To Wield the Wind (Enclave World Book 1)

by Remi Black

“The gobbers accept the rule of the sorceress.”

  “They cannot make that choice. All the creatures of this Wilding are my Lady’s.”

  “Whether they want her rule or not?”

  Volk did not attempt to control his expression. He scowled openly, deeply. “They do not make that choice. They are the Lady’s.”

  “And this wizard?”

  “The bargain between my Lady and this wizard supercedes the death your sorceress will give. Only when the pact between them ends may the sorceress have her.”

  The wyre shook his head. His pelted chest thrust forward. “Not so, slave. We are old enemies, Frost Clime and Enclave. Your Lady must cede to us.” He grinned at Orielle and once again extended his hand. “Come to me, pretty wizard. Come and die.”

  Volk stepped before her. “She has my guard.”

  “Then face death, knight who cannot live.” The Prime crouched. Fangs crowded his unshifted mouth. His claws extended, reaching the length of a short sword.

  Laughing, Volk swung his blade, cutting Air with a hiss.

  With a growl, the wyre dropped to all fours and shed man-shape. A quick blur, faster than the other wyre, and he became a large wolf. He sprang.

  The icy sword slashed upward. The wyre yelped as Volk’s blade cut into his front leg. He fell short of the knight. Blood splashed onto the pebbles. He crouched on his haunches then sprang again, using his back legs for power. Volk thrust upward.

  The blade pierced the wyre’s chest. Momentum thrust the knight back several steps. With the screech of a man, he writhed on the blade, then strength left his body. His weight forced the sword down, to the shore.

  The limp body blurred, and a man lay lifeless, the violet blade piercing his chest.

  When Volk pressed a foot to the man’s chest, Orielle sped past him and fell to her knees beside Grim, curled into a ball and shuddering as the wyre’s poison worked into him.

  The Crygy cleaned his blade in the river. Then he came to stand over her. “I will not ask how you learned my name. The suffering has lasted long enough.”

  “You killed the Prime.”

  He had looked to count the other dead wyre. Black eyes swiveled back to her. “Another will take his place and his strength from the pack. Nine remain. They will hunt you, Not-Wizard.”

  “Six remain. I killed two up on the mountain. And we buried the seventh, remember?”

  Lifted eyebrows were the only evidence of his surprise. He had returned to the guise of marble knight, icily controlled emotions. “A good accounting then.”

  Grim screamed. Pain spiraled through him.

  “Can you help him?”

  “I have no powers of healing, not for a Rho poisoned by wyre bite.”

  “Can Lady Skuld help him?”

  “You have her name, too?”

  “Please.”

  “What will you give, Lady Aiwaz?”

  “I will not let him die. Can she help him?”

  “No.” Grim growled the word. “No. Let me die.” Then the poison screwed through him and tore out a scream.

  “Volk!”

  “You will create a great debt to the Lady. She will have you.”

  “So be it. Call her.”

  He did nothing. But a flash as quick as lightning blinded her. When she blinked, Lady Bone stood beside her knight. Sangrior stood at her shoulder. He didn’t stand as straight, his shoulders were not as squared. He carried no sword.

  Blood oozed from cuts on his neck, looking black against the marble whiteness of his flesh.

  Orielle didn’t curtsy. She stood and tossed back her head. She pointed to Grim. “Can you heal him?”

  “No greeting?” the Lady asked, but she smiled, for she knew she held the higher hand. Gliding forward, her white gown trailed behind her, like a wraith crossing. The pebbles didn’t crunch at her weight.

  She stopped at Grim, a rocking ball that twisted on the ground. “No,” he ordered, the word grating. Then the Lady stepped over him and reached Orielle.

  “I will need his name.”

  “I do not know it.”

  White eyelids closed over black eyes then opened slowly. “Truth. He did not trust you enough. For a Rho to trust a wizard, that would be a great thing. The Rhoghieri of the Haven will not so easily fall into alliance with the Enclave.”

  Politics didn’t matter to her. “Can you heal him? Will you?”

  The Lady’s long claws grazed Orielle’s chin then traced over her jaw, lifting to touch her cheek then her temple. She stood still and let the Crygy examine her. This close, she saw that the Lady’s eyes were not wholly obsidian. The sclera was black rather than white, but the iris was colored a deep blue.

  “Do you bargain for him, Not-Wizard?”

  She met those midnight velvet eyes without wavering. Grim groaned. She wanted to kneel beside him and take the pain away. Am I bargaining for him? He would refuse it. So the bargain is for me, to know that he is in this world, not dead, not cold, not lost to Neothera.

  “For me. I bargain his healing for me.”

  The claws tightened to pinpricks. Lady Bone’s smile widened, revealing the sharpness of her fangs. “You surprise me. Wizards do not count Rho lives as important.”

  “I do. Did you prophecy then, when you called me Not-Wizard?”

  “You gain wit. What bargain will you make?”

  Her gaze swiveled to Sangrior. What tithe had he paid for his help to her? What tithe would Volk pay? How did she create a bargain that did not leave her indebted to Lady Skuld for centuries? “I do not seek to become one of your Crygy slaves.”

  Volk lunged to her side. A knife she hadn’t expected pressed to her throat. “Shall I kill her, Lady?”

  Sangrior lifted a hand. Red marks, jagged like lightning, had joined the white scars on his arm. “Lady, she does not understand.”

  Lady Bone released Orielle and touched fingers to Volk’s blade. “Stand down, my love. This Not-Wizard is no threat to me.”

  “Lady, she insults you.”

  “From ignorance,” Sangrior flashed.

  “Did I not cleanse the hold this Solsken has on you, my knight?” She returned to his side. Her touch to Sangrior’s cheek seemed tender, but three thin lines of red opened.

  He didn’t flinch. His gaze dropped from Skuld’s and fastened on the shore. “Lady, you know all. She has no hold on me, not now.”

  “You defend her when you should be wholly mine.”

  “I am wholly yours,” he swore, “from my first ride to this day. But the Solsken is ignorant.”

  “Does anyone go into a bargain knowing the whole of it?” She tapped his chin then gave him her back. “Have you forgotten, Not-Wizard? I am Crygy. These knights, all my riders, they are not slaves. They choose to be with me.”

  “They choose between death and the limited life you offer, for however many years you extend it. Yet they are bound to you until you use them up. They are your slaves.”

  “Do you see them escaping?” Then Skuld blinked. Her smugness faded. Unspoken was Saircuista, who had broken her bargain with the Lady and allied with a sorceress.

  ~ 16 ~

  Orielle knelt beside Grim. His skin looked waxy, the veins stark beneath the flesh. Red-rimmed eyes fastened on her. He shuddered when she touched his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped, but the poison wracked him.

  “No,” he mouthed. Then his head strained to one side as he fought another wave of poison. Veins stark on his temples, pulsing, feeding the wyre venom to every part of his body. “Not this,” he gasped.

  The Lady scowled. She extended a hand—and Grim froze, locked in that painful ball.

  “What have you done?” Orielle ran her hands over his locked muscles. His mouth had opened to scream, but nothing emerged, neither sound nor breath. His body no longer shuddered. “What have you done?”

  “Given us a space of time. He will not distract you while we bargain.”

  She scrambled to her feet, but she could not drag her gaze from
him. “Is he still in pain?”

  “Whatever pain he felt at the moment I stilled him. He lives. He hears. He feels nothing more than that moment. The wyre venom will advance. That I cannot stop, not unless I stop his heart.”

  “It is cruel.”

  “Your bargaining is cruel, for his pain will increase until he dies. Come, end this quibbling over slaves, and tell me what you will.”

  She knew only one thing that Lady Skuld wanted and only one way to limit it. “I will serve a season with you, Lady, after I serve my mission for the Enclave. I offer this. I do not make a bargain.”

  A predatory smile revealed those sharpened teeth. “Do you think to avoid a choice?”

  Hands on hips, she tossed back her hair and tilted her chin. Sangrior’s eyes followed the glint of her sun-kissed hair. Volk scowled. He fingered the knife that he still had not sheathed. He would rather she blindly agree to the Lady’s terms. She narrowed her eyes at him, letting him know that she had his mark. Then she looked back at Skuld. Facing the Crygy, seeing her very alien appearance, something shrank inside her, but she gathered all the arrogance that Enclave wizards wore like a spelled cloak. “Someday, Lady, your choice may loom before me. But that day is not this one.”

  The Lady pursed her lips, hiding her teeth. Her slitted eyelids hid the blackness of her eyes. “How much of your life will this mission consume?”

  “I come to recruit Rhoghieri for the war at Iscleft. I come to renew the alliance between the Enclave and the Haven.”

  “You are young for such a mission.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “And your ArchClans gives to you this power? You are highly regarded. Your presence among my riders will impress others.”

  She didn’t correct the Lady. Better that she never learn Orielle had volunteered in her sister’s stead. Better that she never learn Orielle was a weak Not-Wizard who was beginning to suspect the ArchClans never intended this mission to succeed. A lie of omission was still a lie. Better to have fewer lies between herself and a Crygy. “You called me Not-Wizard. That is a truth greater than you know. I have not passed my wizard trials. Will you accept the offer of a Not-Wizard to ride a season with you in exchange for healing this Rho?”

  “Volk.”

  At his snapped name, the knight sheathed his knife. His cold gaze swept Orielle then dismissed her. Sangrior wanted to speak but dared say nothing. “Lady.” He bowed. “What have you?”

  “Will this Not-Wizard be a worthy rider?”

  “She killed two wyre using only elemental power. She may be ignorant, but she learns. She fears, but she fights. She does not run from danger.”

  “You have impressed another of my knights. No doubt, this is how you won the Rhoghieri to you. No doubt, this is what my Sangrior sensed in you when he gave you a name of power.” Her gaze cut to the subdued knight. “A name given without permission. But he learns.”

  She flicked her fingers. Sangrior flinched then straightened. His gaze fastened beyond Orielle. His jaw tightened. His shoulders squared. He became again the sword knight of that first encounter.

  “So, Aiwaz Solsken will not bargain with me, but she proposes an offer in exchange for a healing. A healing this Rho needs. Look you. His veins blacken with the wyre venom.”

  The jutting veins in Grim’s temples writhed black under his waxy flesh. Sweat beaded and dripped, a faint runnel of red.

  “Tell me, how much time do you think a season with me will consume?”

  That was indeed a question. She was wary of naming any specific time in human terms, for the Crygy would bend the time to fit her reckoning of it. The Fae did not track time as the mundane world did. How much more different would be a Crygy view of days and months and years? She had risked much just in saying season.

  Time.

  Or event.

  Ah, that was an idea. “I will serve you until I see you partake of evil.”

  The Lady gave her laugh, that jangling tinkle that grated edged nerves. “You parse words very carefully. Name an evil.”

  Name anything, and the long-lived Lady would avoid that thing—even if it were her heart’s sweetest desire—until Orielle died waiting and watching.

  “What do you call evil?” she retorted.

  Again the laugh, exposing the tips of her teeth. “Oh, I will enjoy having you as a rider. Volk spoke truth when he said you fear but fight anyway. My friends will think you a peculiar rider. They will envy me.”

  Lady Skuld had friends? Then Orielle realized only other Crygy would be the Lady’s friends, not her knights, not her riders.

  Peculiar, yes. Jealous? Yes. And desperate to have what Lady Skuld had managed to win, a wizard of the Enclave.

  “I will be wholly yours for that time until you do evil. Your friends may envy you for having a rider who is Enclave-trained.”

  But the Lady’s expression darkened. “Enclave-trained. You abide by the wizard tenets.”

  “I am bound to them.”

  Thunder boomed, so loudly it shook Orielle’s bones. It drowned the Lady’s words. Sangrior recoiled. Even Volk took a step away from the Crygy.

  “Bound by or abide by?” Lady Skuld demanded. Her eyes glittered.

  “Bound.”

  This time the thunder cracked open the sky for a jagged fork of lightning. A distant tree split in two, the heartwood flaming from the intense heat.

  “I cannot accept someone already bound.” The Lady’s voice crackled like the fire consuming the tree’s heart. “Give the Rho to me.”

  “He is not mine to give. I can only offer you my season.”

  Her eyes slitted. “Perhaps he is not mine to heal. My knights chose to ride with me rather than go with Death, a lady more terrifying than me. Perhaps I cannot heal him, but I can extend his life. Give him to me.”

  “No. I will not let him live in agony, even the half-life you offer.”

  “Volk will tell you he lives a whole life.”

  “Will Sangrior say that? Can either knight live without the sun?”

  “They stand now in the sun.”

  “But how long can they bear it? If you cannot heal the Rho, then be done, Lady. Though it grieves me, I will ease his passage.” She looked at his locked body. Sand and grit caked his leathers. Black venom tracked through his veins, rooted through his skin, invading the whole of his body. “What I learned of fighting and courage, I learned from him. He does not deserve this agony.” With nothing else to add, her arguments emptied out, she looked back at the Crygy.

  Lady Skuld studied her, then she dipped her chin. “You are clever, Not-Wizard. You fear and fight, with power and with words. I would relish your riding with my company. In all my years I have never heard of a freely given offer to ride. This alone gives a peculiar distinction.” She drew a symbol in the Air. For long seconds it hovered, black lines in a complicated swirl, before it wisped into smoke and drifted away.

  The fire in the burning tree died.

  A wind kicked up, blowing their cloaks around, black and storm-purple and glacial blue. It caught Orielle’s hair and tangled it in the air. It lifted the knights’ silvery hair and streamed it behind them.

  It did not touch the Lady.

  “You are bound by wizard tenets. I am bound by Crygy law. I accept your offer, for it is freely given and worth much more than any choice. But I cannot heal him without a bargain. That is Crygy law. The bargain demands a risk. What will you risk, Not-Wizard?”

  Cold ice cracked through her. Here, in this now, she came closer to death than all the fights with the wyre. Lady Skuld remained expressionless. Her black eyes, those knife-sharp features, the vee’d smile, all revealed that she thought Orielle’s choices limited. For Grim’s healing, she had nothing to risk but her own life.

  She stared at him. Locked against pain, he could offer no help, although his stormy eyes burned into hers, desperate to repeat the No that the Lady had silenced with her spell.

  She needed common ground with the Lady. What did she
want that the Lady also wanted? It must be something that the Lady could not give herself. Skuld had no lack of power, but perhaps more Crygy laws prevented her actions.

  Had Grim given a clue, when he argued with Volk last night? He’d said the sorceress brought her wyre to prey on the innocent creatures of the Wilding, a condemnation that the Lady should have acted on but had not. He’d said the Rho kept the alliance with the Lady. What had prevented the Lady from wiping out the sorceress, especially when Saircuista defected to the sorceress?

  She didn’t know. She suspected Skuld would not tell her. But Orielle could still use it.

  Common ground. Wyre gone. Sorceress gone.

  “I will rid the Wilding of the sorceress and her wyre.”

  “No, Aiwaz Solsken,” Sangrior burst out, proof that Orielle had guessed what the Lady needed but could not herself do or command her riders to do.

  Lady Skuld’s hand jerked. He turned, folding into himself, then a flashing door opened, and he vanished.

  His scream died when the light winked out.

  The Lady flicked her hand. Volk came to her side. He watched the Crygy. “Tell her,” she commanded.

  He bowed. He didn’t look at Orielle. “The sorceress is greater than you, Not-Wizard. She will kill you.”

  “If the sorceress has me at the point of death, then Lady Skuld, you can have my life. I will take this risk for you.”

  Volk reared back. Ice blasted around Skuld. The shards pricked Orielle’s exposed flesh and left a rime on Grim’s curled-up body.

  “I am Crygy,” she shouted, and the words struck like a blizzard wind, colder than cold, filled with snowy death. “You are mundane. You are naught before me. Do you think I cannot rid this sorceress from my Wilding?”

  She sparked her only spell of Fire. The tiny flame bent against the cold then grew brighter. “I know you can.” She lifted her voice, but the roaring wind died before her last word, and her call sped to the river and beyond. Lowering her voice, she held out the little flame. “But you have not removed her. I know Saircuista’s defection drives a wedge into your circle of riders. I can remove this wedge.”

  Volk started at her revelation. Had he not expected her to share his words with the Crygy?