A hundred paces ahead, an animal stood in the road. A great cat, striped black and orange. It was nothing she had ever seen before, and she therefore had no name for it.
She gasped, shaken by fear, as it hunched its shoulders and began stalking towards her. She began energizing before she’d even made the conscious decision to do so.
“Destroy the beast quickly, and from afar,” Elos said.
Her arm lifted, energy gathering in her palm.
“Wait. No.” She shook her head, a movement taking far too much effort than usual. “It’s just an animal. Why should my errant trespass equate to its death?”
“To risky to let it live. Do you see those teeth? Now imagine them around your throat.”
“I don’t—”
“Kill it!”
The cat was nearly upon her now. It gathered powerful legs beneath it to pounce.
Tassariel pounced first.
She internalized the energy, blessing herself, and moved with speed even this great predator could scarcely comprehend.
Bared claws swiped through empty air where she’d been half a moment ago. She lashed out a fist. Connected with the creature’s jaw as it flew past. It landed sideways, sprawling. But only for a beat. It shook its head, turned towards her, and lunged again.
She skated back, kicking the beast aside. It spun, roaring. The thing must not have been used to prey that walked upright. Not that knew how to fight back anyway.
“Stop this now! There is too much at stake to play such games!”
Tassariel didn’t answer.
The cat reared, widening its forearms as if to give her a hug. She grasped it by the wrists and held. Teeth snapped out, hissing, hot breath blowing a few finger widths from her face. Its strength and mass weighed down on her, fighting on a level with her own magically enhanced physique, yet she did not give.
“You will not kill me, beast,” she said. “But neither will I kill you.”
She lunged upwards, driving her knee into its belly. She let go with her hands, and it faltered, skittering back. Before it could land, she gathered power in her hands, turning them bright with fire, and struck her palms forward. Twin handprints branded themselves into the beast’s chest, and it crashed onto its back.
It was sluggish to regain its feet. A pained gaze tracked her though it drew no nearer.
“That’s right,” she said. “I’m not prey. I’m dangerous. Too dangerous for you. Go. Find an easier meal.”
Though she knew it could not understand her words, she could swear it grasped her intent. The wide head lowered as it turned its flank to her. She surged more power into her hands, flaring flames that reflected off those feline eyes.
The beast darted off the road and became lost in the shadow of the jungle in beats. Tassariel relaxed, bleeding off her excess magic with a sigh.
“That,” Elos said, “was a very stupid thing to do.”
“Why? Because it wasn’t according to your perfect plan?”
“You might have been killed, that’s why.”
“And what would that have mattered?”
“You’re important. My chosen vessel. If the time ever comes for you to play hero, I’ll let you know. Until then, let me calculate the risks. I am rather good at it.”
“This risk never would have happened if you hadn’t—” She clamped her teeth shut, screaming behind closed lips.
“What?”
She exhaled, letting her anger seep away on the winds of her breath. The calmness of her next words surprised her. “You took the sky from me. How dare you ask for anything else!”
The icy presence retreated, which was fine by her.
Still under the effects of her blessing, every sense tingled with acuity. She looked again to the horizon. Those mountains, she now realized, were not mountains at all.
They were towers. Dozens of them.
“No—not dozens,” Elos intoned. “One hundred. Exactly.”
Ah. Panisahldron. It was good to finally know her destination.
CHAPTER 12
Mevon crouched behind the boulder, smiling at the tufts of grass poking up through the snow. In the last few days, the plateau had begun to dip. There were places he and Draevenus had simply slid down for hundreds or even thousands of paces. Even so, signs of life remained rare.
Until now.
The crunch of hooves across the cold slush brought his attention forward. Mevon quivered in anticipation. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Despite all his efforts to abstain, he still grew excited at the prospect of violence, even that not directed at men. Maybe he’d been wrong about himself. Maybe letting off steam was the last thing he needed. Maybe he’d been the biggest fool in the world to think he could change.
Maybe he was just really, really hungry.
Another crunch, and now the ram’s head edged into view from behind an oblong stone, nose scuffing around in the snow to get to the grass trapped below. Mevon caressed his dagger hilts, coiling to pounce.
A family of dark birds screeched into the air across the field. The ram turned towards it, startled. But only for a moment. It bleated once, then retreated in great, four-legged hops that took it away from his position with incredible speed.
Seeing his next meal escaping, Mevon charged after it.
He leapt forward, feet launching his body off boulder after boulder, staying high to keep an eye on his prey. His blades stayed sheathed, for now. The ram had not fled directly away from him, and he caught up to it in a dozen beats. He aimed for the creature’s back and surged forward, ready to wrestle it to the ground.
The very instant before his hands were to meet the beast’s neck, however, something crashed into him from the side. The breath was knocked from his lungs. He tumbled from the impact, rolling and kicking up gouts of snow.
He righted himself a moment later, fighting the storm that threatened to break within him.
Draevenus lay sprawled nearby. He held a hand to his head and groaned.
“Are you all right?” Mevon asked.
“Ruul’s light, Mevon. I’d rather dive headfirst into a quarry than run into you again. What are you made of anyway? Steel?”
“A man of steel. Now there’s a thought.” He reached down, clasping hands with the assassin, and pulled him to his feet. “Better?”
“I will be in a mark or so. Did you see where the abyss-taken beast got to?”
“No. And we’d be skinning and butchering it now if you hadn’t interfered. What was that all about anyway?”
Draevenus shrugged. “Same as you, I guess. Our plan was ruined by those birds, so I just took off after it, quick as I could. It was just bad luck that we reached it at the same moment.”
“True. But that doesn’t make me any less hungry.”
“It can’t have gotten far.” Draevenus squinted, peering into the distance. “How ’bout a little wager?”
Mevon arched an eyebrow. “Name the terms.”
“Simple. First to catch it gets to divvy up the portions. Choicest cuts to the victor.”
Mevon didn’t ponder long. “You’re on.” He smiled, pulling his daggers. “No accidents this time?”
Draevenus performed a mocking bow. “I shall endeavor to abstain from such clumsy displays.”
Mevon didn’t see the mierothi rise from the ridiculous posture. He was too busy getting a head start.
Pouring his focus into speed, Mevon tore across the ground. The wind of his motion whistled past his ears, whipping his hair behind him. Instinct told him to stick to the flat ground, but he knew the ram would not keep to such restrictions, so instead he angled towards the steep edge of a hill. His choice was vindicated as he spied his prey on a level with him less than half a thousand paces away.
Blackness streaked across his vision, killing his elation. D
raevenus emerged from his shadow-dash just ahead of the ram. He smiled towards Mevon. Waved. Pointed his daggers at the beast and made to dash again.
The stones beneath the mierothi came loose of the hillside. His attack seemingly forgotten, he spun his arms in an attempt to keep his balance.
The attempt was in vain.
The assassin tumbled down the slope, battered by a shower of pebbles. The ram spun, fleeing the disruption . . .
. . . right towards Mevon.
It sensed him coming but too late. Mevon, with a series of leaping bounds twice as far as the ram’s, boxed the beast in. It turned in a circle. Once. Frantic bleats erupted from its throat.
Mevon pounced for the kill.
His weight crashed into the creature as he curled one arm around its neck. They rolled together, sliding across a patch of ice. Mevon came out on top, straddling the furry chest and avoiding the hooves lashing out at his face. He drove a dagger into the pounding heart.
It stilled in beats, all fight lost. Mevon smiled.
Draevenus slogged up the hillside, hand over hand, groaning with each twitch of motion. Mevon began skinning the beast.
“Today is just not my day,” Draevenus called.
Mevon peered down at the mierothi, who was bleeding from a score of superficial lacerations. “So it seems.” He paused to snatch a drink from his canteen. Blood dripped from his hands to his elbows as he raised them. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Nothing is hurt more than my pride, thankfully. A little fresh meat will cure the worst of my physical ailments.”
Mevon grunted. The chase had invigorated him at the time, but now his stomach rumbled. He had half a mind not to wait for a cookfire but knew he’d pay for it later if he gave in to impatience now. Still, a cookfire would take too long. Sorcerous flame would sear the meat in beats.
A glance at his companion, however, revealed a figure clinging to handholds in the stones just below the ledge before the hill leveled out, as if surmounting that one last barrier took more effort than the mierothi had to give. If his own hunger-born weakness was any indication, Mevon’s assessment might not have been far from the truth.
He rose from his kill and marched over to the ledge, reaching a hand down. With obvious gratefulness, Draevenus took it, too wearied to even flinch at the contact. “Thanks.”
“Think nothing of it.” Mevon finished hauling up his companion, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s almost ready. A few more cuts, a little fire from your fingertips, and we’ll be feasting in no time.”
“Feasting on what?”
Mevon spun to face his kill, pointing. “On th—”
The ram was gone.
A trail of speckled blood lay in a straight line away from where their meal had just lain, and a dark shape streaked into the woods a hundred paces away.
Mevon glanced at Draevenus. Information passed silently between them in that brief meeting of eyes. He knew they were both thinking the same thing.
Trouble.
“But we’ve no reason to provoke them,” Jasside said. “Why do you insist on it?”
Vashodia eyed her coolly, sipping wine as she lounged in a feathered chair. “I must know the heart of a man before I can offer him my aid.”
“Aid? You mean you actually intend to help them?”
“Perhaps. It all depends on their reaction to my little challenge.”
Jasside sighed. It had been three days, and no official response had come from either prince. The rooms were cozy enough, and they had little restriction on their movements, free to come and go as they pleased, but Jasside felt as if her time was better spent doing something, anything, else. She only wished she had a better way to direct her energy.
Idleness, once again, proved ill-fitting to her temperament.
She slumped down onto a couch, burying her face in her hands. “Is there anything you need me to do?”
“Get some rest,” Vashodia said. “One way or another, you’ll be needing it. And soon.”
“Vague and cryptic as always.” Jasside rose, knowing a dismissal when she heard it. “Let me know if you’re ever in the mood for a real conversation.”
With that, she stomped out of the room.
The torch-lined halls, all steel and stone and wood, offered her no comfort. She’d walked them a hundred times, it seemed, and had come no closer to discerning her purpose here. To say it was frustrating would not even brush the heart of the matter. Jasside knew she could help—she had already, with the refugees—but now she didn’t know enough of the political situation to even begin thinking of possible solutions.
Vashodia had brought them here for a reason, but her penchant for withholding information was getting old. Really quick.
She stalked to the next door down the hall and pushed inside. Her own room, graciously provided, was identical to her mistress’s. Warm and soft and comfortable. And aggravating. She kicked the rear leg of a high-backed chair as she passed.
It did not give as she expected. Jasside cringed, pain radiating from her toe and lancing up her shin. She bent down, leaning on the arm of the chair to massage her injury.
Prince Daye Harkun’s face turned, his nose half a hand’s width away from hers as he sat.
Jasside jumped upright. “Oh!”
“My apologies,” Daye said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Well, you did.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Her heart raced, half from the surprise, half from the man’s very presence. She hadn’t ever been truly alone with him. Not like this. Certainly not in her own bedroom. She stepped lightly across the room and settled in a chair opposite him. The space between them was now great enough to give her room to breathe.
“You know what you are, right? I mean, your . . . peculiar relationship with magic?”
“Yes. I am a void. A nullifier.”
“Ever think about the effect of sneaking up on a caster unannounced?”
He smirked. “Often. You think it rude, I suppose. No one likes having all his advantages stripped away.”
“No.”
“After all, it must be how everyone else feels when near someone like you.”
“Is that an accusation?”
“Just an observation.”
“Then let me put your mind to rest. Power such as mine may grant an advantage, but no civilized person would exploit it.”
“No good person, you mean.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
He shook his head. “The two aren’t always synonymous. The Panisians and their allies are indisputably more ‘civilized’ than us northerners. But I’m hard-pressed to find anything decent about them.”
“You think all progress immoral, then?”
“No. Just that not checked by ethical considerations. At every step.”
Jasside nodded, troubled for some reason she couldn’t explain. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, studying the man across from her, finding—to her surprise—that she didn’t mind his presence one bit.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
He looked up at her slowly, sadness brimming in his eyes. “I’ve come to beg for your help.”
“Help with what?”
“Everything.”
He stood, turning parallel to her, and began pacing back and forth. “My brother has not had an easy life. I was abducted as a child. Taken from Weskara because of my unique abilities, which are prized here. Chase spent the better part of his youth training furiously, and most of his early adult years searching. For me. For a brother who did not need rescuing.
“He could have been happy, you know. He was going to take over the family business, silversmithing. He was always good at it. Then again, he excelled
at pretty much everything he set his mind to. Instead, he wasted his life because of me.”
“You can’t possibly blame yourself for that.”
“Oh, but I can. I was treated well, respected, given training and every honor. I fell in love with this land and its people. But never once did I think about home, about the life I’d left behind. About my family.
“Never once did I send word.”
“It seemed to turn out all right for him, though. He’s a prince now, after all.”
“But he does not love it, don’t you see? He is only here because of me. He only leads because he feels he must and because there’s no one left alive who can do it better.” Daye shook his head. “That is why he will not answer your mistress’s challenge. He does not know how to win. He only knows how to hold on for another day against impossible odds. He feels that he is only delaying the inevitable.”
“He can’t be so hopeless as that. I heard rumors that he’s already led the charge in some stunning victories.”
Daye sighed. “When the coalition first invaded, they rolled hard and deep. Taosin was where we finally turned them back. Chase became a hero that day, and a prince. But he shouldn’t have had to.”
“Why not?”
“I . . . I was in charge of the city’s defense. I failed, and half of it burned to the ground. Chase led the counterattack that retook the city, rescuing me from a cadre of enemy sorcerers, no less. The very kind I’m supposed to be most potent against. He almost died saving me from my own failure, my own weakness.
“For that, and for everything else, I will never be able to repay him.”
He stopped his pacing and, before she could even blink, fell to his knees in front of her, gripping her forearms. She tensed, as much from surprise as from the sudden loss of her power.
“Please, Jasside, you must do something to help him. I will convince him to hold another meeting with you and Vashodia, but I beg of you, please, find some way to change your mistress’s terms. We are desperate—I am desperate—and we need all the help we can get.”
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