by Lucy Hounsom
Anohin tipped up his face and sniffed the air. ‘Medavle’s stink is easy to follow. If we find him, we find Kierik.’
They came across another body shortly after they’d left the main corridor, turning into a narrow passage that climbed upwards into the mountain. But Anohin didn’t stop. Kyndra looked back to see Nediah and Kait kneeling beside it, checking for a pulse, before the Yadin increased his pace and left them behind. Just when Kyndra thought they would surely lose them, she heard hurried footsteps and both Wielders emerged from the gloom. Anohin was a white shape, surging ahead.
Kyndra lost track of time. Her legs ached from their earlier flight and she began to stumble. Desperately thirsty, she stared into the darkness, thinking of underground streams and the hollow trickle of liquid on stone, but the tunnel remained dry and continued to climb mercilessly upwards.
When the unexpected noise came, it was not the dripping of water. The slope had begun to level out and the low ceiling curved away from their heads. Anohin stood motionless several yards ahead, listening to the whine that curled from the throat of a woman lying across their path. As she neared, Kyndra realized there were words interspersed between each moan of pain.
‘Sef,’ Anohin said tonelessly, looking down at the woman.
‘He was … too strong.’
‘Evidently.’
‘Sorry, Mast—’ The rest of the word ended in a strangled gasp as Anohin calmly placed his boot on the woman’s neck and began to press down.
‘Anohin, no.’ There were tears in Kait’s voice. One arm held Nediah back, but the other stretched out towards the Yadin. ‘Please don’t. Sef’s my attuned partner – we’ve been bonded for years.’
Anohin ignored her, his eyes never leaving the woman who thrashed weakly on the ground. ‘I don’t want to hear your apologies,’ he said to her. Sef’s eyes bulged. She tried to speak, but Anohin pressed harder and the words died with her. Only when her struggles had ceased did he remove his boot. His gaze raked over the three gathered behind him, daring them to say something. No one did, though Kait’s tear-streaked face spoke plainly. Anohin turned away and Kyndra stared at his back, horrified by his heedless cruelty. He’d murdered a woman in cold blood right before their eyes, seemingly without a second thought.
Kait’s quiet sobs accompanied them as they followed in the Yadin’s wake. Kyndra tried desperately to forget the image of Anohin’s boot crushing the woman’s fragile neck, but she couldn’t because a dreadful part of her whispered that she was no different. I’m not like him, she thought back fiercely, I couldn’t kill anyone like that.
But you wanted to, there in the atrium. You were ready to kill a defenceless man.
Kyndra remembered her own words, spoken under the influence of that terrible, icy power. She had wanted to kill Kierik – a man as helpless as the woman Anohin had just murdered. She felt sickened. No matter what he’d done in the past, he didn’t deserve such a death. No one did.
The freshening of the air was a merciful distraction. Occasional gusts of wind cooled Kyndra’s brow, a wind that tasted of morning. A renewed desperation to be free of the mountain seized her, propelling her tired legs towards the light that crept stealthily over the walls, sliding its fingers down into the earth. And though she feared what she would find at the tunnel’s end, her pace did not falter.
The light grew brighter and Anohin let his flame fade. They rounded a tight bend and there was the sky, a still morning grey. Kyndra clambered out of the mountain and looked around. She stood on a small plateau on Naris’s western face. Piles of rock and shattered stones were the only evidence that the Breaking had left behind. The sun had not yet climbed above the mountain’s peak and the rugged area lay in shadow. Steep cliffs fell away on three sides, as if some great hand had torn away the earth there. And beyond the misty chasm, split asunder by the Breaking, the land sloped up into a litany of peaks. Their white-capped summits marched to the horizon.
At first the plateau seemed empty, but then Kyndra caught movement at its far edge. Someone stood on the dangerous rim: a man, his face turned outwards to gaze across the airy space.
A stone crunched beneath Kyndra’s boot and the figure turned.
It was Kierik.
Janus surfaced slowly from a groggy, delirious sleep. His head ached and he felt drained, exhausted from straining against the Lunar chain that bound him. Disgust at his carelessness had sharpened to a terror of dying here alone.
There it was again. A noise. Janus liked to think it was boots on stone. He moistened his dry tongue to call out and managed a rasping squeak. He swallowed painfully and tried again. He thought about dying undiscovered in the dark and shouted louder, over and over, until the footsteps came closer.
He heard a voice, no, felt a voice calling his name. Confused, he concentrated and the voice grew stronger. Janus gasped. It was coming along the bond. The call was Brégenne’s. Tearful with relief, he answered, sending the woman a picture of his surroundings. Brégenne’s presence comforted him, though he would have scorned it a few days ago. Voices, real this time, reached his ears and light threw his trussed shadow against the far wall.
‘There!’
Six Wielders materialized at the edge of the light and swiftly crossed to his pillar. Janus felt a ripple of surprise. Two held Brégenne prisoner, each gripping a coil of glowing, golden chain. He looked down at his own chain and flushed uncomfortably.
‘So there you are.’
Lord Loricus came to stand over Janus, his resplendent robes ashen with dust and a look of disgust on his face. ‘Did a Nerian dog do this to you?’
Janus hung his head. The thought he was trying so desperately to avoid wormed its way to the surface: the Nerian had been planning to invade the citadel and he, instead of issuing a warning, had passed the hours trussed up like game. Shame bubbled in his stomach. If only he’d been more alert.
‘Someone untie him.’
One of the Solars holding Brégenne merely looked at the chain and it vanished, making Janus feel more ashamed than ever. He was like a useless novice. Left to scramble to his feet unaided, he made to brush himself down, but Loricus seized his chin, jerking his head up painfully.
Janus stared at the floor.
‘Look at me,’ Loricus said softly in the voice he used when they were alone and Janus glanced up. The councilman’s face was too close. All he could see were the hazel eyes and the disappointment that muddied them. ‘All this time you were here,’ Loricus said, still in the soft voice. ‘You alone could have warned us of the Nerian’s uprising. We could have saved some of our strength instead of exhausting every Lunar Wielder on the Breaking. But you did not have the competence. I am disappointed, Janus.’
‘Please, Loricus. I tried.’
‘You’ll address me by my title.’ Still he held Janus’ chin.
‘Leave the boy alone,’ Brégenne’s voice chimed from the shadows.
‘Silence,’ Loricus snapped. He didn’t turn his head.
Humiliating tears threatened Janus’ cheeks. ‘Please, my Lord.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’ve only ever wanted to help you.’
He thought he heard Brégenne speak again, but the Wielder’s words were smothered by one of her guards.
‘I know you have,’ Loricus said pleasantly, coldly. He brushed Janus’ face with the back of his hand. ‘But my patience is not infinite. You owe Brégenne your life, Janus. Think on that. It is the only reason we brought the traitor along.’
Despite being unable to see, Brégenne looked serene and unconcerned, and Janus wished he could muster the same control.
‘Give him something to drink before he falls over,’ Loricus said dismissively, turning away. Janus took the skin thrust at him and drank greedily, the water pouring down his throat like liquid life.
‘We have a way to go yet,’ Lord Loricus told him. ‘I hope you can keep up, as you may yet have a chance to redeem yourself.’
‘Where are we going?’ Janus asked hesitantly, wiping his mo
uth.
‘To finish what we started.’
‘No!’ Anohin yelled. He broke into a heedless run, dashing across the uneven ground with arms outstretched, as if to snatch Kierik before he fell.
A shimmer in the air was his only warning that someone waited there, unseen, and Anohin stopped short. He pulled back his right arm, attempted a desperate punch and a tremor shook the ground. Kyndra clutched at the rock wall behind her and Kierik stumbled perilously to his knees.
When she looked up, two men in white were visible, locking arms against the sky. Kyndra stared at them, mesmerized. She watched Medavle’s dark eyes widen, a flood of emotions breaking clear across his face. ‘I knew it,’ he whispered into Anohin’s glare. ‘I knew you lived.’
Anohin screamed in frustration and broke the deadlock. He made to rush forward, but Medavle’s arm shot out, slamming into his stomach. As the other man doubled over, Medavle’s expression hardened, belying the shine of tears in his eyes. ‘I am sorry, brother,’ he said, looking at the wheezing Anohin, ‘but I cannot let you pass.’
‘We … are not … brothers,’ Anohin gasped, winded. He straightened with one arm held protectively in front of his stomach. ‘You are a murderer.’
Medavle shook his head. ‘Murder is not my province, but his.’ He gestured at Kierik crouched on the rock.
Anohin’s face flushed an ugly red. ‘You killed three of my people.’
‘No,’ Medavle said again and a grim smile shaded his lips. ‘He did most of my work for me, though I admit his methods are more final than my own.’
‘You lie.’
Medavle’s smile withered. ‘He is dangerous, Anohin. The Nerian do not fear him as they should. Trust allowed him to take their lives.’
‘He wouldn’t hurt them. He couldn’t.’
‘You no longer have any idea of his capabilities.’ Medavle paused. ‘Those hands of his, for example, are perfectly capable of crushing the breath from an unsuspecting throat.’
Anohin snarled and sprang out of Medavle’s reach. ‘If he is as you say, then it is you who made him so!’
‘I haven’t touched him. I merely want the bag of earth hanging around his neck.’
‘And he knew it!’Anohin cried shrilly. ‘That’s why he fled.’
‘Perhaps.’ Medavle took a few steps to his right, hiding Kierik from view. He gazed at Anohin, and Kyndra shrank from the maelstrom of hurt and fury in his black eyes. ‘Why?’ Medavle asked the other Yadin. ‘Why did you let him kill our people?’
Anohin didn’t speak for several moments. When he did, his voice was bitter. ‘After all this time, you still cling uselessly to the past.’
Medavle raised his fist and a sudden shock of light lit the plateau in answer. ‘You think I have any choice?’ he roared. When the light faded, he stood there, his broad chest heaving. ‘Do you even remember them, Anohin?’ he asked then, his voice much softer. ‘Do you remember their faces? I see them every night in my waking, restless sleep. Tarin, Duelo, Lukas, Quent … Isla.’ The last name emerged as a whisper. ‘I cannot rest. They urge me onward. They cry for revenge.’
‘It is not their revenge you pursue, but your own, Medavle,’ Anohin said. ‘They helped purge this world of war. They live on as … as keepers of the peace.’
‘They are nowhere!’ Medavle screamed. ‘No more. They are dead, gone. You weren’t there to see them die, your brothers and sisters, your friends, your people. But I was. I should have died with them, as you and the Starborn planned.’ His voice shook. ‘You betrayed your own race, Anohin. You gave them into his hands and you left them to perish while you walked free.’
Anohin’s face went corpse white, almost the colour of his robes. ‘I was ready to die,’ he shouted back. ‘I would gladly have given my life to the cause of freedom.’
‘Freedom,’ Medavle spat. ‘What has freedom done for you, Anohin? Five hundred years chained to a mindless monster, squatting in the dark. Forgive me if I scorn the word.’
Anohin’s eyes blazed. He threw out a shaking arm, gesturing at Kyndra, at Kait and Nediah. ‘They have freedom. That’s what matters. They and all those before them were born into a world free from tyranny. That was Kierik’s vision. That’s what I would have given my life for, had he allowed it.’
‘You disgust me,’ Medavle said, his face dark against the lightening sky. ‘How have you lived with the blood of your kinsmen on your hands? You are the monster, Anohin. You even knew I was alive, didn’t you? Yet you never sought me out, not even to exact revenge. You let me believe I was the only survivor. For years I wandered this free world searching for any the wind had missed. I found nothing.’ He slowly closed a white-gloved fist. ‘But I didn’t give up. A tiny part of me is still within him, Anohin, so I knew he’d survived and I planned vengeance for all those he killed – for those voices you helped to silence.’
Medavle raised an arm and pointed at Kyndra. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she? Look at her, Anohin. Look at her eyes. They are the shape of my revenge.’
With a scream, Anohin lunged for Medavle, but the other man flipped his flute into his fingers and blew a sharp note. Writhing beams wrapped Anohin’s body and he struggled and bit against them. Kyndra could only stare, confused by Medavle’s words.
‘Oh my friend,’ Medavle said, stepping closer to the bound Yadin. His laugh carried notes of hysteria. ‘Even you must appreciate this flawless retribution.’
Anohin’s hair hung down around his face. He shook it back and struggled harder. Medavle bent so that they were eye to eye. ‘It is all to do with the ruin of the Starborn’s mind,’ he said.
Kyndra shut her eyes, remembering the white filaments that Kierik had inhaled when he’d gone to fetch the book from the archives. She felt their sinuous tails quieten as they settled in her mind … no, in Kierik’s mind. She snapped her eyes open, recoiling from the Starborn’s memories.
With a roar of effort, Anohin snapped his bonds. He grabbed Medavle’s collar, crafting a gleaming bolt in his other hand, but Medavle snatched a fistful of cloth and bodily threw the other Yadin away. The bolt flew wide.
Anohin landed heavily and something rolled out of his robes. It was the white akan. Kyndra watched him scramble up, leaving the winged child where it had fallen. With a roar, he sent a volley of glowing arrows straight at Medavle’s face. Medavle waved the hand that held the flute, and the arrows burst into harmless light. ‘The years have made you soft,’ he mocked.
Anohin’s glare could have seared stone. He raised both hands and stabbed them forwards and thick, golden lances flew at Medavle. The dark-eyed Yadin deflected one of them, but the other skimmed his side, tearing his coat. Blood, shockingly red, blossomed against the white cloth. Medavle gritted his teeth and blew a long, low note. A glowing net tangled Anohin’s limbs and he crashed to the ground.
Medavle was not aiming to kill, Kyndra noticed. The same could not be said of Anohin. Hatred smouldered in his eyes and he constantly darted glances at Kierik, who squatted still and quiet on the cliff edge.
‘He won’t jump,’ Medavle said. One hand held the wound in his side. ‘Not unless I tell him to.’
‘What do you mean?’ Anohin panted, straining against the net that bound him.
‘The strands of my life force are still there,’ Medavle answered. ‘When I felt his mind break, I used my remaining strength to flee the citadel. Though I spent years recovering, the pain was worth it. I realized I could still feel him. I could touch that mind, though it boiled like a storm.’ He made a disgusted sound in his throat. ‘His madness prevented any prolonged form of control – an ironic protection. However, I hypothesized that he might be susceptible to … suggestion.’
Anohin’s struggles had temporarily ceased. ‘What sort of suggestion?’
‘All manner of it,’ Medavle said, taking a slow walk around the trussed Yadin. ‘What do you think stops him from throwing himself over as we speak?’
Anohin’s eyes widened. ‘Impossible.’
�
�No,’ Medavle said. He continued to circle Anohin, though his eyes now strayed to Kierik. ‘You have no idea what touching his mind is like.’ A shadow passed over his face. ‘I admit this kind of control tires me. Your lucky hit is proof. But there are other ways of manipulation, Anohin, subtler ways. She –’ Medavle again pointed at Kyndra – ‘is the result of a suggestion I planted twenty years ago.’
Kyndra felt the world fall away from her, as she gazed at Medavle without breathing. The Yadin met her eyes.
‘Two decades ago, I approached the Nerian,’ he said. ‘I posed as an interested party. And if Anohin knew I was there, he didn’t show himself.’
Kyndra frowned. ‘But Anohin recognized you. Why didn’t he just kill you when he had the chance?’
Medavle looked at the other Yadin. ‘Perhaps because he couldn’t bring himself to do it,’ he said softly. ‘As I cannot. We are the last of our kind.’
‘Those sentiments are dead,’ Anohin said coldly.
Medavle ignored him and turned back to Kyndra. ‘I needed to be near the madman,’ he said, picking up where he left off, ‘to plant an impulse so contrary to his natural state.’
The plateau grew silent, save for the chill morning wind that stirred hair and clothes. All eyes were on Medavle. ‘It took two years to manifest,’ the Yadin said. ‘Longer than I had hoped. But in the end the desire to escape, to sow the seeds of his demise, was too great to ignore.’ He glanced at Anohin. ‘I left many things to chance, and I confess I am amazed that he managed to evade his watchdog and escape the citadel.’
‘An oversight,’ Anohin growled, ‘that was not repeated.’
‘Oh it didn’t need to be repeated,’ Medavle said, smiling. ‘The damage – apologies, Kyndra – was done. I even managed to steal that bag of earth before I left – though due to a certain airship captain’s dishonesty, it didn’t reach its intended recipient.’ He nodded at Kyndra. ‘I will rectify that soon enough.’
Kyndra took a few steps forward. ‘I don’t understand.’ Her gaze darted between Medavle and Kierik. The madman began a hum deep in his throat, rocking at the cliff edge.