silent and frozen. The flames crowded around him, so close blisters would be forming on his skin. Even if she managed to pull him out, she wasn't sure he would survive such burns.
She was no coward, but fear is a strong motivator. Coupled with the pain the heat was causing her and the sight of the warrior burning in front of her, she fought to remain in place.
It was no use, though, even logic insisted at this point there was nothing left to do. The shadow of the Dragon passed over her, confirming her instinctual knowledge. She had lost, and to stay would mean her own death.
Morakamouth was lower now, and to her dismay appeared to be carrying a form, black arrows still morbidly extending from her chest. Vou.
There was nothing for her to do but to run. Run and hope that having the symbol...the demon, as she wanted…would be enough to distract her from Adda's escape.
With a last, sympathetic look at the warrior, and feeling the burden of his life upon her, Adda turned and fled into the forest.