“We burn them as a mercy,” she said with all the confidence in the world. “To turn mage is torture. We free them of the madness.”
“Are they aware you’re saving them?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d know all about magic, seeing as you practice it?”
“Vance, she’s lied to you.”
“So have you.”
“She’s not what you think.”
“I know.” Although it hurt to admit it. “The mages—” I wet my lips. “You’re trying to stop Shaianna?”
“Yes.”
“Your mages are killing innocent people.”
“An unfortunate necessity, but nothing when compared to the damage she will inflict upon us and our city.” Her hard officer’s face softened when she said, “You are not a bad man, Vance. Just a confused one.”
I swallowed my heated anger at her condescension. “There was nothing confusing about you trying to kill me. You made that exceedingly clear.”
Anuska shifted inside a few steps but stilled when I brought the rifle up. She lifted her hands. “The mark … it appears on all mages before they turn. It is the stain of magic.”
“She gave me that mark. I’ve seen magic, but I’ve no idea how to use it. The only urge I get from gems is to steal them.”
She blinked rapidly. Moisture glistened in her hairline. “I believe you,” she said. “You left the Inner Circle too soon. Your only crime is ignorance. I see that has changed.”
“Regrettably.”
“I believed you were her tool. You worked with her, and you foiled the mage attack in Calwyton and every other attempt since.”
I smiled, mostly at my own blissful ignorance. “I was surviving. I had no grand plan and no ulterior motives, besides getting rich.” I really had been her fool all along. “I have a weakness for beautiful things. I was hers, but where her shadow falls, death follows. I know that now.” I hoped I was doing the right thing, that I could somehow make up for my mistakes that would likely cost more lives than those lost on an ancient battlefield. “I want to help you stop her, Anuska.”
“And how can I trust you?”
“How can I trust you?”
“Lower the gun.”
“What guarantee do I have that you won’t try to stab and burn me at your first opportunity?”
“Don’t give me a reason to.”
“One last question, before we’re friends. What were you doing with the Eye in the spire?”
“We hoped to lure her to us, using the Eye’s reservoir of magic, and loose the mages on her.”
I’d seen Shaianna battle hundreds of mages. Those in the spire wouldn’t have been enough. Anuska and her associates would have died. “But the Eye was empty.”
“Yes,” she replied grimly. “And you interrupted our casting.”
“You were lucky to survive.”
“Lucky? No, I used magic to heal … and drove another nail into my coffin.”
“How so?”
“I will tell you. I’ll even show you. But lower the gun, Vance, so we may move forward. We do not have much time. Every second we have, we borrow from her.”
Anuska wasn’t to be trifled with. She’d already made several attempts on my life, and that wasn’t the best foundation on which to build a working relationship. But from her perspective, I’d been working with her enemy. The enemy of Brea. And here I was, a potential chink in Shaianna’s armor. Could a thief and High Guard collaborate for the sake of the thousands of lives at risk?
I uncocked the rifle’s hammer and lowered the weapon. “Truce?”
She strode forward, rolling up her right sleeve almost to her shoulder, and revealed, there on her upper bicep, the unmistakable mark of magic, the knot. Only hers was distorted as though it had been left to melt in the sun, and its intertwining tendrils reached outward, wrapping themselves around her arm, leaving the black, shriveled skin of the mages wherever it touched.
I got to my feet and peered closer. I had a knot like that on my back? Would the infection spread through me?
“You’re safe, unless you use magic,” Anuska murmured. “Magic poisons. The more I use, the more the mage in me grows. It will not be long before I am consumed by the hunger. I’ll forget who I am, forget my life and my duty, and I’ll become the monster you so rightly called us.”
“Those you burn, they all have this knot?”
“They all turn, without fail. My predecessors attempted to control it, to gather the mages and hide our secret, but more and more turned until the kindest thing we could do was kill them with honor. This is why magic is forbidden inside the Inner Circle and why we are told from birth that magic will poison us. It’s a disease. It sleeps inside us all. One day, you will hear its call and you will answer.”
My sister had taken a knife to her heart to save her soul. Don’t make the wrong choices, brother.
She hadn’t killed herself out of fear, but because she had known a death sentence already hung over her.
“That day has not yet come for you. If you are lucky, it may never arrive. If we stop the Shadow, perhaps we can right some of our wrongs.”
“Tell me everything you know of Shaianna.”
We talked until the midday sun had warmed Anuska’s quarters. Anuska had initially asked questions, but then fell into an odd, pensive silence, listening as Shaianna’s crimes stacked up. The highwaymen, Calwyton, the tomb, Agatha’s, and finally Fallford.
When I was done talking, my throat dry, Anuska moved to her bookshelves and ran her hand along the spines of the many titles. “You are key, Curtis. You have no idea the pivotal part you have played. Your presence has bought us time. You’re the reason she hasn’t yet embraced the truth of what she is. You gave her a reason to doubt.”
She plucked a green leather-bound volume and set it down on her desk. “The dearmad—the forgotten ones—are loyal creatures.” She opened the book at a silver-and-golden illustration of a dragon, its open wings embracing a city of a thousand spires. “They will follow an order above all else. They have no mercy, and they do not discriminate.”
The creature had been drawn with delicate pencil strokes, but there was nothing gentle about it. Like the dragon statues in the city square, it dominated the page. I had climbed over a stone version of the beast and prized the Eye from its socket. If the hastily sketched houses lining the foot of the illustration were to scale, then the statue in the tomb was an accurate representation, including its monumental size.
“Once they take their true form, nothing can stop them. We’ve been trying to bring about an end to her since we learned of the cup’s discovery. The mages have an innate ability to track her down, but directing them with any accuracy is virtually impossible. They’re little more than rabid attack hounds. Though she should have been weak, she eluded us at every stage.”
I hadn’t told Anuska how I had tasted water from Shaianna’s cup and “drunk of her fluids.” That spectacular moment cut too close to the painful truth—that I was responsible for the hundreds Shaianna had killed.
“Everything indicates that she is ready, but she waits. We’d wondered why, until now. Until you.”
“Why me?”
“You speak of her as though she is like us. You said she danced with the village folk at the Calwyton festival, and other times, she has shown another side to her. A softer, gentler side. That is not how the dearmad are described”
“Then she is different … and there’s hope?”
“I suspect she may be torn between duty and empathy. It is something every soldier battles with.”
“Then there is a chance she may forgo her duty?”
Anuska’s sorrowful expression said what her words did not. “The Shadow will come as surely as the seasons change. She cannot fight her nature, but I think, perhaps, that her gentler side has spared us so far.”
I dropped back into the seat and gritted my teeth. Shaianna had it in her to care, and love, and laugh. I had seen those t
hings in her, things more precious than any gem. I would have stolen them if I could, taken those parts of her away, somewhere safe where she couldn’t hurt others and others couldn’t hurt her. But I didn’t know how to fight her true nature and suspected all that good in her wasn’t enough to prevent the inevitable.
“I’ve seen her true form,” I almost whispered. Speaking it made it real. “Well, something of it.”
Anuska’s acknowledging frown was sharp with worry.
I couldn’t explain what the beast in the spire had felt like, not in a way that would make sense. The illustration inside the book made it clear what we were up against, but it didn’t compare to seeing her.
“How do you propose we fight her?” I asked. “She cuts through your mages when human. When she’s dearmad, she’ll eat them alive.”
“I don’t know. We can’t use magic, as you said, and we can’t fight fire with fire. It only makes it worse.”
“Guns.”
“What?”
“What weapons do you have?”
“Rifles and two hundred Inner Circle guards.”
“It’s not enough.” Perhaps, had I known what she was, had Anuska’s plan worked, we could have somehow trapped her in the spire when she was weak. But that time had passed.
“There’s no record of any weaknesses.” Anuska slammed the book closed, sending a puff of dust glittering into the sunlight. “Our guns are nothing and our blades far worse.”
“Then we need to think bigger. There are ships and freelance trading vessels at the docks. They have cannons. I know a man who might help.” Captain Tassen had seen the dearmad inside the spire. If he hadn’t already left Brea, and if I could find him, there was a chance he could rally the captains of vessels with ordnance. “If we can lure her out of the city, toward the docks, we could ambush her.”
I was already on my feet, heading toward the door, when she called, “Vance?”
I turned and looked at the woman who had tried to kill me, who had killed hundreds before me in the name of saving her people. The dagger dug into my back and the rifle hung heavy in my grip.
“We are not the same,” she said.
“No, we really aren’t.”
“But I trust you will not run from this.”
The implication, the nod to my past, was there. “I am done running, Anuska. Are you?”
“I …” She faltered, and the illusion of the High Guard fell away, leaving a woman with the weight of the Inner Circle on her shoulders. “I will do what must be done. It is our way.”
“And the Inner Circle people? They could fight. They’re all ocra, and they each have a connection to the past, to this. It’s their right to choose their own fate.”
“They will want to fight, of course, and they’ll turn themselves into mages doing so, killing themselves in the process. For now, they are protected from themselves.”
I thought of my sister in the workhouse, of her death by her own hand. “Give them the choice, Anuska.”
She lifted her chin and met my gaze. I had seen that look from her while standing on the timber platform, waiting for the guards to light the pyre. The look of devotion to her cause. But then the strength of her glare weakened and her gaze flicked down to the closed book on her desk. “Your father was right about you. You would have made a fine High Guard.”
I opened the door and stepped outside. “I make a better thief.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The docks were a short walk but a quicker carriage ride away, and time was fast ticking on and I had to hurry if I wanted to catch Tassen before he left Ellenglaze’s shores. Patting my pockets, I hailed a carriage and dug out one of two remaining small rubies. I should have risked Molly’s wrath and taken Fallford’s silverware when I’d had the chance. Saving a city was costly work.
Saving Brea …
Rocking with the motion of the carriage, I pinched the last gem between my fingers and lifted it to the light pouring in through the carriage window. The sun had caught a layer of high clouds, turning them flame red. That crimson glow glistened in the small gem, lending it a ruddy warmth. Maybe if I knew how to harness magic, I could somehow use the ruby to stop her. I laughed quietly at the absurdity. Stop her with my latent magic? The idea was ludicrous. No, this was the realm of ships and cannons. I was just one man. How could a single man stand against a dearmad?
She was powerful, dangerous, and deadly, but her kind had died out. I tried to recall whether Shaianna had told me her people had died or gone. Those two things were not the same. But I couldn’t be certain of her words.
A pang of something slippery and unpleasant slithered through me. Guilt. Shaianna—the laughing woman—had marveled at life. When she smiled, it seemed the stinking, wretched world outside the Inner Circle became a better place, if only for a few fleeting moments. But they were just moments, snuffed out by the truth. She couldn’t change, or she would have already. Her shroud of sorrow told me that. What must her life be like? One moment filled with wonder, the next driven by the hunger to destroy those very things she considered precious. Surely it was a twisted kind of torture to love that which you hated and to hate that which you loved. I wanted to save her from that. Save her from herself, if such a thing was possible.
Like Anuska saved her people from themselves? Was I such hypocrite?
Turning the ruby over and catching the blood-red light seeping in through the carriage windows, I glared at the gem, trying desperately to rouse any sensation, a tingling, or whatever magical whispers Shaianna and Anuska had referred to. But all I saw was a gem, and all I felt was its now-warm surface. Shaianna had said rubies were blood magic. Perhaps I had to be wounded for it to work. Or maybe I was the only Inner Circle descendant who didn’t have the disease. A dud.
I chuckled and popped the gem back into my pocket, nudging the dagger as I did. Curiosity had the dagger in my hand and my gaze running over its jewel-encrusted handle. Emeralds—earth magic. Diamonds—air. Rubies—blood. Topaz—water. The dagger had them all. My thoughts wandered to the mosaic of gems that had trailed across Shaianna’s body, gathered in all her curves, and led me on a chase to discover every inch of her. How could someone so beautiful, someone strong and yet so fragile, bring about the end of a city?
Brushing my thumb over the dagger’s jewels resulted in nothing more than a chill blowing in through the window, bringing with it distant grumbles of thunder. If I had any magic in me, it was surely so deep it might never be roused. Or, perhaps, Shaianna’s mark was exactly as she had suggested: protection. When she flooded the tomb with magic, had she protected me from what would have been a massive exposure to its poison—the same kind of magical flood that had created the mages all those hundreds of years ago?
Why me? I asked myself again. If we succeeded in stopping her, I would probably never know.
Thunder trembled through the air. The horses shied, jolting the carriage and throwing me to one side. The driver barked an order. He snapped his reins, leather on leather, and the animals whinnied. When the next clap of thunder came, it blasted so loud and so fierce, the horses bolted. I snatched the grab rail and clung on as the carriage tilted one way, then the other. Wheels scraped against stone, and the carriage toppled. Glass shattered, exploding inward. I hit the door hard, jarring my back and neck. Steel and timber screamed, or perhaps it was the horses. Then, abruptly, all was still.
Wetness dribbled down my face. Blood, probably. Grazes burned my cheek, and my lower back throbbed with a sudden consuming heat. I reached a bloodied hand to the opposite carriage door and heaved myself through the broken window.
The sun blazed too bright, too hot. I settled a knee on the side of the carriage and saw sunlight lick from house to house. Not sunlight. Thunder rumbled through the ground and shook the air. Not thunder. The ringing in my head faded, and my focus sharpened. The screams were coming from the people fleeing through the streets. Some cried, some were silent, but all were running. Sprites of red twirled and danced
in a blistering breeze. Embers.
The wind changed, and in a great swirl of heat, ash, and flame, the inferno came rolling down the street. I sucked in a breath of hot, acrid air and fell back inside the carriage. The firestorm raged, roaring and thundering closer. I buried my head in the crook of my arm and wondered—with fear hammering my heart hard against my chest—if my luck had finally run out.
The blast hit the carriage, and the carriage shifted sideways with a roar of twisting metal. The frame creaked around me and wood cracked. Heat poured inside the carriage. Furnace-like heat stung my face, my lips, and—when I breathed—my throat. I hugged my coat over my head and prayed to any god left who would listen that this was not the end.
And then the terrible onslaught was gone. As quickly as a receding tide, the heat pulled back. The carriage steamed and groaned, and all around me, flames spluttered, snapped, and snarled.
I clambered back through the window, wincing as the exposed metal burned my hands. The street glowed. Wooden doorways and window frames throbbed red, but few flames had caught. The inferno had blown in and out in seconds. No natural fire behaved that way.
I dropped onto the road and half staggered, half ran, churning up swirls of ash around my legs. Bodies lay sprawled on the road, burned to coal. A roar—so tremendous it dropped me to my knees—barreled down the street. I glanced back, almost tripping over in my haste. Icy terror gripped me. I saw her then—saw her in all her monstrous glory. She rose out of the smoke like a leviathan breaching ocean waves. Her horned crest appeared first, then her wings arched high, whipping up storms, and finally her vast, scaled head broke through the smoke. Green eyes observed the rows of houses in a way that suggested cunning. Her lips rippled in a snarl, and then pushing with her hind legs, she took to the air. Her wings beat hard, blasting ash, dust, heat, and debris over the street. I hid my face, and when I looked again, she filled the gap between rooftops and sky and roared her triumph over a city at her mercy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 23