by Rachel Aaron
“The very same.” Eli smiled courteously, nodding toward the reinforced chest. “And unless you’re planning on setting up house in the woods, that must be my gold.”
Renaud raised his hand. At his signal, the soldiers dismounted and began unlocking the chest. It took a full minute to undo the locks and the three chains before the soldiers threw back the lid and stepped aside. Eli licked his lips. The chest was filled to the brim with sparkling, oblong, golden coins.
“Five thousand council standards,” Renaud said flatly. “As agreed.”
“Ah,” Eli said smiling. “And the other part of our bargain?”
Renaud took a tightly rolled scroll out of his saddlebag. “It arrived by special courier this morning,” he said, unfurling the paper. “The first one, straight from the Council’s copy rooms.”
Stretched between his hands was a bounty notice bearing an enormous likeness of Eli’s face at its center and his name in block capitals across the top. Best of all, however, was the number stenciled across the bottom in thick black blocks: fifty-five thousand gold standards. Eli let out a low whistle.
Renaud rolled the notice back into a tube and tossed it casually on top of the piled gold. “Everything you wanted, exactly as promised. Now give me my brother.”
“Gold first,” Eli said, putting his hand on the king’s rope.
Renaud nodded, and the third rider, a dark-haired swordsman with a scar across one side of his face, dismounted. He took the reins of the chest carriers and led them out to the center of the clearing, twenty feet from either party. There, he cut the straps, and the chest fell with a thud onto the dusty grass. He led the horses back to their riders and took his place again beside Renaud.
When he stopped completely, Eli nodded to Nico, and she released her death grip on the king’s tether. Eli picked up the slack and twisted the rope around his arm until it was tight. Then he put his hand on the king’s shoulder and, tied together, they started the slow, silent walk to the center of the circular field.
Five feet from the gold, Eli stopped. “All right,” he said slowly, “I’m going to let him walk forward. Any funny moves on your part, and”—he tugged the rope, nearly taking the king off his feet—“Got it?”
Renaud nodded, and Eli unclamped his hand from the king’s shoulder. The king walked forward. As soon as he passed the gold, Eli reached for the chest.
He heard the spirit almost too late, and he jumped back just in time as a bolt of blue lightning shrieked inches from his face. He fell backward, tugging hard on the rope. The king came flailing after him, and they landed in a heap a few feet from the chest.
“That’s enough,” said a cold voice. The thick brush at the edge of the clearing rustled, and the enormous ghosthound stepped into view, Miranda sitting high on his back. They were dirty, and Miranda looked like she was having trouble staying mounted, but the hand she pointed at Eli was steady as a stone, and the blue lightning arcing from the large aquamarine on her right middle finger was nothing to be flippant about.
Gin padded silently across the open ground. “I don’t know how you dodged Skarest,” Miranda said, and the lightning on her arm crackled angrily, “but the next shot will kill you before the girl can move.” She shot Nico a glare before turning it on Eli. “Step away from the king and put your hands out where I can see them.”
“What do you think you are doing, Miss Lyonette?” Renaud said, reining in his nervous horse.
“The Spirit Court is done playing politics, Renaud,” she said. “My orders were to placate the local officials only if it did not interfere with my primary mission.” She gave him a cold look. “Mellinor is free to deal with Mellinor’s problems, prince, but this thief will answer to us. Now,” she continued and turned her glare back to Eli, and the lightning arced high above her head, “release your hostage and put out your hands, Mr. Monpress.”
Eli got to his feet, smiling cockily. “And if I don’t?”
“My orders are to apprehend you and bring you to the Rector Spiritualis.” She smiled right back at him. “But they didn’t specify what condition you had to be in when you got there.”
Eli opened his mouth to reply, but Miranda never got to hear it, for at that moment, her lightning spirit discharged.
It happened instantly, as if some giant hand had plucked the lightning off her finger and hurled it across the clearing. The world became very still, and she could do nothing but watch in horror as Skarest arced through the air with an ear-ripping crack and struck the center of the king’s chest. King Henrith convulsed and toppled to the ground, a thin wisp of smoke rising from his open mouth. Lightning sparked on her fingers as Skarest returned to his ring, and the spirit’s fear racing through their connection made her blood run thin.
“Mistress!” he crackled. “He was too strong, mistress. I couldn’t fight him!”
“Who?” Miranda shouted, but the spirit had buried himself in his ring.
The Mellinor group was frozen in shock, and even Eli was gaping at her. Only the prince kept his composure, turning on her with a look of triumphant hate.
“Foul murder!” Renaud shouted, breaking the stunned silence. “The Spiritualist has killed our king! She’ll stop at nothing! Soldiers, attack! We won’t let her sacrifice our king to catch her mark!”
His words were like a match in a hayloft, and they were barely out his mouth before a wave of spearmen wearing House Allaze blue poured out of the brush behind him and charged the center of the clearing.
Master Oban started to ride with the charge toward his fallen king, but Renaud grabbed his horse’s reins. “No, Oban! I’ll handle this! Get back to the castle and tell the others!”
Oban shouted curses, but he turned his horse and rode madly back into the woods, parting the line of archers that was forming up on the clearing’s edge.
“Kill them all!” Renaud shouted, waving the soldiers forward. “Avenge our king!”
The first volley of arrows launched with a ringing twang, and Miranda ducked low on her hound’s back. “Gin!” she shouted. “Get to the king!”
“You sure?” he panted, launching forward as the arrows sailed over their heads. “I don’t think it will do any good.”
“Henrith’s our only hope of salvaging this situation,” she said, and her hand shot to her throat, clutching the pendant through her shirt. “Eril! Give us some cover!”
Even a wind spirit understands a real emergency, and Eril set to work with no backtalk, raising a thick dust storm in a matter of moments.
As soon as the lightning struck, Eli knew he had to get the money. He rolled the fallen king over and felt his throat. There was a pulse, erratic but strong, and he decided that was good enough. He stepped over the king and made a dash for the chest, reaching it just as the first wave of soldiers crashed into the clearing.
“Nico!” he shouted, ducking under the arrow that whizzed by his head. “Josef! Get to the boulder!”
He dropped to his knees and grabbed the chest, but as soon as he touched it, his stomach sank. The iron-bound chest was heavy, but not nearly heavy enough. He popped the three locks and flung it open, plunging his hand inside. His fingers barely made it past the top layer of coins before they hit the wooden false bottom. For a moment, he just sat there, staring, as the soldiers charged forward. Then, while more arrows struck the ground beside him, Eli carefully folded the bounty notice and put it in his pocket. When that was done, he slammed the trunk’s lid and sprang forward, running toward where he’d last seen Renaud as an enormous, spirit-driven dust storm covered everything.
“Eli!” Josef shouted, squinting into the swirling dust. Get to the boulder? At this point he’d be lucky to find it. Voices shouted all around him, and he could hear the arrows whizzing overhead, but everywhere he looked, all he saw was dust. He didn’t have to be a wizard to know the cloud wasn’t natural. He just wished he knew which wizard it belonged to.
He felt someone behind him and whirled around, drawing his blade as he spun,
only to find himself facing Nico. She pressed her pale lips together, cocking her head to peer quizzically at the sword point hovering beside her unguarded throat. “Jumpy?”
Josef sighed and lowered his sword. “How many times do I have to tell you not to do that? One day I might not stop in time, you know.”
“I trust you,” she said.
“Glad to hear it, but that doesn’t change”—he chopped an arrow out of the air just before it struck her shoulder—“the situation.”
A soldier loomed out of the dust behind her, his sword already falling. Without looking, Nico dropped to the ground, letting his overbalanced swing tip him forward. When he was halfway down, she shot up again, plunging her elbow into his unguarded stomach. The blow caught him right under his ribs, and he fell wheezing to the ground at Josef’s feet.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Josef said, kicking the fallen soldier’s hands out from under him when he tried to get up. “Eli’s probably already got the money. Let’s just find him and—”
He froze. Nico looked up, confused. “And?”
With a whisper of steel, Josef drew his second sword. “Nico,” he said quietly, “go find Eli. I’ll catch up.”
He caught her dark eyes and held them until she nodded and stepped away, disappearing instantly into the dust. He brought his swords up and turned to face the person he knew was standing there.
“Good guess,” a voice said, floating on the swirling dust.
“Guess nothing,” Josef said, stepping into a defensive stance. “I could follow a killing intent like yours blindfolded. Something you pick up when you live your life on the sword.”
The swordsman with the scar across his face stepped out of the swirling dust. “I should have expected nothing less from the Josef Liechten.” He laid his hand on the wrapped sword at his hip. “My name is Gerard Coriano,” he said casually, as if they were meeting in a tavern rather than a battlefield, “and this”—he unhooked the wrapped sword, sheath and all, from his belt—“is Dunea. We are here to kill you.”
“Is that so?” Josef said. “Why bother telling me your name then?”
“A final courtesy.” Coriano smiled. “A true swordsman would want to die knowing the name of the man who killed him. Remember it well, Josef Liechten.”
Josef’s face broke into a feral grin. “I only remember things that deserve to be remembered. So, if you want me to remember your name, you’ll have to make it worth my while.”
Coriano held his wrapped sword out before him, the blade still in its wooden sheath. “When you’re ready.”
Gin led them straight through the dust to the fallen king. Miranda jumped down, gritting her teeth as the impact’s force shot up her spine. The king was on his back, caked in yellow-brown dust. She kneeled beside him, pressing her fingers against his throat.
“He’s alive,” she said, her voice hoarse with relief. She slid her arms under his shoulders. “Help me get him up.”
Gin lowered his head, and she rolled the king onto his long nose. When he was balanced, Gin lifted the unconscious man and, with Miranda’s help, laid the king gently across his back.
She was getting ready to climb up herself when Gin growled low in his throat. He caught her eye, and she knew why.
“Lord Renaud,” she said, turning around. “You’re faster than expected.”
Renaud stepped out of the swirling dust, a cocky smile on his handsome face. “Look at it from my perspective, lady. I see my brother’s murderer stealing his body, is it so surprising I should hurry to stop her?”
“No, but not for the reasons you give.” She brushed her fingers over her rings, calling her spirits awake. “Your brother is still alive, but I imagine you knew that, seeing how you were the one who flung Skarest at him.”
“Skarest?” Renault folded his hands behind him. “Was that the little lightning bolt’s name?”
Miranda’s eyes widened. “You don’t deny it?”
“Why should I?” Renault shrugged. “I am a wizard, controlling spirits is my right.”
Miranda clenched her fists. “What you call your right we call enslavement, and it is an abomination. No spirit, human or otherwise, has the right to dominate another! Even if you hadn’t tried to kill your brother, what you did to Skarest is crime enough to bring the whole Spirit Court down on your head!”
“Enslavement?” Renaud chuckled. “You Spiritualists were always very fond of giving things names, anything to set yourselves apart, to label your magic as right and everything else as wrong.”
“Considering enslavement destroys the soul of the spirit it commands, I’d say it’s a pretty clear-cut division.”
“And what do I care for their souls?”
Miranda took a step back at the disgust in his voice, but Renaud stepped closer, ignoring Gin’s warning growl as the prince closed the distance between them.
“We have our own souls to think of,” he whispered, almost in her ear, and the cold hatred in his voice made her shiver. “In nature, it is the strong who dominate the weak, the strong who survive.”
“Those rules don’t apply to us, Renaud,” Miranda said. “We’re not animals! Only humans have the power to dominate another spirit. We have to—”
“It was the spirits who dominated me for most of my life!” Renaud snapped, eyes flashing. “It’s because I was born with their voices talking in my ears that I lost everything to that idiot,” he said and pointed to Henrith’s smoking body sprawled on Gin’s back.
“That’s different.”
“No!” Renaud roared. “No difference! I will take back tenfold what was taken from me. A hundredfold! It was the world that decided to make my will a weapon, Spiritualist, and I will use it bluntly, as it was intended. No rings, no pretensions, only my strength against the spirit’s, my boot on its neck until it cries for mercy.” He stepped closer still, clenching his fists beneath her chin. “I will take Mellinor from its weakling king,” he growled. “I will take my inheritance with these hands, and then I will take dominion of the spirits from your weakling Court. I will return the world to its natural balance, with the wizard on top and the spirits below, and you”—he looked at Miranda with disgust—“you, with your hobbled power and your foolish pledge, will go down with the trash you’ve tied yourself to. A fitting end for a wizard who would not take her power.”
Miranda jerked back, eyes flashing, but when she spoke, her voice was cold and sharp. “Bold words, enslaver,” she said, holding up her right thumb, which was wearing a knuckle-sized ruby that was glowing like an ember. “But it will take more than the raving of a jilted prince to make me forget the truth of the vows I serve.” She thrust out her hand, and the ruby began to smoke on her finger. “Perhaps you’d like to try your speech on another of my spirits? You’ll have to speak quickly, though, because I don’t think he’ll listen as patiently as I did. Will you, Kirik?”
When she spoke the name, the wind around them died out completely. A flame winked to life above Miranda’s fist. It hovered there for a split second, sputtering like a candle, and then, with a deafening roar, it exploded upward, growing into an enormous column of fire that reached the sky. Any dust it touched vanished, burned to cinders in an instant. The column surrounded Miranda on all sides, the heat pouring off it in waves until even Renaud was forced to step back and put up his hands to shield his face.
“What’s the matter, enslaver?” Miranda crowed from behind the wall of flame. “Weren’t you going to put your boot on his neck?”
If Renaud answered, it was lost in Kirik’s crackling laughter. Grinning triumphantly, Miranda raised her voice to command the attack.
Just before she spoke the words, the prince fell to his knees. Miranda squinted against Kirik’s bright light. No, Renaud hadn’t fallen; he’d sunk up to his thighs in the sandy ground. As she watched, more sand poured up his chest, pinning his arms and pulling him toward the ground. He struggled frantically, but for every handful of sand he tossed away, five more took its pl
ace. Within seconds he was buried up to his shoulders, completely trapped in the shifting, buzzing ground.
“So sorry,” said a smug voice.
Miranda whirled around, her eyes wide and astonished as a gangly, dark-haired figure stepped out of the dust. “Can’t have any of that.” He snapped his fingers and a torrent of water shot up from the ground at his feet.
Miranda had no time to react, no time to do anything except stare stupidly as the water arched through the air and struck her fire spirit full on. Kirik roared and steamed, but there was nothing he could do against the endless deluge. The column of flame shrank to an ember in the space of a breath, and Miranda barely managed to pull him back into his ring before the water extinguished him altogether.
For the next few moments, Miranda was so furious she couldn’t do more than sputter and clutch the dimly glowing ruby on her thumb. When she did find her voice, however, she made up for lost time.
“What do you think you are doing?!” she roared so violently that even Gin flinched back.
Eli raised his hands. “Easy, Lady Spiritualist, I couldn’t let you bake him just yet. You see”—he glared down at Renaud, still pinned by the dirt—“this man still owes me some money.”
If possible, Miranda looked even angrier. “He tried to kill his brother, enslaved my spirit, threatened the entire spirit world, and you’re worried about money?”
“Of course.” Eli looked at her innocently. “I’m a thief. What else is there for me to worry about?”
“You could start worrying about your hide,” she growled, “because I’m about to flay it off you.”
“Charming!” Eli said, grinning. “But give me two seconds first. I need to make a point.” He crouched down in the dirt beside Renaud. “Hello, Lord Whoever-You-Are. I don’t know if you’ve heard of me, but I’m Eli Monpress, the greatest thief in the world.”
Eli put his arm around Renaud’s sand-covered shoulder. “I’m going to let you in on a secret. I didn’t get to be the greatest thief in the world by letting hack wizards like you cheat me out of my hard-earned money. However, I’m a generous man, so I’m going to offer you a choice: Either you give me my money or I take it from you. Now, while five thousand may seem like a hefty sum, please take my word on this”—he smiled sweetly—“you don’t want me in your treasury.”