Remember, Bastien.
Lucien’s voice was an echo. Oh, he remembered now. It made him shiver… or maybe that was still the after-effects of a blow to the head. The wind and waves were calm and in the far distance he could just make out land, a ragged line on the horizon. They were almost there, almost back to his homeland.
Except that wasn’t his home either. It never had been. There was only one place that he knew for sure had been his home and that was where they were ultimately heading. And what else did he remember about Thorndale? There had been roses and they had burned. A castle in a valley, standing watch over the most magical place in this world or any other.
Blood in the water. Hands holding his head. A knife blade at his throat.
Three times dead, twice entombed.
Like in the song Misha had sung back in Iliz.
Misha and Daniel were sitting together, chatting, as he approached them. Bastien slowed as he drew near, not wanting to startle Misha. Daniel looked up and suspicion entered his glare. It always did. Daniel still didn’t trust him. Which was ironic really as Daniel had been the one to betray Bastien rather than the other way around. Perhaps he was still waiting for retribution.
‘Shouldn’t you be resting?’ There was that Eastferry tone of voice.
‘I need to talk to your harper.’
Misha didn’t look in any way alarmed. But from the defensive attitude of Parry, something was clearly wrong.
Misha still held his harp in his hands, cradling it close to him. ‘What do you want of me, your majesty?’ If his strangely formal address was unnerving, Bastien wasn’t going to show it.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Feeling?’ His fingers strayed over the strings and a few notes hung on the air between them, haunting and ominous. A warning perhaps. ‘I feel fine. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. Music and magic go hand in hand. I’ve only just realised that. But surely you knew. Being who you are.’
Who he was? What did Misha know of who he was? He and Grace had agreed not to speak of the Hollow King and what he once might have been. He still didn’t feel entirely sure of it himself. And now, with his memories tangled and unfolding so slowly…
‘And who am I?’
Misha smiled. His eyes fixed on Bastien’s and they were just his eyes. But the knowing in them… that was new. And they looked slightly darker… as if shadows moved through them. Darkening. His hands moved slowly over the strings of the harp.
‘Who are you? Bastien Larelwynn? That’s a question you alone can answer, is it not?’
Bastien couldn’t say he liked this new attitude. He didn’t like it at all. It was rubbing off on Daniel as well, or perhaps the other way around.
Grace looked awkwardly from one to the other. Her mouth was a hard line, which was never a good sign. She had always been defensive of her squad and this sort of dissent was guaranteed to make her uncomfortable. One could never tell which side she’d come down on. It would depend on how it happened, on who she felt was in the right. And she’d still give Daniel the benefit of the doubt until the day they both died. Bastien only prayed that one day she would trust him the same way.
Bastien never broke eye contact with the Lyric. ‘Let me help you, Misha.’
‘What if I don’t need help?’
‘I think you do. I think the magic is getting stronger, taking over. I think there’s a risk that it will run out of control if we don’t do anything. Please, you know more about this than you’ve shared. Let me help. What do you know about the nightborn?’
For a moment Misha smiled at him. But it wasn’t his carefree smile. Not really. ‘Nightborn? Just a legend, surely. Oh wait, no. Not any more. What did you two stir up this time?’
The nastiness in his voice didn’t belong there. And it was too familiar by far, though it wasn’t Misha. He didn’t have it in him. This was something else. This was the voice from Bastien’s nightmares.
‘But you’re all about legends,’ Grace told Misha. Maybe she recognised it too. She had to know that this wasn’t their friend. ‘You love them. Danny says you can never resist the chance to tell a story.’
‘Does he?’ The tune rose from his harp, louder now, jarring a little. Daniel winced and stared at him in dismay. The expression Misha wore wasn’t kind, wasn’t his usual gentle air. This was something else. Someone else. A long-remembered darkness. ‘Danny says a lot of things, Grace.’
‘What sort of things?’ she asked warily.
Daniel cut in before the harper could speak again. ‘Leave him alone. He’s fine. He’s more than fine. He saved us all.’
‘Danny,’ Grace warned but her oldest friend glared at her. She ignored him, her expression firm.
But Daniel wasn’t finished. His hands balled into fists. ‘What? It’s true. You were there. Misha saved us, and—’
But Grace’s patience didn’t waver.
‘Misha used more magic than I’ve ever seen him use. He’s a Lyric, Danny, not a…’ She waved her hands around vaguely. Bastien wasn’t sure what it was meant to mean, but Daniel seemed to.
He surged to his feet, his face distorted with anger. ‘Not a what? Not a Flint like you? Not the Lord of Thorns? Not as powerful and important as you or your lover? What about me? I’m not even mageborn. I’m nothing. Is that what you want to say?’
‘Danny!’ Ellyn gasped, sliding into the space between them as she arrived. She grabbed his shirt before he could lunge at Grace, who stood there, exposed and shocked. She hadn’t even moved to protect herself. Not from Daniel Parry. But she should have. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
He shook himself free of Ellyn, his eyes wild as the storm had been. Spit flecked his lips. ‘Wrong with me? He almost killed you, Grace, and now you’re over it? One quick fuck and everything’s okay? There’s nothing wrong with me.’
Grace’s features froze in shock, in horror. Anger flared, fire inside her blazing. But this fire was dark and unnatural. The surge of icy rage that swept through Bastien’s body was nothing compared to what he sensed in her. For a moment he thought he’d kill Daniel himself, reach out with all his vast powers and stop his heart. It would take an instant, no more. For a moment, he wanted to.
But the thing in Grace… It could end them all in an instant. If she only let it.
And then he heard it, that sound on the edge of hearing, relentless, maddening… Fingers moved on strings, fast and deadly now, a dance that churned up emotions and wrung them out.
‘Yes,’ Bastien said. ‘Yes, there is something wrong. With both of you. Misha, please. Think. Stop this. You can’t risk hurting Daniel, can you?’
As if Bastien’s use of his lover’s name broke the spell, the harper stopped playing. The sudden silence shook Bastien more than he expected. The tune had been a constant, a hum at the base of his brain. It had been winding them all up, playing with their moods, their fears, their anger.
Now, without the music, the world swung back into sharp relief.
The ship was still and calm, all attention turned to the small group on the deck, ready to tear each other apart.
‘Misha?’ Daniel interrupted, unsure now. ‘Misha, what are you doing?’
Suddenly the defiant expression on Misha’s face wilted. His mouth opened just once but he didn’t say anything, as if suddenly afraid to use his voice at all. Confusion made him seem like a lost child. He set the harp down on the deck gingerly and looked up at Bastien.
Bastien took Misha’s hands in his, holding them and letting his own power unfurl. It was an instinct rather than a determined desire. He sought out the source of the harper’s power, the Lyric inside him, and felt the magic flowing in his blood. The traces of the Maegen threaded their way through him, part of him. Misha was a good man, an honest man. And he loved Daniel. Loved him more than reason.
Like called to like. It was the same way Bastien felt about Grace. It made no sense. It was terrifying. And yet it was wondrous. It was everything.
Th
riving on that love, the magic was stronger too. So much stronger than it should have been. And within that magic…
Fear. So much fear. Fear of losing Daniel, of losing his lover and his friends. Fear that even being close to Bastien and Grace would kill him, perhaps kill both of them. Fear that they would end up like the mageborn in Rathlynn or even Iliz now… enslaved or dead. Or wild with magic, hollow, nightborn…
Bastien saw it now. The darkness, the Deep Dark, threads of it everywhere like an infection, stoking the terror on which it thrived. He mentally seized a strand and drew it away, only to find four more in its place. His usual techniques were useless here. He went deeper, searching out the source and finding only more. It wasn’t an imbalance, not really, but the whole system seemed to be twisted. A spiral of darkness which took him too far into Misha’s mind and consciousness. Too far through his body. Where had it come from? It was like an infection but every Curer could tell you, with an infection, there had to be a source.
The hands he held tightened abruptly, spasming. Bastien jerked back to see the harper shaking, his mouth open wide in pain, his eyes staring at the sky. His whole body shook as if he was having a seizure.
‘What have you done?’ Daniel shouted. Both Grace and Ellyn were holding him back but he tried to rip himself free of them, heedless.
What had he done? It was an excellent question. Bastien didn’t have time to answer him. He did the only thing he could think of and plunged in again, gathering all of Misha’s magic that he could touch and dragging it into his body instead.
Misha fell into his arms, still shaking but breathing once again. Bastien could feel his heart, beating frantically like a trapped bird. But he was safe. The magic wasn’t gone forever. He would never cut anyone off from their power unless he absolutely had to. It would return, but slowly. There was time for him to find a cure for this infection. Time for the harper, at least. That was all Bastien could do for any of them now. Buy time.
‘What have you done to him, you bastard?’ Danny snarled as he dragged Misha away and gathered him into his arms, cradling him. His touch was so tender, so careful. That sense of love encircled the two of them and Bastien knew it. It could save both of them.
Bastien rose to his feet, his own body aglow with magic, his mind reeling from so much light and dark twisting away inside him. It took more effort than he would have expected to push the power back down inside him.
‘Grace,’ he said and reached for her. ‘Please…’
She grabbed him, holding him to stop him from falling.
Her voice was matter-of-fact, the consummate professional. Everything was calmness and order, practical commands. ‘Come on, let’s get you down to the cabin. We need to sort this now.’
‘No.’ The magic made Bastien’s voice vibrate, the sheer power inside him making it tremble as his heart did. ‘The boy, the Zephyr. Got to check him too.’
She was right. Of course she was. She knew the signs as well as he did. Better, even, because she saw what happened when it swept over him. He could feel her pulse fluttering away inside him, just like he’d felt Misha’s, feel the breath entering and leaving her lungs. Feel her magic, her fire, coursing through her veins. Not overwhelming her like Misha’s had threatened to.
Bastien had thought that the Deep Dark had taken her power from her in the garden, when the Loam had reached out and corrupted the warrant. But her flames were impossible to kill. She was irrepressible. Every time her magic came back, it was stronger. It was part of her.
Something had happened to her on Iliz, when she had found her magic again to help Rynn save him. Her power was stronger than ever. And it had changed.
There will always be a sacrifice. He’d seen her made of fire, standing by an image of himself that was inhuman: the Hollow King, or maybe something worse.
He had to get to Thorndale. If he was at the source of the Maegen itself, he could stop the Deep Dark there, lock it away again. He had to stop the nightborn. He could save Grace. He had to. But there had to be a sacrifice…
‘We’ll get him, we’ll bring him down to you,’ Grace said. ‘Please, Bastien. Let me help you. Ellyn? Will you—’
‘On it, boss,’ she said and strode off towards the captain and the Zephyr.
Leaning on Grace, Bastien let her lead him down into the cabin. She sat him on the edge of the bunk and rummaged in her packs, all business and determination. He wanted to apologise again, to beg forgiveness, but he couldn’t. He watched as she pulled out sigils, already on a belt, which she wrapped around her waist before she found one of the jars.
‘Here.’ She shoved it at him and he took it willingly. It was smaller than the ones he had used in Rathlynn. But it was all they could bring with them.
‘I’ll be fine. There’s no need to do it.’
‘Hold onto it anyway, Bastien. Just in case. I don’t want you going off like a firework in confined quarters, do I?’
It made him smile, although she didn’t seem to appreciate that. Her hand slid across the sigils, and they started to glow. But she wouldn’t use them on him. Not unless she had to.
He’d never imagined he’d see her afraid of him, but now she was. Afraid of his magic.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Just let me…’
Slowly he began to transmute the magic inside him, restrain it and bring it under his control. When he could breathe easily again, he closed his eyes and pressed the last of it down into a diamond-hard space the size of his heart. So bright and so warm, glowing like a new star. It moved and coiled in on itself, forming shapes like flowers and vines. He peeled back the exterior, the petals of light, searching through the magic he had gleaned from Misha. And in the heart of it was the blackest worm.
For a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Then, all in a rush which brought Grace up to her feet, looming over him in alarm, he opened the jar and let the captured magic purge out of his body, falling like tears from his eyes, glowing and terrible.
He knew he sobbed as he did it but he had no control over that. It hurt, every time, like pouring the fire of the sun through his body and making it something else.
Her hand between his shoulder blades was so cold, and yet so welcome. One single comfort. She helped him breathe, helped him get through it. She always did. Maybe all wasn’t lost after all. Maybe…
She didn’t ask what it was. She knew. ‘How did it get into Misha?’
Bastien drew in a shattered breath. ‘It’s in all the mageborn… traces of it…unless we get to Thorndale and lock it away again.’
A knock on the cabin door brought Bastien back to his senses. He put the lid on the jar and pushed it hurriedly under the blankets. The magic within it swirled and glowed, the image of a flower in the heart of it. And the dark speck coiled among the petals, the most dangerous thing he could have found.
‘Come,’ he said in a voice that almost sounded like his own.
The Zephyr shuffled in, Ellyn behind him to make sure he didn’t make a break for it. And behind her Captain Pardue stood, her whole stance a threat. ‘I’m here to make sure that nothing ill befalls him. He’s just a boy and he’s one of mine. He’s family. He’s never lost control like that before. Never.’
‘No, of course not. It wasn’t his fault. Please, come in, Captain.’ Even though there was barely room for all of them. Even though the whole crew had seen Bastien perform what should have been something private between him and one of the mageborn, the very rite he had performed on every day of homage, for every citizen of Rathlynn born with magic for more years than he could possibly remember.
And in all that time, he’d never found the Deep Dark within like that. Never.
He’d thought it was trapped. Locked away beneath the Maegen. Safe.
But it had taken blood to trap them. A sacrifice. Just like the Deep Dark had demanded from him. It couldn’t be Grace. It would not be Grace. He’d die first.
He had to protect her.
And Rynn w
ith her Larelwynn blood. He had to protect them both.
Someone always has to die, Lucien had said. But that wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
And right now he had to protect another of the mageborn. One of his people. A child.
‘Come here, boy,’ he said, as gently as he could.
‘Larne,’ said Pardue, still shielding him. ‘His name is Larne. He’s my nephew. Family.’
Bastien met her eyes, recognised the warning there, the implied threat.
He nodded. ‘Larne.’ He held out his hands, met the boy’s eyes and tried to be comforting. He would help him, balance out the magic, make him safe again. He had to. ‘Don’t be afraid. This will help. I promise.’
Chapter 20
Aurelie hated the Temple. It was too quiet. Her footsteps echoed strangely in its emptiness. True, it was almost deserted these days. She had to keep some retainers here to keep Celeste fed and watered, amused and quiet, though it wasn’t an easy job. She was going through carers like a scythe at harvest time.
But Aurelie could always find more willing to serve.
Well, they weren’t exactly willing but whatever.
The former goddess was not in her rooms today. She was down in the cellars, trying to break her favourite obsession, the man who had created the sigil binding her. The fact that it was burnt into her skin now didn’t seem to occur to her. Aurelie was fairly convinced that Celeste would slice her own flesh off if she thought that might free her. She had probably already tried.
At first Aurelie had been reluctant to turn the old Master Atelier over to her but Asher had insisted and, idiot that she was, she had let him persuade her.
It’ll be fine, he’d said. It’ll keep her happy. And if she does find a way to break the spell, well then we’ll have her power at our command. She can feed us again.
If she could make the old man cooperate, so much the better. If anyone could replicate Mother Miranda’s work, it was Zavi Millan. Or so everyone assured her. Miranda had used her leeching powers and her knowledge of Bastien’s research to harness the powers of so many mageborn, sharing that magic with Aurelie and those she had honoured. But nothing broke the old man. Nothing.
Nightborn: Totally addictive fantasy fiction (The Hollow King Book 2) Page 17