by Karen Miller
But as he raised his right hand to draw the first hex’s sigil on the air, she leapt towards him. “Wait!”
He stared at her, incredulous. “Why?”
“ ’Cause I just realised something,” she retorted. “Arlin, only a noddyhead locks himself in a room then swallows the key. If this goes topsy-turvy we’ll need a way out.”
“Yes,” he said, grudging, after furious thought. Then he closed his eyes, spoke swiftly under his breath, and sketched five sigils onto the air. They burned briefly crimson and then burned out.
She blinked, feeling the surge die down in her mage-sense. “What was that?”
“Think of it as a quick-release knot,” said Arlin. Even taut with nerves, he managed to be smug. “Now the whole binding won’t trigger until I say the word. And when I say it again, the binding will snap back open. As good a key as any, yes?”
Really? Just like that, he thought of it? And then made it happen? She took a moment to reach out with her mage-sense. Caught the shape of his incant and had to smile. It was a typically elegant Doranen creation. She might not like Arlin—she didn’t like him—but she couldn’t deny he was a magnificent mage.
They began the task of spinning a binding web round Morg’s eyrie. Following Arlin, as she finished her first spell Deenie felt it thread onto his quick-release knot and smiled again. So clever. And then she felt his eyes on her and swallowed the smile.
“What? Did I say it wrong? Was my sigil lopsided?”
“No.”
“Well, then?”
Baffled, he shook his head. “Who are you, Deenie? What are you? An Olken who can wield Doranen magic? An Olken who can unbind Morg’s wardings? You and your brother, you shouldn’t be possible. You shouldn’t exist.”
She would never show him that his words hurt her. Instead, she bobbed a curtsy. “Why, Lord Garrick. You say the sweetest things.”
He scowled, ugly again, and began the next binding hex. Once he was done it was her turn. Then his. Then hers. The weight of the untriggered hexes pressed heavy against her skin. She felt her mage-sense shudder under it, felt the changed places inside her chafe. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to recite her next—oh, her last—hex. Turned… and saw that Rafel was watching her from beneath half-lidded eyes.
She held her breath.
“Deenie.”
And yes, it was Rafel. She’d know the feel of him anywhere. She knew the feel of him when he was a thousand leagues away. Morg was still sleeping. This was Rafel. It was Rafe.
“Deenie,” he said again. His lips twitched, as though he wanted to smile. “You’re here.”
But oh, he sounded terrible. More distant even than when he was a dream. She could hardly understand him. She leapt close, full of tears.
“Don’t touch him!” said Arlin, and roughly pulled her back. “You could wake Morg.”
He was right, but it hurt not to hold onto her brother.
Arlin stepped in front of her, his eyes savage. “Deenie, we can’t stop now. You can snivel over him later.”
Snivel? Snivel? This from the man who’d turned the General Council upside down howling for blood over the accidental death of his father?
“I’m not stopping!” she hissed. “I just want to make sure he’s all right.” She shoved her pages of the ripped hex book at him. “You do the last one, Arlin, so we can finish this.”
And he didn’t like that, but he didn’t argue further.
She stepped back to the chair. Had to lock her fingers together, not to touch her poorly brother. “Rafe,” she said, bending low. “Hold on. It’s nearly over, I promise.”
He was so still and pale, he could have sat atop a coffin.
“Beat Morg,” he said, the threadiest whisper. “Hid you.”
For a moment she didn’t grasp what he meant, but then understanding flooded through her. So that was why Morg never felt the deaths of his beasts? Rafe had hidden her? A prisoner inside his own body and he’d managed to keep her safe? More tears, hotly rising.
“Oh, Rafe. I do love you.”
Behind her Arlin made a scathing, impatient sound.
“Deenie?”
“Hold on Rafe,” she said, smearing the wet from her cheeks. “It’s nearly over. Now, I’m sorry, this next bit might hurt. But then you’ll be free of him, and we’ll go home. I promise.” She turned to Arlin. “Once the binding hex is triggered I’m going to pull Morg out. And when he’s out, you can kill him. Since he’s a Doranen, I think that’s only right.”
Arlin hesitated, then nodded. If he felt any qualms he kept them well hidden. “Agreed.”
She pulled the folded page of execution incants from her waistband. Death in her fingertips. Death in a word. But there could be no grief or remorse this time. Morg wasn’t a poor, crazed, brain-rotted wanderer. He wasn’t any kind of innocent. What did it matter if he made beautiful buildings? He was the man who swallowed men’s souls alive.
With iron in her own soul, she gave the page to Arlin.
As he read through the judicial incants, she shifted her gaze back to Rafe. Was it awful of her to be so relieved he wasn’t fuddled, like Goose? That by some miracle he’d escaped his friend’s heartbreaking fate?
Maybe it is, but I don’t care. And we’ll see Goose right, somehow. If there’s a cure for him, we’ll find it. And if there’s not we’ll make sure he’s never hurt like that again.
“Ready?” said Arlin. “We’ve wasted enough time.”
Wasted. Well, she’d take that up with the poxy shit later. She was still holding the page from Novil’s journal, but she didn’t need it. Shoving it back inside her shirt, she nodded.
“I’m ready.”
On a deep breath, Arlin triggered the incant tying all those binding hexes together. Sigil after flaming sigil burned in the air. Deenie felt the power crackling against her skin, calling to the Doranen magic sunk deep in the bones of this ancient land. Calling to the power that had remade this ancient building. It called to her mage-sense, which was also remade, dark and light tangled. Her blood surged, her senses spun.
And then she felt a shudder of terror, and in its seething wake a wild whipping of blight.
“Arlin!”
Igniting his quick-release knot incant had hurt him. Bent double, struggling with the pain of so many binding hexes, he twisted sideways to look at her.
“Arlin, something’s wrong!”
Another brutal slap of blight, stunning her. And then she felt an ominous stirring. Heard a rustling of silk. Felt cold crawling on her skin. She turned.
Rafel had straightened out of his slump. Eyes closed, his face was changing. Remoulding. Becoming not Rafe.
Morg opened his eyes.
For one odd, caught-out-of-time forever heartbeat, the sorcerer stared at her… and she stared back. She watched the incredulous recognition dawn in his eyes—saw the blank shock of her presence strike him a hammer blow and felt his rage rise as swift as a waterspout, whipping and thrashing and seeking to destroy. She felt him, in all his terrible power.
She couldn’t feel Rafel. Her brother was gone.
Someone grabbed hold of her arm, pulled her back from the chair. Arlin. It was Arlin. He was shouting something but the words made no sense.
Rafe.
Was he dead? Had Morg killed him? Or was he caged again like before? She didn’t know. She couldn’t tell.
Da, Da, what do I do?
Morg’s UnMaking was in her, the words on her tongue and the sigils at her fingertips. She could end this right now, she could kill the world’s great evil. The sorcerer was still struggling, not yet himself. She had this moment, this fleeting moment, when she could set the world to rights.
And maybe kill Rafel. He might not be dead.
Arlin was still shouting. Something about getting out, leaving Morg trapped in here, working together to destroy him another way. Her arm hurt where he held her. Distracted, she flicked him aside.
“Rafel!” she said, almost sobbing. “Please, Rafe, you�
�ve got to fight. I can defeat him, but not on my own!”
She waited to see him change back. She waited to see Rafe.
Nothing.
Morg clutched at the arms of the chair, dazed and unfocused, trying to stand. Something had stirred him from his trance too soon, perhaps Arlin’s incant, perhaps Rafe. For these few brief heartbeats, he was vulnerable.
I can end this. I should end this. He can’t leave here. He can’t.
But she couldn’t bring herself to UnMake him and kill Rafel. Not without trying another way first.
On a sobbing cry of despair she seized Morg’s face between her shaking hands and abandoned herself to his evil. Opening herself to him, abandoning all her defences, she heard the screams of every murdered innocent, tasted the putrescence of each maddened, rotted soul, felt the grief of every trust betrayed and the fury of all his principles denied.
Century after century of depraved cruelty burned through her. Power unimaginable crushed her bones to chalk. The reef—the reef was nothing—a pale, watercolour imitation—and her power, her little power, her pathetic Olken mage-sense, how could it help her? Ripping to pieces, she threw her head back and screamed.
In the midst of the maelstrom she heard a gloating, triumphant laugh. Heard Rafel scream and felt him writhing in pain. Heard a hateful voice, a lover’s whisper, tender in her ear.
Defeat me? As if you could. You bitch, you slut, you treacherous whore.
And she saw between breaths the world Morg would make. Saw Charis and Goose turned into beasts, and the rest of the Olken, saw Ewen and the people of Vharne beasted too, saw Arlin and Lur’s Doranen flayed alive and left to die, saw Da—saw Da—
No.
She opened her eyes. Clawed her fingers into Morg’s face. Pulled him close, pulled him closer, until their sweating foreheads touched. She bared her teeth at him and showed him her soul.
“I broke the reef, Morg. And I’ll break you, I will!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She could feel the eyrie’s myriad wardings, shivering and trembling as Morg’s blighting power thrashed against them. She could hear Rafel screaming as the sorcerer flogged him to punish her. And she could feel—she could feel—
Da! Da, he’s afraid!
It must mean she was winning. He was afraid. It meant something. But sheer will and desperation wouldn’t be enough. She needed Novil’s incant to beat him, even though she knew to her marrow that kind of magic was wrong. The dangerous spell was in her, eager to be spoken, its sigils searing her fingertips and tugging at her arm.
Hold on, Rafe. Hold on.
Lost in her mage-sense, in this thing she’d never asked for, never wanted, she let prophecy have its way. She was the child of Jervale’s Heir and the Innocent Mage, born to finish what they had begun.
She pulled Morg out of Rafel one atrocity at a time.
Blood streamed down her face, from her eyes, from her nose. Blood dripped from her open mouth. She didn’t care. Screaming, clawing, clutching, Morg fought and fought but the broken reef was inside her… his scars were inside her… Barl’s mysterious strength was inside her…
Sink it, Morg. You won’t win.
The whipcrack of power as she ripped him out of Rafe’s body sent her flying across the warded chamber. She struck a wall hard, felt something break, heard someone laugh.
Oh. That’s me.
And then someone was shouting at her, tugging her, slapping her face.
“Deenie! Deenie!”
For a moment she thought it was Rafe. Then she opened her eyes and saw Arlin Garrick’s arrogant, handsome, terrified face.
“Deenie!”
The warded eyrie was so bursting full of blight she wanted to scream with the pain of it. Belly heaving, bones burning, she struggled to her feet. Arlin helped her, not gently. The pain that woke in her left shoulder made her shout.
“Deenie, we have to go!”
Ignoring Arlin, she spun round and nearly fell again. Rafe sagged boneless in Morg’s high-backed chair, his face beeswax pale. A thread of bloodied spittle dangled from his slackened, open mouth. He looked dead. Oh, Rafe, no! Sobbing for air she staggered to his side.
“Rafe—Rafe—”
His skin was ice-cold. But when she touched him with her battered mage-sense she felt an answering spark flicker. Fingers under his chin, she tipped his head up and stared into his vacant, half-lidded eyes.
“Rafe? Can you hear me? Rafe? It’s me, Deenie.”
He didn’t answer.
“Deenie, it’s no good,” said Arlin. “We failed. We have to get—”
Spitting blood on the floor, she turned on him. “I’m not going anywhere. Not ’til Morg’s finished!”
“What?” Incredulous, Arlin looked at the ceiling. “Deenie, are you sheepwitted? Not even you can finish that!”
And that was a seething, roiling cloud of power, stinking the air and springing sweat through her skin. It was pure blight and unleashed fury, Morg without face or form, thrashing round and round the chamber against the eyrie’s iron wards. There was madness in it, and murder, and if they stayed here they’d not survive.
Deenie felt grief and guilt stab through her. Oh, Da. I got it wrong. “Arlin,” she whispered. “Take Rafe and get out. And once you’re outside seal this chamber behind you.”
“Seal—” Arlin gaped at her. “You stupid, stupid—you’re as mad as the sorcerer. Deenie, if you stay in here with him you’ll die.”
“Prob’ly,” she snapped. “But what do you care, Arlin, so long as you’re safe?”
He flinched as though she’d struck him, then stared again at the formless, furious sorcerer she’d unleashed into the air. “I don’t know how long those binding incants can hold.”
“Well, I reckon we’re about to find out,” she said. “Any road, he won’t go anywhere while there’s me to reckon with. So I’ll entertain him while you find a way to keep this chamber sealed for good.”
“How?”
Oh, she could slap him. “How d’you think, you sinkin’ noddyhead? The books Rafe gave us. That Novil, he was chockful of ideas. Look for something in his journal.”
“And if I can’t find anything?”
“Arlin, for pity’s sake! How long d’you think we’ve got to stand here bickering? That sinkin’ bastard’s going to find himself any ticktock!”
Already she could feel the incoherent blight changing, feel Morg’s crazed, scattered mind trying to collect itself. And once it did…
The banging pain in her collarbone was ferocious, close to drowning the pain of Morg’s blight. She wanted to drum her heels on the floor and weep. But there was no time for weeping. There was no time for fear. Pressing her left arm hard against her body she staggered back to Arlin, snatched him by the sleeve and dragged him protesting to Morg’s throne.
Arlin’s face twisted as he stared down at Rafe. “Deenie, he’s dead.”
“No, he ain’t!” she shouted, and did slap him. The pain of it cleared her dizzy head. “Now you get him to safety, Arlin. You go, you go, or I swear—”
He must have seen his murder in her face, ’cause he hauled poor lolling Rafe out of the chair, draped one slack arm around his shoulders and clamped his own arm round Rafe’s ribs. Then he stared at the lashing, seething cloud of blight that was Morg. His face twisted again, this time in despair.
“You’ll not defeat him.”
She shoved him. “We’ll see.” Another shove. “Now go.”
Resisting, Arlin shook his head. His eyes were tormented again, full of terrible memories. “It should be me. I should stay.”
Almost, she shoved him a third time. But then, prompted by some odd instinct, instead she laid her palm gently against his cold cheek.
“If you want to make amends, Lord Garrick, you see Rafe and Goose looked after. You see Ewen and Charis safe. You undo the damage you helped Morg do. That’s how you can make amends. Now go.”
Arlin’s eyes were glittering. “I still don’t
like you. Or your brother.”
“Well, that’s my heart broken,” she snapped. “Arlin, would you go?”
But as he started for the warded doors she snatched his sleeve a second time.
“No, wait.” She kissed Rafe’s waxen cheek. Stroked his hair. “I love you.”
And then Arlin was taking her brother away.
Rafel could barely shift his own feet. Arlin had to drag him to the doors. Deenie watched them, blinking away tears. Then, on a shuddering breath, she backed to the far side of the chamber and looked up at the raging thing that used to be a man.
Oh, Da. I think Arlin’s right. I’m cracked.
From the corner of her eye she saw Arlin reach the chamber doors, Rafe a sagging dead weight, and look back at her. With her left arm useless, she shifted a little and raised her right hand. Not yet—not yet. And then she let down her guard and beckoned Morg close.
Here I am. Here I am. Want to try again?
A moment of silence. A moment of calm. Then Morg’s blight came roaring at her, and knocked her to her knees.
Through the burning pain she felt Arlin’s binding ward collapse. Terrified of Morg feeling it, she summoned her wavering strength and fought to distract him. Remembered the reef and that final whirlpool and poured everything she had left into collapsing him too.
But Morg wasn’t a whirlpool.
She screamed as she was picked up and hurled across the chamber. Screamed again as Morg smashed her from ceiling to floor. As the smothering cloud of blight descended she saw Arlin hauling the chamber doors open, hauling Rafe into the corridor. Nearly there. Nearly there. And then he was outside the chamber, Rafe was outside the chamber, and its imposing doors were banging shut. A pounding heartbeat later she felt the binding wards reignite.
Sprawled on the cold eyrie floor, she laughed. And then she screamed as Morg took her and shook her like a dog with a rat. She thought any ticktock her bones would fly apart.
But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Da, our Rafel’s safe.
Abruptly, Morg let go. Exhausted, hurting so terribly she could scarcely breathe, Deenie stared at the blight-shrouded ceiling. Waited. Waited. But the sorcerer held back. Warm trickles of blood crept from her eyes, her nose. Trickled between her parted lips.