Starborn

by Katie MacAlister

  “What is he if not—” Hallow stopped speaking when a grinding sound came from the door. He spun around just in time to see one of the Shadowborn guards at the door before he tossed in a small figure.

  “You lot can have this devil on two legs. She slaughtered almost half a dozen of my men! Now I have to tell Lord Racin, and he’ll likely rip my head off…”

  With a snarl, Dexia leaped at the guard, but he had the door closed before her teeth closed on his flesh. She stood muttering under her breath for a few seconds before turning to face the others.

  “There you are,” Quinn said, getting up with a stretch before strolling over to where a small bucket sat with a metal cup. He dipped the cup, sniffed at it, and made a face before dumping the contents on the floor. “You’d think they could give us some decent ale, not this watery mess the Shadowborn think is a real beverage. Well, Dex? What news do you have?”

  “I was captured,” the little vanth said, foregoing the cup to guzzle greedily straight from the pail. She belched, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, then looked around. “Who’s that?”

  “I am Dasa, Queen of the Starborn. I assume you are also part of this blighted rescue party that I never asked for? How many more of you are there?” The last she demanded of Idril.

  “She’s a feisty one,” Dexia told Quinn. “I like her. You should lust after her instead of the white haired one.”

  “My hair is blonde, very pale blonde, not white,” Idril told Dexia before answering the queen. “That little girl belongs to Quinn, my lady, and has nothing to do with my plan.”

  “Your plan?” Hallow, feeling a bit drained by the events of the last twelve hours, sat on a three-legged chair. “Not to sound argumentative, but the plan to come here was made by Allegria, Lord Israel, and me. You simply stowed away.”

  “Because you left me behind!” Idril rose with a dramatic flare of her nostrils. “I told you that I would not be treated like some porcelain doll that must stay behind and look pretty!”

  Hallow rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache form. “Shall we leave off that argument again? I really don’t feel up to it, and I’d like to find out how the queen and you and Quinn ended up here.”

  Dexia strolled past him chewing on something. Hallow averted his eyes to avoid seeing just what it was she’d caught in the cell to consume. “And me. Don’t forget about me. I’m here, too.”

  “And you,” he agreed gravely. “Why don’t we start with the queen and work our way through everyone?”

  For a few seconds, Hallow wasn’t sure if the queen would answer. She stood with her back to the rest of them, staring at nothing in particular, her arms crossed. She was clad not in the usual fluttering gowns in which Hallow had always seen her, but in a pair of leggings and short cloth jerkin. “I am here because Israel was determined to prove to me that he is a bigger fool that I thought him.”

  “She was caught after leaving the keep to engage in carnal acts with Lord Israel,” Idril told Hallow, retaking her seat. “Racin found she was gone, and grew quite unreasonably angry, in my opinion. After all, the queen has borne Lord Israel’s child, and if she wishes to continue such illicit relations, that is her business.”

  “It didn’t help matters that you let the guards into my chambers,” Dasa snapped, shooting a glare at Idril.

  The latter shrugged one delicate shoulder. “He threatened to break down the door if I did not do so. I didn’t think you wished to have your door broken. I did think to distract the guard until you returned, but alas. Your carnal acts were evidently much more involved than I assumed.”

  Hallow glanced at the queen. She made an annoyed sound and turned to face them all. “The handmaid speaks the truth, much as it annoys me to admit. I thought she’d betrayed me to Racin, but evidently one of the guards patrolling the city saw me slip through the postern gate and tattled on me. If I hadn’t gone to see Israel—not that my goal was carnal acts, although they were, in fact, quite satisfying—if I hadn’t gone to see why the fool was all but banging on Skystead’s gates, then I would never have drawn Racin’s ire upon me.”

  “And me,” Idril said with an injured sniff. “I don’t see why he assumed that just because you were out having carnal acts, I was to be punished, but he said I was clearly aiding you, and thus, I am to die in the morning. I don’t wish to die, in the morning or any other time. I wish to see Deo and tell him to stop being an idiot so that we, too, can enjoy the carnal acts that everyone else seems to be filling their nights with.”

  “I’m yours, my lovely one,” Quinn protested, throwing wide his arms in a way that he clearly thought put his physique to an advantage. “Any time, any place. I will be happy to carnal you up one side and down the other.”

  Idril eyed him with an expression that had Hallow remembering just how efficiently she had killed Jalas’s guards. “You were dallying with the kitchen maid last night. Don’t deny it; I saw you with your tongue hanging out, and your hand down her bodice.”

  “That, my sweet one, was naught but a spot of research. I was simply grilling the girl as to the nature of the guards who sat on the ramparts watching the comings and goings of the keep. I deserve a reward for such a sacrifice of my time and better feelings than your scorn.”

  “That covers how we were caught,” Idril said, dismissing Quinn’s excuse. She studied Hallow for a moment, a little frown between her brows. “But why do you appear different than you did when I last saw you? Why are you wearing such a curious tunic?”

  “He’s a blood priest despite claiming he’s the Master of Kelos,” Dasa said, giving him a quick raking glance, but her eyes narrowed on his for a few seconds. “He is clearly learned in blood magic.”

  “Blood magic?” Idril smoothed a hand over a slight wrinkle in her otherwise pristine gown and looked puzzled. “I have not heard of this. What is it?’

  Hallow struggled for a way to explain something he wasn’t entirely certain he understood himself. “It’s…well, I suppose it’s best if you think of it this way: arcany is magic that comes from Bellias and the stars. It is the purest form of light, and thus, the purest form of magic.”

  “It is the strongest of all the magics,” Dasa said, pacing past him. “It far outreaches the Grace of Alba.”

  Idril kept her gaze focused on Hallow, clearly waiting for him to continue.

  “As the queen says—and yes, my lady, I am an arcanist. Or at least, I was before I was initiated into the brotherhood of blood. I don’t know exactly what I am now other than sorely put upon—as the queen said, arcany is the strongest of the magics that we know. The grace of Alba, which all Fireborn are blessed with, is based in roots and earth, rock and sea. It is the magic of the elements. Its strengths lie in healing and magics based on the elements that make up Alba; thus, it does not have the range of possibilities that can be found in arcany.”

  “And your priestess?” Idril asked, raising one eyebrow. “Where do you place her lightweaving?”

  He smiled. “Allegria is unique. I know of no other living lightweaver. Her magic is a blessing from Kiriah, and thus, on the same level as arcany, although of a different form. It is more…” He searched for a word that would encompass Allegria’s power. “...benign. Which brings us to blood magic.”

  Idril pursed her lips. “Good. I was fearing you were going to recite some sort of liturgy of magics that would take hours.”

  He ignored the dig, again hesitating before he put into words the nature of blood magic. “Blood magic is unique to the Shadowborn. Where arcany is pure power, and the grace of Alba is about healing and the elements, blood magic is a vehicle for change. It takes an object from one state to another. Chaos magic is an extreme form of it, a corruption that draws its power from the act of destruction. Blood magic is about changing objects by binding them with long strings that move them from one state to another.”

  “
Strings of magic?” Idril gave a little shake of her head. “How can magic form a string? It makes no sense.”

  “To be honest, I’m only just learning about it. It has a tie to arcany, as well, or I wouldn’t understand the tiny bit I do.”

  Idril didn’t reply to that. In fact, Hallow reflected a short time later as he tried to settle in a way that would allow him to doze while still remaining ready to leap up in case of attack, no one really had anything much to say. Idril curled up on the one pallet that didn’t look as it if it had been home to many generations of rodents, while Quinn claimed the other one. Dexia stalked through the cell, occasionally diving at something, and much to Hallow’s horror, eating whatever she found.

  He had no sense of just how much time had passed since he’d been thrown into the cell. He was deep in a dream in which Allegria stood across a dry riverbed, which for some reason he was unable to cross. He had been trying to persuade her that she needed to come to him because the blood magic that he’d assimilated wouldn’t allow him to leave the bank, but just as she was telling him that he was not to give up hope because she would save him, the door to the cell was thrown open with a violence that had him on his feet before he was even fully awake, one hand automatically trying to gather arcany. Two Shadowborn guards stood in the doorway, demanding to know which one was named Hallow.

  “I am Hallow of Penhallow,” he answered, trying to form links of magic out of sight of the guards. “May I ask why you wish to know?”

  “Lord Racin has asked for you specifically,” a Harborym said, shoving aside the two guards to grab Hallow’s arm in a painful grip. The Harborym’s lips split in what was no doubt intended to be a smile. “He has great hopes that you won’t disappoint him.”

  Fear filled Hallow’s belly as the Harborym started to drag him away, but it wasn’t fear for his own life. He’d been an arcanist too long to fear moving on to the spirit world. But if he was killed by some torture that Racin had decided upon, what would become of Allegria? Who would protect her when she was focused on saving others? What of Deo and Idril and even Quinn and the queen?

  “Why are you taking him?” Dasa leaped at the Harborym, but he backhanded her and sent her flying into the wall.

  “Your time will come soon enough, Deva,” the Harborym answered with a sneer. “It will come for all of you in just a few hours. But first, the master wishes to try the latest conversion magic on this one.”

  And without another word, he marched off, dragging a stumbling Hallow with him. The slamming closed of the cell door shut out not only the protests of those left inside, but also any hope Hallow had left to him.

  Chapter 19

  “Woman, you cannot do this. Stop! Your plan is ridiculous!” Deo had few occasions to be the voice of reason, but he’d found himself in that exact position when he’d stopped Allegria from riding off in the direction the retreating Harborym had gone.

  “My plan? I have no plan,” she’d snapped and tried to wrestle the reins out of Deo’s grip.

  “That is my point exactly,” he’d growled, glaring at Allegria’s mule when she swung her rear around in order to kick at him. “You do and I’ll feed you to my dogs,” he’d warned the animal.

  “You don’t have any dogs, you great big oaf,” Allegria said, slapping at his hand at the same time she shoved the mule’s hind end out of range. “Buttercup, don’t you even think of acting up. We have avenging to do!”

  “You do not. No, Allegria, do not.” With a mental sigh at the obstinacy of women, Deo simply picked her up and removed her from the vicinity of her mount. “Stop struggling and listen to…by Bellias’s glittering blue balls, if you bite me, I will bind your arms and legs and sling you over the back of your mule so you will cause no more trouble!”

  The outrageous threat served its purpose, for Allegria stopped fighting him and gasped in outrage. “You wouldn’t dare! And Bellias doesn’t have balls. Have you been so long without a woman that you’ve forgotten that sort of thing?”

  He ignored the taunt, knowing well that she was beyond distraught at the loss of the arcanist. He set her down but kept his hands on both her arms so she wouldn’t try to escape. “I am not going to let you run after Hallow on your own.”

  “Then you’ll come with me?” She glanced around. “I suppose it would take too long to get everyone ready to go. You and I can ride faster than the whole company anyway.”

  Deo found himself in another seldom encountered situation: he had to pick his words carefully. “We will follow the Harborym, yes. If, by some miracle, we come upon them with Hallow, we will rescue him.”

  She stood very still, her dark eyes watchful and filled with pain that shone like light glancing off dark water. “And if we don’t find them?”

  “We go to Skystead. That is, I am certain, where the Harborym are headed. They would have no other reason to take Hallow than to—” He stopped, remembering in time that Allegria knew nothing of the inhuman experiments Racin was performing.

  “Than to what?” Her eyes narrowed, and he could see her fingers twitching.

  Again, he was uncomfortably aware that he had little experience in being circumspect. “Racin is trying to make his Harborym…more.”

  “More what?”

  He gestured vaguely toward nothing. “More like me, basically.”

  She frowned in thought, then her brow cleared as her eyes widened. “And you think Racin is going to try to make Hallow like you? He’s going to make him a Bane of Eris?”

  “Not exactly. He wishes to improve the Harborym so they are stronger than I am.” Deo, still holding Allegria by the arms, yelled over his shoulder, ordering those who were not wounded, or caring for the wounded, to ready themselves for the ride to Skystead. “We will ride, priest, but we will do it together; there is strength in our numbers. All right?”

  Reluctantly, Allegria had agreed, although Deo knew that she’d harbored suspicions that he didn’t wish to admit were valid. While he would have happily rescued Hallow if it was possible, he had a more important task at hand: with or without an army of Banesmen, Racin must be destroyed.

  Now several hours had passed, and just as the little light that marked daytime hours had started to fade, they caught sight of a lone rider in the distance, a man who had his back to them. Deo squinted into the distance, anger flaring to life when he recognized the white and gold tunic.

  “Is that—” Allegria started to say, but at that moment the man turned his head, caught sight of them, and wheeling his mount, bolted into the dense shrubs that lined the rocky track.

  Deo swore under his breath and put his heels to his horse, but Allegria was faster. Her mule evidently had a racing dam, because she charged past Deo with Allegria crouched low over her neck. The man didn’t stand a chance, mostly because his mount was tired. Six minutes after spotting him, Allegria had him pinned to a tree with arrows through the cloth covering one arm.

  “—will tell me know what I want to know, or it will go very badly with you. Have you seen Harborym pass by here with a prisoner, a Fireborn man wearing a black tunic with a red hand on it? Answer me, blast you, or I’ll geld you so fast you won’t know what hit you!”

  “Allegria, cease threatening my father’s scout. He won’t tell you anything. He has sworn an oath to die before he does so.”

  Allegria growled, her eyes glittering dangerously.

  Deo elbowed her aside, plucked the arrows out of the cloth pinning the man to the tree, and then as easily as if he was lifting a sack of potatoes, he hoisted the unfortunate man by the throat. “He will, however tell me everything. Where is my father?”

  The man sputtered and turned red, his hands waving around as his feet kicked.

  “Well, he’s not going to be able to answer you if you throttle him to death,” Allegria said with what Deo thought was an unbecoming amount of waspishness.

  He told her so.
“You become more outspoken with each passing day,” he said, giving her a good glare which she summarily ignored, just as he knew she would. “It’s not seemly in a priest.”

  “You pick the oddest times to lecture me. Let him down, Deo, or kill him outright, but don’t strangle him slowly.” She gestured toward the scout, who was now gurgling in an unpleasant manner.

  Deo set him down, waiting until the man had gasped enough air into his lungs to demand again, “Where is my father?”

  “My lord…I don’t know if Lord Israel…if I should…”

  “Goddess give me strength,” Allegria said, turning when the rest of the company arrived breathless and full of questions. “Does anyone have a gelding knife?”

  The scout spoke after that, giving Allegria quick, worried glances. “Lord Israel is on the Watcher’s road. He rides to Skystead to rescue the queen.”

  Deo grunted an acknowledgement and gestured to Mayam, who hurried over to him. “Do you know this Watcher’s road?”

  “Aye,” she said, her gaze touching the scout for a moment before returning to Deo. “It’s to the east. It leads from the Forest of Eyes northward to Skystead.”

  “How far is it from where we are?” Deo was torn between taking the quickest route to Skystead so that he would be certain of getting there before his father, and putting aside the ever burning need to prove himself to his sire. If it took his force combined with the company from Aryia to destroy Racin, then he’d join together with Israel.

  Mayam glanced at the sky, evidently judging their position despite the ever-present cloud cover. “About four hours.”

  He eyed Allegria, knowing she would refuse to accompany him unless he gave her a reason to do so.

  “You had better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she told him, as prescient as ever. He disliked that about her. “You are not abandoning Hallow just so you can join up with your father.”

  “I would not abandon one to whom I owe a debt of honor. Since you and Hallow saved me from certain insanity on the Isle of Enoch, I can’t leave him to Racin’s non-existent mercy.”