Page 200 of Keeper of the Word

Coughing up blood, Tolvar stood as if under a spell. He knew why Crevan would not go down. The Curse of Adrienne fed him.

Your forbearance feeds you.

“Sloane?” he whispered. He closed his eyes, but nay, the white room would ne’er be again.

Under the pale gleam of the full moon, the Wolf steadied himself.

“Come, Crevan, let us see who wins and who falls.”

Hux’s face darkened, but he moved to let Tolvar cut into the fight.

A strange thing happened. The pain shed away, and everything that Tolvar was—the warrior, the hero, the Wolf—shot into his being. Crevan hacked away at him, but suddenly, ’twas as if Tolvar knew where his next move would come from. The Wolf’s moves were steady, patient, restrained, and Crevan’s became more erratic and wild.

By and by, he noticed that Hux and Elanna stood off to the side, observing. The fourth StarSeer’s gaze fixed on him as if she, too, fought. Ghlee, Alvie, Joss, and Barrett, too, had joined. Tolvar felt their comradeship. Their loyalty. Their love.

’Twas no battle at all, and soon, Tolvar had Crevan on his knees, his sword to his throat, the Edan Stone regained in hand.

But glancing at Hux, Tolvar knew he could not take Crevan’s life, even with the trace of Adrienne coursing through his brother’s veins.

He gripped the Edan Stone in his hand while Ghlee, Hux, and Barrett held their swords to Crevan. He glanced at Elanna. Ready.

“Oh stars,” Elanna said distractedly. She regarded the horizon.

Tolvar followed Elanna’s gaze. A coven of witches. Not the ones from before—Jordain was nowhere in sight. Dozens. An entire coven. They’d spread themselves in a circle around the field, and with orbs—the tell-tale sign—floating before them. They began to chant.

“They’re unburying the Curse!” Elanna screamed.

Someone knocked into Tolvar, and the Edan Stone flew from his hand. Crevan was on top of him, reaching for the moonstone that had landed feet from them. Tolvar punched at Crevan’s side, but soon the two were wrestling for the stone.

A sound froze him.

Ne’er, in all of Tolvar’s eleven years of being a knight, had he heard this sound. ’Twas not a sound. ’Twas a monster swallowing all sounds. It demolished his ears. He couldn’t be sure if the echo of such razing blare wouldn’t be permanently part of him.

He pushed his hands to his ears. As if that would drown it out. As if anything could ever drown it out.

Everyone screamed. Elanna most of all. She sank to her knees.

The blare blasted through everything. The Befallen, about to return. And with it, destroy everyone here.

Asalle’s walls shook, and a gigantic crack coursed up one side. Would the starstone key hold? This had all been for naught. And why shouldn’t it be? One only had to gaze at this corpse-littered field to see the worth here.

The full moon caught his eye.

“What do they see?” Tolvar heard.

’Twashisvoice. His own. An echo. From the night when he’d knelt together with Sloane on another night of the Falling Leaves Moon.

He saw the memory of Sloane. His beautiful, courageous Sloane, kneeling before him wearing her moon cuff, which was tucked safely in his pocket.

“What do they see?”

“They see that love can travel across the sky and the heavens, all the way to the stars.”

All the way to the stars.

Tolvar’s hands loosened from his ears. He had to get the Edan Stone!

With his broken hand, his fist landed into Crevan.