The Soul of Power

by Callie Bates

  “No,” El whispers. Tears are falling down her cheeks.

  I don’t know how anyone can tolerate being inside the noise. And at first, I think the circle is empty, that Phaedra has fled. Perhaps she was never here. The stones quiver in the ground, but the altar stone sits pristine. The grass and bracken lie apparently untouched. Everything appears abandoned.

  But then Jahan grabs my arm. He pulls me to a stop just before the entrance stones. “Someone’s in there,” he breathes. “They’re using persuasion.”

  I pause and listen. A girl’s thin whisper trembles over the apparently empty stones. There is nothing here.

  My ear catches a crisp wooden clack. Like beads knocking together.

  Felicité. They took Felicité.

  Rage pours into my head. I step into the circle, my hands fisted. I reach for the power of the stones, for the heart of the magic. Demetra told me that sound has power—and so do words.

  “Enough,” I say.

  Felicité’s thin magic evaporates—and there they are, gathered around the altar stone, with a pair of Paladisan guards behind them, bayonets at the ready. Felicité, kneeling on the ground to the right, her hands bound before her. Her hair is wild and her hollowed face has gone beyond tears to a fear so profound she appears numb.

  To the left—I draw in a breath—is Ciril. He’s bowed forward, dressed in the same filthy garments he was wearing when they dragged him through the streets. If Felicité is numb, his anger is like the earth’s—rising and falling, barely contained. Yet he doesn’t move. His hands, too, are bound.

  And between them, of course, is Phaedra. She stands over the altar in a fragile white gown, its skirt stained with a crimson smear of blood. Her own, or someone else’s? I can’t tell from here. The sound of her is sharp as a diamond, and as strong.

  Behind the group stands an additional ring of people—a dozen of them—sorcerers, to judge by their humming energy, and the dull fear in their eyes. Threads of power run, trembling and raw, from the earth to them, and then to Ciril and Felicité.

  El is gripping my hand, as if it’s the anchor keeping her in the present. I hang on tight.

  On the altar stone, spattered with a few drops of blood, sits a cup. It is wide-bellied, silver, an old-fashioned style with two round, ringed handles.

  And it is humming. Humming, like the bone flute in my pocket, but with a far more powerful song. So loud it’s almost a roar, like water. It’s a current of magic, pouring into the chalice.

  I gasp aloud as I realize what they’re doing. They’re funneling magic into the chalice—not just from this stone circle, but from all of Eren and Caeris. Somehow, Phaedra has persuaded these sorcerers to draw upon the magic that runs through the entire land—all of it.

  She’s creating a source of power that she can use—or rather, force a sorcerer to use, since even now she doesn’t appear to have magic herself. When I was captive in the palace, she told me that whoever controls magic controls the future, though not in so many words. At the time, I didn’t guess that this could possibly be what she meant.

  We’ve been seen. The guards start to move, but there’s a sharp whine in my ears. Their guns crack. Jahan gasps as if breaking the weapons physically pained him—and it must, with the magic being drained away into the cup. Ciril and Felicité both sag, the magic tugging at them, too. Two of the sorcerers behind Phaedra stagger to their knees.

  The guards throw down the broken guns and pull out their sabers.

  “Phaedra,” I say, and her head lifts. I gather all the power I can project into my voice. “Stop.”

  But the magic is slithering like a fish out of my control, and Phaedra simply gives us a strained smile. She looks weary, as if the draining of the land is draining her, too.

  “Hello, Sophy,” she says conversationally. Her gaze cuts to the side, and her lip curls. “Korakides.”

  Behind me, I can feel El’s energy seeping down into the earth. Trying to hold it. Soothe it. But it keeps bucking out of her grasp.

  “Phaedra, you’re going to lose,” I say. “Ciril and Felicité aren’t powerful enough to funnel that much magic. You’re going to kill them both.”

  Jahan is the only thing holding Elanna upright. “And you’ll destroy the land!”

  “How fascinating,” Phaedra drawls. “I never thought of that, of course.”

  The back of my neck pricks at the sarcasm in her voice. My mind is circling back to that conversation with Rambaud—to his claim that Phaedra was the one who contacted him. Even before she lost her bid for the imperial throne, Phaedra Saranon wanted Eren and Caeris. It wasn’t only for political gain, or for our resources, I finally realize. No, she wanted our magic.

  The earth is quivering again, and now it buckles beneath us, throwing us all forward. El crashes to her knees, digging her fingers into the earth. Jahan stands protectively over her.

  Over the altar stone, Ciril has locked his eyes on Felicité. He seems to be trying to communicate something to her, without words. Her eyes have widened.

  I step forward, staggering as the earth quivers. Phaedra starts to look at the sorcerers, and I say quickly, “So you came here to make this—this cup? You came here to put all of Eren’s magic into it, so you could use it in Paladis?”

  “You’re less of a fool than I thought, Bastard Queen,” she remarks, with a faint smile. Yet her eyes look so tired.

  I wet my lips. Ciril is mouthing something at Felicité now. The magic hums through the earth, from the other sorcerers, even from the guards and Phaedra, pouring into the two of them, a current so powerful it will eventually destroy their bodies. They must both know it.

  “I know what you want,” I tell Phaedra Saranon, and her gaze jerks back to me.

  “Do you?” she says, ironic. Yet there’s something avid in her face as well. She wants to hear me say it—she wants to hear it spoken aloud.

  “You want to be seen,” I say. “You want to be recognized for what you’ve done. Augustus is younger than you, yet if you had taken the imperial throne, the crown would have gone to you and him. But you’re the one who allied with Euan and with Rambaud. You arranged to come here. This was all your idea—and this sorcery, too. And when you go back to Ida with that chalice, with all that power, everyone will know it.”

  “Yes,” she breathes.

  To her right, Felicité has closed her eyes. A thin tear escapes from her eyelashes.

  “But there’s one thing I don’t quite see,” I add. “How you’ll control the sorcerers who do your work for you, since you aren’t a sorceress yourself.”

  “Oh, that’s simple,” Phaedra says. She’s a little flushed—with pleasure, thinking of the future. “Blackmail is a marvelous tool. It works on sorcerers just as well as on ordinary mortals.” She smiles. “It will work on you. Guards! Seize Korakides and the steward of the land.”

  “No!” I exclaim.

  But before the guards can advance, Ciril bellows, “Let go!”

  Felicité is shaking her head, sobbing in earnest now. The other sorcerers simply look confused, exhausted.

  “I have no one,” Ciril says. “You have them all. This whole land.”

  And I finally understand. I lunge forward—

  Felicité lets go. The magic she was gathering, channeling into the cup, dissipates.

  The other sorcerers, understanding, abruptly release their threads of power, too.

  It funnels now into Ciril—all of it, all the power of Eren and Caeris. A stream of white light so brilliant I could almost touch it. He disappears within its glow.

  He’s screaming.

  “No!” I pelt forward, but the earth buckles again. Phaedra’s cast backward, and the guards are knocked off balance. I’m thrown onto my knees. Behind me, Elanna collapses to the ground, motionless, Jahan gripping her arm.

  Ciril is sti
ll screaming—and then he stops. The white light keeps pouring in, but he’s folding in upon himself. He sags to the side, onto the ground. For another moment, the roaring current pours in and his shoulders heave.

  Then he stops moving. The light dissipates to the faintest glow, and then to nothing.

  I don’t need to touch my trembling hands to him to know he’s dead. The sheer force of magic killed him. Felicité is sobbing. The other sorcerers are calling to one another.

  On the other side of the altar stone, Phaedra scrambles to her feet. The land is buckling wildly now, as if Ciril’s death only made it worse. I can’t even look at Elanna behind me, but the sound of magic running between her and the land has faded to the slightest thread. Jahan is frantically saying her name.

  “Phaedra, stop!” I cry.

  The Saranon princess has snatched the chalice from the altar stone. She clutches it to her chest. The tone of her is tired. Angry. But she meets my eyes.

  “We took Laon,” I lie. “We took Augustus, and Euan. There’s nothing more here for you. No way to return to Paladis. I’m not afraid of your guards.” I hold out my hand. “Give me that cup, and I’ll let you live.”

  For a moment, she hesitates. The land rages around us, and the thread of Elanna’s power pulses so dimly—too dimly. Phaedra’s gaze flickers from me to El.

  Then she whispers, “No.”

  And she wrenches the lid off the cup. Setting it on the table, she plunges her hands into its shallow bowl. The magic roars, a raging current, eager to escape its confines. It pours, sparking, white gold, into her hands, races up her arms. The sound of her is frantic, grasping. She’s summoning the magic. Inviting it. It surges into her face, pouring in shining rivulets down her body. She looks like one of the beings Alistar saw on the other side.

  But Phaedra Saranon isn’t a sorcerer.

  The magic pours into her, and it erupts.

  I throw myself over Felicité, knocking us both to the ground, just in time. Fire lashes over my head. Phaedra is screaming, writhing. The land is bellowing. The magic races like white fire. The power floods over the earth, between the stones, trembling into our bodies.

  I push myself upright. The guards have fled, and the land is buckling, heaving. I crawl behind the altar stone, and my gorge heaves at the wreckage of Phaedra Saranon. There’s little left of her, in the charred mass, except a hank of white cloth. She seems to have burned up entirely.

  The chalice has tumbled a short distance away, just in front of one of the other sorcerers, who stares at it. I pick it up, and its power thrums in my hands, in my very blood and bone, so potent I shudder. It’s pouring out of the cup now—through me, back into the land. I am the conduit for this song, but I’m afraid if I hold on to it much longer, I’ll be nothing more than an empty husk, like Ciril.

  So I do the only thing I can think of. I sing.

  I sing to the chalice, to the land of Eren and Caeris. It is a wordless song, the simplest tone moving up and down. I don’t have El’s ability to move the land, or to see through its eyes. But I feel the air spin and condense. I hear the land’s distress begin to wane. The wind ebbs; there is a sudden hush. The roar of the land softens to a soft, low keening.

  At last, I set aside the chalice. I rub my blistered palms.

  Felicité sits up on the other side of the altar. “S-sophy?”

  “It’s all right,” I say, though my lips are numb from singing, and so is my mind. “It will be all right.”

  But she shakes her head. Points with a trembling finger.

  I turn. Elanna.

  She’s collapsed on the other side of the circle, unmoving, her hair tumbled about her. I stumble over to her, crouching beside Jahan. He’s shaking his head, breathing in short gasps to keep himself from sobbing. “She’s gone, Sophy. She…”

  That can’t be. The Caveadear can’t die, not like this. Not when I stopped Phaedra!

  “Stay here,” I whisper to her. “Stay.”

  I reach for her soul, the way I reached for Alistar’s. I imagine I am cupping it in my grasp, the way I’m holding her hands. Her fingers have gone cold, and the faint, damp heat is fleeing from her palms. Her breath has stilled. The spark of her is tugging free, spectral in the air.

  I draw in my breath, and I sing. I gather up the melody of the land, the quaking of dew in the morning sun, the swift, secretive movements of the animals. I sing the density of mountains and the enigma of forests and the flowing veins of rivers. I sing the woman who can contain all this vastness within herself.

  Yet somehow it’s still not enough—her soul is still sparking away from me, insisting on its freedom. Somewhere beyond my closed eyes, a choked noise escapes Jahan’s throat. Elanna’s palms have grown cold in my grasp.

  I need to think, but panic has begun to tear at my throat. I won’t lose Elanna—I can’t. And yet…

  It strikes me then. I breathe in. I sang the land, and her magic, but I didn’t sing her. Elanna Valtai is more than the steward of the land—she is a woman, too, as human as I. And for too long, I have resented her. Ever since I was a child, because I always believed Teofila loved her more than me. I always wanted a mother of my very own.

  But Teofila, of course, is mother to us both. The very land is a mother to us.

  I gather myself, and I sing of Elanna. The girl who survived. A girl who had, in many ways, more fortitude than I ever gave her credit for. A woman who has grown into the power of the land, yes, but also of herself.

  I sing her whole, and the spark that is her soul hesitates. I keep singing and, tentatively, it begins to settle back into a shroud about her body, as if it recognizes the shape I have made for it.

  Elanna’s pulse flickers against my palms.

  “She’s back, Soph,” Jahan whispers.

  My head bows. My throat’s gone raw, but Elanna is still coming back into herself. I reach for the words that will bring her fully home.

  “From the mountains beyond the moon, nursed by dragons, Wildegarde came,” I whisper, “her hair crowned with the pale light of stars. Where she placed her foot, the earth trembled. When she raised her hands, mountains moved.”

  Elanna’s eyelids flicker. Her lips part, moving ever so faintly along with the words.

  “She came to the court of Queen Aline. The queen did not know what to make of such a woman, her hands and legs covered in leaves as a tree is, her face a woman’s countenance. She said, ‘Who are you? Why have you come?’ and Wildegarde answered, ‘I am the breath of the mountains, the whisper of the waters, the swift passing of a bird, the hollows within the hills. I have come for you. I have come so we can make a song together.’ ”

  Jahan leans closer, kneeling on El’s opposite side. I look up, give him a small nod. It’s time for his final healing.

  He puts his hands over mine. Over El’s.

  The current of magic pours through him—slow, yet steady. Not as powerful as it was even yesterday, but it comes. Through me. Into Elanna. Her mouth moves.

  I whisper more of the poem. “Where Wildegarde passed, the land grew fertile. Flowers sprang up at her feet, and springs flowed from where she had stepped. She brought all the bounty of the earth to life, and Queen Aline treasured her for it. ‘For together,’ the queen said, ‘we may bring new life to the world.’ ” I murmur, “And they did, El. They did, and so will we.”

  Her fingers twitch in mine.

  Jahan bends over us, his brow furrowed. The magic hums and hums. I sense it whispering through Elanna’s body, persuading muscle and organs and skin back to pulsing life. Slow, so slow. Yet steady.

  “Come back, El,” I whisper. “Come back.”

  Her eyelids flutter. And open. The faintest smile tugs at her mouth. “Is that a command?”

  “Yes, it is.” I press my face against her arm to blunt the sting of tears in my eyes. “From your
sister.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  We limp together down the path from the stone circle—Jahan supporting El as her steps grow stronger, and me with my arm around Felicité. The girl’s shoulders have not stopped shaking. “I shouldn’t have let him die,” she’s whispering. “I knew it’s what would happen, and I—I—I wanted to live. I wanted to live so badly.”

  Of course, the other sorcerers did the same thing, too. We’ve left them with the guards, under orders to keep them safe until we have time to learn their names and help them return to their families.

  “Ciril told you to do it.” I tighten my arm around her, though my own aching back longs for support. “He gave you permission. It’s what he wanted, Felicité. You did nothing wrong.”

  “But I—I killed a man!”

  “You let him die the way he wanted,” I insist, as much to comfort her as anything else.

  “He said he had nothing else to live for, but that I did. He said I should be the one who lived.” She covers her mouth with a shaking hand. “High Priest Granpier will never condone it. Except I don’t even know if he…”

  So this is what Phaedra meant by her blackmail, I suppose. “Phaedra told you she’d kill him if you didn’t do it, didn’t she?”

  “I should never have agreed,” Felicité whispers. “But how could I let him die?”

  “You did the right thing,” I tell her, again. Phaedra would have killed Granpier, too. She seemed keen to make her point.

  “Except now that man Ciril is dead!”

  I glance over and see Jahan’s grimace of sympathy. “How did Phaedra persuade Ciril to do it?” he asks.

  “She didn’t only say she’d murder Granpier,” Felicité says wearily. “She said she’d massacre half the city. Kill those taken captive, then go into people’s homes. She’d have Ciril take the blame for all of it.” In a shaky voice, she adds, “Anyone who thinks that poor, brave Ciril Thorley was a murderer should know that he—he saved their lives. He gave himself for this kingdom.”

  I squeeze her tighter as we walk. “Felicité, did he ever tell you why? Why he attacked Rambaud—why he would sacrifice himself now?”