by Melanie Rawn
They lay together, exploring with lips and hands, not yet joined, not so eager as to be foolishly swift. Mikel’s father had impressed on him several important rules, primary being to make the lady take her time about it—which made it incumbent upon a man to restrain himself no matter what she might do. He found that in this, as in most other things, Fa had it right—though some of what Renza was doing made the counseled control damned near impossible. Still, every time she tried to hurry things along, Mikel grinned and evaded her. She growled at him, and swore, and her amber-flecked dark eyes laughed as she renewed her efforts.
At last he allowed her to guide him into her warmth, and gasped with the reality that was to theory as singing was to silently reading music on a folio page. He forgot all about Fa’s advice, forgot everything but what was happening to his body.
Afterward, when he had drawn his cloak up to protect her sweat-sheened skin from the night’s chill, he wondered which of a woman’s usual phrases he might hear now. Fa had told him that when one was not a husband but only a bed-partner, the woman often felt some comment necessary. “After she catches her breath, she’ll say something like, ‘That was wonderful,’ or ‘You were great,’ or ‘I didn’t have to teach you very much!’ Smile and be gracious when you compliment her in return, and above all look smug. For some unknown reason, they think smug is adorable in bed. But once you ‘re married, it’s different. When things are finished, like as not she’ll remind you that the hedges need trimming, or to tell the cook there’ll be twelve for dinner tomorrow night!”
So he waited for Lirenza to catch her breath, hoping she’d say something flattering that wasn’t too dreadful a cliché. He’d like to remember her words with pride and pleasure as being for him alone, not a standard phrase mothers taught their daughters for such situations.
She snuggled close to his side, burrowing her face into the curve of his neck. “Mmm,” she sighed. “Nice.”
After a few moments he realized with a wry grin that this was all the praise he was going to get. Well, if not exactly eloquent, at least it was sincere—
The explosion was too near and too loud for his ears to comprehend. What he heard, an instant later, was like the aftershock of thunder and the afterglow of lightning—and the jangle of glass on the wooden floor below. Then came the glow of fire from empty byres beneath the hayloft. And the smoke, blown upward by drafts through shattered windows toward the jagged remains of the skylight over his head.
He choked, and tried to sit up, but Lirenza’s slight body was suddenly heavy and limp in his arms. She didn’t cough with the thickening smoke. There was a second explosion, and a third farther away, and she didn’t flinch. He spoke her name, then shouted it, struggling free of her embrace, and saw blood on his own bare shoulder where her head had been, and a six-inch shard of glass embedded in her nape like a dagger.
He staggered to his feet, bent, gathered her up in his arms. He carried her to the ladder and looked down through billowing smoke. It was twenty-five feet to the wooden floor. He would never be able to carry her down—not in time to save himself. He drew a shaky breath, coughed again, and placed her very gently onto the straw. Her head lolled back, eyes closed, a smile still on her face, and he wondered bitterly if he ought to be glad he’d been the one to put it there. If not for him, she’d be alive; if not for her, he’d be dead. Was that a fair balance, on St. Venkelos’s scale of judgment?
Knuckling tears from his eyes, he drew her hands up, folding them between her breasts. The pose of a corpse reading for burning. Silver glinted from one delicate wrist. Hesitating only a moment, he unclasped the bracelet of gray agates and yellow topazes that were the colors of the Mettyn Blood, not knowing to whom he would give the token or even if he’d survive to do so. Coughing, half-blinded by smoke and tears, he stroked back her dark hair and murmured her name one last time.
Then, his clothes bundled in one arm, he descended the ladder into an inferno.
15
“WHAT the hell are you doing with that?”
Josselin gave Taigan a blank stare. “With what?”
She pointed accusingly at the sword at his hip. “The Captal’s sword, that’s what. Where did you—” She was distracted by a moan, and turned to where Elomar had set up a rough—very rough—field hospital at the gatehouse. The patient sprawled on the wooden floor of the warming room was Prentice Nilos Doriaz. Glass slivers were embedded all along one side from his cheek to his ribs. Taigan surmised he’d been in bed when an explosion shattered his window. Nilos was barely fourteen years old.
Elomar, assisted by his daughter and lacking any medical instrumentation, was removing fragments with his fingertips. Taigan gulped as a large ragged shard was eased from the boy’s neck. But no blood spurted out; the artery had not been cut. Elomar flung the piece into the capacious warming-room hearth—and barely missed hitting Timar Grenirian, who was stripping twigs for kindling. Taigan was inexplicably fascinated by the old man. There was a certain rhythm to the motions of his hands—pile kindling, reach for a new branch, wipe at his broken nose. When a spark at last caught and the wood flared, Taigan flinched. It took her a moment to realize that she’d been picturing him doing exactly the same thing thirty-eight years ago, the first time the Mages had been destroyed.
No, she told herself fiercely, not destroyed, not then and not now!
Taigan glanced around the warming room, where only last week she’d sat with her fellow Prentices to learn the responsibilities of sentry duty. All the chairs had been shoved to the walls, forming a kind of long, uncomfortable bed with the wounded lying head-to-heels. More people lay on the floor, or curled with arms wreathing knees by the huge brick hearth.
How had they gotten here? Without her help, that was certain. She’d been in her room, carefully wrapping her mask to preserve it as a souvenir of the night. Suddenly the explosions began. With everyone else who survived the initial onslaught, she’d run from the Hall to the gatehouse, escaping the flames. Now she was ashamed of her panic. There were things to be done—the wounded were being cared for, nothing she could do for them, but there must be others still alive back there. And where was the Captal? Josselin had the sword—where had he gotten it?
She looked around for him. But he had moved toward the door, the cloak once more covering the length of the Captal’s sword in its scabbard. Grimly, Taigan went after him, determined to find out how and why he had left Mage Hall with that sword.
Her brother waylaid her halfway to the door. She’d glimpsed his coppery curls earlier on the way to the gatehouse, but he’d been carrying someone and was slower than she, and in her terror she’d run right past him. Guilt smote her once more; Mikel had helped, she had only fled. He’d probably seen her. For a moment she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, then decided she must brazen it out. If she’d been a coward before—well, that was over.
“Are you all right?” Mikel asked anxiously, drawing her aside.
“Fine.” She surveyed him. Singed here and there, but unharmed that she could tell. “You look awful. Are you hurt?”
“Right shoulder,” he replied. “Just a pinprick—falling glass. I still have one good arm.”
“With which you are going to do exactly nothing. Mishka, don’t argue with me! You got out of there once, Saints alone know how—I’m not letting you go back there again!”
“I have no intention of arguing with you. I’m not going to stick around long enough for you to argue with.” So saying, he stalked out into the night, beyond the range of the crackling hearthfire and the Mage Globe Lusira had conjured for her husband to work by.
Taigan hissed between her teeth and went after him, with one look back over her shoulder into the gatehouse. Elomar and Dessa had moved on to another patient. Outside, around a small fire built at the rose-covered wall, a few uninjured Mages and Prentices shivered in night-clothes and blankets. Taigan approached, picking out those who’d had the presence o
f mind to put on shoes, and flinched again as she heard a crash of timbers and masonry from the Hall five hundred feet away.
How could she have run away before trying to rescue her fellow Mageborns? Coward. Craven. Not at all worthy of the First Daughter of two brilliant lights of the Rising.
Whatever of that brilliance she had inherited had deserted her. All she could do was listen as the others talked quickly among themselves. The consensus was that Mage Hall had been betrayed from within. No strangers had been seen in its precincts. Had the Mage on duty sensed any intrusions through her Wards, she would have called an alarm at once. But no one had infiltrated. The lethal Mage Globes had been set by one of their own.
Correction: one of Glenin Feiran’s own.
Taigan gritted her teeth and gathered the able-bodied by snapping out their names (sometimes two or three times before they responded) and organizing them as they strode down the hill toward the burning wreck of Mage Hall.
“First, check the stables. We need horses and carts to transport the wounded. Akin, do what you can in the Prentices’ quarters. Ketri, the Mages’ wing. When you find any wounded, the rest of you take them back to the gatehouse. And everybody be careful. There haven’t been any explosions for a few minutes, but there’s no telling what’s going to fall down next.”
“Our duty is—” said one of the Mages, but Taigan interrupted him.
“I’m going for the Captal.” To forestall any further discussion, she ran to catch up to Mikel. He gave her a fiercely challenging glare; she met his blue eyes levelly, and after a moment he relaxed and nodded.
“Joss went ahead.” He gestured to the Oak Court with his right hand, wincing as his injured shoulder protested. The blaze leaped skyward from the sunken hollow like some great exotic fire-lily, the glow turning Mikel’s curls to flames.
“What about Jored?”
“Haven’t seen him since he carried Rennon to the gatehouse. They’re probably looking for survivors.” He gripped his wounded shoulder with his left hand, visibly repressing another grimace of pain. “Teggie—how did this happen? Who did this?”
“How should I know? But when I catch up with whoever it was—”
“Assuming I don’t catch up with ’em first. And don’t talk to me about being First Daughter either,” he snarled suddenly. “Lirenza’s dead in there.”
She couldn’t place the name for a moment, then recalled that he’d been carrying on a mild flirtation with their fellow Prentice.
“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing how inadequate it was.
“I—I danced with her tonight,” He wouldn’t look at her. “And now she’s dead. How could anybody do this?” A hand came up to swipe at his eyes, and Taigan didn’t think it was because of the sting of blowing smoke.
They were nearly at the curving red-brick wall that guarded the sunken courtyard, and the noise of the fire and the sudden crashes of timber and masonry were deafening. The twins traded looks that refused to admit fear. Mikel preceded Taigan into the inferno, between wooden gates that blazed askew on their hinges, down the steep stairs to the courtyard. Taigan followed, choking at the sight of Granon Bekke—what was left of him. When she made as if to go smother the flames, Mikel hauled her back.
“It can’t matter to him now!” he shouted above the furious roar of the fire. “Come on!”
There was another explosion then, not of a Mage Globe but a branch of the oak tree. They reeled back, Taigan brushing at the right side of her face where cinders scorched her skin. Suddenly Mikel slapped her head, nearly knocking her over. She pushed him away furiously. He plucked a long lock of blonde hair from her cloak, showing her the singed end. Taigan gasped and felt frantically at her head. Two or three more strands came loose in her fingers, the tufted ends sticking straight up at her crown.
He grabbed her elbow and dragged her toward the stairs. “Can we get out of here before we’re both scarred for life and blistered bald?”
Taigan saw a cloaked figure on the balcony above, and thought it must be Jored. She screamed his name. There was no response. Mikel yelled, “Joss!” and the man turned from the entrance to the Captal’s quarters, the sword swinging against his thigh.
“Is she in there?” Mikel shouted.
Josselin roared back, “Get out of here before you fry like all the rest! There’s nothing you can do here but get yourselves killed—and then your mother would kill me!”
“Assuming you make it out of here!” Mikel yelled back.
Taigan’s answer was more direct. She slithered past a burning trellis and raced up the stairs, the three burns on her face stinging like acid. Mikel was right behind her, both of them coughing and bleary-eyed with smoke. Josselin had vanished indoors by the time they arrived at the Captal’s rooms. There was no fire within, and no windows had blown out, and once over the threshold the air was breathable. In the office, Mikel ran for a tall shelf, to what purpose Taigan had no idea. She went for the private inner chamber.
Beside the bed, Marra Gorrst rocked back and forth, crying softly into her husband’s black hair. Taigan’s grief gave way to fear when she saw the Captal, and Josselin, and felt a savage magic thicker and more deadly than the smoke outside.
The Captal stood in the center of the room, face streaked with soot and tears, eyes black acid as she confronted Josselin. He glared grimly back at her, a magnificent statue holding a sheathed sword.
“It’s mine,” hissed the Captal, and her hand snapped forward as if she flung something at him. “I want it back!”
The magic—not even contained within a Globe, the Captal had no need of such visual exhibition of her power—crashed against Josselin’s defense, which became visible only when the assaulting spell hit, arcing all the way around him in a spherical blast of crimson fire fully eight feet across. Taigan was caught in the backlash, reeling as the Captal struck again.
“Give it to me!” she shrieked. “How dare you take what’s mine!”
Josselin shook his head slowly. He was breathing hard, sweat shining on smudged forehead and cheeks like rivulets of tears or blood.
“Give it to me!”
And Taigan heard echo of herself and Mikel from the first instants of their lives, when the Captal had taken their magic from them and they had rebelled against losing that thing which was most theirs of anything they were or ever could be. She had stolen it from them, and they had been hollowed by its loss—
No. She had Warded it up inside them. She had stolen nothing, taken nothing. She had protected them against its power until they were ready for it.
And that was exactly what Joss was doing now. That sword, Gorynel Desse’s sword, one of The Fifty from St. Caitiri’s own forge—in the hands of the Captal as she was now, it would slay anyone in its path. Josselin knew it; no one could look at her and not know it. Taigan shuddered as Joss barely resisted yet another onslaught. He would not survive many more. But he could not, would not, give up that sword, not to this raving madwoman whose life’s work was burning to ashen ruin all around her.
Had all her power turned to Wild Magic? Taigan shuddered, for if this were true they were all lost—not just the people in this room but the Mage Guardians, forever. If The Bequest died with Cailet’s insanity, the Mage Guardians would be destroyed.
Sidling along the wall of windows toward the bed, Taigan knelt by Marra and gripped her shoulder. Low-voiced, not wishing to draw the Captal’s rage, she said, “Go—get out. We’ll bring him. Hurry.” When she received no responses other than an angry shrug of the shoulder she held, she dug her nails into Marra’s flesh. “Joss can’t last much longer, and I can’t protect either of us against her—let alone the child you carry! Move!”
“The baby—” Sense returned to Marra’s eyes, and with it terror for her unborn child. Exposure to powerful magic while still in the womb was risky at best; exposure to this kind of magic was tantamount to murder.
“Go!”
Taigan said again, and then Mikel was at her side, dragging Marra to her feet. He’d grabbed the Captal’s fur cloak from the wardrobe and wrapped her in it—using only his left hand. His right arm was hidden beneath his own cloak, drawn close to his ribs as if he’d been hurt again and was cradling the pain. But his eyes were clear, and he was neither flushed nor pallid beneath the soot on his cheeks, so Taigan decided he’d do until Elomar could do something for him. “Get her out of here,” she ordered. “And don’t come back for us!”
Her twin sent her a single eloquent glower over his shoulder and hurried Marra into the next room. Taigan stood, gulping back terror as Joss staggered within his Mage Globe.
“You have no right!” shrieked the Captal. “It’s mine!”
Once again Josselin did nothing more than shake his head. It seemed to infuriate her more than any words he could have spoken.
Taigan bit both lips between her teeth. The Captal’s back was to her; she was reasonably sure her presence had gone completely unnoticed. She jumped up onto the bed, stumbled across it, and launched herself at the Captal. Her adored Auntie Caisha. The madwoman who spun with the speed of a silverback cat to fend her off, and clawed at her as they plunged to the floor in a tangle of limbs and corrosive magic.
Her mind was scorched by that magic which burned without light. Self-born shadows that needed no fire to create them shrouded her in blackness. She couldn’t even cry out, though her throat and lungs were as raw as if she’d screamed since the instant of her birth. Whatever magic was in her contracted to a tiny, terrified spark—but it was all she had against that smothering darkness. She clutched at it, and instinctively hid it from the sudden ruthless searching of that dark, rapacious magic.
Give it to me!
She Warded herself with frantic, mindless urgency. Black shadows swept over her like suffocating wings. There was no light anywhere except for that minuscule ember hiding within her—and all at once it was free to grow, to expand, to ensphere her totally and keep her safe.