There’s a surge of ecstasy from the blade as it hits flesh, and then a wave of emptiness as it already longs for more, despite having fed several times tonight. But it will have plenty more later, so the boy pushes its desires away, chanting a spell instead. Using the wizard’s own life force against him.
He has waited so long to do this.
The wizard gasps for breath, clutching his hands to his chest. His mouth moves silently, so that the boy can’t tell if he’s trying to form words, or if he’s just struggling with the pain of his lungs starting to burn, flaking into ash. He coughs. His eyes find the boy’s again, and the boy expects them to be pleading. Quietly begging him to stop. But instead all he sees is sadness. And disappointment.
The boy snaps his mouth shut, suddenly stopping the spell. The wizard sucks in a heaving breath.
“Get up,” the boy repeats, and this time the wizard does what he’s told. The boy gestures at a desk chair and motions for him to sit. It’s a plain wooden chair, no straps built in, but it will do. He considers making the wizard take off his night clothes, to force him to be naked and bare like he was once, but there’s no need. The knife will cut him just as easily.
There’s a belt sitting by the bed, next to his perfectly folded robes. The boy takes it and secures the wizard’s hands behind the chair. That part will be the same. “Now,” he says, circling him, “where should I start?”
“You should start by figuring out what you’re going to tell her in the morning.”
“Maybe I should break your fingers, one by one. Do you remember when you did that to me? Not until after I could heal myself, of course. You couldn’t risk breaking all the valuable pieces until then. I refused for a while. Imagine the only control you have in your life, the only freedom, is the choice to hurt. But my defiance didn’t last long, did it? The pain was too great. And it was the knife hand. The one I planned to kill you with. So, you see, I was kind of invested in it.”
“Break every bone in my body, if that’s what you have to do,” the wizard says, his voice quiet and choked, but sincere. “The Fire and the Chasm both know I deserve it. But what will you tell her?”
“You keep saying ‘her.’”
“My daughter. Leora. What will she say when you tell her you killed her father?”
“What do I care what a wizard’s daughter thinks?”
“Because you love her. Damn it, boy, you might not remember it right now, but you do.”
He’s not making any sense. How can the boy love someone he’s never met? And the wizard’s daughter, no less. “If you’ve treated her anywhere near the way you’ve treated me, she won’t be sorry to see you gone.”
The boy moves closer to him, his hand shaking with the effort of holding back the knife, already so desperate to be cutting again.
“I don’t know that she’ll be sorry for me,” the wizard goes on, “but she will be for you. She loves you, and you’ll break her heart if you do this.”
“If I do this, you mean?” The boy leans in close, trailing the tip of the knife down the wizard’s cheek. The wizard gasps a little at the burn. Blood trickles down his skin in its wake. “And I don’t love her,” the boy says. “I don’t love anyone. I’m a weapon. Nothing else. A weapon can’t love.”
“You’re not a weapon. It may be my deepest regret that you think you are.”
“Oh, so the wizard regrets, does he? And I am. I’m exactly as you made me to be. You never thought I’d be back for you, that I’d ever have the chance to show you firsthand all the gifts you gave me. But here I am. Which one do you want to see next?”
“You are so much more than anything I ever made you to be. The boy we kept here . . . perhaps he wasn’t capable of love. Of trusting anyone enough. But that’s not who you are. Not now.”
“What you should be asking yourself is if I’m capable of mercy.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have to ask that. I know that you are. Even if I don’t deserve it. If there’s one person in the world who doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, it’s me. But I worry how you’ll feel if you lose her. I worry for you.”
“Enough.” The boy opens the dresser and pulls out a sock. He would have preferred a dirty one, but those are still on the wizard’s feet. So he stuffs the clean sock in the wizard’s mouth. “To muffle the screaming,” he explains, as if the wizard doesn’t already know. As if he hasn’t done this to the boy a thousand times. “Because there will be screaming, and I don’t want any interruptions. I don’t want you alerting the entire guild.” Anyone who saw the boy in the halls is dead now. And even though it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the bodies and the hole in the wall and the missing doors, for now the guild sleeps. Leaving the boy free to do his work.
The wizard tries to speak, but the sound is too garbled with the sock in his mouth and the fear straining his throat.
“Shh,” the boy tells him. “There’s nothing you can do to stop this. You made this choice long ago.” He holds up the knife. It’s burning him alive, and all he wants to do is give in to it. To let it sink into this wizard’s flesh. He’ll try not to kill him, not all at once, but there’s no telling what will happen once he starts cutting.
A mixture of horror and dread spreads across the wizard’s face. He looks like he might pass out. But he’ll wake up again, when the knife slices into him. The boy knows. He’s been there.
Tears fill the wizard’s eyes. A wizard. Shedding real tears. And here the boy thought they didn’t exist. He thought they would be made of dust. Then the wizard moves his mouth again, trying to speak.
The boy pulls out the sock this time, to hear his last words. Because after this it will only be screaming.
“Tell Leora I love her. I . . . I love you both. She’s my daughter, and you . . . you’ve become like a son to me. Yes, you,” he says when the boy flinches at the words. “Azeril. The boy I broke. I would do anything to take back what I did to you. If killing me will make you whole again, then for the Fire’s sake, do it. It’s my fault, after all. Make sure you tell her that. She might understand, if you put it that way.”
But she won’t. I know she won’t.
And with that thought, with that one clear thought of her, the world shatters. I’m suddenly aware of my surroundings. Of what I’m about to do. I drop the knife to the floor, my hands stained with blood. “Hadrin,” I say, feeling out the word, the one I wouldn’t dare speak just a moment ago. “I don’t know what I was doing—I don’t even know how I got here!”
Except that I do. I wasn’t myself, not really, but I remember coming here. Slaughtering wizards to get to him. It’s like it happened to somebody else. But it was me.
Just knowing I’m inside the guild makes the walls feel closer, more cramped. A desperate feeling crawls up from my stomach and through my chest, making me want to run. To get out of this place as fast as possible. But I force myself to stay and unbind his hands. It’s difficult, because my own hands are trembling so much.
“I wouldn’t have done it.” The words come out too quickly, all jumbled together, and not sounding at all believable, especially not with so much blood on my hands. “I wouldn’t.”
Hadrin touches the cut on his cheek. His fingers come away bloody. “Yes, you would have,” he says. “And with no remorse. But I—”
I shake my head, grabbing the knife and running for the door. I can’t stand to be here even one more second. With him, telling me what a monster I am, as if I don’t already know.
“Azeril, come back!” he calls after me.
But I’m gone. Fleeing the wizards’ guild for the second time in my life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I run through the hole in the wall. I run past the bodies. I don’t stop running until I’m at the bottom of the hill, back on Market Street. It’s only now that I realize my feet are bare. The street feels wet and gritty—it must have rained earlier—but I didn’t notice until now.
I don’t know who I was tonight. It wa
s like the past three years never happened, like I never knew Leora or Rathe or Father Moors. Like I was only a weapon, only the monster. I could have killed him. And the world might be a better place without him in it, but . . .
Did he really say I was like a son to him?
It’s too much. I should go back to Leora and pretend to be normal. Pretend like I didn’t just slaughter half a dozen people. But I don’t.
There’s a church not too far from the house, only a few blocks away, on the corner of Yarrow and Front Streets. I noticed it the day we first came to Newhaven. Hadrin told me before that the church wasn’t the sanctuary I thought it was, but he meant the one in Ashbury. He didn’t mean all of them. He didn’t mean tonight.
My feet are cold and damp when I get there. I dip my hands in a rain barrel outside, rubbing them together, the water turning pink. There’s nothing I can do about the blood on my shirt. I just hope there’s no one around to see how crazy I must look. Or how crazy I actually am.
The door’s unlocked. Prayer candles flicker along the walls when I walk inside. This church is smaller than the Sacred Flame, with no school associated with it. But mostly it feels the same. Safe and familiar. The logs in the hearth are stacked the same way. The candles give off the same faint smell of beeswax. The altar looms at the end of the aisle, smooth and worn.
I pick up an unlit prayer candle from one of the dusty boxes in the corner. I remember the one I tried to light for Leora’s mother—how it didn’t take. How the Fire refused to acknowledge me. Not that I could blame it. Not then and not now. I’m not even an altar boy anymore.
But I still cup the little off-white candle in my hands and kneel, bowing my head. I wasn’t myself tonight. I could have hurt Hadrin, like he hurt me. I killed seven wizards. I gave them quick but painful deaths, and I was going to drag Hadrin’s out as long as I could. I was going to make him suffer. And I would have done it. I have no doubts about that, no matter what I said to Hadrin.
I didn’t even know who Leora was. What if she’d seen me like that? Would I have known her then? Would I have remembered how much I love her? Or would I have . . .?
“Please,” I whisper, closing my eyes and picturing Leora. “Please keep her safe from me.” I will the Fire to listen. It might condemn me and Hadrin—it has good reason to—but not her. It’s not her fault either of us loves her.
“Can I help you?” a man says behind me.
Reluctantly, I open my eyes, not wanting to see that the candle hasn’t lit, that the Fire hasn’t listened to me. But I don’t feel any warmth from it. I don’t smell the flame. And when I open my eyes, I’m right—it hasn’t changed. But a little jolt of disappointment runs through me all the same.
The man wears the red robes and the flints around his neck that mark him as a Father. His hair is gray, his face wrinkled with lines from a lifetime of laughter. There’s a tiredness about him. His eyes are bloodshot and have dark patches beneath them, like he hasn’t slept in days. He startles a little at the blood on my shirt.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is soft, concerned but friendly, even though it’s the middle of the night and he didn’t ask for some crazed kid to show up. Though obviously he wasn’t sleeping, either.
I shake my head and get to my feet, still clutching the candle. “I was just . . .”
“In need of guidance?” he offers.
“Something like that.” It’s close enough. And suddenly I picture Father Moors’s office. The green rug by the fireplace with the burnt specks in it. The way it always smells funny in there, like he was making soup but forgot about it. A pang of homesickness hits me. Not just for the place, but for the way I was, before I met Endeil. Before Hadrin came back into my life. It was inevitable that my past would catch up to me—I see that now. I just wish it could have waited a little longer. “Do you think it’s possible for people to change?” I ask this stranger. “I mean, do you think it’s ever possible to really put the past behind you? For it not to matter?”
“Ah.” He takes that in slowly. “I do believe people can change. That is what it means to be human, after all. The Fire flickers, its light ever-changing, and so do we. It is only the darkness that remains the same.”
I don’t know if I like that answer. It means there’s hope, but is there hope for me?
“The best way to change is to let more light into your life,” he goes on. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the good news, but the High Priest was here earlier today, doing just that.”
“He was what?” I glance around, like Endeil might be lurking in the corner.
“Oh, yes, he graced our little sacred space with his presence this morning. He brought new light to us all, myself included. He put his hands on me.” He shuts his eyes, smiling at the memory. “Now see how blessed I am.” He holds his hands up in front of him, his palms facing each other. An arc of lightning crackles between them. “He can give you new light, a new hope. He’ll be here again tomorrow. Let him help you become who you’re meant to be.”
I’m clutching the prayer candle to my chest, the wax warming in my fist, as if I could use it to ward away the crazy.
“You can stay here tonight,” he says, taking a step forward. “Whatever’s wrong, he’ll fix it. You’ll see—” He stops, suddenly squinting at me in the candlelight. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait.” His eyes narrow, his mouth twisting. “You’re that boy.”
Chasm take me. My free hand hovers over the hilt of my obsidian. I glance at the door, planning my path of escape. Several spells are already surfacing in my mind, all of them deadly. I’m ready to use them at the first sign of trouble, I’m ready to use the knife, but I don’t actually want to kill this man. I’ve killed enough people tonight. And even if he’s been corrupted, it’s Endeil who should pay. Not this Father who reminds me of home.
And yet, I know if it comes to it, I’ll do anything to get out of here.
I take a step to the side, trying to get out of the light. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The High Priest showed me,” he says, poking his temple. “He put an image in my mind. Yes.” He wags a finger at me and nods at whatever realization he’s just made. “There’s no mistake. It’s your face I see in my head. The High Priest told us all what you’ve done.”
Oh, did he? “It’s not me. Whatever he said, it wasn’t true.” I’m edging along the wall, keeping my eyes on him, my heart beating like mad.
Lightning arcs between the Father’s hands. It makes a sharp CRACK. “He said you’re the wizard killer.”
Okay, so maybe that part’s true. “You don’t want to hurt me. The Fire wouldn’t want you to—”
“Don’t you dare speak its name!” he shouts, and then he points his hands toward me, releasing the lightning.
I dive to the floor. The blast crashes above me. My mind reels with spells. Spells to twist the bones in his hands until he can’t use them. To turn him to dust.
But I’m not sure if I could do that last one. Not without more energy sources.
I scramble to come up with something else as I hurry to my feet. My fingers are still clamped around the candle, holding it painfully tight. I don’t reach for my knife. It would be kinder than the spells—involve less suffering—but I don’t know if I can get close enough now to use it.
He screams for help and shoots another blast of lightning at me. Words form on my lips. Lungs to ash. The spell’s still fresh in my mind from earlier. It’s also quick, thorough, and there’s no screaming. It would put an end to this. No more magic, no more trying to kill me.
But I can’t. I can’t. I manage to dodge the lightning, but just barely, and it sears my left shoulder. I cry out. The pain breaks my train of thought. Another spell floats to the surface of my mind, and I grab it. It’s only a few simple words, and then all the candles in the room snuff out at once, plunging everything into darkness.
I run while I have the chance. Before the lightning arcs again in his hands. He chases after me, only foll
owing as far as the church steps. By then I’m already around the corner.
He’ll put out an alert, to the other members of the Church in Newhaven, and they’ll be looking for me. And now Endeil will know I’m in town. But for the moment I just breathe. I’m safe enough here, in the shadows.
There’s still a searing pain across my left shoulder. And my hand hurts. I look down and realize I’ve still got the prayer candle in a death grip.
And that’s when I notice that it’s lit. The same candle that wouldn’t light for me earlier, that the Fire denied me. Now a tiny flame flickers at the end of it.
Whatever that means.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hadrin stands awkwardly in the hallway the next afternoon, his arms pulled tight to his sides, as if he’s afraid of accidentally touching anything. He looks around, his face twitching in disgust, like stepping foot inside the old house is beneath him. Like he left it for a reason.
Though I know him well enough now—or, at least, I think I do—to know that it isn’t the house that disgusts him.
“You shouldn’t be answering the door,” he tells me. “Not with the whole city looking for you.”
I stare at him. There’s a red slash on his cheek where I cut him. He doesn’t quite look at me, the only sign he gives that last night actually happened. “Leora went out to run errands. What was I supposed to—”
“Not get yourself killed. That’s what you’re supposed to do.” He gives me a sharp look. “You shouldn’t even be here, in this house. The High Priest knows you were at that church last night. There are wanted posters of you up all over the city now, calling you the wizard killer. People are talking about it. It won’t be long before he starts searching nearby houses.”
“And what about the wizards? Aren’t they—”
“They believe the Church attacked them last night. They don’t believe the posters. After all, they don’t trust the Church, and how could one person have done all that? There were no survivors to tell them otherwise. Well, only one, but they don’t know that and I didn’t say anything.”
Fire & Chasm Page 20