Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [95]
There was no alternative. Steel was right; Daine’s mark had driven him mad. Her mission had been clear: Find the Son of Khyber and kill him if necessary. Daine was distracted. His sword wasn’t in his hand. She’d bury Steel in his right eye. She tried to throw—
And nothing happened. Every muscle was frozen. It was the same as when she’d fought Fileon. And the same spell Drego had used against her allies in Droaam.
“This is what has to happen,” Drego said, stepping forward. He seemed to have completely recovered from his injuries; his clothes weren’t even burned. “You need to understand. Try to remember, beloved. There’s much more at stake than Breland.”
In that instant, a half-dozen pieces came together in her mind. A corpse that vanished, without even leaving ashes to mark its passage. Drego’s arrival so soon after that death. Drego … a sorcerer of considerable skill, who seemed to have some talent for transmutation or illusion. But most of all it was the way he said that one word—Beloved. Had Drego been Dreck all along? Was he just watching House Tarkanan … or had he been watching her?
She had no voice to ask the question. She called on Lantern discipline and raw fury, but both shattered against Drego’s mystic bonds.
“So it’s ready?” Drego asked.
“Almost,” Daine replied. “I just need the power of one more soul. One more outsider.”
“What?” Drego cried. “How do you expect to accomplish that now?”
Daine laughed. His dragonmark burned even brighter, and as he stretched out his hand, long tendrils of energy lashed out and wrapped around Drego, digging into his skin. “We’ve come to the end of the game. My mark lets me taste the souls of those around me. I recognized both of you as soon as you entered my presence. You’ve been a valuable ally, Drego Sarhain. And now you will give me the power I need to finish my task and fulfill my destiny.”
Drego writhed and twisted in Daine’s grasp, and suddenly he changed. He was taller, stronger—and he had the head of a tiger, deep black fur traversed with stripes of flame.
“You’re nothing next to Vyrael or Vorlintar,” Daine said. “But you’ll do.”
All the pieces suddenly fell into place. In Droaam, Drego had aided the demon Drulkalatar, the tiger-headed demon lord. Even in her dream, he’d hovered by the creature’s skull. He hadn’t been working for Thrane at all. He must have been Drulkalatar’s ally all along.
And even as she realized this, something else became clear. Drego had released her from her spell.
She didn’t hesitate. Drego howled as Daine’s dragonmark dug into his skin. And Thorn stepped forward and thrust Steel into Daine’s eye, slamming her free hand against the pommel and driving the blade into his brain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Depths
Lharvion 22, 999 YK
It was a perfect blow. Thorn had killed enough men to know that. But she’d never fought the Son of Khyber. Daine jerked, and Drego collapsed to the ground as the crackling tendrils released him. For a moment, Daine’s good eye focused on Thorn, and she saw that same look of sorrow.
He fell into her arms. At least, his body did. Daine’s flesh became dead weight against her, but as he collapsed, his dragonmark remained, a mass of pulsing crimson lines in the rough shape of a man. Ignoring Thorn, it reached out for the crumpled form of Drego, wrapping new tendrils around the stunned demon. Thorn lashed out with Steel, but the blade passed through the glowing dragonmark with no effect at all.
You’ll know, he’d said. You’ll know what you have to do.
And in that moment, she did.
She reached out, thrusting her hand into the middle of the glowing dragonmark. She remembered Toli falling at her touch. Sorghan d’Deneith. And she remembered the dragon in her dream, swallowing Drulkalatar.
And she pulled at Daine’s soul.
It was a bitter struggle. The thing she was fighting was more than just Daine. She could feel Vyrael’s burning rage and the despair of the fallen Vorlintar. And now that she’d proven herself a threat, the composite being had turned its hatred against her. Thorn could