Onyx & Ivory

by Mindee Arnett

  “What about Kiran?” Corwin asked, his gut clenched as he realized that if something happened to the boy, he was responsible. He never should’ve spied on Kate.

  “Neither Kiran nor his mother is there,” Raith replied, distractedly. He nodded to himself. “It would seem the golds are being selective as to which wilders they take, leaving just enough for the Purging to avoid suspicion from the other orders.”

  Corwin grimaced, seeing the brilliance behind it. Never before had he realized how separate the League’s orders were, even though he should have. What with their different-colored robes, individual houses. They were like children, siblings caught up in their own quest for autonomy.

  Then the awful truth of what Raith was saying struck him, and he felt himself pale. “If Kate isn’t being held at the gold-order house, then where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She and the others aren’t in the city. My people have been searching for them. Our only hope is to find proof of what they’re doing. It’s no good approaching Storr. He’s too well insulated. Perhaps we can force a confession out of Maestra Vikas. She was appointed by Storr, after all.”

  Corwin slowly nodded, a sick feeling in his stomach.

  “There’s only one thing that doesn’t make sense,” Dal said, standing up. “Why would the golds take Signe? She isn’t a wilder.”

  “No,” Corwin agreed. “But she does have the secret to making her black powder. Combined with Bonner’s revolvers, that’s the key to a great power.” They might just kill her, Corwin thought with a glance at Dal, but he kept it to himself. He could guess Dal had already considered the possibility—he knew as well as Corwin did how much the revolvers threatened the League’s power. Storr had made his feelings on the matter clear with that letter in the Royal Gazette.

  Deciding at last to fully believe Raith’s claims, Corwin returned his gaze to the magist. “Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere for them? What if we enlist more people to help?”

  “It won’t make a difference,” Raith said. “We’ve combed every inch of the city already, and we’ve used searching spells and other magic. They are not here.”

  “Yes, but what about outside the city? Jade Forest or . . . the Wandering Woods!” He clapped his hand together, remembering what Kate had told him. “Kate said there was something strange that day we went back to find the daydrakes. She said she felt cut off from her magic. It sounded to me like the way the collars work that the League uses on captured wilders.”

  Raith’s brow furrowed. “She never mentioned it to me . . . but if the golds were trying to hide and imprison wilders, that would be a way to do it.”

  “That settles it then,” Dal said with an eager clap of his hands. He walked over to the wardrobe next to the door and swung it open to reveal the cache of weapons inside. He pulled out a sword, revolver, buckler, and belt and handed them to Corwin.

  “You’re going to need these.”

  Corwin grinned, pleased to see that Dal had had the foresight to gather his weapons from the armory. He accepted them with a grateful nod.

  “If there is a shield spell active in the woods,” Raith said, “we’re going to need more than common weapons.” He turned to Dal. “I need three gemstones, rubies or emeralds. Something of that value.”

  Wordlessly, Dal turned back to the wardrobe and withdrew a gold-hilted dagger, encrusted with rubies. A family heirloom, Corwin knew, the only one he possessed and likely ever would.

  Dal handed Raith the dagger. “Do whatever you need to it.”

  Raith took the dagger, turned to the nearest table, and proceeded to pry out three of the rubies with the tip of his knife. Once done, he held the rubies in his hand and spoke the words of an incantation. The lines of the spell spread across the glistening red surfaces.

  “Here, keep these with you when you enter the woods.” Raith handed one each to Corwin and Dal, keeping the third for himself. “The spell will allow you to see through magical disguises.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Dal cocked an eyebrow.

  “If there is something in the Wandering Woods, we will need help,” replied Raith. “I will meet you there as soon as I can.” He pointed a finger at Corwin and Dal in turn. “But if you find anything, stay hidden until I arrive.”

  “We’ll wait as long as we can,” Corwin said, “but hurry.” He wouldn’t promise not to act, though. If there was a chance of finding Kate, he doubted any danger would be great enough to keep him in place long.

  34

  Kate

  KATE WOKE TO DARKNESS AND a strange pressure at her throat. Disoriented and confused, she raised her hands to her neck and gasped as her fingers brushed cold, hard metal. A mage collar. At once the memory of what had happened flooded into her mind—of visiting King Orwin and being attacked by Maestra Vikas. Now here she was, imprisoned by the Inquisition.

  She tried to sit up only to whack her head against something hard above her. Raising her hands, she felt the wooden lid. She was inside a box of some kind, a crate—one that was moving. The motion was the familiar chaotic bounce of a wagon.

  Kate pounded on the lid with the side of her fist. “Let me out of here!”

  “Be quiet,” a voice shouted back, followed by a violent thud against the top of the crate. Powerless to do anything, including bend her knees or shift onto her side, Kate lay there and listened, fear simmering inside her. She thought about Corwin, wondering how he’d reacted when she’d been attacked, if he’d simply stood aside and let her be taken. She didn’t know. But either way she couldn’t count on his help now.

  Sometime later, the wagon came to a stop and she heard the creak of wood as someone pried off the lid. She blinked against the sudden light in her eyes, the man who appeared over her nothing more than a shadow.

  “Get up,” he said.

  She struggled to her feet, swallowing words of protest as she saw the three gold robes, all with maces at the ready. She stood no chance of escaping. Her only weapon was her magic, but the collar at her throat blocked her from it as surely as if it were night.

  The nearest gold grabbed her arm and hauled her off the back of the wagon. With her eyes finally adjusted, she realized it was late, almost night, but she didn’t think it was the same night.

  “Kate! Are you all right?”

  She looked up, her heart lurching into her throat as she spotted Bonner on the other side of the wagon. He too wore a mage collar. “What happened?”

  “Be quiet.” The gold shoved her forward. “Move along, both of you.”

  Bonner fell into step beside her and took her hand, squeezing her fingers with a tremulous grip. The sharp scent of fear-laced sweat hung in the air around him.

  Glancing about, Kate took in the sight of an unfamiliar keep ahead of her, a massive towering fortress. Rounded like an amphitheater, it seemed to be made of a single continuous piece of stone with no visible sign of mortar or blocks. It had no towers and no windows, as if it were meant to keep everyone and everything out—or to keep something else within. By contrast, however, the battlements surrounding the keep looked incapable of protecting anything. Huge gaps in the wall left by crumbling stone made the place feel ancient and ruinous.

  Where are we? Kate craned her head to look behind her. The answer stole the breath from her throat when she spotted slender, white-barked trees through a hole in the battlements. The Wandering Woods. Which could only mean this was—

  “The Hellgate,” she whispered aloud, and saw Bonner jerk his head at her in alarm. She shared the feeling. They should’ve been at the gold house, awaiting the Purging, not here, in a place of myth and legend.

  The magists led them through the opened door into the fortress. Despite its size, it was simply constructed, with a single outer corridor surrounding the vast main hall at its center. Dozens of platforms rose up around the room all the way to the ceiling. But instead of seats like in a true amphitheater, the platforms held cages with daydrakes trapped inside. Kate shrank back from th
e sight. The drakes’ black scales glistened in the light of the torches hung from the walls. There were enough of them in here to raze an entire city.

  “It’s the gold robes,” Kate said, and Bonner nodded solemnly. “They must be behind the attacks.” On Storr’s orders, she felt certain.

  The golds stopped in front of a row of empty cages on the ground floor and forced Kate and Bonner inside two of them, locking them in. Then they walked away, leaving them alone in the dark, damp space.

  “Is this really the Hellgate?” Bonner asked, peering around.

  Kate pointed at the dropped floor just beyond the cages. Instead of stone, iron bars crisscrossed over a wide, deep hole. She could feel the warm air seeping out from it like the exhaled breath of some slumbering giant in its depths.

  Bonner shuddered, but couldn’t do much more than that. The cages were clearly made for animals, long but too short even for Kate to stand up in.

  “No one will ever find us here,” Bonner said.

  Kate didn’t reply. It was pure chance that she and Corwin had stumbled across the drakes that day in the Wandering Woods, and magist magic must’ve kept them from finding more when they came back with the search party. Not that the golds needed magic to keep this place hidden. Belief in the Hellgate had fallen into myth, its true existence forgotten except in stories. But centuries ago people feared it. They stayed away, allowing the land surrounding it to grow wild, to swallow it up until the golds freed it from its own wasting death, a ready-made secret fortress.

  “How were you discovered?” asked Bonner, pulling her from her thoughts.

  Kate told the story quickly, stating how when she’d visited the king she’d set off some sort of magist trap, one she guessed had been left by Storr, same as he must’ve done to her father before. “But how did they find out about you?”

  Bonner grunted. “Once you were taken, the golds rounded up everyone for questioning. They found the diamond magestone. It didn’t take them long to guess I’d been using it to hide my magic making revolvers.”

  “I’m so sorry, Bonner. I didn’t know what would happen.”

  “How could you have?” He waved her off, then raised his hands to the collar. “If we could just find a way to get this off, I could bend these bars open.”

  For several minutes both of them tried to loosen the collars, to no avail. They needed a key. Then they searched the cages, probing them for weaknesses but finding only pebbles and dirt. Wearied by hopelessness, Kate sagged against the back of the cage. There was nothing to do but wait for what would happen next.

  Eventually the golds returned, herding more people into the cages. When Kate saw Vianne and Kiran, she cried out, “No! Let them go!” She grasped the bars in front of her, wishing she had the strength to pull them apart.

  The golds shoved Vianne and Kiran into the cage next to Kate’s, and it was all Vianne could do to calm the boy. She pulled him onto her lap, muffling his sobs against her shoulder.

  Kate turned away, tears pricking her own eyes. Surveying the other captives, she realized they were all members of the Rising, including Anise.

  When the magists had gone, Kate learned the story of what happened, the golds raiding the Sacred Sword without warning or provocation.

  “It’s my fault,” Kate said, struggling to keep her emotions under control. “I never should have visited so often.”

  “You couldn’t have known you’d be found out,” Anise said. “It’s a risk we all take.”

  Vianne ran her hands down the back of Kiran’s head, saying nothing. He lay quiet at last, perhaps asleep.

  “Is he all right?” asked Kate.

  “For now, but what are they going to do with us?” Vianne spoke the question loud enough for the others to hear, but no one answered. It was like waiting to wake up from a nightmare—that feeling that maybe you never would.

  The golds returned again sometime later—hours, it seemed, with Kate’s legs and back aching from lying on the hard floor. Her throat and mouth felt stuffed with wool. Maestra Vikas came with them. Kate screamed at her, demanding an answer for why they were here.

  “Silence,” Vikas said, and spoke an incantation.

  Kate saw the glow of magic beneath her throat as one of the magestones in the collar activated.

  The maestra knelt before her cage, a smug look on her austere face. “There now. That’s better. But tell me, Kate, how did you like my trap, the one you stepped into when you tried to sway King Orwin?”

  It was you! Kate tried to respond, but the spell stopped her.

  Vikas smiled. “Yes, that’s what I thought. Your father didn’t care for it much either.”

  What did you do to him? Kate tried to scream, but again nothing came out.

  Vikas stood, silencing anyone else who dared talk.

  Helplessly, Kate watched as Vikas conferred with the other golds.

  “Prepare these three for shipping, but take this one off for testing.” Vikas indicated several of the wilders. Then she moved farther down the line, sorting the rest of them like sheep. What they were being sorted for, Kate couldn’t guess.

  “These two are to stay for now.” Vikas pointed first at Bonner, then Kate. “The Lord Ascender has plans for them, but the mother and child I want on the road by nightfall. Any later and they will miss the ship.” She waved a dismissive hand at Vianne and Kiran.

  “Isn’t the boy too young to make the journey?” one of the golds asked.

  Vikas smiled. “From what I hear, he’s older than he looks.”

  Kate tried to scream, her anger like a wild beast inside her chest. She slammed her body against the bars, but Vikas only gave her another smile, sickly sweet and triumphant.

  She left a few minutes later, but the golds remained to do her bidding. Kate watched, powerless as the magists unlocked Vianne’s cage and pulled her and Kiran out. The boy thrashed and screamed until one of the golds invoked the spell for silence on his small collar.

  The stillness afterward pressed down on Kate like a boulder atop her chest. She closed her eyes and willed sleep to come for her, but it refused, her mind too strained by fear and dread. They were taking Kiran and Vianne to a ship, but a ship to where? How would she ever find them again? She couldn’t lose Kiran now, after so many years apart already.

  Time trudged by. It might’ve been days or weeks, although she feared it was only hours. There was no way to account for the passing, nothing to ground her to reality. The light in the Hellgate never changed, and the only noise was the sound of the daydrakes’ restless pacing and the strange way they called to one another in their wailing snarls and growls.

  At some point, Kate must’ve finally drifted off, because the next thing she knew, two golds were pulling her free of the cage.

  “Come now,” Maestra Vikas said, standing behind them. “The Lord Ascender is asking for you.”

  The Lord Ascender? Was Storr giving himself new titles now?

  In the cage next to her, Bonner pounded his fists against the bars, but the golds ignored him, their masked faces hiding any reaction at all.

  With no other choice, Kate followed the golds without protest as they led her to a room in the main corridor.

  The maestra paused outside the door and regarded Kate with her pale, icy gaze. “The honor of seeing the Lord Ascender is one granted to only a few. Above all else, you will show him respect.”

  Kate blinked at her, confused. She’d met Storr before.

  “And if you’re wise, you will heed his words. He is the Lord Ascender. A god on earth. He possesses more knowledge than anyone alive, who has ever lived. I could spend a thousand years by his side and still not learn all he has to share.” There was naked awe in her voice, and Kate wondered if she wasn’t quite sane. Before becoming the head of the golds, Vikas had been one of the whites, an order whose members were sometimes plagued by madness, a side effect of their area of focus. The whites pursued magical knowledge over everything else, and they studied the high arts, danger
ous and arcane magic.

  Her speech over, the maestra waved a hand, undoing the silencing spell. Before Kate could talk, Vikas stepped into the room first, then moved aside, motioning Kate forward. The two golds remained in the hall as Vikas shut the door behind Kate.

  The sight of the room beyond took her breath away. Tapestries woven of spun gold studded with glistening gemstones hung from every wall, transforming the plain, ancient stone into a space fit for a king. Or a god, as Vikas claims. A plush carpet, the color of blood, spilled down the center of the room, leading to an ornate chair carved from crystal. Sconces placed on either side of the chair set the crystal ablaze until it looked like a glowing throne, almost like the Mirror Throne itself.

  A man sat upon it, leaning back against the indigo pillows with both his hands curled around the armrests. Kate’s heart thumped against her breastbone as she realized it wasn’t Storr sitting there. She’d seen this man often in the castle, but never like this. He wore a silver circlet and a cloak made of white and black feathers.

  “Welcome, Kate Brighton,” he said, his golden eyes glistening nearly as bright as the throne he sat on. “We meet as our true selves, at last.”

  Kate stared at Minister Rendborne, sense escaping her. “I thought Storr was behind this.”

  Rendborne nodded. “He does make for a good scapegoat, but no. Storr is merely a vain, greedy man. Such are easy to manipulate. But I must say, that wasn’t the first response I expected from you.” He waved to the area next to him.

  Kate followed the motion, at last seeing what the splendor in the room had kept hidden—a second chair, this one occupied by Signe. She was strapped into it by ropes tied around her arms, waist, and chest. Her legs remained free, except for the spiked wooden screw around her right foot—the two pieces of board compressed together by an iron vise. One that had pressed so hard it had crushed the foot beneath.

  “Signe!” Kate dashed toward her, only to be thrown backward by a blast of magic. It had come from Rendborne, right out of his outstretched hand. “You’re a magist?”