by Sarah Hawke
“Every merchant I’ve spoken to is genuinely scared of the Inquisitrix’s Hand.”
“They should be,” Val told him. “Everyone should be.”
Derec nodded. “When she and her soldiers were here, they carved a bloody swath through the pass. I can’t believe there any trolls left. Some of the fortress’s scouts saw the results of her handiwork first hand. What they described was…harrowing . No one should be able to inflict that much damage without the help of the Aether.”
“She’s not just an amazon—she’s a Senosi now, too,” Val reminded him, the faintest hint of wounded pride in her voice. “You and your friends better get used to it. If the Inquisitrix gets her way, you’re going to be facing a lot more Huntresses soon.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Derec said gravely. “Anyway, I wish you luck on your journey. The Mistress has full confidence in your abilities.”
“Good to know,” I murmured. “Thanks again.”
We caught up with Kaseya outside a minute later. She was staring off to the east, her eyes locked onto the distant mountain peak even though the mountains were cloaked in fog.
“According to this map, we should be able to reach the Peak by nightfall,” she said. “If we hurry, we might even be able to reach the village.”
She started walking away before we had a chance to respond. I let out a deep breath and glanced down to Valuri.
“Well, I’m excited. How about you?”
“Thrilled,” she muttered. “Why am I less scared about trolls than I am about Red?”
“Because you and I are more alike than either of us want to admit,” I said, squeezing her arm. “Come on. We might as well get this over with.”
***
Trudging through the mountains was every bit as fun as I’d imagined. The so-called “trail” was less of a path than a deathtrap, complete with slick terrain, random rock falls, and the occasional ice troll. I couldn’t imagine any merchant with a sliver of sanity making this trip more than once a year, and even then he would have needed to hire a wizard or ranger just to survive. The three of us wouldn’t have lasted a day without Kaseya’s survival skills and my magic.
“This right here is why I’m proud to be a city girl,” Valuri said as she warmed her hands over the campfire that night. “Who in their right mind would ever want to live like this?”
“Somehow, I doubt many of these people have a choice,” I told her, glancing back over my shoulder. Therascor’s Peak was easily visible in the bright moonlight, and in theory our destination was only a few miles down the cliff on the other side. “The Roskarim rule everything north of here, and you know how they feel about outsiders.”
“There are a dozen villages around the Frozen Tear. Why not head south and join them?”
“Because the people on that side of the mountains don’t want them, either,” I said. “For all its other virtues, Highwind has never been particularly welcoming of war refugees. These folks are still considered too savage for the genteel masses. They’re basically trapped between two civilizations.”
“And Zalheer is hiding among them,” Kaseya murmured.
Valuri I turned in unison. The amazon was standing off to the side behind us, her eyes locked onto the Peak in the distance. Her intensity hadn’t waned in the slightest since we left Icewatch. I could actually feel the anger swelling inside her even without activating my ring.
“He better be, otherwise we’re all freezing our asses off for nothing,” Valuri said, nestling up against me more tightly. For once, her Senosi powers were working against her—I couldn’t use my magic to shield her from the worst of the cold like I could with myself and Kaseya. As long as I was conscious and focusing, we didn’t really even need the thick furs or coats.
“He is there, and he will tell us everything he knows about my sister,” Kaseya said, her voice as bitter as the wind. “Then he will kneel and face justice for his crimes.”
I frowned. “You can actually sense him out there, can’t you?”
Kaseya frowned and turned as if she only just remembered that she wasn’t alone. “What?”
“I can feel you reaching out through the Aether,” I explained. “I can’t sense anything, but I bet you can.”
Her lip twitched. “I sense a presence, yes.”
I wanted to tell her how remarkable that was; I wanted to explain that most sorcerers I’d known had trouble sensing other channelers beyond a few hundred feet, let alone miles away. But I knew she still didn’t want to hear anything about her powers.
“You need to be ready for what he has to say,” I whispered. “You might not like it.”
“I am certain I will not like it,” Kaseya said matter-of-factly. “I am just as certain that I will kill him anyway.”
I pressed my tongue hard into the back of my teeth. Even without the influence of her collar and my ring, I felt like I had connected with her more deeply than I had with almost anyone else I’d ever met. I couldn’t explain why, precisely, but when I kissed her—and especially when I fucked her—everything in the world just felt right .
But we were still very different people with very different life experiences, and at times like this I was reminded how much more I had in common with Valuri. Growing up in the same city was part of it, but it was really more about a shared culture than location. The streets of Vorsalos taught everyone to be selfish and cynical. Charity was rare, and survival was all that mattered.
I knew precious little about daily life in Nol Krovos, but Kaseya’s entire worldview was obviously framed by an honor-bound code of justice that was completely foreign to us. She was sincerely motivated by an alleged crime committed against her people thirty years before she was born. It was difficult to understand, to say the least.
Still, a part of me couldn’t help but respect her for it. I bet Valuri did too, in her own way.
The three of us took turns keeping watch, and we were up and on the move just after sunrise. I fed Valuri with a spark of magic from my fingertips rather than a blast of seed from my cock, and we made excellent time despite the horrid terrain and wandering monsters. The small village in the valley rolled into view not long after we curled around the edge of the Peak.
“That’s it,” I declared, bracing myself against a large stone outcropping.
“Obviously,” Valuri said. “I don’t think there are many other settlements up here.”
“I mean that’s the village I saw in the dreamscape,” I explained. “The houses, the lake…it’s all exactly the same.”
“That’s a good thing, right? It means you’re not crazy. Or at least, you’re not as crazy.”
I pursed my lips in thought. “I know other channelers have visions all the time, but this is new to me. It’s…weird.”
Valuri shrugged. “I just hope the old man is still here.”
“He is,” Kaseya said, her eyes narrowing in thought. “But something’s wrong.”
I frowned and examined the nearby area. The path was a bit wider here, and we were surrounded by a thatch of frozen bushes and tall pines. The permafrost beneath our boots had a bit more traction than normal, but it was still a long, slick path down to the lake.
“You sense something?” I asked.
“We’re being watched.”
I glanced back over my shoulder to Valuri and raised my hand in warning. Her brow creased as she reflexively drew her crossbows. We all paused, but even after listening carefully for a good thirty seconds I didn’t hear anything.
“Trolls aren’t this quiet,” I murmured. “Neither are orcs, generally.”
“They’re not orcs—they’re men,” Kaseya said. “And they have a channeler with them. Can’t you feel it?”
I frowned and reached out through the Aether. I didn’t detect anything nearby, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Her senses were far sharper than mine, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Perhaps she—
My thought was interrupted by the high-pitched whistle of
an arrow streaking towards my head. It would have splattered my skull across the snow if Kaseya hadn’t hoisted her shield in front of me at the last second. She immediately whirled around and deflected two more arrows before my eyes finally locked onto a glimmer of movement behind me. Three large male figures wearing pure white camouflage leapt out from the nearby bushes and charged at us, gleaming axes in hand.
“Roskarim!” Valuri shouted, firing a pair of bolts just over my shoulder. They dropped one of the men midstride, but the others kept coming. And a heartbeat later, four more emerged from behind us.
I reflexively clawed out to the Aether, but before I sheathed myself in spell armor I dropped flat to a knee and thrust out my hands. A concussive wave of force rippled out from my body in all directions, smashing into the ambushers and flattening most of them against the ground. The impact wasn’t strong enough to actually hurt them—I needed more than a split second to channel enough power for that—but in theory it would buy us a few seconds to react.
And with Valuri and Kaseya at my side, I knew that a few seconds would be more than enough.
The Huntress tucked herself into a tight ball and rolled away from the barbarian attackers before they could regain their footing. Her crossbows reloaded themselves while she tumbled, and when she vaulted back to her feet she fired two more quarrels, striking one man in the leg and another in the throat. Kaseya, for her part, was more concerned with protecting her Maskari . She crouched above me as more arrows streaked towards us, and she somehow managed to catch all of them on her shield despite the fact they were coming from completely different angles.
I really wanted to pause for a moment and figure out what in the hell was going on. How did a pack of Roskarim barbarians get up here without leaving any tracks? Why were they attacking us? How in the bloody hell had Kaseya sensed them?
Unfortunately, time was not our ally, so rather than lying around pondering the nature of the multiverse I snapped into action. The Aether surged through me, and I sheathed Kaseya and I in a protective mantle just like usual. And thank the gods I did—an instant later, one stray arrow slipped past her shield and struck her in the leg. The metal head expended all its force piercing her spell armor, and by the time it reached her skin it barely left a scratch.
“We have to get to cover!” she cried out.
“There is no cover!” Valuri hissed.
She was right, of course. The bushes and pines weren’t enough to protect us from much of anything. We were caught completely out in the open, and a single step in the wrong direction could result in a long, painful tumble down to the valley…
I grimaced even as I reared back and channeled a jagged torrent of energy towards our attackers. The crackling bolts electrocuted the men where they stood, freezing their muscles in place before stopping their hearts altogether. Before their bodies had even hit the ground, I whirled about and unleashed a gout of flame from my other hand, searing the men behind me—
At which point something struck me squarely in the back and sent me tumbling down the frozen path. I managed to grab onto a rock just before I skidded off the side and toppled half a mile straight down into the lake below, and when I glanced up my eyes latched onto yet another Roskarim standing on the path behind us. He was covered in furs and leather armor just like the rest of his warriors, but I could feel the Aether swirling around him. Apparently he was the channeler Kaseya had sensed.
“Kal roska daan !” he screamed, unleashing a coruscating beam of purplish energy directly at Kaseya. She caught the blast on her shield at the last second, but the impact still pushed her backwards and nearly caused her to trip. A few feet away, Valuri was trapped in a frantic melee with several other barbarians; her claws were out and covered in blood, but she wouldn’t be able to get free soon enough to neutralize the channeler and save us.
“No!” I shrieked, reaching out to the Aether and desperately trying to muster enough power for another spell. Energy gathered at my fingertips, but the barbarian was already directing another blast towards Kaseya—
He never finished channeling his spell. Without warning, a stroke of lightning surged down from atop the Peak, enveloping the barbarian in a crackling flash so bright it almost burned my eyes right out of their sockets. As I rapidly blinked in a desperate but futile effort to clear the afterimage, I heard several more blasts strike the path as if the gods themselves had decided to smite the Roskarim. Kaseya cried out an indecipherable warning, and Valuri screamed something as well. But by the time I could actually see, the battle was already over.
Kaseya was hunkered over me again, her shield hoisted protectively in front of us. Valuri was only a few yards away, her eyes glowing green and her claws dripping with blood. They were both staring up at an old man as he slowly levitated down from one of the rocky ledges above us. He was clad in thick furs just like the Roskarim, but he clearly wasn’t one of them.
“That’s close enough!” Valuri warned, holding her blood-drenched claws in front of her face.
The man slowly pulled back his hood once his boots touched the ground. His long hair and beard were completely white, and he had the weathered skin of someone who had spent the vast majority of his long life outdoors beneath the sun. Physically, he was the same sinewy man from my dreamscape, but here in person he radiated an aura of power unlike anything I had ever seen before. The Aether clung to him like a second cloak.
“Zalheer,” Kaseya spat.
“The sister,” he said, a visible wave of relief unfurling his wrinkled brow. “You have finally come. We are nearly out of time.”
I frowned suspiciously. “Time for what?”
The old man’s eyes lingered on Kaseya for a long moment before they turned back to me. “To save our people. To save the Aether itself. The Vaer Tal’Shira will destroy everything if she is not stopped.”
I shook my head. “The what?”
“The Daughter of Destiny,” Kaseya translated. “My sister.”
“If not confronted, she will poison the Aether and leave this world in utter darkness,” Zalheer said. “And you are the only one who can stop her.”
6
A long silence settled over the mountain. Snow whipped across my face and the stench of burned flesh filled my nostrils, but I barely even noticed them. I couldn’t take my eyes off the man in front of me, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything besides the waves of power rolling off him.
“Please, it is not safe here,” Zalheer said, breaking the silence. “The Roskarim infest this mountain, and more will come soon.”
I pulled my eyes away from him and glanced back over my shoulder to the Peak. “What are they doing up here?”
“Ensuring that I cannot leave.”
My head snapped back around. “Why would a bunch of snow barbarians care about you?”
“Because the Vaer Tal’Shira ordered them to keep me here until she returns.”
“Wait a second,” Valuri said, inching forward. “You’re saying Ayrael has a bunch of barbarians on her side now, too?”
“She has all the barbarians on her side,” the old man said. “The clans have united under her banner.”
My mouth fell open. “How is that possible? The Roskarim are tundra nomads. They won’t follow anyone.”
“They do now.”
I turned towards Valuri, but she didn’t have anything to offer me besides a confused shrug. It didn’t seem possible—the barbarian hordes hated everyone south of the White Ridge. They had warred with the Three Cities off and on for hundreds of years. Their invasion during the Winter War was just the latest in a long history of skirmishes.
“My sister wouldn’t keep you alive unless you were useful to her,” Kaseya said, her voice low and cold. “You agreed to help her attack Nol Krovos, didn’t you?”
“No, though she is convinced that I will eventually change my mind,” Zalheer said. “She is mistaken.”
I nodded absently, the scene from my first vision looping over and over in my head. A
yrael had spared him, and I hadn’t understood why at the time…
“I promise I will explain everything, but we do not have much time,” Zalheer went on. “If you will just follow me to the village, I will—”
“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Kaseya said, taking a menacing step forward. “You’re going to tell us exactly what we want to know, or my Senosi friend will rip out your heart right here and now.”
I winced. “Kaseya, maybe we should—”
“No!” she growled. “I will not be deceived by this monster. If he has something to tell us, he had best make it quick.”
Zalheer let out a long, tired sigh. “I know what Lysara has told you about me. Your sister explained everything in great detail.” His shoulders slumped, and I could actually see his aura diminish in the Aether. “I do not expect you to trust me. All I ask is that you give me the opportunity to explain myself.”
“I do not need an explanation,” Kaseya said. “I do not need to hear any of your lies!”
“Calm down for a second, Red,” Valuri pleaded. “There’s no harm in letting him speak.”
Kaseya’s head whipped around so quickly her frozen ponytail nearly smacked me in the face. “Are you serious?” she hissed. “You saw the power he commands. He could kill us in an instant if we let our guard down!”
“If he tries anything, he’ll be dead before he hits the ground,” Valuri said, retrieving one of her crossbows. “If he met your sister, then he already knows he’s no match for a Senosi.”
“Val’s right,” I said, keeping my voice as soft as possible. “You don’t have to trust him. You don’t have to believe him. But the whole reason we’re here is to at least listen to what he has to say.”
As the seconds ticked by and her rage didn’t subside, I legitimately wondered if she might just rush forward and kill him right then and there. I had never seen her like this before, and even though she had pledged to obey me I doubted I could have commanded her to do anything right now.