by Moira Sutton
It bothered Jeric too. He could feel his lover’s nervousness, though he knew if he looked down he’d see Jeric’s face as stern as ever. But there was nothing they could do for Zoa now except get the emperor out as fast as possible, so Izar forced himself to focus on his climb as he broke free of the tree’s crown at last. He had to scramble the last five feet to the balcony with no cover at all, but fortunately the guards who kept the Royal Quarter safe also ensured that the streets stayed empty, so there was no one to see.
When he reached the wooden railing, Izar peeked inside. The balcony opened into a small alcove that was attached to the large bedroom where the emperor was supposedly staying. He could hear voices inside, a man’s foolish drunken slur followed by giggles from at least two different woman, but he couldn’t see anyone yet. That suited Izar just fine. Silently, he climbed over the railing and dropped to a crouch, pulling on the rope to signal Jeric to come up.
The Chosen made the climb far faster than Izar had, landing silent as a cat beside his captain less than a minute later. Izar shook his head. “You’re going to give me a complex.”
“Makes up for all those times you made me look flat footed,” Jeric whispered. He gave Izar a smile and then his face grew serious again, pointing toward farther inside. Izar nodded, and together they crept along the wall and peered inside the dark bedroom.
Izar had to clamp his jaw to keep from whooping in delight. There, lying spread like a pig for slaughter on a huge bed, was Emperor Vallus. The father of the nation was naked and, if his speech was any indication, sodden drunk. There were two women with him, both well endowed and giggling as he sloppily shoved his face into their bare breasts between gulps of wine from the cups they held for him. Other than those three, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room. It was so perfect, Izar was starting to believe Dezira really was on their side when he felt a stab of shock through his connection with Jeric.
He looked at once, and then flinched back with a surprised jerk of his own. There was another person in the room. It was a man, a huge one. He was standing in the corner still as a statue, which was why Izar hadn’t seen him at first. He was dressed head to toe in golden armor, and if that wasn’t sign enough of his vocation, the sword in his hands, its hilt and guard wrought in a stylized sunburst, removed all doubt. They’d found the missing Avatar of Solus, the Sun’s Chosen.
But though the Avatar was less than ten feet away, he didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. He just stood in the corner, staring at his emperor, his eyes sharp in the lamplight. He didn’t seem to have seen them at all, which, considering the stories Izar had heard about the Sun’s Chosen, seemed very, very unlikely. They watched him for a full minute, but the Avatar didn’t move a muscle, and he didn’t look away from Vallus, even when the old man lay back and started making the girls drink wine out of his bellybutton.
“What is wrong with him?” Izar whispered when he and Jeric retreated to the dark balcony. “He’s acting like he’s drugged.”
“Never heard of a drug that could do that,” Jeric said. “His eyes are sharp, not clouded, but they don’t look at anything except the emperor. I don’t think he’d see us if we danced in front of him.”
“Sounds like he’s been spelled to me,” Izar said, scratching his chin. “But you can’t spell a Chosen, can you?”
“Not that I know of,” Jeric said, leaning over to look at the Sun’s Chosen one more time. “I wish Zoa was here. The power is very thick in this room, especially around the Chosen. I can actually feel it pressing down on him, almost like the magic is grabbing him, but I’m not formally trained in Chosen magic yet, so I have no idea what that means.”
Something about the way Jeric said that made several thoughts click together in Izar’s head. “Wait,” he whispered. “The giant spell Zoa was talking about, the one Toric cast on the dark of the moon with days of built up power, do you think that would be enough to spell one of the Sun’s Chosen?”
Jeric’s eyebrows shot up, and then his frown deepened. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “But that would explain a few things.”
Izar sat back on his heels. It was a frustrating position. On the one hand, the emperor was right there. Izar could practically touch him if he leaned out far enough. On the other, the Sun’s Avatar was also right there, and spelled or not, if he was in the same room as the emperor and doing nothing to stop Vallus, he probably wasn’t on their side. Izar had come expecting guards, or maybe Toric himself. Solus’ Chosen was a contingency he hadn’t planned for, but then, no plan survived the first encounter with the enemy. There was nothing for it but to push ahead. After all, they hadn’t come this far to stare at the emperor and then go home.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Izar said quietly, drawing his sword. “I want you to put those girls and Vallus to sleep. After that, you’ll grab the emperor and use that insane speed of yours to get him out of here. I’ll keep the Chosen off you.”
“No,” Jeric said. “Let me take the Chosen. I’m—”
“Stronger,” Izar finished. “I’m well aware, but that’s why you have to get Vallus. I’m not strong enough to carry his bloated weight down by myself, and he’s certainly not going to leave that willingly.” He nodded to the emperor, who was now licking one of his girls while the other poured wine over her. “We’ll be fast. Who knows? Maybe the Chosen won’t even attack. Maybe Toric spelled him dumb and is using him for decoration, like a stuffed bear.”
Jeric did not look happy about the plan at all, but then he nodded in the end. They stood up together, and then Izar felt the strange reaching feeling from Jeric’s bond that he’d come to recognize as spellcasting, and the girl pouring the wine suddenly keeled over, dead asleep. The girl the emperor was licking went next, falling unconscious between giggles. Vallus was so drunk it took him a second to realize the girls were no longer responding, but by that point, Jeric and Izar were on him.
Izar felt Jeric stab a sleep spell at the emperor as he had the girls, but nothing happened. The emperor just sat there, blinking dumbly at the passed out girls on the bed.
“Jeric!” Izar hissed, turning his full attention to the Chosen, who hadn’t moved a muscle.
“He’s protected,” Jeric whispered back, his voice disgusted. “Toric’s power is all over him. The man’s out of his mind with lust.”
The emperor must not have been that far gone, though, because the moment Jeric went to grab him, he scrambled away with surprising speed. “Marcus!” he screamed.
Izar winced at the loud shout and glanced at the door to the hall. But no soldiers came through. Instead, the Avatar of the Sun looked up, his sharp eyes following the emperor’s flight.
Jeric grabbed the emperor on his second try, picking the naked man up. The emperor squealed like a caught pig, kicking and flailing. “Marcus!” he shouted again. “Marcus, you son of a whore! Kill them!”
Izar cursed and whirled around, sword up as the Sun’s Chosen shook from head to foot and stepped forward. “I hear you, my emperor,” he said, his voice deep and rhythmic, like he was reciting a ritual. “And I obey.”
“Jeric!” Izar shouted. “Get Vallus out of here!”
He felt Jeric’s hesitation through the bond, and then for a brief moment, he saw himself through Jeric’s eyes, a strong, beloved figure reduced to something tiny and fragile before the enormous, armored power of the Avatar.
“The hell I am!” Izar shouted, moving to stand between Jeric and the Chosen. “Follow the damn plan, solider. Get the emperor to safety or this is all for nothing. Go! I’ll be fine.”
Pain filtered through the bond along with love so deep it made Izar stagger, and then Jeric was gone, jumping out the window with the emperor held under one arm like a sack of grain.
As he jumped, Izar moved to put himself between the Avatar and the balcony. Marcus was obviously working for the emperor, so it only made sense that his master’s safety would be his first priority, but the Chosen made no move
to follow Jeric. Instead, he lifted his sword, the great, golden blade set with Solus’ sun, and began to advance slowly on Izar.
The captain bit his lip. He was no slouch swordsman, but this was a bad match. The enormous Avatar had four inches and at least fifty pounds on him, and that wasn’t counting the armor. His two-handed sword could crush Izar’s infantry blade like clay, and the small bedroom wasn’t large enough for Izar’s superior, unencumbered speed to make a difference, assuming he actually was faster. He wouldn’t put it past the Sun’s Chosen to be able to outrun him in full armor.
But for now, the Chosen was moving slowly, and Izar kept his distance. He kept well away from the balcony as well, drawing the Chosen back toward a closed door that, he knew from his map, led to the emperor’s dressing chamber. “What, Marcus?” He said, buying time. “Not going to save your emperor?”
“My order is to kill you,” Marcus said, his voice flat and resonant with that same chanting quality as before. “I hear and obey.”
“Good for you,” Izar said, kicking the door open behind him.
The Chosen was still moving slowly, and Izar took his chance. The moment he was inside the dressing chamber, he darted sideways, jumping behind a large bronze floor lamp that reached almost to the ceiling. The Avatar had charged the moment Izar ducked out of sight, and as he came through the door, the captain hit the lamp with all his might, bracing his leg against the wall. The lamp fell with a crash, its heavy bronze body landing square on the Chosen’s golden shoulders.
Izar had danced away the moment the lamp tipped, retreating to the large, clothes-strewn alcove where the emperor dressed. He had no illusions a lamp would kill a Chosen of Solus, but he’d hope it would at least slow him down enough for Izar to think of his next clever plan. That hope died as quickly as it had sprung, however, for Marcus didn’t even seem to feel the heavy lamp land across his shoulders. He just kept coming, his face calm and passive, the dark eyes too focused as his great sword flew up to cut Izar down.
The captain didn’t give him a chance. He ran for the large silver mirror that stood against the wall and slid behind it. He heard the clang of Marcus’ boots as the Avatar began to run in, but right before the thunderous steps reached him, Izar braced his legs against the mirror and shoved.
The lamp had been heavy, maybe fifty pounds. But the emperor’s mirror was eight feet of polished silver set in a heavy gold frame, and even the Sun’s Chosen couldn’t bear up under its weight. Marcus went down hard, the mirror landing on top of him, and Izar moved in for the kill. He jumped on top of the toppled mirror, slamming it down again, and then he brought his sword down on the place where the golden armor’s shoulder guard met the arm. His strike was true, and his sword slid between the heavy golden plates straight into the Avatar’s biceps.
Marcus screamed as the sword bit into him, and the sound was not the deep, ritualistic intonation from before, but a normal man’s cry of pain and rage. That gave Izar a flash of hope and he turned his blade in the wound. Marcus screamed again, and then the mirror flew backward as the Chosen shoved it up with one hand. Caught by surprise, Izar flew with it, slamming into the wall with the mirror on top of him.
The impact left him stunned, and then pain shot through him. The blow had knocked his breath out, and for a moment, Izar’s only concern was air. Eventually, his lungs thundered back to life and he slid down the wall behind the cover of the mirror to assess the damage. He’d dented the timbers in the wall behind him and his ribs were cracked for sure, but other than that, nothing major felt broken. He could use his arms and legs, and though it hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes, he could move. That was the important thing as Marcus’ sword slammed into the mirror above him, slicing through the thick silver like it was paper.
Izar cursed and fled, rolling across the floor to come up again on the other side of the dressing area. Marcus was still standing over the wrecked mirror, his shoulders heaving. The arm Izar had stabbed hung useless at his side, but there was a lot less blood than there should have been from such a wound. The injury didn’t seem to be slowing the Avatar down, either. The second Izar stopped moving, Marcus turned on his heel and charged, his sword raised in his good arm to come down on Izar’s head.
The captain raised his sword to parry on instinct, a foolish choice. The short blade shattered like pottery under the Avatar’s sword, leaving nothing but air between the sun blade and Izar’s skull. But Izar was not called the fox for nothing. The second his blade broke, he let his legs go limp. He collapsed to the floor, folding into a heap as the blow flew right through the space where he had been to stick in the wall behind him, buried to the hilt.
Marcus’ face contorted into fury, the first actual expression Izar had seen him make, but the captain didn’t stick around to contemplate what that meant. He darted away, rolling past the Chosen and onto his feet. The second he was up, he sprinted back toward the bedroom and the rope leading down. The tree wasn’t far; if he jumped, he could catch himself in the branches and lose the Chosen in the dark. Jeric and the emperor would be well gone by now, and anything was better than being stuck swordless in this tiny space with Marcus the rampaging Chosen.
He made it all the way to the bedroom door before Marcus caught him. The Avatar tackled him, his weight throwing Izar to the stone floor hard enough to crush the air out of him again. Izar screamed as the fall hit his already cracked ribs, jerking his head aside just in time as Marcus’ sword slammed into the floor.
The dodge had been a lucky guess, but Izar’s luck was about to run out. Marcus was on top of him now, crushing him under a mountain of muscle and metal as he raised his sword for the final strike that would take off Izar’s head. The captain couldn’t even move enough to get his hands up to look for another weapon. All he could do was close his eyes and pray to Dezira or Solus or whatever god would listen that Jeric and Zoa would make out better than he had.
But as he heard the blade whistle through air above him, another sensation rose up around him, a reach in his mind stronger than any he’d felt before, and the falling sword stopped.
Izar blinked. He was surrounded by bright, white light, but the pain in his ribs and the crushing weight on his back told him he wasn’t dead, not yet anyway. Not being dead, he twisted his head around to see why and found himself staring up at a thoroughly frustrated and confused-looking Marcus, whose sword was stuck in a band of shining white power not five inches above Izar’s head.
“No,” said a deep, beloved voice.
Izar twisted his head again to see Jeric standing in the door to the emperor’s bedroom, his hands flung out as though to catch something and the white moon shining like a torch on his forehead. Marcus made a deep, angry sound, but Jeric’s eyes only narrowed. “He is ours,” he said, his voice furious and determined. “You will not take him.”
Seeing Jeric standing there, Izar felt the strangest mix of joy and terror he’d ever experienced. Joy, because Jeric had come for him. Of course he had. Even before they’d become lovers, Jeric had always come for him. There was no one who could match Jeric for loyalty, and he’d saved Izar’s life more times than the captain could count. But the joy at seeing him was poisoned by the fear that Jeric was now in range to be hurt by Marcus as well, and Izar could never allow that. Dezira’s Chosen were lovers, not fighters, especially her white moons. Marcus was a warrior of Solus, raised up from his human form and made divine precisely because he was a fighter worthy to be the champion a god. As a human, Izar knew he had no chance, which was why he’d been running, but Jeric never ran. He stood and fought, especially if he was fighting to protect, as he was now.
Even so, Izar had to try.
“Jeric,” he hissed. “Get out of—”
“Not without you,” Jeric said, his voice calm. “And not without him.”
Before Izar could ask what that meant, the white barrier surged up Marcus’ sword.
* * * * *
Jeric had dumped the emperor on the soldiers. The drunk
old man had passed out as soon as they were over Toric’s wall, and the moment he’d handed Vallus over to Izar’s new lieutenant, Jeric had raced back to the palace. He’d moved faster than he’d ever moved before, pushing himself to the limits of his godtouched speed. Even so, he’d almost been too late.
He’d gotten up the balcony just as Izar went down under the Sun’s Chosen, and if the captain hadn’t moved his head when he did, he would have lost Izar forever. But whatever was on his side—luck, or destiny, or Dezira herself—his beloved captain had dodged, and the barrier had exploded out of Jeric before he knew what he was doing. It was a wild, powerful spell, fueled by Jeric’s deepest desire to protect the people who had become his heart and his life. It was strong enough to stop a Sun Chosen’s blade, but as the golden blade had lodged in Jeric’s magic, Jeric had felt what Toric had done.
It was the same feeling he’d noticed before. The black spell wrapped around the Avatar like a grasping hand, but now Jeric understood what that hand was holding. Toric hadn’t spelled the Sun’s Chosen. Instead, he’d simply done what all of Dezira’s Chosen were created to do. He had taken Marcus’ desire, the desire to obey and protect his emperor, and he had increased it until that desire was all there was. The spell was bigger than anything Jeric had ever felt, an enormous, unbreakable wall of power rooted in the Sun’s Chosen’s own desire, making him a slave to the very urges that had caused Solus to Choose him in the first place.
Even so, the Avatar was still fighting. Jeric could feel Marcus struggling under Toric’s grip, his rage bright and burning as the sun itself as he threw himself again and again at the black power holding his mind hostage. But he could not break the spell, not with so much power behind it, and not without abandoning his own desire to protect his emperor, which was the spell’s root.
It was a beautiful trap, and an unspeakably cruel one that Jeric had no idea how to break. His power alone wasn’t enough to cut the black bonds, and while he could possibly rip out Marcus’ desire, such a thing was abhorrent to Dezira and to himself. But as he held the Chosen and wondered what to do, Marcus’ eyes had gone up to meet his, and suddenly, an idea had come fully formed into his head as though placed there by a divine hand.