For a second, I thought I was laughing, but I wasn’t.
I was crying. Because I’d failed.
The insight—the awareness of what I’d just done wrong—squeezed my breath into gasps. I should have held onto the heat shield and used Exodus. Then, after Exodus leveled as many recarnates as the Fire had, I would have been able to repeat the tactic and draw those two groups of recarnates together.
Now, without a shield, I’d fall quickly. There was no way I could destroy them all before I was pulled down.
I had no choices. I just stood there and let them come toward me. Their strides kicked up flash-fire clouds of resin and ash. I transformed my sabre into a hilt and took potshots at the front lines. How many knife cuts could I endure before I’d need to use Exodus? How long could I last? Every recarnate I didn’t take down would turn toward the compound.
The nearest recarnates was close enough that I made out dirty-blond hair and gray teeth. I turned my sabre hilt into a gladius, letting the garnet sparks of the transformation shower me.
I thought about the time I’d made Brand ride a big wheel down the stairs.
I thought about my father standing with me on the roof of the house, pointing out the edges of our little kingdom.
I thought about how warm Addam’s lips had been.
I thought about what had happened in the carriage house, and how I’d spent twenty years ready for this moment. Ready to close my eyes without the weight of knowing they’d reopen.
A dark shape hurtled through the air. I raised my blade as a man slammed into the earth, his fist digging a furrow into the torched dirt.
Lord Tower rose and released magic from a necklace of mass sigils.
Balls of liquid formed around each hand. They glimmered like huge beads of mercury, showing a warped reflection of the forest around us. Lord Tower threw the magic at the advancing lines. Both were perfect strikes. They detonated into asterisks of energy—not fire or lightning, just pure energy. It was a stunning use of power. Each burst took down nearly a dozen recarnates.
The Tower filled his palms with two more spheres, and decimated the recarnates on the other side of us.
I smeared ash out of my eyes, which made the claw marks from earlier sting like a bitch. “Admit it,” I told him. “You were peeking around the corner, waiting for the last possible second to make your entrance. You Arcana are such drama queens.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, “you’re wrong. This is not the last second.”
Apprehension pulsed.
Lord Tower said, “Ashton Saint Gabriel is nearby, and he’s resummoned the lich.”
I’d be lying if a small voice inside me wasn’t saying, “Lord Tower is here, he’ll take care of everything.” But it wasn’t like his presence was going to result in a nap. I was still needed.
“You can take him?” I asked.
“It,” Lord Tower clarified. “And, yes, I’m prepared to unmake it. Are there any wards left functioning at all?” He’d shifted his attention back to the mansion.
“Ashton tampered with them. I set a boundary, but had to pull it down to meet the enemy.”
“So I saw. A nice bit of magic.” The Tower pulled a piece of jewelry from his belt. It sparked in the dull light. As the Tower set it on his head, I saw that it was a diadem, filled with six large gemstones. Each of the gemstones was a mass sigil. Lord Tower had come to the Westlands ready to fuck people up.
“No tiara jokes?” he said under his breath.
“Not a one,” I said honestly.
The multiple release of mass sigil spells knocked me off my feet. I spun in the air and gouged my chest on a charred thighbone, and had to brace arms and knees to steady myself.
When I looked up, I saw that the mansion was glowing. “Did you . . . just recharge the wards?” I asked.
“Just the ones in the house. Tricks of our trade, Rune. You’ll grow into such secrets one day.”
The Tower reached a hand to me. I thought it was to help me up, but when our skin made contact, adrenaline slammed into my body with such force that it had me seeing rainbows for a full five seconds. When I could finally speak, each word came out as an individual breath. “Are you serious?”
“You were sagging. I need to find the lich’s location. Keep watch over me.” He released another spell and closed his eyes. His body went still as his spirit brushed past me.
I spent a few seconds self-consciously pulling the last of my burned shirt off my shoulders. It wasn’t a good look on me. I nudged at the recarnate bodies for a replacement, but I’d burned everything in sight.
A sound made me glance toward the mansion. A small group of people was heading through the shattered courtyard gate. My eyes went right to Brand and Addam, and widened when I saw that I was with them. Or my golem was, at least.
“He doesn’t talk as much as you do,” Brand said when they were in earshot.
“Should I feel bad that everyone felt it was safe to come outside as soon as the Tower showed up?” I asked.
Brand snorted. “If you want. It has nothing to do with the fifty zombies you turned into nuclear shadows.”
“I did do that.”
“You did,” he agreed.
We stared at each other for a second. It was one of those times when the Companion bond was a good thing. Then I nodded respectfully at the Tower’s Companion and said, “Mayan.”
“Lord Sun.”
Addam was staring at the bodies around me. His eyes scrolled all the way to the left, stopped, and then scrolled back to the far side of the carnage. He shook his head softly, and gave me a measuring look.
I ran a quick gaze across their faces and saw shiny, red skin. Brand wasn’t limping, either. I was about to ask if Geoff had come through with the healing spells when Ciaran said, “Lord Tower brought gifts. The compound’s chiromancer is healing anyone who needs it. Max is stable.”
“Gods,” I breathed. “That’s good. That’s great. Did anyone tell Geoffrey he can rejoin the group?”
“Fuck Geoffrey,” Brand said. “He’s lucky I’m not hiding outside the sanctum, making ghost sounds. What’s happening now?”
“The Tower is far-seeing for Rurik,” I said. “Ashton resummoned Rurik.”
“Saint Gabriel used the imbued circle on the Magician’s estate,” Mayan said. “He’s nearby now—we know that much.”
Ciaran had an odd look on his face. “And how did your Ashton get past the Magician’s defenses?”
Lord Tower made a sound, then blinked away his fugue. He gave a quick look past us—away from the mansion—and then faced our small party. “That is a question,” he said. “There are an uncomfortable number of questions.” He spared Brand, who was fiddling with the knives on his chest harness, a glance. “We know that the recarnates were a feint. They pinned you down and distracted you from the real threat. You were right, Brandon. We shouldn’t have discounted them.”
Brand looked up from his knives and said, “What?”
Lord Tower started repeating the sort-of apology, then realized that Brand was trying to get him to say it twice. He closed his mouth and pointed toward the woods. “There’s a church there.”
“It’s a basilica,” Addam said. “A memorial to former Moral Certainty Arcana.”
“Ashton has taken shelter there,” the Tower said. “The lich will be damaged and weakened. We must find it before it can go to ground. We cannot let it escape.”
“Ciaran,” I said. “Lord Tower has . . . reinvigorated the wards, but we can’t be certain the interior is completely safe. Would you watch over the staff while we find Ashton?”
By doing this, I was, in a way, stealing command from Lord Tower— or at least keeping it as my own. The Tower’s expression didn’t give anything away, but he didn’t contradict me. That was good. His first thought was rarely to protect bystanders; and collateral damage followed him around like a drunk puppy.
“If you think best,” Ciaran said. He gave us all an exaggerated he
ad bow and spun back toward the mansion. On the way, he slapped my golem in the ass. The animate’s sunglasses skewed, showing lava-bright eye holes.
“Thank you,” I said to his retreating back. “For everything. Brand, maybe you should—”
“I will cut you,” Brand said.
“I will not cut you,” Addam added, “but I will not turn back either. Please do not ask.”
“Then we move,” Lord Tower said, and he began striding toward the tree line. “Rune, a word. Mayan, watch our rear.” He hesitated. “Brandon, the golem’s control phrase is fail-safe five. Please keep it oriented.”
“Five?” Brand said. “Does that mean you have four more Runes?”
The Tower set off at a pace that had me skipping to catch up. When I was even with him, he nodded a chin at the mangled sky. “Ashton Saint Gabriel used weather magic.”
“He did. To bring draug in undercover.”
“There were draug,” the Tower murmured. “Our little villain appears to have some unexpected connections. Why did he break the storm, though?”
“He didn’t. I did.”
Lord Tower’s next step hitched. He recovered in a long swoop over the last of the recarnate corpses. “You used weather magic as well,” he finally said.
“I didn’t. I—I don’t know. I needed the clouds to go away, and they did, and the draug burned. But it wasn’t a spell. I didn’t use a sigil.”
The Tower’s head snapped toward mine. For a moment—just a moment—there was an expression on his face that I entirely mistook for pride, only wondering in hindsight if maybe it had been triumph.
Any question I may have asked was lost in a sudden whoosh of damp, spiced wind.
A harpy dropped from the sky and landed with a resoundingly loud crash. She had the body of a lion and the face of a crone, with a wingspan as wide as a small truck. Her talons reeked of frankincense. They were highly poisonous; one scratch would turn a man’s flesh to water and make his bones fall apart like clattering dice.
She threw back her head and cawed. “Lovelies! Squirming, soft-bellied lovelies!”
The Tower said, “I am the Dagger Throne.”
She shuddered, twisted her head, and trailed claws across the soil in huge, smoking furrows. With another screaming caw, she launched back into the sky, her massive body rising and falling in heavy jerks.
“Not everything in the Westlands is a thinking being that responds with common sense,” the Tower said. “We don’t have time for distractions. Take a step back, Rune.”
Since it was the Tower asking, I took five.
One of the stones in his diadem winked as its spell released. A halo of blue light appeared around his hands, thick as fresh paint. He waved an arm in front of us and ripped a bloody safe road from the earth.
It was a long and uneven path, the dirt fused into glass, covered in flaking vegetation ash. It radiated defense magic as strong as most wards I’d ever felt.
“Addam,” the Tower said, pushing a sleeve past his elbow. His upper arm was nested with armbands of different metals, each a sigil. He flicked hidden catches and opened four of them. I got bronze and brass; Addam, gold and platinum. As each went into our hands, he tapped it. “Frost and Bless-fire, Addam. Rune, Fire and Shatter. I lend these freely. Your Will is now their Will.”
I fastened them, relieved to have useful spells again, even if they weren’t my own.
We began moving down the ad hoc safe road at a fast clip, passing into an orchard. As we went, we changed positions. Mayan maintained his spot in the rear, Addam went abreast of the Tower, and I hung back with Brand and my golem.
“You’re being very well behaved around Lord Tower,” I complimented him quietly.
“Do you think he has four more blow-up Runes?”
I swallowed a smile. “I think he has a golem for himself, his wife, and his two children.”
Brand muttered, “I am the Dagger Throne. And court is now in session.”
“Go on,” I said. “Get it all out.”
His eyes landed on mine for a full second, which, when he was in bodyguard mode, was as good as a hard stare. “What was it like?” he whispered. “When you went outside and used the mass sigil, I felt . . . through our bond . . . I don’t know. What was it like?”
I rolled down my sleeve, covering the borrowed sigils. “I’m not sure it’d be good for me to rely on mass sigils. I think . . . I think I want to bury it again.” It was an inadequate response to an emotional reaction, but I just didn’t have the words yet to describe the temptation of that power.
Brand thought about it. “And at what fucking point did it seem like a good idea to tear your shirt off? Were you actually standing on a mound of bodies when you did it?”
“It burned off.”
“I’m cancelling Cinemax.”
“I was on fire. It burned.”
“I can already hear you using this excuse for the next hundred years. We—Look. There,” he said, pointing suddenly.
Through a lattice of bare tree branches—this bit of the Westlands was still stubbornly fixated on autumn—I saw the white-blue, arched walls of a small, multi-domed basilica. Doves fluttered along the cornices and turrets. That seemed a bit too precious, until I saw that they were covered in bristling brown mange. The Westlands had been at work here, too.
The Tower saw it as well. He stopped us with an upraised hand and released two more mass sigils. I was ready this time and braced, leaning forward to grab Addam. Brand and Mayan kept steady in a low-gravity crouch.
Lord Tower sent a defense spell forward in a tidal surge. It flared along walls and domes with a melting-glass glow. As it covered a tool shed attached to the building’s west side, the shed imploded in a burst of powdered stone. I didn’t even want to know what had infested it. Visible Westland enemies were bad enough.
“Stay on guard,” the Tower said, leading us toward open, twelve-foot-tall doors. The lower half of the right door was scored by gouges that dripped black gelatin.
Next to me, Brand flipped two vulcanized-coal daggers into his flexing palms.
We passed into a large entryway ringed by a mezzanine. Ashton hadn’t even attempted concealment. He stood at the far end of the hall, dressed in a bright silk shirt. Fashionable metallic snake scales were sprayed along his cheekbones. He was hunched over a bleeding gut wound.
A dozen recarnates flanked him. Rurik stood off to one side. All of the facial reconstruction the lich had achieved was gone. He—it—was once again misshapen, and shaking with inchoate emotion.
The Tower walked to the center of the vaulted room and tapped his foot against something that sparked. I relaxed my eyes and called on my will-power until I could see the wide barrier that stretched across the chamber.
“Ashton Saint Gabriel,” Lord Tower said.
The lich threw back its head and wailed. Unchanneled power rolled outward in a frostbitten wave.
Ashton gasped a laugh. “Forgive me if I don’t bow. My associate behaved poorly during the summoning.”
“How do you expect this to end, scion?” Lord Tower asked.
“I’m not sure yet. Interesting things can happen in corners. Shall we negotiate?”
Lord Tower toed the barrier again, considering Ashton for a long moment.
“No,” he said.
He shoved at the barrier with both hands while releasing a sigil spell. Cracks spread along the walls that anchored the barrier. A second slam made dust rise. The third strike shattered the spell into invisible, hissing wisps.
“The lich is mine. Handle the rest,” the Tower said.
Rurik sprang at the Tower. Its scream shook the ground. Ten feet apart, they each jerked into stillness, linked by a clash of Will that made the dust floating between them catch fire.
Other spells popped loose—me, Addam, Ashton. One of Brand’s knives somersaulted at the closest recarnate, taking it through the brain stem. It hadn’t even dropped when Mayan took down a second recarnate with a knife of his
own.
Addam and I both held Fire—my orange flame to his white Blessfire. “Take the recarnates, Addam. Ashton is mine.” I narrowed my attention to the wounded scion.
Ashton grinned through bloodied teeth. One of the spells he’d released scissored toward the ceiling. A gold chandelier broke loose and plummeted to the floor. Just before it hit, its gas-style arms turned into legs. Gargoyle. Another spell shot past my head, into a mural. The mural began to peel itself from the wall with a spine-cracking wrench.
“Blunt weapon, blunt weapon!” Brand warned while taking aim at another recarnate.
“Or,” I said, and touched the brass armband. The Shatter spell vibrated through my fingernails. I hurled it at the plaster gargoyle, and the creature exploded before it had even fully formed.
I shook bits of wall out of my hair and turned my attention toward the golden gargoyle. I needed to move quick, because Ashton was taking advantage of the attack to slip into the corridor behind him.
“Hello, you beauty,” I said, slipping my sabre off my wrist. The gargoyle turned in a heavy, thudding circle, lifting finial-studded arms toward me. It was flowing and reforming into a manlike appearance, its footprints rimmed in molten metal.
I shot a firebolt. It ricocheted off the gargoyle into the charged space between the Tower and the lich, causing a small explosion. I shook the sabre hilt while it changed into a mace, and then studded the end with barbed protrusions. When the gargoyle entered striking distance, I bashed one of its arms and crouched under its counterstrike. Before it could lumber into another striking position, I hit it from behind, making a sickle-shaped dent. The metal was still soft, which gave me an idea.
I danced to its other side while gathering Fire in my free hand, molding it from a kernel of flame to a softball-sized sphere. I pitched the fireball at the gargoyle. The gargoyle flew backward, right into the space between the Tower and Rurik. It fast-forward evaporated in seconds. Lord Tower interrupted his trance long enough to flick me a glance that definitely wasn’t approbation.
I took off after Ashton, who’d run down the corridor. Brand and the others caught up with me.
“The fountain room is down there,” Addam said, pointing. “That’s it—he can’t be anywhere else.”
The Last Sun Page 33