“Berserk,” he murmured to himself, nodding.
She flinched at the word. “But as soon as the Harborym were dead, that sense of being out of control died, along with the magic. This rift was different. It was as if I had been pulled into a land made up of smoke and shadows. The chaos magic leaped to life inside of me, Hallow. It didn’t stir, then gain power—one moment it was dead, cold, utterly absent, and the next it had sucked me into this shadowland, and I knew if you had let go of my hand, I would be lost to it. Thank you for that.”
“Is it trite to say that my life would be nothing but endless misery if you were not in it?” he asked, his tone light despite the horrible mental images of the unthinkable happening. When he thought of how close he’d come to having her slip away into the netherworld, his skin crawled.
“Not trite, perhaps, but a bit cliché.” She gave him a brilliant smile, one accompanied by a smoldering desire in her eyes that he very much wanted to satisfy. “Nonetheless, I appreciate it. What are we going to do?”
“About the next rift, about Deo, or about you?”
“The first. No, all of them. Deo was affected just as I was, although it appears he managed to break free.” She was silent for a few minutes, her eyes scanning the horizon. “What good am I going to be if I can’t be near the rifts? What if next time, the chaos magic wins?”
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted, having struggled to find an answer. The breadth of chaos magic was beyond his experience and knowledge, although he was beginning to feel like he had an insight into it. “But I will not let you be taken from me. Of that, I am certain.”
She smiled again, but it lasted only a few seconds before worry returned to her eyes.
Hallow knew just how she felt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The rift at Sanmael was almost anticlimactic compared with the first one, despite it being located directly in the middle of a thriving market town. The town elders had cleared the area around it, erecting barricades and setting guards to watch for soul takers, but even so, we were told there had been a few casualties.
“Allegria,” Hallow said in a warning tone of voice when we approached the now-familiar sight of light twisting and turning and folding in on itself.
I lifted a hand to stop him. “I will stay back. Now that Kiriah and I have had a chat and we see eye to eye again, I will use the power of her grace to help you and Deo.”
Hallow looked amused. “I wish you’d allowed me to witness your confrontation with the goddess. I can only imagine how ... potent ... your words to her must have been.”
“She didn’t smite me dead, if you’re implying I was irreverent,” I said with a lift of my chin, although I sent a quick prayer of thanks to the goddess for allowing me to tell her what I thought without turning me into a pile of unrepentant ash. “I will allow that I am mightily relieved to have my lightweaving abilities back. Even with Kiriah’s whims, I can’t help but think that it’s much more reliable than the chaos magic.”
“Most definitely. Deo, do you wish to approach the rift, or will you channel your magic from a distance?”
Deo, who rode next to Hallow, said nothing. I urged my mare forward until I could see why he was being so rude, but he wore the introspective expression that I was coming to learn meant he was brooding about events in the past.
I rode in front of him, and turned my mare to block Deo’s path. He looked up, the black expression clearing from his brow. “What is it?” he asked, glancing around with mild surprise, as if he didn’t realize where he was. Ahead was the rift, set off by hastily made barricades. He dismounted, rolling his shoulders and flexing his arms preparatory to the battle to come.
“I know you want to seek revenge on your father almost as much as you want to rid Alba of Harborym, but if you could be a little more here and now rather than living in the future, I would be much easier in my mind,” I told him.
He looked annoyed, which he frequently did when I spoke to him. “If I prefer my own thoughts to watching you and the arcanist make sheep’s eyes at each other, then you have no right to complain.”
“We do not make sheep’s eyes,” I said, giving him a quelling look that he utterly ignored. “Hallow has declared himself, although I told him not to, but he is a romantic man at heart, and he couldn’t help himself. Not that I accepted him.”
“You’d better do so,” Deo said dryly, glancing at my midsection. “The way you two went at it on the ship, you’re likely to be with child even now.”
“Our private interest aside, can you please pay attention to what’s happening? Hallow asked you a question.”
I slid off the side of my horse, handing over the reins to one of the boys who darted forward to take them. Two of the town elders approached as Hallow dismounted, and spoke briefly to him while Deo and I armed ourselves. Thorn had joined us just outside town, evidently filling Hallow’s ears with tales of the good people of the town, and how they had fought so valiantly against the soul-sucking monsters that emerged with increasing rapidity.
Hallow joined us when we climbed over the wooden barricades. The rift had opened in the center square of the town, as hastily abandoned shops and a large well indicated. “They’ve lost seven people in the last ten days. The rate of soul takers is definitely increasing, and they are becoming harder to kill.”
“The Harborym are preparing to send battalions through,” Deo said, doubling over for a moment, his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath.
“Are you all right?” I asked, and started forward, but Hallow held me back, nodding toward the nearest of Deo’s hands. The runes on the band were black, not bright, but dull and granular, little bits of it soaking into his flesh. “Give him a minute. If he doesn’t win over the magic, we’ll have him pulled back. Regardless, I don’t think you should go any closer.”
I glanced at the rift. It hovered to the right of the well, little strands of it reaching out before folding into its center. It was an abomination of nature to see, but it didn’t fill me with the same sense of destruction as the one that had almost pulled me in. I stepped forward until I was level with Deo, and instantly the chaos magic inside me came alive, filling my brain with a black wave of desperation. I gasped for air, but the magic held me in such a vise that I couldn’t move, my muscles locked in a painful paroxysm from which there seemed to be no end. The blackness of the magic seeped downward, filling my chest and smothering me.
A blow struck me, knocking the blackness from me. I lay on the ground too stunned for a few minutes to do anything but breathe. When my vision cleared, Hallow was kneeling next to me.
“What ... what did you do?” I asked, struggling to sit up.
“Pulled you back.” He grimaced. “Well, knocked you back with arcany. Your color is returning. Will you be all right to continue, or do you want to wait a bit to catch your breath?”
“Oh, we are not waiting one second longer than we have to,” I said, taking his hand to get to my feet. As usual, just the warmth and strength of him near me gave me a sense of security. Of unity. We were in this together, we three. I looked over to where Deo straightened up, his battle with the chaos inside him, for the moment at least, won. His runes were red again as he strode forward until he was about ten paces from the rift.
“Do I need to warn you to go no closer?” Hallow asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my hands and gathering myself to commune with Kiriah. It was a struggle to quiet my mind while, around us, people had collected, calling to one another and to us, but I was well versed in meditation amongst chatty initiates. By the time I was pulling on the sun, weaving the power until it formed a golden net of Kiriah’s grace, Hallow stood to the side of the rift, allowing us to target it from three different directions. Thorn took to wing, circling Hallow, clearly waiting to lend his assistance. As the people behind the barricades broke into cheers, Hallow began drawing his spell in the air, the purity of the stars gathering around him.
I threw the li
ght of Kiriah onto the rift just as Hallow directed the arcane power onto it. Deo bellowed something and spread his hands wide, causing red tendrils to emerge from the ground, snaking upward and outward until they spread across the rift.
It didn’t stand a chance against the combined power of the three of us. Without the explosion of the first one we encountered, it simply collapsed upon itself and disappeared with only a little sigh.
“That was very satisfying,” Hallow said, nodding when the elders raised their hands in thanks. “Yes, Thorn, you were instrumental. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
The bird circled a few more times, then settled back on the staff.
“Where to now?” I asked two hours later, after we had been feted by the town.
“We go to Abet,” Deo said, stomping past us to the stable yard, calling loudly, “Fresh horses! We ride tonight.”
I looked longingly at the house of one of the elders, which had been offered up for our comfort. The thought of sleeping in a bed, a real bed, not a bedroll laid upon the stony ground for an hour’s snatched rest, was almost overwhelming.
Hallow hesitated, as well, and I knew the thought was tempting him as greatly as it was me. But he sighed heavily and took my arm, leading me to the stable after Deo. “There will be time for bathing and scented oils later, after the last rift is destroyed.”
“Oooh, is that what you were thinking?” I dwelled with pleasure on the idea of Hallow, naked, wet, and slippery with scented oil. It was almost enough to send me back to the elder’s house, but instead, I accepted the use of a horse, and mounted with a groan that was mostly inaudible.
To everyone but Hallow, who murmured, “Duty first, my heart, but once that is done, you and I are going to retreat from society for a long time.”
“That sounds like heaven right now,” I said, shifting in the saddle, my thighs and behind protesting at more time spent on horseback.
We arrived in Abet exhausted, our mounts—which we’d changed many times during the several days it took us to travel—lathered and about ready to drop. We’d ridden hard through the nights, knowing we were so close to the end goal, and arrived on the cobbled streets of Abet just as Kiriah sent the sun above the horizon. Long peachy fingers streaked across the midnight blue sky, while the shadows of the night began to lift, the rosy dawn glistening in the wet puddles along the cobblestones.
The city was just waking up, but it didn’t take long before the few people who were about saw Deo.
“Remember the plan,” Hallow warned him when Deo noticed two stableboys bolting for the keep. “We deal with the rift first, then you do whatever you feel you must.”
“You needn’t remind me,” Deo growled, pulling his great sword out of the scabbard and heading for the stone steps that led up toward the front of the house. “I know my duty well enough. You just keep an eye on Allegria. She doesn’t have the mastery I have over the chaos magic.”
Hallow said nothing, just helped me from my horse, holding on to my waist when I staggered a little.
“Tell me you don’t mind if we walk back to Kelos,” I said to him, trying to ease my cramped muscles as we followed Deo.
“I don’t mind, but it might make crossing the sea a little difficult,” he answered, his tone light, but his expression and eyes full of shadows.
“Are you going to be in very much trouble with the council?” I asked softly as we emerged into a dewy garden, spread out with ornamental trees, decorative shrubs trimmed into animal shapes, and brilliant splashes of reds, yellows, and blues overflowing the flower beds. “Even if Lord Israel didn’t kill Deo, he’s not going to be happy to see him here, in Abet.”
“That can’t be helped; we are obligated to go where the rifts open. Oy, lad! Yes, you.” Hallow hailed a serving boy, who was rushing with two buckets of water. “Where in Abet is the rift that opened a fortnight ago?”
The boy looked somewhat insolently first at me, then at Hallow, but once he got a glimpse of Deo, his eyes widened and he backed away. “It’s ... it’s in the war room. But you mustn’t go in there.”
“Why not?” I asked.
The lad looked even more frightened, if that was possible. “It’s dangerous. Lord Israel has forbidden anyone entrance into the keep.”
Deo smiled and marched past the boy, who stumbled and dumped both buckets on the cream stone steps leading into the keep. “That must infuriate my father to no end. Come along, you two, no dragging your feet. We have a rift to close.”
“As much as I dislike surly and introspective Deo, a chipper one is almost a hundred times worse,” I grumbled to Hallow.
He laughed, and slid a hand down to my behind, where he gave me a little pinch. “Just remember that as soon as we close it, we can demand a room, and I can give you the bath that for the last three days you’ve said you so desperately need.”
I sighed at the thought of hot water easing my aching muscles and sore posterior. “That’s almost enough to make me giddy.”
“You make me gid—” Hallow stopped speaking when we entered the hall, expecting it to be the same as when we were last here.
Deo stood in front of us, his hands on his hips. Hallow moved alongside him. I stopped at the door, staring with growing horror at the monstrosity that seemed to seep out of the very walls. The rift might have started two floors above in the war room, but now it oozed out along the corridor, and down through the floors into the hall where we now stood. It was massive, at least three times as wide as the others, with long snakes of matter writhing and snapping. In the center of it, a black oval seemed to swallow the miasma that turned upon itself on the outer edges, the whole thing a massive blot on the existence of Alba.
There were no guards in the room, but if Israel had cleared the castle, there was no need of them. “Do you think ...” I stopped, unsure how to put it into words. “Do you think that’s ...”
“Yes,” Hallow said, placing a warning hand on my arm. He didn’t need to. I wasn’t about to step a single foot closer to that ... thing. “Yes, I think it’s different. It’s not a rift so much as it is a ... being.”
“It’s the threshold of Eris itself,” Deo said. He took two steps forward, and the rift turned toward him. I swear, it saw him, recognized him. His runes lit up red, fading quickly to black.
“I don’t think you should get too close,” Hallow warned, moving up to him.
“You mind your magic, and I’ll mind mine,” Deo snarled, and took another step forward.
“My son was never one to heed advice, arcanist. You are wasting your breath if you think to influence him.”
The voice came from behind me, and was slightly out of breath, as if the speaker had run. I turned to see both Lord Israel and Idril come forward, the latter looking her perfect self despite obviously having been summoned from bed. A line of soldiers clustered behind them, but Israel waved them back.
“There is no need unless we fall,” he said, closing the big double doors in their faces. Amongst them, I saw Rixius, his face red and twisted with anger.
I blew him a kiss right before the doors closed.
“I don’t know why we bother having a council if you are going to ignore our wishes and simply go off to do what you want,” Lord Israel told Hallow.
“I’ve told you before that if you wish for me to resign from the council, I will gladly stand down in deference to another arcanist,” Hallow replied, a bite of frost to his words.
I hid a smile, but let Hallow see how proud I was that he wasn’t in the least bit cowed by Lord Israel.
“And have another half-mad arcanist running off to fight his own demons?” Israel gave a mock shudder. “Preserve me from such horrors. You will stay as you are, although we will have a discussion later about your habit of disregarding direct orders. I refer, of course, to the present company.”
“Nice to see you, too,” I said smoothly, pulling a little light to form a lion that clambered up to my shoulder, where it sat and roared at Israel.
His eyes widened ever so slightly at the sign of it, his gaze speculative. “It seems I was misled about you, priest. I will address that later, as well.” He turned his eyes to his son. “And here we have the biggest question of all. What do you expect to accomplish here, Deo? Have you come to vent your anger upon me for saving your hide when others would have you dead? Or continue to rail at me for the supposed slights you’ve suffered over the years?”
To my surprise, Deo didn’t fall for his father’s obvious bait. He simply looked him over as if he were a particularly uninteresting piece of mutton. “We are here to close the rift. As we’ve done with the other two.”
That took his father aback, but only for a second or two. His eyes narrowed on Deo. “You closed them? You destroyed them completely?”
Deo looked bored. “Of course. It is why my banesmen were created, and although I’m told you saw to it that the others were banished to far reaches, Allegria, Hallow, and I were able to handle them with ease.”
I bit my lip trying to keep from correcting him. Almost being sucked into the black nothingness of the rift was not my idea of ease, but Deo deserved a little leeway when it came to bragging to his father.
“I see.” Lord Israel was silent for a few moments before continuing, “I will call back both my army and that of the Tribe of Jalas.”
“You speak for them now, do you?” Deo asked, and for the first time looked beyond his father to where Idril stood. “I don’t know why I’m surprised that once again you usurped what belonged to another.”
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