“Can I help you?” I call out, even as I steel myself.
The two boys on the side look to the one in the middle for guidance. He doesn’t say anything. He just steps forward, drawing his hands from his robes, hands holding a pair of golden razor-sharp Loci. I suck in my breath. Marius might have his face hidden behind a mask, but I’d recognize those stags’ heads anywhere. The other boys take note and draw their Loci, too.
Gritting my teeth, I reach down to my hips to grab my own.
And find only the smooth cloth of my dress.
Oh, no.
CHAPTER 27
Now
Hold on, now. Don’t do anything rash,” I say, raising my hands, even as I know it’s not going to work. If it were just him, I might try to rush him, a surprise attack, but there’s no way I can take three of them, not without my Loci. I’m completely vulnerable, a good mile from anyone else. How could I have been so stupid? “Please, Marius. Let’s talk this over.”
The boy on Marius’s right, the shortest of the three, turns to him with concern. “She knows your name,” he whispers urgently through his mask. I can’t recognize his voice, but I’m guessing he’s one of Marius’s Vanguard cronies. “I thought she wasn’t supposed to know who we are!”
Marius shrugs. “Plans change.” He raises one of his Loci, pointing its tip right at me. “Isn’t that right, Dewinter?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Marius,” I reply, but all I’m doing is stalling for time, buying myself seconds to think. I scan around for anything I can use as a weapon, for anywhere to hide, anywhere to run.
Marius steps forward, closing the gap, and his shadows follow. “Well, for one thing, I planned to win the First Challenge,” he growls. “I planned to make my father proud. I planned to graduate from Blackwater with my best friend Dean!” His hands go tight as he raises his Loci into a carving stance. “You took that from me. And now you’re going to pay.”
Even through the mask, I can see the second he enters the Null, as his eyes flicker into the purple-black starscape. If I had my Loci, I’d go with him, try to carve a counter, attack first, something. But all I can do is hurl myself to the side, and not a second too soon because his hand weaves in a blur and a concussive blast of force shoots out of him, a lance of wind that slams into the tree where I’d just been standing hard enough to shatter the trunk and send wood chips flying everywhere, hard enough that it would’ve crushed me to a pulp.
Oh, Gods. These boys aren’t just here to hurt me. They’re here to kill.
I scramble to my feet, panting, and try to run for it, but it’s impossible in this godsdamned dress. I trip over my own feet, and I can hear the other boys laughing as they attack, like this is all just some big game. A pillar of crumbling earth shoots up in front of me like a sprouting tree, sending me tumbling onto my back, and vines of grass slither out from beneath the snow, lashing around my wrists and pinning me down. I struggle as hard as I can, kicking and flailing and tugging so hard it rips into my skin, but what can I even do? It’s three Wizards against one, and without my Loci, I’m no stronger than a Humble.
I whip my head around to see them, the three of them, looming over me like giants. The tallest one has his Loci raised, twirling it slowly, controlling the vines binding me down with a smile of sadistic glee. I haven’t felt like this since that night my parents died, so powerless and pathetic. It can’t end like this. It can’t.
The shorter boy looks to Marius, and even through his mask I can hear the breathless, gasping excitement in his voice. “Do it,” he says. “Kill the bitch!” The third boy, the tall one, nods in agreement. Marius kneels over me, pressing the tip of his Loci to my throat. I feel the sting as it draws blood, and I can feel him breathing hard, even through his mask. I can see his eyes through the slits, see the raw hatred in them, the total lack of empathy or fear. He’s done this before. I’m sure of it.
“Marius,” I whisper.
“I told you you’d regret crossing me,” he says, and draws his Loci back.
But he never stabs it in, because right then, the sky erupts above us.
The boys fall back, hands over their eyes, and I wince and strain. Something’s happened, something magical. There’s an orb hanging overhead, maybe fifteen feet in the air, a whirling, writhing ball of fire like a miniature sun, bright enough to turn night into day, hot enough that it makes the snow around me sizzle and melt. “What is that?” one of the boys yells, and now I see something they don’t, something coming from behind them. A figure racing through the woods with hands outstretched. A boy in a burnt-red suit, the jacket flaring out behind him like a cape, a boy with wild hair and wilder eyes, streaking toward us like a hurled blade.
Talyn.
“Get away from her!” he growls, his voice reverberating like a thunderclap. With every stride he takes, the ground rumbles beneath his feet, and the air around him wavers like a slick of oil on a lake’s surface. His eyes burn with the dark fire of the Null starscape, but what really stands out are his arms. His jacket sleeves are rolled up and I can see those runic symbols he always has, the intricate painted bands that entwine his forearms and biceps. But they’re not just painted bands anymore. They’re glowing now, glowing hot and bright with an impossible colored light, dazzling blue and blinding gold and fiery red. It’s like he has rivulets of energy surging along his arms, like he has raw power burning through his veins. It’s like the Godsblood tattoo on my wrist but all over his body. It’s like he’s covered in magic itself.
The three Vanguard boys swivel around, raising their Loci, but they’ve been caught off guard. Talyn’s left hand flares out, fingers weaving through the air like he’s drawing with them, and his hand is enveloped in the rapid, dizzying blur of someone carving a Glyph. A whip of light streaks out, a searing horizontal lash like a slashing blade. The smaller boy hurls himself aside, but his tall friend isn’t so lucky. He lets out a choked gurgle as it cuts through his throat, so deep his head lolls down his back like a puppet’s, his gaping neck stump cauterized a sizzling black.
The vines binding me wither and vanish, and I scramble back as the boy’s body crumples to the ground. Talyn swivels toward the short boy, but Marius is ready. He drops low in a roll, passing right under the whip, and his Loci cuts through the air as he hurls back a Glyph of his own.
A jagged disk of crystal, clear as glass and sharp as a dagger, hurtles out from Marius, spinning like a top as it shoots at Talyn. He tries to dodge, but he’s too slow. The disk catches him right in the arm and rips it clean open, a deep cut that runs from his shoulder down to his elbow. Talyn falls to his knees with a pained hiss, and the light he’s been emanating instantly fades, his eyes flickering back to their usual soft brown.
The shorter Vanguard boy leaps up, raising his Loci at the wounded Talyn, eager to finish him off, but before he can, I grab a heavy rock and smash it into the back of his head, a hit so hard I can actually hear the wet crack of his skull shattering. He falls forward, face-first into the snow, and lies still, his bright-red blood forming a halo around his head in the crisp white snow. He’s not getting up again.
“Alayne!” Talyn shouts through gritted teeth. “Behind you!”
I swivel, expecting to see Marius geared up for another attack, but instead he’s running, already vanishing off into the trees. Of course. His three-on-one ambush just turned into a one-on-two skirmish, and he has no interest in a fair fight. The angry animal within me wants to run him down, to smash him into the dirt and make him pay. But then I turn and see Talyn, breathing hard, clutching one hand over his wound as dark crimson streaks down between his fingers. His breath is ragged, his eyes bleary, the color fading from his face as he bleeds.
I rush over to him, hunkering by his side. I reach down, tear off a long scrap of my dress and wrap it around his arm, stemming the bleeding as best I can. He cranes his head toward me, chest rising and falling. “Was… was that…?”
“Marius Madison,” I reply, and loop his ar
m around my shoulder. “Come on. We need to get you stitched up.”
His nostrils flare, and I can see him want to argue and see the moment he decides not to. He nods instead, and I help him up to his feet. I can barely even process what happened out here. Questions race through my head faster than my heart thunders in my chest. But the one thing I know with certainty is that we need to get out of here before anyone else sees us. So with Talyn’s arm draped around my shoulder, the two of us stagger back to campus, away from this forest grove, away from this bloody battlefield, away from the two bodies lying still in the snow.
CHAPTER 28
Then
I am nine when I learn to heal.
The injury’s my fault, but so are most of my injuries. I was scampering around in one of the junk lots by our warehouse base when I tore my leg open on a long, rusty nail. Sera found me lying there screaming and brought me in, where Whispers, with some annoyance, had me lie down on a long wooden bench. It’s hardly my first injury, so I know what to expect from the Revenant medic: the harsh sting of alcohol, the lingering ache of stitches, the scratch of the cloth bandages I have to wear for days.
But the medic doesn’t come. Instead, Pavel lumbers over, flanked by a pair of soldiers, and wearily pulls up a chair alongside me. “Gods,” he moans, “what have I done to deserve this?”
I crane my head up at him, and I’m curious enough that I forget, momentarily, how much my leg hurts. I’ve been studying with Pavel for about six months now, and my feelings about him are complicated. I appreciate having a mentor who can guide me safely in the Null, who can teach me how to hold a Loci and how to carve a Glyph. I’m less happy that this mentor is a surly, mean wreck who smells like the floor of a tavern. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Fixing your damn leg, you ungrateful brat,” he grumbles. He holds out a hand behind his back, and one of the soldiers hands him his Loci, a pair of gnarled iron wands that we snagged when we rescued him from the labor camp. The other soldier draws his sword, pressing its point squarely at the base of Pavel’s spine, to which Pavel just rolls his eyes. I understand his frustration. He’s been with us long enough that it feels like he’s part of our group, even if he is still technically a prisoner. But Whispers was clear that “a Wizard is always a Wizard,” and so he’s allowed his Loci only at sword point.
“What are you going to do?” I wince preemptively.
But there’s no need. Pavel takes my shin with one broad, calloused hand, and raises a Loci with the other. His eyes flicker purple as he slips into the Null, and before I can think to join him, his hand blurs through the air. For someone so unkempt and bumbling, Pavel carves with exceptional grace, Loci flitting through the air like a hummingbird, and in seconds there’s a soft green glow around his hand, the black hairs on the back sticking straight up. The air smells of freshly cut grass and morning dew. Pavel squeezes gently, and I feel a delicate tingling, like a thousand petals just barely grazing my skin.
And then before my eyes, my cut mends. It’s like I’m watching days of healing happen in seconds. The skin knits back together like drops of quicksilver, the blood drying and fading, the wound scabbing and the scab fading away, just like that. Pavel slips back into the Real, the tiniest hint of a satisfied smile creasing his beard as the soldier takes the Loci back. “There,” he says. “Don’t put too much strain on it for a day, and it’ll be fine.”
I gape at my leg in disbelief. I haven’t seen a healing Glyph in years, not since before my parents died. I’ve forgotten what healing magic looks like, what it feels like.
I’ve spent years thinking of magic as dangerous, destructive, a tool of war and oppression. I’ve forgotten all of the wonderful things it can do. I’ve forgotten magic can be good.
Pavel picks up on my reaction. “What is it, kid? Never seen a healing Glyph before?”
“Not for a very long time,” I say, running my hand along the smooth skin where just minutes ago there was a long, nasty wound.
“Was it hard to do?”
“Not particularly.” Pavel shrugs. “At least, not for cuts and scrapes.”
I think about every injury I’ve ever had, every scratch and scrape and burn, about the itchy cast I had to wear for months when I broke my arm, about the burn scar on my leg that hurts to this day. All of those could have been healed just like that. It’s not even difficult. “Why?” I demand. “Why don’t Wizards heal everyone?”
Pavel snorts. “Why? Because they don’t want to.”
I shove his shoulder, hard, and I know it’s not fair to take my anger out on him, but on the other hand, I’m really angry. “But that’s bullshit! Think about how many people are hurt and sick and wounded out there!” I think of the Revenants brought in with their limbs blown off, with their eyes leaking out of their skulls, with their heads caved in. I think of the beggars in the streets with their ribs jutting out of their skin, of the children huddling in alleys with their bodies covered in boils. “If Wizards can do this, why don’t they heal everyone? Why do so many people suffer?”
Pavel stares at me, surprised, and then shakes his head with a low, weary laugh. “Oh, kid. I don’t even know where to begin. You’re sitting here in a Revenant base, but you’re still spouting the Wizard party line.” He slides the chair closer, and when he talks, his voice is low, somber, sincere. “Look. It’s like this. The Wizards want the Humbles to believe in scarcity, in limited resources, in a brutal world that’s cold and harsh and mean. They need Humbles to believe that without their Wizardly gifts, they’d all die in chaos and poverty. They need Humbles to be dependent. But that means the Humbles have to suffer, and suffer constantly, because if they didn’t suffer, well, they might not need the Wizards that much. They might start getting ideas in their heads like you lot here. They might start asking questions like, well, like the ones you just asked.” He blinks, his eyes bloodshot and tired, the eyes of a man decades older. “The Wizards need you to believe that their cruelty is necessary, that their cruelty is inevitable, that their cruelty is just the way the world is.”
“But it’s a lie.”
“It’s a lie,” Pavel repeats. “Their cruelty isn’t a consequence. Their cruelty is the whole point.”
I slump back against the bench, because, Gods, what a terrible, broken world, what a horrific time to just be alive. I blink, trying to fight off tears, and I expect Pavel to say something sarcastic or dismissive, but instead, he just reaches out and gently pats my shoulder. “You want to do something about it?” he asks, and his voice is the kindest I’ve ever heard it. “Fine. Scrap our lesson for tomorrow. No more learning cubes of light.
“Instead… I’ll teach you to heal.”
CHAPTER 29
Now
I’ve already decided I’m going to fix Talyn up by the time we stagger onto campus, but there’s a bunch of Nethros on the steps of our dorm. So instead we shuffle to the Order of Zartan, to Talyn’s room. Here we get my first lucky break of the night: everyone out in the quad is so caught up in their own festivities and dramas, they don’t notice the two of us stumbling forward, arms around each other’s shoulders, caked in dirt and blood and snow like we’ve just come from a battle.
The Order of Zartan is laid out exactly like the Order of Nethro but with a distinctly different aesthetic. Instead of moody blacks and crimson, this place is all lavish yellow and green, filigreed archways and jeweled doorknobs. Ornate statues of famous Zartans gaze at us from the alcoves, portly merchants and bushy-haired senators. Under their watchful emerald eyes, I help Talyn through the empty common area and up to his room, and only when his door is shut does he finally speak.
“Keshta za’n truk del mastor ne zanfas!” he growls, falling hard onto his bed, and I don’t speak Xintari but I’m pretty certain he just said a whole lot of curse words. “What the hell was that?”
“Our famous Marovian hospitality,” I reply, hunkering down to inspect his arm. My makeshift bandage stemmed the bleeding, at least a little, bu
t the wound looks bad, a jagged rift dotted with dozens of little shards of crystal shrapnel. “I can heal this, I think. But I’m going to need you to take your shirt off.”
Even like this, laid out bleeding, he can’t help but laugh. “I’ll be honest, Alayne, I’d hoped to hear you say those words tonight, but this wasn’t really what I had in mind.”
I roll my eyes. “Less flirting, more healing. Seriously. Shirt off.”
He shrugs out of his jacket, but when the time comes to unbutton his shirt, he reaches up and then drops his hand with a wince. “I can’t. Genuinely. Hurts too much.”
“Right. Slide over.” I take a seat on the bed next to him and lean over, undoing his fancy dress shirt. I feel his chest rise and fall under my touch, feel the heat radiating off him. With the last button undone, I pull it off him, and my fingers accidentally graze his bare chest, and I can see his whole body shudder, just a little, at the touch. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he says. His bare chest rises and falls with each breath, and mine stops in my throat. His body is like his arms, lean but taut, and I can make out the firm muscles of his stomach, the soft black hairs dotting his chest, the curve of his hip bones as they slip down into his pants.
Right. The wound. Talyn slides over, so I can clearly see his arm. “We’re going to need to get all the little pieces of crystal out first. If I heal you now, it’ll seal them in and, well, I don’t think that’ll be good.”
“This is exactly how I wanted the night to end.” He reaches around the side of his bed and pulls out a small glass bottle full of a delicate amber liquid. “Xintari liquor,” he explains. “I was saving it for a special occasion.”
“It’ll make a good disinfectant,” I nod. “Clever thinking.”
It Ends in Fire Page 22