Tallah [Book 3 Complete]

It took very little time for Anna to free Tallah's hand from Vergil's. There wasn't even a scar left on either of them.

Tallah spared one look for the dragon looming over them all, then one look for Vergil's ruined chest, then a final for Sil's bloody hands and the scalpel held between her fingers.

The healer was still working, carving out one final rune into the boy's flesh, whatever that was meant to achieve. The dragon watched, yellow eyes fixed on the work, a rumble rolling in its throat. There was a story there.

Vergil woke almost as soon as they were separated. He didn't scream. Didn't cry out. His eyes fluttered open and he just watched the sky, not reacting to Sil's scalpel cutting through his skin and flesh.

Tallah found her way to her feet, then walked away. Not down towards the camp. Up. Past the dragons. Into the hills.

'We need to cauterise the connection,' Christina said.

'What happened?' Bianca asked, annoyance coating the words. Anna must've relieved her. 'Even Anna's angry. She's not speaking to me. What did I miss?'

Tallah didn't feel like talking. Her anger was quelled, her hearth extinguished. She reached out for Bianca's power and the ghost obliged, confused and worried. Bianca was probably feeling everything Tallah couldn't bury deep enough. That, at least, quieted that ghost.

'Listen to me, Tallah,' Christina insisted. 'Get me back to the boy. I have work to do on him.'

Bianca spoke to fill in Tallah's growing silence, 'Shush, Christi. Just… not now.'

Then they were all quiet. Tallah kept walking and climbing, deaf to calls from the camp. One was Liosse. Another was Vilfor. Then the two soldiers turned to shout at others to disperse. The dragon was drawing a crowd.

Rhine's wraith chose that moment to bar her path. Tallah walked through it. Then again. After the third time, Christina sent the apparition wandering their shared mindscape. Whatever it had to say, Tallah didn't care to hear.

When she could walk no farther, Bianca lifted her into the air, far above the cliffs, gripping the side of the mountains as they kept going. The sun was a bright hole in the crystal blue sky above, burning hot, tempered by the chill wind crossing the mountain's paths.

They stopped as far above the cliffs as they could climb, floating in mid-air, buffeted slightly by the wind. There was no scent of blood so high up, and the air had a glass-like quality. The silence shrieked.

Tallah breathed deep. Filled her lungs with rarefied air, held it in, released. This far up she couldn't see Vergil's ruined chest, Sil's frightened eyes, or even the dragon and whatever mystery it represented. Beneath her boots the world was reduced to a sketch of itself, all angles, grey gorges and white peaks. She knew Bianca had lifted her to the very edge of their range, balancing them on a single tether of power.

Her fists tightened to balls of pain as nails dug into the soft skin of her healed palms. Her gloves lay discarded next to Vergil.

She breathed out. Breathed back in.

Then tightened her belly and screamed until her lungs were voided and an ache dug into her chest.

After the second scream, she felt the embers of her anger returning. It was like blowing on a dying fire, the glow so small and feeble that a single moment's reprieve might snuff it out. She fed it frustration and impotence.

On her third time, she tasted blood in the back of her throat and felt dizzy with the effort. Part of her chided the useless theatrics of the act. Annoyance at herself, for and against her frustration, served to properly blow on the ashes of her pride and rekindle fury.

And she had so much of it now! With every passing heartbeat, she found she could explore new heights of her anger. It was building like the pressure beneath a volcano, all of it climbing like acid and bitter bile into the back of her throat.

She was thwarted.

She had been nothing but thwarted since the moment she'd laid eyes on the blasted boy!

Her plans lay in ruin. Seasons of work as Tianna of Aieni Holding made irrelevant by events of this horrid thaw. All her work, all her scheming, all the chances she'd taken, rendered inert by the intervention of a single pissant.

Fighting at the Cauldron, tooth and nail, for the chance to build a centre of power? Ruined. Lost to a creature that had no business being here at all. All of it orchestrated by this Ryder, if even that.

And the bastard himself! He thought her stupid and simple. Was she supposed to swallow those blatant lies? The unaffected persona?

'For a creature as old as he claimed, I found him rather boring,' Christina intruded into Tallah's storm of thoughts. 'We are not stupid enough to believe he's actually going to stay hands off, are we?'

"No," Tallah growled. Blood seeped between her teeth. She'd bitten a hole in her cheek. "No, we're not going to believe a word he's said."

'The thing on the boy? I think that might just be what he says. You didn't give me a chance to examine it before you ran off with your tail between your legs.'

Christina would have plenty of time to do it. Tallah, for now, needed to just be away from it all and think.

I am not in control of my fate.

The thought gouged deep trenches in her pride. Whatever she'd deluded herself into believing, there was no doubt of it now: she had no control over her life. It had all been stolen from her and bent to purposes she had no interest in. Whatever she chose to do, she played into someone's hand and served their purpose.

Catharina wanted a truce now?

Ryder wanted the empress's head?

Mol'Ach wanted a new world?

Nobody even could imagine what the dragon wanted. If current events held, it would also prove to have some otherworldly aspirations that would involve her in some absurd way.

It was all enough to drive a woman to despair.

And the worst thing of all?

She was tempted to give Catharina her truce. Not because she wanted it. Not because it would serve her goals of getting close to the blasted empress. Not because it would forward her plans by seasons.

But because it meant she would spit in Ryder's eye.

And he'd already claimed this about her! She was nothing if not predictable in her defiance.

Her fourth scream curled her into a red-hot ball of anger and impotence and shame. It wasn't until her voice grew hoarse and her throat burned that she relented and finally drew in a shuddering, cooling breath.

'Anna says you're asking too much of your lungs. She's asking if you want a third one so you can scream longer and louder.'

Panting with effort not to vomit, Tallah laughed at the absurdity of Bianca's intervention. It came out a rasp, then grew into a rolling chuckle, then a full laugh. They were all the butt of a cosmic joke, but at least there was still room somewhere for levity.

"Tell her to calm my stomach before I actually void myself again," she asked between gasps.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

'Are we done?' Christina intervened, her displeasure more intense than Tallah had ever felt it. 'Are you satisfied? Screamed it all out? Can we get back to work?'

Tallah uncoiled slowly. She raised her arms above her head, extended her legs, pointed her toes at the world beneath. She stretched until every single vertebrae on her back popped and crackled.

"If I say this can't stand, I'd just be repeating myself… wouldn't I?" Her voice was breathless, unaided by the thin high-altitude air.

'Humiliatingly so, yes. Not that it's stopped you so far.' Christina wasn't pulling her punches. The ghost seethed and boiled, the seal containing it buzzing with electricity that had nowhere to ground.

Tallah knew she was blamed for not taking the fight to the Firstborn, and not letting Christina test herself against him. She'd capitulated a fight before even attempting it.

"What is it you want, Christi?" Tallah asked. "You agreed with my decision when we were in the moment."

'Of course I did! I wasn't going to show that bastard our division. Now, I can scream at you all I need.'

'Christi,' Bianca intervened. 'I don't think this is helpful for any of us. It's done. Don't badger her.'

Tallah laughed again. If Bianca was taking her side, then she was in deep shit indeed.

'She wanted us to avoid humiliation,' Christina spat. 'I'd say that's failed in spectacular fashion. That creature is probably still laughing at us wherever it's gone, and we're left with nothing for our trouble.' Her voice distorted with an electric whine. 'We've learned nothing. Gained nothing. Were patronised and insulted. A child in a moderately hairy mask could've put on a better performance than Ryder.' She sneered at the word. 'And yet we've let him walk away unscathed. Our plans lie in ruin. Our very independence is thoroughly trampled to dust. I've never been more insulted in my whole existence.'

Had there been any clouds left on the sky, Christina's anger would've probably manifested as lightning and thunder. As it was, even her fury had nowhere to go but inward.

Bianca took them down towards the camp. From above, the small group of survivors was still and frozen in time. Movement began only as the distance decreased, Tallah's poor eyes finding details. There was no more smoke, all fires put out and buried. Soldiers had clustered in units and guarded the extremities. Other shapes moved among groups of people, likely healers checking on everyone.

The dragon had moved while she'd been screaming a lung out. It was now sprawled farther up on the rocks, directly in sunlight with wings and tail splayed out. From afar it looked like any other lizard baking in the midday sun.

Sil and Vergil were sitting together on the hill, still alone. When Tallah's feet touched the ground, she finally allowed herself to see what had become of the boy.

His chest was a fresco of scar tissue. Sil had wiped clean the blood and applied some of her salves. What remained were tight clusters of runes that defied her study.

Grey eyes looked up and met hers. Then they lowered and seemed to stare at his chest.

"So… I'm a bomb now," Vergil said, voice slightly cracking. "Not what I had in mind when I said I'd like to strike at whoever did this to me." He let out a defeated laugh.

"What were you carving into him?" Tallah turned her attention to Sil, who was busy stowing away her scalpel and poultices. "Do you know what's happened?"

"Only what he's said," Sil said. "And I was following instructions from your scaly friend." She pointed to a place a few steps away from Tallah. Runes were dug in the soft earth there. "It showed me what to do and where. Wish it could talk. I've so many questions."

Sil shook her head and pressed the heel of her palm to the bridge of her nose.

"How are you feeling, Vergil?" Tallah asked. "Any different?"

Vergil didn't raise his eyes again. "I'm thinking of taking off in a random direction until I hit the ocean, and then keep going. If I'm far out at sea, I don't think I can hurt anyone if I do explode."

'That's a reasonable plan,' Christina chimed in. 'I suggest we let him do just that.'

Tallah ignored the ghost. She also ignored her impulse to strike the wretched boy. As angry as she was, she couldn't bring herself to be upset with him, not truly. This had only happened because they'd gone ahead with a hare-brained plan.

It probably could've happened in any other way, still, if Ryder was as desperate as she believed him. Still, it was impossible not to feel like her decisions had drawn the lightning strike.

"You're not going anywhere," she said, final. "Sil, I've blood in my mouth. Give me something for it."

"Heal on your own. I'm out of accelerants," the healer replied. She had come back to Vergil's side and was pushing his chin up. "Get your big, empty head out of my light. Let me see if I understand this."

Tallah sat down and pressed her face in her palms. She felt the weight of a world on her shoulders and wanted nothing more than to shake it all off. Somewhere, down in the camp, Rhine's wraith wandered, lost as Christina kept turning it in circles.

The thought that she was tempted to even talk to the wretch made her violently ill, Ryder's words rolling around her head. She was entirely too predictable, betrayed by her nature. Rebellion was useless when it could be easily foreseen.

"I think… I did something interesting here," Sil said carefully examining the runes on Vergil's chest. "You said this thing made you into a bomb, yes?"

Vergil nodded but said nothing.

"Interesting," Sil went on. She snapped her fingers next to Tallah's ears, loud as firecrackers. "Eyes up here, sorceress. Pay attention."

The healer pointed to a cluster of runes. They meant nothing to Tallah.

"These are an illum siphon," Sil said. "There's something similar in Vergil's helmet. Not as complex as this, but similar. I can bet this is drawing in illum to whatever the rest of this represents." She pressed a palm to the rest of the carving. Vergil drew back, as if ticklish, and Sil grabbed him the scruff of the neck.

"This," the healer went on, pointing to one of her added carvings, "looks like a blocking rune. It's a kind of cutoff."

The rest of the explanation devolved into mutterings and half-spoken sentences.

"Bound a soul—"

"—where does it lead the illum?"

"This can't be—"

"Hrngh, why?"

Tallah and Vergil met one another's eyes and both shrugged. Sil shook Vergil by the neck when he moved again.

"I think your visitor lied to you," the healer concluded.

"No shit," both Tallah and Vergil spoke out.

"This was designed to be triggered from afar," Sil said with an edge of uncertainty. "I think. What the dragon added is a block."

'There's no way she knows this for a fact,' Christina intruded. 'Those aren't any runes we've ever seen. I'd know. I've helped you translate most of those she's committed to memory.'

Tallah ignored the ghost. Instead, she asked, "How do you know?"

"Conjecture," Sil said as she released Vergil. "If I were a bastard that wanted to set up an insurance policy, what would I do?"

"Put a leash on me that would blow up when I got far enough from you?" Vergil asked, venom coating his words.

"That, yes. I only didn't go all the way back then because it honestly took too much effort. But logically, I should've added a remote detonation. To kill you, Tallah only had to blast upward from the city, and you would've been headless." She poked his chest with a fingernail. "Here, your benefactor would probably want full control, in case Tallah tried something cute, such as breaking the seal. What I've added, I think, cuts away that ability."

It made sense to Tallah, but it was all guesswork. In that, she agreed with Christina.

"That's a lot of guessing," she said. "For once, we can't lean on guesswork. We've kept doing that and here we are. People depending on us. Gods watching us. Give me more."

She desperately wanted to believe Sil, believe that there was a silver lining and Ryder hadn't gotten away with everything. What did the dragon care? Why would it add something for their benefit? Just… why?!

Sil considered for a while before answering. "Look, you can only do so many types of engravings. At its core, all our channelling does the same thing, right?"

"More or less," Tallah agreed, leaning in. Christina kept quiet.

"A rune effect is only powerful if we don't know what it does. But the visitor told us. Explicitly." She traced a line on Vergil's skin. "He's given you a cutoff time. So this would be set to draw in illum until it reached critical load. So these two clusters here would handle this: draw and end effect. The rest is alien, yes, but you can't escape the principle."

"Why wouldn't he stop you then?" Vergil asked. "If you were adding a block, he could've just stopped you from doing it."

"Would've shown weakness," Tallah heard herself say. "You were right enough earlier. Gods do bleed. They're just good a hiding it."

'It sounds reasonable,' Christina grumbled. 'Commend the hen for me. I agree with her analysis.'

"And the thing is," Sil said, finally looking up and releasing Vergil from her grasp. "I think Panacea would know more about this."

"How so?" Tallah asked.

"Because I felt her watching while I was carving. Like someone in my head, watching through my eyes. It corrected me when I was about to slip on a symbol."

Tallah stiffened at that. She'd had enough of being watched and followed and spied upon. If this was Panacea working through Sil or something else, she very much did not want to let it go on.

'Can I now do what needs to be done? To both of them?' Christina asked.