The Heart Forger

by Rin Chupeco

  “Assassins!” I heard King Telemaine scream at the soldiers. “Kill them!” I could hear the sounds of battle in the distance and realized that Alsron and Shadi were also attacking the city.

  Althy extracted the moisture from the air, channeled Water and thick Mud into the soil surrounding the aeshma. The aeshma grunted when its spiked talons sank into the newly created quagmire. It struggled to raise itself but only managed to submerge itself deeper.

  “The face is its most vulnerable,” she called out. “Concentrate your attacks there!”

  The azi swung its tail spike, striking hard across the beast’s snout and tearing through flesh. The aeshma wailed in agony.

  Polaire threw cutting Wind and Fire in Aenah’s direction. Earth, Air, and Water runes sprung up around Zoya, twisting themselves into a complicated knot to spew jets of acid. The Faceless called up walls of the dead even as Polaire’s corrosive magic hissed and fizzled against the corpses. Althy sent more Earth runes burrowing deep, but Aenah avoided the sinkhole, her cadavers carrying her to safer ground. “Is that all you have?” she said mockingly.

  Even trapped, the aeshma was still a deadly opponent. Its spikes lengthened to twice its size, and we all had to dance out of the way when it began attacking indiscriminately. A lone spike came whizzing in my direction, but a Shield rune from Kalen kept it from slicing into me.

  Very few of the soldiers had taken up Telemaine’s order, not wanting to get in between the two battling daeva. The half dozen who were courageous enough to do so were easily dispatched by Fox.

  Mykaela ignored the danger, walking toward the aeshma, her face intent.

  “Mykkie!” Polaire cried out. “Keep away!”

  The aeshma hissed, turning its terrible gaze on the lone asha approaching it. Mykaela was close enough for the beast to swipe at her with an outstretched limb.

  “Stop.” The asha raised her hand. The claw stopped in midair, as if hitting an invisible barrier. The aeshma reared back, and a quick brush against its thoughts told me it was confused, though still under Aenah’s control.

  “What are you doing?” the Faceless hissed. Her willpower was extraordinary to retain her influence on the aeshma while fending off attacks by Polaire and Zoya.

  I soon understood. Aenah was too firmly ingrained in the aeshma. To wrest control would take too much effort, too much time. But she was using minor spells to confuse and intimidate the daeva, which I had never thought to do before.

  The aeshma hissed, runes of doubt and confusion coloring its mind. It stopped.

  “Fight!” Aenah screamed.

  Mykaela threw fear into its mind. It scrambled back, but the sand retained its hold. When the aeshma threw its head up and howled, exposing the fragile flesh of its underbelly, I called to the azi and we jumped.

  Three rows of teeth tore into the daeva’s face and neck, the aeshma’s screams cutting off when we found its jugular. The blood flowed more earnestly, and the aeshma struggled and twitched. I fought off the urge to throw up at the thick clotting texture of it in my mouth and held on grimly until the jerking stilled and the daeva grew slack in our grip. Its limbs, no longer fighting, slid out of the quicksand with a horrific sucking sound.

  Panting, pleased, I turned to smile weakly at Mykaela. I drew my knife—and drove it toward her chest.

  “Tea!” Fox shoved my mentor out of the way, taking my attack through his arm. Stunned, I opened my mouth and found that I couldn’t speak. No sound came from my throat, even as my mind screamed.

  “It’s quite easy to slay a beast.” Though she lost her daeva, Aenah was triumphant, having nailed a better prize. She clutched my protection stone in one hand. It glowed. “Can you do the same with your precious bone witch, Mykaela?”

  “Let her go, Aenah.”

  I set my own knife against my throat, feeling the sharpness against my skin.

  “Not quite yet,” the Faceless purred, and the pressure against my neck increased. “Attempt to get inside my head, Mykaela, and I shall slit your precious ward’s throat.”

  I could feel Aenah increasing her hold, using me as a gateway into the azi, who was already struggling, alarmed, as my thoughts crumbled away. I could feel its fear as the strings between us unraveled.

  “Tea,” Kalen said quietly. The Heartshare rune spun on his hand; he had always been a quick study.

  He released the spell, and I felt it fill me up. The knife dropped from my hand, and Aenah’s gloating expression changed to one of consternation as she clawed at my thoughts but found nothing as Kalen stole me away from her reach. Come to me, I heard, and then I was running, throwing myself into his arms.

  That brief second was all it took. In her desperation, knowing that the tide of battle had turned against her, Aenah lashed out at the one other mind she still had control over. The azi screeched in pain, its three heads weaving in agony as the Faceless all but tore into its thoughts, brutal in her quest for dominance. The daeva thrashed wildly, and its tail lifted, the deadly spike whipping through the air straight at Mykaela.

  One second was all it took. One second for Polaire’s Shield runes to flicker to life, one second too late for Mykaela to delve into the azi’s mind to pacify its rage. One second for Aenah to beat her there, the azi’s thoughts disappearing into darkness, away from mine.

  The daeva’s tail pierced through Polaire’s shield. Trembling, the dark-haired asha’s spell wavered and disappeared, leaving her stock-still, eyes wide in surprise, as blood spread through the front of her shirt where the spike had torn through.

  “No!” Mykaela sank to her knees as Polaire toppled, catching her best friend before she could hit the ground. Althy ran to them, heedless of the still-writhing azi. Under Kalen’s control, I watched in dazed disbelief as the healer fell to her knees beside the unmoving Polaire, Mykaela’s hands over the wound to staunch the flowing blood.

  Aenah was panting, the exertion of controlling the azi sapping her strength, though she began to smile. Telemaine had snatched an underling’s sword and held it against Khalad’s throat, a warning not to intervene.

  “So much for the vaunted…Polaire…” Aenah wheezed, still drunk on power.

  “Tea,” Fox whispered.

  But I was moving, my mind working from someplace far away, my thoughts scattered into the void. It was a sensation not unfamiliar to me from back when I had taken in darkrot at Daanoris and watched Usij die. But this felt different; I was quiet, filled with the cold detachment of fury and a horrible eagerness. Althy looked back at us, her own face tearstained, and slowly shook her head.

  And then I could hear the sound of my mind snapping.

  The princess’s regiment waited a couple of miles away, far enough to evoke a deceptive feeling of safety. I feared that the Heartforger and I would be regarded as prisoners of war, but Lord Fox had commanded the soldiers to treat us like honored guests.

  Princess Inessa sprang to her feet, flinging her arms around her consort with a sob. “Why are they fighting?” She wept into his chest. “Where is Tea? Lady Mykaela?”

  “Most of the elders have been blighted,” he told her soberly, and she recoiled in shock. “If Mykaela and the others fall, we must be ready.”

  “If they fall…” she choked out, staring at him in horror.

  “If I die, you and the empress are to return to Kion without delay. Take your honor guards and ride as hard as you can for the ships. I sent word for preparations to begin.”

  “No!” She clutched at his arms. “I won’t leave you, Fox!”

  “I have no choice, Inessa. But I will die in peace if your face is the last vision I see.”

  She cried harder and refused to let go. The bone witch’s brother made no protest. The Heartforger paced the tent, but I remained seated, finding little reason to move. If Fox died, then it meant the Dark asha had fallen too and the battle was lost.

 
; But an hour passed and then two. The sounds of battle faded, and lightning no longer leaped across the horizon. The princess clung to her lover the whole time.

  The end did not come. Mistress Parmina approached us, but there was none of the spitfire arrogance she displayed in the Daanorian throne room. Her shoulders were slumped, as if in defeat. “The scouts have returned, Fox. It is done.”

  “Then Tea is alive.” Hope returned to the man’s face, and the princess broke into fresh happy tears.

  “But not without a price,” Mistress Parmina said. To my surprise, she lowered her head and, unabashedly, began to weep.

  31

  I didn’t know what to do. Hope had disappeared with the deadly swipe of that spiked tail that ended Polaire’s life. My world had shrunk until there was nothing but her dead body, the sounds of Mykaela and Althy’s crying, and both Fox and Kalen’s voices in my head, asking, worrying. Tea. Tea. Tea!

  Kalen’s control faded; I took over. I could feel nothing but minds all around me: Mykaela and Althy’s grief, Zoya and Khalad’s horror, Fox’s anger and hatred. And Kalen, anguished and stunned and loving.

  But the heartbreaking, wrenching silence of Polaire’s mind was the loudest noise of all.

  From somewhere nearby, I watched myself scream, and the world screamed with me. The azi screamed at my anguish, and Aenah too screamed as I punched brutally into her mind. The Dark surrounded me, filling me in ways I had never imagined before, filling me to the brim until I overflowed with Darkness. I welcomed the power, desperate to feel more than the heartache I could not prevent.

  I expected the sickeningly sweet darkrot, the anger and the rage, to slowly eat away at my mind. But with every new surge of power came only fervor and impatience, the realization that I still had room to take in more of it, and more, and still more. Sparks flew from my fingers as I traced more runes, lingering on their curves and hidden corners. I had too much of the Dark in me, too much for even the Faceless to counter, and I wrested control of the azi from her one last time.

  I remembered my short foray into Usij’s mind, remembered the atrocities I had seen committed there, and twisted those images so that to Aenah’s mind, she was undergoing the knife and its pain and blood. The Faceless wriggled on the ground like she was live meat on a hook.

  And still I saw more visions. I saw memories of burning and loss, the dead child she held in her arms while she screamed at the gods, pleading at first and then rejecting them completely. I watched the trail of bones and corpses she left behind her as she moved from Arhen-Kosho to Odalia to Kion and Yadosha. It amassed decades of cruelty and blood. I saw her wars against the asha of the Willows—battles fought as she raised daeva after daeva, only to be repelled by bone witches that came before me. I rifled through Aenah’s mind, my desire to find her truth stronger than my revulsion for the bloodshed spinning through her thoughts.

  Then the scenes changed. The asha no longer appeared as adversaries but as collaborators. I saw Mistress Hestia, and my blood ran cold.

  “They cannot know.” They were Mistress Clayve, Mistress Joliene, and Mistress Fatima—upstanding members of the association, all. Mistress Hestia held the Faceless’s book in her hands.

  “Mykaela is too powerful,” Mistress Hestia said. “She shall be better off without her heartsglass. Best to keep her alive, at least till the next bone witch comes along.”

  The vision faded, but my wrath grew.

  Telemaine started forward, but Khalad was faster. He slammed an elbow into his father’s stomach, and when the elder king grunted and lowered his blade, Khalad wrested it away, landing his father on the other end of its point.

  “No!” Aenah begged. The images I inflicted were invisible to everyone else, but she suffered with them. Yet to see her twisting and writhing on the floor at her memories was not enough.

  I wanted to kill her.

  I wanted to do more than kill her.

  Aenah raised her head, her eyes focused not on mine but on my heartsglass. A cross between a wail and a giggle rose in her throat. “It’s…happening,” she gasped. “It’s…happening…oh…Tea…”

  I did not want to hear her voice ever again. The woman’s eyes widened as I forced my final Compulsion on her, fixing her mouth shut and rendering the rest of her immobile. Even without my influence, I could sense the azi’s thirst mixed with our shared revulsion for the woman who had made our lives a living hell for so long.

  The Faceless made a strangled, hacking noise as the azi moved toward her. I saw her eyes, wide with fright, and I reveled in her forthcoming destruction; I fed off her growing fear.

  “Aughhk,” the woman warbled through unmoving lips. In her head, I could feel her shrieking, shrieking, shrieking, and it was a splendid melody. “Aucgghk-ack-gauug—”

  All three of the azi’s heads dove down toward the Faceless, their mouths open.

  There was a loud, sickening crunch of bone.

  King Telemaine gaped at the body that had once been his lover, still twitching as my pet consumed her. He backed away from me, but I did not waver. Even in the worst of my rage, a part of me knew that to kill him would mean my head. Whatever crimes he had committed, the darkrot was fierce inside me, warping my desires. My desire was grotesque and cruel, hollering for more blood, for more vengeance.

  It was easy enough. I luxuriated in the king’s fright. I allowed my magic to sink into every pore of him until his consciousness was steeped in my hatred.

  “For the rest of your life, this is all you shall have of your lover: a vision of her as living carrion,” I whispered to him. “You will relive this moment in your mind for the rest of your days, and it will be all that you shall remember. Your lust for power blinded you, causing immeasurable pain to those you should have protected. Now you shall watch with open eyes and see.”

  An agonized scream erupted from Telemaine; he clawed at his eyes. Khalad and Zoya rushed to his side, fighting to restrain him.

  I left him there in a heap, removing my presence from the azi’s heads so it could enjoy its feast in peace, but I managed only a few steps before I was on the ground, struggling to breathe. Mykaela held the lifeless Polaire in her lap with Altaecia beside her, their faces washed in tears. Likh’s legs had given way, his hands over his mouth. Zoya stared at me. In their gazes, I found shock and repulsion. And Fox—

  Oh, the expression on my brother’s face. I felt shame—not for killing Aenah and destroying Telemaine but for the way he looked at me, the fear rippling through him.

  I reached out for Polaire, wove the Resurrecting rune. I can bring her back, I thought. I am so filled and so alive with the Dark, I can do anything. She will return to nag me for my shortcomings and bully me into doing everything she wanted—

  But the asha did not move. My spell barreled into her twice and thrice and four times and seven and fourteen and twenty until I began screaming into her quiet mind to live, to live, to live, damn you—

  “Tea,” Kalen said hoarsely. “Stop. Please stop.”

  The right side of my body felt sticky and warm, and I began to shiver.

  Kalen’s arms circled me, the Heartshare rune flaring once more before his presence took over every inch of my being, warm and inviting—the only forgiveness in the room I could find. The darkrot melted away as I let go of the power for an emotion greater than hate and, sobbing, allowed the soothing murmur of his voice to carry me away into darkness.

  There was only silence broken in moments by the sounds of weeping.

  The monsters were dead; the creatures that had once been asha lay strewn in bloodied heaps around us, grotesque even in death with their stiffened limbs and gaping mouths. They retained their monstrous forms, their secret selves exposed for the world to see.

  Some of the bone witch’s daeva lay injured too. The aeshma’s spikes had retracted from its body to reveal graying fur. The taurvi still sang, thoug
h its legs were broken, half its face covered in blood. The nanghait was silent on the ground, its many eyes closed. Even the azi, the most powerful of the lot, was bleeding, one of its wings bent and bitten. The zarich, indar, and akvan were conscious and standing, though limping as they plodded back and forth between their brethren, their mournful cries loud in the stillness.

  The Dark asha sat on the ground, her face bathed in tears. Lady Mykaela lay in her arms, pale and silent. Blood covered her hua, spilling on the floor around them. I could feel magic sizzling nearby and saw the bone witch’s heartsglass beat in tandem with the injured woman’s. Khalad and Kalen flanked Lady Tea, their hands pressed against Mykaela’s side, trying in vain to stop the blood flow before it grew worse. Beside me, a low cry of pain rose from Fox. I have seen my share of dying people, and I knew with one look that there was no hope.

  “Why did you save me?” the Dark asha cried.

  The golden-haired asha’s eyes opened. They focused on her, and she smiled. “I have always tried to save you. It is…not so bad, child.”

  “You cannot die on me, Mykkie.” The Dark asha had vanished, and in her place was a seventeen-year-old girl, frantic to save the life of the woman who had so profoundly shaped hers. “Everything I do, everything I have done, means nothing if you leave me!”

  “I have been living on borrowed time for so long, Tea.” A bloodied hand stroked the weeping girl’s cheek. “When my hours are spent, I will feel no fear, no sorrow. I have lived on borrowed time, time that you have risked your life and heart for. I am at peace, Tea. Thank you.”

  “No!” The girl’s heartsglass shone bright, black and light swirling together.

  Lady Mykaela’s smile was beautiful, though blood trickled from the corners of her mouth.