The Fading Dream_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [58]
“Why this? What use could you have for these stones?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Cazalan said with a smile. He put the shimmering jewel of Lord Pyrial into his bag. “When we act, the world will know.”
“Teleportation. Scrying. That’s quite a lot of power in the hands of a ragtag band of scavengers.”
“We have our backers,” Cazalan replied as he took the Rose Queen’s sigil from its circle. “As you’ll learn.”
“No,” Drix said, catching Thorn’s eyes. “This ends here.”
His captor was pinning an arm behind his back and holding a blade to his throat. He threw his weight back against the soldier, knocking him off balance. But Drix was no soldier. Before he could break free, the man drew his knife across Drix’s neck. In that moment, all eyes were on Drix, and that was all Thorn needed. She slammed a foot down against the foot of her own guardian. The woman howled in pain, dropping her guard. Thorn pulled her wand from her weakened grasp then grabbed the woman and flung her at Cazalan, calling on her full reserves of strength. It was as easy as throwing a blade; the woman seemed to weigh nothing in Thorn’s arms, but she sent Cazalan tumbling to the floor. There was no time to waste; Thorn was already leveling her stolen wand at Cadrel’s captor, tracing the activation pattern in her mind.
I hope you’re not a fireball, she thought.
There was a ripple in the air, and the man stiffened. He didn’t move as Cadrel pulled free.
The throw had incapacitated Thorn’s captor, and Cadrel’s guard was paralyzed. But there were two left. Cazalan pushed the body of his partner aside, reaching for the last gem. Thorn leaped forward—not fast enough. She saw the fourth soldier tracking her movements with his wand, and her muscles went numb. She struck the floor hard, falling to the ground; she felt nothing and she couldn’t move at all.
Thorn had discovered many gifts over the past six months. Once in a truly desperate moment, a moment when she thought she was going to die, she killed a man with her touch. In her time with House Tarkanan, she’d honed that gift and learned to control it more easily. It was painful. More than that, it was somehow connected to the dragon Sarmondelaryx. She could still hear Drego’s whispers … every time you draw on her power, she grows stronger. But it was the only thing she could think of. Dal used us. Tricked us. Thorn tried to harness that rage, focus it into a razor point, smash it against the numbing charm.
Nothing. She saw Cazalan pick up the final shard and slip it into his bag. Fury flowed through her, and that moment of pure anger was all it took. Feeling flooded back through her. There was no time to rise to her feet. Unarmed, on the floor, there was only one thing she could do. She reached out just catching his leg with her outstretched arm. And she called on that anger again.
Tightening her hand around Cazalan’s ankle, she reached out, searching for the fire within him so she could consume it.
She found nothing.
The power was still a mystery. But every time she’d used it in the past, she’d been able to feel a force within her victim, to feel the energy within, to feel it as she snatched that away and consumed it. Searching in Dal was like grasping at water. Her hand was tight around Cazalan’s ankle, but it might have been dead wood.
“Too late,” he said with a smile. Then he was gone, nothing in her hand but air. All of the Covenant soldiers had vanished, even the ones they’d incapacitated. Thorn and Cadrel looked at each other from across the empty room while Drix rubbed a hand over his healing throat.
“This is an outrage!”
Lord Syraen was fuming, his eyes glowing white hot with his anger. All of the fey lords were shouting.
“I placed my trust in you,” Lord Joridal said, glaring at Tira. “My spire is at war, and I left it to pursue this quest of yours. And now you have taken my greatest weapon from me … and set it in the hands of humans!”
“I, too, have wolves at my gates,” Syraen snapped. “With