by Rachel Aaron
Renaud’s eyes widened. “Aren’t you the pair?” he said, spitting the sand out of his mouth. “The thief and the officer of the Spirit Court working together.”
“We’re not together!” Miranda shouted. “Enough of this nonsense! Gin, bite the thief’s head off.”
Gin charged forward, but all he got was a mouthful of sand as the ground in front of Eli sprang up to protect him.
“An impressive spirit, Mr. Monpress,” Miranda said as Gin coughed up dirt.
“Oh, it’s not mine,” Eli said, grinning. “This particular stretch of ground was getting frustrated that a certain Spiritualist’s wind spirit was whipping bits of it up into the air. I simply offered to help it stop the wind if it helped me.”
Miranda stared at him in disbelief. “You offered? What, you mean you just had a chat with the ground, without opening your spirit or having a servant spirit to mediate, and it listened, just like that?”
Eli shrugged. “More or less.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she scoffed. “You can’t just sit down and talk to the ground.”
“Some of us don’t need slaves or servants to get things done,” he said.
Miranda sputtered, but Renaud burst out laughing. Miranda and Eli both turned to stare at him, but the prince paid no mind, laughing until he was nearly choking on the sandy dirt.
“That’s it?” he said when he could speak again. “That’s the famous Eli’s great secret that every bounty hunter is after? You just asked?”
Eli arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t see how it’s so hard to believe. Most spirits are very obliging when you’re not trying to crush them into submission. But you wouldn’t know much about that, from what I hear.” He straightened up. “Now, are you going to play nicely, or do I need to ask the dirt for another favor?”
The ground around Renaud began to snicker, but the smile on the prince’s face did not change. “As grateful as I am to you for the opportunities you’ve given me, I’m afraid my thanks are all you’re going to get, Mr. Monpress.”
“Oh?” Eli crossed his arms over his chest. “Does that mean you choose the ‘Eli takes the money from you’ option?”
Renaud’s smile widened. “Let me show you how a true wizard works.”
Still chuckling, he closed his eyes and, for a moment, nothing happened. Then Renaud opened his spirit, and everything changed.
This wasn’t the controlled opening Miranda had done earlier. Renaud threw his spirit wide for the world to see, and the strength of it was wholly unexpected. Miranda barely had time to register what was happening before it hit her. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath as the full pressure of Renaud’s soul landed on her. Her rings cut into her fingers as her spirits writhed under the weight. Behind her, she heard Gin whimpering as he fought it, but even the ghosthound was forced to the ground in the end. Miranda gritted her teeth and focused on dampening the panic shooting up the link she shared with her spirits, but they were already beaten down. Another wave of pressure hit, and she gasped as it slammed her into the ground.
Spitting out dirt, she forced her head to turn, and she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Eli was still standing beside her, arms crossed just like before, as if nothing was happening, but the cocky smile on his face had vanished.
The sand trapping Renaud burst outward, the grains cutting Miranda’s skin. The prince stepped calmly out of the crater he had made and looked over to where Gin lay pinned with the king’s body still slung over the arch of his back. His hand went to his pocket, and when he spoke, his words pulsed through his opened spirit, battering over Miranda like iron waves.
“I’ve been saving this since I left the desert and returned to Allaze. I was waiting to use it on my brother, if I ever got the chance.” He grinned at Eli. “Now that you have made me king, I won’t be needing it anymore. Such a pity.” His mad grin grew deadly. “I will miss collecting your bounty.”
Eli glared at him. “And why’s that?”
“Because once I’m done cleaning this clearing, there won’t be enough of you left to turn in.”
“Sounds like a stupid waste of fifty-five thousand standards to me,” Eli said. “And if that false-bottomed chest was any indication, you could use the gold.”
“Yes,” Renaud cackled, “but as another of your kind once told me, there are some things that are worth more than money.”
His eyes flicked away from Eli’s incredulous expression and came to rest on Miranda, who was still fighting to raise her head. “Watch and learn, Spiritualist,” he whispered, holding out his clenched fist. “This is how you master a spirit.”
He opened his fist and a small, dark, glittering sphere dropped from his fingers. At first, Miranda thought it was a kind of black pearl, like the pearl she kept Eril in, but as it fell, the ball began to disintegrate, and as it broke apart, the sphere began to scream.
CHAPTER 13
Josef struck hard and fast, bringing his twin blades down one after the other so that there was no pause between strikes. Coriano blocked each blow on his sheathed sword, his scarred face bored and impassive. Josef tried striking low, high, and both sides at once, testing for weaknesses, but every blow was knocked aside with the same easy indifference, no matter how fast he struck. Finally, Josef tried a wild attack, striking high and low simultaneously while leaving his middle deliberately unguarded. The other swordsman ducked the high blow, slid the low off his wooden sheath, and ignored the easy opening all together. After that, Josef lowered his swords and stepped back.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping the sweaty dust out of his eyes with the back of his hand, “but if we’re going to fight, you have to do more than block. It also helps if you draw your sword, I’m told.”
Coriano planted his sheathed blade in the dirt and leaned on it. “I’ll draw my sword when you draw yours.”
“I don’t get what you mean,” Josef said, swinging his twin blades in a whistling arc.
“Well,” Coriano said, straightening up. “If that’s the case, I’m going to have to start breaking your toys until you do.”
Josef opened his mouth to say something rude, but before he had taken a breath, Coriano was there, his sheathed sword pressed deep into Josef’s stomach. Josef went sprawling in the dirt, and only years of training brought his swords up in time to block the next blow before it landed on his head. If Coriano’s blocks had been fast before, his blows were in another category altogether. The next one fell before Josef realized the scarred man had lifted his blade, and the force slammed Josef into the ground. A cloud of dust shot up at the impact, and a long crack appeared in the wooden sheath of Coriano’s sword. Sprawled on his back, Josef brought both swords in a cross over his chest, blocking the next blow on both blades, inches from his face. Coriano’s cracked sheath shattered on impact, sending wood flying in every direction, and Josef found himself staring down the blade of the most beautiful sword he had ever seen.
It was pure white from tip to guard, unembellished, except for a slight wavering shimmer along the sharpened edge that glittered like new snow in the dusty light. The hilt was wrapped in blood-red silk, but the bright color paled beneath the sword’s cold, dancing light.
“River of White Snow,” Coriano whispered. “Dunea.”
He pushed down, and the shimmering white edge cut through Josef’s crossed blades like paper to bury itself in the swordsman’s chest. Pain exploded where the blade bit down, darkening his vision, and Josef gasped, forcing his lungs to work. Coriano only smiled and pushed his blade farther, clearly intending to pin Josef to the dirt like a butterfly on a board. With a desperate heave, Josef flung the hilt of his broken blade at the swordsman’s face, aiming for his scarred eye. Coriano jumped back, and Josef scrambled to his feet, clutching his chest with one hand and the remaining broken blade with the other.
It was still hard to see, and every breath hurt like another stab, but Josef forced himself to be calm. The cut was small but deep, sticking right below
the sternum. It hadn’t hit his heart, and it hadn’t hit his lungs, but it was bleeding in a torrent down his shirt.
Coriano looked him over casually, the white sword balanced perfectly in his hands. “No time for licking wounds,” he said, and lunged.
Josef tossed his ruined sword on the ground and drew a short blade from his belt just in time to parry. However, his parry turned into a rolling dodge as Coriano’s white sword snapped the knife neatly in two without losing speed or direction. The white edge simply cut through the metal like it was not there.
Josef rolled to his feet again and shakily drew another blade from his boot. Coriano gave him a scornful look.
“Come now,” he said. “Surely you don’t intend to keep insulting us with your dull blades?” He whirled his sword, and Josef could almost hear the snowy blade singing as it cut the air. “You must have realized what she is by now. Why do you not draw your sword?”
Josef’s hand went to the hilt of the great iron sword on his back. Coriano’s grin grew delighted, and he brought Dunea back to her ready position as Josef’s hand gripped the wrapped handle. As he began to lift the iron blade, his fingers turned deftly and his hand flew out, flashing silver. Coriano sliced the first knife out of the air, but he was a hair too slow for the second. The throwing knife grazed his shoulder as he dodged, leaving a long, bloody gash.
Josef straightened up with an enormous grin on his face and three more knives fanned between his fingers. “Not yet,” he said, tossing a knife and catching it in his free hand. “I’m not out of things to throw at you.”
Coriano gritted his teeth, but as he leaned forward for another lunge, his posture changed. Just before kicking off, he stopped and shivered like a cat dipped in cold water. Josef lowered his knives a fraction and watched in confusion as the other swordsman clutched his sword to his chest like it was a frightened child. The wizard wind driving the storm around them died as suddenly as it had begun, and the dust fell to the ground with unnatural speed, as if something was pressing it down.
“That idiot,” Coriano whispered, clutching his sword as the white light flew in wild patterns across the blade. “That short-sighted, power-drunk fool.”
Josef shifted his weight, easing the knives between his fingers, waiting to see what kind of ruse this was, but the scarred swordsman lowered his sword and gave a little bow. “We’ll have to finish this another time, Mr. Liechten,” he said with annoyance. “Things are about to become very unpleasant. If your Eli has an escape set up, I suggest you use it.”
“You can’t be serious,” Josef said. “You can’t run now; we were just getting started!”
Coriano smiled back at him. “I have tracked you for a very long time, too long to waste my one chance on a wizard’s stupidity. Don’t worry, we’ll meet again very soon. Then, Mr. Liechten, I promise, I will make you draw the Heart of War.”
“Wait,” Josef called out, but Coriano was walking away through the falling dust. Josef hurled his knife into the dirt a finger’s width from the scarred man’s feet. “I said wait!”
But Coriano kept walking, disappearing like a shadow into the trees at the clearing’s edge. Josef ran after him for a few steps, but the pain was too much. Clutching his burning chest, he reached into his pocket with a grimace and pulled out one of the long strips of cloth he kept for occasions like this. He wrapped it around his chest, binding the wound as tight as he could. The angle was awkward, but it stemmed the bleeding for now. He could have Nico redo it later, if there was a later. The wound was quickly dropping down his list of priorities. There was a ringing growing in his ears, a high-pitched wail just out of his hearing. It reminded him of the dull buzzing he heard in Eli’s voice whenever the wizard talked to rocks or trees or whatever he wasted his time with—only this was more frantic, and it was getting louder.
As the dust cleared completely, he could see Nico on the other side of the circular clearing standing over a pile of groaning soldiers. She was looking away from him, watching something. He followed her gaze and saw Eli. Their thief was standing over the downed Spiritualist and her dog, who looked to be out of the fight, but Eli’s attention was on the tall, blond leader of the Mellinor troops, who was the only other person besides themselves still standing as the dust settled. The man was saying something, but all Josef could hear was that high-pitched whine, more like a pressure than a sound. Then the man opened his fist and everything went to hell.
The scream shot through her, driving everything else from Miranda’s mind. Only the sharp pain of her bruises and the feel of grit in her mouth told her she was writhing in the dirt. Still, her eyes were open, and she watched in horror as the screaming sphere broke apart completely, becoming a black cloud of glittering particles. A cloud that was growing.
“Miranda,” Eli said, his voice cutting cleanly through the panic. She barely felt his hands as he grabbed her shoulders and dragged her to her feet, but his voice was clear and commanding. Somewhere in her garbled mind, she realized that he was speaking to her like she was a spirit. “Leave right now.”
He let her go, and she nearly toppled over. Only Gin’s cold nose pressed into her back kept her from falling.
“He’s right,” the hound whined, ears flat. “That thing is insane. We leave now.”
Miranda opened her mouth to protest, but Gin didn’t give her a chance. He ran for the forest with Miranda clutched like a pup between his teeth and the still-unconscious king bouncing on his back. Miranda was screaming something about Eli, but the hound didn’t stop, and he never once looked back.
As soon as the ghosthound disappeared into the woods, Eli turned and ran as hard as he could in the other direction, nearly colliding with Josef and Nico.
“What are you doing?” Eli yelled, grabbing them both. “I told you to get to the boulder!” He did a double take when he saw the bloodstain across most of Josef’s shirt. “What happened to you?”
“Never mind that!” Josef shouted. “Where’s the gold?”
“I’ll explain later!” Eli shouted back, yanking them both toward the rock at the clearing’s edge. “Just run!”
Josef nodded and started running. If the situation was serious enough for Eli to abandon cash, then this was not the time to argue. They tore across the clearing, ignoring the growing roar behind them. Even Josef could hear it now, a high-pitched screaming that rubbed his nerves raw. It was like an injured child’s scream, but there was nothing human in this sound and it did not stop for breath. Josef shuddered and kept running.
Eli was shouting at the rock even before they reached the clearing’s edge. However, the rock didn’t seem to be answering, because Eli slid to a halt just in front of it and started to gesture frantically as a dark shadow fell across them.
Josef whirled around, grabbing one of his remaining knives just so he didn’t have to face whatever it was empty-handed. But even a blade in his hand didn’t make him feel better when he saw what was behind them. Across the clearing, an enormous tower of black cloud loomed over the blasted ground where Renaud had been standing only moments ago. Billows of dark dust, black and glistening like volcanic glass, spun impossibly fast in the windless sky, rising in great swirls that blotted out the sun. As if it had been waiting for him to turn around, the cloud’s wailing reached a frantic pitch, and it began to move forward.
“Eli,” Josef said over his shoulder, “whatever you’re doing, could you do it a little faster?”
Eli gave him a biting look before turning back to the boulder. Josef backed up a step, pressing Nico into the stone. The cloud was not heading at them directly. Instead, it skirted the edge of the clearing, keeping close to the forest. The trees leaned back when the billowing black dust came near, lifting their branches high in the air, as if they were trying to get out of its way. Then the screaming storm touched a tree that had the misfortune of growing too far out, and Josef saw why. As soon as the spinning black gusts connected with the branches, they disintegrated. The cyclone passed over the tree as if
it were not there, reducing it to sawdust without effort or notice, and without slowing its progress toward the huddled group by the boulder.
“Eli,” Josef said again, “now would be good.”
“Got it!” Eli shouted. “All right, go!”
“Go where?!” Josef yelled frantically. The cloud was almost on top of them, filling his vision from ground to sky. That was the last thing he saw before the rock swallowed him.
CHAPTER 14
Miranda didn’t realize she had passed out until she woke up sore, stiff, dirty, and uncomfortably damp. She was propped on Gin’s paw, and as soon as she moved, his long snout filled her vision.
“How are you feeling?”
Miranda thought about it, and winced. “Like someone’s beaten me, eaten me, and thrown me up again.”
She ignored his disgusted look and pulled herself up by his fur. “That went well,” she muttered, cleaning the grit out of her mouth with a less dirty corner of her riding coat. “Somehow, I’m not surprised Coriano was there. I’d love to know what that enslaver’s paying him to make him toss out his good reputation with the Spirit Court.”
“I don’t think it’s always about money with that one,” Gin said thoughtfully. “He smells more of blood than gold to me.”
Miranda grimaced. “Well, that’s a problem for later,” on top of the mountain of problems they already faced. “Right now, we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about Renaud.”
Gin laid his ears back. “Men like that don’t deserve to be wizards. Sandstorms may be stupid, but no spirit deserves what he did. It’s even worse than being eaten by a demon. At least then you’re just dead rather than jabbering insane and balled up in some maniac’s pocket.”