He stepped forward across the room, and another pair of rats fled from his spectral boots. “If that meant putting a leash on true savants, then so be it.”
Shaedra grit her teeth. “You think that’s why I want to help Eve, then?”
“I know it is,” Alex said. “You might not have been the Avenshal, but you were special, my love. You never had to train with anyone to unlock your power. Weaving was instinct to you, and no one in Vakar understood that. When the Lesseks invaded, our people refused to believe in you. They didn’t trust that you might be able to save them, and they offered no help. So instead…”
She looked down at her mangled arm. Instead, she had become a monster. The wound was healing, slowly, even despite the cellium. Any human would have lost the limb entirely, but not her. She wasn’t human, not for a very long time. She was darkness—a darkness she had inflicted upon herself.
“Maybe the girl can save her people,” Alex whispered. “Maybe you can give her the support she needs.”
“Or maybe I should just kill her before she destroys everything,” Shaedra said.
She stared down at her crippled arm, at the mottled skin that was slowly returning to its pale color, and then jabbed her palm hard enough to draw blood. She squeezed her fist together, and the glowing, viscous liquid dripped from between her fingers.
She didn’t know how long she stood there looking at it, appreciating what it meant, but eventually she pivoted back to face him…
He was gone. She couldn’t remember the last time he had left amicably. She couldn’t remember the last time they had done anything but yell at one another. Maybe he had finally come around to her way of thinking…or maybe she had finally come to terms with herself. Maybe she just needed to hear the words spoken from her lips—the real reason she was even here.
“Before she turns into me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
From the first moment Eve had learned of her mother’s murder, she’d been hounded by a recurring nightmare of the Dusties coming after her. It was a simple, primal response made up of equal parts anger and vengeance. A part of her had enjoyed the delusions because they’d given her a chance to lash out, an excuse to flex her magical muscle. They made her feel like she could undo what had happened if she could only push herself that much harder.
Then she had boarded that train to Vaschberg and buried those feelings away. The delusions went right along with them. She’d assumed it was for the better; she’d wanted to be as cool and composed as possible when meeting Danev and whatever else they might encounter.
Instead, the feelings had only festered inside of her. It might have explained why she had reacted so strongly on the train—maybe dealing with her grief was a vital part of learning to temper her powers. Either way, at long last she finally had an excuse to release them, and it felt just as good as she had imagined.
Sadly, her skills as a mage simply weren’t up to the challenge.
Shaedra stood across from her in the empty warehouse. Eve had thrown everything she could muster at the other woman, but, as it turned out, that wasn’t very much. At this point she could weave a few of the most basic spells from Maltus’s book—more than any krata was supposed to have access to—but that was about it. They were no match for Shaedra’s own magical defenses, let alone her Vakari regenerative abilities.
Finally, after ten minutes of solid weaving, Eve dropped to a knee and tried desperately to catch her breath. She already ached more than she had after hiking through the plains for two straight days. The Flensing gnawed at every part of her body; she could barely even lift her arms. A sharp pain stabbed at her lungs each time she tried to breathe.
“You’re still thinking too much,” Shaedra admonished, folding her arms across her chest.
“I’m not sure what you expect,” Eve replied between labored breaths.
“I expect you to hurt me,” the Vakari replied flatly. “You’re flailing around like krata in a magister’s library.”
Eve grit her teeth. “I am a krata. I told you before I don’t know many spells. I’ve picked up a few really basic techniques from Maltus’s spellbook, and that’s it.”
She sighed and tried to regain her breath. Despite how seemingly little she’d accomplished, the musty warehouse air now reeked of ash, and her eyes still reeled from the brilliant flashes of magic she’d produced. If anyone was outside in the alleyway, they surely would have thought a war was raging in here. The building might not have had windows, but the numerous cracks riddling the decaying walls should have been plenty to show off the lightshow.
Fortunately, no one had screamed in terror or come barging in with a squad of policemen. Unfortunately, this all seemed to be a huge waste of time.
“The problem is that you’re still thinking like a mage,” Shaedra said after a moment. “Formulae, equations, predictable manipulations…you need to move past that.”
Eve glanced up and scowled. “That’s what magic is.”
“No,” Shaedra told her. “Not to you it isn’t. It’s a primal thing, an instinct more than a conscious thought. You felt it at the Calio, you felt it on the train, and then you felt it again in the forest. Let yourself feel it again now.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Eve murmured. “I can’t just flick my wrist and do something.”
“You have before. What’s stopping you now?”
Eve shook her head. It was, really, the operative question. Over the last few minutes she’d certainly woven harder than any normal krata, but there hadn’t been anything special about it—she’d been given access to the spells and studied them. She had picked it up faster than most of her university peers would have, but being a quick study was one thing—being the Avenshal was another. Magic was supposed to be instinct for her; it was supposed to be etched into her very soul by a long dead god.
Well, apparently he hadn’t etched very hard.
“I don’t know,” she breathed, throwing up her hands. “I just can’t do it.”
Shaedra raised an eyebrow. “Because you don’t want to hurt me.”
“You already assured me that I can’t hurt you, even if I did manage to slip past your defenses.”
“But you thought you could, just like you did in the forest,” Shaedra reminded her. “You’re worried about it, and it’s making you hold back.”
“I think you overestimate my opinion of you,” Eve replied dryly. “I’m not that concerned about hurting a monster.”
“Yes, you are, because you no longer see me that way. You should, but you don’t. And it’s holding you back.”
Eve braced her hand on the cold floor and dragged herself back to her feet. Her lungs had stopped aching, at least, but her arms and legs continued to throb mercilessly. She doubted her ability to heat up a tub of water at this point, let alone weave enough power to wound a Vakari.
“Believe whatever you want, but this isn’t working,” Eve said. “And I need to rest.”
“There’s no time for that,” Shaedra said.
“Unless you want me to Flense myself to death, there has to be.”
The Vakari raised her chin slightly and started to walk forward. It wasn’t a casual stride, either—it was a purposeful one.
“What are you doing?” Eve asked.
“I want you to stop me,” Shaedra told her. “If you don’t, I’m going to hurt you.”
Eve sighed and rolled her eyes. “You can’t trick me into this. I know you won’t actually do anything.”
“Do you?”
Eve frowned despite herself. The other woman was only a few meters away now, and Eve had to force herself not to recoil away. As unstable as Shaedra seemed sometimes, she wasn’t actually crazy. She had consistently acted like she was bound by Maltus’s wishes, and even if he had lied to her before, Eve knew he didn’t want Shaedra to hurt her. She was far too strong to just play around and—
The slap came before Eve could even flinch, and it sent her twirling a hundred eight degrees b
efore hitting the ground. Her cheek burned like she’d been stabbed with a fiery poker, and her vision blurred as she nearly lost consciousness.
“You bitch!” Eve hissed, tilting her head to look back at the Vakari through a dizzy haze.
Shaedra loomed over her menacingly, and she swept her good arm down and yanked Eve from the floor by her throat.
“It’s no wonder Chaval believes he can win a civil war,” the woman muttered, her bony fingers squeezing so tightly Eve thought her neck might snap. “If this is the best the universities can produce, then maybe you deserve to get wiped out.”
Eve clawed desperately at Shaedra’s fingers, but she knew it was futile even as she did it. She started to kick frantically instead as her vision started to dim altogether…
And then she was flying across the room. She smashed into an old crate and tumbled over it. She cried out as splinters jabbed into her back and legs, and her elbow flashed with agony as it cracked into the concrete floor. She could barely see, and she still couldn’t breathe. She flailed wildly, trying to find something to grip onto to hoist her up.
“Pathetic,” Shaedra sneered as she knocked the crates aside.
“Please…” Eve managed, finally finding a single gulp of breath.
The woman grunted. “Pity won’t stop me. Do you have any idea how many people I’ve fed off of as they begged for their lives? Better people, too—men and women who had actually accomplished something. Then there’s you, a spoiled little brat who’s too timid to defend herself. I’d be doing everyone a favor right now by sucking you dry.”
Eve ground her teeth between sobs. A dozen different spells floated through her mind, but she couldn’t focus enough to weave them. All the formulae and techniques collided together, and she couldn’t separate them out…
But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t in danger—not really. A simple healing spell would mend these injuries, and Shaedra wouldn’t dare go farther than this just to make a point.
“You won’t do it,” Eve croaked. “Maltus won’t let you.”
Shaedra snorted. “Maltus doesn’t control me any more than the Enclave does. I assist him because I want to.
“No, you don’t,” Eve said, leaning up on her elbow. “I don’t know why, but you won’t disobey him. Maybe you’re afraid of him, or maybe you feel like you owe him something. But whatever it is, you can’t hurt me. Not really.”
“And you’re willing to bet your life on that?”
“We just proved I couldn’t stop you. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Of course there is,” Shaedra growled. “You just don’t want to face it. So I’m going to make that choice for you.”
She reached down again, this time lifting Eve up by her blouse and hurling her against the nearby wall. The entire warehouse seemed to rumble from the impact, and for a moment everything went black. When Eve blinked again she could barely make out the other woman standing over her once more.
“Let me tell you a little secret about the Vakari,” Shaedra whispered, reaching down to once more hoist Eve up by her throat and pin her against the wall. “This hunger that drives us? I can control it pretty well. I’ve gone months without feeding before, and I could do it again if I absolutely had to.”
Her bony thumb twisted, and suddenly Eve felt a fingernail slicing into her skin. She tried to kick herself free, but it was just as empty a gesture as before.
“Some things set it off more than others,” Shaedra went on, her eyes glittering. She lifted her thumb up enough that Eve could see it out of the corner of her eye. Blood trickled down its length. “Fresh blood…I can smell it from kilometers away. I can taste the fear, the desperation…and then I lose control completely.”
The Vakari’s eyes widened, and suddenly the piercing green irises were replaced with a white, milky haze. Her hand grew cold, and a bitter chill wormed its way through Eve’s entire body. The air began to hiss softly, and she could almost feel the Fane writhing in agony as Shaedra sundered it, Defiled it…
“Put her down!”
Eve turned at the sound of Zach’s voice. Her vision had nearly gone black, and she could barely make him out at the edge of the warehouse. She thought she heard a gunshot, and suddenly she was crumpled into a ball on the ground. The deathly chill left her body, and she squinted to try and see what was happening…
Another shot fired, followed almost immediately by a third and fourth. Shaedra grunted as the bullets tore through her, but she remained on her feet. The air whooshed as she threw something, and Zach screamed so loudly it echoed off the warehouse walls.
His cry was like the clarion call of a trumpet, and before Eve could even process what was happening, she was up and at her feet. The pain dulled, her vision cleared, and the Fane crackled to life as it coursed through her entire body. She tossed a glance over at Zach as he huddled against another row of crates. One of Shaedra’s throwing knives jutted out from his shoulder. The Vakari strode towards him now, her hand outstretched as if she planned to crush the life from him.
Eve extended her hands, and a torrent of jagged, purple-black beams streaked out from her fingertips and blasted Shaedra in the back. She toppled forward with an uncharacteristic shriek and smashed head-first into another pile of crates before vanishing into a blur of limbs and splintering wood.
The Vakari recovered quickly. She leapt to her feet and summoned a scintillating barrier of protective magic around herself. Her eyes flashed dangerously as she extended her arm, and a stroke of electricity flashed across the room—and then abruptly vanished before it struck its target.
Eve wasn’t even sure how she’d done it, but the spell unraveled before her as if she had blown out a candle. Shaedra blinked in surprise, but Eve didn’t plan on giving her a chance to react. She lashed out with another torrent of energy, and again the Vakari screamed as she was hurled backwards along the floor. For a single moment, Eve understood exactly what it was that held Shaedra—and all Vakari—together. She understood their parasitic connection to the Fane, and she understood the nature of their insatiable hunger. She understood what made them immortal.
And, most importantly, she knew how to end it.
Eve called to the Fane again, but despite the energy crackling at her fingertips, she feared it wouldn’t be enough. Her own body wouldn’t be sufficient to fuel this spell; she needed more power. She reached out to the other small flickers of life in the room, to the dozens of vermin skittering about the shadows, and severed them from the Fane. Their deaths tore open a gateway, a window through which she could pull even more power….but still it wasn’t enough. She needed something bigger, something stronger, and she glanced backwards towards Zach…
And felt nothing. Eve blinked and her breath caught in her throat. He wasn’t real; he was a figment, an illusion. He had never really been there at all.
She shot a withering glare back to Shaedra, and the Vakari smiled thinly. Her jacket still sizzled and she clutched meekly at her crippled arm, but otherwise she was all right. And she had gotten exactly what she wanted.
“So you can control it,” Shaedra whispered. “Don’t forget that.”
Eve wanted to throw herself across the room, to choke the wretched monster for the deception…but then the rage drained away.
“I can kill you,” Eve said through clenched teeth.
“You’re the Avenshal,” Shaedra replied matter-of-factly. “Of course you can.”
Eve swallowed heavily and forced herself to stand. She glanced about the warehouse, searching for signs of any of the dozens of little lives she’d just ended seconds before…
“You’ve finally tasted it, and now maybe you’ll understand,” Shaedra said.
“You made me…” Eve trailed off as she spotted the corpse of a rat not ten meters away. Its body had withered into a desiccated husk, as if it had been dead and rotting for months.
“I didn’t make you do anything. You did it—you broke the Fane and ended lives that were connected to it.”
Eve drew in a sharp breath. For all the surprising power she had demonstrated before, she had never actually crossed that line. Even on the train she had paid the price for weaving such strong magic, and the Flensing had nearly crippled her afterwards. But here, what she had just done—what she had been about to do…there was only one name one who sinned in such a way.
Defiler.
“You’re going to have to get used to it,” Shaedra said. “That’s what you have to learn to control.”
Eve clenched her hands together. When she’d killed those men on the train, she’d understood that she had crossed a terrible threshold. She’d used her power to end the life of another. Other magi had done this many times though, of course, and the spell she had woven, while far beyond her expected means, was not unheard of. It was a step that many other magi would take, given time.
But this…this was different. Without even thinking about it, she had broken the Fane. She had bypassed the Flensing, and she had taken lives to fuel her power. They might have only been rats, but if they had been living, breathing human beings….would it have even mattered? Could she have severed them from the Fane just as easily? Could she have used their lives to fuel a truly awesome and terrible magic?
“I think we’ve learned enough for today,” Shaedra said softly as she brought herself to her feet. “Now it’s time for you to rest.”
Eve didn’t reply. She just stared down at the corpse of the creature she had slain, and the faces of the men she had incinerated on the train flashed before her eyes. Their features were forever seared into her memory.
She could only wonder how many others would join them before this was over.
***
The sun had set by the time the apartment door creaked opened and Zach strolled in. He and Danev had once again gone to fetch food, but Eve suspected that the illusionist had also wanted to meet with some of his contacts in the city. Zach had taken over as his de facto bodyguard. He was, Eve mused, a pretty good match. Both men seemed to enjoy knowledge just for knowledge’s sake, and as she had learned over the course of this trip, Zach had grown up a lot.
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