The Purifying Fire: A Planeswalker Novel

by Laura Resnick

  “Hmmm, the red hair is exotic. Just as I hoped.” Velrav tilted his head, studying her. “And now that your eyes are open, I find their color intriguing. Almost amber … fiery …

  “When they brought you to me I was unimpressed. Despite your unusual coloring, you seemed like any other woman offered as a tithe.”

  He grinned again. “Now that you’re awake, however … Yes, now I see the woman they told me about!”

  “Get my clothes,” she said coldly. “I want to get dressed.”

  “A lone woman who fought off a dozen villagers and four Fog Riders? It sounded too improbable! I thought perhaps the riders were trying to save their own lives by inventing the tale.”

  She frowned, distracted. “How would telling you I fought them save their lives?”

  “Ah, it would satisfactorily explain the messy condition you were in when you arrived! Unconscious. Pulse faint. Breath shallow. Face bruised. Your head split open and bleeding,” he said. “Of course, I had the servants clean you up.”

  Chandra ran a hand over her head and found a gash on her temple. She explored it delicately with her fingers. It was tender and swollen, but healing.

  “The spear handle,” she murmured, remembering. Evidently the rider had come close to killing her with that blow.

  “Mortal bodies are so fragile,” Velrav said sadly. “Yours is obviously stronger than most—remarkably strong, I would say. But nonetheless vulnerable.”

  “Yes, well, why did you care what condition I arrived in? Does blood taste better to you when the victim is awake and screaming?” she said scathingly.

  “My dear! Vitality is of the utmost importance! I was positively enthralled by the description of such a healthy and vivacious young woman when the Fog Riders were summoned.” He sighed. “I rarely get such a special treat. Life is so … dispirited here. Naturally, I wanted you in perfect condition. And I gave orders to that effect.” He folded his arms and smiled pleasantly at her. “The Fog Riders know how dangerous it is to disobey my orders.”

  “Well, sunlight can do a lot for morale,” she said, not really interested. “You should look into it.”

  “Yes … Sunlight … You do say the most interesting things. Wherever did you get such an idea? I can’t help but wonder. And wonder, I like to say, is the first of all passions.”

  “Listen here, Prince,” Chandra said. “If you think I’m going to kindle anything but your funeral pyre, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, Chandra,” he said with true glee. “Things have been so dull here for the past half-century.”

  Chandra wasn’t sure how to react to that. Velrav just stood there looking at her, smiling, waiting.

  “Maybe I could have my clothes now?” Chandra asked after what seemed forever.

  The Prince’s smile vanished. “How very boring,” Velrav said, crestfallen. “The conversation was going so well for a minute … Mother always told me to temper my expectations.”

  “I suppose that’s why you cut her head off?”

  “Ah … Witty and well informed. You are a gift, Chandra. What could I have done to deserve this?”

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with something, but the clothes would be nice while you consider it.”

  “Yes, in due time. But I am curious about you. A fire mage, the girl claimed, although I can’t imagine how this could be.” Velrav said with evident fascination. “Is it true?”

  “No need to ask me. Just release the enchantment you have on this plane, and you’ll find out for yourself whether it’s true.”

  “How rare and wonderful!” he said. “A fire mage! I haven’t seen anyone who practiced fire magic since … Well, since before I murdered my family.”

  “I’d be happy to show you what I can do,” she said.

  “Oh, how I would enjoy that!”

  “In that case, why don’t y—”

  “If only it were as easy for you as it is for me, eh?” he said with regret. “But how could I do so in good conscience? I do have to look out for my best interests, after all. And since there has been no fire magic on Diraden for quite some time,” he said, “nor anyone of such enchantingly good health here for many years … Perhaps you’d like to tell me where you come from?”

  “What does it matter? You can’t go there.”

  “What makes you so sure?” he said. “You came here, after all. So why can’t I go there?”

  “I didn’t come here on purpose.” Staying somewhat close to the truth, she added, “And I don’t know how to go back.”

  “Then fortune is mine.”

  “And the past doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it does,” he said as he moved to a window to look out. “The past is what created who we are now, after all. But you will tell me in time. And if you don’t, then perhaps your lover will.”

  “My lover?”

  “The girl claims the man who came to the village with you is your lover. She saw proof of this.” He added, “I, of course, didn’t intrude on her delicate feelings by asking what she meant by that.”

  “He’s a bounty hunter. I was his prisoner,” she said, hoping that Gideon was not in Velrav’s custody.

  “And now you’re mine … The menarch was quite upset when we took her prize.”

  “Her prize?”

  “Yes, your bounty hunter,” said Velrav, still looking down at something from his position at the window. “And she objected. So forcefully that the riders considered killing her.” He glanced over his shoulder at Chandra. “But they knew they couldn’t do that without asking me first. And I certainly would have said no.”

  He returned his gaze to something outside, beyond the window. “If the menarch is going to die, then I’ll be the one to kill her. But, in truth, I have no wish for that. She finds such interesting treats for me, after all.”

  “Treats.” The word was flat. His arrogance was astonishing.

  Pulling the sheet with her, Chandra rose slowly from the bed. She was light-headed and her legs felt shaky. She wrapped the sheet around herself.

  “Besides,” Velrav said, “she’s such a puny thing, I don’t think she’d satisfy my hunger. No, it’s far better to let her live as long as she keeps giving me wonderful gifts.”

  Walking on bare feet across the cool stone floor, Chandra asked, with a growing feeling of dread, “What about the bounty hunter?”

  Velrav met her gaze, then he nodded in the direction of the window. “See for yourself.”

  Chandra tried to brace herself for whatever was coming, but her heart was pounding and she suspected Velrav could see that she was breathing a little too fast. She approached the window and looked down, trying to see what Velrav had been gazing at.

  She found herself looking into a courtyard, which was surrounded by the wings of the castle on three sides. On the fourth side was a huge gate, bordered by a gate house and stables for a dozen or so horses. There were no trees or plants in sight, and the whole area was well-lit by torches that were positioned along the surrounding walls.

  The courtyard was empty apart from one man.

  Chandra clenched her teeth together as she stared at him in horror, willing herself not to cry out or satisfy Velrav with a shocked reaction.

  Gideon stood between two tall, thick wooden posts. His arms were stretched out and securely tied to the posts. His long black hair was tangled and matted, and his head hung down. But since his legs were supporting him—albeit just barely—she knew he wasn’t unconscious or dead. Not yet, anyway.

  His torso was naked. The wounds that Jurl had left there had reopened and bled anew. The claw marks gaped wide, red, and angry, and rivulets of dried blood stuck to Gideon’s fair skin. But Chandra didn’t remember there being so many wounds, nor that they were that severe …

  She drew in a sharp breath through her nostrils.

  Most of those marks could not have been from Jurl, she realized. Someone had been deliberately cutting him.

&nbs
p; Aware of Velrav’s amused gaze on her, she kept her expression stony. When she was sure she could control her tone, she said, “The bounty hunter.”

  “He appeared—out of nowhere, I gather—as the riders were about to carry you out of the village. And he interfered.” Velrav made a tsk tsk sound. “Most unwise. We would have never known about him if he hadn’t.”

  Chandra ground her teeth together and focused on her breathing. She knew it was too loud, knew that Velrav heard it.

  “He had the most remarkable weapon,” Velrav continued. “It’s mine now, and I adore it! You’ve seen it, I assume? It’s sort of a three-bladed whip. He killed one of the Fog Riders with it.”

  Since running one of them through with a spear hadn’t worked, that surprised her. “How?”

  Velrav ignored the question. “After we captured him, Falia sent a message asking me to meet her. A very bold thing to do, don’t you agree? Naturally, I was curious.”

  “Did she throw another tantrum?”

  “No, evidently she had resigned herself to her loss. Instead, she offered me more treats.” When Chandra glanced at him with a frown, he nodded toward Gideon and said, “Information about him.”

  “Ah.” So the girl continued making herself more valuable to Velrav alive than dead. And she also ensured, by telling the cheerfully vindictive prince that Gideon and Chandra were lovers, that their supposed relationship would be remade now into a source of suffering and torment, rather than comfort and satisfaction. “What a nasty little girl.”

  “This man is, like you, unusually healthy and strong. Also tall.” Velrav concluded, “You both come from the same place?”

  “He followed me.”

  “And then he tried to rescue you.”

  She suspected where this conversation was going. “Rescue? No, I guess he was trying to keep his prize.” Chandra tore her gaze away from Gideon to look at Velrav. “He’s a bounty hunter. No prisoner, no reward.”

  “What crime did you commit?” the Prince asked with interest.

  “It’s a long story.” She allowed herself a deep breath. “And I am not going to tell it.”

  “Oh, I hope you will someday,” he said. “I suspect it must be a very engaging tale. That man down there—Gideon?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Gideon killed a Fog Rider, which no one has ever done before, and he gave the other three riders quite a fight.” Velrav sighed voluptuously as he gazed down at his bloody captive. “You must have committed a very impressive crime, for a man like that to come after you.”

  “Has he been tied up there the whole time I’ve been lying in here?”

  “More or less. And I believe he’s been looking forward to this moment!” Velrav knocked hard on the window.

  “Don’t!” she said reflexively. The sound would carry well in the empty courtyard.

  “Why ever not?” Velrav knocked harder.

  As she had feared, Chandra lost control of her composure as Gideon’s head slowly lifted. She pressed her palms against the window and looked down at him, distressed and appalled.

  He looked up at the window. The torchlight illuminated his face, which was pale from blood loss and darkened by a thick shadow of hair on his jaws, chin, and upper lip. His left eye was blackened and swollen shut.

  Gideon’s weary, impassive expression didn’t change, but she knew he saw her, silhouetted in the candlelight that shone on her unmistakable red hair.

  “You look heartbroken, my dear,” Velrav said smoothly. “I thought he was hunting you?”

  “He was.” She kept her gaze locked with Gideon’s, though she doubted he could see her face clearly in this light. “That was just … business. What you’re doing though …” She shook her head. “This is disgusting.”

  “I suppose it’s a little … ostentatious,” Velrav admitted. “But I assure you it’s not our normal custom. We usually have some sport with our captives—”

  “Sport?” she repeated with loathing.

  “—and then feed on them. On rare occasions, we might bring someone into the fold. Someone like you, for example. But the rest die soon after arriving.”

  “So why is he … on display like this?”

  “He killed a Fog Rider.” Velrav’s tone suggested the reason should be obvious, even to her. “So a certain amount of extraordinary treatment is expected. And I couldn’t disappoint my companions and loyal servants, now could I? They deserve this.”

  She didn’t try to continue speaking.

  “You know, he’s not looking at you like a hunter,” Velrav observed, gazing down at Gideon. “No, indeed. The hunt is not what’s in those lovely blue eyes of his.”

  “What do you know about hunting?” she said contemptuously. “You sit in this castle and have victims brought to you.”

  “Actually, I do still hunt a little,” Velrav said, not sounding at all bothered by her disdain. “But not often, I must admit. Not anymore. Like everything else, I find it so boring by now.”

  “You’ve been alive for a long time.” As she gazed at Gideon, Chandra remembered what he had told her about blood magic.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I have.”

  “You’ve had total power, with no challengers, feeding on the blood of your people to stay young. You’ve had no purpose except to satisfy your own hunger.” Chandra continued staring down at Gideon. “Night never turns to morning. The seasons never change. Even the moonlight never changes.”

  She could see Gideon’s gaze growing more alert and intent as his exhausted, pain-fogged mind started to focus. She doubted he had known until this moment whether she was still alive. Even so, he maintained his control. She envied him that ability.

  “What could possibly make your existence worthwhile anymore?” Chandra said to Velrav. “What could make your pointless existence still worth living?”

  The prince was silent.

  Someone entered the courtyard below. Like Velrav and the Fog Riders, this individual was male, slim, sickly pale, black-haired, with those unnaturally dark lips. He appeared to be in a hurry, going from one wing of the castle to another. As he passed Gideon, he withdrew a dagger from its sheathe on his belt and, with a casualness that shocked Chandra, slashed the blade across Gideon’s back. He bent down and licked at the flow of blood.

  She gasped and slapped her palms against the window.

  Gideon grimaced and closed his eyes for a few moments. He lowered his head, and even from here, Chandra could see his chest heaving with his rapid breaths as he tried to master the pain.

  “I’ve sometimes wondered the same thing myself,” Velrav said somberly. “Why go on? Why not just end it? The weight of my boredom sometimes becomes so unbearable, I think I’ll go mad.”

  “You are mad.” She couldn’t take her eyes off Gideon.

  “I have indeed wondered, from time to time, what could possibly make my life worth living again.”

  Gideon tilted his head up again and looked for her in the window. She balled her hands into fists against the glass and didn’t bother to try hiding how enraged and upset she was. Velrav knew, anyhow. Of course he knew.

  “And then you both arrived,” Velrav said, “and now I know.”

  “Know what?” she asked absently as she leaned her throbbing head against the window. Her heart was beating like it wanted to escape her chest.

  “Know what would make this existence bearable again,” the dark prince said. “Know what can make this tedious life as exciting as it used to be, long ago.”

  She tore her gaze away from Gideon and turned to frown quizzically at the prince. “Not that I care,” she said, “but what are you talking about?”

  “Now I know there is more beyond Diraden.” he said. “So much more, in fact, that I am eager to explore it. And somehow, you and your bounty hunter will help me.”

  That’s his plan? To become a planeswalker?” Gideon’s voice was weary.

  “Yes,” Chandra said.

  “What have you been telling hi
m?”

  “He kept pressing me about things and really I just got tired of it. I felt like if I told him the truth he would leave me alone.”

  “Well, it’s really the least of our worries. It’ll never happen.”

  “Well, there’s a little more to the plan. He’s going to use you to do it. He has some blood ritual that he’s preparing with the court magi. He thinks he can transmute your essence, or something.”

  They were talking through the door of Gideon’s dungeon cell. He had been moved from the scene of his public bloodletting in the courtyard once the Prince had come to a decision. That had been some days ago.

  From the next cell over, an old man’s demented laughter rang out intermittently.

  “Has that been going on the whole time?” she asked. Chandra had been given leave to move about the castle unsupervised. Velrav was so confident in his enchanment that he felt he had little to fear. Nevertheless, Chandra’s feet and hands were shackled so that every where she went, she did it by taking mincing little steps. She didn’t go many places. Still, she had been able to bribe one of the castle guards with a small bit of fire quartz that Brannon had given her on her last night at Keral Keep. That a simple rock was so exotic was a testament to Diraden’s charm. She was grateful it had gotten her down here to see Gideon.

  “Yes. If our man is to be believed, that’s the king.”

  “Oh, yes indeed! I am the king and my rule would be absolute had my rule had not been absolved,” he said, before breaking into uncontrolled laughter.

  “That’s not even a good play on words,” said Chandra.

  “It’s better than some. Most of the time he doesn’t make sense,” said Gideon, over the ever-louder howls of laughter. “But the story Falia told us was more or less true. In between his laughing fits, he has told me a little about the prince’s power, and his own. It seems that magical power here is based on lineage.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure exactly, but all of this, the pall, the dampening spells, he achieves it all through rituals using the king’s blood. It seems the prince’s only true power comes from the king. That’s why he has kept him alive for all these years.