“This trial by combat will begin when I finish speaking,” he said, his reedy voice ringing out through the hall. “The rules are as follows. Astrid and Cabral only will fight; neither will use any weapons not already granted them by their abilities, and they will receive no help. The fight will last until the death of one of the participants. Anyone who attempts to interfere will be killed on the spot, without warning.” Equity’s eyes roamed to Knot. Astrid gripped his hand.
“You need to listen to him, nomad. Promise me.”
Knot, jaw clenched, finally nodded. That would be the best she would get out of him.
“The stakes,” Equity continued, “are as follows. If Astrid wins, she and her friends go free. An atypical allowance, considering it has been a millennium or so since a human has visited our lair and lived, but my sisters have outvoted me.” His annoyance was palpable. “If Cabral is victorious, he can do what he pleases with Astrid’s companions, considering she will already be dead.”
“Oblivion,” Code muttered. “The price of your friendship grows higher by the moment, Knot.” He looked down at Astrid. “Hope you know what you’re doing, girl.”
Astrid wanted to say something snarky in response, wanted to ease the fluttering in her chest and stomach, but she couldn’t form the words.
“If both participants are ready,” Equity said, seating himself and not bothering to look at either Astrid or Cabral, “you may begin.”
Cabral’s Fangs immediately backed away from him, distancing themselves from the fight. Astrid motioned for her friends to do the same, and she heard the scrape of their feet on the stone as they stepped back.
Only she and Cabral remained, facing one another.
Cabral grinned at her, his red eyes glowing with delight. Beneath the facade, a barely controlled rage festered and boiled.
“This isn’t how I envisioned our final confrontation, my dear,” he said as they began to circle one another, “but I suppose it will do. I would’ve loved to have you watch as I kill your friends. I’ll do it slowly, of course. Might even take a few months, if the Coven allows it. It’s a shame you’ll have to die first, but I can at least tell you some of what I’ll do to them.” Then Cabral sprang forward, claws outstretched.
Astrid rolled to the side, her speed saving her. She had fought adult vampires before. She had killed a few.
But this was Olin Cabral. Fifteen hundred years old; one of the most skilled fighters she had ever seen. He had taught her a great deal himself, and she had no idea how she was going to defeat him.
So, for now, her tactic was to avoid him as much as possible.
Cabral sprang at her again, but anticipated her dodge this time, and managed to gouge a long, shallow cut down her back.
“Aren’t you going to put up a fight?” Cabral asked, that stupid grin still plastered on his face.
Astrid said nothing. He charged again, and she managed to swipe one claw away while slipping around him, escaping his attack unscathed.
Cabral growled. “This is supposed to be combat, not a game of cat-and-mouse. You’d better fight me, girl.” His grin returned. “Besides,” he said, “I’ve taught you better than that, haven’t I?”
He was right. She couldn’t keep going like this; it was only prolonging the inevitable. She had to seize initiative, catch him by surprise, do something. But the more they circled one another, the more the fear inside of her grew. It grew and it grew and it grew, until it seemed all she could feel, all she could see or understand. She was just a girl, fighting a full-grown man. She did not stand a chance.
Again and again he came after her, getting more and more angry, and finally, as Astrid dodged, trying to skid around him, Cabral anticipated the momentum and direction and caught her by the arm. He snapped her toward him—she did not weigh any more than a child her size would—and gripped her by the neck, then slammed her into the floor. Stone crumbled beneath her.
“Finally,” Cabral said, grinning down at her. He straddled her, one hand still pressing into her neck. It wouldn’t hinder her breathing—she didn’t even need to breathe—but she suspected he did it out of habit. She’d seen him do the same to countless slaves, and even his own Fangs.
Cabral punched her with his free hand, hard, sending ringing pain through her skull. Her vision blurred; before her were two realities: one of Cabral, laughing maniacally on top of her, and the other of herself, on a ship, sailing toward a sunrise.
He really was going to prolong her death, Astrid realized. He really was—
Then she heard it. Through Cabral’s laughter as he hit her, through the otherwise silence of the room, she heard weeping. She knew it was Cinzia, knew from the tone and the catch in the throat and the sound of her breath on the air, and then she heard Knot whisper something. A name, but not hers…
“Trave…”
Astrid heard a roar, and craned her neck just in time to see Trave leaping toward Cabral. No, she wanted to tell him, don’t, but before her mind could think the words Trave flinched even as he moved. Then he burst into a cloud of dust and ash.
In that moment Astrid came out of a stupor she hadn’t even realized she’d been in.
Trave, despite all he had done to her in the past, had gone to his death trying to make amends. If her life was all that was at stake, she would gladly die rather than face a life of torture, or even pursuit from Cabral. But it wasn’t. Trave had died, but Knot was still here, and Cinzia. Even the Nazaniin, who didn’t know her at all, had agreed to come here to rescue her. They would die horribly if she did nothing.
Astrid slipped her head to the side, and Cabral’s fist slammed into the stone. He growled in pain. She jammed her claw into Cabral’s left eye—she had done the same to Trave, years ago. The wound would heal eventually, she knew, as she had no fire around to cauterize it, but she hoped it would at least distract him enough for her to get out from under him.
Cabral’s free hand snapped up to his face where his eye had been and he screamed, but through it Astrid gripped the hand that held her neck with both of hers and squeezed, squeezed with every last bit of her strength, squeezed through his hardened skin and muscle until she reached the bone and felt a hard crunch.
Cabral’s thighs still gripped her tightly, but his grip on her neck loosened, and Astrid shoved with all her might, throwing him off her. He rolled away, moaning, nursing both his eye and his arm.
Glancing at the mess of ash on the ground where Trave had once been, Astrid’s eyes moved to Cinzia, and then Knot. She had no time to read their expressions, because then Cabral was up and coming at her again.
Astrid blocked his first blow with her forearm, his claw wide open and ready to slash; the next she dodged. Then she punched him in his kidney, and followed with a left hook to his ribs. She landed a flurry of blows before he managed to turn on her, gripping her bodily with both hands—Goddess, how that must have hurt his crushed forearm—and then Astrid flew through the air, everything tumbling end over end until it was all black, just for a moment, before she focused enough to see Cabral bearing down on her, red eyes glowing, smile gone, claws extended.
Every part of her ached, but especially her face and her neck. She tried to stand but stumbled and fell. His smile returned, widening through blood dripping down from a temporarily ruined eye, and suddenly Astrid was back in Cabral’s tower-house in Turandel. Cabral had beaten her to the ground many times in that tower-house. Trave had done it, too, as had other Fangs when she was a slave there. The Black Matron had done the same, perhaps not with her fists, but with Astrid’s own tortured, misshapen memories. And another memory, from long ago, before Astrid ever turned, lurked among these, too. Someone else had done this to her, forcing her to sit in that chair in that cabin so long ago, a child of only nine summers waiting to be beaten and abused.
She imagined everyone else those people might have hurt, everyone else they might have knocked to the ground. A great heat burned within her, so hot she thought she might catch fire, so hot
she would have believed the sun had somehow broken through the night and the layers of dirt and rock to pierce the Coven’s hall and engulf her in flames. The heat of the sun on her face, as she sailed toward the rosy dawn.
Astrid did what she did not have the strength to do those many, many times, as she lay broken and bleeding on the floor. She did what all the slaves, the women and children and other vampires Cabral had beaten and raped and killed, could not do. She did it for herself, and she did it for them.
Astrid rose to her feet, and faced Olin Cabral.
Time slowed, and she observed the look on Cabral’s face as he strode toward her. A cocksure grin, blood dripping down his face on one side, smearing his lips, cheek, and chin red. But as she stood, the grin faded. Cabral’s stalking steps slowed, and he stared at Astrid, his grin morphing into an open-mouthed look of pure shock.
Every single other being in the room had the same look on their faces as they stared at her, eyes wide.
Astrid looked down. This was her body, her feet and legs and arms and hands, standing strong and facing Cabral, and in one hand…
Astrid blinked.
In one hand she held a colossal, burning sword.
Canta’s bones, she thought, no wonder they’re all staring.
But she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The sword was so huge—longer than Cabral was tall, thicker around than his torso—that when she lunged it burst through Cabral’s chest easily, ripping a vertical hole in him from neck to navel. The weapon was so light, as if Astrid hardly wielded anything at all. The blade itself seemed a golden color, but the bright orange flames made it difficult to tell.
Am I dreaming? Astrid wondered. If she was, she didn’t know what to do about it, and if she wasn’t, she didn’t want to waste time, so she yanked the sword upward, cleaving Cabral’s torso in two from the inside out. His entire body went up in an inferno as he screamed in agony.
You are not dreaming, child, a voice spoke in Astrid’s mind. Eldritch. This is just you, as the Sfaera meant you to be. As you must be, for what is to come.
Cabral’s screams did not last long. When killed with fire, vampires did not burn like a regular person might, leaving charred skin and bone. Instead, they burned completely, like a log in a raging bonfire but far more quickly, until there was nothing left but ash and smoke. The strange burning blade that had appeared in Astrid’s hand was gone, without a trace it had ever been there.
Knot and Cinzia rushed to her, embracing her. She stared down at the dust and ash that had once been Olin Cabral. She would notice, quite some time later, that tears rolled down her face in almost a constant stream for hours afterward, but they were tears of relief.
* * *
They emerged from the tunnel into a starry night sky. The Coven had been true to their bargain. But as she stood under the stars, Astrid suddenly felt a tug, a pull on her mind. Not unlike the pull she used to feel when the Black Matron would voke her. Astrid turned. A pair of bright blue eyes stared at her from within the tunnel.
The others stopped. She felt Cinzia’s hand on her shoulder, but shrugged it off.
“It’s all right,” Astrid said. “I’ll only be a moment.”
She moved back into the tunnel, the green glow of her eyes illuminating Eldritch, who waited, levitating, at the tunnel mouth.
Well done, my child, Eldritch said, a soft smile on her face.
Astrid was not exactly grateful. Despite the outcome, she had not forgotten that the Coven had orchestrated that entire scenario to begin with, even if Eldritch and Elegance had supposedly bargained for her friends’ lives. And Trave was dead, never to return.
I understand your anger. But all things are as they must be.
Astrid could not help but roll her eyes. “
I get enough of these crypticisms from Jane. I’d prefer not to hear them from you, too.”
Eldritch’s smile twitched, and Astrid got the distinct impression that constituted a laugh for the woman.
“That sword,” Astrid said, remembering the feel of it, the warmth of it she seemed to have felt through her entire body, “That was… real?”
It was very real.
“Is that my power, then?”
Nothing is certain, Eldritch said, but before Astrid could complain about more crypticisms, she continued. But if I were to hazard a wild guess… yes. I absolutely think that is your power.
“A burning sword? What kind of power is that?”
I’m not one to make assumptions, but it seemed the exact power you needed in the moment. Whether that means your power will always manifest this way, or whether it might be something different in the future, I do not know. As many powers do, I imagine this ability will augment and change with age and experience.
Astrid looked down at her hand. She tried to summon the blade again, but nothing happened.
“How am I supposed to use it?” she asked.
That is something you will have to learn. It is also, if my experience is anything to go by, something no one else will be able to teach you.
Astrid swore. “Some use that’s going to be, then. What if it doesn’t come when I need it?”
It might not. That is a possibility for which you will have to prepare.
Astrid sighed. “You aren’t much help.”
I never said I would be.
“But…” Astrid looked back at her friends, waiting for her outside the tunnel. “Will I see you again?”
Nothing is certain, Eldritch said, and again her mouth twitched up in a smile. But I sincerely hope we meet again, Astrid. You have grown beyond a mere curiosity for me, at this point.
As she turned to leave, Astrid felt that pull once more on her mind.
Any good sword needs a name, child.
Astrid looked over her shoulder at Eldritch, levitating there, her blue eyes glowing. She remembered the warmth of the sword, the heat swelling within her.
“Radiance,” she said, without hesitation. Then she walked back to meet her friends.
22
Wyndric Ocean, near Triah
COVA SAW THE SPIRE of God’s Eye long before she saw anything else in the city of Triah. The tower stabbed upward, straining to pierce the sky itself. From a distance, the stone appeared a mottled gray color, but as Cova’s fleet drew closer, she realized the various blocks of stone were all different colors, mostly grays intermixed with pink, brown, black, and even a few bluish hues.
Atop the structure, even from a distance, Cova could make out some details of the Eye’s war apparatus through her spyglass. A series of huge brass rings housed circles of glass and mirrors of varying sizes; the diameter of the largest had to exceed the entire length of her new capital ship, the Reckoner, while the smallest must have been no taller than a man.
She was glad they had arrived on a relatively cloudy day. According to legend, God’s Eye could harness the power of the sun itself, redirecting it toward Triah’s enemies. But her fleet was still far away; it should be safe even if the stories of God’s Eye’s destructive power were true.
For now, Cova intended to blockade Triah’s harbor rather than attack the city. That would give her time to make contact with an old captain of her father’s in Litori—and that meeting, she hoped, could change the course of the war. Her fleet could stay out of reach of the weapon for the time being.
And yet, as she looked at the Eye, she thought she could discern some of the mechanism moving, shifting around.
“Make sure we are all prepared to move,” Cova told Admiral Rakkar.
“Good idea.” Rakkar, too, watched the Eye warily.
* * *
Terris Clayborna, chief Eye operator, strode about the top floor of God’s Eye, ordering the other operators about with a nervous confidence. They all wore brass operator’s goggles to protect them from the high winds atop the Eye, and the traditional brown overcoats of their station. The Eye’s war apparatus, at the very top of the tower, was completely open to the elements.
/> “Swing the mainframe about,” he called, pointing at the largest circle of brass and glass, attached to a massive metal arm that, in turn, crooked down and into the top level of God’s Eye. The mainframe, the largest circle in the apparatus, held a giant mirror, and always had to be positioned first; it dictated the efficacy of the rest of the apparatus, and had to be exactly correct. “Point it in a west-northwesterly direction, about…” Terris looked to his assistant, Hindra, who held a great tome full of handwritten calculations open before her.
“Two hundred and eighty-nine degrees,” she said immediately, her finger stopping on a single line.
Terris grunted. “Two hundred and eighty-nine degrees,” he said. Hindra’s mind was far quicker than his own. She would take over his position as chief operator one day, and likely do a far better job of it.
A dozen operators rushed to do as he ordered. The mainframe lens loomed around and caught the full reflection of the sun’s rays.
Down below, the steely ring of warning bells sounded throughout the city. The Rodenese fleet remained stationary in the bay, not quite a radial from the coast.
“Halo Three, in position!” Terris shouted, his eyes scanning the apparatus. Two dozen halos in total, twenty-five counting the mainframe, each one of slightly varying size and housing either a lens of convex glass, or a concave mirror, and each mounted on a swinging, swiveling metal arm.
“You are sure the Eye’s beam will reach them from here?”
Terris turned to Grand Marshal Riccan Carrieri, a smile on his face. “A good question, Grand Marshal. What do you think, Hindra?”
Hindra looked up from her tome. “We could reach them if they were yet another half-radial out. Striking them where they are now will be a simple matter of getting the angle and trajectory right.”
“And you will be able to do damage with this?” Carrieri asked, looking up at the cloudy sky.
Terris could understand the Grand Marshal’s skepticism. The Eye’s power had not been demonstrated in decades, and no one had seen it used at full capacity for even longer. Part of that was purposeful: Triah did not want others to know the full strength of the weapon they held so close to their heart, but at the same time was also so visible to the world.
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