Freya, however, caught it deftly in one hand. A smile rose on her face, one that faded moments later as the Reggie creature charged at her. Freya’s hair grayed at the creature’s touch as it managed to ensnare it in one of his claw-like hands.
“Sorry about this,” Reggie said, and drew back his other hand to strike.
“Save it,” Rory said, leaping toward the two of them. “You’re the one about to be sorry.”
The blade of her polearm sliced down where the Reggie creature held Freya’s hair. Rory couldn’t cut the wight itself, but Freya? That was another story.
Or her hair, at least.
Rory’s blade sliced cleanly through the woman’s hair, breaking the creature’s grip on her and unbalancing him at the same time.
As the creature stumbled back, Rory slid behind it and pressed the bladed end of her polearm against its throat, subduing him.
Freya brushed the ends of her freshly shorn hair, then opened her other hand to examine the luckstone. She stepped closer to where Rory held the blade of the polearm against the struggling Reggie creature’s throat.
“Hold still,” Freya said as she looked over the empty socket for the stone.
“Trying,” Rory said. “He’s pretty lively for a dead guy.”
Marshall ran across the room to her, grabbed the shaft of the polearm and fought to keep the creature restrained, but not before handing his Leatherman tool to Freya.
Using its needle-nosed pliers, the craftswoman set about slotting the gem. When she was done placing it in the socket and clamping its prongs into place, she clasped her hand over the setting itself, and arcane words flew from her lips as a burst of azure light shot straight out of the craftswoman’s closed fist around it. When Freya pulled her hand away, the shining gemstone faded until it settled into a low but still hypnotic glow.
“Try it now,” she said with a dark smile to Rory.
Rory jerked her polearm away from the struggling wight, using the dull end of it to jab the Reggie creature square in its sunken chest.
Power coursed through Rory’s hands and she was surprised that her blow drove the creature with an unnatural force back into the closet. When the back of its knees hit the edge of the open tomb in the center of the space, the Reggie creature simply toppled over the edge into the tomb itself.
Confident in the newfound power of the weapon, Rory leapt up onto the edge of the tomb and stared down at the creature.
“Sorry, Reg,” Rory said. “You seemed nice enough.”
“I was, I suppose. Despite my flawed taste in women.”
Freya laughed from across the room, but Rory could hear the bitterness behind it. “You and me both, brother.”
Rory couldn’t help but hesitate with the weapon in her hands.
“No worries, love,” the Reggie creature said. “I’ll consider this a gift. My soul has toiled on this earth for far too long enough under her control.”
Without another moment of hesitation, Rory took her weapon up in both hands and plunged the blade down into the center of the creature’s chest. Clean, simple, efficient, without cruelty.
The Reggie creature gave a final gasp before it withered into itself as its lifeless form fell silent.
Freya turned away from the spectacle and crossed to the now sobbing form of the still rapidly aging Baroness. As the craftswoman approached her, The Baroness crawled back from her until her back hit a wall. With nowhere to go, The Baroness cowered with her hands held up protectively in front of her.
Freya knelt down in front of the cowering crone. “Do you really think I’m going to kill you?” she said.
The Baroness nodded. “You let her kill Reggie,” she spat out. Freya shook her head. “No. She put that thing to rest. She did it a fucking favor.”
The craftswoman raised her hands, and The Baroness flinched. She closed her eyes as if expecting Freya to strike, but when nothing happened, The Baroness opened a wary sunken eye.
Freya stood with a groan. “Relax,” she said. “I’m not going to kill you. I want you to have to live with yourself. The real you, not that sideshow reality television version of you.”
The Baroness whimpered, shaking her head.
That sound alone was too much to bear, which Freya seemed to sense, and swiftly guided Rory and Marshall back through the penthouse to the elevator they had arrived in.
“You two shouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of this,” Freya said. She pressed the call button. “I’ll handle dealing with the rest of this mess. My mess. Sorry you had to catch all the baggage of our relationship. I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking straight. Love makes people a little crazy sometimes.”
Rory hesitated. “You okay?” she asked.
“Honestly, no,” Freya said. “But I will be.”
“You really loved her, didn’t you?” Rory asked with a bit of marvel in her voice.
“You know what?” Freya said with a hearty and refreshing laugh. “I’m not even sure anymore. Love plays tricks with you, messes with your mind, talks you into things. Sure, it was nice to date someone with money, but in the end there was just loneliness in a room with two people in it. It’s then that you really get to know who that person truly is. Truth is, I wanted to be in love, and maybe I projected things on her that were simply what I hoped she would turn out to be. Would I have put money on her turning out to be an ancient soul sucking monster, though? No, but even before tonight that’s what our relationship felt like at times.”
Rory laid her polearm across one of her own arms and moved the blade low enough so it was at eye level. “You sure you don’t want the luckstone back? I mean, with everything you sacrificed for it.”
Freya smiled, but shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m good. It was never really about the stone, anyway, only what it symbolized. It has no power over me any longer.” Freya looked back over her shoulder into the apartment, then gestured toward the elevator. “You two get out of here… enjoy your anniversary.”
“Oh, right,” Rory said with a short laugh. “I almost forgot.” She raised the polearm and gave a nod to the maker. “Thanks again, for the gift.”
“Don’t thank me,” Freya said. She raised her hand and pressed the door close button before withdrawing her hand from the elevator. “That’s a good guy you’ve got there.”
Freya smiled, but Rory saw it disappearing from the woman’s face as the elevator doors closed, leaving her and Marshall to ride in silence down through the high-rise. Only after Rory finished breaking down her polearm and stashing it back in her art tube did Marshall speak.
“So… that was a thing, huh?” he said. “Sorry about our anniversary. Sorry about tonight.”
“Don’t be,” she said. Rory leaned against him, pressing her cheek against his chest, taking a calm comfort in it. “In its own twisted way, it was… fun.”
Marshall laughed. “You have a strange idea of what’s fun.”
“And you have strange ideas about what gifts are,” she said. “Next time, flowers will suffice.”
“Noted,” he said and wrapped his arms around her. “And I promise I’ll stop making up strange, arbitrary half-year anniversaries to celebrate.”
The warmth of his embrace felt like a heavy blanket against the cold winter of the past few hours, and Rory gave herself over to it gladly, completely.
“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Don’t you dare stop being you, being who you truly are. We can celebrate every damned six-month-iversary you want. Just promise me one thing.”
The elevator slowed as it approached the lobby. “Name it.”
“Let’s never get to like those two, okay?”
“Oh hell no,” Marshall said. “Don’t worry. I’ve already got a plan in place for just such a contingency.”
The doors opened, and Rory took his hand in hers as they set off across the high rise’s lobby and whatever awaited them out in the bustling New York City beyond it.
“Thanks, Batman.”
BURNING
/> ELAINE CUNNINGHAM
A DRAGON—A SOLITARY DRAGON—CAN fly faster than rumors, but when the dragons’ inner fires kindle and they gather to mate and burn and rampage their way across the Vast, a team of pack mules can outpace them. Never in human history has this proven untrue. When the first refugees from the sunrise kingdoms staggered into Dinistari, the lore keepers told us we’d have five years, perhaps as many as seven, before everything we knew burned to ash.
That was six years ago.
It had taken me nearly that long to reach the outskirts of Bluestone Castle. Never mind why. The dragons were coming, and I was finally going to take my place among the women who would stop them.
I hurried through the maze of narrow streets, only dimly aware of the dark looks and the gestures of warding the town folk threw my way. The seabirds’ complaints grew louder as I neared the cliffs, and the jumble of marketplace scents yielded to the tang of the sea. Finally, I caught sight of the seawall, and the gatehouse guarding the entrance to the castle causeway. I brushed aside my upper veil so I might get an unclouded look at my new home.
The castle stood on a tall, rocky island just off the coast, connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of rock. Bluestone walls soared into the sky, crowned with tall, flat-topped towers that defied the winds blowing in from the sea. Above the highest of these towers, I glimpsed the silhouettes of battle-beasts Dinistari necromancers had created from ancient fragments of dragons’ eggs.
Illustration by NICOLÁS R. GIACONDINO
One of those beasts would be mine to command.
I dropped the veil back over my eyes and strode toward the gatehouse. The three guards fell silent at my approach, their eyes wary as they took in my sand-colored robes and the veils that hid my face. One of them drew his cutlass with a slow, menacing flourish and tested the edge on the pad of his thumb.
It was a fine performance. Very intimidating. Fortunately, my veils hid my smirk.
I presented my papers to the gatekeeper. He ignored them. He was also careful to avoid meeting my gaze, which told me his knowledge of far-seers was based more on rumor than truth. This was disappointing; I’d expected better of the castle guard.
He dismissed me with a flick of his fingers. “Turn around and follow your nose to the fishmonger. The Jade Jug stands two doors down. Only place in town that’ll have the likes of you.”
“Got a weakness for your kind, the innkeeper does,” said the guard with the cutlass. “His daughter burned out, too.”
His words stung, as they were meant to. I pulled his name from his mind—not the name on his commission, or the lineage he’d invented for himself, but the name his lowborn mother used to scream at him.
“Things are seldom what they seem, Dajeeb,” I said pleasantly. “Don’t you find it so?”
The gatekeeper reached over to cuff the guard’s head. “Keep your eyes on your boots and your thoughts in your own damned head. And you,” he said, rounding back to me. “It’s the Jade Jug or it’s the sea-tide dungeon. Choose.”
I held up my commission, which bestowed upon me the title of Torch, a commander among the elite warriors these men were pledged to serve.
“Since Lord Narkahesh summoned me for duty, why don’t we let him decide?”
Perhaps they could read and perhaps they could not, but judging from the sudden pallor of their faces, they knew the necromancer’s seal well enough.
DAJEEB ESCORTED ME INTO THE castle and into the tallest tower. In a narrow stairwell, hundreds of stairs spiraled skyward. The climb was nothing to me, but the guard was blowing like a hard-ridden horse long before we reached the threshold of the necromancer’s lair.
There could be no mistaking the nature and purpose of this chamber. Who but a necromancer would fill his workplace with furnishings fashioned from bone?
The mounted heads of various monsters and men decorated the walls, staring into eternity with eyes of glass. A long table held jars and pots and vials filled with substances that glowed or bubbled, whispered or hummed. In the center of the hall stood a raised scrying bowl, a shallow vessel that resembled an oversized birdbath. Narkahesh, lord of this castle and one of the most feared and powerful men in the realm, stood beside the vessel, watching as servants emptied bowls of fresh blood into it.
The necromancer was much as expected: rich robes, black hair woven into a multitude of tiny braids, a beak of a nose, and cold, intelligent eyes. My gaze skimmed over him and settled on the trio of women near the hearth.
They stood at ease, sipping from goblets and chatting softly. All wore the Torch uniform, multi-colored dragonscale tunics that seemed to glow with inner fire. Their forearms were bandaged from the bloodletting, which had dimmed their fire-hued eyes to the color of warm coals. None of them wore veils.
Not that I expected veils—only far-seers went about veiled—but after ten years among the farsighted I was more comfortable gazing into an unsuspecting mind than a naked face.
It was easier to look upon the suits of armor that ringed the room. Lord Narkahesh had amassed quite a collection: the head-to-foot plate of the northern knights, leather armor crafted by the forest elves, even the intricately woven rushes from the sunrise kingdoms.
More fascinating still were the three dragon hatchlings, two green and one red, chained to iron loops bolted onto the floor. Each was no bigger than a raven, and they lapped at a single saucer containing a few spoonfuls of the Torches’ blood.
I understood the reason for this. Necromancy was the art of binding and shaping, and blood supplied both the chains and the clay. It bound the battle-beasts to the Torches, and the Torches to the necromancer’s will. This method was time-tested, proven. I was certain I could do better.
Gently, carefully, I reached out to the red hatchling. When I touched its mind, the creature leaped back from the saucer like a startled cat and spun toward me. Its head turned this way and that, seeking despite the hood that covered its eyes.
Hoods! These were battle-beasts, not mewed hawks! These Torches couldn’t handle a hatchling without first chaining and blinding it?
I forced my gaze back to my new sisters. As I’d feared, one of them was familiar—a woman from my village, the only other girl of our generation born with eyes the color of flame. Laurel, her name was. In our village, girls were usually named after flowers and herbs. She’d have a different name now, of course. All Torches took a new name along with their first battle-beast command.
The Torch glanced toward me. She leaned toward one of her comrades and said something in a low voice. Laughter rippled through the group.
My cheeks flamed. I reminded myself that she would have burned, but for me, along with everyone in our village.
Yet here she was, and her dragonscale tunic proclaimed that she had succeeded where I had failed.
Dajeeb, who had been clinging to the doorpost and wheezing like a leaky bellows while I made my study of the chamber, finally gathered enough breath to announce me. The necromancer turned toward us and tipped back his head, the better to stare at me down the length of his nose. He strode to the throne-like chair at his writing table and waved me toward the lesser seat across. Dajeeb hastened to pull out the necromancer’s chair, then he took up position behind his lord.
Narkahesh picked up a sheet of paper bearing Lord Oksari’s sigil and scowled at the precise runes.
“Your name is Rue? Just that, and nothing more?”
I resisted the urge to recite a long string of invented names and titles, each more ridiculous than the last.
“It suffices. My lord.”
His eyes narrowed at my tone. “And you’re a far-seer.”
“Yes.”
“A dabbler in the magical arts, a mind too weak for anything but peering at the world through other people’s eyes.”
I brushed back my upper veil so that I could meet his gaze directly with my flame-colored eyes. “If that is what you believe, why did you summon me?”
Narkahesh put down the paper, fo
lded his hands on the table, and leaned toward me. “Oksari is an old friend. Honest, as wizards go. Secretive, of course, but more plainspoken than you’d expect a spymaster to be. I’ve never known him to exaggerate.”
“Nor have I.”
“Yet the abilities he describes are unprecedented, and his claims hard to credit. Convince me.”
I’m no orator, but I’ve always found that actions make a fine substitute for words. A thought, a mere nudge, and suddenly Dajeeb drew that dagger of which he was so proud and held it against the necromancer’s throat.
Three swords hissed free of their scabbards. Narkahesh raised one hand, halting the sudden rush of the Torches.
“I have no need of guards. You may go. All of you.”
I released Dajeeb so that he could do his master’s bidding. He all but ran from the chamber, closely followed by two of the women. Laurel remained, her sword still held in guard position. “Are you certain, my lord?”
Judging from the raw, incredulous fury on the necromancer’s face, he was unaccustomed to disobedience. Apparently, Laurel had found her courage since we’d last met.
“Have you ever known me to be uncertain, Mirianda?”
Laurel—no, she was Mirianda now—sheathed her sword and gave me a warning glare. “No, my lord.”
Nakarhesh watched her leave the chamber and close the door behind her. His expression, when he turned his attention back to me, was decidedly unfriendly.
“According to Oksari, you were not tested as a child, but went directly to the far-seer’s tower.”
“That is correct.”
“Is it?” he said coldly. “I have heard a different tale.”
Not surprising. Mirianda was with me the day a salamander lay in wait near the pond where the village girls went to swim after a day’s work. I wonder if she’d also told him that she’d run like a scalded cat.
“You were tested,” Nakarhesh repeated, “if not in the proscribed manner. A fire lizard attacked, and you could not hold it.”
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