Shirikant’s voice was cruel and placid. “I will destroy every living soul in this world. You cannot catch me. You cannot take me against my will. I too have trained with the Kishion. I am not afraid of you, Brother. And I know more about Druidecht lore than you ever will. Dryad—I call you by your true name, Phae Grove, and I bind you to serve me.”
Phae felt a whorl of magic rush against her, searing into her skull. It was as if a great hand clutched her mind, gripping it with iron fingers. She felt it, but it had no power over her. She knew that, but she also knew that Shirikant did not. If she could trick him into looking into her eyes . . .
“No!” Shion shouted, his mind connected to hers.
Take his memories she heard Shirikant whisper greedily in her mind.
Shirikant raised the stone cup to his mouth and swallowed several gulps from it. Trickles of silver liquid spilled down his chin. He grimaced in pain.
“No, I forbid it!” Shion said, turning to look at her, to look deliberately into her eyes. His expression hardened into fierce determination. He did not want Shirikant’s memories harvested inside her, his evil chained inside her tree.
Now! Shirikant’s thoughts murmured to her.
Phae turned to Shirikant, shrugging off the heavy oppressive feeling against her mind. “That is not my Dryad name,” she announced, looking into his eyes. And she blinked.
The wave of memories struck her like a flood, coursing through her mind, her body, her soul in a hailstorm of evil and gibbering terror. She crumpled to her knees, feeling the weight of the burden suffocating her, soiling her, bringing her in contact with the worst demons of imagination possible. She shrank from the onslaught, uttering a groan of despair as the thoughts and images flooded her mind. The countless murders and savagery he had caused through his many faces. It was worse than she could have ever imagined, seeing the suffering and devastation and ruin that one being had caused throughout the world.
She felt arms around her, holding her, hugging her, and realized that Shion was kneeling next to her, sharing the memories as they passed through her, their minds connected by Dryad magic. It was a never-ending scream, a ceaseless howling that rippled into eternity.
She trembled under the weight of the horror, her own mind faltering to know what to do, and then by instinct, it happened. She began to unload the memories into her Dryad tree, and as she did, the burden began to lighten, the stretching strain against her soul began to ease. Memories shuffled into place, like books on a shelf, sinews of leather and glue and parchment.
There was a retching sound.
It felt as if a million pricking needles had stabbed inside Phae’s eyes. She had crumpled against Isic, feeling his strong arms around her, keeping her up. Shirikant knelt by the pool of quicksilver, vomiting silver bile back into the bubbling pool.
He looked sick and confused, his body shuddering as he looked up blankly, staring at the two of them without a shred of recognition. He wiped a trickle of silver from his mouth. “Where am I?” he whispered hoarsely. He looked around the battered cave.
Phae stared down at her hands and then at the stone cup toppled next to Shion’s brother. She made it to her feet somehow and hefted the stone chalice. She didn’t bother taking his Tay al-Ard. It would be useless to him, for he bore no memories and thus had nowhere to go. She stared at the chalice, at the designs carved into the side. It was a strange engraving of a tree with many vine-like limbs and blooming fruit. There was a man with a strange halo carved into it sitting on a throne. Images of serpents clung to the vines. There were other beings carved into it as well, one kneeling and raising a single hand. Another grabbed a fruit from the vine. It was the story of Shirikant and Shion. The entire legend had been painstakingly engraved into the stone chalice.
“What must we do?” Shion asked her, trembling from the memories they had endured. He stared at her worriedly, his expression tightening with the impending sense of more pain to come.
She stared at the bubbling cauldron, seeing the sheen of it. She understood how Shirikant had cursed it. His memories were now hers too. It would take one with the fireblood to tame the fire unleashed inside Pontfadog. And she knew the Seneschal had foreseen she would have it.
Phae reached out a calming hand. “Pericanthas. Sericanthas. Thas.”
She felt heat from the pool gathering together. Blue flames began to dance atop the frenzied churn of bubbles. The flames grew brighter and coalesced into a sphere that floated to her hand and then absorbed into her skin. She felt a rush of magic as her fireblood responded to it, meshing the magics together, taming them. A haze of steam lingered over the pool, the heat dissipating quickly. Soon the pool was a glassy sheen, still as a mirror.
Both she and Shion crouched near the edge of it.
“I must drink it, mustn’t I?” Shion whispered, looking at her.
Her heart ached. “Yes. The Plague is a protection to this place, a way of defending it against intruders and to prevent those who haven’t earned the right to enter.”