She stared out the window. Cerise and coral streaked the sky. The sun had vanished, but too much light remained for it to be called darkfall. She watched the colored streaks deepen, edging toward purple, before she heard his footsteps on the stair.
Enstigorr had changed into his customary black for torture, the color hiding blood. He had only to glance at the guards for them to retreat down the way she knew so well, the twisting stairs that led to the cells below ground.
Corrie stared at the sunset. She could sense the drogger, but she would not reach out to him until the right moment. Enstigorr was too powerful to tip her hand to.
He smiled as he neared. “I missed you. No one else ever dared defy me as you did.”
She didn’t answer. She thought about the spell-dampening chains. She erected a spell behind their barrier. Raicha had not been able to sense Corrie’s power, and Raicha was more sensitive than Snossi or Omonte. Enstigorr gave no flicker that he sensed her building power, not even when it threatened to seep from her fingers.
He cupped her face and tilted her head back. Her flesh crawled, a thousand insects creeping over her. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
He laughed, delighted with her defiance. “Aye, Corrie, I did miss you. Did you think to escape me? You do not understand what riches await you.” He ran his fingers into her hair, threading through to the tips before giving it a tug and starting the process again. “You are getting your beauty back. You have added the stones you lost while in the cells, and this glorious crown is growing more quickly than I expected.”
“My power is not in my hair.”
“Do you think I devised a fitting punishment for Snossi, since his power is in his hair?”
“Was your punishment of Raicha equally fitting?”
“She did not show you? She has shown no one. I am not even certain Snossi truly saw. They focused on the horror of what I did, not what I did.”
“You carved your name in her flesh?”
“Oh, you are clever. Aye. Written with the thinnest of blades, over and over.”
“Deepening your hold over her.”
“Very good, pet. You begin to understand me.” His hands returned to her face, keeping it tilted so that she could only avoid his gaze if she shut her eyes. And she would not retreat that way. Enstigorr was capable of cutting off her eyelids. “I have plans for you. Soon, soon, they will be your plans as well.”
She pulled her head back, knocking it into the stones, but he allowed that retreat, for she never stopped meeting his gaze. She tried to keep her breathing even. Panic wanted to huff it out of her. His words echoed her nightmare from days and days ago.
Enstigorr nodded and smiled, pleased that she passed some unknown test he’d assigned her. His gaze swept down her body then back up. His fingers compassed her neck. “Aye,” he sounded a little absent, as if his brain tracked ahead of his words, “Raicha is mine now, more than ever before. If not for their threats, you would not have wanted to escape. Soon, you will be mine as well.”
Corrie did not point out his blindness to his torture of her. “Yet all these months of binding her to you even more closely, and she still thinks of betrayal.”
His tightened fingers hurt. She controlled her flinch and stared him in the eye.
Enstigorr nodded and removed his hand. “Perhaps I need to reward her more often.”
“You think she will be pleased when she and Snossi are finished with Katya? Or will they only want more blood?”
“You have grown bolder and your mind more logical. I am pleased.”
“Perhaps I am not so frightened. Or perhaps I am not so suppressed by weeks in the cells. Omonte had me nearly two weeks before he allowed you to cull me from the others.”
“He did not allow me. I waited. I sensed you immediately, but I waited. And I protected you from the guards. No one else would touch you but me.”
“You sound an eager bridegroom anticipating his wedding night and jealous of his bride.”
His humor vanished. “Do not be too clever, Corrie.”
“I apologize, Enstigorr.”
“Your apology would be worth something if you were repentant.” He turned away and crossed to his table. He lifted a cloth. Panic seized her when she saw the arrayed instruments. Chains clinked, revealing her fear.
He picked up the long, thin blade, similar to Raicha’s fillet. Now? But the twilight sky still held too much light. She stared at that blade as he advanced on her. Will I forget to watch for darkfall?
He grabbed her sleeve and set the blade to it. He slit the fabric from wrist to elbow. The cloth fell open. He exposed the other arm. Then he flicked the blade at her blouse’s neckline.
She needed to distract him. “Was it your true name you carved in Raicha?”
He stopped cutting. “I am not so foolish.”
“Pity. I would like an edge in battle against you.”
“You expect to go to battle against me?”
“I do hope so.”
He laughed. He set the knife aside, and her heart steadied its rhythm.
Her opened sleeves revealed the multitude of fine white scars crisscrossing her flesh. He traced several with a finger she had not expected to be gentle. “All of these scars I made?”
“You deepened my hate with every cut.”
He pressed a finger to the thin line that ran from wrist to elbow, one of the first scars he had given her. “Did I not heal every one of them, my pet?”
“That doesn’t excuse your vile deed. My training is lacking, but the lowliest apprentice knows blood spells are forbidden. They corrupt. Are you so deep in perversion that you do not see your own evil? Your own decay?”
“Do you think to insult me, pet? Better than you have tried.” And he clasped her forearm where Mannemous had cut out the seal.
She saw his eyes widen. As he grimaced, she struggled against the chains. Not yet, not yet, she chanted.
“My seal gone as well. How did you manage that, my Corrie?”
“Not yours,” she spat. “Never yours.”
“Who protected you from Raicha and Snossi? All those weeks they sat in avid anticipation. I refused to let them near you. I punished Snossi when he dared the least, cutting your hair. Who protected you from Omonte’s worst? Who protected you from the guards?”
“From everyone but yourself.” She glanced at the window. Blackness filled the sky.
She flicked a thought to the ground-troll. A single word. Now.
Enstigorr tilted his head. “What did you just do?”
“What can I do? I am chained here.” She rattled the iron links.
“Power went out from you. Where did you send it?”
“How can I send power anywhere? These chains have the same spells as the cords, the same spells as the cells far beneath us.”
“I felt it—.”
A rumble. The tower shook. Screams lifted to them from the cobbled courtyard. She heard rock on rock, a great clashing. She sensed Enstigorr stretching out with his power. Then he laughed, shocking her.
“What an unexpected ally! You please me, Corrie.” He lifted a hand and spoke. “Raicha, the drogger—.” Something hit him, an unseen blow. It staggered him. He held his side and slowly, slowly straightened.
And Corrie began burning through the iron shackles.
When he looked at her, lines creased his face. His eyes still glittered, but the lid of one would only half-open. Discoloration appeared on his skin. “Omonte,” he whispered.
“Dead, I hope.” She poured more power into the chains. The heat was too bluely-hot for him to see, and the temperature annealed the metal to softness.
“A trap. The men who came in with you—. No. The men you brought with you.” His eyes narrowed, but she gave him a wide grin. He backed up a step. “You were never a prisoner. You willingly offered yourself—you place yourself in my control—.”
“Can you not see it, Enstigorr?” And Corrie jerked her hands forward. The bolt that held
the chain on her left snapped from the rock. The chain dropped its weight onto her arm, still shackled to her wrist. She staggered but quickly recovered and yanked again on the right chain.
And Enstigorr finally saw the gold that limned the blue-hot power encasing the iron and rippling along her chained wrists and arms.
He retreated. Power appeared above his lifted palm. It pulsed a pale green. Corrie had seen this spell before. It sacrificed strength for speed. He formed it into a sphere, another sacrifice of strength for speed, then flung it at her.
She braced and lifted the chain still running with her power. It dangled her length, a simple barrier.
Power hit the chain and exploded, broken by the spell in the iron.
And he laughed while she continued to jerk on the right chain. “Clever Corrie, using the chain rather than your own power. When did you realize your full power? You are part of the trap, aren’t you? Never a prisoner, never a sacrifice. A direct thrust in the battle.”
“You begin to see,” although she hadn’t. The left shackle lost hardness and slipped from her wrist even as the right bolt loosened from the wall. Freeing herself from that shackle was a mere swipe of her hand. And she faced him fully.
“How long have you anticipated this?” the Prime asked, sounding curious and not at all worried. “Your unfettered power against mine. Do you think to punish me for all those little cuts? Did I not protect you from the Hand? Last spring you did not have your full power; they would have sucked you dry.”
“What you did to me was not protection, Enstigorr.”
He smiled, but that baring of teeth was from a predator. “I suppose the men below, they are not hill witch and swordsman, are they?”
“Bane witch and minor wizard.”
“Bane witch? Who?” His hands worked, bringing up another sphere of power. This one pulsed corona gold and would have the power to incinerate her.
Corrie readied her counter spell. “Mannemous.”
His spell faltered as he hissed. “I thought him dead in Raikon. I intended for him to be dead.”
“He escaped. He hunted for years to find the means to defeat you.” His eyes widened, so she said the crippling words, “Tigorr-Ensroon.”
He threw the sphere. She jerked up her left hand to deflect it. The power surged to the side and exploded over the left-side wall. Stones bulged outward, then the wall lost its integrity and collapsed. Not hesitating, Corrie flung out her right hand. The spell shimmered into a golden aventurescence as it left contact with her.
He shielded, his power a metallic shine that scattered her spell. Where her deflected power hit stone, it broke into gems that faded, but where it hit wood—the floor, the table behind him, a chair, the benches on either side—it flashed into fire. A single beam struck the ceiling and flamed over, smoldering to gradual life.
“Clever Corrie,” he repeated. “You learned that spell from me.”
“Do you find me an apt pupil, Tigorr-Ensroon?”
“Shall we see? You bring me a bane witch. Have you accepted that you are a bane wizard? Do you think a bane wizard can defeat a Prime with his Hand and their linked wizards and witches?”
“Shall we see?” she tossed back and readied her next spells.
He cut his arm. Calling up power, he fed it with his own blood—.
Only to stagger again. His eyes glazed, looking distant. “Raicha?” He clutched his stomach. Corrie watched as black corruption sped along his veins, creating a spider tracery under his skin. “My sweet Raicha?”
“Snossi, too?” she asked with hardened heart.
“What did you bring into my tower?”
“Bane witch and minor wizard,” she repeated. “Brother to the Norther wizard you hold in your cells.”
“Brothers? Twins to wield such power. Omonte and now Raicha, my sweet Raicha.”
“You see your own fate, Tigorr-Ensroon.” Third naming. That should give her power through his name.
“Clever Corrie is not so clever. You need more than my name to kill me.” He punched out with both hands.
The thrust changed air into a wall. It hit her hard, throwing her against the wall she’d been chained to. He fed more power behind it, pinning her against the stones. She felt their cold, felt the dampening spell deep in their atoms, felt the spell tugging at her own power, trying to ensnare it. But half his Hand was dead. She poured will into her arm and peeled it off the stones. She peeled her other arm off.
She dropped hard when he released his spell. And in that bare second between her release and his shaping for the next spell, she sent that double-fisted punch back at him.
He diverted the spell into deflection, but it still staggered him. And the look he gave her, aged, black-webbed with corruption, held hatred, enough to freeze her. Enstigorr dug his fingers into his flesh, bringing the blood seepage to a pour. He writhed with the pain, but the blood bathed his hand.
She didn’t wait to see his next spell. She grabbed fire from the ceiling and gushed it toward him with his name. The flames surrounded him, claimed him—.
But he gathered power, shaped it, and threw a lance.
She barely shielded in time. The wall behind her blew out, taking the ceiling with it. The night wind raged through, whipping around her, tearing at her hair and clothes. She gathered it, shaped a vortex, and spun it toward the burning man. And she kept the connection, expending more and more power to fuel the spell.
His blackened flesh cracked. He burned without and within. Even his eyes had aureate light. Bone showed, charred. Flesh disappeared. Organs, ephemeral tissue—all burned in the power she poured into the spell.
The skeleton buckled, fell to the floor. Without its center, the wind gusted away.
Corrie approached the remains cautiously. Flames licked over the tumbled bones. Wary of illusion, she scattered the bones. She released the spell and formed another one, essence spell, another lesson from Enstigorr only possible if the true name were known. She created the hollow bubble then gave it his true name.
No flare of light. No pulse of power. He was dead. Tigorr-Ensroon was no more.
It couldn’t be that easy. She had worked only a handful of spells. But he had lost two of his Hand, and her last two spells had the power of his true name to fuel them.
Two of his spells had destroyed the tower room. She stumbled to one broken wall. Her body ached in every part. Her joints felt shaky as jelly.
Rocks fell when she touched the broken stonework. She leaned without touching. Far below people ran screaming from the castle. A fire had caught and burned thatched roofs, spreading quickly. Guards worked a bucket line while others cleared the stable, and more scurried to break the connection between burning roofs and unburned.
A wall heaved up and collapsed. A handful of guards rushed over, but they had nothing to attack.
The wind picked up, tugging at her. She staggered into the wall. More rocks fell. And she nudged the drogger.
Fragile humans, he thought at her, words he’d learned from her. Run, run, fast, fast. Another wall heaved up and tumbled.
The Prime Wizard is dead.
He grumble-rumbled. More walls. Walls and walls. Grow tired soon.
They have much to rebuild—if they do not fear this night and move elsewhere. And the story of this night will be told far away, long away.
He rumbled happily.
You have earned the name Stone-Destroyer.
He glowed. She felt the happiness, and never before would she have argued that ground-trolls had emotion or more than animal-intellect.
Stone-Destroyer will remember Wizard Corrie, long way, far way.
Wizard Corrie will remember Stone-Destroyer long way, far way. You make a good ally. A blessing on you.
Again that burst of radiant happiness. No more walls. And Stone-Destroyer rolled away.
It reached up at the gate tower. A long gnarled arm, black as fertile soil, sprang out of the ground. It slapped at the arched gate then snatched back into the g
round . . . while the humans who had sheltered there screamed and ran. And the tower over the arched gate broke into pieces and crashed down. Without its central keystone, the arches leaned then crumpled, and the gateway turned to rubble.
Chapter 17
Corrie pushed away from the wall. Rocks fell, then more of the wall peeled away from the tower.
She retreated. Parts of the floor still burned from her earlier spell. The wind snatched her hair. A wall torch fell from beside the door, rolled under a table, and added its flame to the floor.
She turned for the stair.
The door flung back. Snossi braced himself in the frame. “Arne killed Raicha!” Seeing the destruction, not seeing the Prime, he glared at Corrie. “Where is Enstigorr?”
“Dead. By my hand.”
She should have expected it, but she hadn’t. He flung power, a sparkling glacial stream. Corrie deflected it. And he laughed, laughed! and pulled up more power. She thrust out with her power, Enstigorr’s trick, and he toppled backward. He screamed as he fell down the stairs—and then he screamed no more.
She stayed rooted while the renewed wind tugged at her. She had killed. Enstigorr’s death was justified; had she not seen him destroy dozens of people weaker than he was? Snossi, though—then she remembered Katya and his own threats against her, and Corrie shoved the guilt aside.
Snossi had fallen through the second turning before he fetched against the wall. His body lay crumpled like a rag poppet tossed aside. She knelt to shut the staring eyes then continued downward, her energy draining away.
The stair returned her to the big room. She slipped past the curtain and smelled the iron tang of blood. A few steps in, and she saw a body lying on the carpet. Blood had stained the burgundy velvet and reddened the silver lace.
Corrie had to pass the corpse to reach the next stairway. She tried not to look, but her gaze was drawn like a magnet. Raicha had bled from hundreds of cuts, some small, most larger.
A second blood trail led away from the corpse and to the descending stair. A thin stream, steady red, soaked into the carpet but spattered when she reached the hardwood floor and stone steps. She sidestepped to avoid the blood.
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