by Lisa Shearin
Tam took one look at the ward close up and snarled a string of guttural goblin curses.
I looked where he was looking. “What? You can’t do it?”
“The wards are rooted in bedrock,” Tam told me. “If I rip into it, the ceiling comes down.”
“Any other way?”
“None.”
We were at least a hundred feet underground, with an embassy on top of that. If Tam tore into those wards, all of that was going to be on top of us.
If we did nothing, those spellsingers were worse than dead.
I’d held up a stage full of mages two days ago. No Saghred, just me. But that stage was wood, not untold tons of rock. Dammit. I didn’t want to die squashed like a bug, but if I screwed this up, a lot of other people would be dying along with me.
I snarled my favorite about-to-meet-Death four-letter word.
“Do it!” I snapped.
“The ceiling—”
“Is my problem.”
Tam knew what I was saying. He stared at me, his expression unreadable. “I need you to support the ceiling above the tear I’m going to make.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it. You pull; I push. Let’s go!”
“I need control and delicacy, Raine.”
I snorted. “Too bad you’re stuck with me.”
He held out his hand to me. “And we have to work in unison.”
So there it was. I knew it wouldn’t be just Tam and me. The Saghred was going to want a piece of the action—and a piece of us. The Saghred had given me power when I’d used it. Would it do the same for Tam? I didn’t want that power. Did the dark mage in Tam not only want it, but crave it?
Triumph was the only way I could describe what I felt coming off the Saghred. The rock was about to get what it wanted. If we all got out of this alive, I’d have what I wanted.
A win-win for everybody. Yeah, right.
Tam called his power and I felt it: dark, potent, rushing up from the deep, primal core of him. My own magic coiled and flared through my body, serpentine, seeking the source of Tam’s dark power. I found it and touched it: the dark well, its source unknown, its depths unexplored. The Saghred wanted to know those depths. I just wanted to explore.
“I knew I couldn’t leave you two alone.”
Rudra Muralin stood smiling at a tunnel opening next to the Magh’Sceadu’s cell, manacles dangling negligently from one finger.
“Always have a backup plan,” he told us. “And an extra set of keys. I hope you didn’t pay your two lackeys in advance, Tamnais. Gold is wasted on dead men.”
Muralin laid his hand on the ward of the Magh’Sceadu’s cell. It opened seamlessly and Magh’Sceadu poured out, flowing around him like a black tide. They wanted nothing to do with him. I guess evil repels evil.
“Impressive work, Piaras,” Muralin called. “You have even more potential than I thought. Too bad you’re about to be overrun.”
“Rip it now!” I snarled at Tam. I turned my head toward Piaras, Talon, and Katelyn. “Run!” I screamed.
I grabbed Tam’s hand, and his power exploded through my body; my own surged upward to meet it.
A roar tore itself from Tam’s throat. His eyes were solid black orbs, his lips pulled back from his fangs in a bestial snarl as he sank his fingers like claws into the wards and tore them open. The wards screamed as if Tam was ripping into living flesh, not magic.
I gathered my will and my arm extended toward the rock above where Tam had shredded the ward. My fingers flared out to focus my magic and I pushed with everything I had. My arm shook with the effort and my shoulder was on fire.
A spiderweb of tiny cracks appeared on the ceiling where wards met rock.
Oh hell.
Tam had flung open the door to the cell and was pulling the spellsingers out and all but throwing them toward the door to the tunnel beyond. Ronan and two of Tam’s mages were herding the kids, including Piaras, Talon, and Katelyn, into the tunnel.
Rudra Muralin was gone.
All that power came at a price. I was panting and tasting blood. Either I’d bitten my tongue or ruptured something. Black blooms danced on the edges of my vision. If I didn’t stop soon, I was going to pass out.
Silence hung in the air, followed by a low rumbling. A crack appeared in the ceiling at our end of the cell block and started to spread.
I was all that was holding up that ceiling and if I let go…
I couldn’t speak. I frantically motioned for Tam to go.
His black eyes blazed. “Like hell!”
A tremor shook the room. The crack in the ceiling was as wide as my hand and expanding fast. Chunks of ceiling began to crumble and fall. Tam tightened his grip on my hand.
“Drop it!” he screamed over the din. “Now!”
I dropped it.
Tam and I ran.
Chapter 29
The tremors turned into a thunderous roar, and the ceiling simply crumbled. Dust and debris chased us in a billowing cloud.
We didn’t have to run faster than the Magh’Sceadu behind us. We just had to run faster than the Khrynsani shamans in front of them.
Tam and I had a head start, and survival was a strong motivator. In fact, my motivation knew no bounds. I didn’t think I could run any faster, but a panicked shriek in the tunnel behind us proved me wrong.
There had yet to be a time when I couldn’t outrun a magic user wearing robes. Robes were just a pretty way to an early grave—stylish death traps in your choice of silk, brocade, or velvet. Flowing sleeves got in your way during a fight, and flowing hems tripped you when running away. Behind us, a shaman tripped over his hem and went down screaming. A Magh’Sceadu caught up to him and the screaming stopped. I quit looking back at that point. What was behind us didn’t matter unless it caught up to us.
The rumbling faded and the tunnel ahead sloped up and presumably led out, and best of all, whatever was behind us wasn’t going to catch up with us—or anybody else.
I smelled the salt air from the harbor. We were almost out. Problem was, I didn’t know if out there was any safer than in here.
Piaras, Ronan, and the spellsingers were waiting at the exit. Tam’s mages were guarding them. Ronan didn’t look particularly comfortable with that arrangement, but he hadn’t spellsung any of Tam’s men to death yet, either.
Piaras spotted me and swept me off my feet in a rib-crushing hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck and just hung there happily. Piaras was warm and alive, just the way I liked the people I love.
I felt him smile against my cheek. “We still have all of our pieces and parts intact,” he said.
“See, I told you my plan would work.”
“I still require an explanation, Master Rivalin.” It was Ronan and he didn’t sound amused.
I felt Piaras sigh; then he put me down. “Sir, I read the spell in a songbook in the citadel’s music room. Since I’m not very good at repelling songs, I thought—”
Ronan’s expression was both appalled and disapproving. “You thought you’d just teach yourself something stronger.”
Piaras met his eyes. “I didn’t teach myself, sir. I just read it once. I didn’t see the harm—and there was a need.”
Ronan was incredulous. “You read an unmaking spellsong in Old Goblin once and you could use it down there in that hellhole?”
“Yes, sir. I memorize quickly.”
“So it would appear,” Ronan muttered. The maestro searched Piaras’s face for something only he knew. “I understand you want to be a Guardian,” he said quietly.
Piaras shot a quick glance at me. “I did, sir. Perhaps I still do.”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”
I stepped up to the maestro. “Uh, Ronan, a lot happened since you got snatched through that mirror at Sirens.”
“So tell me.”
I pulled him aside and told him. I included what had happened to Piaras this evening, who was responsible, and what they had wanted. I finished with how Mychael mig
ht not be in charge anymore—and who probably was. I motioned Katelyn over and as delicately as I could, told her that Rudra Muralin had used a spellsong to attack her grandfather. I left Piaras’s accused involvement completely out of it. He was innocent, so as far as I was concerned, it didn’t enter into the equation. To Katelyn’s credit, she controlled herself better than I thought she would; apparently she wasn’t Justinius Valerian’s granddaughter for nothing.
To Ronan’s professional credit, he didn’t vocalize the choice words he was thinking.
“Mychael Eiliesor is still in charge,” Ronan insisted. He insisted, but he didn’t sound completely confident. He’d been on the Isle of Mid long enough to know the kind of political, backstabbing crap that passed for civilized behavior around here.
We’d find out soon enough if Mychael was truly in command, or in command in name only. I knew he wanted to protect me, but with Carnades Silvanus in charge, he might have to lock me up in the citadel, and Piaras along with me. He’d see it as continuing to protect us while still obeying orders. To keep the Guardians from being reduced to ceremonial guards or disbanded all together, Mychael had to remain paladin, even if it was an empty title for now. Like Justinius, Mychael had to pick his battles carefully. I didn’t like it, but I understood it.
Sometimes the only way to keep what you had was to do something you didn’t want to do.
I wanted to keep my freedom. I also wanted be rid of the Saghred. Staying on the island was my best chance to get rid of my bond with the rock, but Mid was also full of mages and bureaucrats who would want me and Piaras kept securely under lock and key. Protect us from others, protect others from us, study us, use us—the reasons were different, but they all meant the same thing.
No freedom. No lives of our own.
No way in hell.
Piaras stepped closer to me. “So where are we going?” he asked softly.
“To see which way the wind is blowing.”
Phaelan had said he was going to wait for us across the street from the elven embassy. I had no desire whatsoever to get within miles of that place, but I soon found we didn’t have a choice. When I got a glimpse of the harbor, it was obvious that Tanik Ozal’s slip was empty. Taltek Balmorlan’s yacht was still there, as were the Khrynsani and Mal’Salin vessels, but no Tanik.
Either Tanik had to suddenly get out of port, which, knowing Tanik, was hardly surprising, or something more nefarious had happened while I was gone.
Walking gave my brain time to ponder even more disturbing possibilities. If Rudra Muralin had killed me, he would have regained control of the stone. That scenario was bad enough, but it raised some even uglier questions. Would that work only for Muralin, or could any mage powerful enough kill me and be able to command the Saghred? And would the rock take anyone, or was it picky, like taking only the mage most likely to feed it? My father had starved the Saghred and lived nearly nine hundred years.
I just wanted to live.
Worse still was a realization that rolled my stomach, and made me want to get as far away from these kids as possible. If a spellsinger or magic user was killed and a drop of their blood landed on me, would the Saghred slurp their soul, using me as the straw? Just as long as no one died in my immediate vicinity, I wouldn’t have to find out.
So many questions, way too few answers.
Answers that, unfortunately, I could only find here.
I felt a touch and jumped. It was Tam; his arm had brushed my shoulder. He’d come up next to me and I’d never heard him. I was still thinking about slurping and straws.
I stopped, and Ronan and the kids waited a little distance ahead, giving us some privacy.
“It’s best that I leave now.” Tam lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “Whether Mychael or Carnades is in charge, it’s dangerous for you to be seen with me.” He glanced back at where Talon stood with Tam’s mages. “And I can’t risk my son, or the men who risked their lives to help me.”
“A high-powered group of guys,” I noted.
“Yes, they are.”
“Old colleagues?”
“And good friends.”
Tam was right about not being seen now. The Conclave and possibly now the Guardians saw things in black and white. Tam was gray, but now he was sometimes black. They didn’t know what to make of him.
To tell you the truth, neither did I.
“Do you know what you do to me?” Tam whispered.
I remembered the cell block and the alley. “I think I’ve got a good idea. You do the same to me.” I forced my voice to be steady. “Tam, I’m going to get rid of my link to the Saghred; once that’s done, it won’t be an issue anymore. We can go back to the way things were.”
His dark eyes glittered in the streetlamps. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“No, I don’t. But I do believe in denial. My family’s developed it to an art form. Much like goblins and deception.”
“Deception for your own good,” Tam corrected.
“I’d like to be the judge of that from now on.”
Tam looked straight ahead, his profile stern. “When I tell you to stay away from me, I expect you to listen.”
“Expect?”
He glanced down at me, a faint smile visible in the lamplight. “How about hope?”
“You can hope all you want, just don’t hold your breath.”
Tam was silent for a moment. “Just because I am no longer married into the Mal’Salin family doesn’t mean they don’t ask favors from time to time,” he said softly, and in Goblin. “They have, and they will continue to do so. Some favors I can comply with—others may prove more of a challenge.”
“Like me.”
His lips curled into a quick grin. “I’ve always considered you a challenge.” The grin vanished. “Rudra Muralin has nothing to do with the Mal’Salin family, and he’s merely using the Khrynsani to get what he wants. And the family’s connection to the Khrynsani is—shall we say—fluid.”
“Good old goblin ‘shifting alliances.’ ”
Tam nodded. “King Sathrik Mal’Salin wants the Saghred—and you. He has made no secret of that. The same can be said of his brother Prince Chigaru.”
I remembered the prince’s hospitality from last week; so did Piaras. For Chigaru Mal’Salin, the end justified any means. And Sarad Nukpana was, or used to be, Sathrik’s chief counselor. Both Sathrik and Chigaru wanted to get their hands on the Saghred and do some smiting of their own, starting with each other. Sathrik was a new king who wanted to prove himself; Chigaru was an exiled prince looking for a throne.
“Have they asked for a favor?” Namely me.
Tam’s answer was silence.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Favors imply a sense of obligation or loyalty, and asking is not the same as receiving.”
And for Tam, or any goblin, a response was not the same as an answer.
I shook my head. “I’m beginning to believe Phaelan has the right idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Trust no one.”
“Do you trust me?” Tam said it almost too softly to be heard.
I hesitated, sighed, then reached down and took his hand. Tam’s fingers wrapped warm and strong around mine. The magic sparked between us, though this time it was warm and tingling, not violent and lustful.
“Though you’re the last thing I need,” I muttered.
I heard the smile in his voice. “But I’m the first thing you want.”
Chapter 30
When we got within sight of the elven embassy, it was swarming with Guardians. When we got closer, it was obvious that someone had been doing a little exterior remodeling.
The embassy had a hole in it. A big, gaping, smoking hole. An entire section of the wall was gone and smoke was pouring out of the building.
It was beautiful.
I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Phaelan and some of Tanik’s crew stood admiring it fr
om across the street like it was a work of art you had to view from several angles to truly appreciate.
“Ronan,” I said. “Piaras and I are going to leave you for a while.” I paused. “We might rejoin you—we might not.”
The maestro nodded. “I understand.” He held out his hand to Piaras and Piaras took it. “Master Rivalin, I hope you are able to resume our lessons. You have a truly rare gift and it would be a shame—and a danger—if it were not properly developed.”
“Thank you, sir. I hope I can continue my studies, too.”
Ronan extended his hand for mine and I was once again treated to a most proficient hand kiss. “Mistress Benares, it has been both a pleasure and an adventure—an adventure I hope to never repeat.”
I grinned at him. “I’ll bet you don’t get to say that to many girls.”
“I can honestly say that you’re the first.”
We watched for a minute until Ronan and the spellsingers were spotted by the Guardians at the elven embassy. They were safe; I wished I could say the same for us.
“Did you get a chance to say good-bye to Katelyn?” I asked Piaras.
He bit his lip and his eyes were sad. “No. But maybe it won’t be for long.”
“Maybe not.”
Phaelan spotted Piaras and me and was grinning like the explosives-happy maniac he was. We quickly darted into the shadows and my cousin greeted us both with bone-crushing hugs.
I stepped back and draped an arm over my cousin’s shoulder, admiring the view along with him.
“You do magnificent work. Truly awe inspiring.”
Phaelan shook his head, still beaming. “Not mine.”
“No?”
“Nope. Tanik’s junior gunner. That boy has a true gift.” He lowered his voice. “The official story is Tanik was taking the Zephyr to a new slip, the boy was messing around with the forward cannon, and when the Zephyr passed the embassy, it accidentally went off. Apparently the kid didn’t know it was loaded.”
Piaras and I looked at the hole and turned and noted the path the cannonball had taken. Piaras whistled. It was a straight shot down a narrow street to the harbor. An extremely narrow street, more like an alley. That was a flawlessly timed accident. The kid was gifted. Tanik might want to keep watch over his junior gunner; Phaelan was always on the lookout for new talent.