His stomach lurched and the world around him seemed to spin. This wasn’t any way to travel. How many of their cadets had tried this and broken limbs, if not their necks? How many had dropped through into whatever gaping chasm lurked below?
The city beneath them rippled with life, with magic. Bastien could sense something building, fear and panic. Or maybe that was just him. He couldn’t place the creeping dread that swelled beneath him.
They danced across the rooftops and, when they reached the edge of one, either stepped up onto the next abutting it, or jumped through the air like squirrels, crossing narrow alleys and lanes of Rathlynn as if they were streams.
And suddenly the world ahead of him fell away. They’d reached the People’s Plaza, the dull smudge of Eastferry on the other side. Grace waved them back and they ducked down, sheltered by the parapet on the edge of the roof, peering over the top. The square below was full of people, his people, all the citizens of Rathlynn, or so it seemed at a glance. There were soldiers everywhere, scarlet-clad Royal Guards rushing through the crowds, pushing people aside, shouting obscenities. And he could feel the energy pushing back, the same sense of panic and alarm he had sensed before, stronger now. It was as if the life force of the city balked at their treatment, shied back and then, like a wave, broke.
‘Shit, that’s not good,’ he heard Ellyn say as she came up behind him.
‘What is it? What are they doing?’ Bastien asked, as the guards tore people apart, shoving some in one direction and some in others. It was like watching a cattle mart. The ones in the square looked frightened, huddled together, desperate.
Some of them… most of them… no, all of them wore collars.
‘They’re separating the mageborn.’
It was impossible to see who threw the first stone. Or if it even was a stone. It could have been horseshit for all he knew. That went flying too. One second the guards were standing firm, aggressive and threatening, and the next stones and shit and anything else to hand flew at them.
It drove them back, disorganised and shocked. The people of Rathlynn weren’t meant to fight back. That was what everyone in the palace thought. The common people were supposed to take orders, do as commanded and pay their taxes no matter how high they went. They were meant to cheer for the king and queen, for the nobility. They were meant to offer up their mageborn children when told to do so to the service of the crown.
It was their honour to serve.
But this wasn’t service. Those people weren’t being taken willingly.
With a roar, Rathlynn rose up. His people, the people of Larelwynn… Pride was an unaccustomed feeling to Bastien but this… it bubbled up in his chest, swelling and growing.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Grace said.
‘We can help them,’ Daniel said. ‘We have to do something.’
Grace hissed between her teeth and looked right at Bastien. ‘We already have the making of a riot down there. Imagine what’ll happen if they see him.’
That seemed to sober Daniel up. His grim expression fixed on Bastien and he nodded.
The riot came anyway, surging forward, and the guards tried to hold it back. With a cry, the mageborn already corralled broke through the lines and scattered, down the narrow streets and laneways, into buildings and out the windows on the other side. While half the city fought, the rest hid or fled.
And to his eternal shame, Bastien knew he had to flee as well. Not because he wanted to. But because Grace was right. He knew the mageborn reaction to him, what they wanted of him, what so many others feared. He also knew the hatred Aurelie had managed to instil in many towards him, mageborn and quotidian alike, the fear with which she had wielded his name. She’d made the Lord of Thorns into another Hollow King in the popular imagination. He was a fool to think it wouldn’t matter. That she’d someday bear Marius a son and be happy with that while he, as an uncle, would step aside to serve his new king. Or that somehow, someway, Marius would recover.
She had never wanted that.
Damn it, he had been such a fool. Perhaps he should have just done what she wanted, swallowed his pride and his loyalty, and provided her with an heir. But it would have meant betraying Marius. And he couldn’t have done that. He could never have done that. The king, his cousin, had been the only one who hadn’t wavered in his friendship. Marius had been the constant.
She had used him, they all had, even Marius. Bastien was the fear that governed, the hand raised in threat. Even if some people, the mageborn particularly, knew otherwise, knew how he cared for them, it didn’t matter. The myth was all that mattered. That was what people believed. Not a barely glimpsed truth seen only from a distance.
He had never been good at playing these games. There had never been a need for him to do it. That had been Marius’s skill.
A soft wind, like a whisper, carrying the scent of apple orchards, wafted over him and his feet stumbled to a stop. He stood there, transfixed.
Don’t go. Don’t leave me.
Celeste?
Brother, please. Don’t leave me.
He looked back. He could make out the towers of the Great Temple, the rose windows blazing with the evening sun. She was in there, locked up and used, feeding the power of Mother Miranda and the divinities knew who else.
Celeste, I can’t… I promise, I’ll…
He almost heard her laugh, or felt it perhaps. Whatever spells she was weaving, or whatever madness was letting her contact him this way, he didn’t know. It was beyond him. But not beyond her.
So many promises, little brother…
That didn’t sound like Celeste. And yet it was her voice. His legs suddenly felt weak and his head swam again. When you reached into the pool of magic, he recalled being told once, long ago, other things can reach back. The more magic you pulled into yourself, or through yourself from its netherworld, the more you risked those other things finding a foothold as well.
Divinities, Celeste, what have you done?
He stood on a rooftop, over a city at war with itself, and wondered what had been unleashed here. And how.
A booming voice broke the silence around him.
‘Guards of the blood royal, stand ready!’
Something in the air shuddered again. He felt it, like the threat of thunder in the distance. Something was happening. Something magical. Something that should never happen.
‘Guards of the blood royal, prepare!’
He knew that voice. Knew it too well. It was artificially amplified, and that made it sound deeper, more resounding, more impressive. But he knew it.
Kane?
You were my friend once, remember? You and I were friends?
Kane didn’t seem to remember one damned thing about him. And Kane’s eyes, his deep blue eyes, were darker than ever before.
When you reach into the pool of magic…
You can’t take the throne. Not you, nor your line…
Precious few people knew about his family line, or about Celeste. They knew about him, about the Lord of Thorns. And about his father who had been dead before he ever knew him. About his mother who had been called a glory and died while he lived.
But Asher Kane did. Or had. Once.
Asher’s sister had died… he tried to focus on that. Asher’s sister had died, there had been an accident and… But Bastien hadn’t been responsible. He knew that. He was sure he knew that.
Asher’s memories were as broken as Bastien’s own. Which could mean only one thing. Aurelie hadn’t been as hesitant about using the drug on others. Or about the use of magic.
How long had Miranda and Aurelie been feeding Kane stolen magic? How much damage had already been done?
‘Guards of the blood royal…’ The power in the air shimmered and shook, trembling like a wave about to crest.
‘Grace! Get down!’ Bastien yelled.
Up ahead, on the rooftop’s edge, she hesitated, turning, confused by what he was saying, what she was feeling. Because she had to be
feeling it too. He knew she was.
‘Attack!’ Kane yelled.
Fire and wind unleashed itself, water ripped through the mob. The earth itself reared up beneath them and flung them aside. The screams of people trapped in a moment of agony rose like the music of nightmares. The power of Flint, Gore, Loam and Tide eviscerated the people of Rathlynn trying to fight for their family members. The mageborn still trapped in the centre of the plaza screamed and fell, clutching their heads as their magic was ripped from them and used against their will.
And somewhere, because Bastien’s instincts told him it was going to happen, someone with the stolen power of a Loam, who had no clear idea of what they were doing with it, wrenched up the wrong piece of earth, the wrong stones from the ground to hurl at an attacker, and the building they were perched upon gave a terrible groan and collapsed underneath them.
He struggled out of the devastation, coughing, his chest aching. There was no sign of Grace. No sign of anyone.
Bastien stumbled forward. ‘Grace?’ His voice came out harsh and breathless, no use at all. ‘Grace?’
‘Over here!’ But it wasn’t Grace’s voice. It was Daniel Parry. ‘Hurry up. Help!’
The officer was on his hands and knees, pulling at the rubble, his hands bleeding. Covered in dust and dirt, he didn’t look up until Bastien joined him in the hollow he’d already managed to clear.
‘She’s down here. I heard her. She has to be…’
Bastien dropped to his knees beside him and started to haul stones and tiles off the area. ‘Ellyn?’
‘She’s okay. Hurt her arm and shoulder but she’s fine. We were at the edge, jumped clear. But Grace…’
‘You’re sure she’s here?’ If they were digging in the wrong place, if they were too late…
‘I’m sure. See for yourself. You can do it, can’t you? Lord of the Mageborn and all that.’
Normally Bastien would take slight at anyone talking to him like that. Normally. But nothing was normal any more.
He stretched out his senses and there it was, a glow, faint and fluttering, but he would have known it anywhere. That stubborn little flame at the heart of a Flint. His Flint.
Beneath them, something moved.
‘Grace!’ Daniel shouted, but Bastien just moved faster, tearing back rubble and debris. And there she was, curled up in the hollow they’d exposed, grey and dusty and so so small. Blood covered one side of her face. But that was nothing compared to the blood soaking the clothes around the shard of wood jutting from her side.
Daniel seemed to freeze as he saw it, the extent of Grace’s injuries taking the strength out of him.
Bastien’s stomach dropped as if he’d hurtled out of the tallest tower in the palace. This couldn’t be happening. Not this. Not now. He hadn’t even managed to tell her how he felt. He hadn’t even managed to figure that out for himself, not really. It slammed into him with a force he could barely withstand now.
He needed her. Not to be his, or to be with him, or anything as facile as that. He simply needed her. To be. Alive. In this world.
‘No,’ he whispered and the dark pool of magic that always lurked below him shuddered to wakefulness.
But it was Daniel who reached for her first, scrambling to get to her. Bastien followed, hardly daring to breathe, lest he dislodge the remaining wall and rubble or lose the thin wedge of control still holding him together.
Daniel looked up at him, holding a slender hand in his. Grace’s skin was far too pale and she didn’t respond. She didn’t even move. Not even a flicker of a breath.
If Daniel told him to leave, would he? If he told him she wasn’t his concern, that she wouldn’t want magic used upon her in any circumstances, would he actually be able to bring himself to back away? She’d told him. There could be no doubt of her wishes. He could save her but she’d been clear. No magic.
But Daniel’s voice was fierce. It came out in a roar of pain and torment. It was unequivocal.
‘Do something!’
Bastien didn’t need to be told twice. Divinities forgive him, he didn’t even argue. It was an instinct, a natural urge, something as easy as breathing. All his life magic had been something to control, something to be stamped down and yoked.
But now… now…
He sank to his knees beside her and felt it course through his veins like lightning.
‘Hold her,’ he told Daniel. His voice didn’t even sound like his own voice. It reverberated, echoed, as if coming from far beyond him, from within the pool itself. There was so much power, more than he had ever imagined. He seized it all.
‘There’s more magic in you than I’ve ever sensed,’ Grace had said. ‘More than should be possible. More than should even be safe.’
Was this what she had meant? What had she sensed in him that made her pull away from his magic so completely?
Daniel pulled Grace into his arms and she gave a soft cry. Still alive, still there… but the pain in it almost stopped his heart.
And something else, hungry and urgent, beat in its place.
It burned.
He worked on instinct, or perhaps memory. There was no telling which. As he pressed his hands to her wound, felt the kiss of her blood on his fingertips, that other took over.
Darkness rushed through him. It was strong, powerful, and it relished its sudden freedom. He struggled to contain it, to focus it and force it to do his will. He wrestled it into a tool instead of a weapon, even though he could suddenly see what a formidable weapon it could be.
Simona had said so many times that control was everything, that he should never do this. But Simona was dead. So was Marius. Everyone was dead.
He was not going to let Grace join them.
He forced the spear of wood from her body, commanded her skin and veins to reknit themselves, thrust the life back into her. He demanded that she breathe, that her heart keep beating, that her strength return. He made her whole again.
He poured his power into her and through her, emptying himself. And the dark pool of magic surged up inside him to take its place. Every time he thought there was no more of the Maegen to help him, something else appeared, more powerful than before, filling him.
Her eyes opened. So beautiful. A clear bright gold, like sunrise on a summer’s day. She gasped, sitting up in Daniel’s arms, shaking herself free of him. She grabbed Bastien’s shoulders and pulled him to her.
‘Bastien?’
Her voice sounded so far away. The edges of his vision clouded with shadows and he felt himself falling back, down into the pool. It swallowed him, down into its darkness, and he felt the currents of it tearing away all that made him himself.
Grace’s hands on his face burned against his skin. ‘Don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Bastien, please… stay with me.’
But he couldn’t. He knew that. It was too late. The darkness inside him reached every nerve ending, flooded every vein. It devoured him from within.
Instead of the light, the darkness swallowed him whole.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grace sank in the light, the Maegen, the pool dragging her down. And for once she didn’t need to fight it. This was where she was meant to be. Deep in the heart of the light, flowing with it, losing herself. It was peaceful, quiet. It murmured softly, sang snatches of old songs. It caressed her aching mind, soothed her broken body. It was her home. The place she had come from. The place she belonged.
And then the shadow appeared. It spread wide black wings, like a hawk overhead, searching for prey, silhouetted against the sun.
Then the wings folded and it dropped towards her like a stone, claws extended.
But they weren’t claws. A hand. It was a hand.
Bastien pulled her back. Light surged inside her and the fire blazed into new life. Her power, her magic, responding to him.
Pain, everywhere, just pain. Darkness and pain. And his voice.
And then light.
She was sprawled in rubble, covered in blood, but
the pain was gone. The physical pain.
But Bastien’s eyes were filled with golden light and his face was white and bloodless. The contrast in him had never been starker, nor his features so sharp. He hardly looked like himself. It was the statue again, the way she had first seen him, cold as stone and barely human. It was the Lord of Thorns looking back at her, not Bastien.
‘Grace?’ Daniel’s voice shook. ‘Grace, let me explain…’
But there was no time for explanations. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
‘I told him to do it,’ Daniel went on, even though she was hardly listening. ‘I had to. I thought you were dying…’
She glanced at him, her hands trembling as she cradled Bastien’s face.
‘Don’t go,’ she whispered. ‘Bastien, please… stay with me.’
So much magic flowed through him, but it wasn’t the light that had killed Kai. This was something else, something other. Far more dangerous. And he was lost in it. Lost in the darkness beyond the magical pool of the Maegen.
‘Find Ellyn,’ she told Daniel in as gentle a voice as possible. She needed him to go. She needed to find a way to pull Bastien back to her but she couldn’t do that with him here.
‘But Grace—’
‘Go, Danny! We need a moment. Go and find Ellyn. Just go!’ If the tone in Grace’s voice didn’t warn him off, her frown did. But she couldn’t look away from Bastien, not for more than a moment.
A monster, he’d called himself once, just after the Flint had. Lots of people did. She had done so herself. She could see it now. The monster lurking inside the man.
‘Can you hear me? Understand me?’ He nodded once, slowly. She stroked his face, pressed her fingers against his lips. ‘Bastien, please. Talk to me. We have to go. I need you to—’
His voice rumbled to life, the darkness making it echo like distant thunder.
‘You… you need me.’
Well, it was something. She wasn’t entirely sure what.
‘Yes.’ Her lips replaced her fingertips and she felt him shudder.
Mageborn: An absolutely gripping fantasy novel (The Hollow King Book 1) Page 28