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Jemel tries to help her to her feet, but she falls again. As if something powerful is stopping her getting to the vault. He kneels down beside her. “Please, just a little further.”
She looks up at him. She is so weak she can hardly speak. “Jemel,” she says.
Perl is beside him. “It is the magic from the opening vault. It’s destroying her.”
“Fly her there,” Jemel says, urgently. “Pick her up and fly her closer.”
But Perl shakes his head. “I can’t. The vault is open. The power seeping from it is affecting me too. There are thousands of Bellator down there. They destroy fae magic. It’s a poison.” As he finishes speaking, Perl falls down onto his hands and knees. Behind him Kerik cries out, also dropping onto the pitted ground.
Jemel looks from them to the stone. Lukas is facing Damon, standing on the edge of the slowly opening vault, watching as each drop of Atticul’s blood opens it a little more. And he makes ready to throw himself into it.
It is too late. On the ground, Jemel watches his mother’s eyes close. She is barely breathing. He cannot get her near enough to Lukas to use her blood to kill Ur-Durik. It must be her living blood. She told him this. He cannot take her blood and run with it. It must flow from her living body onto the demon.
Her body that is barely alive.
“Bastard, no, no,” Elric shouts as he races past Jemel, cloak flying. He is still naked beneath it.
Before Elric can reach Lukas, Harok thunders past and grabs Elric by the waist, slamming both of them to the ground.
Lukas makes a growling noise.
Elric squirms in Harok’s arms, but he cannot free himself.
Lukas is staring at him, face pale, almost as if the sight of Elric is troubling him. “Lordling,” he says weakly, but then seems to steel himself. “I am sorry. I must do this. It is the only way.”
“No,” Damon says. He is the closest to Lukas. He has stopped only a few paces away. “There is another way. Jemel?” He calls the last word over his shoulder.
Xan is beside him. He reaches out a hand, “Come Baraboo. Come now.”
Jemel looks at Xan’s hand, then at his mother. Her eyes are closing. She is dying. The vault, the run through the zhilvar, the journey north, all of it is destroying her now. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice so weak he can hardly hear her. “I’m sorry, Jemel, my son.”
She has lived longer than any Immurite. She birthed a son. She is the final piece of a ritual of sacrifice that took two hundred years. It’s her blood. The power to destroy the demon is in her blood.
Her eyes close on the grassy ground of the zhilvar. She is gone. Her living blood. But she is no longer living. Ferra Zain’s plan has failed.
Jemel looks up at Xan. Xan reaches down.
Jemel takes Xan’s hand. Xan pulls him to his feet. “Get me to Lukas,” he says.
Xan narrows his eyes. “No,” he says. “Your mother.”
“She is dead.” Jemel looks into Xan’s eyes. “But I cannot mourn her now. Get me to Lukas. Please.”
They both look over at Lukas. He kicks Atticul’s broken body into the vault. The snarling and growling gets louder. The sound makes Jemel feel sickened. His legs are weak as water. Without Xan holding him, he would fall to the ground again. The open vault is affecting him too. And he knows why. It must be.
“Do something,” Elric wails at Damon, still held in Harok’s big arms.
“Please,” Jemel says, desperate urgency in his voice. “Trust me.”
Xan pauses for a moment, before he nods. He lifts Jemel from the ground and starts racing with him. Across the dark zhilvar.
Jemel presses his face to Xan’s chest. He can hear his mother’s voice echoing in his mind. He can feel his years of tending to her inside him. She is his mother. So great a sin was necessary. Her blood is in his veins. The living blood of the Immurite.
Xan drops Jemel onto the ground. Lukas has the vault open now almost enough to get inside himself. “No,” Jemel shouts. “Wait.”
He has his own blade, The Blade of the Fifth in his hand. He lunges forward and slices Lukas across the chest. He hears Elric crying out somewhere.
Lukas snarls. “No, not yet, priest. The demon needs to be inside.”
