There were inert wards of silence around the room. Arlen sketched a ward in the air, activating them.
Leesha stiffened, sensing the change. Her hand darted to her belt, where a gold-plated wand of demon bone hung.
Ever alert, Wonda put a hand to the knife at her hip. “Everythin’ all right, mistress?”
“Check the door,” Leesha said. “Take your bow.”
“No need for that, Won.” Arlen stepped from the shadows.
Leesha was on her feet in an instant, drawing a mimic ward in the air.
“Ent a demon, Leesh,” Arlen said. “It’s me. Honest word.”
“Deliverer.” Wonda dropped to one knee.
Arlen rolled his eyes. “How many times I need to tell you to knock that off ’fore you start listening, Wonda Cutter?”
Wonda shrugged, getting back to her feet. “ ’Bout a million, I reckon.”
“Halfway there, then,” Arlen said.
“Good to see ya, sir,” Wonda said. “Knew ya wern’t dead.”
“Good to see you, too,” Arlen said. “Got words for you and a few others, soon. Proud of you. But right now, be obliged if you stand outside the door and make sure we don’t get any accidental visitors.”
“Ay, sir.” Wonda took her bow and quiver, heading for the door.
“Not a word to anyone, Wonda,” Leesha said.
“Ay, mistress.” Wonda closed the door behind her.
“Countess Paper,” Arlen said. “Do I bow, or…?”
Leesha clipped the wand back on her belt and opened her arms. “Shut it and hug me.”
Arlen embraced her tightly, and she him. Her scent filled his nostrils—herbs and soap, the sweetness of her milk, and that smell that was hers alone. He resisted the urge to put his face in her hair and breathe as he once had.
They let go only reluctantly, but once his grip loosened, Leesha shoved him back. “Corespawn you, Arlen Bales! You gave us all a deathly fright! You and your ripping secret plans! Is Ahmann alive, too?”
Arlen rubbed at the back of his neck. “Course he is, Leesha. Didn’t kill anyone. Renna told you that.”
“She didn’t.” Leesha practically spat the words. “She said he wasn’t coming back, same as you.”
She smacked at his chest. He could have stopped her, or moved, or dissipated and let the hand pass through him, but he let it happen. “Get it all out, Leesh. Know I got it comin’.”
“Corespawned right!” she growled, but his passive stance took some of the wind from her. Leesha’s emotions could boil over now and again, but at heart she was a creature of logic. She had questions, and they couldn’t be asked while she was shouting.
There was a cry from across the room as the baby stirred.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Leesha said. “I only just got the baby to sleep.”
“I ent the one shouting.” Leesha moved toward the crib, but Arlen was faster. He scooped the child up, unable to keep the smile from his face.
He looked back, and there was panic in Leesha’s aura. She was terrified by him touching the child, but she kept it in check, saying nothing. Arlen put out a finger and the babe took it, cries forgotten as the tiny eyes stared up at him.
Looking closer into the child’s aura, he saw what Leesha feared. “Ay, don’t see that every day.”
Leesha’s aura became guarded. “That all you have to say?”
Arlen ignored the question. “What’s her name?”
“Olive.” Arlen could see the image of an olive floating above Leesha, half bitten with the stone showing.
He laughed. “Olives got stones.”
Leesha crossed her arms. “My mother said that.”
“It’s a good name,” Arlen said. “She’ll like it.”
Leesha’s aura shifted from guarded to curious. “What makes you think Olive’s a she?”
Arlen looked back at the child, wondering that himself. He probed deeper, pulling a touch of magic through Olive and absorbing it, Reading the imprint she left. All around her, images danced in her aura. More than he had ever seen. They weren’t her thoughts or memories; she was too young for those. They were what might be.
“Don’t know,” he said at last. “But I know I’m right. Olive’ll answer to she, but always know she’s neither.”
Pain lanced across Leesha’s aura. Her eyes teared, and she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.
Arlen cradled Olive in one arm, reaching a hand out to squeeze Leesha’s shoulder. “Don’t matter. She’ll be Olive, too big to fit in any box. World’s just gonna have to get used to her.”
Leesha let out a choked laugh. “My mother said that, too.”
“Smarts like a whip, your mam,” Arlen said. “Olive’s got hard times ahead, but she’s as special as her parents. Maybe more. Ent nothin’ the world can throw at her she can’t handle.”
Leesha looked up at him, eyes still wet with tears. “How can you know these things?”
Arlen looked back at the swirling images around Olive and shrugged. “See things, now. Sometimes what folk are thinkin’, and sometimes…something else. Like the dice, I reckon. Not what will be, but what might. Odds are good none of us has much future left, but if we get through what’s coming…”
“Where’s her father?” Leesha asked.
“On guard duty till I finish up here,” Arlen said. “Then he’s got his own business to settle in Everam’s Bounty. After that, we’ll be away again.”
“What business?” Leesha demanded. “Guarding what? Away where? What’s coming?”
Arlen blew out a breath. “Stirred up the hornet’s nest, Leesh. Gonna be a swarm, and it’s kind of my fault.”
Arlen saw the flash of pain behind Leesha’s eye even before she pressed the heel of her palm into her temple, easing it. “That sounds like the Arlen Bales I know.” She strode back to her chair. “Tea?”
“Ay, thanks,” Arlen said. Olive closed her eyes, and he eased himself gently onto the couch across from Leesha so as not to wake her. Leesha poured, and he took the cup with his free hand. It was bitter, but that was no surprise. Leesha didn’t withhold sugar on purpose; it just never occurred to her that anyone would want it.
She squinted at him through her warded spectacles. “Night, Arlen. If you want sugar, all you have to do is ask.”
He smiled. “You’re better’n you let on at reading auras.”
“Doesn’t take a mind demon,” Leesha said. “I can see a ripping sugar pot floating over your head.”
“Don’t start to make out images till you’ve got the hang of it,” Arlen said.
Leesha waved a dismissive hand, but he could see she was pleased. “Does this mean you’ve been wanting sugar all this time and never said a word?”
Arlen shrugged. “You never set it on the table unless someone asks, and I ent one to cause a fuss. Drank worse’n bitter tea in my time.”
“Ichor?” Leesha asked, and Arlen felt his blood turn cold. He kept his haggler’s mask in place, probing her aura to see how much she knew.
He blew out a breath, setting down the drink. “How’d you figure it out?”
“I didn’t,” Leesha said. “Stela Inn did. Now she’s locked in the dungeon in a warded cell, and dozens of magic-drunk teenagers are eating demon meat out in Gatherers’ Wood.”
“Night.” Arlen put his face in his palm.
“You could have told me,” Leesha said. “You could have trusted me.”
“Like I trusted you not to go warding folk’s skin?” Arlen asked. “Like I trusted you to take my word that too much magic’s dangerous? You saw what I was like, Leesha. Livin’ in the wild like an animal, forgettin’ what it meant to be a man. Nearly left you and Rojer for dead on the road, and you caught me on a good day.”
Leesha crossed her arms. “But it was all right for Renna?”
Arlen scowled. “Renna din’t give me any more choice in the matter’n you, Leesh. Surrounded by women who won’t do what I tell ’em.”
She smirked at him. “Maybe that’s what you need to keep you from acting the fool.”
Arlen chuckled in spite of himself. “Ay, maybe.”
Leesha got up, striding to a side table with a simple clay tea service. No fancy silver for this duchess. She returned with the sugar pot, taking the tongs and dropping two cubes into his cup. She set the pot down and returned to her seat. “Now tell me what you’ve gone and done.”
“Trust you, Leesha Paper,” Arlen said. “Always have. But just like you din’t hand me the secrets of fire when I asked, I kept some things. We all got a right to our own counsel.”
Leesha pursed her lips but didn’t argue.
“Now…” He sighed. “Don’t know I’m gonna live to see you again, so there ent much point in holdin’ secrets. Tell you everything you want to know, but I need your oath, out loud, to keep it quiet. Someone gets wind of what I’m about to tell you, and a mind catches ’em, whole world’s in jeopardy.”
Leesha didn’t hesitate. “I swear on the child sleeping in your arm. Your secrets are safe with me.”
Arlen nodded. “Minds didn’t come after me and Jardir by accident. They take this Deliverer business even more serious than the Tenders. Call us Unifiers. Minds to stir the drones into a real resistance. Long as we were around, they were going to keep coming.”
“Renna said as much when you sent her,” Leesha said.
“Thought we could fight ’em, like they did in the old days,” Arlen said. “Then they caught me in that trap on new moon and went through my mind like a rummage trunk. Could hear ’em, chattin’ in my head. Looked at my life and plans and laughed at what a joke it all was.
“But then,” he tapped his temple, “they let slip one little thing.”
“What?” He could see her resisting the urge to lean in.
“Saw where I got the wards from,” Arlen said. “Saw Anoch Sun, and swore to go back there the next new moon and obliterate the place.”
Leesha’s eyes narrowed. “You knew where they’d be.”
Arlen nodded. “Knew then I couldn’t kill Jardir. Demons saw that plan in my mind. Had to do something they didn’t expect.”
“Domin Sharum was a ruse from the start,” Leesha guessed. “You kidnapped Ahmann and took him there.”
Arlen nodded. “And Renna, Shanvah, and Shanjat.”
Leesha clenched a fist, aura spiking hot with anger. “But not me. Not Rojer or Gared or…”
“Couldn’t risk it,” Arlen said. “Whole thing hinged on hiding in a tiny burial chamber until the minds came to shit in Kaji’s sarcophagus. Every added body increased the chance they’d spot us and run before we struck.”
“So what happened?” Leesha demanded.
“Jardir’s crown projects a warding field in a sphere,” Arlen said. “Demons can’t get in, and they can’t get out. We killed some of the lesser minds, and trapped the big bad in with us.”
Leesha’s eyes widened. “You mean…?”
Arlen nodded. “Alagai Ka. He’s real as you’n me.”
“Did you kill him?” Leesha asked.
Arlen looked around, checking to see that the wards of silence were still active. He drew a few extra, just in case. Unsight. Confusion. Leesha watched patiently.
“Corespawned bastard wiped the floor with us,” he said. “Literally. Took me, Jardir, and Renna, with all our tricks and traps, to finally beat him down and chain him up.”
Leesha gaped. “Chain?”
“He’s alive,” Arlen said. “That’s what Jardir’s guarding.”
“But why?” Leesha asked.
“Ent gonna like the answer,” Arlen warned.
Leesha scowled, crossing her arms. “Out with it, then.”
“Gonna make him take us to the Core to kill the demon queen.”
“Night.” Leesha’s aura showed she had been readying a scolding, but as the enormity of his words sank in, she deflated. “And the demons are going to swarm to stop you?”
Arlen shook his head. “Not exactly.”
—
“Night,” Leesha said again, when Arlen finished explaining. She always knew he was crazy, but this…“Do you still think going down to the hive is a good idea?”
“Got a better one?” Arlen asked.
Olive remained asleep in the crook of his arm, looking so peaceful. His aura enveloped her protectively. What would it be like for her to grow up never knowing him? Without ever having met her father? Leesha was not as skilled as them at reading auras, but even she could see that Arlen saw this as a mission they would not return from.
“You say the lesser mind demons are already nesting,” Leesha said. “You could kill the demon king and hunt them down, one by one. Fight the demon war the old-fashioned way.”
“There were a lot more folk back then,” Arlen said. “Kaji’s army numbered in the millions. We ent got spears enough now, much less if the queen squirts out a hundred thousand fresh demon eggs.”
He blew out a breath. “But maybe this is the old-fashioned way, give or take. Evejah says Kaji took the fight underground, and Alagai Ka confirms it.”
“Kaji killed the demon queen?” Leesha asked.
“Tried to,” Arlen said. “Got close. But something happened in the last press. Creator only knows.”
“Since when do you believe in the Creator?” Leesha asked.
Arlen shrugged. “Know what I mean.”
“How do you know this demon isn’t leading you into a trap?” Leesha asked.
He shrugged again in that infuriating way he had. “Probably is. But the corelings don’t know we’re coming, and thanks to your cloaks they ent likely to see us. With the demon daddy tattooed and chained, there’s a limit to the damage he can do.”
“Sounds like he’s already shown you that limit is more than you expect.”
Arlen nodded. “Won’t take any chances we don’t have to, but can’t just sit here and wait for night to fall for good.”
“No,” Leesha agreed. “No, you can’t.”
“Minds are going to try to crack the Free Cities open like eggs,” Arlen warned. “They’ll need fresh meat to feed the hatchling queens. Every major settlement is going to get hit as they stake out their territories.”
“What happens when they kill us all and run out of food?” Leesha massaged her temple.
“Then they expand their reach,” Arlen said. “We ent the only people in the world, Leesha, and this hive ent the only one.”
“So what?” Leesha asked. “You kill the queen and we withstand the swarm and it’s all just a temporary fix?”
Arlen shook his head. “Not if we keep building greatwards. We last through the next year, a generation from now corelings won’t be able to materialize anywhere in Thesa.”
“You really believe that?” Leesha asked.
“Much as I believe anything,” Arlen said, and there was no lie in his aura. “When I was little, folk didn’t think demons could be fought at all. Proved ’em wrong, and then folk didn’t think Krasians and Thesans could work together. Proved them wrong, too. Write our own destinies, Leesh, long as we got the stones to do it.”
Olive burbled, shifting to nestle further into him, and Leesha clenched a fist. “Then that’s what we’ll do. What do you need?”
“Gonna have to get word to the other cities,” Arlen said. “Can you handle Angiers? Euchor ent going to listen, but I’ve got some other friends in Miln—”
“You don’t,” Leesha cut in.
“Ay?” Arlen asked.
Leesha savored the moment. “Elissa and Ragen are here, in the Hollow.”
Arlen’s eyes grew wider than teacups, and she smiled. “They were in Lakton when the Krasians attacked. They’re staying in this very keep while they gather supply for the trip home.”
“Saves me a trip then.” Arlen regained control of his expression, but she could see the pleasure her words brought.
Creator, let him have this bit of joy. If anyone deserves it, it’s Arlen Bales.
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“Can you ask Wonda to fetch them here while I skate back to get Ren, please?” Arlen asked. “Rojer and Gared, too.”
Leesha froze, keeping her expression calm, but it didn’t matter. Arlen saw right through her. His eyes flicked above her shoulder, seeing the ghost that no doubt hovered there. Any touch of elation vanished from his aura.
“Rojer’s dead?!”
In his arm, Olive began to cry.
—
Arlen was still brushing away tears when he and Renna rematerialized in Leesha’s private office. Leesha had gathered Ragen, Elissa, Derek, Wonda, and Gared as he’d asked.
“Night,” Gared muttered to Wonda. “Coulda gone my whole life without seeing the Deliverer cry.”
Leesha glared at him, but it was too late. Arlen had ears like a bat.
“Human as you are, Gar,” he snapped. “Ent got a right to a few tears for my friend?”
“Course ya do,” Gared said. “Only meant—”
“Only meant you’re still stuck on this rippin’ Deliverer nonsense when there’s wood to chop!” Gone was the serenity they were accustomed to seeing on Arlen’s face. His eyes were afire, like Stela’s had been. His aura burned a hot red, and everyone in the room could see it.
Arlen advanced, and Gared shrank back. His knees buckled, and Arlen’s aura blazed. “So help me, Gared Cutter, you try and kneel and I’ll…”
Leesha started forward, but it was Renna, her own eyes wet and swollen red, who put a hand on his arm, checking him.
“Breathe,” she murmured.
Arlen pulled up, drawing a deep breath. The anger flowed out of his aura with the exhale, and everyone in the room joined in a sigh of relief.
“Sorry, Gar,” Arlen said.
“Had it comin’.” Gared blushed and waved a hand to dismiss it. “Might need a change o’ shorts, though.”
“Din’t,” Arlen said. “Ent you I was mad at. Should’ve been there. Should’ve…”
“Ay,” Gared said. “Think that every night. Never should’ve left the city with him locked up.”
“We all do,” Leesha said. “None of us imagined Janson could be so bold.”
Now it was Renna’s aura that reddened. “Take it this Janson ent breathin’ anymore?”
Leesha glanced around the room. With Rojer’s wives returned to Krasia, the secret didn’t really matter anymore. “Sikvah slit his throat in a palace lavatory.”
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