Meralonne’s only answer was a smile so slight it might have been a trick of the light.
“Very well. Let’s get this over with.” The mage he had called Krysanthos now raised his hands, his fingers weaving air as if it were the source of his power.
Around him, in front of the shadows, fire leaped from the marble floor, engulfing the Chosen and anyone else who stood between Krysanthos and Meralonne APhaniel.
Chapter Ten
FINCH CRIED OUT. It wasn’t a warning, it was a rush of breath with sound attached.
The Chosen moved. They were, like Finch, surprised, but unlike Finch, their cries were pointed, directed, their words clear. They formed up and retreated from the flames; the flames, while obviously hot, didn’t sear armor or the flesh beneath it, not yet.
But the flames weren’t meant for the Chosen; they were meant, in their entirety, for Meralonne APhaniel, and as Finch turned back to watch him she saw that he was smiling. Just . . . smiling. It was as frightening, in its way, as the sudden appearance of fire had been—possibly more so, because fire, Finch knew, was a mage gift.
This fire? It didn’t touch that mage. She’d seen him in the mornings; they all had. She’d certainly heard his raised voice and had been subjected to the stench of his pipe smoke. But this man? You couldn’t imagine that he’d ever think of touching something as lowly as a pipe; you certainly couldn’t imagine that he’d be shouting at a street child across a breakfast table.
He stepped on the fire, and when he did, it guttered. He didn’t gesture, and he didn’t pause; it just . . . went out.
She looked across the foyer and into the shadows that surrounded the other mage, the man who had called fire. Krysanthos was frowning. Fire leaped higher and brighter when he did, but when it came close to Meralonne, he sliced it with his sword and it fell.
The mage from the shadows threw his hands down, and the fires vanished. But Finch knew it wasn’t over; even before he raised his hands again, palms upturned and splayed flat as if he were lifting something very heavy, she knew. She reached out blindly and caught Jester’s hand, crushing it as she waited.
Waiting had always been hard, but it was harder now; she had no idea what they were waiting for, and even if they saw it, what good could they do? She glanced at Jay but saw almost nothing in her den leader’s expression. Nothing but watchfulness and determination.
Finch took a deep breath and turned back.
The stairs shook.
And not just the stairs—the ground above which the stairs climbed. Marble cracked and rose in uneven chunks beneath the feet of the slowly walking Meralonne APhaniel. Gaps appeared beneath those feet, spreading to either side. Where they reached the Chosen, the Chosen, in their heavy armor, faltered and drew back, exchanging orders again.
But Meralonne?
He stepped across the growing divide. Where marble rose to strike him, he gestured—with his sword hand—and it fell back, clattering and lifeless. But he did this without looking, without appearing to notice that the ground itself seemed intent on swallowing or smashing him.
Finch had never seen a man she could honestly describe as beautiful before. She’d met this one. But not like this, never like this; her throat was dry, and her hands shook. Beauty, she thought, was death. She had never thought it before; she thought she would never think of it in any other way again.
And he did walk. He walked through the lightning that flared from the palms of the bearded mage; he walked through the brief rain of what seemed blood.
“Terafin!” Jay cried.
Finch, wide-eyed, looked at her; they all did.
But the woman to whom she shouted looked as well, Jay’s voice cutting above the brief sound of crackling light, of falling water, of breaking stone.
Jay pointed up, and up again, and Finch followed the stretch of her extended arm until she saw what Jay meant: It was the grand chandelier above the double doors of the entry. Men stood beneath it; The Terafin herself was not far. She opened her mouth, but only slightly, and closed it again before words could escape.
But The Terafin did turn, and she did speak, and her Chosen pulled back. So, too, the foreigners, even the dark and grim one who appeared to have heard no other words or orders she’d given; the dogs followed him, although he gave no command. So did the near-naked girl, the blond man, and the woman in dark robes. They clustered closer to the walls and the entrance—or exit—to the Northern gallery.
As they moved, Krysanthos snarled. It was the first crack in his composure, but his composure was not Meralonne’s; it was not, and would never be, perfect. His hands flew out and up, and Finch felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.
The cut-glass light shed by the chandelier began to shake and tremble, losing the clarity of its sharper edges. That light, reflected by the surface of marble that was no longer perfectly flat and unbroken, spun and twisted just before the chandelier fell.
It fell over the head of Meralonne APhaniel, who alone of all the men under The Terafin’s command or protection had not heeded her sharp and sudden order to move. Nor did she call him.
Finch wouldn’t have either.
Someone did—Chosen or House Guard, she couldn’t tell—but those words didn’t reach him. Neither did the chandelier. It fell, and it fell fast—but an inch above his head, it simply stopped. He walked out from under its shadow, and then, with a frown, turned for the first time. His sword rose, its tip touching the closest of the hanging, gold-trimmed, crystal shards.
It fell, slowly, to the broken ground at his back, and it fell without shattering or breaking. But in its way the chandelier was also beautiful, and Finch thought Meralonne may have protected it not because of the damage it might cause to the living, but because of its beauty.
He turned before it resumed its more stately descent and began once again to walk carefully and slowly toward the mage, who was now sweating. Heading, Finch thought, toward the other beautiful thing the room contained: the woman, in her dark glory.
The woman smiled, and her eyes? Her eyes seemed to have consumed the flame that Krysanthos had first called; they burned with a red brightness that could be seen clearly across the foyer. Her smile was cool and unkind when she offered it to Krysanthos. “So. Even this is beyond your ken.”
“I would appreciate,” was his brittle, swift reply, “your assistance.”
“You will have it,” she said, and she took a step forward. “And it will be costly. Never question me again, little mageling.” She raised her hands, and for a moment the fire in her eyes dimmed as she closed them. But flames traveled down the length of her slender, perfect arms, gathering in her hands to become the solid essence of fire. She held a sword, a red, burning sword, and a shield of the same color.
Thus armed, she emerged from the folds of shadow that had served almost as a throne.
Meralonne APhaniel smiled. He lifted his right hand, and to it came a shield, silvered blue, etched with glowing, bright runes. His hair flew back, a pale, pale silver; hers rose, in strands of ebony. For a moment, they were the only two people in the hall.
But only for a moment.
The demon paused, glancing over her shoulder into the darkness she had momentarily forsaken. “This man,” she said, and no one could mistake her meaning, “is mine. But now is the time. Take the others, leaving only the quarry I demand as my right.”
She turned back to Meralonne.
But the shadows that had surrounded her moved, shifting and spreading as they opened the last of their folds.
Meralonne APhaniel raised his sword, straight in front of his chest, point to the ceiling, as if he were saluting her. She didn’t respond in kind; instead, she leaped up, and up again, vaulting into the air as if gravity had no hold on her. She turned as she flew, her sword her pivot point, and fire flared from its edge.
Meralonne wasn’t there to meet it.
Finch would have watched, wanted to watch, but the shadows had finally disgorged the last of their th
reats. Men came from them, armed with swords that were stripped of all light. They moved in utter silence toward the Chosen, who, unlike Finch, had never been so captivated by the mage and the woman that they were unaware.
But something was wrong with these men. They didn’t wear armor, or at least nothing that caught light. They didn’t wear helms. Because of this she could see their eyes: they were black. All black; there were no whites.
They made no sound. They didn’t speak, and that was fine. But they made no noise. And as they moved, they absorbed all the little sounds that standing people made: breath, words.
The Chosen shouted orders. She saw them move. But silence enveloped them all, and no words escaped. They couldn’t speak, and if they’d developed something like den-sign, it wasn’t as complete. They lifted arms, waved hands, lifted swords, and braced to meet their attackers.
Armored or no, it was the Chosen who broke.
Jewel was frozen, silent. It was all she could do to breathe; the attempt to speak was beyond her.
The Chosen were dying. She’d expected death, but to see it, to see it like this, made the room a waking nightmare. There was no way to escape it; she could close her eyes no more. She could see the shadows, and she could see the men—and women—who fell to them, their training forgotten, their mouths open on the shape and the form of a scream that never followed.
The hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose. She caught the hesitant movement of hands out of the corner of her eyes. The den had had to operate in silence so often it knew how to speak when there was no other way. Her hands flew, but briefly. Not yet. Not yet.
And Carver asked When.
She had no answer. No answer she wanted to give him.
He stiffened, and she saw why.
Beneath the stairs, beneath the rails with their wide gaps, Lord Gilliam was fighting. He wasn’t wearing armor, and his sword wasn’t imbued with shadow or fire or light—but it ran red as he stood his ground against the Allasakari.
His dogs fought at his side, darting from side to side, worrying the enemy with their ample jaws, their prominent teeth. But they weren’t as fast as the enemy they faced. One fell, his body severed in one stroke; another joined him, jaws still twitching around a leg.
The Hunter Lord snarled in fury, and his expression was so sudden, so intense, that Jewel could almost hear him in the unnatural silence. She couldn’t see what happened to the bodies of his dogs because she realized with a slow and growing dread that the Alasakari hadn’t so much come from the shadows as dragged the shadows with them, like a black mist.
That mist rolled over the bodies of the dogs on the ground. They rolled over the fallen Chosen, and Jewel did cry out then; she could. She could even scream because no one—not even her den—would hear the cry.
This was what they’d been searching for, Meralonne, Devon and she. This is what she had been trying so hard to find. That woman, these men, and the darkness that seemed to devour everything it touched.
This is what had killed Lefty and Lander and Fisher.
Only Duster had escaped that death, choosing a different one for herself.
The fear that held her began to burn away. It was not replaced by anger, although she felt some of its tug; it was replaced instead by a strange determination. Yes, damn it, she’d failed them. She’d failed them all.
But she wasn’t going to fail again. Not here. Not now.
She stood, gaining height and visibility. Her movements seemed to alert no one. She saw the blond Hunter struggling with the Chosen as he sought to break their line, to reach Lord Gilliam. She put one hand on the rail to steady herself, as Stephen of Elseth fumbled a moment at his side, his movements—all movements—silent.
He drew from the folds of his tunic a simple bone horn. It was plain and unadorned, not the horn of a nobleman. But it was also, for a moment, the only thing she could see in a room that contained demons, Allasakari, and the Chosen of Terafin.
His hands shook. She tried to shout a warning—but to whom, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter; nothing emerged from her lips.
His lips pursed as he brought the horn to them. He drew breath, steadied his hand, and winded the horn. Silence was broken by a short, flat honk, a graceless, clumsy sound.
But she heard it. They all heard it. The Allasakari who froze or startled died; there was no quarter in this fight. As if the shadows that had taken and occupied their eyes were part of them, the darkness shuddered and rippled, flattening against the ground.
No other sound could be heard, and even that one bald note faded into memory, or possibly imagination, as the shadows regrouped and thickened, surging forward.
But Jewel knew, watching, that the waiting was almost done.
She saw the young woman in midnight blue hesitate, then grab Stephen’s elbow, her hands tight against green fabric. What she said, if she spoke at all—and speech was a hard habit to break—could not be heard, not even by the man to whom she’d spoken.
But her words weren’t necessary. Stephen of Elseth drew breath again, this time a longer, fuller breath. His hand still shook, and in the even glow of the magelights that flooded the ceiling above them all, he and the horn were of a color.
He winded the horn again.
But the sound he produced wasn’t the faltering squawk of his previous attempt; it was a low, loud, resonant note. The shadows curled, and the Allasakari shouted, and for a moment, their shouts could be heard before silence once again engulfed every part of the foyer that didn’t contain Stephen of Elseth.
The Allasakari began to move toward him; the Chosen, who stood in their way, intercepted them.
Stephen was unaware of his danger. Of anything but the horn. The second note was slightly higher, and it, like the first, was sure and even in tone. Jewel drew breath, held it, her hands tightening into fists.
At the sounding of the second note, the Chosen could be heard. The silence had never stopped them from speaking, only from communicating. It fell, and their voices rose in a familiar bark of sharp, harsh orders.
And his third note, the highest—and longest—of the three, allowed all noise, all movement, all clatter of boot against floor, to rush in as he held it.
“You did it!” the young woman in midnight blue shouted. “Whatever you did, it’s—”
But Stephen didn’t hear her, and Jewel didn’t hear the rest of the words; they were lost, in that instant, to thunder and a different darkness. Yes, the hair on her neck stood on end, but so, too, the hair on her arms; her skin was nubbled with bumps.
She knew what she would see, if she could see it at all, because she’d seen it once before, in a dream that also contained the woman who now fought Meralonne APhaniel a few yards, and a world, away.
“What’s—what’s that?”
Stephen took Evayne’s hand from his sleeve and set it firmly to one side. “Nothing that you need fear,” he told her, speaking loudly enough for the words to carry.
Nothing, Jewel thought, that she need fear. But Stephen? He feared it. He was white.
“But what is it?”
The shadow on the ground grew frenzied, swirling as if caught by the edge of a storm. It struggled a moment near the entrance of the hall, enveloping the broken arch as it rose.
But against what? The shadows were shadows. They fell, in shreds; the light at last destroyed them where they lay. Above their slowly vanishing tendrils, something stepped into the hall.
The Allasakari cried out, as if they spoke with one voice, and they turned as one man.
Jewel was utterly silent.
A creature stepped through the last of the shadow, snarling, its long claws clattering against marble as its massive head swiveled from side to side. It was at once scaled and furred; it had a tail that cracked the stone at its back as it swung. Its massive head rose, and when it roared, the foyer shook. Long fangs glinted in the light.
“It is,” Stephen said, “the Hunter’s Death.”
The Alla
sakari began to scream. And, Jewel thought grimly, to die. No silence absorbed their cries; no silence granted their deaths dignity. She knew they deserved it.
But she knew, as well, that she watched a god, and for the first time in her life, the gods were something to fear.
Lord Gilliam of Elseth raised his horn. He sounded the same three notes that Stephen had, but they were louder and more piercing; not even the fighting—and the fighting continued, even in the presence of the Hunter’s Death—could mute it.
“Terafin!” he shouted. “Order your Chosen to retreat!” His dogs, the four left to him, withdrew; they gathered around him, steady and silent, as they looked at the great beast that was now destroying the Allasakari.
The Terafin froze for just a moment at the command. Jewel thought she would ignore him, and she knew, as well, that he wouldn’t even notice.
But the Hunter Lord wasn’t afraid. He was not—to Jewel’s eye—even surprised. His face showed some of the fey strangeness that had so transformed Meralonne APhaniel in the eyes of the den.
He knew what he faced. Knew it and didn’t fear it.
The Terafin turned to Torvan. “Signal a retreat to the Hall of the Lattan Moon.”
He was bleeding, his sword was notched, and his expression as he received her orders was grim, but he saluted sharply and turned to carry out her command, his voice filling the foyer where hers had not.
The Chosen began to form up, retreating as the last of the Allasakari harried them. The Allasakari would die, Jewel thought, and they knew it. But they didn’t care. They would kill until they dropped.
The Terafin’s Chosen gathered at their lord’s front and back before The Terafin began to move.
And then, time stopped, the way it did when something so horrible happened it was impossible to grasp anything else. The sounds of all fighting fell away, and Jewel watched—from the safety of the stairs—as Torvan turned, lifting his weapon arm. He brought his sword down and into the exposed back of his lord.
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