The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [186]
“I guess you don’t.”
“Aspar!” Winna screamed.
Fend leapt at him, faster than a Mamres monk, his right-hand dagger slashing toward Aspar’s face. The holter ducked, stepped in, and took Fend’s other knife in the gut, then drilled his dirk under Fend’s jaw so hard that he lifted the Sefry clean off his feet. He felt the man’s spine snap.
“I said no playing,” Aspar told him. Then he dropped the gurgling man and slumped down to one knee, lowering his gaze to the knife still stuck in his belly.
He took another look at Fend, but the Sefry was gazing back from beyond the world.
“About time,” he muttered, lowering himself down and scooting toward Ehawk to cut his bonds.
“You let him stab you,” the boy said.
“If I’d fought him, he would have won,” Aspar said. “I’d be dead, and he’d still be alive.” He handed Ehawk the knife. “Cut Winna’s bonds.”
He got up and walked over to Winna. She was panting hard, and he could see her belly moving. She clutched his arm, but her eyes were closed.
“Sceat,” he said. “I’m sorry, love.”
“It’s killing her,” Ehawk said.
“Yah,” he replied.
“What should I do?”
“I don’t know,” Aspar said. “Go bring Leshya here; maybe she knows. She’s right near the entrance.”
Ehawk nodded and left.
Aspar was finding it hard to take a deep breath. It was as if something were pushing down on him.
“Winna,” he said. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I’m sorry for how I’ve been—always, but especially lately. There was a lot I needed to tell you, but I couldn’t. I had a geos laid on me.”
Winna started to speak, but then she cried out again. Her eyes opened, and he saw they were glazed with pain.
“Still love you,” she said.
“Yah. I still love you. Nothing will change that.”
“Our baby…” She closed her eyes again. “I can see her, Aspar. I see her in the forest with you, with her father. She’s got my hair, but there’s something wild in her, something from you, and she’s got your eyes.”
Aspar reached to stroke her hair, saw he had blood all over his hand, and wiped it on the ground first.
When his hand touched the earth, everything went still, and he felt his fingers reach into the soil, dividing, splitting, faster and faster, and his skin was expanding, moving out through the valley, across the hills, to the dying earth around it, and then he was back up north, staring into the eyes of the Briar King as he died.
Holter.
He lifted his hand and was back where he’d started, next to Winna.
Fend was looking down at him.
“Ah, sceat,” Aspar said.
“It’s time,” Fend said. Except that it wasn’t Fend at all, not anymore. It was the witch.
Cazio stood for a moment in a daze, wondering what had just happened, but then he realized that Austra was awake, looking at him.
“Love,” he said. “Are you well?”
As she pulled up, the other people who had been in the crypt rushed out, probably to see what Anne could do now that she could fly.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I was asleep.”
“For days, yes,” Cazio said. “Do you know what happened?”
“I was with Anne, or she was with me,” the girl replied. “It’s a little confusing, but I think her soul came into me while her body healed.”
“Do you know the way out of here?”
Austra looked around. “We’re in Eslen-of-Shadows?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a path up to the castle, yes. But we have to find Anne.”
“Well, she just flew off with the Kept,” Cazio said. “Can you walk?”
“I feel fine.”
“Let’s go, then.”
He helped her to her feet and kissed her.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”
“A moment there,” a familiar voice said.
Marché Hespero stood in the doorway to the crypt. He looked disheveled, and his voice sounded strained.
Cazio drew Acredo.
“I just need her,” Hespero said, pointing at Austra. “She’s the link; she’s the way to Anne. I can still save us all.”
“You?” Cazio nearly laughed the word. “You expect me to believe you’re trying to save us?”
“Listen,” Hespero said. “The man who brought you here and Anne are fighting as we speak. Anne will probably win, and then she will come and finish me. If that happens, we will wish—beg—for the days when we were Skasloi