In the Council Chamber, Idalia prepared to begin.
She wore nothing but a light gray Mage-robe, her hair loose and unbraided down her back, and of all the things that had happened in the City today—dragons, Elves, Wildmages, spells, an entire Demon army right outside their walls—it was this that had stunned the Mages of Armethalieh nearly to the point of frothing catatonia.
A woman dressed as a High Mage.
A woman in a Mage Circle.
At least she knew now where Cilarnen got his stubbornness from. Lord Volpiril had done everything up to and including threatening the High Mages with death and immediate Banishment to get them to work with her, and it was as much an acknowledgment of their desperate situation as it was a tribute to the force of his personality that he had succeeded.
Thirty-six Mages stood with her, Setarion Volpiril and Dyren Lalkmair among them. In a moment, she would step into the center of the Circle, and they would begin.
She had not told Jermayan the truth.
He believed—everyone here believed—that the spell they were about to cast would bring Lycaelon Tavadon here from the Spellstones, whisking him out from beneath the Demon Queen’s hand to join her at the moment her spell was cast.
It wouldn’t. No human magic—not even a Triple Circle—was that powerful. But the spell surrounding the Demon Queen’s altar would permit a substitution, so long as what was substituted was closely enough related in blood and magic.
A daughter for a father.
A Wildmage for a High Mage.
Tonight she would die.
But this was the Mageprice asked of her—and that she had consented to—long ago. To give her life. And because she was a willing sacrifice—not one ripped unconsenting from life in blood and fear, but a death hallowed by the Wild Magic—her death could not be used to break the bonds that would allow He Who Is to return to the world.
“It is nearly time,” Jermayan said to her.
“Yes,” Idalia said. She reached into the pocket of her robe, and drew out her Three Books. She took Jermayan’s hand, and placed them into it. “I want you to keep these for me. I do not think they would … do well within a Mage Circle.”
“Perhaps not.” Jermayan smiled, but his dark eyes were worried.
“Perhaps there is something you would wish to give me in return?” she asked.
It would not matter now.
He smiled, and reached up to unclasp the chain from about his neck. “I have waited long to give this to you, Idalia. I had thought this day would not come.”
He clasped the silver eight-pointed star around her neck. An Elven Betrothal Pendant. It settled in the hollow of her throat, still warm from his skin. She reached up and touched it with the tips of her fingers.
She could not say goodbye. If she did, he would know what she meant to do. It was possible he might even try to stop her, offer himself up in her stead, and there was no time to explain why that could not be. He would know soon enough. She had kept the truth from him—selfishly—because every moment in these days that could be spent without pain was a gift from the Gods, and she would give up none of them. Instead she smiled, saying nothing at all.
“Come, Lady Idalia,” Lord Volpiril said.
She turned away and stepped into the Circle.
JERMAYAN watched from the edge of the room as Idalia stepped away and took her place at the center of the gray-robed High Mages. The room began to fill with smoke, making him wish to cough, but he schooled himself against it sternly. Only a few moments. Midnight would come, and Lycaelon Tavadon would join her in the Circle.
And they could leave.
He did not like the human city.
It was too crowded, too filled with ugliness and hate. There was nothing here of appropriateness and harmony; no respect for the natural world that was the gift of Leaf and Star. No wonder they had fallen so easily to Anigrel’s plots; these humans were already half in love with Darkness. It made him sad. Far better to face that Darkness openly upon a battlefield than to pretend it did not exist, dulling your own senses until you saw nothing at all, not beauty or ugliness, truth or lies.
Perhaps they could take Cilarnen with them when they went.
He knew the boy rested now in the care of the High Mage Healers. The spell that had raised the Wards of the City had cost him dearly, though his father swore that he would live and heal. Cilarnen had spoken of the High Mages as great Healers, and even Idalia did not have many ill things to say of them, save that they were reckless and arrogant. In Jermayan’s opinion, those were bad enough things to say of any Healer, save that she said one thing more.
That they took away inconvenient memories.
The Elves lived long, longer than any of the other Children of the Light. More than any, they were the sum of their memories. To destroy—to remove—a person’s memories, yet leave them alive, not knowing what they had lost, was a transgression so black that Jermayan could barely imagine it. Yet it was an act the Mageborn of Armethalieh performed as a matter of course. Both Kellen and Cilarnen had lost memories—their past—beyond recovery, changing the people they might have been.
Jermayan only prayed that the High Mages would not meddle so again with Cilarnen while he lay helpless in their hands.
Idalia stood quietly in the center of the High Mages as they moved about her, casting their spell. Jermayan felt nothing. He did not expect to. Perhaps he was still an Elven Mage, though he lacked all ability to work any magic, but it did not matter: Elven Magery would be as blind to the High Magick as any High Mage was to the workings of the Wild Magic. The spell being raised before him, no matter how powerful it was, was something he could neither sense nor feel. All he could sense was the passage of time, moving inexorably toward midnight, and the sound of the storm that battered the City. Even the sound of the battle he knew to be raging outside the City walls was muted, hushed to silence by the restored City Wards.
Suddenly there was a flare of light, startling him.
The Mages reeled back, staggering and falling.
He pushed through them.
Idalia was gone. In her place, crouched upon the floor, lay the naked form of a haggard old man. He was filthy and disheveled, his mad eyes staring about him in terror. He drooled in fear.
Suddenly Jermayan realized what she had done.
She had not called her father to her.
She had substituted herself for him.
He ran from the chamber, shouting for Ancaladar.
IT was nearly midnight.
He was tired.
He could not afford to be tired.
Lightning crackled across the sky in a nearly-constant display now, more of it natural than belonging to any High Mage spell.
He had sensed the High Mages die, one by one.
Less than a third of the Allied Army remained alive.
Above the battlefield, the Starry Hunt rode, lending their strength to the battle. The eldritch Riders struck down as many of the foe as did their mortal comrades in arms, and still it was not enough.
The Endarkened were coming in force.
But now it was time.
The Demon Prince himself was taking the field at last.
“Shalkan!” Kellen shouted. He vaulted from Valdien’s back, slipped as he found himself thigh-deep in mud. Staggered.
Saw radiance come galloping toward him across the battlefield.
His first friend. His comrade.
With him now, at the end.
He threw himself into Shalkan’s saddle—sometime, during the past hours, someone had helped Shalkan into his gear.
He drew Light At The Heart of the Mountain and Shalkan leaped forward.
There was no need for words.
ZYPERIS saw the Knight-Mage come riding toward him on the white unicorn. He snarled in anger and lust. A unicorn! But the pain would be worth it. He would kill them both, do what his Queen, mother, and lover had been too shortsighted to do.
Then he would destroy the
City.
He spread his wings and launched himself forward.
THE Demon towered above them, nearly eight feet tall in its glittering black armor. Its scarlet wings were spread wide, and Its sword flared with black light.
It threw back its head and howled.
Water Mind.
The most dangerous gift of a Knight-Mage. To move through the currents of a battle like a fish through water, to be able to fight beyond exhaustion.
To fight at the top of his strength until he died.
Kellen leaped from Shalkan’s saddle. The unicorn spun away, moving as if he were Kellen’s reflection. The Demon hesitated, seeing two targets where there had been only one a moment before.
Kellen feinted, drawing the Demon’s attention. It attacked him. Kellen slipped away.
The utter calm of Water Mind enfolded him. He was no longer Kellen. Shalkan was no longer Shalkan. The Demon was no longer a Demon. The three of them were partners in a dance, all moving as the Wild Magic willed.
Kellen was at peace. Utter peace.
All was as it was meant to be.
This was the moment he had been reaching toward from the moment he first drew breath.
Shalkan struck. The Demon howled in fury and in pain.
Kellen did not know why he was here. His sword could not slay the Demon. Any cuts his blade made would instantly heal.
He only knew that this was where he must be. Here. Now.
The Demon Prince turned on Shalkan. Kellen struck. His blade sliced deep.
He could not kill, but he could wound, and the wounds were painful ones, angering the Demon Prince.
Turn and cut.
There were only seconds before It chose to ignore one of them and kill the other.
It did not matter.
IDALIA opened her eyes.
The blade flashed down.
Struck.
Savilla’s mouth opened in a scream of horror and despair.
SUDDENLY the sky was filled with light. Light everywhere, and Kellen was filled with an uprush of Power so great it made him scream, ripping him from Water Mind with the force of a sudden drench of ice water. It was the power he had felt at the Black Cairn, but a hundred, a thousand, times stronger, and this power held nothing of the Dark. Only Light. It filled him, filled the blade in his hands, filled Shalkan, filled everything he could sense save the black Void before him.
He struck, plunging the radiance in his hands into the Darkness before him. He felt the Light fountain through him, filling the Darkness, filling the Void, obliterating it as utterly as sunlight destroys shadow.
Blinding him.
There was a scream. He heard it with more than his ears. He seemed to hear it with every sinew of his body. It stopped his breath; it seemed to stop his heart, just for a moment.
And in the midst of that light, he heard the echoing thunder of celestial hooves, as the Starry Hunt, the work for which it had been summoned complete, swept across the battlefield one last time …
And was gone.
When he could see again, when he could breathe …
The Demon Prince was gone as well.
Gone.
“Dead,” Shalkan said. “Get up. We have a chance now.”
Kellen dragged himself to his feet, using Shalkan’s saddle as a brace. He’d been on his hands and knees in the mud; by the time he was on his feet, the unicorn was coated liberally—even more liberally—with mud as well.
But he hadn’t dropped his sword.
Kellen flung his leg over Shalkan’s back.
“Come on,” Kellen said. “I need to find a horse.”
“You’re welcome,” Shalkan said.
JERMAYAN flung himself onto Ancaladar’s back and the great dragon leaped from the walls into the storm.
“The stones!” Jermayan shouted. “We must get to the stones!”
He clung tightly to the saddle. He had not used the straps. There was no time.
Idalia had substituted herself for the sacrifice.
In midair Jermayan felt the tide of magic reach him, as vast and overwhelming as a crashing ocean wave. It filled him, filled Ancaladar, restoring all that had been taken from them, and more.
He had the power to destroy those who had taken his love, his life, from him, and he used it.
VESTAKIA had been beneath the walls of the City, among the supply wagons. The proximity of so many Demons was constant agony, but like everyone else among the Allies, she had a job to do.
She and several others—cooks and wagon drivers, laundresses and carpenters—those who could neither fight nor heal—took charge of getting the Allied wounded into the City. If they could make it to the rear of their own lines, Vestakia and the others would bring them the rest of the way. Carrying them if they had to. Guiding them through the rain-lashed night to the safety of Armethalieh’s walls if they could still walk.
Often someone went inside with one of the injured.
Vestakia never did. She did not dare. Just as she had not dared to take her rightful place among the Healers within the City walls.
The Armethaliehans would only see her appearance, not who she was.
But this, too, was vital work, for many wounded would have died at the edge of the battlefield without the help of Vestakia and the others to get them to safe haven.
She was certain that this wasn’t what Kellen had intended for her to be doing. Kellen had expected her to find someplace safe to hide until the battle was over, Vestakia suspected. She knew he thought she had already done more than enough.
Well, so had everyone here. Jermayan. Idalia. Cilarnen. Kellen himself. Not to mention hundreds of people whose names she didn’t even know. She would not ask for special treatment, though right now all she wanted to do was lie right down in the cold mud and sleep until everything was decided, one way or the other.
In her mind Vestakia could feel her father—so close now!—and feel his certainty of victory. The fear he had felt before was gone, replaced by lust. Not even to kill, but to destroy, to obliterate.
To taint.
Suddenly there was a rush of air above her head.
She looked up.
Ancaladar leaped from the walls of the City in a rush of wings.
She was staring after him in confusion when the world dissolved in light.
It was as if in that one brief moment Vestakia was a child again, warm and safe and loved. Held in her mother’s arms, too young to understand the curse of her Demon appearance, too young to understand the tragic price Virgivet had paid to win Vestakia her human soul. All her pain and weariness was gone, washed away by the light.
And when it faded, the touch of her father’s mind was gone as well.
Gone.
Vestakia stood in the cold mud, gasping in surprise and wonder. She touched her own face with trembling fingers, as if to assure herself she was still real.
He was gone.
She was certain of it.
It was as if a poison-filled wound had suddenly been healed. Even the memories of what she had gained from the Demon Prince’s thoughts were dim and fading quickly, as if it had suddenly become impossible even to think of him.
Then a sudden gust of cold wind sprayed her face with rain, and a shout from the battlefield recalled her to herself.
There was still work to do.
There would be time later for joy.
SAVILLA stood over the Stone of Sacrifice, the broken blade in her hands. She looked down at the body of the small mortal female.
All her plans, ruined.
All around her the proud Endarkened groveled upon the ground, writhing and whimpering in pain. The bolt of pure Light that had been released when she had plunged the knife down had killed half of them where they stood, and weakened the rest nearly to the point of death, draining them of power and magic. They moaned and cried like lost children, their howls of agony rising above the howling of the storm.
Only she stood unscathed.
He
Who Is had been sealed away from the world more thoroughly than ever before. Any who dared attempt to call him across the Veil again would be met with the fury of a cheated god.
Even his beloved perfect children.
She shrieked her anger and despair to the sky, her body vibrating with the agony of the backlash of the spell. But she would not yield. How could this have happened? How?
“Kill them all!” she howled.
Her Court, not understanding—yet—what had happened, cowered back from her wrath. She reached for the nearest body, dragging the Endarkened to his feet. His yellow eyes were clouded with pain; his wings drooped limply. She dug her talons into his throat, wishing it was Zyperis’s. Black blood oozed around her fingers, and the Endarkened whined.
“Go,” she growled, her yellow eyes burning into his with the force of her rage. “Kill the Lightborn.”
A few of them moved—too slowly!—to obey.
“Queen Savilla!”
She looked up.
There was a dragon in the sky.
Something to kill.
She spread her wings.
JERMAYAN saw the Demon Queen below him, saw Idalia’s lifeless body spread upon the flat stone.
A bolt of golden fire leaped from his hand toward the Demon Queen.
Shields flared around her as she countered his attack, and he saw her smile, anticipating victory.
But he did not falter.
Change and change, as the Demon Queen’s shield passed up and down the harmonics of magic, attempting to turn itself from a defense to an attack. But each time she changed her shield, Jermayan changed his attack, occupying all her energy with countering him. She had to devote all of her power to her defense;there was nothing left over for her to mount an attack in turn. She spread her wings and vaulted into the sky; to attack, to evade; it did not matter. Ancaladar danced upon the storm like a hawk. Wherever she went, he followed.
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