40
“You killed father,” Jeric hissed, clenching the table for support.
Astrid turned to face him, eyes pure black, inked skin rippling. The shadows above teased lower, whispering. Candlelight sputtered, struggling in the darkness.
It struck Jeric how different she was from Imari. Both of them had supernatural power, but they’d chosen two completely different paths.
“Wolf,” she said like a caress. A shadow slipped by in breeze of whispers, grazing his skin, its touch like ice. “I thought certainly the greatest hunter this generation has ever known would’ve pieced this together a long time ago. What a disappointment you are.”
Another shadow brushed past.
“I’m disappointed too,” he said through his teeth.
Her head cocked to the side, sharp and unnatural.
“What do you want?” he spat. “The throne?”
She stepped toward him, and the hands roamed beneath her skin, stretching and distorting the glyphs. “You think I do this for a lump of skal?” Her voice perverted into many; her eyes flashed white. “Even the Wolf is no different. So… small, like the rest of them.”
A shadow hissed, darkness blurred, and the wound in his side seared like a branding iron. The hall vanished, and suddenly, Jeric was drowning.
In blood.
Tumbling and choking and gasping for breath. There was no up, no down. Everything flared red.
Red.
Red.
Horrifying, murderous red.
All the blood he had shed, all the lives he had stolen. They all played in his mind—every kill, every agony. Every torment he had caused, and he felt them all. The misery he’d unleashed upon so many was now his alone to bear, and it weighed him down like an anchor, pulling him deeper.
Drowning him.
You are nothing, snarled a voice, warped and without tone.
Jeric screamed, but only blood rushed in. He clawed, but his hands found no purchase. He opened his eyes, but he could not see through the red. His lungs burned without breath, and he felt himself falling…
Falling…
Sable bolted in the direction she’d come, one hand clutching the flute for light, the other holding a dagger. She paused only to check her steps, and before long, she reached the ladder she’d climbed down. Thankfully, it was still intact.
She shoved the flute in her belt, then clenched her dagger between her teeth and climbed. The muscles in her side pulled a little where Ventus had stabbed her, but the fire of determination gave her strength and pushed her on. When she reached the grate, she stopped to listen, then pressed her palm to the cold metal and pushed.
It didn’t budge.
She pressed harder; still it didn’t budge. Slipping one arm through the ladder for support, she pulled the dagger from her teeth and wedged the tip in the gap around the grate. She wiggled the knife back and forth, trying to pry it open, but then the grate opened wide and golden light momentarily blinded her.
“Cou’za qué—”
Sable stabbed the dagger into the man’s foot. He cried out in pain as she pulled it free, and then he reached for her. She ducked back, grabbed his arm, and used her grip on the ladder to pull him through. He fell with a cry, flailing, then landed on the soft earth below. He didn’t get back up. She hoisted herself through the opening and closed the grate after her.
Silence.
A lantern burned ahead, casting gauzy light upon the tunnel walls. But, so far as she could tell, the tunnel was empty.
She crept forward, dagger in hand, ears pinned on her surroundings. She remembered Braddok’s story about stealing cakes from the kitchens, so she knew there had to be an entrance to the fortress nearby. She reached the end of the corridor and peered around.
The tunnel beyond lay empty, the darkness muted with soft and flickering torchlight. A force tugged on her chest—like a plucked string—urging her forward. Trusting it, she hurried forward, turned left as the sensation grew stronger, made a few quick rights, and before long, she reached a winding stone stair.
She followed the stone stair, careful to keep her footfalls silent, and the air grew steadily warmer, fresher, until she reached a great oak door. There, she paused, listening, and opened it a crack. Two silhouettes waited ahead, their backs to her.
Sable checked her flute, which still rested securely in her belt, slid her dagger into the baldric, then slipped through the door. She crept steadily forward, keeping to the edges of the hall, eyes fixed on the Corinthian guards and hoping the mere smell of her sewage-covered body wouldn’t give her away. Thankfully, they didn’t hear or smell her—not until she slammed a marble bust of Aryn into the shorter one’s head. He cried out and collapsed as the second one whirled on her, but she kicked him in the groin and pushed him back into a drapery. He gasped, trying to untangle himself while Sable shoved him against the window, her dagger at his throat.
His dark eyes narrowed on her, angry and confused.
One of the legion’s, then, but wearing Corinthian armor, which concerned her.
“Where’s Ventus?” Sable demanded.
“Who are you?” he demanded instead, his accent heavy.
She shoved the blade harder against his throat, drawing blood.
“The great hall!” he said through his teeth.
“Where’s the hall?”
He grunted. “Up ahead. Second left. But you won’t make it—”
Sable slammed the hilt against his temple. He collapsed in the drapery, unconscious, and Sable ran on. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she had one advantage: No one knew she was here.
She ducked into a niche and pulled off Braddok’s stinking boots. Stealth would be easier without his shoes, and she felt more comfortable in bare feet besides. When she reached the second left, she paused to look. Beyond was an open room holding a pair of heavily guarded doors. Sable counted eleven guards, all dressed in Corinthian arms.
She ducked back around the wall, thinking hard. She couldn’t get in through the main doors, but she’d passed doors to a garden, and she got an idea. Quickly and quietly, she retraced her steps, pushing through the doors and into the night. It was a shock of cold, dry air after the dank and drafty places she’d dwelled the past month, but it was fresh. The garden was dark, and a starlit sky twinkled above, a strange beauty despite the evil festering within Skyhold’s walls. She scanned the shadows and silhouettes, tracing the outline of a pale statue until she found what she was looking for.
Three stories above, overlooking the garden, was a wide veranda with glass doors leading to what had to be the hall.
Sable bolted, testing the vines on the lattice beside it before climbing. The veranda’s edge was still just out of reach, so she took a deep breath, patted her flute and her weapons to make sure they were secure, and jumped.
Her fingers caught stone, gripped tight, and started slipping.
Her finger joints strained as she held her body tight, legs close. At the last second, she whipped her hands open and lashed forward, gripping the base of the railing, securing herself.
She loosed a breath, then pressed a foot to the wall perpendicular and held position. She couldn’t hear anything through the glass doors, so she pulled herself up, inch by slow inch, arms and shoulders burning, until she was high enough to peer over the veranda and through the glass doors.
To where Princess Astrid stood, naked and covered in inked glyphs. Shadows hovered thickly all around her, weaving in and out of her skin, and three shades crouched at her feet.
Sable almost lost her grip and fell.
Astrid?
Astrid was… Liagé?
Was she the necromancer?
It didn’t make sense. Astrid was Corinthian. Liagé power only went to those of Sol Velorian blood. How could she possibly…
And then Sable remembered Tallyn.
Tallyn hadn’t been born Liagé, but he’d been made into a crude representation of one. Someone could have given power to
Astrid. But as Sable gaped at the eerie shapes seeping in and out of Astrid’s naked body, she remembered the story Chez had shared—his grotesque descriptions about how the Corinthian people were found—and Sable realized another horrible truth. The necromancer did not lead a legion. The necromancer was a legion.
A legion of spirits.
They writhed around her body, melting from her skin but also tethered to it. As if they were trapped in this world, anchored to Astrid’s body and bound to her command.
Sable wondered why Astrid needed them, but the answer dropped into her mind as if put there by someone else: Their life force increased Astrid’s power. She was stealing spirits from the living, drawing them into herself, feeding off of their life to make herself stronger.
This was the storm—the torrential rain and lightning and thunder of which she’d been warned. This was why the voice had asked Sable to have courage, and as that thought took hold, a humming inside of her grew louder, drowning out all else. It was a cry from the heavens—a bass note swelling inside her body, deep and resonant—urging her to act, to intercede. Her nerves burned with it, enflamed with new purpose and light.
She had to stop this. Somehow.
Sable hoisted herself over the rail and slipped nearer the doors, keeping to the shadows while taking quick inventory of the hall. Hagan slumped upon the floor with three black lines dripping down each cheek. Shade poison. She spotted Jeric’s Wolf pack amidst the guests—weaponless like everyone else, except for the guards under Astrid’s command. Not that normal weapons would do anything against the power Astrid now wielded. But where was Jeric?
Sable looked back to Braddok, who stood stone-still, gazing at something Sable couldn’t see because Astrid blocked her view. And then Astrid stepped aside.
Sable’s heart stopped. The note inside of her blared, deafening.
Jeric was on his knees, eyes squeezed tight, fists pressed to his temples. Astrid moved around him in a circle, speaking things Sable couldn’t hear. Jeric fell upon on all fours, his face crimson and swiftly turning purple.
Because he couldn’t breathe.
Sable threw open the doors.
Astrid’s head turned back. Her black eyes fixed on Sable, and the spirits beneath Astrid’s skin hissed. A cold wind ripped through the hall, and the candles sputtered out. All light left the room—save one: Sable’s little flute. It shone like moonlight, dispersing the shadows and casting ethereal light over everything it touched.
“There you are, little sulaziér.”
The voice chilled Sable to the bone. It wasn’t human. It was a legion of sound.
“I had hoped we might work together,” Astrid continued in that inhuman voice. “But I’ve no need for you now. My chakran’s found another.”
So Astrid had sent the chakran after her. Then who had it possessed instead?
The veranda doors slammed shut behind her, trapping her inside. Darkness reached for her in wispy fingers, as if to drown Sable in their evil tide—a tide Astrid had created.
Do not fear…
The note inside Sable split into a chord, and she raised the flute to her lips.
“You’re going to play for us?” Astrid said, taunting. A face pressed against Astrid’s stomach from the inside, warping the skin, and then it was gone. Behind her, Jeric collapsed. “You think a simple song can defeat us?”
The shadows surged in a roll of whispers. Some guests cried out and some dropped to their knees, trying to shield themselves from the encroaching black tide. Shadows grazed Sable’s arms, their touch cold as ice. They hissed at her, whirling like vapors, obscuring her view of the room—her focus—and the chord inside of her pushed against the backs of her lips, demanding release.
I am with you.
Sable closed her eyes and exhaled into her flute.
The note breathed low and soft. And so very… undemanding.
Ice grazed her neck, but she held on, urging the sound louder as she slid into the next note. The flute warmed her hands, but the pressure inside of her slept. She thought of Sorai, her laugh and her innocent smile. The power surged. It squeezed her lungs, but Sorai turned away from her, and Sable’s chest constricted.
Take it, Sable insisted.
But Sorai did not take it.
Sable’s lungs burned for breath, and her consciousness began to slip. She ended her note, gasping for air. Confused. Her power was supposed to work this time.
Astrid laughed. It was a corrupted sound, distorted and evil, and then she began a chant, inked arms raised high. Astrid’s head tilted back, fingers splayed to the shadows.
The shadows churned like storming clouds, whirled into a cyclone, and plunged toward Sable.
They pushed against her, trying to get inside. Sable wrapped her arms around herself, but the shadows were a hailstorm, pelting her with ice, relentlessly searching for a way in. A point of weakness.
One slipped in. Winter bloomed inside her gut and iced through her veins. Her breath stuck, the edges of her awareness dimmed, and just when she thought she would never breathe again, the pressure inside of her burst.
It flooded her in a fury of heat, searing through her chest, her limbs, her gut, melting the ice. It filled her fingertips and toes, pressing against the bounds of her body, building and building until she thought she would explode, and finally it pushed through, a needle puncturing cloth.
Light exploded from her body, filling the room—blinding. A hundred dissonant voices shrieked, glass shattered, people screamed.
The light dimmed, and Sable glanced up.
Astrid snarled and bent forward, arms clutching her chest, pained and distracted. And Sable charged.
She ran at Astrid with everything she had, colliding with a force that knocked both women to the ground. Glass shards dug into Sable’s side, but the guards didn’t fire; they couldn’t get a clear shot. The shades didn’t attack; they wouldn’t risk their master. The shadows cowered, wounded and scarred from Sable’s light.
It was just the distraction Jeric’s men needed, and, to Sable’s relief, they snatched it up. The room erupted in chaos.
Astrid hissed, clawing at Sable’s face as Sable pinned her down. A guard took aim and Sable dropped, pulling Astrid into the line of fire. In her periphery, Braddok tackled the guard, then made his way to Jeric, who crawled upon all fours, heaving.
Astrid snarled and clamped her hands around Sable’s wrists. Sable tried prying herself free, but Astrid’s grip was iron. Desperate, Sable swung her elbow across Astrid’s jaw. Astrid’s grip loosened and Sable scrambled free, but an invisible force launched her into the air.
Sable cried out in surprise as she arced through the air, then smashed into a table. Candles toppled; cutlery crashed to the floor. She staggered to her feet, dizzied and confused, and looked up to find Ventus smiling cruelly back at her.
Sable’s eyes widened with realization. “The chakran found you.”
Ventus snarled, and another force sent her flying. She collided with a column, her head slammed back hard, and pain split her skull. Ventus only smiled as he steadily approached.
“Kill her,” Astrid commanded.
Jeric yelled at Braddok to intercept, but shadows swooped like vultures pecking at a carcass. Astrid turned her attention back to Jeric, and Jeric dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.
An invisible force gripped Sable and flipped her on her back. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t move. The force pinned her to the tiles. Ventus raised a hand, curling his fingers, and Sable’s throat squeezed. A breath squeaked through her lips.
“You think yourself the Maker’s chosen,” he sneered. “You will never play again, little sulaziér.”
The Maker’s chosen…?
The edges of Sable’s vision darkened, and her lungs screamed for breath. Suddenly, wings flapped overhead, and a figure materialized between her and Ventus: Rasmin, the Head Inquisitor.
Sable stared in shock as owl feathers morphed impossibly into the Head Inquis
itor’s cloak, which was torn in many places, and there were bruises and scratches all over Rasmin’s face.
The pressure on Sable’s lungs released, and she rolled over, wheezing to fill her lungs.
Ventus looked annoyed. “I forgot that bit about you, Rasya.”
Rasya? Did they know each other?
“Stop this, Azir,” the Head Inquisitor snarled. His expression held a fury Sable had never seen. “You will destroy us all.”
Azir?
“Not today,” Ventus said. “Today, you will die, once and for all.” His fingers splayed before him.
Sable threw the Istraan star. It struck with a wet and sickening crunch, and blood dripped between Ventus’s eyes. Ventus’s eyes scathed her, and in a whirl of silver, the Head Inquisitor cut off Ventus’s head.
It dropped and rolled upon the floor, but before Sable could feel a moment’s relief, inky darkness seeped from Ventus’s severed neck, and the air turned sour. It was the same stench she’d smelled in The Wilds. The stench of the chakran.
And as Sable watched, the chakran coalesced into the shape of a man and poured itself right into Jeric.
41
Jeric staggered forward, once. Twice. His body jerked, as if his limbs were strung to the hands of a puppeteer who’d suddenly yanked on his strings, and then he collapsed to the tiles.
“Jeric…” Sable panted, staggering to her feet.
The shadows pressed in, and people screamed. The Head Inquisitor thrust his palms to the sky and chanted words Sable had never heard. Every syllable shook with power, as if he’d gathered all the vastness from his omniscient gaze and focused it on his words.
To Sable’s amazement, the shadows hissed and recoiled, trapped behind some invisible ceiling that the Head Inquisitor had created.
Astrid snarled and chanted louder, a counterargument to the Head Inquisitor’s spell. Their voices battled; their commands clashed. Each word was power, and the air sizzled with it—electric. Light speared across Rasmin’s barrier. The shadows screeched and roiled, but still, they could not crash through the magical barrier Rasmin was weaving. He held them back with a diffused net of power—one that sparked white like lightning each time a shadow grazed it.
The Gods of Men Page 37