Mageborn: An absolutely gripping fantasy novel (The Hollow King Book 1)

by Jessica Thorne

But he just laughed. ‘Insults will get you nowhere, girlie.’

  He lashed out at her, his hand glancing against her arm but recoiled as she brought the sigil up. He bent backwards like a dancer and almost grabbed her neck. If he touched her she was going to be in real trouble. A Gore could control the blood, and if he could control the blood he could control the body. He could stop her heart, collapse her lungs, twist and reshape her limbs and flesh the way he had the girl downstairs. And all the others. Or maybe not. He wouldn’t be able to take the time to indulge himself, not with her squad here. She just had to hold on until they arrived.

  But he could make it hurt. Oh yes, he knew how to make it hurt.

  ‘Grace?’

  Shit, it was Daniel. She could hear him on the steps. Panicked. His voice was wretched with it. Her oldest friend, oldest alive anyway, she should never have agreed to having him on her squad. But she couldn’t say no to him.

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ the Gore teased, seeing her slight turn, her alarm. ‘Want to watch me turn him inside out, girlie? I’ll do it slow for you. Imagine what fun we’d have, eh?’

  As Daniel’s head came over the edge, the Gore dived, reaching for him like a toy at a fair, but Grace was quicker. She threw herself forward with a snarl, bringing the Gore down in a heap, grappling to keep his hands away from her, with her own hands on the oily fabric of his sleeves. She slammed into the hard wooden floor and rolled instantly, forcing him under her and pinning his legs. The sigil slipped from her fingers. She couldn’t risk letting go of him to get the third.

  ‘Get Kai!’ she yelled at Daniel’s startled face. ‘Get Kai now!’

  Daniel took one look at the situation and ducked back down, yelling for the rest of the squad.

  The Gore snarled at her, twisting like a wild animal. He spat, cursed, but she held on like a stone.

  Stay calm, don’t lose it. Stay calm.

  ‘In the name of the crown I arrest you and charge you with the crime of being an unregistered and unsworn mageborn. You will submit to examination and yield up your magic for the greater—’

  ‘You really believe that crap?’ he spat. ‘The way they treat us?’

  I believe it. I know what monsters like you can do. I’ve seen it. The evidence is downstairs. But the law does not bend, and cannot break. Truth and justice, that’s what matters.

  She slammed him down against the floorboards again, adjusting her grip as he struggled for freedom. ‘And yield up your magic for the greater good. In the name of the king.’

  He cackled at her, his mouth wide, his chest heaving. ‘The greater good? The greater good of what?’

  Why was he laughing? He shouldn’t be laughing. Not now. Not when she had him. She stared down at him, transfixed.

  His hand twisted, stretched in an impossible motion, and a finger brushed against the inside of her wrist. Like an ersatz lover’s caress. Skin to skin, just a single touch.

  Grace’s whole body went rigid before her mind even caught up with what was happening. Wires of pain lanced down her limbs and twisted around her chest, crushing the air out of her lungs. She gasped, trying to breathe through the pain. Failing.

  He had her, had control of her.

  No, this couldn’t be happening. Not here, not now, not with an animal like this.

  The Gore slid out from underneath her, slipping through her grip like the slime he was. ‘Ah poor girlie, you tried. The Little Goddess knows you tried.’ He kicked the sigil she had dropped out of reach – not that she could have moved to reach for it anyway. The third, on her belt, might have been a million miles away for all its usefulness now. ‘How does it feel to be locked away inside yourself? Time to share. That’s what all your little Academy tricks would have done to me, isn’t it?’

  That same wet laugh slithered over her and her skin crawled. She could feel her blood pounding in her veins, burning inside her in rage and defiance. He crouched down before her, studying her, drinking down her defeat, and he smiled, his teeth like yellow tombstones, his breath choking her as surely as his magic.

  Reaching out, he pressed his hand against her cheek. Almost gentle, but drenched in threat, his dry skin dampened by her sudden tears.

  ‘It’s a shame to twist such a pretty face. We could have had some fun, you and I. Some real fun.’

  Real fun. Sure. She’d show him real fun.

  An image of Helene’s face reared in the forefront of her mind. Helene’s face as it had been, just before the end, her long hair billowing around her perfect features like seaweed, her eyes full of tears, tears which spread out like waves and drowned her.

  Like the tears Grace cried now. Tears of rage. Helpless tears. Helene’s tears on her face.

  You have to live, Grace. You need to live.

  A jolt like lightning fired through her and her blood ignited, not with pain this time, but something else. It coursed along her veins, boiling, raging. The Gore froze, his eyes widening, his mouth falling open in shock.

  Behind him, Kai clamped a huge hand around the Gore’s neck and jerked him back from her. He held him for a moment and then she saw him grit his teeth and unleash his own magic.

  It wasn’t a sound but an absence of sound. It wasn’t a force, but a vacuum, sucking everything out of the Gore, whether Kai wanted it or not.

  What does it feel like being a Leech? she had asked Kai once, when they first met, when he’d been assigned to her, the collar still fresh around his neck, red marks scarring his skin where the stiff leather still rubbed.

  Probably not the most polite thing to say, but the only word that could be used to describe what he could do – suck the magic out of other mageborn, drain them and make them impotent, helpless. Safe.

  Like a sickness, ma’am. But it is my honour to serve.

  That had been it.

  It is my honour to serve. They all said that, the very words the Hollow King was said to have used when he knelt before Lucien Larelwynn, captive and alone. Before he died on the Godslayer blade. Some meant it more than others. But all the mageborn had that phrase drilled into them from childhood. So had Grace and all the Academy – although they did not suffer from the same terrible burden of power as their mageborn brethren, or the same obligations. My honour to serve. A mantra, a reminder, a promise, a curse.

  Even when the many inhabitants of Rathlynn avoided them, wary as stray cats around mageborn and the Academy officers who worked with them or hunted them – not everyone maybe, but enough – it was an honour to serve.

  By now Grace knew Kai hadn’t told her the truth. Not the whole truth anyway. Being a Leech mageborn was more than that. She could read the pain, written all over his expression like letters on parchment. It hurt him. It was agony. Like drinking poison and trying to transmute it into something else through sheer force of will alone.

  It hurt them both. The Gore she didn’t care about. But Kai was her friend. Mageborn or not.

  She tried to drag herself to her feet, her whole body aching, right down to the bones, like they had all been splintered and rammed back together. But that was nothing to the expression on Kai’s face.

  The colour drained away. He was grey and bloodless, his teeth gritting so hard she could see the lines of his jawbone through his golden-brown skin. The hollows beneath his eyes were bruises, and the tendons on his neck stood out like wires.

  The Gore screamed, a high-pitched and helpless shriek that ripped through her head as if it had barbs.

  Kai dropped him and he slammed onto the floor, unmoving.

  For a moment Grace couldn’t move either. She dragged in a breath, then another. ‘Kai?’ she said, desperately. ‘Are you… are you okay?’

  But the expression of agony didn’t lift from his face. Kai pitched forward onto his knees, his hands coming up to hold his head. His eyes squeezed shut and he gasped out loud, a horrible, strangled sound. A glow engulfed his body, moving up through his skin, coalescing in his eyes.

  Grace scrambled to his side, every movement an agony. �
��Kai? Are you okay? Kai, talk to me.’

  But he didn’t, not a word. He was shaking all over, curling up into a ball like a child at her feet, eyes aglow, teeth clenched.

  ‘Boss? You up there? You okay?’ Ellyn and Daniel were at the bottom of the steps. Finally.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m okay. Stand by, I’m sending him down. Secure him with a sigil and get him out of here.’ She knew she ought to do that herself but she couldn’t think of anything but Kai right now. Daniel would have to handle it.

  She half-dragged, half-kicked the Gore’s body to the top of the staircase and dumped him down, listening as he thumped and rolled down the steps to them. If he broke something on the way, so be it. She really didn’t care right now. The more pain the better. If it was his neck, well, that would be just fine as well. She had more urgent matters to deal with.

  ‘Kai, listen to me. Talk to me.’ She dropped to her knees, pulled him into her arms and held him. ‘Please, Kai.’

  He was trembling from head to foot, tears silvering his face. A noise came from him and suddenly she realised he was trying to sob. This was the worst one yet. She’d seen him go through this before to a lesser extent. Sometimes he could just shrug it off. Sometimes.

  But not this time.

  They’d all heard the stories. Draining the magic from too powerful a mageborn could kill even the strongest Leech. Do it too often, do it carelessly, do it too quickly…

  Hollow, they called it. Going hollow. Too much magic eating away inside them. The way the Hollow King and his followers had gone, mad with magic, a monster.

  Not even a sigil would help Kai now. It would probably hasten the damage, locking it all away inside him with nowhere to go.

  Magic was fickle. It was dangerous. Magic was a pool into which mageborn could dip but go too deep and it would swallow you whole. Lose control and it could destroy not only its host but everyone around them. The Magewar had been the worst of it, so they said, but Grace saw it all the time. Helene’s magical command over water had drowned her, but she’d almost taken Grace with her. Her best friend. Her only friend before Daniel. And they had just been children. Before that life was a blank. Her life began in the Academy. Her life had begun with Helene’s death.

  Grace held the huge man against her, the man who was gentle as a child, who abhorred violence and hated to see pain in anyone, the man who had saved her life more often than she cared to remember. And in doing so, put himself through agony every single time.

  This was her fault, all her fault. She’d promised to protect him. She’d promised to protect them all.

  ‘I’ve got you, Kai. I promise. I’ve got you. It’s going to be all right.’

  She already knew she was lying.

  Chapter Two

  They crossed the Temple square and all but dragged Kai up the Royal Promenade. As they left the lower city, the streets became cleaner, the decrepit buildings giving way to golden sandstone and marble frontage. Kai woke up halfway there, screaming up at them, light spilling from his eyes. Grace had to use one of the sigils, knowing it would burn through before they made it. He wept until he passed out again.

  Statues of dead kings and heroes gazed down impassively, heedless of the fate of one broken mageborn. Grace felt a surge of anger as they passed Lucien Larelwynn, the first king, centuries dead: he had defeated the mageborn, had made them his subjects, his slaves. He had not pitied the mageborn in life, and there was no pity in his stony stare now. How could there be? Stone didn’t have pity. Neither did kings. At least his statue seemed to face them. It was better that than the people who turned their gaze away. Mageborn scared of the Academy, non-magic quotidians who didn’t care about someone like Kai, or anyone from either group, too afraid of this wild man to get involved. The palace loomed over them, built on and in the hill overlooking the bay. The Healers’ Halls were part of that complex, and it still took far too long to get there.

  As they finally dragged Kai into the Hall of the Healers, the curtains spread out in the breeze like bridal veils. The high arched windows looked out over the red tiled roofs of the ragged city far below and the sound of the distant waves carried up here like music. It was a holy place, a sacred place, open to all and, like the palace, far removed from the squalor below. The wonder of the place lay in the people that worked there, of that Grace was sure, so patient, so giving. She appreciated their efficiency and professionalism, and the fact that they didn’t even flinch when she presented them with an ailing, mageborn Leech from the Academy.

  It had taken them too bloody long to get up here.

  The healers loaded Kai onto a gurney and pushed it off to a corner room, leaving Grace and Daniel standing there by the doorway. Grace stared up at the ornately decorated ceiling, painted with scenes of imaginary rural bliss, a world away from where they were. Fictional scenes. Pretty lies.

  ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’ Daniel asked. He touched her shoulder oh-so-carefully. He’d been tentative with her since he helped her guide Kai out of the house.

  ‘Yes.’ When she glared at him he jerked his hand back and then tried to cover by running it through his black curls. But he didn’t look any less concerned.

  ‘What happened up there?’

  She heaved a breath in and out, mainly to be sure she could still breathe normally. She had to keep doing it, just to remind herself that she could. Every so often panic would set in, tightening around her lungs like iron bands. But she could force her way through it. When she focused. When she didn’t think about what might have been.

  ‘He had me. The Gore. He was going to kill me. Kai stopped him.’

  ‘And the rebound—’

  ‘Yes.’ She knew her reply was curt but also that Daniel would understand. He had to understand.

  Ellyn arrived, her long white-blonde hair loose now, her leather jerkin unbuttoned. She looked far calmer than Grace would have in the circumstances.

  ‘Handed the Gore over, boss,’ she said blithely. ‘Utter creep. He started sobbing as they took him down below, can you believe it? After what he did to those girls?’

  Grace pursed her lips, still staring at the door to Kai’s room. She didn’t care about the Gore. Not any more.

  ‘Did you see him?’ Daniel asked. A little too interested. Him… the Lord of Thorns. He was a bit obsessed.

  ‘They weren’t letting me in there, were they?’ Ellyn replied. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to get caught up in whatever the Lord of Thorns gets up to in his dungeon.’ She gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘Might as well ask if the Hollow King wants to come out to play. What did they say about Kai?’

  When Grace didn’t answer, Daniel spoke hesitantly. ‘Nothing yet. Not to me anyway. Boss?’

  ‘No. Not to me either.’ And that just wouldn’t do. She was Kai’s squad leader after all. He didn’t have anyone else, no more than she did. No more than any of them did. If she didn’t stick up for him who would? They were all Academy. No one else wanted them. Especially not a mageborn like Kai. ‘Come on, let’s find out.’

  People folded back out of their way as they advanced. The healers weren’t used to conflict and they certainly weren’t used to leather-clad Academy officers marching through their halls as if they were on a mission. And by the divinities, they were on a mission. Kai was one of their own and Grace would be damned if she’d just let him go. By the time someone even thought to protest, they were at the door through which the gurney carrying Kai had vanished.

  ‘You can’t go in there. What do you think you’re doing?’ The healer blocked their way, outraged. A little Valenti islander like Ellyn, narrow-framed and delicate. Grace was pretty sure she could break her in two if she wanted.

  ‘I’m going to check on my friend,’ Grace said.

  The girl had large grey eyes and a slightly owlish, dark-skinned face. She looked Grace up and down for a moment but she didn’t move.

  ‘Your… your friend? The mageborn?’ Her accent betrayed more about her than her looks, ci
ty-born but from parents who hadn’t bothered to integrate.

  ‘Officer Kai Albren, first class.’

  Ellyn shook her head and muttered something in Valenti. Grace’s knowledge of the tongue wasn’t good enough to catch it but it didn’t sound polite. The healer scowled at her.

  ‘There’s no need for that sort of language. You can’t just walk in on him, that’s all there is to it. He’s fragile. He’s hurting and there’s nothing we can do. We’ve sent for… someone… to help him. A specialist. It won’t be long.’

  It was the way she paused, as if afraid to name the someone, whoever they were. A specialist. It set every alarm bell chiming in Grace’s head, igniting the itch beneath her skin again.

  ‘Who?’ she asked, leaning in, as intimidating as she could be without actually threatening harm to this healer.

  She saw the woman flinch back, swallow hard, and in that moment Grace knew – just knew – that her own reputation had come before her. And yet, the healer still didn’t want to say anything. Now more than ever.

  ‘You’ll… you’ll have to wait, Officer Marchant. I’m going to have to insist…’

  Grace didn’t say another word, just flicked a brief hand signal to Ellyn and Daniel. Then she pushed by the healer, Ellyn catching the woman’s arm before she could intervene. Daniel blocked anyone else from following, always effective when it came to something like this. Which left Grace with a clear path. The door opened with surprising ease.

  Inside, Kai lay stretched out on a bed, twisting against the bonds pinning down his arms and legs. His neck and back were arched like a bow and he groaned, soft and broken. He slumped back down, sweat drenching his shirt and loose trousers. That was all he wore, apart from the ever-present collar. He looked strangely vulnerable there. They’d stripped him of his leathers and all his weapons of course, in some initial attempt to treat the fever ravaging his body. But it was no ordinary fever. All his belongings were discarded in the corner, a forlorn heap.

  The special sigil buried in the collar glowed like embers in a fire.