Mennyt meant looking into the Otherside, and sometimes the Otherside could look back. She would protect her Sensitive. “Stand back, please, Your Highness.” The beaded curtain swayed before Onika, but he took several steps until he was against the wall of the audience chamber.
Merrick strapped the wide leather around his head, hiding his brown eyes behind the Runes of Sight carved into the Strop. Then he slid the round of obsidian, with his own personal sigil hammered into it, up on its brass loop to sit in a spot between his eyebrows. Sorcha was not sure if the Third Eye that it was meant to be covering was just some strange Sensitive myth, but she knew when it was brought into play, things were serious.
In the Bond everything went still as Merrick’s concentration sharpened to knifelike intensity, and his partner was once again reminded how powerful the young Deacon was. The brightest star of the novitiate. Despite a rocky start to their partnership, she was proud of him and the strength of what they had.
Still, looking into the Otherside was nothing to be taken lightly. Careful, Merrick, don’t look too deep.
The image of his mother, young, beautiful and laughing, bending down to kiss the top of his head, flashed through the Bond along with a surge of powerful emotion.
I have to know if she is there.
Merrick opened his Sight to the Otherside. The winds raged, and Sorcha swallowed panic. The view of the palace was different when seen through Mennyt; it was a wild place of dark shadows and whispering voices from unseen people.
Every building that had ever housed humans bore some echo of them after they were gone, but in places like palaces, where great and dreadful events played out, a geist could snatch away a human soul and leave the shattered remains to wander. Those who had been murdered were especially easy targets for the unliving—and this was what Merrick was looking for.
Now his Sight spread through the palace, looking for a familiar shape and yet terrified to find it. Some isolated survivors lingered in distant rooms, and some broken souls ripped from bodies still floated through the corridors.
Yet Merrick still cast about, delving deeper. Shadows grew darker, and the distance between the human world and the Otherside grew thinner, like someone rubbing at a painting with a piece of cloth. Now he was boring down until his blood called to her blood. Deep in the tunnels a few tiny drops called to him.
Merrick—that’s enough! Sorcha stretched out across the Bond to him. She knew all about going too far, having done it herself in front of the gates of the palace at Vermillion.
Eventually her partner heard her and pulled back. Looking deeply could draw the attention of things that were best left lying. With shaking hands, Merrick slid the sigil back on the Strop and undid the belt of leather from around his head.
“She’s not dead.” He turned to the Prince of Chioma. “By the Bones, she is not dead, but there is blood . . . just a little.”
“Then where can she be?” Onika sank down on the dais where his empty throne stood. None of the Deacons answered.
Blood was powerful magic when used with runes or cantrips even, and royal blood more powerful than that. And there were indeed terrible dark things that could be done to a pregnant woman and her child to summon geists. Sorcha sometimes hated the knowledge of a Deacon; it made dreaming or imagining a stained thing, and she was cursed with an active, powerful imagination.
“I wonder what they are planning.” Despite the horror of it, she found herself pondering what their unknown assailants would want with Merrick’s mother. He was doing the very same, though with considerably more pain and bleakness.
So drawn in by these dark thoughts was Sorcha, that for a minute she didn’t register the Prince’s movement—his raised hand to the swaying mask of beads.
“They are planning to make me pay.” His deep voice was edged with resignation and fury, and then he ripped the mask from his face.
Nothing else mattered. Sorcha dropped to her knees as if poleaxed, as the glory that was Onika filled her. He filled her with beauty and adoration, so much so that tears spilled from her eyes even as she raised her hands to him in supplication. Sorcha felt the true dawning of faith, and it cut more deeply than she had ever imagined.
He was everything, and life before had no meaning. It had been gray and hollow until this moment.
As if through a mist she heard Merrick cry out, his voice cracking, “Onika, please!” It sounded half a prayer, half an admonishment. Sorcha turned, her chest full of sudden anger. This was their god—how dare the young fool question him? She was going to tear his heathen eyes from his head.
Onika, with a sigh from his perfect mouth, bent, scooped up the mask and threw it around his head once more.
It was like plucking the sun from the sky. Sorcha sank back on her knees, a dreadful grief welling up to take the place of faith. It was hard to shake, but eventually, after wiping away her tears, she levered herself back to her feet. Merrick had recovered far more quickly and helped her.
Sorcha had read widely on the subject of the little gods; how they were foolish, and those that followed them were even more so. She had even as part of training studied the reckless religion of the Wyketel tribesmen in the forests of the West Highlands, and how even now they could not be persuaded to give it up. Having had a taste of faith, having seen a god on earth, she was a little more forgiving.
“A god . . . ” She shook her head.
“No.” Onika’s voice was firm but still angry. “Not a god—merely the son of a geistlord, Hatipai—one that has been pretending to be a god since before the Break.”
Her reaction was primitive and instant; Sorcha drew her sword, the ring of it sounding loud in the silent audience chamber. She should kill him now and save his people.
It was Merrick who brushed aside the point of her blade. “Onika abandoned his mother; he fought with the Ancients against her. He is not the threat here, Sorcha.”
“How do you know?” The prick of humiliation had her now, and she would not back down. She could feel the eyes of the Court on her, the held breaths, the aimed rifles.
“Because I saw. ” His fingers clenched on the tip of her blade. “Nynnia took me there, before the coming of the geists.”
Sorcha frowned. The sword wavered slightly in her hand.
“I was one of those who imprisoned my mother, along with the Rossin family and their geistlord.” Onika’s hands disappeared behind the mask, holding his head or crying, it was impossible to tell. “And this is her revenge. I was never able to have any sons of my body—until Japhne came into my life.”
He looked up at Merrick. “I remembered what you had told me, and I found love and acceptance as I never had in a thousand years. Even when I was not wearing the mask, somehow she still was able to love me as a man.”
Sorcha made up her mind, sheathed her sword in one smooth gesture and realized foolishly that she still had her Gauntlets on. “Then we have to get her back.”
“I am the only one with any hope of stopping my mother.”
All three of them paused, ragged and torn.
“Then I will make it my mission to find my mother,” Merrick said, his hand resting on his own sword hilt. “I will follow those tunnels, and I will find her. You must both go after Raed and stop Hatipai.”
“But—” the Prince made to disagree.
“No, Your Highness,” Merrick snapped. “This is how it has to be.”
For a long moment the two men stood toe-to-toe, and Sorcha merely watched. For once she would let her partner tell her what to do. She owed him that.
Onika laughed shortly. “It has all come down to mothers, then—because if I do not stop Hatipai, then she will make a graveyard of Chioma. Starting with the Rossin.”
Sorcha flinched. “Raed?”
It was Merrick who answered, “No, the Beast. Remember, there is no hungrier creature than a geistlord. They dine on one another.”
“And my mother has a terrible hatred for the Rossin—since his family help
ed me restrain her.” Onika strode to the window and pointed east. “I closed her primary Temple—the one in the desert. That is where she will go to make herself a new body and devour the Beast.”
Sorcha clenched her teeth, her throat tight, for a moment stopping any words. The Bond, which had been their greatest strength, was now stretching her in opposite directions. Raed was her lover, possibly even more, and Merrick was her partner. She didn’t want to have to choose.
Merrick took her arm, pulling her out of the circles her mind was running in. “I need you to go with Onika and help him. Hatipai is far more powerful than any bunch of kidnappers.”
“I can’t.” Sorcha paused, shook her head. “I can’t just leave you—” He was her Sensitive, and she’d only just gotten him back. He was her responsibility. Everything that she had ever learned in the Order told her not to leave his side—least of all when the world was exploding around them. Her mind flashed to Kolya and when he had been attacked right in front of her.
“Sorcha.” Merrick squeezed her arm hard. Sometimes she still forgot his strength—too used to thinking of Sensitives as weak. Her partner, she had learned quickly, was anything but that. “I’ll take some palace guards, and we will be fine. You have to stop Hatipai and save Raed. I will be with you—our Bond is strong.”
Sorcha felt his strength surge around her. It was funny how she had never truly appreciated it as much as she did in this moment. Their Bond, which she had forged so carelessly, was now an essential part of her life—as much as her affection for Raed.
I am inside you. My Sight is yours, no matter where I am. Such a thing was impossible—at least as she had been taught—but she and Merrick had already broken so many rules. She looked into his steady brown eyes, and she believed him. He had never lied to her. For once in her life, she believed. While this spread through the Bond, she nodded slowly.
And with a final squeeze of her hand, Merrick turned on his heel and strode out the door. Like every Active, Sorcha had always assumed that she was the dominant in their partnership. If they survived this, she realized, she would have to reassess.
I will find you soon, were the final words he shot across the Bond before sealing it shut, cutting off communication though not the strength. Sorcha was not one to weep and wail over a man, even if that man was bound to her as tightly as Merrick.
Onika called the remaining members of his guard, told them to follow after the Deacon, and treat him as they would their Prince. They were all well trained and obeyed without question.
The doors were shut, and without turning, she listened to Onika’s footsteps walking on the polished stone toward her. She was not without allies, even if she still didn’t have the full measure of them.
Sorcha contemplated the Prince of Chioma, hidden behind his swaying mask. “So, how difficult is it going to be getting into this Temple?”
“I think you have seen I am not without my own resources.” His voice was hard, distant and worthy of a god. “It was how I stopped the mob getting into the throne room, after all. The trouble will be getting to the desert Temple in time. Unfortunately, I do not have wings.”
It was hard to tell if he was attempting some kind of joke—certainly Sorcha was not about to ask him to remove the mask, and besides she did have an idea.
“Tell me, Your Highness—have you ever traveled by Imperial Dirigible? It is quite the way to fly.”
His low chuckle was the most cheery noise Deacon Sorcha Faris has heard in many, many hours.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A Son’s Love
Walking away from Sorcha was hard, and Merrick was afraid to do it. Everything that he had ever been taught told him to stay with her—but a child’s love for his mother went deeper even than that. It was certainly not a situation he had ever envisaged, but if they found Japhne quickly enough, then he should be able to get back to his partner before she faced the goddess.
The palace was not making Merrick feel confident about his goals, though. He kept his Center open, but all he captured was the feeling of panic and terror.
“Sir.” One of the guards, by his insignia a sergeant, glanced around the corner of the corridor. “If you don’t mind me saying, don’t you Deacons always travel in pairs?”
Merrick could smell the fear coming off the man; these guards were trained to deal with assassins, rabble-rousers, and maybe a catfight between the Prince’s women. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Dael.” His eyes flickered uncertainly to Merrick.
“Well, Dael”—Merrick led them around the corridor brusquely, communicating certainty he didn’t feel—“while members of my Order do indeed customarily travel together—we are also trained to look after ourselves.” He left out the bit about the strange Bond and the power it gave him and Sorcha over and above a normal Deacon.
They reached the harem to find the doors swinging open and a dead eunuch in the garden, but it was another direction that interested Merrick. There in the disturbed gravel of the once immaculate path he found what he was looking for—a single tiny drop of blood.
He bent and held his open hand over it. It was hers, and Merrick would not permit himself to think about the circumstances in which it might have landed there; the thing that mattered was it was just one tiny drop. This was no murder scene. Aiemm, the Second Rune of Sight, flared in his mind, and he looked back in time to his mother’s terror.
Running, she was running, and someone pursued her. The cut in her hand was tiny, one slip of the knife she’d used to defend herself. She held it tightly, the pain inconsequential in her panic. Her pursuers were cloaked, even in the heat of the garden, and her stride was awkward this late in her pregnancy.
Merrick opened his eyes. She hadn’t seen; they weren’t just chasing her—they were herding her.
“Quickly.” He stood up. “There is still time.”
It was down into the tunnels once again—that was where they had harried his mother to, like so many sheepdogs. Except he suspected these dogs would bite.
Merrick’s mind raced, and not just with the unnaturalness of this situation; he was thinking of a time when he had lost another parent.
The taste of remembered fear filled his mouth, and suddenly he was that little boy hiding behind a tapestry and watching his father being ripped apart by something from the Otherside. He hadn’t cried, hadn’t uttered a word, but he recalled the anguish. His mother’s sobs had seemed to have no end, all through his childhood. And finally he summoned up the image of Japhne of a few nights before, sitting on the end of the bed, smiling with genuine happiness. He had never thought to see that look on her face again. He had thought she would never see his face again.
He swallowed hard on the knot of fear in his throat. Remaining calm was the only course now—if not, his mother would be lost.
“Down here,” he barked as they turned the final corner of the final staircase and reached the tunnel from which Nynnia had taken him. Something had reached out to grab him then, and she had pulled him through time and space to save him. Merrick could only hope she would understand why he was now stepping right into the jaws of that trap.
The guards waited patiently as he stared down into the broken maw of the storm-water pipe that had collapsed under his feet what felt like an age ago now. His Center was wide and open, so he easily found another splatter of blood—this one larger. Japhne had placed her hand right there and somehow lowered herself down into the tunnel. It was quite a feat for a woman seven months into her pregnancy—but there was nothing like being pursued to provide motivation.
His mother might have been a noble lady, but she had never been one to stick to needlepoint—it was one of the reasons she had been such trouble for her brother to marry off. When Merrick’s father had been alive and in his own senses, she had ridden often to the hunt with him. Still, running for her life in the dark tunnels under Orinthal while heavily pregnant was something no one trained for.
“Light your lanterns,” Merrick
instructed the guards over one shoulder. As a Deacon he didn’t need light to see, but the others would. Three of the ten guards at his back took hooded lanterns from the walls of the corridor, while others nervously waited for his next instruction.
When Merrick gave it, he knew that they wouldn’t like it. “Follow me.” And then he swung down into the pipe. He had never actually hit the bottom before; Nynnia had been very accurate when she snatched him away.
It was pitch-black, but with his Center open he could feel so many more details than mere human sight could give him. When the guards dropped down behind him, he barely registered their arrival.
The tunnel was old, more ancient than even the palace above, and had been made with great care. The whispers of the makers, even after centuries, still clung to the curved brick walls. The water at the bottom was only an ankle-deep trickle, and thankfully this was not part of the smaller sewage systems that burrowed above this grand pipe.
“This carries flash flood waters away from the palace,” one of the guards muttered. “I pray there is nothing happening in the mountains while we are down here.”
Despite the serious situation, Merrick’s lips twitched in a faint smile. With the kingdom gone to chaos above them, the guard was worried about the weather? If rain came, then it would wash all of them away before they had time to care.
No sign of his mother or any other human was on the ether, but there were plenty of rats and crawling creatures in the pipe to keep them company. Merrick pushed harder with his Center, burrowing into their mercurial brains in which thoughts ran like water, but the most important ones were for survival.
It was possible for some people and geists to erase their passing in the ether—not common but possible. However, everything that walked or scurried on the earth had a memory, even if it was a small one, and that was far harder to erase.
The Deacon inhaled slightly, closed his physical eyes, and drew in his mind the outline of the First Rune of Sight, Sielu. Using it to look through human eyes could drain his strength, but he was not using it on them in this instance. Instead, he spread his net far wider and far lower.
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