by Rachel Aaron
Miranda bit her lip and glanced around. Save for the stalking Lord of Storms and Gin resting behind her, she and Krigel were alone in the enormous room. Even so, she reached down and gave the Tower’s ring a little prod.
At once, the enormous room shifted subtly, the acoustics changing. When she spoke again, the words that should have echoed across the empty stone fell tiny and flat, just as she wanted. There could be no chance of anyone overhearing what she said next.
“Krigel,” she whispered. “Why did you do it?”
The old Spiritualist didn’t ask what she meant. He leaned against the polished wood and fixed her with a glare that made her feel like a bumbling apprentice again.
“You would have me let Blint make a mockery of all we’ve fought for?” he said. “All Etmon sacrificed?”
“I don’t want to be Rector,” Miranda argued. “I want to fight. I should be out there—”
“What you want means nothing,” Krigel said. “You have a duty, Miranda. A duty to the Court and a duty to Banage, who’s sacrificed more for you than you can ever know. If Blint became Rector, the Spirit Court would be little more than a subchapter of Whitefall’s Council.”
Miranda knew she should leave it there, but selfish as it was, she couldn’t stop. “But why me?” she cried. “Why do I have to be—”
“Because there was no one else,” Krigel said. “This Court has been too long in the presence of the Council. Men like Blint sway others with power and greed. He had half the Court in his pocket this morning. It didn’t matter whom I’d named for Rector. Had the vote been taken when the Conclave began, Blint would have won. That’s why I didn’t call the referendum at the beginning as I should have. I meant to let you call the vote for the Court’s agreement with the League, procedure be hanged. But while you were standing on the Rector’s platform speaking the truth of the horrible events taking place around us, flanked by the League’s Deputy Commander and the Lord of Storms himself, the power in the Court began to shift. With every word you spoke, the Court forgot its greed. It forgot the promise of power and remembered its oaths and its purpose. At that moment, Miranda, you were more powerful than Blint could ever be.”
“So you forced the vote,” Miranda said, dropping her head.
“Of course,” Krigel said. “Powers, girl, I might be old, but I’m not so great a fool to let an opportunity like that pass me by. With you as Rector, the Court will continue to live up to its purpose. You proved as much just now when you made us reaffirm our oaths. The lust for power that let men like Hern and Blint climb so high is still there, but today at least, the Court’s pride won out. With good leadership and a clear purpose, I hope we can keep it that way. This crisis may be the key to finally breaking the Council’s hold on us and regaining our true independence. Surely you’re not going to let a little thing like a personal aversion to being Rector stand in the way of such a great and noble goal, are you?”
Miranda’s answer was a deep sigh, and Krigel’s smile spread.
“Glad we see eye to eye,” he said, bowing low. “It is my honor to serve you, Rector Lyonette.”
Miranda waved him away and slumped down, landing hard on the polished stone. As though on cue, Gin got up from his post to the right of the Rector’s podium and padded over to thrust his enormous head into her lap.
“Let’s get to business, then,” she said, scratching the ghosthound’s muzzle. “You can hear the panic, right? So, tell me what’s going on.”
Krigel snapped to attention. “The fear has already died down considerably thanks to your Court’s efforts, Rector. It seems the star of the hardwood forests vanished just before the Conclave, but from what I can hear, the panic has all but vanished in the south and across the sea. There are still screams coming from the north, but they’re dying down. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before the Lord of Storms gets his quiet.”
“None too soon,” Miranda muttered, glaring at the Lord of Storms, who was still stalking back and forth across her assembly floor. She watched him as he walked, his feet slamming down on the stone so hard she felt it through the Tower’s connection. She was about to ask him if he would mind stomping more quietly when the Lord of Storms froze.
It happened without warning. One moment he was moving fluid as a panther; the next he was still as the floor beneath his feet. He stayed that way for one endless breath, and then his face transformed.
The change was so dramatic Miranda had no words to describe it. There simply was no human name for such pure, rapturous, purposeful joy. It was a look of completion, as though the entire work of the man’s life had suddenly been validated. For one brief second, the Lord of Storms stood transfixed, and then he opened his mouth with a roar that was more power than sound, vibrating through the fabric of the world.
“There you are!”
As the words thundered, the Lord of Storms vanished in a flash of light. Miranda flinched back against the wooden wall, blinking madly against the echo of his power throbbing through her mind. As she struggled to get her thoughts back in order, she felt almost sorry for the demon.
Poor thing wouldn’t know what hit it.
CHAPTER
15
Get back!” Eli shouted, waving frantically at Josef.
The swordsman was already on it. He scooped Nico’s limp body into his arms and dashed for the shelter of the rocky outcropping at the center of the dry creek bed. Her coat curled around his shoulders as he ran, the cloth circling him like a black tide.
That was dangerous, Eli realized. With Nico out, her coat might mistake Josef for a threat. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury of taking that line of thought any further since containing the mess in front of him was taking every ounce of his attention.
He was standing at the edge of Slorn’s dry creek, his spirit roaring open all around him. He’d stretched himself to the edge of his strength, reaching as far as he could see until he felt as thin as a thread, and it still wasn’t enough to hold back the forest’s madness.
Madness was the only word for it. The trees of the Awakened Wood fell on each other like tigers, branches ripping and clawing while roots shot in all directions, breaking everything in their path. They screamed as they tore at each other, their overlapping voices too jumbled to make any sense, but it wasn’t hard to guess what they were saying. They’d said only one word since the madness started: gone. Something was gone, something fundamental, and they were left behind. Open as he was, Eli could feel the grief that fed the tree’s fury, the enormous loss running beneath the anger. What he didn’t understand was why.
“What’s gone?” he screamed, pouring power into the words so they could be heard. “What happened?”
The forest ignored him, or maybe the trees were too far gone to hear even a wizard’s words. They were lost in madness, consumed by it. The only thing stopping them from ripping themselves to bits was Eli’s will. He stood with his boots planted in the sand, slamming himself down on as many trees as he could reach. And it was working, mostly, but he couldn’t keep it up forever.
Sweat poured down his face and plastered his shirt to his back. Holding his will this wide over such a large area was burning his stamina hot and fast, but letting go wasn’t an option. He couldn’t let Slorn’s trees destroy themselves, not while he was watching, and certainly not before he knew what was going on. As his knees started to wobble, Eli thought bitterly how much easier this would be if he still had the Shepherdess’s mark. Her command could have stopped this idiocy the moment it began.
Eli thrust that line of thought away with a snarl. Nothing was worth going back. Nothing. For all he knew, this madness was Benehime’s doing, a ploy to make him miss her power. After the fiasco with Nara, he wouldn’t put any cruelty past her when it came to manipulating him, and that was exactly why Eli could never let her get under his skin again. No bait or barb was going to drag him back to her ever again. So, with a silent apology to the poor, mad trees, Eli dug his heels into the sand an
d opened his spirit wider, hammering the trees down with everything he had.
It was stupid to give so much, and he would pay bitterly for this later, but Eli couldn’t stop. If this was Benehime’s ploy, then he couldn’t let her win again, and if it wasn’t, well, they were still Slorn’s trees. He’d be a poor friend indeed to let them die just because he wasn’t willing to spend a little time on his back.
Gritting his teeth, Eli kept going as the minutes stretched into eternity. The panic went on and on without end, but he braced his legs and held, pushing the forest with his will until they found a sort of balance. Eli took a strained breath, adjusting himself to the pattern of push and push back. But just as he was settling into the rhythm of the forest’s madness, another complication appeared.
A white line opened at the center of the dry creek bed. That alone was almost shock enough to collapse Eli’s overextended spirit. The League was more bad news than he could handle. But shock became confusion when the figure who stepped through the hole in the air wasn’t a black-coated man with an awakened blade but a middle-aged woman in a long red robe. Though the glittering rings on her hand identified her profession as clearly as if she’d shouted it, Eli’s poor, overworked brain still took several seconds to piece together the obvious question.
Why was a Spiritualist using a League portal?
Sadly, he never got his answer. The woman had emerged not five feet from where Eli was braced in the sand, and she froze when she saw him, just as surprised by his presence as he’d been at hers. She recovered much more quickly than he had, though, her expression of startled recognition shifting to smug triumph in a flash.
“Eli Monpress,” she said, raising her hand, the ruby on her index finger sparking like a firecracker. “Of all the luck.”
Eli cursed and swung his spirit in preparation to block whatever it was the woman was about to launch at him… and realized too late that this was one battle too many.
The moment he took his power away from the trees, the forest overwhelmed him. The trees burst through the line he’d held at the bank, their roots plunging into the dry creek bed with mindless screams. The spindly trunks followed, whipping like snakes. The roar caught both Eli and the Spiritualist by surprise, and they turned together, throwing their spirits open in unison to meet the mad tide of the trees. But it was too little, too late. The Spiritualist vanished beneath an avalanche of splintering wood before Eli could even shout at her to move. He cursed and fell back toward the rocks where Josef and Nico were, thinking that if he could just keep them safe, this whole stupid battle wouldn’t have been for nothing.
Ignoring the throbbing pain of his overextended soul, Eli pulled inward, shaping his will into a bubble around the shelter of the rock. He didn’t need much. He wasn’t trying to stop the trees now, just make a barrier that would force the madness to flow around the three of them. But as he turned to run toward Josef, something hit him hard from the left.
Pain exploded through his head, and he was vaguely aware that the impact had sent him flying. That he was, even now, about to land face-first in the sand. It seemed like a minor concern, though. Everything was a minor concern compared to the flashing lights going off in his head.
He should have told Josef to run, he realized as he slammed into the streambed. How arrogant could he be? Telling the swordsman and Nico to hide by a rock while he tried to hold back an entire forest. It would be funny if it wasn’t so stupid. Eli only hoped his ego didn’t get them all skewered. It would be a crying shame if the greatest thief team in history died to trees.
And with that happy thought in his mind, Eli fell into the dark.
The first thing Nico saw when she opened her eyes was Josef, holding her. The second thing she saw was Eli getting hit over the head by what looked like a walking tree. She was about to dismiss that last bit as a fatigue delusion when she felt Josef’s chest contract.
“Eli!”
The scream made her ears ring, and then she was dropped on the ground as Josef lunged toward the falling thief. She scrambled in the sand, fighting to get her feet beneath her. The haze in her mind grew thinner with every movement, and she realized with a start that the cold mountain air was filled with terrified screams. Her head shot up so fast her neck snapped, searching for the source of the sound as she willed her coat to cover everything but her eyes.
A sound that terrified had to be demon panic. Had she let something slip? The exhaustion of the jumps hung over her like a pall. It wasn’t unthinkable that her control had faltered, but she didn’t feel the demon’s presence nearby. Utterly confused, Nico looked again at the forest, and this time what she saw froze her solid.
The Awakened Wood was thrashing. The trees spirits, usually a calm, green color, were now a sickening burnt yellow. She could smell their terror in the air, bitter and sticky in her nose, but worse than the smell or the color was the way the trees moved.
The tree spirits were writhing in wild undulations no spirit, not even an awakened one, should have been able to achieve. They jerked like seizure victims, moving in crazy, unnatural spasms. It was as though every tree had suddenly been cut off from whatever anchored them and were now shaking themselves to pieces in their struggle not to collapse.
Nico couldn’t explain the sight, couldn’t fathom it within what she’d come to understand as the natural order since she’d first started seeing as spirits saw. One thing, however, was perfectly clear. Josef wasn’t going to get to Eli before the writhing trees crushed him.
Before she could think further, Nico dove into the shadows. She came out in Eli’s own shadow, the one cast below his falling body. Her arms shot out of the ground to wrap around his waist. The second she had him, Nico pulled him down, and they vanished together into the sand just before the trees crashed.
Throwing Eli over her shoulder, Nico stepped out of the shadows again, emerging directly in the path of Josef’s charge. The swordsman had no time to stop. He barreled into them, and Nico let his momentum carry them into the shadow of the thrashing forest itself. The moment she hit the dark, she grabbed the men tight and started to run.
It was harder than she’d expected. Her body felt heavy as a mountain as she struggled forward, and the shadows clung to her like tar. In her exhaustion, even she could feel the fear.
The cold seeped into her bones, turning her legs to jelly until she was tripping over her own feet. But even as she felt the demon closing around her, Nico forced her body into submission. Her will was absolute, and she wrapped it around them like a fiery cloak. The cold fled as she reestablished control, but the fear lingered. Nico ignored it, focusing her will like an arrow on the enormous presence looming in the distance, their end goal, the Shaper Mountain. The ache pounding through her mind told her this was probably her last jump. Clutching Eli and Josef, Nico made it a good one.
She stretched herself through the dark, forcing her body forward. Each step felt like her last, but every time she managed to take another and another until, without warning, she hit the end of her strength.
It was like running face-first into a wall. All at once, the darkness began to tilt and spin. Nico didn’t even know where they were, but it would have to work. With a final, desperate flail, she burst from the darkness into air that felt cold even after the cold of the shadows.
Snow crunched against her knees as she fell, and she was painfully aware of the loss of Eli and Josef’s warmth as her arms gave out. The sky spun into view as she toppled, a dull, cloudy dome marred with sharp, white shapes. Mountains, she realized belatedly. Snowcapped mountains.
Nico eyes fell closed with delicious relief. She’d done it. She’d brought them to the mountains. Victory ran through her, sweet and burning, warding off the biting cold. Her coat was already winding around her, and she felt something else. Arms. Josef’s arms. That thought was sweeter still, and she fell gleefully into a deep, happy sleep.
Josef trampled the snow down, cursing with each stomp. It did no good. The howling wind stol
e the words from his mouth, denying him even the satisfaction of his own anger. Just another irritation on top of the mountain of things that had gone horribly wrong in the last half hour.
Kicking the ice off his boots, he reached over and gently picked up Nico again. The demon fear rolling off her was stronger than ever now. It bled through the coat, stealing what little warmth he’d managed to keep. Gritting his teeth, Josef ignored it. He cradled Nico to his chest and turned his back to the wind, shielding her as he inched across the flat stretch of ground to the ditch he’d stomped into the deep snow of the mountain slope.
He fell to his knees and laid her down as gently as he could, turning her so her back was against the packed snow. The short wall was a poor windbreak, but it was better than nothing. When he had her arranged to his satisfaction, he stood and went for Eli.
The thief looked worse than Nico. His face was gray as dirty soap, and there was blood running from his temple where the tree had hit him. Josef picked his friend up gently, mindful of his head, and laid him feet to feet with Nico.
When they were both safely out of the wind, Josef straightened up and started looking for something to burn. Fire was vital if they were going to last more than a few hours in this cold. There was precious little fuel here, but Josef had made fires in the high mountains before. He would find something to burn. He would keep those idiots alive, and the moment they woke up he would tear into both of them for being reckless, self-sacrificing bastards and making him worry.
He’d just spotted a likely lump down the slope where a bush could be growing under the snow when he heard a strange scraping sound. Woodsman routine forgotten, Josef spun to face the noise, the Heart of War leaping into his hands. But as he stepped into first position, he froze, eyes going wide. Eli and Nico were lying under the windbreak just as he’d left them, but there was something wrapped around Eli’s chest. Something glowing.