Hawker pivoted, eerily quiet, and my attack hit empty air. His voice drifted from nearby. “Good luck dealing with the vampires, Olivia.”
I wheeled on the spot, but the lich had vanished. The body of the vampire emissary lay nearby, and the second lay further down the path.
“Shit,” I whispered.
He’d left me alone, paralysed with cold and humming with the node’s energy, and if the vampires caught me here, I was dead.
12
I stood frozen to the spot for an instant, pulling energy from the node into me, but it didn’t heal the ice-cold dent Hawker’s touch had left behind. I edged around the vampire’s body as I retreated to the node—and towards the dark figure stepping out of it.
About damn time you showed up.
The Death King approached at a soundless glide. “What is going on here?”
I pointed to the body of the fallen emissary. “Assassins attacked us. They killed the vampires. There was a lich, too, but he disappeared. Hawker survived. He didn’t die at the Crow’s house after all.”
“I was afraid of this.” His expression was shadowed. Human. He was still wearing his disguise. He’d come here straight from the Order, after all. “The Order tried to persuade me to stay. One would almost think they knew this was going to happen.”
My mouth fell open. “Shit.”
Someone had set us up. They’d wanted me to take the blame for Brant’s inevitable escape, and they’d kept the Death King away deliberately so he couldn’t cover for me again. Even now, he’d showed up too late. Brant had gone, and the vampires lay dead in the alley.
Darkness spooled around the node, and the Death King’s expression flattened. “They must have sensed my return.”
Liches. As I watched, at least five of them emerged from the node like a tide made of shadow. I called on the node’s strength, but the last lich’s attack still trembled through my bones. I couldn’t beat all of them at once, not if they were all former spirit mages like the Death King. And even if I did, there was no finishing them off without access to their soul amulets.
Light burned my palms, and I fired the node’s power into one of the liches. The lich staggered, and I had a brief moment of shock to appreciate the Death King giving me some of his power again before that same magic burst out of my hands and into our adversaries. Cold, invigorating energy surged in my veins in tandem with the node’s strength, equally fathomless. You’re in for it now.
Two liches fell down under our double assault, dissolving into inky puddles of darkness. A third blasted magic at me again and I raised my hands, blocking the attack with the Death King’s strength. The two of us broke apart as the remaining liches turned on their former master, and he engaged both of them at once.
The third lich and I fought, hand to hand, or rather, spirit to spirit, fuelled by the same node as we struggled to outdo one another. I was vaguely aware of the Death King standing at my side, trading blows with his own opponents, but I kept my attention on my own adversary. My fist sank into the lich’s shadowy form, and I grabbed a handful of life force and pulled.
Energy surged into me, into my spirit, and the lich exploded into nothingness. It was only then that I noticed I’d astral projected out of my body. If anyone saw the Death King and I now, they wouldn’t have known which of us was living and which was dead.
That was the power of spirit magic.
The Death King’s opponent turned to shadows, and the two of us circled the one remaining enemy. The lich retreated with a snarl, and the Death King’s power burst from my hands once again, turning the lich into shadowy dust.
“They’ll be back.” I breathed out, my hands trembling from the rush of handling so much power. “Where are their soul amulets? In the hall of souls?”
“No,” he said. “They aren’t mine.”
“Huh?” I said. “Yeah, I’m lost. That lich I saw earlier… Hawker… he died. I was sure the vampires killed him using that spell which reversed life and death.”
“For a time, I believed the same,” he said. “However, he’s not the only lich to have turned on me. I’ve lost a number of my liches since the recent attempted coup.”
Shock punched me in the chest, and I stared at him for a moment. I’d assumed the lack of liches in the castle had been because they were staying out of the way of the fire mages’ contest. “Why? Who else would they follow other than you?”
“Anyone who can offer them what they need,” he said. “My recent decisions have proven somewhat divisive. I took power in a time of instability, and while I have held my Court together for this long, it’s clear some have other plans.”
The notion of him losing his power seemed impossible, and yet I had no other way to explain where the swarm of liches had come from. Nobody else could create them, right?
I drew in a breath. “Not to make it all about me, but if we stay out here, Lord Blackbourne will think I’m the one who killed the ambassadors. How am I supposed to defend myself from his accusations with Brant and the assassins gone?”
“You aren’t.” If I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounded worried. “That was the intention, I don’t doubt.”
“Why were you meeting with the Order, then?” I said. “What was so important that you had to be at their base instead of at your own trials?”
He shook his head. “Trust me when I say my meetings with the Order are of the utmost importance, but whoever is responsible for engineering this attack is no ally of mine.”
“The vampires are going to have my head for this,” I murmured. “And Brant…”
He’d run. Like he always did. Yet what choice did he have? He was a dead man otherwise, no matter who caught him. Except, perhaps, for the House of Fire.
“Forget the fire mage,” he said, a bite of impatience in his voice. “The vampires need to be told the truth, as soon as possible.”
“It would help if we knew who threw the knives.” I jerked my head at the fallen vampires. “We can’t just leave them here, either.”
“Whoever they are, they didn’t use magic for a reason.” He picked up a discarded knife. “I will show this to the vampires as proof and return their dead to them. I want you to return to my castle and tell the other Elemental Soldiers.”
“I think Brant ran away to the House of Fire,” I told him. “If you know whereabouts the nearest base is, now’s a really good time for you to tell me.”
“I don’t,” he said, “but I highly doubt the House ordered this attack.”
“What gives you that idea?” I said. “Do you know everything about the Houses of the Elements?”
“I know a considerable amount,” he said, “because the Court of the Dead is all that remains of my own House.”
My heart missed a beat. “You mean… there was a House of Spirit?”
“Yes,” he said. “Every spirit mage who belonged to the House of Spirit was afflicted by the same curse following the war.”
A thousand questions exploded into my mind, but he cut me off before I could get half a syllable out.
“I will talk to the vampires,” he said. “If you’re here when they arrive, you’re likely to be punished.”
“You can’t just leave me hanging like that,” I said. “Not after dropping that bombshell on me.”
“Go back to the castle, Olivia,” he said. “Don’t ask my soldiers for details, either. They don’t know.”
“Because you never tell them anything, either.” The words fell from my mouth. “And maybe one day, they’ll have had enough, too. Good luck dealing with the vampires.”
I left him in the alley and walked through the node, driven by anger which swiftly turned to guilt. Infuriating though he might be, he’d helped me fight the liches, and was about to argue with the vampires on my behalf. Yet his word might not be enough if the vampires decided I was the one who’d killed their emissaries. Or the Order, come to that.
“Liv?” Ryan caught up to me on the other side of the node. “The
vampires—what did they want?”
“They wanted me to escort Brant to their holding cells,” I said. “The Order’s idea, allegedly. Then a group of assassins attacked us on the way and killed the vampires’ messengers.”
“Shit.” Ryan’s eyes widened. “Where’s the fire mage?”
“He ran, of course, as soon as he had the chance to,” I said. “The Death King showed up after the attack. He was at the Order, for reasons he won’t tell me, and he insisted I came back here to tell you and the others he’s gone to explain the situation to Lord Blackbourne.”
“Then we need to tell the other Elemental Soldiers.” Ryan ran back through the gates to the castle, and I followed. “Are you okay? You didn’t get hurt?”
“No, the assassins weren’t aiming for me,” I said. “A group of liches tried to kill me, though. Almost succeeded, too… if not for your boss.”
Ryan stopped inside the gates. “The traitor survived?”
“More than one traitor,” I said. “We never caught the assassins either, but they ran away through Arcadia. They were climbing on the roofs.”
“Human?” Ryan’s mouth pressed together. “I can take them down.”
“I don’t think that’s wise,” I said. “Your boss isn’t in the best mood.”
Ryan snapped their fingers and Aria swooped over. “Can you tell Felicity and Cal that I’m going into the city to fight someone who was sent to kill my master? Also, tell them not to let any of the vampires in if they come here.”
“Or the Order,” I added, as the air sprite left, resigning myself to going along with Ryan’s spur-of-the-moment plan. If nothing else, the Death King couldn’t pin this one on me.
Ryan headed back through the gates and out into the swampland. “Lead the way, Liv.”
“I can’t take us back to the crime scene if I don’t want the vampires to catch us.” I ran towards the node, regardless. “We’ll have to go elsewhere in the city and hope Lord Blackbourne isn’t prowling around.”
“He won’t be out this early. It isn’t dark yet.” Ryan strode over to the node. “Besides, he’s meeting with my master.”
“Yes, and I think we should have told the other Elemental Soldiers that.” Then again, if this didn’t take too long, we’d be back before the Death King knew it. I didn’t think much of our odds of finding the assassins even if they were still on the rooftops, but who knew, maybe Ryan’s air magic could knock them down. “The attack happened on the west side of town, near the city square.”
Ryan and I stepped through the node and emerged into the city. We hurried down a side street, a current of wind propelling us along courtesy of Ryan’s air magic. I bloody well hoped the vampires weren’t anywhere nearby, because it was a little difficult to hide.
As for Brant, I saw zero signs of him. He’d probably hopped through the nearest node as soon as he could and fled for his life.
Ryan eyed the rooftops and conjured a gust of wind strong enough to rattle the nearby windows and force me to brace myself against the alley wall. “That ought to flush them out.”
Why did I agree to this again? “I think you just knocked someone’s roof tiles off.”
Ryan shrugged and kept walking, their foot catching on something on the ground. I caught up as they lifted a knife into the air. “Is this one of their weapons?”
“Looks like it.”
Ryan conjured up another breeze, this one even stronger. A muffled thump sounded from the neighbouring road, and we ran around the corner to find ourselves faced with two masked figures, both looking somewhat windswept. Both wore generic dark clothing and carried carved knives in their hands.
Ryan raised their hands and blasted both assassins off their feet. One hit the wall, the other landed in a heap at my feet. I flicked on a paralysing cantrip and both of them froze. Ryan grabbed one of their knives and pressed it to the nearest assassin’s throat.
“Hold on!” I warned Ryan. “If we kill them, we won’t be able to prove to the vampires that they were the ones who murdered their emissaries, not me.”
Ryan scowled. “What are we supposed to do with them, then?”
“Lock them in the Death King’s jail,” I said. “I’m sure he won’t object.”
Ryan lifted one of the assassins into the air. “Fine.”
I dragged the other assassin behind me as I followed them back towards the node. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to know who sent these guys. Someone hired them, and it sure as hell wasn’t the vampires or the Death King.”
Were the traitorous liches acting alone, or had they rallied around whoever was disrupting the trials? The only way to know for sure was to talk to them myself… or get the Death King to spill his secrets.
When we landed in the swampland, the assassin squirmed out of my grip and tried to make a run for it.
“Who might you be?” Dex appeared in a flash of light, and the assassin tripped over his own feet in an effort to avoid the sudden burst of flames.
“Assassins.” Ryan levitated both of them into the air with an irritable gesture. “They’re coming with us.”
Between us, we dragged the assassins into the jail and shoved them into cells side by side. The doors slammed, and my skin prickled at the memory of my own captivity. It wasn’t the first time I’d been locked up, nor even the worst, but I’d forgotten most of my stint in prison before my trial at the Order.
At this rate, I’d be lucky to escape a similar fate at the vampires’ hands, since someone in the Order’s ranks had tried to set me up to take the fall for the vampires’ emissaries’ deaths.
The Death King likely wouldn’t be pleased with me for bringing the assassins here, but I wasn’t about to squander my chance to get information on who was giving them orders.
I approached the cells. One of the assassins lay in a heap on the bench. The other had begun to twitch as the paralysing spell wore off. He lifted his head, his mask askew. “You won’t get away with this. The vampires will tear out your innards.”
“I don’t think so.” I stepped closer. “Why did you attack us? Who sent you?”
He flipped me off. “None of your fucking business.”
“Wrong answer.” Ryan’s hands rose, and a blast of air slammed the assassin into the wall. His mask fell off entirely, revealing an unfamiliar face. Human. Not a mage, otherwise he’d have revealed his magic by now.
“Who sent you?” I repeated. “Not the Order?”
He laughed, a trickle of blood streaming down his face. “The Order is as good as dead.”
I stepped up to the cage doors. “Says who? Was it the House of Fire?”
He gave another laugh, more blood bubbling in the corner of his mouth. “Sure, why not.”
“This isn’t funny,” Ryan snapped. “Tell us the truth. Who sent you?”
He continued to laugh, high and reedy, blood streaming from his mouth. His body hit the floor as he slumped into a heap, his laugh turning to a rattling cough. Foam spilled from his mouth.
“Shit,” I said. “I think he poisoned himself.”
I wheeled around to the other cell, whose occupant lay unmoving on his back, his eyes half-open and sightless.
Ryan swore. “They had a backup plan ready in case they were caught.”
“Dammit.” I slammed my foot into the cell door. “What the hell was that supposed to mean? The Order being as good as dead?”
“You think I know?” Ryan stepped up to one of the cells and unlocked the door before entering and crouching over the assassin’s body. A moment later, they emerged holding a piece of paper.
“He was carrying this note,” they said. “Better than nothing.”
“Maybe it’ll tell us where Brant is hiding,” I said. “The location of the House of Fire.”
Ryan shot me a sceptical look. “I doubt it. It’ll be a local meeting point… but there’s a chance some of their people might still be there.”
“Worth a shot.” I walked out of the jail, leaving the d
ead assassins behind, and squinted in the fading light. We had an hour or two before sundown. Then the vampires would come out to play for real.
Dex hovered nearby, a wary expression on his face. He was about as much of a fan of the jail as I was. “Any luck?”
“The assassins killed themselves before admitting anything,” I said. “But Ryan found a note with an address on it. Want to come with us and check it out?”
“Ooh, are we storming a castle?” said Dex.
“Not quite a castle, but it depends how dramatic the House of Fire is,” I said. “Let’s just hope this address isn’t a giant trap.”
“Bring it.” Ryan closed the jail door and beckoned two liches to take over from them. “Can one of you tell my master those two are the assassins the vampires are looking for?”
“He’s going to be majorly pissed off that they died before he could rip out their souls,” I remarked.
Ryan shrugged. “The liches will keep an eye on our deceased visitors on the off-chance that one of them wakes up.”
“I think they’ve missed their chance to be liches, to be honest.” I skirted the arena at Ryan’s side, and we made our way through the gates to the node once again.
We landed in an alleyway and we began to follow the winding road, referring to the address on the paper Ryan carried.
“I know this place,” said Ryan. “I’ve been here before. It’s a known haunt for mages.”
We made our way down the street on swift feet. The sinking sun brushed the rooftops and shadows filled the alleyways, but Ryan’s armoured clothing and aura of purpose kept the beggars and thieves at a distance, and we found the address without being accosted.
We came to a halt outside an unremarkable brick house painted in faded grey and white and bearing a crooked sign proclaiming it the Withered Oak. Greasy windows revealed a dingy pub filled with the type of mages who wore travelling cloaks wherever they went as though they’d walked straight out of an LARP session. I didn’t see Brant among them, but he was surprisingly good at blending into crowds for a fire mage.
Dex flew up to the door, his hands sparking. “Want me to chase fire-boy out?”
Trial of Shadows (Order of the Elements Book 3) Page 12