Ward Against Disaster

by Melanie Card

  The workman jerked Ward, shaking him. Ward grabbed at the man’s hand wrapped in his shirt, but his fingers were numb. All of him was numb.

  “She will be mine. We’ll make her bleed together.”

  “No,” Ward gasped.

  “Oh, yes. And we’ll enjoy it.” He tossed Ward aside and raced past him.

  Ward’s legs wouldn’t hold him, and he dropped to his knees. Celia didn’t stop. She kept after the workman who leapt onto the railing, spread his arms, and jumped. Manic laughter followed him, echoing around and around until the sound surrounded them.

  Seven

  Ward hugged himself, desperate to get warm even though it was the height of summer. He’d climbed to his feet seconds after the workman had leapt from the railing and now stood in the full light of a beautiful sunset, but he still couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. He also couldn’t get the workman’s words from his mind—he would succumb to the blood magic lure, he’d make Celia bleed, and…Goddess, he’d enjoy it. No. That would never happen.

  That man… The blackness devouring his eyes…

  Ward felt as if his brain had been frozen as well.

  Scalding hot hands wrapped around his arm and a feminine voice said something. Celia. She’d never felt so warm and alive before.

  He forced himself to focus past the ice within to the fire of her touch.

  “If you hadn’t been—” The hands squeezed tighter, and Ward realized it was Ingrith, not Celia, clutching him. The girl’s eyes grew watery, but she sniffed and blinked back the tears. “Thank you, my lord Quayestri.”

  “No, I’m not—”

  “Not a full Quayestri.” Celia’s voice matched the chill within him. “Isn’t that right, apprentice Inquisitor de’Ath?”

  And here he was again, in less than a week, being reminded that he was supposed to be someone else. At least this time he could use his real name.

  “Apprentice Inquisitor.” Ingrith’s grasp loosened, but she didn’t release him like he’d expected. Most people were afraid of the Inquisitor’s abilities. Or at least everyone Ward had come across feared them. Perhaps noblemen’s daughters were different. He didn’t know any noblewomen other than Celia, and she wasn’t even close to being a normal anything.

  Ingrith stroked his arm, the heat from her palm searing through his shirt. “We should call for the physician. You’re injured.”

  Celia’s eyes narrowed. “We’re all injured. Save for you and the Lady Rhia.”

  “Yes, thanks to apprentice Inquisitor de’Ath.” Ingrith reached for his shirt. “We should take this off and see how bad it is.”

  Ward swallowed back a squeak and grabbed her hands before she could undress him. He glanced at Celia for help, but her expression was wry, amused at his discomfort. Just great! There’d be no help from her.

  “I’m fine. We should—” Goddess. Between the ice and the word help racing over and over through his mind, he had no idea what he should do.

  Nazarius strode across the patio toward them, still holding his sword and long dagger, both blades dripping blood. “Everyone all right?”

  Ward inched away from Ingrith, who thankfully didn’t close the distance. “Fine.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Nazarius said.

  Celia rolled her eyes. “We’ve been over this.”

  “I’m fine, really.” It was just a scratch he couldn’t feel, anyway. Once the ice within him finally melted that might be a different story, but for now, he wished everyone would stop looking at him.

  The sergeant, with a half a dozen guards, stormed the patio. He glared at Ward, Celia, and Nazarius but marched to Talbot instead. Jotham shifted beside Talbot, a bloody dagger in his hand hanging at his side. Even the Seer had been armed. Of course, if he thought this madness was due to a burgeoning cult, not to mention his belief that the duke couldn’t be trusted, he’d embrace whatever protection he could find.

  Except it wasn’t just some cult. That wasn’t the root of the problems in the city. The workman’s black eyes made that clear.

  It was a rith, an angry spirit.

  Along with the workman’s smoky eyes, the freezing touch was evidence of a spirit possession. And since this had started with an execution, it was likely that man’s spirit hadn’t crossed the veil and was stuck, raging in the world of the living.

  Goddess above. Ward had never before encountered a rith powerful enough to possess a man—and he didn’t want to think about how the rith had known that Ward had been forced to use blood magic, making him cross the boundary from a good necromancer to a black one, an Innecroestri.

  “Come on.” Nazarius clasped a heavy, burning hand on Ward’s shoulder and dragged him from his thoughts. “Let’s get cleaned up, again. And you probably should have that looked at.”

  “I’m fine.” Why wouldn’t any of them believe him? They knew he’d survived worse.

  Talbot barked Ingrith’s name. She jumped, her hands reaching for Ward, but thankfully she didn’t grab him again. “I have to go.”

  “Yes,” Celia said.

  “I—”

  “Ingrith!”

  Her gaze leapt across the patio to her father, her eyes wide and face pale.

  “Ingrith, your brother’s widow needs attending.”

  Rhia clasped her hands under her belly, the voluminous folds of her dress billowing out, making her belly look even bigger. She looked fine, better than Ingrith, but she didn’t deny Talbot’s demands.

  The sergeant and his men started gathering the workmen’s bodies, but Talbot remained, staring at Ingrith as if he could glare her into obedience.

  A soldier yanked his sword from his sheath and pointed it at a man laying face down in a pool of blood. “This one’s still alive.”

  Talbot jerked his chin at Ingrith, who dropped into a curtsy. “Yes, my lord,” she mumbled, even though her father wouldn’t be able to hear her, and rushed to Rhia.

  “Take Rhia to her chambers and stay there. I’ll summon you when dinner is served.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Ingrith bobbed again.

  Her subservience made Ward’s stomach churn, but it wasn’t his business. He’d already proven he was a fool for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong with both Celia and Allette. He wouldn’t make the same mistake a third time.

  Rhia draped her arm around Ingrith’s shoulders, hugged her to her side, and led her from the patio.

  Talbot watched the women leave, his expression hard. He turned to Ward. “All right, Inquisitor, work your magic.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want to know what’s going on.” Talbot pointed his bloody sword at the man lying on the ground. The soldier had said the workman was still alive, although from the amount of blood pooled around him, Ward couldn’t fathom how. The man certainly wouldn’t be alive for much longer if someone didn’t do something.

  Except it looked like the something necessary to save him was extreme, requiring surgery, and would ruin the lie that Ward was a Quayestri. Then Talbot’s words broke through the icy fog in his mind. “You want me to what?”

  “Read the man. Find the memory that reveals his plan to murder my unborn heir.”

  “I, ah—” Ward glanced at Nazarius and prayed the Tracker would somehow save him.

  “Guilt has already been determined. You don’t need to waste apprentice Inquisitor de’Ath’s time and energy with a reading. We all saw these men attack the Lady Rhia. We have other, more pressing, matters to attend to.”

  Talbot’s eyes narrowed. “Like this field training of yours.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Nazarius lifted his chin as if daring Talbot to question him further or make another demand. “We are the Seers’ men…and lady. If you require Quayestri, the Seer of Dulthyne can put in a request.”

  “I’m sure he already has,” Talbot said, his voice dark. “I would have thought you were the answer to that.”

  “Surprisingly, no. But our training has put us out of touch with the Council for a
number of weeks.”

  Ward couldn’t believe how easy Nazarius lied. It was just like Celia—he opened his mouth, false statements poured out, and nothing about him indicated he said anything but truth.

  The Tracker even raised a dark eyebrow, another dare. Who was the bigger man on the patio? Position in the noble hierarchy didn’t matter when the Seers’ Grewdian Council was involved, although a Quayestri who upset a powerful nobleman could lose his head if the insult was great enough.

  Talbot growled. “I have more important things to worry about. Don’t get in my way.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Nazarius gave so slight a bow it was an insult.

  The muscles in Talbot’s jaw twitched. “Clean this mess up,” he barked at the soldiers and stormed off the patio.

  “Couldn’t you have just read the man?” Jotham asked, his voice low.

  Nazarius wiped his blades clean on the corpse beside him before the soldiers dragged the body away. “Readings require a lot of energy for some Inquisitors. I’d rather not waste Ward’s talents here on a dying man whose guilt is already obvious.”

  Jotham glanced around the patio. The soldiers were now at least ten or more feet away. “So, not only do you have two apprentices, your Inquisitor isn’t even that strong?”

  “Don’t underestimate Ward,” Celia said.

  “Why are we talking about me as if I’m not here?” Ward asked. Admittedly, he wasn’t entirely sure what the conversation was about, but he was tired of having things happen to him. From now on, he was going to make things happen.

  “Sorry. You saw—” Jotham gestured to the patio. Blood still smeared and pooled on the white patio stones. Two more soldiers picked up the last workman’s body on the far side and three servants with buckets, brushes, and mops had started cleaning the other side. “It has to be the cult.”

  The word cult sent a chill racing across Ward’s chest. He hugged himself against the sensation, which ignited a spark of pain from the cut. At least the ice from the rith’s touch was finally melting.

  “Those men, they— There was no reason for them to have attacked Rhia, or anyone. They’ve been carving the entrance to the Talbot family crypt for the last three years,” Jotham said.

  Through the lattice of scaffolding, thick pillars carved into the mountain face rose on both sides of a wide entrance. At the top corner on the left, a woman’s head and cloth-draped torso reclined against a… Ward couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. The rest of the body had yet to be finished. Another figure, a mirror image to the first, had been started on the other side.

  “We’ll help you, but we also can’t abandon our original assignment,” Nazarius said. “If our murderer starts killing people, the situation will only get worse.”

  “About that—” Another chill swept through Ward. He didn’t want to reveal what he knew about the rith, since Quayestri, like almost everyone in the Union, didn’t know how to recognize a rith, but the truth would expedite the situation and get them back to the real danger at hand: Allette. However, he could at least be smart about revealing information. “Let’s get cleaned up and discuss our next step.”

  Nazarius clasped Jotham’s arm. “See? We’re helping already.”

  Jotham rubbed his temples and glanced at Celia. From his expression, she measured up, but when he turned to Ward, his expression darkened. Ward wasn’t even close to measuring up.

  That assessment was going to become even worse when Ward revealed he was also a necromancer. While it wasn’t unheard of for the Goddess to bless a man with more than one magical gift, it was extremely rare. Although, perhaps they might get away with the lie. Inquisitors weren’t common, and the Council conscripted anyone with even a hint of the Inquisitor’s gift.

  The black smoke oozing from the workman’s eyes flashed into Ward’s mind’s eye. Celia would bleed. Ward would enjoy it.

  It didn’t matter if he ruined Nazarius’s lie. The rith had to be stopped, and now, before it gained any more strength. This, at least, was something he knew how to handle.

  Eight

  They climbed the stairs back up to the Quayestri suite, Ward’s chest aching more and more from the cut. Inside, he cleared his throat and glanced at Celia, who’d only taken a few steps into the sitting room, and Nazarius, who stood beside her. Jotham closed the door and leaned against it. All eyes were on Ward. Here it came. The moment when he’d ruin everyone’s plans.

  He sucked in a quick breath, drawing a spike of pain. Goddess damn their plans. He was tired of playing by someone else’s rules. Celia’s, Macerio’s, Allette’s, and now Nazarius’s. He wouldn’t let anyone become this rith’s puppet next. “Your cult is being fueled by a rith.”

  “Ward—” Nazarius said, his voice low.

  Celia’s pale eyes widened for a heartbeat then narrowed.

  Ward leveled his calmest—and probably most exhausted—expression on Nazarius. “Have you ever known me to lie?”

  “Well there was that time in that hall in Brawenal—”

  “Just because you…convinced me to do something I’d sworn off doing doesn’t mean I lied to you at the time.” It was the first time he’d met the Tracker, in Brawenal City and the man had threatened to kill Ward if he didn’t perform an illegal surgery to save his Inquisitor partner.

  Celia’s expression darkened even more. Another long conversation was being added to the list of long conversations awaiting him. He was sure Nazarius was adding one to the list as well.

  “What in the Dark Son’s name are you talking about?” Jotham jerked away from the door.

  Nazarius ran a hand over his short-cropped hair. “Ward is saying—”

  “That I’m also a necromancer.”

  Jotham’s gaze jumped from Ward to Nazarius and back to Ward again. The Seer opened his mouth and snapped it shut.

  “It’s complicated,” Celia said.

  “Very complicated,” Nazarius said.

  “Not really.” If Ward wasn’t cold and sore and tired of complicated, he would have found the situation funny. It certainly was saner than anything else he’d faced in the last couple of weeks. This could be explained. “My family, the de’Aths, are necromancers.”

  “De’Ath? A little necromancer humor?” Jotham asked, his tone dry.

  “Sadly, so. But what’s important is even if I didn’t have the necromancer’s ability, I’d know a rith when I saw one. I’m not a particularly strong necromancer, but I’m assuming because this spirit didn’t cross the veil there wasn’t a necromancer at the execution.” He could count the times on one hand he’d been this forthright—and all had been in the last two weeks. But really, lying to a Seer was usually a dumb idea, even if that lie had been a lie by omission. Here was hoping a bit of truth wouldn’t make the Seer suspicious enough to search out any other details with his Goddess-given ability. “Riths, particularly those of men killed by violence, or in this case execution, can be extremely vengeful.”

  “You think it’s the executed foreman?” Jotham asked.

  Celia perched on the arm of the couch. “I thought riths could only cause strange noises or make things fly about the room.”

  “I thought riths were nothing but myths.” Nazarius said.

  “You’d be surprised what isn’t myth,” Celia said.

  Nazarius’s frown deepened. Celia glared at him. Leaving those two alone was a terrible idea.

  “Can we not make this anymore complicated than it already is?” Ward asked, meaning the tension between the two.

  Celia turned her pale gaze on him. She offered a too-sweet smile—she had to know exactly what he’d meant—and tucked a black lock of hair behind her ear. “You said it wasn’t complicated.”

  “The rith isn’t. Yes, I think it’s the executed foreman. Yes, most riths are harmless…more or less. But some, with great anger, can possess a man with similar anger or goals.”

  “Like the cult?” Celia asked.

  “The cult is probably fueling the rith, giving it m
ore energy. That could explain the slaughtered animals, the bloody writing on the walls, and the chaos in the marketplace.” Except Ward had never seen or heard of a case in which a rith had so much power. Even the ones Grandfather had said he’d faced hadn’t had the strength to cause a riot.

  “So getting rid of this rith will solve the problem?” Jotham didn’t sound convinced. People usually weren’t when it came to things they didn’t understand or believe in.

  “Once the rith is banished, it won’t be able to incite anyone else. You may still need to arrest the cult leader or leaders but the situation shouldn’t continue, not on the same level of insanity.”

  Jotham pursed his lips, accentuating his sculpted cheeks, which turned the refined features sharp, and stared at Ward as if he could see inside his soul. He couldn’t, but he would all too soon realize Ward’s future had nothing to do with being an Inquisitor. If it was anything like the last two weeks, it was probably dark and bloody.

  A shiver swept over Ward and he struggled not to let it show.

  “Fine,” Jotham said. “What do you need to banish this rith?”

  Ward clenched his hands. Here was the moment when people realized just how dark necromancy was. They had no idea how fine the line was between being a necromancer and becoming an Innecroestri. Ward hadn’t even fully realized the truth until a few days ago when he’d been forced to cast magic that went against the necromancer’s code to protect the balance between life and death. “I need a quart of animal’s blood, preferably from a single source, four pieces of clear rock crystal, and four springs of hyssop or rue.”

  And a whole lot of praying that he had enough necromantic ability to make this work…although, in the last couple of weeks he’d done some pretty spectacular things. If he had enough blood, he could do anything—

  No, that was the blood lure speaking. He needed to do this with as little blood as possible and whatever gifts the Goddess had given him, no more.

  Jotham swallowed hard. “Anything else?”