“Abjurors? Who are they?” Deo asked.
Quinn shrugged. “Former priests.”
“They’re a bit more than that, if they are who Exodius referred to as unmakers of magic,” Hallow said, wishing he had the books that had been lost in the journey to Eris. Somewhere in one of them was sure to be information about the secretive cult of former wielders of magic who had made it their life’s purpose to unmake the effects brought about by conjurors, magisters, and arcanists such as he.
“And before you demand that I sail you in a ship that isn’t strictly speaking mine—although Hallow swears Allegria and he didn’t use force to convince the fisherman to relinquish this ship to us—I will remind you that your mother is a queen, and you are not. Thus, I will heed her commands, and not yours,” Quinn added when it was clear Deo was about to do just that.
Hallow adopted an expression that would befit a man innocent of such a charge as forcibly encouraging a fisherman to part with the only ship big enough to sail to Aryia.
Deo did not argue Quinn’s point, instead turning to consider Hallow before saying, “I don’t sense chaos about you, and your eyes aren’t as disturbing as normal. I assume that means the cuffs are working?”
Hallow held out his wrists so that Deo could see the runes that had been etched upon the silver bands. The intricate symbols glowed with a faint blue light. “They help a tremendous amount. I can barely feel the chaos and the blood magic, and with the clearing of the skies after Racin was freed, I am once again aligned with Bellias Starsong. Allegria, however, is convinced that the chaos magic will surge to control me the next time I’m in battle and is in the process of making me a pair of ankle cuffs to add further protection. I’ve told her that the cuffs you made me are enough, but she worries about me.” He smiled when he said the last few words, touched to the depths of his soul that she cared so much for his well-being.
Deo didn’t smile at the folly of an overly cautious woman, however. He eyed Hallow as if he was an engorged tick about to explode. “She is likely correct. Chaos magic loves nothing more than strong emotions. It feeds off them, and the twin goddesses alone know how Racin corrupted and changed the chaos magic he fed you. You could go off at any time.”
“What a very reassuring thought that is.” Hallow studied Deo’s face for a few seconds. “You appear to be your usual self, too, despite the strange appearance of your chaos magic yesterday. Was that due to Racin being present, or something else?”
Deo waved a hand in a vague gesture of dismissal. “My magic is ever changing. With the removal of Racin, its voice has been silenced, and I no longer have the urge to destroy everything and everyone indiscriminately simply to appease its hunger.”
Hallow’s eyes widened at the words. He’d had an idea that Deo’s control of the magic that tormented him was not as strong as it had been in the past, but it appeared it had been tenuous at best. “Let us pray to both goddesses, then, that the new runes you’ve added to your harness will continue to give you such protection. And Lady Idril?”
“What of her?” Deo’s countenance took on its normal moody expression.
“I ask only because I know Allegria will want to know, and I am nothing if not an obliging husband. I assume, judging by the fact that she was pressing herself against you in a way that indicated a good dozen children in your future that you have come to an accord?”
“If by accord you mean she has apologized for wedding my father simply to torment me, yes,” Deo answered with a slight pursing of his lips. “Also, she said she refused to go back to Aryia unless I agreed to bed her and threatened to take up with some son of a sea witch that she met coming out here.”
“Hey!” Quinn said, looking up from a logbook where he’d been reading past entries. “That’s the basest of rumors, and I defy you to prove that my mother had anything to do with the bewitching of the Ravenfall Fleet.”
Deo ignored him to don a noble expression. “I suppose I’ll have to wed her just to show my father that although he may have married her first, I’m the one she wanted all along.”
Hallow, with wisdom that he suspected Allegria would not appreciate, decided not to get into a discussion about Lord Israel’s true motives in wedding Idril, feeling that was up to the pertinent parties to work out. Instead, he said, “I am bidden to tell you that your parents wish to discuss what is to be done once we get to Aryia. We are meeting in Quinn’s cabin, since he took the only quarters large enough to hold more than a single person.”
Quinn smirked, his gaze drifting down to the main deck, where Ella had managed to escape Dexia’s tales, and was now speaking with one of the ghostly crew Quinn had summoned. “I am captain, after all.”
“And I could rip your head off with less effort than it takes to scratch my arse,” Deo said in what for him was a pleasant tone.
“You could, but it wouldn’t stop me from inhabiting the cabin,” Quinn said, moving slightly to keep Ella in view when she wandered over to lean over the rail. “Ah, yes. Not a substantial upper story, but one ample enough to frolic upon…”
Hallow was about to warn the captain that Allegria had taken it upon herself to guard the girl who followed her with the devotion of a family dog, but decided he’d let Quinn find that out for himself. Instead, he trotted down the stairs, following the flutter of white and gold fabric. “Lady Idril, you look well,” he said, bowing politely.
She pinned him with a pointed amber gaze. “I would look far better if the cabin we had was bigger than a mouse’s hole. We hardly have room to copulate on the extremely insufficient bed provided for us, let alone enjoy variations on that activity on other pieces of furniture, of which there are none but a trunk, and I defy anyone to copulate successfully on a trunk.”
“Er…yes, well, we all have small cabins,” Hallow said with as much diplomacy as he could muster given the situation. “Allegria and I don’t have a wide variety of lovemaking choices in our cabin, either, although I suppose if she bent over the trunk, and I stood behind…” He stopped at the narrow-eyed look from Idril.
“I am very well aware that you and the priest get up to no end of variations upon that particular theme, having heard your nightly, and very frequently daily, activities on the way out here. I do not need any further explanation, thank you.”
“My apologies,” he said gravely, keeping the twitching of his lips to a minimum as he bowed again. “Are you on your way to the captain’s cabin? I’ve just been telling Deo that he has been summoned.”
“I am, although what Lord Israel and the queen expect us to do to control a god is beyond me.”
“Having been unwittingly the cause of said god’s release, I fear we must at least try to do what we can to fix things. Ah, and here is the light in my eyes, the heat in my groin, and the joy in all that life brings to me.”
Idril rolled her eyes and shoved him aside in order to enter the captain’s cabin. Allegria hurried up, one of the cuffs in her hand. “I think this one should offer excellent protection. I don’t know if you want to wear just one, or wait until I get them both done. What are you grinning about?”
“Nothing but how much pleasure I take in you,” he answered, giving her a swift kiss. He wished he could escort her back to their miniscule cabin and bend her over the trunk there, but he had duty to think about.
“Mmhmm,” she said, then suddenly smiled, and pinched his ass. “You certainly took a lot of pleasure last night despite still recovering from everything you’ve been through the last few days. Hallow, do you think we can do it?”
He was about to make a risque jest, but the worry in her eyes sobered him immediately. He took her in his arms, relishing the pleasure to be found in her scent, in the feel of her softness against him. “My heart, we’ve done the impossible. Twice, if you consider sailing to Eris. We helped defeat Racin and his forces…or at least freed the Shadowborn from his abuse…and we survived situat
ions that would have destroyed others. I have every confidence that we, with the queen and Lord Israel’s counsel, and yes, even that of your boyfriend, will come up with a plan to stop Racin from striking back at Alba.”
She nestled into him, her arms hard around his waist. “And Thorn?” she asked in a muffled voice.
“We will create for him a new form just as soon as we have the materials. You needn’t fret over him; his spirit can’t be destroyed even if his physical form can.”
Hallow didn’t mention the concern that tinged all his thoughts: that when they returned to Kelos, he might no longer be recognized as Master. For that matter, he didn’t know if he was still technically an arcanist. His magic felt a little different, as if even the arcany that bound him to the universe had changed when Racin poured chaos magic into his body.
“No one is going to want to talk about this…” Allegria pulled back, her lower lip caught for a moment between her teeth before she continued. “But I have to know why Mayam betrayed us the way she did. I trusted her, Hallow. Deo trusted her. How could she fool both of us so completely? Both Deo and I are able to judge the truthfulness of a person, and yet, neither of us saw the deception in her. She seemed to me to be nothing more than a worshipful acolyte who believed Kiriah Sunbringer herself rose and set with Deo. I thought for a time she was jealous of me, but I see now that was just an act intended to throw me off.”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t think it was. She had no way of knowing that Lord Israel had the moonstones until Deo and you joined forces with him. And she would have had no reason to bring Deo to Skystead unless she was helping him…at least, initially. No, my heart, I think your instinct was correct: she was jealous of first you, and then Idril. Jena said she was almost fanatical about Deo, and you said that you were able to stop him when she could not. Seeing his reaction when he heard Idril was here must have been the final straw for Mayam. She saw she could never gain such status in Deo’s eyes, and at that moment…well, we won’t know for certain, but I suspect she chose the lesser of two evils. She probably pledged herself to Racin while ostensibly helping you, knowing it would not interfere with her new plans. It took her next to no time to search Israel’s things and take the moonstones while we were watching the happenings in the square. She knew that giving Racin the stones would grant her favor in his eyes.”
“No doubt intending to spite Deo while she was at it.”
“I don’t doubt that at all.”
Allegria touched a finger to the crow’s feet that spread from the corners of his eyes. He had been relieved to note earlier that morning that by donning the cuffs Deo had given him the day before, his eye color had returned to the blue of arcanists.
“I’d never call Racin the lesser of any evil. What he did to you…but I suppose we are doing all we can to make sure that the chaos inside you doesn’t take hold again. You’re sure it’s not doing anything…odd? It’s not talking to you? Deo says it taunts him.”
He laughed, and with his arm around her, escorted her toward the cabin. “Thorn talking in my head is enough for me. Stop worrying, wife. I feel like myself again, and with your help—and that of Deo—I have all the various and sundry magics inside me under control. Now, after the meeting with the others, I’d like to have a discussion with you in our cabin.”
She giggled a little as he caressed her rear. “About what?”
“There’s a trunk in our cabin that I think poses some very interesting possibilities…”
Epilogue
“The first thing I want to do when we get to Deacon’s Cross—”
“—is take a bath. Yes, my heart, I know. You’ve mentioned it several times. I wish we’d been able to stay at the inn in Sanmael for a few days to rest, but I can’t shake this feeling that I need to be back at Kelos.”
I let go of the complaint I was about to make regarding the fast pace Hallow had set for us, realizing that although he appeared his normal adorable, handsome, sunny self, worry had settled on him in a way that no amount of amorous attentions could defuse. “If you promise me that you’ll take a bath with me when we get to Kelos, we can sail as soon as we get to Deacon’s Cross.”
He said nothing, just looked distracted. I wanted badly to ask him if he was worried about finding Thorn a replacement body, or the arcanists in general, but didn’t like discussing such private concerns in front of the others.
We rode along silently while ahead of us Deo and Idril argued loudly over some slight that Deo had perceived when Idril greeted her former husband in what Deo claimed was an overly warm manner. Behind us in a long line that straggled at the end, Lord Israel, his men, the queen, and Deo’s company followed.
Buttercup had fared much better on the trip returning to Aryia, and she trotted almost happily along the packed dirt road that ran from the west coast eastward through Sanmael, and on northward until it reached Abet. Deo and I would take the fork that led us to the port town of Deacon’s Cross while the others proceeded northward.
“Will you have trouble gathering the arcanists?” I asked Hallow in a quiet voice, not wishing to be overheard. We’d all agreed to return to our respective homes to assess the strength of our armies, but although it was easy for Lord Israel and the queen to gather their troops and get them whipped into fighting shape, Hallow had a harder task ahead of him. Arcanists were notoriously solitary, and shied away from being led, but still, we’d agreed that it would take the full strength of all the armies of Genora and Aryia combined to defeat Nezu.
“Hmm?” He came to with a slight jerk that had Penn dancing beneath him. “Sorry, Allegria, I was lost in thought. Will I have trouble doing what?”
“The arcanists,” I prompted him.
He sighed and looked nobly martyred. “Probably. But they’ll just have to get over themselves. Do you think your head priestess will allow you to gather fighters from your temple?”
“Yes, well…” I made a face. “That’s a question that we’ll have to wait to see answered. I think I can convince Lady Sandor that those priests who have the ability and desire to fight will be of use to us in the coming battle, but you know how she is.”
“Circumspect,” he said, nodding.
“Stubborn,” I corrected.
We rode along in silence after that, a silence broken only by the occasional bickering of Deo and Idril ahead, but even that stopped as we approached the town of Temple’s Vale, where my home temple was located. To my surprise, no children ran out to greet us when we entered the town’s limits.
“Where is everyone?” Hallow asked in a hushed voice.
“I don’t know.” I looked around, puzzled. Beyond the town, I could see the walls that marked the temple grounds, but even the fields there were devoid of the figures of priests out tending the garden and animals and going about their daily business.
“Is it normally this quiet? Is everyone at the temple in prayer?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Only a handful of townspeople come to the temple. Most have little altars to Kiriah in their homes—” The words dried up on my lips as Deo held up his hand, halting our dusty, weary train. He slid off his horse and pulled down a bit of parchment that had been nailed to the side of the well in the center of town.
“What is it?” Hallow was at his side before I could swing a leg over Buttercup and slide off her, but after a moment spent silently swearing at all the muscles used in riding that were now screaming a protest, I hobbled over to see what the men were looking at. Lord Israel and the queen joined us.
We all looked at the ragged bit of parchment, then as one, turned to look at Idril.
“Is there a dipper?” she asked, getting off her horse and eyeing the well. “I’m parched, and if the water is cool, I would be grateful for a cup…why are you all looking at me like that?”
No one moved. I took the parchment and marched it over to her, holding it up so she,
too, could read it. Her lips twitched as she read the declaration at the top.
LORD ISRAEL HAS BECOME THE ENEMY, SIDING WITH THE INVADER RACIN AND HIS ARMY OF HARBORYM. I, JALAS OF THE HIGH LANDS OF PORONNE, DECLARE THAT ISRAEL LANGTON, ONCE STYLED LORD OF ARYIA, IS NOW NAMED TRAITOR. THE TRIBES OF JALAS WILL RULE IN HIS STEAD. All able-bodied men, women, and children are summoned to Abet to witness the ceremony of blessing as Jalas takes the throne. Those who refuse to acknowledge his right to rule will be driven from the lands, their property confiscated, and their families exiled.
“Now I know your father is insane,” I told Idril.
“I…” She frowned. “I never thought he would be so brash. To claim that Israel is a traitor…but why?”
“He’s trying to take over, clearly. I bet he’s been jealous of Lord Israel’s leadership all along,” I answered.
“It’s worse than that.”
It was a woman’s voice that spoke, a familiar woman’s voice. I turned to see Sandor, the head of my temple, emerge from behind a building. Her face was just as I had known it all my life, but there were now strands of white in her brown hair, and lines around her mouth that I could have sworn were not there when I’d last seen her. She studied each of us in turn before continuing, saying to the queen, “Darius has crowned himself king of the Starborn.”
Dasa clicked her tongue and made a curt gesture. “So Lord Israel has already warned me. He will not remain king for long.”
Sandor inclined her head at that, then turned to Lord Israel. “The northern half of Aryia is overrun with Tribesmen. Those of us from the southern climes were summoned north on pain of exile…or worse. Most of the people have gone to witness Jalas’s coronation.”
A muscle twitched in Israel’s jaw, but he said simply, “Then it is my duty to be there, as well.”
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