The Invisible Ring

He heard men scream.

He heard sharp cracks, like tree limbs snapping.

He heard squelchy sounds, like overripe melons being dropped on a hard floor.

With his inner vision, he saw the web glowing bright red in the eye of a violent gray storm. He saw the dark circle of Hayllian minds flare and flare and flare until it shattered. He saw that other circle change to solid Gray.

Gasping, he poured more strength into the web.

A circle of Gray to contain the storm of power. When the unleashed Gray hit that Gray wall, the backlash would be as bad as the initial strike.

The thought had barely formed when the backlash hit him. He held on, drawing everything he could out of his Red Jewels.

It would return to its source. Whatever wasn’t absorbed as it roared through the Hayllians’ minds and crashed against their Jewels would return to its source.

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful! Did Lia know enough to shield herself? She would be as vulnerable to the backlash as the rest of them.

The ground shook.

Wind howled through the streets of Ranon’s Wood.

Lightning tore the sky apart.

He felt the land embrace the power of a Queen that was being fed into it as what was left of the Gray flooded back to its source.

And then he felt the silence.

Thera punched his shoulder weakly. “Getoff me. I can’t breathe.”

Jared’s head jerked. What had he been thinking of, lying on her like that? He rolled off her but immediately reached for her belly.

Nothing to do for her. Even a Healer as good as Reyna had been couldn’t have helped her.

Groaning, Thera sat up. She looked over his shoulder. What color there had been in her face fled.

“Mother Night,” she gasped before she got to her hands and knees, crawled a couple of feet away from him, and became violently sick.

Jared twisted around to see what had frightened her.

He recognized the badge worn by a Master of the Guard.

That was all he recognized.

Too numb to look away, he stared at the torn, pulped mess.

It would have been all of them. Without the web protecting everyone connected to it ...

He shook his head, breaking the trance.

He wouldn’t think of it.Couldn‘t think of it.

Thera’s continued retching brought him back to the immediate.

He crawled to her, slipping in the trail of intestines.

Gathering up the hair that had escaped the loose braid, he put one hand on her forehead to support her, closed his eyes, and tried with all sincerity to convince his stomach to stay put.

Then he frowned. How could she be retching when chunks of her stomach were strewn all over the road?

Thera finally sat back on her heels. “Shit,” she said weakly, “it smells.”

She fumbled with the torn tunic, trying to widen the tear. “Help me get it off. It smells.”

“Thera . . .”

“Help!”

Swearing under his breath, Jared ripped the tunic in half.

Thera immediately swiped at the remaining guts and started tearing at the gauzy material wrapped around her middle.

Jared stared for a moment. He pushed her hands away and ripped the material. Tossing the gauze aside, he gingerly wiped her belly with a piece of her tunic.

No shattered bones. No torn flesh.

Jared leaned back. His hands curled into fists. “You sneaky little—You tricked us!”

“I trickedthem ,” Thera snapped. “Youwere supposed to ignore it.”

“I was supposed to ignore it?” Jared said mildly as anger started to heat his blood.

She eyed him. Grabbing the tunic, she scrubbed at her belly. “We figured you were going to be a little upset about this,” she muttered.

Even his teeth felt hot. “Upset? I thought I saw Lia get ripped apart right in front of me, and you figured I’d be alittle upset?” He paused. Thought. Exploded. “YOU IDIOT! Do you realize how lucky you were that whoever unleashed that Jewel didn’t go for your heart or your brain?” He shook her hard enough to make her squeal. “You could have been killed! Who—”

She didn’t have to answer.

Talon strode down the street, stepping over Hayllian bodies, kicking pieces out of his way.

Did Talon even see them? Jared wondered as he leaped up to intercept the furious Warlord Prince.

“Damn you, Lia, I did as you asked!” Talon roared. “A strike to the belly. Not even a fast, clean kill,but a strike to the belly !” His eyes filled with tears. “Damn you for cutting out my heart, I did as you asked!”

Jared grabbed Talon’s shoulders. “It was a trick, Talon. This is Thera, and she’s all right.It was a trick .”

Talon made a slashing gesture with his hand. “Then what’s all that spewed in the street?”

“Pig guts,” Thera muttered, scrubbing harder.

They stared at her.

She cringed.

Maybe it was mean-spirited, but after the scare she’d given him, Jared relished being able to intimidate her.

“Pig guts?” Talon said in disbelief.

“Pig guts,” Jared said, nodding slowly. “When they butchered the pigs yesterday morning, our little Black Widow toddled away with two large buckets of offal.” He smiled at Thera.

She whimpered.

Talon’s soft snarl grew to a roar. “I should take you over my knee and wallop some consideration into you!”

“Once the Hayllians surrounded the village, this was the only way we could win the fight,” Thera said with a bit of her normal fire.

“You could have told us,” Jared snarled.

“You would have yelled at us, and we didn’t have time for that.”

He and Talon did more than yell. With their arms locked around each other, Jared wasn’t sure if he was holding Talon back or if Talon was holding him.

“Why are you blaming just me?” Thera wailed. “I saw the warnings in the tangled web, but I’m not the only one who planned this.”

That stopped them cold.

“Lia,” Jared said softly. Releasing Talon, he turned in a slow circle and finally looked,really looked at what a Gray-Jeweled Queen could do.

“She mustn’t see this,” Talon said grimly. “She hasn’t had time to become comfortable with the power she carries inside her now. This could cripple her. Someday she’ll have to unleash the Gray again, and if she won’t because of this, it could cost Dena Nehele dearly.”

Jared turned back to Thera and saw the exhaustion and how hard she was holding on to some emotional control. “Where?” he asked quietly.

“The dance ring,” Thera said wearily. “She’s in the dance ring. We put a cold spell around it when we went for a walk the other day so that no one would want to go into it.”

Jared ran.

He saw his uncle Yarek and Thayne and a few other villagers come out of the buildings and look around, dazed.

He heard Blaed shouting Thera’s name.

He heard someone running behind him and knew it was Talon.

Please, he thought as he ran.Sweet Darkness, please don’t let her walk out of the dance ring and see this .

He leaped over a body and ran up the slope. He hit a wall of air cold enough to make his breath hitch, but it vanished as soon as he went through it.

Reaching the crest, he skidded to a stop.

Talon joined him, breathing hard.

Lia sat near the center of the ring, her legs spread wide, her hands clutching her chest.

“Lia,” Jared breathed.

He rushed down to the dance ring and dropped to his knees between her legs. “Lia?” Cautiously, he reached out to touch her but didn’t quite dare. “Lia?”

Her blank eyes stared at him.

Talon went down on one knee beside her.

Lia blinked. Blinked again.

Hesitantly, Jared rested his hand on her thigh. “Lia?”

“It knocked me down,” she said, pouting.

She sounded like a little girl whose best friend had snatched her favorite toy.

“It knocked me down,” she said again. She lowered her hands.

Jared looked at the Gray Jewel smeared with blood. His blood. That’s how she had keyed her Gray power to recognize the psychic web and not destroy everyone connected to it.

And the Blood shall sing to the Blood—and through the blood. Thank the Darkness.

“It’s mine,” she pouted. “It shouldn’t knock me down.”

“It was the backlash, sweetheart,” Talon said gently.

“Oh.”

*Did it damage her?* Jared asked on a spear thread.

Talon hesitated, then shook his head. *I think she’s just dazed. Even with a Gray shield around her, she must have taken a vicious hit.*

Humming softly, Lia caressed the Jewel.

Jared could almost feel her fingers sliding over his skin.

When she looked up again, her eyes were no longer blank.

“Your men?” she asked Talon.

He turned his head toward the village, his attention focused inward. After a moment, he said, “A couple of them were injured, but not seriously.”

“Your people?” she asked Jared.

“They’re fine.”

She hesitated. “Thera? Did all the Gray shields I made hold around Thera?”

“They held just fine. She was brilliant. She scared the shit out of us. After that little performance, I think Blaed deserves a month of fussing without any objections.” He glanced at Talon. “Don’t you?”

“At least,” Talon said dryly.

Lia hesitated again. Longer this time. “I killed them, didn’t I?”

Jared didn’t answer.

“They’re dead,” Talon finally replied.

Lia burst into tears.

Shifting position, Jared pulled her into his lap and rocked her.

The sobs ripping through her unnerved him.

“Let her cry it out,” Talon said, resting a hand on Lia’s head. *I'll go back to the village and bring a couple of horses.* He grimaced. *If any of them survived. I know how to make a brew that will sedate her for several hours. I’ll bring that, too.*