Unlocking Void (Book 3)

by Jenna Van Vleet

  Gabriel turned his attention to Maxine. She had reappeared not far off, molding an Air pattern he did not know as Nolen rushed to encircle Pike with his shield. At this distance he could reach Maxine with a water-coil in one hand and still be able to lay in the other.

  He swung it around him once and drew his left arm back to flick it, snapping a fire-starter in his other hand, but something painful wrapped around his left wrist. Confused, he looked to see which of the three attackers he had missed.

  He had not even considered Ryker.

  The Arch Mage stood behind him, eyes and hair white as snow, just long enough for Gabriel to make eye contact. He grinned, and vanished. The water-coil crashed to the ground around Gabriel in a spiral of cold liquid.

  Alarmed, Gabriel turned back to Maxine and readied a Tarmen-blast to shoot earth at her. He forcibly ignored the blatant pain in his wrist, and she stood there with a hand out holding a Spirit shield. He thought she had the smallest of frowns on her face.

  She vanished and reappeared near Nolen. She took his arm while Nolen gripped Pike’s unconscious body, but rather than shifting out, she paused and looked at him.

  ‘What for?’

  The sharp pain in his wrist demanded his inspection. He raised his arm, and all the color left his face, chilling him cold.

  A Castrofax. A silver wristlet.

  He looked at Maxine, horrified, terrified, not sure if the Castrofax or the idea of wearing one hurt more. “NO!” ripped from his throat. His attackers vanished, Nolen smiling in victory.

  Gabriel immediately lapsed back to the moment Overturn was placed on him. He remembered despair, the absence of hope, and the horrifying circuit his mind took to replay what should have happened. He lost everything in that moment, so this moment should be the same.

  Lael was the first to reach him.

  “What happened? What is wrong?” his usually calm voice strung with panic. Gabriel grasped his left forearm as if holding a wound shut, and it took Lael a moment to realize the issue was not a wound, but a slender silver band.

  How Gabriel managed to stay on his feet was beyond him, but deep within he knew he had to put on a strong face for his Mages. He stared at the silver piece etched with faint blue inscriptions he could not quite make out. It blurred past his vision, just like Overturn had.

  Mikelle appeared running across the courtyard with several Council Members in tow.

  “He is comatose, I cannot get him to move.” Lael said. Gabriel did not even know Lael was trying to pull him inside.

  Mikelle grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and looked at the silver wristlet accusingly.

  “Lewis,” Gabriel finally sputtered. “I need Lewis—and Aisling.”

  “Aisling is in Kilkiny.”

  A shuttering spasm of pain shot up his arm, and he shook tremendously trying to hold the moan inside. “It has to come off.”

  “We’ll find a way. It’s just one piece and—”

  “No,” Gabriel cut her off. “The hand.”

  “What?” Mikelle exclaimed.

  “I need your cloak. Do not leave without me,” Lael stated and ran back to the Lodge.

  Adelaide, Galloway, and Dagan joined Mikelle, all breathing heavily. “Dagan, bring Lewis immediately.” The tone Mikelle struck turned the long-legged Mage around and shot him towards the infirmary.

  Adelaide gripped Gabriel by his shoulders. “That was brilliant. I have never seen such fighting. You knocked the man out in moments! I have not given you the credit you deserve.”

  Gabriel raised his eyes to hers. She was doing her hardest to distract and encourage. Her effort made him smile a little, but another spasm of hot pain shot from the Castrofax. Galloway looped an arm around his back to help him stand.

  The Mages rushed around in his foggy vision, but his focus was internal. Pain and Castrofax were one and the same. He remembered every moment Nolen injured him. The four days he spent in the dungeons; tortured to the point he wished his body would just give up and die; Axa; strapped to a pillory and publically flogged; bound in Salt Fort so painfully he could not sleep, and the hundred times Nolen struck him for no reason. He trembled as his memories charged with actual fear. His legs were weak.

  “Whoa, whoa, going down,” Galloway said as he took Gabriel to his knees. “Where is Lael with tha’ cloak?” Gabriel bowed his head as he shook, pain pulsed with his racing heartbeat.

  “It is getting more intense.” Gabriel said, and Galloway snapped a pattern together and put a cold hand on Gabriel’s forehead.

  Mikelle surprised Gabriel and took up his hand. “Tell me if this helps,” she said, and she looped her fingers around the wristlet and gripped tightly. Her anxiety and intense goodness flowed into his emotions as his own flowed into hers. But the pain did not abate, and she did not feel it. “What Castrofax is this?”

  “Misery,” Gabriel gasped with sweat beading on his forehead. “Lady Misery. It causes pain until all three pieces are on, making the captive wish for the entire set.”

  “That is…” Adelaide trailed off lost for words.

  Bootfalls behind him announced Lael, and he flung the white cloak around Gabriel’s shoulders. It immediately took the edge off the pain. “Lewis is here, ready the shift.”

  Gabriel managed to stagger to his feet with assistance, and Lael kept a secure grip with both arms as Gabriel seized Void and set the shift-pattern. Mikelle gripped his forearm and reached out for Lewis as the aging man rushed up. As soon as she got a firm grip, Gabriel fueled the pattern and sent them rushing towards Kilkiny Palace.

  They muttered to themselves as black and white images flew past them; staring up at the black sky and the white landscape; suddenly being encompassed by a gray ribbon as they ducked underneath a river. Structures appeared and vanish in an eye-blink. Anatoly City appeared on the horizon and raced up to meet them. Gabriel finished the shift with a quick spiral up the staircase and cut the pattern in the Queen’s anteroom. He hoped to the stars Robyn was not in the vicinity, and blessedly she was not.

  Lael ran to Aisling’s door and pounded on it until Cordis let them in. The men spoke for a moment, and both bolted out into the hall. Cordis paid Gabriel a single inquisitive glance.

  “Here, on the chaise,” Mikelle said gently and eased Gabriel onto the furniture. Lewis rounded the chaise and took up the left hand, pinching the wrist as he planned his attack.

  “You are aware it will not be good as new, Head Mage?” Lewis asked with a doctorial voice. “Aisling and I cannot mend nerves. You may not have full range when we are finished.”

  “I know,” Gabriel replied. “How many limbs have you attached?”

  Lewis nodded and stroked his white beard. “A good many, Head Mage, a good many in my time. It has been a long while since I removed one though.” He peered at the wrist as if seeing through it.

  “You’ll need to cut between the radius and carpal bones.” Gabriel instructed.

  “If I cut higher I will miss the trapezium, and you would still have feeling up until there.”

  “Then you risk too many bones. I want the cut here,” he traced a finger between spasms. “Pinch the veins here and here before you start.”

  “You forget I can only handle three patterns at one, Head Mage. Your cloak has an anti-bleed-out pattern, aye?”

  “Yes.”

  “We might need it.”

  Mikelle rushed up with a handful of towels and dabbed at his forehead, cooling the wicked moisture as she went. “What can I do to help?”

  Lewis rolled up a long towel and put it in front of Gabriel’s mouth with both hands gripping by his ears. “Hold him down.”

  Aisling rushed into the room in a flurry of rose-colored skirts; her perfectly twisted hair loosed from its pins. “Lael told us what happened.” Worry painted her face, and well it should be. Aisling had seen him at his worst while in Overturn.

  “Ruddy good job knocking that Arch Mage out, my lad,” Cordis exclaimed, taking a knee beside the chaise.


  “Gabriel, I am not sure I can do this,” Aisling said quietly as she looked over the wrist. Behind her Lael hefted a tall table and set it at the back of the chaise.

  “I will make the incisions, you will heal,” Lewis said comfortingly to Aisling and set the hand on the table. “We will go in here and here, I will need you to pinch the cephalic vein here, and I will hold the dorsal venous. Secondhand, are you feeling strong? I will need you to hold the arm down here and here. It must be immobilized.”

  Lael shucked off his coat and they rolled up their sleeves. Under Gabriel’s coat, his sleeves were already rolled. “Don’t worry your pretty head about the dress, Aisling. I can pull blood-stains out,” Cordis offered. Aisling gave him a bewildered look.

  Another spasm of pain seared much deeper and chattered Gabriel’s teeth. Mikelle pulled him back; his head propped up on the armrest, and she looped the towel over his mouth to hold his head down. “Don’t watch,” he muttered through the loose fabric.

  “I do not think I can.”

  “Let us not dally,” Lewis said and snapped a slicer-pattern together, drawing glowing white spikes out of his hand and forearm. He secured one in his palm and touched the edge to Gabriel’s wrist. “Cordis, hold your boy. Mikelle, keep him down. Lael, do not let this arm move. Aisling…remove yourself and pretend it is just another soldier’s wound. And Head Mage, be very brave.”

  Chapter 13

  Robyn spent much of the week sitting court for her people. Once a month she spent three or four days listening to their requests to resolve issues. It seemed Miranda had promised a great deal of things and never took action. The people requested soup kitchens, schools, new buildings in various areas, cheaper goods, more infirmaries, more Spirit Mages, streets repaired, the harbor dredged, and of course more jobs.

  Gabriel left the bridge unadorned, so Robyn hired masons and apprentices to begin carving. She requested larger and taller buildings built on the west side of the Ellonine, the slums torn down, and the people relocated in nicer facilities. She commissioned an academy to welcome children and adults to study science. The harbor could be dredged by an Earth Mage, so she gave Cordis the duty, and the streets could be fixed with the proper skills. The more she gave, the more they asked for.

  She listened to endless squabbles of missing cows, stolen goods, fights, and pleading for things, and she wished she could be elsewhere. Virgil had spread the word that she outshot him in archery, and within the day her clout rose in the army. Soldiers now gave her smiles of respect, and many of them tapped below one of their eyes with a knowing grin.

  Virgil had been all the more encouraged to visit and often took the shifts of her guards only to stand at the door while she worked. He was a pleasant companion during meals, and Marya brought up more of her meals if only to pay the Prince a wink. Though, she often glanced around with a sad expression as if looking for someone.

  Yes, that someone was still absent. The more time they spent apart, the less Robyn missed him. She had been without him so long, this was no different. Slowly, she discovered who she was without Gabriel.

  She still missed his company. She missed the ability to read someone’s face without effort. Truly, she missed companionship and knowledge that someone cared for her.

  Virgil was a pleasant replacement, but he had ulterior motives trying to ally their kingdoms. It was understandable he wanted to save his people, and was he ever a charmer. She enjoyed it. He was free with compliments, something Gabriel rarely did, and it was lovely to be told she was beautiful on a daily basis. Still, he was not Gabriel, her quick-witted, towering, powerful, raven-haired Head Mage. It was time she summoned him to see if they could make it work.

  However, today was a day for relaxation spent in Kilkiny’s library drinking tea. Virgil accompanied her; a small teacup perched comically in his large hand as he flipped through a book of maps. She watched him amusedly over her book on ancient economics as he looked without seeing, flipping the pages to have something to do, and his tea forgotten.

  “You are bored.” Her voice rang through the silence.

  He looked up with an expression of a child caught stealing sweets. “I confess.”

  “Your brother is the one who needs books.”

  Virgil nodded. “I read battles and soldiers and camps, and I speak with my weapons. Quinn understands politics and diction. It was all interesting until I realized he would lead a kingdom, and I would lead a battalion.”

  “Last week?”

  He gave her an ‘are you listening?’ look. It took him a moment to realize she was joking, and he quietly laughed. “She shoots better than some of my men and has wit to match. You are what we call a…” he rattled off a phrase in Arconian. “I am not sure how that translates.”

  “I think we would call it a triple-threat. Which is the third?”

  “Your lovely face.” She blushed. “It is good, too, because I have known many ugly nobles.”

  She smothered a laugh. “You are going to get us thrown out of here.” It felt good to laugh.

  He shut his book and realized he still held the teacup. He set it aside awkwardly as if he feared breaking it. “Perhaps you would show me how you shoot so well? We have time before supper.” He stood, extending his hand to her. She took it with a nod.

  The halls were quiet until she reached her wing and saw guards and servants clustered, muttering quietly. They dispersed when they saw her, but her alarm grew with every flight of stairs, and she pulled Virgil’s elbow as she took the lead.

  They reached her doors, and to her surprise, the guard held out an arm to stop her. “Your Grace, it is with great respect I advise you not to go in there.”

  “What?” she breathed. “Why ever not?” She could hear raised voices inside.

  The guard looked at the other. “Mage business.”

  “The Advisor and Councilman? Their business is mine,” she said and pressed the latch, pushing the door open.

  Blood. There was blood everywhere. A wounded man in a red shirt was pinned down on a blue chaise by two people she could not see. Above them stood the Secondhand, Aisling, and a man Robyn recognized as Councilman Lewis. Lael held down the forearm of the man in the chaise with all his weight while the Councilman and Aisling were covered in blood from their hands to their elbows.

  “No, that vein goes there. Lael, more pressure here. Press here. Cordis, steadier.” The Councilman calmly gave orders, pointing bloodstained fingers. It took Robyn a moment to realize the man in red was not simply having a wound mended. His whole hand had been severed. As Cordis, his back to her, leaned forward to put more weight on the victim, he revealed the faces of Mikelle and—Gabriel. He was not wearing a red shirt—half of it was stained with blood.

  Robyn stood speechless, her eyes filling with tears as she watched Gabriel fight the pain. He dug his heels in as he gasped and groaned, his hand clutching Cordis’s shirt.

  “Someone get that cloak off him!” Cordis yelled.

  “It’s keeping him from bleeding out,” Mikelle interjected.

  “The vessels and veins are reattached,” Lewis said. “He is going to pass out. Let him go.”

  Mikelle released her grip on the gag and unbuckled his cloak, but she saw Robyn standing in the doorway. “Robyn? Robyn, you can’t be here. Robyn, you need to go.”

  Gabriel had enough sense to look down from his focus on the ceiling. His right hand was wrapped around his father’s back, and he released his grip to point to the door. Robyn’s tears spilled over as his body shook, and he gripped Cordis again, muffling screams behind his teeth. Mikelle quickly pulled the Mage cloak out from him. Gabriel released his grip and snapped his fingers, pointing to the door again.

  “Your Grace, you should not see this,” Aisling finally said.

  Gabriel’s arm slipped as he wavered, sinking his head onto the chaise as his eyes fluttered. His body stopped shaking and finally relaxed.

  “There he goes,” Lewis said softly. His bloody hands waved and the f
ingers jerked as something within Gabriel’s hand reattached. “Can you manage the muscle? I will continue with the tendons then.”

  Virgil looped his hand around her arm and gently pulled her out, closing the door behind her. She kept staring at it.

  “What happened?” she whispered and looked at a guard.

  He shrugged. “They suddenly appeared and brought the Lady Mage in, and next we hear screaming and yelling.”

  “Was the Head Mage so badly wounded?”

  “Wounded, Your Grace?”

  “His hand was severed.”

  The guard grimaced and looked at the other. “Not when he arrived, Your Grace.”

  “They—they cut it off?” She put a hand over her mouth. She knew what it was like to lose a hand. She still bore the tree-like scar the lightning traced down her arm and to her thigh.

  “Would you like to sit?” Virgil asked.

  “No, no I want to wait here until they are finished.”

  She stood staring at the door another ten minutes until Lael opened it, wiping his hands on a towel. His eyes were tired, and his lips drew a thin line. She looked behind him to see Gabriel gone, only a blood-stained couch left behind.

  “Did he leave?” she asked.

  “No, we put him in his room. He is still unconscious.”

  “Lael, what happened?”

  Lael looked at the guards and drew Robyn in, giving Virgil a polite dismissal. “I do not know how, but three Arch Mages and Nolen shifted into Castle Jaden. It was all a ruse to get a silver Castrofax on his wrist. We severed it to remove the wristlet.”

  She lowered her voice to match his. “Will he be alright?”

  “Once he wakes we will see how much feeling he has in the hand. There is a good chance he will not be able to use it.”

  “And if he cannot?”

  Lael thinned his lips further. “Jaden will have suffered a terrible blow with the crippling of their best fighter.”

  Chapter 14

  “Gabriel.” A faint voice whispered in his ear. The smell of blood, the heat of goose down, incredible fatigue and lightheadedness awoke his senses.