by E. E. Holmes
“What do we do now?” I whispered to her.
Lucida closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “There’s so many of them,” she replied nearly silently. “We can’t get all of those torches safely out of here, and there’s no way to protect them, even if I can Call all of the spirits out of the Caomhnóir who have been possessed.”
“Do you think, if we were able to get past the guard…” I began, but Lucida rounded on me angrily.
“One guard is nothing,” she hissed. “I can take care of him without breaking a sweat. The problem is the torches. It’s good that we located them, that we know it really is Blind Summoners that they’re using, but how are we supposed to reverse this process when there are so many of them…”
There was a great, echoing sound of pounding upon the doors to the courtroom, and Lucida and I both froze. We heard the door creak open, and the set of footsteps enter the room.
“Your watch is done,” a voice said. “Report to the courtyard for your new orders.”
My heart exploded out of my chest. I knew that voice. I knew it as well as I knew my own name. I shifted onto my knees, and peered carefully around the side of the jury box. Lucida pulled me back, but not before I got a glimpse of the Caomhnóir who had arrived to relieve his brother.
It was Finn.
“What is wrong with you?” Lucida whispered. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“It’s him, Lucida,” I whispered back. Her eyes widened, for the look on my face had left no doubt of who it was I was talking about.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” I hissed back.
Under cover of our conversation, the first Caomhnóir had exited the room, and Finn was now standing sentinel in his place.
“What do we do?” I asked Lucida, pleading with her. “Please, we can’t keep him here like this.”
Lucida looked as though she were trying with all her might not to punch something, like me, for example. “I’m going to have to try to Call the spirit from him,” she whispered, looking absolutely terrified at the very thought. She turned a desperate gaze upon me. “Can’t you check your connection again? Can you see if help is on the way?”
I scoured through my own mental space, but I knew it was no good after only a few brief moments of trying. My mental and spiritual resources were completely exhausted. “I’m sorry, I can’t find it. It’s not opening. Maybe I should try to remove some of these runes,” I added, looking down at my own forearms.
“No, don’t waste your time with that,” Lucida muttered through clenched teeth. “I’ve just got to try it, and hope for the best.”
Lucida closed her eyes, and an unnatural stillness fell over her. Her hands, formerly clenched at her sides, relaxed into an open, welcoming gesture on either side of her legs. The moment I was sure that she had begun her attempt, I rose and peered cautiously around the jury box again, my eyes glued to Finn’s form for any sign that the Calling was beginning to work. But I’d barely stared at him for more than a few seconds, before an echoing crash and a muffled cry made us jump.
I realized with a jolt of horror that the sound had come from the small ancillary chamber where we had left Fiona and her mother. Finn had sensed the direction that the sound had come from, too. Unsheathing a short, broad sword, he began to stalk slowly toward the door.
“Oh no!” I murmured. “We’ve got to do something! He’s going to find them!” When Lucida did not respond, I turned toward her. She did not seem to have processed a single word I had uttered. Her eyes were still closed, and she was lost deep within the Calling.
I hesitated for just a moment more, desperate for someone to tell me what to do, but knowing that I had to make the decision myself. Out of options, and out of time, I did the only thing that I could do. I jumped to my feet and stepped out from behind the jury box.
“Finn.”
19
Heart of the Rebellion
I CALLED HIS NAME GENTLY, the way I might’ve said it if the two of us were lying side by side, but he jumped as though I had screamed it at the top of my lungs. He turned the sword upon me, his eyes wide with shock.
“Finn, it’s okay. You can put the sword down. It’s me,” I told him, and in spite of my fear, my face broke into a gentle, encouraging smile. “It’s just me. You know me.”
Finn cocked his head just slightly to one side, as though attempting to make sense of a language that he’d never heard before. Then he arranged his face back into a determined scowl and took a step toward me.
“Show yourself,” he ordered.
Figuring that my best bet was to follow his orders, I stepped slowly out the rest of the way from behind the jury box, raising both of my hands so that he could see that I was unarmed.
“I know you’re in there, Finn,” I said. “I know you’re in there, and that somewhere deep down, you know who I am.”
But my words did not seem to penetrate his consciousness at all. He took two more steps toward me, raising the sword still higher. “Move slowly toward me,” he barked. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
I did as I was told, shuffling slowly forward, keeping my hands by my ears. “Look at me, Finn,” I urged him. “Don’t I look even the least bit familiar to you?”
“That’s it,” Finn said, completely ignoring my words. “Just a few steps closer. There. Now stay where you are.”
He closed the distance between us, and I was able to see his eyes up close. There was a strange cloudiness to them, as though I could see in their depths the parasitic creature that had taken hold of him. My fight or flight response was completely disabled. I at once feared him and was not capable of fearing him. The duality of my emotions incapacitated me as he drew ever closer.
Shifting the sword so that it rested comfortably in a single hand, Finn reached down to his belt, and pulled a pair of handcuffs from where they hung at his hip. “Turn around,” he ordered, “and place your hands behind your back where I can see them, with your palms out.”
I did as he asked me to do, and as I turned my back to him I threw a desperate glance toward the jury box. Was Lucida still trying? Was she making any progress? If she didn’t succeed or give up soon, I would find myself right back in the cell where I started, or maybe worse.
As Finn stepped forward to put the handcuffs on my wrists, he seemed to become momentarily distracted. There was a torch just over my left shoulder, and the light of it seemed to dazzle him for a moment, even hypnotize him. There were dozens of torches in the room, and yet he could not seem to pull his eyes away from this one dancing flame. A strange thought struck me, and though it was simply a gut reaction, I knew somewhere deep down inside of me that it was right.
“You feel that, don’t you?” I whispered to him. And now I was speaking not to Finn, but to the spirit that had taken hold of him. “You are not this body that you are controlling. The person you really were—really are—is right here,” and I inclined my head slowly toward the torch.
Something shifted in his eyes, or perhaps it was a trick of the light? But I was sure for a moment that the spirit inside him had reacted to my words. Clutching this spark of reaction like a lifeline, I pressed on.
“If you listen, you’re going to hear a familiar voice. That’s your voice, your memories, your life. That’s where you belong, not inside this man. Not as a slave to the monsters who tore you apart and trapped you inside there.”
Finn was staring at the torch now, utterly mesmerized. The sword that he had been pointing so ferociously at my chest was now sinking, the point dropping toward the floor, as something within the flames took hold of him.
Ever so cautiously, I moved my foot just an inch across the floor toward him. He allowed the movement, seemed not even to notice it, and so I repeated it again, until I stood close enough to touch him. But I did not do so, not yet.
“Let him go,” I implored the spirit. “He is the man I love, and neither of you deserve to be manipulated in this
way. You have the strength to overcome this magic. Please let him go.”
The sword clattered to the ground at his feet.
Something in his eyes shifted again. And suddenly, for just a moment, I was staring into the eyes that I knew, the eyes that saw into my soul, that sang to me in the deepest parts where I hungered. Without thinking, without waiting, I threw myself forward, and pressed my lips to his.
This was a mistake.
His body went rigid, and two strong hands clamped down firmly around my neck, pressing down on my windpipe, and pushing me back from him. My eyes flew open, and I stared back into the depths that were clouded once more. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t fight back. My despair at seeing a stranger’s eyes again left me feeling so broken that I almost wished the hands would hasten their job. Blackness began to gather at the edges of my vision, and my legs gave way underneath me, as I sank to my knees. I tried to say his name one last time, but there was no air left in me, and what was the point? I would simply be speaking to a man who wasn’t there anymore.
At least I caught that last, fleeting glimpse of him.
Without warning, the hands slackened around my neck. The clouded eyes rolled up in his head, and Finn stumbled backward away from me. I collapsed onto my side, coughing and retching, but not daring to take my eyes off him, in case he attacked again. But he was not attacking. He was being attacked, or struggling against something that I could not see. I felt a tingling on the back of my neck and turned to look over my shoulder.
Lucida was standing up, and her face was alight with the power I’d only seen in one other person in my life. It radiated off her in waves, creating an irresistible pull for the spirit that was now fighting to keep possession of Finn’s body. But it was powerless against her, unable to fight the command of a true Caller. I watched in amazement as a shadowy form shot straight up out of Finn’s mouth, and rocketed toward the ceiling, before shooting like a comet toward the torch behind me. Instinctively, I crawled across the floor as far from the torch as I could get just as the spirit made contact with the flames. The orange glow exploded into a fiery, bright blue ball, sparking and popping like a tiny firework.
Lucida slumped to the side, catching herself on the edge of the jury box before her knees hit the ground. She steadied herself and looked determinedly at the torch, muttering a brief incantation. The words, whatever they may have been, caused the torch to expel the spirit upward, before calming into a gentle orange glow once more. I did not get a good look at the spirit, which did not linger, but shot straight for the roof of the courtroom, and made its escape out into the night.
A deep groan made me turn, in time to see Finn pulling himself groggily into a seated position. He ground a fist against the side of his head, as though he could punch the dizziness and disorientation out of it, and then blinked around the room, until his eyes fell on me.
“Jess!” he croaked.
And not giving a damn for the fact that we were supposed to be hiding from hundreds of Caomhnóir and Necromancers who wanted us dead, I let out a cry of joy that rang from my very toes, and threw myself forward. He caught me in his arms, and pulled me close to him, burying his face in the top of my head.
“What’s happening?” he asked me. “They intercepted me before I could make my shift, and tied me up. I can’t remember anything else.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “You’re okay now. Everything’s okay.”
Finn stared around the room at the forest of torches still burning. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“Blind Summoners,” I told him, and he stared down at me in horror. “They’re using them to subdue the Caomhnóir who refuse to join them. You were possessed by one, until a moment ago, when Lucida Called it out of you.”
I turned over my shoulder and gave Lucida a grateful smile. She tried to return it, but the Calling had temporarily drained her, and it seemed all she could do to keep herself on her feet and catch her breath.
Finn, on the other hand, leapt to his feet, pulling me with him and then placing himself squarely between Lucida and myself. “What is she doing here?” he asked. “Who let her out of her cell?”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “You don’t understand. She rescued me. She rescued Fiona and her mother too. She’s been helping us get out of here, and she’s the one who just brought you back to me. She didn’t have to do any of it, but she chose to. So, we’re trusting her right now, okay?”
Finn looked at me as though I had temporarily lost my mind, and then looked back at Lucida, who managed a shrug.
“Don’t look at me, mate,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t understand myself.”
I placed a hand on Finn’s face and forced him to look me in the eye. “Finn, you don’t have to trust her. Just trust me, okay?”
His eyes softened. “I’ll always trust you. Unfailingly.”
“Good,” I said. “Then trust me when I say that we need to find a way out of here, and fast. Help may be on the way, but we can’t be sure of that.”
“Help? What kind of help?” Finn asked.
“All the help that Fairhaven can send us, but I can’t confirm it, because I can’t get through my connection to Hannah and Milo because of these,” I told him, raising my arms and showing him all of the runes.
“What is all of that?” he asked me. “Who—”
“Never mind that now,” I said firmly. “Definitely not important. We’ve got to get out of this castle before they realize that we’re gone from our cells. Do you know any way out of here that won’t take us through the main courtyard? Because that’s where they’ve gathered.”
Finn pulled his eyebrows together in concentration. “We might be able to slip out by way of the catacomb archives,” he murmured. “There’s an entrance to them around the cliff side of the fortress. That’ll take us clean around the other side from where the forces are gathering.”
“I’ve heard of those archives,” I said slowly. “Catriona mentioned them. She said that it was probably one of the resources in the castle that the Necromancers would most like to get their hands on. Do you think it’s safe to go out that way?”
“If the Necromancers have taken the entire fortress, and are controlling all of the Caomhnóir, then those archives are as good as theirs,” Finn said darkly. “Using them for an escape is not going to give them access to anything that they can’t already get their hands on. But if we are able to quell this uprising before it gets out of hand, then we may be able to protect what’s inside the archives before they have the opportunity to stake their claim on it.”
I turned to Lucida. “What do you think?” I asked her.
“He knows the castle better than I do,” she told me. “He’s seen parts of it that I’ve never been permitted to see. If he says that’s our best bet, then I say we take it.”
I nodded and pointed to Finn’s sword where it lay on the ground. “You’re probably gonna want to take that,” I told him.
He looked down at it in surprise, clearly wondering how it had gotten there, but picked it up and resheathed it without question. “Very well,” he said stoutly. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hang on,” I told him. “We’ve got to get Fiona and her mother. They’re hiding in the antechamber.”
“The antechamber is our only chance of getting out of here unseen,” Finn said. “We’ll have to go through it anyway, if you want to avoid the security patrols. Both of you follow me, and keep close.”
We crossed the courtroom at a run, dodging between the torches, and pulled open the door to the antechamber. I could hear Fiona making hushing sounds as her mother’s voice rose in a whimper again.
“Fiona, it’s okay, it’s us,” I said quietly. “You can come out now, we’ve got Finn, and he’s going to help us out of here.”
Fiona’s frightened white face appeared between the folds of two black cloaks. “Oh, so you’ve got your Caomhnóir, then, eh? And how do we know he’s not going to
attack one of us next?”
“Attack?” Finn asked. “Why would I attack—”
“Because he’s not possessed anymore,” I told her. “Lucida called the Blind Summoner right out of him. She was right, it is how they’re controlling the Caomhnóir. Well, at least some of them. Others, like Ambrose, are doing their bidding willingly.”
Fiona stepped cautiously out from between the robes, pulling her mother along behind her by the hand. “Right, then,” she said, still casting skeptical looks at Finn. “If you say so. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
But at that moment, Fiona’s mother let out a gasp. She was staring, transfixed, at the many torches that lit the courtroom beyond the door, which Lucida had left ajar behind her. The flames danced in her mad old eyes, as a look of dawning comprehension broke over her face. She let out a keening cry, broke free of Fiona’s restraining hand, and bolted for the door.
“Mum, no!” Fiona cried. “Mum, come back!”
All three of us flew after her, and found her darting back and forth between the torches, starting and crying out at each one as though it were a new monster in a house of horrors. Though she seemed able to comprehend little of what had been going on around her, she knew that there was something terribly wrong about each and every one of those flames. Whether it was simply a Durupinen instinct, or the confirmation of a half-forgotten glimpse of Seer vision, the sight sent her into an uncontrollable, animal panic. She began screaming, a guttural, grieving sound, and she flung herself toward the nearest torch, as though she meant to embrace it.
“Mum, no!” Fiona cried. She leapt forward, meaning to throw herself between the torch and her mother, but the old woman made an odd lurch to one side, and Fiona, trying to counter the movement, lost her balance. The two women and the torch toppled to the ground in a tangled heap, and Fiona began to scream.
It all happened so quickly that my mind barely had time to register the horror of what it was seeing. All I knew was that I could not see Fiona’s face, because the licking flames had caught at her hair, and suddenly she was ablaze. Finn leapt into action, tearing the long vest that was a part of his uniform from his shoulders, and throwing himself down upon Fiona with it. Within seconds, he had managed to smother the flames, but I knew that Fiona was badly hurt.