by JA Andrews
The Torch shifted almost imperceptibly, but Lukas's face blackened further. Sora stood perfectly still.
“It has its own form of pain. A more internal, digging pain. And it’s so tempting to go back to the hatred. But the new place is more…true. And the only reason you want to go back is that it’s easier just to hate. But when you can look at it honestly, you know the hatred’s killing you, and killing any hope that the future could be different.”
Lukas’s hand clenched on Killien’s shoulder. “You know nothing of hatred.”
Will took in Lukas's furious face and found he had no words to answer him with. “If you don’t stop, Killien, the future will not be different. The clans will strike back. Sevien will never be safe. Lilit will never be safe. The others will regain their strength and they will destroy the Morrow.”
“They deserve this.” Lukas's tone held an unexpected authority.
Killien spoke in a hoarse whisper. “They have so much blood on their hands.”
“They do,” Will agreed. “But until today, you didn’t.”
“Until today we didn’t have the chance,” Lukas said.
“The Torches are here,” Will continued. “Let this be the time when a Roven could have overwhelmed with force, but instead offered peace.”
Killien turned away from the window. A shadow lay on his face, but also a clarity Will hadn’t seen in ages.
He took another step forward, a bit of hope kindling. “Call off the goblins, Killien.”
The frenzied screech of the goblins rose and fell, slipping between the rushing sound of the wind.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Will said. “You obviously have a frost goblin you’ve used to call the others. Just change what it believes. Convince it there’s a vast mountain of metal far to the north. Let it spread that idea to the rest.”
The Torch shook his head. “You don’t understand. I can’t. When we give a goblin the idea of all that metal, it goes mad.”
Sora let out a long, defeated breath. “You had to kill it.”
Killien nodded. “The only goblin I had is dead.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sora let out a long breath that was half growl, and stalked toward Killien.
The Torch raised his sword and Will’s heart lurched in his chest. Killien held the blade only a handbreadth away from her neck, his eyes fixed warily on her.
“Untie me.”
Killien stared at her for a moment, his face growing incredulous. “No.”
She leveled him with a look that was all too familiar to Will. “You want to stop this,” she stated, and Will knew she was using a great deal of restraint to not call Killien an idiot.
Killien’s eyes narrowed at her words, but the tip of his blade wavered.
Sora blew out a short, irritated breath. “It’s going to be harder for me to catch another goblin if I’m tied up.”
“Back away from the Torch.” Lukas pointed the thin knife at Sora.
Far more than Killien’s blade, Lukas's face was so dark that a dart of terror stabbed into Will and he stepped up next to her.
“You can’t go catch a goblin,” Will said. “There are too many of them.”
Sora ignored both Lukas and Will and kept her eyes fixed on Killien. “Untie me.”
Killien still didn’t move, his face unreadable. “Why should I trust you?”
“I have always told you the truth,” Sora said. “I didn’t leave you because of Will. You and I were done the night Lilit almost died. I told you that then.”
“Back away from the Torch!” Lukas repeated, his voice harsher.
Sora turned a scathing look on him. “Are you going to catch another goblin?”
“We don’t want to catch one.” A thin smile pulled up one side of Lukas's mouth. “Everything is going exactly as we planned.”
An idea whispered into Will’s mind. Lukas stood next to Killien, shoulder to shoulder, and Killien didn’t object. The slave’s shirt was grey, but for the first time Will realized it was a disguise.
Lukas had lived with Killien for most of his life. Killien had taught him to read, taught him how to use the skills that the Keepers should have taught him. Lukas was always well dressed, rode one of Killien’s horses, stood at the Torch’s side, ate next to him, lived with him. Even if he hadn’t wanted to be so close to the Torch, the pain in his hip would have kept them close. Lukas was part of every one of Killien’s plans.
To Lukas, Killien wasn’t his owner—he was his equal.
The understanding shifted everything. Lukas's face was bleak, and Will realized this discussion wasn’t just with Killien.
“Every moment you wait,” Will said, keeping his eyes fixed on Lukas, “more Roven are dying. More hatred is growing and the chance for the Morrow to live in peace is growing dimmer.”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Lukas said. “With every moment the Morrow grow more powerful and it is our enemies who grow dimmer. We finally have the power we need.”
Lukas’s face was determined, almost victorious, but out of the corner of his eye, Will caught the hesitation in Killien’s. Lukas stood shoulder to shoulder with Killien, and hadn’t even noticed that Killien had already surrendered.
The Torch nodded to Sora and she turned around.
“What are you doing?” Lukas demanded.
With a quick slice, her ropes were cut. Sora ran across the room and grabbed her knives off the floor. Will took a step after her, pulling at his own ropes, his mind scrambling for some way to help her, but she slipped out the door. Lukas's fingers dug into Will’s shoulder, pulling him back.
Will pulled toward the door. “You can’t let her go alone.”
“Sora always does everything alone,” Killien answered with a short laugh, walking back to the window and looking down at the fighting below. “Whatever it is you two have going on, you must know her enough to know that.”
Will let Lukas pull him back a step. “Nothing had better happen to her.”
“What could possibly happen? She’s only running into an army of goblins,” Lukas said. “We should send you with her. Solve both our problems at once.”
Will ignored his words. “We should be ready when she gets back. Do you need to make a new stone? Or can you reuse the last one?”
Lukas gave him an incredulous look. “We’re not actually going to do it.”
“Let him go,” Killien said tiredly.
Lukas’s hand didn’t loosen.
“Let him go.” Killien sounded more firm. “And get a new compulsion stone ready.”
Lukas stood perfectly still. “Why?”
“Will is right.” The calm in Killien’s voice barely hid the anger. “If the Sweep is going to change, it has to be done differently than this. We’ll call off the goblins, give the clans time to realize that they aren’t the only ones with power. And then, if I haven’t already ruined it, we’ll find ways to build peace.”
When Lukas still didn’t move, Killien leveled an unbending expression. “Let him go.”
Lukas shoved Will away. With a dangerous look at Lukas, Killien came over to Will and cut his ropes.
“Get the stone,” the Torch commanded harshly.
Lukas wrenched the door open and turned down the hall.
Will rubbed at the skin on his wrists where the ropes had rubbed. Killien moved back to the window, his shoulders stiff.
“It’s the right choice,” Will said.
Killien stood unmoving, his jaw clenched. Every line in his body hummed with anger and Will felt a hint of loss that the man he’d talked to on the journey north seemed to be gone.
“What changed?” Will asked. “When did you stop looking for peaceful ways to change the Sweep?”
Killien didn’t turn around. “I got tired of doing nothing and feeling helpless. My father’s plans for peace got him killed, and mine almost did the same.” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair and let out a growl of frustration. “I’m so
angry at all of it. So tired of the Morrow being weak.”
“They certainly weren’t weak today.”
Killien leaned on the windowsill, looking out. “And it just made us more enemies.”
“Yes, but you got their attention. Killien, you flew on a dragon.”
Killien glanced over his shoulder at Will and a small smile flashed across his face. “You saw that?”
In spite of everything, Will let out a small laugh. “It was impressive.”
Killien grinned and for a moment looked like himself. “It was…like a dream. The power in his wings, the Sweep spread out below like a rug, covering hill after hill. We flew over this mountain.” He flung his hand toward the ceiling. “Over it! It was icy cold and the wind almost ripped me off. But mostly it was…so removed from everything. Somehow from up there the Sweep felt small, the clans so close to each other, they seemed like one group. The idea of a unified Sweep felt…possible.”
“Maybe it is possible.”
Lukas pushed the door open and came back in, carrying a light blue stone on a long chain. It was small enough to fit in Lukas's palm and shaped like an irregular, broken column.
“Put in it the idea of metal far north in the mountains,” Killien ordered him. “And make the desire for it so strong they’ll have no choice but to go.”
Lukas shook his head quickly. “We can’t do this. If we give up the power now, they’ll destroy us.”
“The power isn’t what’s important.” Killien’s anger flared again. “Be ready when Sora comes.”
“No.” Lukas's jaw was set stubbornly. “Negotiate with the other Torches once you own the Sweep. This power is all that will keep us safe.”
“Lukas.” The note of command rang through the room.
“Killien, this is our chance. If we stop now the Morrow go back to being worthless and helpless.”
“The Morrow,” Killien said coldly, “have never been worthless or helpless. This path will see us all killed. Will is right. My father knew that. I knew it before…I forgot it.”
Lukas’s eyes tightened at the words. “One Keeper shows up and the Torch of the Morrow rolls over like a coward?”
Will opened up a sliver toward Lukas and a churning mass of anger rushed into his chest. Frustration shoved its way through and Will clenched his jaw in an effort to push the emotions back. There was nothing servile.
Killien took a step toward Lukas, his hand on his sword hilt. When he spoke, it was deadly quiet. “You forget your place.”
The sharp slice of betrayal Lukas felt cut through Will’s chest, and fury laced with fear bled out of it.
“My place?”
“Ready the stone,” Killien commanded.
The fissure in Lukas split open, pouring out a cold isolation. Betrayal clawed up from deep in the bowels of Lukas's soul, looming over him, shadowing him with black, rending isolation.
Will shoved Lukas's emotions out, slamming himself shut. “Killien,” he warned.
Lukas’s face hardened into a mask. “You do it.” He tossed the bluestone and Killien caught it by the chain.
“This is not the time,” Killien snapped. “I need your support.”
“No,” Lukas flung back. “You need mindless obedience.”
“You owe me that!” Killien roared.
Lukas froze.
“You were nothing. I gave you everything. I taught you to read, to use your powers, treated you like family.”
“Until the time comes when I act like I am,” Lukas said coldly. “And then you prove that all I am is a slave.”
Killien’s hand clenched the chain. “Fix the stone.”
Lukas let out a harsh breath, somewhere between a growl and a laugh. “Get your Keeper to do it.”
The Torch stared daggers into Lukas for a long moment. Then he held the stone out to Will.
“I don’t know if I can,” Will said. With a surge of frustration, he realized Alaric probably could.
His fingers closed around the stone and a buzz of energy rushed into his hand, like he’d grabbed a bees’ nest. His hand clamped around the stone and the sensation flowed up his arm. It rushed into his chest like water bursting through a dam.
Yes, Alaric was the Keeper who needed to be here. Or any other Keeper for that matter. It was time Will accepted the idea that he was an utterly mediocre person. Which made him a pathetic Keeper. The words that had always felt painful, now felt…right. They were true. These sorts of heroic things were for other people. It was nice to acknowledge that. Liberating even.
The buzzing from the stone continued, and for a single, panicked moment Will recognized the rush of emotion from that compulsion stone Hal had put around his neck days ago to exhaust him, but this was so much stronger.
But then the world flattened to dullness. The walls of the room were lifeless. The anger on Killien’s face was petty and worn. Lukas’s petulance was wearisome. The rush of the wind and the occasional noises from the window felt distant and unimportant. Nothing was important.
Will sank to his knees. The aquamarine was important. It was warm beneath his fingers. He wrapped his other hand around it, too, and the hum of energy surged into his fingers. His fingers glided over a facet of the stone as smooth as ice. He ran his thumb over a corner and the sharp edge scraped across his skin. A trace of light swirled inside the gem. Not filling it, just swirling in the bottom like molten stone. He tilted the stone and watched the light flow down to the other end slowly, like sluggish water.
There were voices somewhere, but he ignored them. He curled forward, trying to shadow the stone and see the light better.
A rough hand shook his shoulder and Killien’s face was in front of him asking something. The Torch’s face was so intense. All this intensity and scheming was so wearisome. Will ducked down, turning away from the Torch, holding the aquamarine closer to his face.
Killien tried to peel his fingers off of the stone, but when he touched it, he yanked his hand back. “What did you put in this compulsion stone?”
“Just a healthy dose of apathy,” Lukas answered.
A slap on his cheek snapped Will’s head to the side, and color rushed into the room along with the sound of the wind.
“Let go!” Killien’s face was only inches away.
Sitting on the floor felt wrong.
Behind Killien, Lukas stood with his arms crossed, smiling. Will blinked to clear his head. Sora was coming back soon. They need to get ready for…something.
Killien shouted at him again, but what the Torch didn’t understand, was that it didn’t matter. The sludgy light had made it to the other end of the blue stone, and Will tipped it back the other way.
Lukas sounded terribly far away. “Let the Keeper rot.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
“We need to get back to the enclave.” Lukas’s voice was faint as he turned toward the door. “The other Torches are ripe for picking. If the fat fool Albech gives us any trouble, I have one more absorption stone. It’ll be harder to fit it over Albech’s fat head than it was over Ohan’s.” His voice took on a twang of regret. “I’d wanted to use it on Will, but I think it’d be put to better use in destroying the Boan Torch.”
“Stop,” Killien snapped. He clenched his fists, visibly trying to control his anger. “You’re not the Torch.”
Lukas froze, turning slowly to look at Killien with incredulous eyes.
Will wanted to tell them it would be easy if they just decided not to care. But it was too much work to talk. The world was dreary. Even the usually glittering gems in Killien’s rings were dull.
Killien turned his back on Lukas. “Get the right stone for the goblin.” He bit off the words sharply. “Now.”
Lukas’s body tightened and Will started to turn back to his aquamarine.
Lukas slid the thin knife out of his belt.
The movement caught at Will’s mind, demanding attention. He shoved at the feelings of apathy crowding into him. Killien was still talking, chastising W
ill to drop the stone. Lukas continued forward, his face twisted into a silent snarl. He raised the knife.
“If you’re willing to give up the power we’ve gained and let all of us be killed,” Lukas said, his voice chilled with contempt, “you shouldn’t be Torch either.”
Will dragged a word up his throat. “Killien—”
The Torch looked at Will just as the knife plunged down into his back. Killien arched away from it, but Lukas drove the knife in deeper. Killien’s hands clamped onto Will’s arm. His eyes unfocused, and he toppled to the floor.
Will stared, his hands clenching the stone. Shock shoved against the apathy and he leaned toward Killien.
“I’m not giving up everything we’ve earned.” Lukas pulled out the blade and wiped it on Killien’s sleeve before shoving it back in its sheath. Crossing to the shelves, he picked up a small, stoppered bottle. He dumped out some dried leaves and sank down on the floor behind Killien. His face was hard, but something in his eyes tore at Will.
“Did you know,” Lukas said to Killien, his words muffled and dull, “that your ability to nullify magic is carried in your blood? The night of the goblin attack, when you were cut, some of your blood landed on me. It was as though I was touching you. I felt no pain at all. Even when the blood dried it still worked almost as well as you do.”
Will shoved frantically at the apathy inside him, but there was simply too much of it.
Lukas pushed the bottle against Killien’s back and a thin moan escaped the Torch, the noise cutting through Will’s mind. Lukas’s face was drawn, but when he spoke, it was clear. “So I don’t need you anymore. All I need is your blood.”
Will squeezed his eyes shut and listened to the frantic part of himself. There was something about Sora, something important.
Lukas shoved a stopper into the little jar and tucked it into his pocket. “Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of separating your powers from you? Of bottling them up and leaving this wretched land?”