her instruments 02 - rose point

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  She struggled when he started dragging her around the lake, but he seemed unfazed by her efforts. Was this how Hirianthial had felt all the times he had needed rescue? Reese decided she hated being on the other end. A brother! All the information Araelis had dumped on her with such glee, and yet she hadn’t thought it important to mention that Hirianthial had a brother? An evil brother, apparently! And Hirianthial probably thought Araelis had said something—blood and freedom! She’d as much told him so in the library!

  But apparently this brother thought gagging her would be enough to keep her quiet. Little did he know. She cleared her thoughts of everything, of the smell of wet soil and snow, of the taste of Baniel’s leather glove, of the bruises developing along her side where she’d struck the ground and the gouges the boning of the corset had opened in her skin along its edge. And then she screamed in her mind, where no one could hear her... except her Eldritch doctor.

  The sound cut through the noise in his head, scattering his sense of every aura in the room but hers. Hirianthial excused himself from the conversation he’d been enduring with one of the neutral Houses and began walking. Not running—he didn’t want to call attention to himself—but his pace quickened despite his best intentions. The only thing that kept him calm was that her scream had been less panic and more outrage. What had upset her? For Reese to call for him... it had to be something significant.

  Again the yell, and the anger was more clearly developed, so much so that he heard a thought riding it: I can’t believe he thinks this will work

  The ‘he’ was a powerful flavor, the source of the outrage, and it felt like betrayal and indignation...

  ...and then he saw green eyes through hers, disorienting, powerfully so, like the afterimage of the sun in blinking eyes.

  His hand flew to his sword and he dove through the curtain leading to the gallery, scanned the room—no one—lunged for the balcony and looked over it.

  God and Lady...!

  Baniel had left a trail plain as daylight through the snow, where Reese had been struggling. Squinting, he peered toward the forest’s edge and spotted them approaching it. Where were the guards? And what did his brother think to accomplish, one man alone kidnapping a woman? Did he think to drag her into the woods to murder her there, then let the falling snow cover the evidence of their passage?

  He had spared Baniel’s life once, and he’d been wrong to do it. It was time to correct his error.

  Hirianthial went over the edge of the balcony and landed on his feet, ignoring the pain that lanced from his knees, unwelcome reminders that he was no longer the White Sword who’d been able to follow the indefatigable heir everywhere. He unknotted the cords on the sword as he ran the trail, his own rage mounting, redoubling, until it was hard to see. There was a word for men like his brother. Gaienele. Ruiner.

  He was close enough to hear Reese’s mind, a rushing river of anger that flowed into his until it overwhelmed him. The wrench of her arms where they were pinned behind her, he could feel in his own shoulders and elbows. The taste of leather in her mouth fouled his. He drew the sword and charged the last few yards in silence. When Baniel turned to him, it was too late to stay him—

  —which is when the arrow struck him in the chest, just below the collarbone, with enough force to stagger him. Another followed, laming him. He fell to a knee, stunned.

  Baniel bent toward him but didn’t step closer, nor loose Reese whose angry chant had narrowed to a single screech: he used me it was a trap

  Of course it was. Hirianthial lifted his head, struggling for breath. He felt for the wound at his chest, explored the edges. His sword arm was going numb, which suggested the arrow head had pierced the brachial plexus. The cervico-axillary canal was just under the clavicle...

  His sword arm. Had it been an accident?

  “I wasn’t sure it would work,” Baniel said, as if resuming a conversation. “Surela told me about her, of course, but you can’t trust a woman to think clearly about another woman and the man she wants. I assumed you would at least feel something for her, but not enough to be quite so stupid.” He paused. “Or was it me you had such strong feelings about?”

  Hirianthial glared up through his hair, fighting the growing weakness. The blood spilling between his fingers was hotter than his skin.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Baniel said.

  Let him think so. Let him think the sword arm mattered. His strength was draining with every pulse of his heart, but he still had more than enough energy to deal with his brother and whatever archer he’d hired. He spread his awareness out, seeking... and froze.

  “Ah, you’ve found them,” Baniel said, smiling. “Good luck with that, brother.” He shoved Reese in front of him and forced her to start walking as men armed with swords seeped out of the woods: two, four, seven...

  It made no sense. Baniel was fond of elaborate plans. This one felt too simple. To arrange his death so easily and leave him in the snow?

  The first men rushed him. He reached for the power and met them, and kept killing until they bore him down.

  Reese wrenched herself as hard as she could, trying to break the man’s grip on her. When she got out of this—when she and Hirianthial got out of this—she was taking self-defense lessons. And lifting weights. And buying a real weapon...

  If she could just get to her boot!

  Oh, God, Hirianthial! That arrow in his chest... was it low enough to hit his heart? Was he dying back there? She tried to look over her shoulder, then threw herself that way when she saw the number of people sprinting toward him. Freedom, he couldn’t survive that! She had to help him!

  Baniel shoved her forward again, but he had to use both hands to do it. With her mouth free, she howled for help. Screamed until her throat felt raw in the cold. Again and again, cursing him halfway through it, writhing for her boot and the dagger burning to be used. He fumbled her arms and she lunged for the hilt, fouling it on the way out from under her skirts and half-falling against him before she squirmed around and stabbed him as hard as she could. Blade met meat, ground against something, sank until the crossguards struck his clothes.

  “Take that, bastard,” she snarled.

  ...and he... he smiled at her. With a heave he pushed her away and she stumbled, falling onto the damp ground. What the hell? She glanced toward the balcony and saw people crowding there. The guards that had been mysteriously absent for this mess were running toward them with swords drawn. She looked at Baniel again and saw he’d assumed a dramatic pose, bent over one knee with his hand pressing at the wound, streaked with blood brighter than his robes. When the guards reached him, he said, “Thank the Lord and Goddess you’ve come. My brother... my brother and his mortal pet intended to kill me, and when my allies came to my aid, he revealed the depths of his depravity. He is a mind-mage! See for yourself, he killed them all with his mind alone! Like Corel, out of legend!”

  They all looked toward Hirianthial, who had fallen in a circle of the slain, a radius of dead that extended just as the one on Kerayle had. One of the guards made a sign over the edges of his chest.

  “No, wait!” she cried. “That’s not how it happened!”

  They were ignoring her to help Baniel up. She pushed herself to her feet and ran toward them. “No, he’s wrong! It was a trap! He did it!”

  The sword pointed at her throat stopped her. The man holding it snarled something at her she couldn’t understand, which made her realize Baniel had made his accusation in Universal. She stared at him, aghast.

  Baniel’s expression remained the picture of wronged innocence as he spoke. “The lieutenant says he will not strike you, being that you are female if not a proper woman, but if you continue advancing he will have no regrets running you through.”

  She tightened her hands into fists but said nothing and let the guards motion her to begin walking. Behind her she could hear them talking over the bodies left by Hirianthial’s attack, then the shuffling of boots on the ground. The first g
runts of effort made her sneak a look past her shoulder; they were picking Hirianthial up and bringing him with them. Did that mean he was still alive? She sucked in a breath. The thought of him dead was unbearable. After all they’d been through, to be cut down here? Like this? With swords and arrows!

  If she could just get him away from them, she could take him someplace with real medicine. If he wasn’t already dead. If she could get away. If, if, if.

  Reese lowered her head to hide her expression and gritted her teeth. She was not going to let these people win. And Hirianthial was not dead. She’d know it.

  The guards marched her into the palace by way of a stair that led back into the gallery—apparently the more civilized way to descend from it onto the palace grounds—and from there to the central hall, where the silence fell with such speed it felt artificial. Liolesa was near her throne, conversing with Araelis, and she was the last to stop talking. She made it seem a choice that she paused to pay attention to the people bleeding on her blue carpet, and when the guards set Hirianthial down on the floor none too gently, she glanced at him without any change of expression at all... save her eyes. Her eyes had gone cold. Reese found herself thinking, ridiculously, that here finally was a look that her mother couldn’t best.

  To the guard in the lead, Liolesa said sharply in Universal, “What goes on in my hall?”

  The guard began to speak and Liolesa cut him off. Reese had never heard her sound so curt: there was a power in it that stiffened everyone around her. “Speak in the language I use.”

  “Your cousin assaulted a man of the Church,” the guard said, in accented Universal this time—dammit, had he understood her out there and pretended otherwise?—”who was only trying to save his soul. Father Baniel drew his brother aside when he heard of his sinful powers, and for that he has been repaid with treachery.”

  Reese began to object but Liolesa’s eyes met hers, so swiftly Reese almost missed it. That look stopped the words in her mouth. Why? Why did Liolesa want her to be quiet in response to these lies? When it was obvious the guard had been coached? And not on the way to the palace... this man had to have been Baniel’s from before. No doubt that’s why the guards had been missing in the first place.

  “What sin is this?” a woman said, pushing her way forward. She wore green, and the medallion hanging from her neck was the same hooved lion that Hirianthial had warned her belonged to the Queen’s chief enemies. She was using Universal too... why? Maybe she didn’t want that cutting tone aimed at her when she was busy trying to make a point.

  The guard said, “Hirianthial Sarel Jisiensire is a mind-mage. You need only look over the balcony to see the wages of his sin. He is Corel come again, and for that he must be slain!”

  The hall erupted into hissing whispers and discussion.

  “So you mean to say that the Queen’s cousin is a mind-mage?” the new woman said, her voice carrying.

  “He is,” the guard said. “I swear to it, and the evidence is there.”

  “Surely she didn’t know,” the woman said, eyes wide in a shock even Reese could tell was feigned. “The Queen cannot countenance such a thing. It would endanger everything, everyone. Our own history tells us of the dangers of the mind-mages.”

  “But she did know,” Baniel said, still bent and bleeding and looking far too noble in his suffering. “She did. She sent the palace’s own former chaplain to tutor him.”

  Now there were no whispers, only silence. Liolesa’s boredom fell through it like a stone. “You are suggesting I was having my cousin trained to serve as my pet killer?”

  “With a mind-mage at her side,” Baniel said to the congregation, “who could stand against her? You see already how far she is willing to go. She has given land—land on our own planet—to a mortal and a human! Why would she do this, did she not think she could quell objection?”

  Araelis stepped forth. “You can’t seriously be suggesting something so ridiculous. Why would the Queen need someone to enforce her will? She’s the Queen. She already has power for life... and an entire cadre of dedicated soldiers willing to kill for her. You want to tell me you are more afraid of a single man than you are of the entire complement of Swords?”

  “I think the evidence speaks for itself,” Baniel told her, chin high. He dripped blood on the floor, bright drops against white stone, something he had to be holding his robes close to manage.

  “We cannot allow this to stand,” the other woman said. She lifted her arms. “Those of us who disagree with the Queen’s foreign policy, who have always disagreed with it, have never been allowed to speak our minds... or when we do, we are dismissed. But Liolesa Galare will see us ruined! Do we really want mortals overrunning our world? Do we want to mingle our blood with that of our lessers? And now this!” She turned to look at Hirianthial’s crumpled body. “A mind-mage? She brought a mind-mage into our midst? Knowingly?” She turned to Liolesa. “I think it’s time for me to speak the thought in everyone’s mind.” She drew in a breath and said, loudly, “It is time for the Galare dynasty to end!”

  At the edges of the gathering, all the White Swords drew their weapons.

  Mildly, Liolesa said, “And how do you propose to affect this end, Surela?”

  A rustle from the gathering as all around them, Eldritch men freed their hands to reveal Alliance palmers. The sight of them was like being shot. Liolesa’s enemies had modern weapons—how? The people who claimed to be against foreign influence?

  It was chance that made Reese glance at Baniel in time to catch the sight of his heavy-lidded satisfaction.

  “Oh, Surela,” Liolesa said, shaking her head. “Really? Do you really want to begin it this way?”

  “I’m sorry,” Surela said. “But it has to be this way.” She smiled. “But you’ll find me a merciful Queen, far more than you were. Regrettably we must give the mind-mage to the Church. He is their lawful prey, and we must respect the customs that have kept us safe. But you need not die. We hear your heir is on retreat on the Isle of Songs. That seems a fitting place for you to live the rest of your days. Guards, take her away... and treat her well, as befits a woman of noble birth.” She looked around the hall and spotted Reese. “And let her take her loyal pet with her.” Her smile became more poisonous. “She’ll only live a fraction of her mistress’s years, but that’s how it goes with pets.” She turned her back on them and advanced to the throne, stepping up to the dais and settling on it. “And now,” she said, “we will dispense with this language and speak the tongue of people.”

  The guard was the first to yell something in acclamation. Reese assumed it was ‘Long live Queen Surela.’ Her eyes remained on Hirianthial’s body, splayed unconscious on the ground. How long ago had it been, that time she’d imagined him sprawled this way? Blood-streaked and laid low? It hurt her so badly, and enraged her so deeply, that the feelings canceled one another out and left her hollowed out and vibrating. When they dragged her away, she let them, didn’t even see the walls of the palace as they passed, didn’t even think until they dumped her in a room.

  She also didn’t see her crew until Kis’eh’t and Sascha hugged her tightly, Allacazam pressed between her and Sascha’s arm, and then the smell of fur focused her and she started crying. She didn’t even know why. Anger? Terror?

  “Boss, Boss, it’s us. What’s going on? They marched us here, no explanations....”

  Behind Reese, Liolesa said, “There is an attempt at a coup, I’m afraid.”

  Reese said the important thing, “They shot Hirianthial full of arrows. He’s not dead yet, but he’s going to die if we don’t get him out of here.”

  “Then we’ll just have to get out of here,” Sascha said.

  Reese lifted her head, rubbed her eyes. And frowned. “Where’s Irine?”

  “Somewhere,” Sascha said, handing her Allacazam. At her look, he said, “We didn’t know what was going on. We thought it would be best if one of us was loose. She’s got Malia’s telegem. If you’ve still got your tab
let…”

  Dressing for the presentation—she’d done that years ago, hadn’t she? Reese checked in the pouch at her waist, found the tablet. She breathed out and handed it to Sascha.

  “Thank the Angels,” he said. “I don’t think they knew what the telegem was, or they would have taken it for sure.” He glanced at the Queen. “A coup, huh.”

  “Yes,” Liolesa said, and as she came closer Reese’s assumption that she was calm shattered. The waves off the Queen were too elemental to be called wrath. It was like standing next to an armed nuclear warhead.

  Earth still used those. The Alliance had given them up as barbaric. Reese felt a sudden kinship with these people. Maybe they were both barbarians, but they were family, and she could get behind a good family fight. Blood knew she’d had enough practice. She petted Allacazam to steady her hands, and to feel the soothing wave of his support.

  “I knew it was coming,” Liolesa said. “And I wanted to spark it on my own schedule, not theirs. But they have made a tremendous mistake. A tremendous mistake.”

  Sascha glanced at Reese, who said, “Somehow they have palmers.”

  “Wait, the xenophobes have palmers?” Kis’eh’t said. “Who did they get them from?”

  “And why are they willing to use them?” Sascha asked, perplexed. “I thought they were against all things Alliance.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it,” Reese said to Liolesa. “They used them first, so now you can too.”