Dread crept over Vic’s skin, and she fought the shudder gripping her spine.
Vic. Bethniel whispered in her head. Vic glimpsed shadows in a gallery above them—all the aides assembled, Listening. She couldn’t be sure some wouldn’t be as strong as Geram or even Wineyll. She couldn’t be sure, so she couldn’t lie. Fine. At least the headache was gone. Steeling herself, she opened her mouth and spoke to them in the Ancients’ tongue. “I was born in the North, in the Unknown. Among the Oreseekers.”
“What? What’s she saying?” One of the wizards, a beige woman, her hair and eyes as pale as her skin, jerked her head up toward the gallery, then at Vic again. The buzzing grew sharper, louder, her throat vibrating hideously.
Shrine, Vic breathed, but met the woman’s stare. “I’m an Oreseeker, madam.”
“You’re looking here? There’s no ore—what’s this woman want?”
“Darien,” a voice intoned from the gallery, silencing her. The gleam leaked out of her eyes, her mouth turning down into the same frown the rest of them wore.
Shifting her gaze to Saelbeneth, Vic continued. “I am trained as a Logkeeper—a historian of the Ancients’ knowledge—and as a soldier. I did not seek the Elixir, but the circumstances of war left me without a choice.”
“So you came as a mercenary?” asked a broad-shouldered man. Behind him, painted ivy unfurled across the colorless wall before bursting into flame and dropping into a river of molten earth.
“I’m not here for metal or mullas, sir, but to find a purpose,” Vic replied. “In my homeland, we have no wizards. My power incites fear but fails to inspire awe. What can a wizard do in a land that does not want one?”
“Vic—” Bethniel hissed.
“Saelbeneth!” cried a woman with blue gems spinning beneath each ear, her chestnut hair woven with ribbons.
A hand up for silence, the Council leader motioned Vic to continue. Thabean scowled, his eyes dark as storm clouds. The spinning woman—Grunnaire—and the painting man—Samovael—bore matching expressions of disgust and outrage. Shrine’s bitch, Vic cursed silently as pain lanced her temple. She’d barely said ten words, but every one of them seemed to be wrong and she had no idea why. What did she need to say to end this tribunal and get on with the business of killing Meylnara so they could find a way home?
The wizards stared at her, faces composed into masks of judgment.
She decided on the simple truth. “News of your war came to us. I was sent to help.”
“Outrage!”
“She condemns herself with every word!”
“This is insufferable!”
Vic’s eyes jolted from face to face as wizards stood, shaking fists and banging them on the table. Others sat with crossed arms and stormy features. Thabean, the one who’d risked his life to rescue her from Meylnara, covered his eyes and shook his head. Her hair dropped flat against her shoulders. Her stomach sank as they called for her death. “What have I done?” she asked in mindspeech, so her words would carry over the shouting.
The Council leader stood, and the others fell quiet and retook their seats. Saelbeneth had kind eyes and a soft mouth, like a mother who would hold you to her bosom in warmth and safety. Vic wanted to walk round the table and enter that promise and ask forgiveness. Instead, she set her chin. “I come with offers of help, and you respond with threats and accusations?”
“You came from Meylnara. You obtained the Elixir illegally. You carry a child. Any of these three would incriminate you. All three together condemn you.”
In the silence that followed, Vic opened her mouth and shut it again in dumb surprise. It had been just over two months—how could they know? How could Meylnara have known after only a day? Regardless, the Council would kill her for being pregnant. And yet, she had awakened in the room of a queen, not a prisoner. They wanted something from her, or she’d be dead already. Grabbing hold of that, she began again. “I was Meylnara’s prisoner—”
A bugle pierced the air, echoed by shouts. Aides rushed in, and the Council stood to receive messages. Saelbeneth called for order and asked for a report.
“Meylnara’s minions are entering Csichren’s wedge,” replied an officer.
“This tribunal is recessed,” she said. “Victoria, you have a chance to show your allegiance. Thabean, you will guarantee she does no harm.”
“Madam—” a wizard protested.
“Do not defy me, Nelchior,” she snapped. The Council adjourned swiftly, some running through the passage, others diving beneath the canvas walls. Nelchior and Grunnaire shot through a hole in the pavilion roof, captains in tow. Saelbeneth strode out, leaving Thabean alone with Vic.
“Shall we go, madam?” Thabean asked.
“She can barely stand!” Bethniel appeared at the threshold of the Council chamber.
A chance to show your allegiance. Vic grimaced at the sick pressure behind her eyes. Her knees trembled, and she felt as if they might collapse beneath her. “I don’t think I have a choice, Beth.”
“You don’t,” Thabean said. “Come with me.”
Outside, a garbled roar soaked the air. In the distance, bugles wailed. Entrusting Bethniel to Lillem’s protection, Vic followed Thabean into the air, swallowing hard as hot pain tore into her skull. “It’s the same as before,” Thabean said, gripping her shoulder. “Do only enough; you do not need so much Woern to fly—only enough, Victoria!”
She banked the power flowing out of her into the supporting air molecules. The pain mellowed, and she followed Thabean to his camp, where they alighted near a knot of officers. A servant brought him a tunic of steel links while he listened to reports. Vic’s jaw fell, and Thabean paused with an arm halfway into a metal sleeve. “I have none for you, madam.”
Shaking herself, Vic tore off the hem of the robe, shortening it above the knees. “It’s all right; that thing looks heavy and I can barely stand as it is.”
They took to the air again, sailing after the soldiers dashing eastward. Kragnashians swept over a trench filled with spikes and tar, their wedge formation a dagger that plunged toward the heart of the encampment. The tip was blunted by heavy fighting, but the Kragnashian warriors swept through the humans like a knife through legumes. Thabean’s troops ran down the wide lane stretching between camps, the archers splitting off to join the artillery assembling along the flanks of the wedge. Thumb-thick arrows darkened the sky. Flaming boulders sailed toward the crush of chitin while ear-splitting trills and human cries of battle and pain and terror rose like swamp gas.
A cluster of wizards floated above the fray, casting lightning and fire. The bolts glanced off the Kragnashians’ carapaces, channeling into the dirt or the soldiers defending the line. A few scattered Kragnashians lay like lumps of stone, but many more troopers sprawled on the ground. The creatures flowed over the corpses, elongated mandibles snapping at the living, cleaving through arms and necks.
Vic formed a block of hardened air and smashed a knot of the People. The creatures flinched, then surged forward and savaged the soldiers attacking them.
She looked at Thabean in consternation. “That should have flattened them!”
“It was an impressive blow, madam, but the Kragnashians are resistant to direct attacks with wizardry.”
A catapult thunked. Boulders crashed and tumbled into the invading wedge, and springtime scent plumed thick from the carnage. Soldiers spilled into the hole, working in teams to strike with pikes and drive the creatures back, but the Kragnashians regrouped and tore through the human defenders.
Safe above, the wizards continued to shoot electric volleys that did more damage to their own troops than the Kragnashians.
“If direct attacks with wizardry don’t work, why are we wasting our time up here?” Vic asked. Steeling herself, she opened herself to the Woern. Power plunged into her. The icepick grinding behind her eyes became white hot, the pain its own focal point as she dove headfirst toward the churning mass. A dropped pike f
lew into her hands as she swooped beneath a slashing mouthpart, slipped between the rows of tendrilled legs, and thrust the point up into the creature’s thorax. Keening, the Kragnashian reared, its blood a torrent of cut grass. She yanked the pike free and shot to the underside of another, killing it. A third went down, and a fourth. She evaded the crushing mandibles, but spine-laden legs raked her skin, tore her garment. Giant, deflated corpses accumulated around her, sinking into the stew of crushed and mangled troopers. Bathed in blood and offal, Vic’s heart thrummed with energy. The Woern sang within her, enhancing her strength and sustaining muscles wasted from illness. Her left arm seemed nearly as strong as her right.
It went on, for seconds, for hours—she lost all sense of time in the rhythm of killing. She glimpsed Thabean in the fray as the Kragnashians’ wedge broadened and thinned, and the creatures wound between tents instead of plowing over them. Able to fight individuals instead of a chitin-armored mass, the soldiers brought down more and more of the Desert People. Flying up, Vic gazed over the vast sea of green, taller and denser than Fembrosh, extending to the horizon in every direction. “I guess I can’t call them Desert People here,” she muttered.
Thabean joined her, his hair and mail soaked in green ooze. “They’ve never attacked with such numbers before,” he said suspiciously.
She glared. “I’m helping you.”
Meylnara shot out of a writhing mass of Kragnashians. A fireball whizzed toward them, veering after Thabean as they flew apart. An invisible net cinched around Vic. The breath gushed from her lungs; she sucked and gagged, but there was no air to refill them. Heart desperate for oxygen, she gathered all her power and rammed it against the force holding her. There was a feeling of stretching, then a burst, and she hurtled high above the camp. Gulping air, she paused to watch Thabean and the others converge on Meylnara, shooting lightning and fire, driving her back under the cover of her People. The rogue disappeared under armored wing covers, and the creatures retreated like a fast-running tide.
Vic flew down to the cluster of wizards, now arguing. Grunnaire urged caution, while Nelchior advocated pursuit.
“What is your counsel, Victoria?” Saelbeneth asked.
A fierce throbbing behind her eyes, Vic peered at the Kragnashian retreat. The Council troops followed, still hot with battle but their arms sluggish. The bodies left in the Kragnashians’ wake were mostly human. “You follow them into the forest, into their forest, they’ll destroy you.”
“They’re in retreat!” Nelchior cried. “We have the advantage.”
“I’ve lost too many,” Thabean replied icily. “Do what you wish, but I withdraw.”
“Coward,” Nelchior spat.
“I concur with Thabean,” Saelbeneth said. “To follow now would be too costly. Victoria, your method of killing was effective. May I ask your assistance?”
Vic grinned sardonically. “I can’t help if I’m dead, madam.”
The Council leader nodded serenely. “No, you cannot.”
* * *
Triumphant shouts rang outside. Bethniel put down the Order of the Council. She’d been reading it—well, looking at the words—while she waited and worried.
Lillem ducked inside Vic’s tent. Green ooze and sticky red splattered his clothes and caulked his hair, but his eyes gleamed. “We drove them back. It was like no battle I’ve seen, Highness—the carnage . . . but we drove them back.”
“Where’s Vic?”
“She was with the wizard.”
“She’s barely able to walk, lieutenant. You should have been with her!”
“And how could I do that? She was flying.”
Vic slipped in and trod silently to the bower, where she curled into a ball, her lip folded under her teeth.
Bethniel felt her skin. “Shrine, you’re hot. Lieutenant, bring some water.”
“You may depart,” Thabean said, angling his head between Lillem and the flap.
Lillem’s jaw bunched, and he did not leave until Bethniel waved him out. To Thabean, she said, “You needn’t stay, sir, unless you can help her.” It took all the self-control she had learned as Elekia’s daughter and Fensin’s clerk to keep her voice calm.
“I wish I could, my lady,” he replied, pouring himself some wine. Mud and Kragnashian blood caked his face. A rent in the mail shirt revealed a shoulder scored and bleeding. His hand shook as it brought the cup to his lips.
“You’d be better off with water,” Bethniel scolded softly, fetching Vic a drink. “Wine will dry you out.”
“Ah, but I’ll feel better dry.”
Vic coughed and doubled over, groaning fiercely. Blood melted into the sheets beneath her pelvis.
Bethniel clutched Vic’s arm. “A midwife? Is there one in camp?”
“It’s better—”
“No! A midwife!”
Vic moaned again, hugging her knees. Bethniel clawed some green ooze from Vic’s hair and squelched it between her thighs. Her sister yelped and shuddered, then her muscles loosened and some of the tightness left her eyes. Bethniel held up her hand, smeared red and green. “She helped you defeat them today—you owe her.”
Thabean languidly sipped his wine. “You are both here by my charity.”
Furious, Bethniel thrust bloodied fingers under his nose. “Do you see what you’ve done to her? Do you think she was in any condition to fight today? This is your fault, Thabean. If she dies, it will be your fault.”
He grabbed her wrist to shove her away, then froze, his eyes wide. A static tingle razed her skin. Satisfied she had won her point, Bethniel yanked her arm free and toweled her hands clean. “Get her a midwife.”
The wizard sat still, his mouth twisted in horror. “Where . . . who are you?”
Vic’s eyes flickered open. “We told you—”
“No,” he spat, raising an accusing finger at Bethniel. “She has the Woern. She does not use their power, which frightens me more than all your ill-got strength, madam. Tell me how you acquired it, or I will kill you both here and now.”
Bethniel stared at him, cold gripping her spine. Shaking, her eyes glassy, Vic pushed herself up. Her voice was solid, fearless. “You will not harm her.”
Fury darkened Thabean’s features, and Bethniel stood between the two wizards. “I don’t have any power, but my mother is a wizard.”
Thabean’s head jerked as if she’d slapped him. “And the babe within her was fathered by your brother? Elesendar, do you know what you’re saying?”
“Vic told you the truth: she’s an Oreseeker. I am not. I was born in Latha. In the future, Thabean. That’s where we come from—the future.”
His face changed again, brows furrowing in bewilderment. “What?”
“You want to know more? Get a midwife.”
Camp Life
Article Fourteen, Paragraph Eight
No one may take the Elixir without the knowledge and approval of the Council of Wizards. The Council shall administer tests of knowledge, strength, wisdom, will, and discipline to all Candidates, which must be passed before access to the Woern shall be sanctioned.
Article Fourteen, Paragraph Nine
The Council shall consist of all living Wizards but at no time shall exceed the number Twelve. Each Council member shall designate, by will or by declaration before peers, a replacement Candidate. Said Candidate shall be trained in Law and Governance and must exhibit a temperance of spirit and manner so as to predispose him or her to a place on the Council.
Article Fourteen. Paragraph Eight. No one . . . Groaning, Bethniel threw her head back, stretching her arms behind her. These were the laws that sentenced Vic to death. And me. Thabean’s revulsion when he’d grasped her arm the night before stirred fear in her belly. She didn’t feel the Woern. She didn’t want them. But soon, she’d have to answer for having them.
She had to focus—the law was the only way they would get out of this. Twirling her hair, she bent over the text, looking for a loopho
le. The Council had granted Vic clemency, but how long would that last? Of course, it had to last—History said Vic would kill Meylnara. But History had never mentioned anyone named Bethniel of Narath, nor did it record anything about Victoria of Ourtown being pregnant.
She rose and paced. Last night, Thabean had grudgingly called a Healer. The woman had tutted and shook her head, claiming nature would have to take its course. Thank Elesendar, the bleeding stopped and Vic slept until morning, when Thabean came and took her off to battle again. “Saelbeneth and I will require a full accounting when we return,” he’d promised.
She wore a path in the carpet until the shouts and noise of soldiers pervaded the camp. At the mirror, she tucked frizzed locks back into curls, then rushed to Vic’s tent through knots of green-slimed soldiers, joyfully slapping each other’s backs and recounting their deeds.
“Highness!” Lillem called. He was filthy with mud and blood, but most of the latter was green.
“I’m glad you’re well, lieutenant. How is Vic?”
His smile soured to a scowl. “It’s corporal here, Highness. The Blade fought well. I can’t fault her courage.”
“You find other faults with my sister?”
“She isn’t your sister.”
Eyes narrow, she pulled back her shoulders. “She was my father’s ward and is my brother’s wife. That’s twice my sister, and you will give her the same respect you give me.”
His lips twitched toward a sneer, but he smoothed his expression and gave a respectful nod before turning toward the barracks.
In her tent, Vic was bent over the chamber pot, retching. Bethniel pulled her braid clear until the final, empty gag, then fetched a damp cloth.
Vic mopped soot, sweat, and splattered blood from her face. “They seemed surprised we retaliated—I don’t know why they weren’t prepared, but we were able to tear down one of the defensive walls and left a good number of the People dead. But then they formed up into a kind of mass, hundreds of them on top of one another in a ball, with Meylnara in the middle. We couldn’t get at her. The Kragnashians have some kind of resistance to wizardry. What we do mostly just bounces off them.”
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