“Last time?” Sorcha’s head jerked up, her blue eyes fixing on the slightly older guard.
Under such a concentrated gaze, stronger men had given in—and this poor old sergeant had no chance. “More deaths—last week—but in the city,” he choked out.
The Young Pretender thought of the creature that had attacked him in the river—but that had been miles away. And yet . . . and yet . . . by the Blood, let it not be so.
“Wonderful.” Sorcha’s voice indicated it was anything but.
Raed considered himself as much an expert on geists as anyone outside the Order—having one living inside him had given him a unique insight. It did look like the work of someone possessed; since geists could not affect the world directly, they usually had to take on flesh already made to wreak ruin in the world. Even his own Curse, the Rossin, had been forced to link himself to a bloodline to both survive and make its presence felt.
“Merrick?” Sorcha looked up at her partner. The young Deacon’s eyes continued to flick around the garden—even as a shadow of a frown began to darken his brow.
Finding Fraine would be so much easier with their power to aid him. The meaning of this double murder and how that fit with his sister’s kidnapping, that was what frightened him. A pit of possibilities yawned before him.
Sorcha and got to her feet. Deacons were always so damned inscrutable that Raed was forced to ask the question that the spooked guards were all wondering. “So, is there any geist activity?”
“Not that we can see,” she replied—though no further words had passed between her and her partner.
“Who are these ladies?” Merrick gestured down to the victims. Raed wasn’t entirely sure of the fashions of the Court of Chioma, but one glance at the richness of their dress and the coils of jewels on their wrists and necks was answer enough. These were not some unlucky serving girls.
“Meilsi and her daughter Rani,” one of the guards choked out, “from one of the best and oldest families in Chioma. Good, kind ladies—who would do such a thing to them?”
The Deacons had no answers; in their profession they must be often asked that question.
“I thought you could see everything?” Raed said to Merrick. “How can someone slay two women and then disappear without you noticing anything at all?”
The young Deacon let the accusation roll off him but closed his eyes one more time. “Still no geists, and I can feel every human in this palace, but none with blood on their hands or murder in their hearts.”
It was exasperating—but it was the way of the Deacons. Raed, having learned to rely on non-magical senses, gestured to the guards. “Stay still.”
The gravel in the center of the garden was churned up, covered in blood and gore and of little use, but as the Young Pretender stepped carefully beyond that, he saw quickly with the eye of a man trained to hunt from childhood that there was one set of footprints that did not belong to them or the victims.
“As far as I know”—he beckoned Sorcha over and pointed to the line of footsteps—“geists do not leave trails.”
A little smile tweaked the corner of her full lips. “Not usually—but I won’t be disappointed if it is just a madman.”
“We’d better be quick about it.” Then Raed turned and fixed the guards with a stern look—the look of disappointed royalty. “Protect your Prince’s women—better than you have already done tonight.” Could his own sister have been better protected? Could her guards have been a little too lax in their duty?
With those bitter thoughts, Raed spun on his heel and followed the trail. It was a blessing that careful gardeners had raked the gravel so precisely and regularly—possibly only a short time before the murders. The power of Princes was for once working for the Young Pretender.
“Keep behind me, if you please, Honored Deacons.” He gave Merrick and Sorcha a little bow. “We shall use a little of my skill.”
She rolled her eyes, and ick tilted his head, neither happy with this change of circumstances.
Together they pushed through the lush jungle foliage, following the disturbed path back to the buildings. The trail did not lead to the exit they had tumbled out of so recently—and Raed was grateful for that. The idea of a crazed murderer or a possessed innocent rampaging among the frightened women was not one the Young Pretender wished to contemplate.
Instead, the signs led them toward a door that was obviously meant to be barred. When Raed had snuck into the palace, it had been over the undulating roofs—someone else had taken a far more direct approach.
The three of them there stood there and gaped. The wrought iron gate lay with its thick lock askew and hanging off its hinges as if kicked by a great horse—except no creature on four legs, or indeed one on two, could possibly have twisted and destroyed it in such a way.
Raed turned and cocked an eyebrow at the remarkably silent Deacons. “Still think this is the work of a madman?”
“Point made, Your Majesty,” Sorcha replied tightly.
They slipped into the corridor, and Raed managed not to make any further comment. Once beyond the loose white pebble paths, there was still a possibility of tracking the offender. The dry, soft mud walls and floor of the Hive City still held a faint impression that even the most careful foot could not avoid. It was a good thing they were not trying to do this in the Imperial Palace with its much-admired marble flooring.
Sorcha and Merrick followed behind him, and Raed was pleased he was able to show some of his skills—he had witnessed theirs often enough.
Why the younger Deacon was unable to sense the flight of the murderer remained a mystery, but he looked none too pleased to be stripped of his powers. As Raed knelt and examined the signs at a corridor junction, he glanced over his shoulder at Merrick. “Anything?”
The younger Deacon pushed his hair out of his eyes, even as they dipped away from reality again. “It’s like”—he waved his hand, searching for a word—“a shadow of something in here. Not a geist—something else.”
It was easier by far to see the press of a foot and the brush of a cloak against the walls than to understand what Merrick was going on about.
With a gesture, Raed urged them to follow him. They were moving off the main corridors and into dustier rooms. These appeared to have been abandoned long ago. The shapes of sheet-covered furniture and stacked boxes were eerie in a palace so packed with people. What could have caused them to abandon perfectly habitable looking rooms?
A strange odor permeated the air; not just dust but something almost sweet, as if an incense bearer had just passed by. Raed’s heart began to race at the air of menace in these rooms. Nothing warm or welcoming lingered here, and he found himself hurrying through them.
Apparently he was not the only one feeling it.
“I didn’t realize the Hive City went so deep.” Sorcha shot Merrick a look as if she expected him to say something, but her partner was fingering his Strop and completely distracted. Raed was glad he was not the only one with flesh rough with goose pimples.
Still, it gave him a chance to show off something else—his education. “Orinthal is called the Hive City because it is modeled after the red flame termite—the one that builds those red earth towers in the desert.”
She blinked at him.
“I think you need to get out more,” Raed chided as he paused to examine the floor leading to a set of stairs spiraling down. “Unfortunately, it won’t be tonight—this person is going even deeper.”
“I still can’t feel anything human ahead of us.” Merrick sounded both troubled and annoyed at the same time. “Insects, small mammals, but nothing larger.”
Sorcha pulled her Gauntlets out of her belt. “Nice to know the Prince is not above having a vermin problem.”
“Shall I try the Strop?” With shock Raed realized that the Deacon was asking him, not his partner. It was frightening how easily the three of them slipped into roles, just as they had beneath Vermillion. Something in the gaze of both Deacons told Raed
that they also remembered their time together in the ossuary.
Raed cleared his throat. “We can’t afford to let this person get away—stay here if you want.” The empty place on his belt where his sword should have been suddenly felt even greater. Like every other person in the Hive City, he had been forced to surrender his weapon before entering—everyone, that was, except the Order.
Sorcha unhooked her sword and handed it, sheath and all, to him. “I am already armed enough.” She put on the Gauntlets. The brown leather with the faint flicker of luminescence made her point.
Her tone was light, as if she didn’t know the implications of lending her sword to someone not of the Order. It was this trusting gesture, a surrender of control, a placing of her reputation in his hands, that stopped Raed in his tracks.
He would not question her trust, however—to do so would be to sully it somehow. Instead, Raed buckled the sheath onto his own belt, then, taking a sputtering bare flame torch from the wall, he lead the way down the stairs.
The Hive City was naturally cool, thanks to its thick soil walls, but as they went deeper underground it actually became freezing. The thin clothing they all wore was inadequate—but no one was turning tail at this point.
“I sense running water.” Merrick pointed down, his eyes slightly unfocused. “It is interfering with my Sight a little.”
“Water—down here? I don’t hear it.” Sorcha stood between the two men, her voice an unintentional whisper.
“The Hive City only survives because it sits on a huge network of underground channels.” Raed, though he didn’t particularly feel like a history lesson, was glad to have something to add. The pressing atmosphere had nothing to do with the water supply and everything to do with the churning feeling in his chest—a sure sign that the Rossin was hovering on the edges of awareness.
Yet Merrick had said that there were no geists about. Raed repeated that to himself, trying not to think that Merrick was also not able to sense a person whose blatant trail they were following.
And then there was a noise. All three of them froze on the stairs. It was a dragging metallic sound—and not very far ahead.
Carefully, Raed led the Deacons forward, his hand locked tightly around the pommel of Sorcha’s sword. They were now so deep that there was even faint moisture in the air, and the long, low corridor that they were in was becoming more and more like a tunnel.
“Still nothing!” Merrick now sounded really annoyed.
Sorcha, who had taken a place at Raed’s shoulder, looked back. “Certainly there is something down here—I think you better try the Strop.”
Her partner had just reached for his talisman when the tunnel began to shake. The sudden wild movement knocked Sorcha back against Raed, and he in turn actually came off his feet. The sound was now the angry roar of a disturbed beast. Small stones came loose and bounced off them even as the Young Pretender threw his arms around Sorcha, protecting her head.
Merrick, by some act of luck or grace, had managed to stay upright—at least until the floor abruptly gave way beneath him. Raed caught the distinct impression of his wide eyes and shocked face before he tumbled out of sight.
“Merrick!” Sorcha screamed and crawled on her hands and knees to the gaping hole, even though the edge looked anything but stable. The earth’s shaking subsided as quickly as it had come, and now her calls were more desperate.
“He’ll be all right.” Raed grabbed her around the shoulder and peered down into the void. “It’s one of the channels I told you about.” When he thrust the torch in, he fully expected to see Merrick staring back, perhaps nursing some bruises, perhaps a little embarrassed. The drop was not a great one, and the running water below must have only been enough to cover his ankles.
And yet, once his eyes became used to the even greater darkness, there was no sign of the young Deacon. Hanging on to the broken lip of the tunnel floor, Raed looked to either side of the channel, but there was nothing. Merrick would not have run off. He could not have been swept away, because the water was not nearly that deep or fast-moving.
“Where is he?” he said half to himself and half to Sorcha. Raed levered himself up and glanced across at her.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her hands clenched uselessly on her lap. “I can’t feel him.”
The lonely, broken tone in her voice was not one that Raed was used to hearing. It sounded a lot like grief.
“Stay here.” Hanging from his arms, he dropped easily down into the tunnel. Pieces of broken floor lay scattered in the chill, running water—there was no sign of the Deacon.
How is that possible? he wondered and stalked a little way up the channel on each side. “Merrick? Are you there, lad?”
If calling him “lad” didn’t get a reply, then Raed didn’t know what would. He felt so incredibly powerless. The young Deacon had just been there, by the Blood!
“He’s gone.” Sorcha leaned down and called to Raed; her face was as hard and calm as stone. “I felt something as he fell. You can stop looking—you won’t find him.”
Raed’s stomach clenched, and somewhere deep down the Rossin flipped over. “Why?” he asked, afraid he already knew the answer.
“Because I felt the Otherside opening.” She said the words matter-of-factly and then held out her hand to Raed. When he had heaved himself back into the tunnel proper, he didn’t let go of her.
Sorcha’s eyes were downcast as she stripped the Gauntlets off her hands. “I felt it—just for a moment—it opened. It opened, and it took him.”
“What do we do to get him back?” Raed asked, and the blank, hopeless stare he received in return told him much.
Down there in the depths of the Hive City, Sorcha let him hold her tight as she told him the truth. “I don’t know. I don’t have a clue.” And then she did something that frightened Raed. She cried.
FIFTEEN
Lost Loves
Merrick fell into stars, and for a long moment he had no idea if he was awake or sleeping. This did feel very like his dreams—but he would not be a Sensitive if he could not tell the difference between those two states.
No, he decided, he was not dreaming—and immediately after that he guessed what had happened. That tunnel under the Hive City was both incredibly distant and only a hairsbreadth away.
He was on the Otherside. The chill in his lungs could have told him that, if nothing else did. Once, not many months ago, he and Sorcha had ventured into the home of the geists, just in spirit. Sorcha had been lucky—the Otherside and its memories had been wiped away when she returned to the human world. Merrick had not been so fortunate. It was a nightmare he would never shake—his naked soul flayed by the winds of the geist world. Sorcha and he trapped in flames, tortured by geists that had been waiting for their chance to torment Deacons. His bones had burned, and everywhere the runes that they’d trained so hard with were used against them.
Now the Deacon stood in a great sea of stars, his body cold and very much present; his heart was racing like a galloping horse and his breath pumping in his lungs. It was far too close to the details of some of his recent dreams for his liking.
Merrick was completely baffled how this had happened. Sorcha could open the gateway to the Otherside with the rune Teisyat, but he would have felt her use the most feared of the runes carved on the Gauntlet. Her partner was absolutely sure she had not done that.
By the Bones, I am a fool, he thought angrily. The Bond.
Sorcha was gone. The absence hit him harder than the sudden chill in his body—harder even than finding himself in the Otherside. Panic flooded him. Deacons worked in pairs, always, always. Now here he was, a Sensitive out on his own, trapped in the Otherside—
But you are not alone. The voice whispered from among the stars. It was sharp and cruel and the one that had invaded his dreams. Mongrel homeless child that you are, inside there is still greatness. The Body. The Beast. The Blood.
It was the chant, the purpose that had brought Sorcha
, Raed and him together. He had heard that chant before, spoken in the sanctuary of the Mother Abbey where it had been frightening and disturbing enough. When whispered by someone or something within the vast void of the Otherside, it made Merrick’s blood, already icy, grow far colder. Nothing but the stars were around him, but the presence was close. He dared not stretch forth his Sight and attract the attention of geists.
“Be gone, this is not your realm.” The voice was familiar, light, female, and suddenly the Otherside, the stars and the presence did not matter one little bit.
Merrick turned, spinning in space as if he were swimming, and there she was.
“Nynnia,” he whispered, and tears immediately sprang to his eyes, even as a smile spread across his face.
She had died for him, died for the people of a world not her own—and he had never stopped miss her. Her dark hair and small frame were just as Merrick remembered, her eyes set in the sweetest face he had ever seen. The only difference was that she floated in the air, and he could see stars through her body. And he knew why that was—she had none.
“Darling Merrick.” She moved closer, and he was so pleased to see she smiled just as much as he did. For an instant he was washed away by giddy elation. Everything had been gray since she had died, but now the world was bright again. Even if it was not Merrick’s world.
Nynnia’s expression, though, faded suddenly to terribly sad. “I am sorry I had to bring you here.” Her voice was swallowed slightly by the great void that surrounded them.
“Don’t be.” He held out his arms to her. “Whatever the explanation—I don’t care—really, I don’t.”
Her eyes flicked to his open embrace, and then when she moved forward, he began to understand her sorrow. Her gleaming form slipped through his with not a single sensation of warmth and contact reaching him. Merrick’s stomach knotted with frustration, and his anger at her death flared anew.
As if sensing it, Nynnia pulled back and cupped her ethereal hand lightly and exactly around the line of his face—careful not to again break the illusion that she could touch him. “You cannot stay here long, my love.” She pointed down, and Merrick followed her gesture.
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