“Best not,” Arrow said. “They are evidence.”
His mouth lifted in an unexpected smile. “Proof. Yes. Let’s keep them.” From the hard glint in his eyes, he was already working out how to use this to his advantage. And from the uneasy glances a few of the Erith were sending him, they were not looking forward to the experience.
~
In the time it had taken them to examine the room, progress had been made elsewhere.
Orlis had drained himself completely in healing the living. Seivella had made herself useful by finding the warriors’ weapons and coats and returning them. Miach and Elias had gathered the remains of their cadre, the ones that could move easily, and had set themselves the task of beginning to clear the collapsed stairwell, looking for an easier way out of the underground. Orlis might have healed the worst of the wounds, but a few of the warriors were moving awkwardly, still, and there were dead to carry as well.
Arrow sealed up the workroom, resetting the false wall, hiding the unclean magic, and setting a ward that crackled in first sight.
While she was going that, Zachary and Kallish’s junior third worked with Miach, Elias and their warriors to finish clearing the stairs, testing the cracked stone to make sure it would hold.
The rest of Kallish’s cadre, along with the warriors of the six, set themselves the far more difficult task of forming stretchers to carry the dead out into the gathering dark. Warriors’ spears were extended, cloth produced from somewhere, the bodies laid out.
They made a slow and silent procession up the narrow, damaged stairs and into the ruins of the temple. The sky overhead was fading to night again. Arrow had lost track of the days and nights, the island seeming to have its own hours. She concentrated on picking her way through the ruins of the temple, on staying out of the way of the stretcher bearers and breathing lightly through the scent of death they carried.
Kallish’s junior third had found a way down the hill, around the jagged crack, that everyone could manage and they continued on their slow, careful, journey.
As the day was fading, they met Revan and a group of Gardeners coming up the hill with torches and ropes, clearly intent on some kind of exploration of the ruins. Or perhaps a rescue.
They were worried about the head Gardener. And a few of their number were absent, too. Arrow looked around the group with narrow eyes, wondering how many of them had known about the Gardener’s room. From the expressions of horror and exclamations of dismay, she was inclined to believe that none of them left behind had known what he was up to.
The exclamations were met with hard-faced, implacable fury from Miach, the first guard in no mind to listen to any declarations of innocence. He insisted on immediate release from the island, declaring that he would not spend any longer than necessary.
The Gardeners, faced with the evidence of harm, hurried to help them on their way. By full dark, the group were on their way back across the walkway, tattered and damaged.
In the midst of it, Revan had attached himself to Serran, declaring that he would come with them and look after his father. Miach sent a hard look at Revan, clearly suspecting the Gardener of some bad intent. Revan met the look with quiet determination, and kept walking. Whatever Miach had seen, or suspected, he left them alone, the son guiding the father.
They arrived back at the shore to a far more pleasant surprise. Neith vo Sena was waiting for them, with what looked like a hundred horses and a dozen retainers. He could no longer sense the heartland, he said, and had a feeling they would need transport again. With no obligation.
With those last words, Arrow truly felt that the world was ending. Neith vo Sena was volunteering his horses, without payment, without any favours owed.
“Where do we go?” Miach asked, sounding lost for the first time that Arrow had known him.
There was no sense of the heartland around them. Nothing to guide them. The distress and displacement in Miach’s face and voice were reflected in the Erith around him.
“The heartland’s centre,” Arrow answered. The certainty had been growing in her in the walk from the temple. “The Palace.”
CHAPTER 26
Riding a horse was getting fractionally more comfortable the more practice she had. At least, that was what she told herself through that long, awful night. The horses were fresh, and there were enough that there were a few spares, even with three full cadre of White Guard. Neith took charge of the party once their destination was clear. The first part of the journey was relatively sedate, travelling to the nearest roadway. Once there, Neith pushed the horses to speeds which Arrow had not known were possible, everything going past in a blur.
She was sure magic was involved somewhere. It had to be.
They arrived at the Palace in the early morning, every one of them windswept and heart sick, the sweet scent of death clinging to them all. Neith’s horses had not objected to carrying the dead, the warriors wrapped in purple cloth and strapped across the horse’s saddles, gathered at the back of the group along with Revan and Serran.
“The Palace looks intact,” Miach observed, casting an experienced eye over what they could see, eyes bright with amber as he dipped into the second world.
It did.
The buildings were still standing. There was no sign of carnage or blood. No courtiers running from the buildings in panic. No ranks of White Guard to defend the buildings and their inhabitants. The wards on the buildings also seemed intact.
And the air and ground echoed with the faintest trace of the heartland.
“This way,” Arrow told them, turning her horse towards the older part of the Palace. The horse was tired, ribs moving under her legs in deep breaths, but its ears flicked forward, head turning slightly to look at its surroundings.
The oldest part of the Palace was not used much, Arrow had sensed at her only previous visit. Ancient towers, scattered at seemingly random intervals, rose impossibly high into the sky above, seemingly without end. Between the towers were buildings of two and three storeys high that looked like they had been unoccupied since they were built. And among the towers and the buildings was the faintest trace of a path she had followed before, a path that a few Erith could walk side by side, that led to the tree. Even now, her mind shied away from thinking about the tree, its great age an almost visible presence.
“You know where they are going?” Miach demanded, bringing his horse alongside hers.
“Yes. We need to leave the horses here,” she told him. Her knees buckled when she hit the ground, aches she had been ignoring through the night coming back in force. She staggered a few paces until she managed to stand upright.
She looked around the group as they dismounted. Nearly three full cadre of White Guard. All with their power restored, thanks to hard work from Orlis and Gilean. In normal times, three cadre of White Guard was an army’s worth. Nothing was normal now.
“Neith,” she said, “take Serran and Revan and your people and find somewhere to rest.” She left unsaid that he should take the dead with him, too. Some things did not need to be spoken.
The lord looked at her. She was not sure what he saw in her face but he inclined his head.
“Good hunting, mage.”
Neith’s people were efficient, and the horses well trained. They were away in moments, while the warriors prepared their weapons, grabbed some food, tightened their braids and looked to their leaders for direction. The leaders in turn looked to Arrow. She drew a breath, stomach tight with nerves. The air was flat and ordinary in her lungs, no fizz against her skin. The heartland was fading all around them. There was one hope. One hope only.
“Miach. Elias. The six.”
The single-minded focus on her was daunting. She wanted to protest. She was no warrior. No tactician. She was feeling her way mostly by instinct.
“You have one task. The most important task that you will ever have in your lives. I do not exaggerate.”
She looked around the group and met the warrior’s eyes. The
one with more amber than he should have, that no one else had noticed.
“You must protect Iserat. At all costs. Do you understand?”
There was a short, sharp, collective intake of breath, everyone turning that focus from her to Iserat.
The leader of the six did not look any different in first sight. In second sight, he had barely changed. Arrow knew that was a lie. He was carrying the most precious thing the Erith had.
“Svegraen?” she bit the word out at Miach. He turned back, determination on his face.
“We hear. It will be done.”
“At all costs. He must live.”
These were warriors. The elite of the Erith. Their promises were not given lightly, and graver still with five of their number maimed and dead.
“It will be done,” Miach repeated, echoed by every warrior and Willan, the war mage’s face pinched and pale, jaw set with determination.
“Svegraen,” Arrow turned to Kallish. “You are with me.”
“To the end, mage,” the warrior responded immediately, with no hesitation.
“And us?” Zachary asked. His eyes were blazing power.
The Prime. Orlis. Gilean. Evellan. Seivella. Formidable allies.
“With me.” Arrow glanced across to Kester. No words were needed.
~
The first hundred paces or so passed without incident. There were mature trees among the buildings, sweet scent of flowers in bloom carrying to them in the morning air. It all looked perfectly ordinary. It made Arrow’s skin itch. The air should be saturated with the heartland’s magic. Her skin should be fizzing with the contact. The scent should be sparked with amber from the heartland’s power.
Instead, it was almost like walking in the human world, with Erith scents.
There were no wards or traps waiting for them, just the faintest trace of static in the air that told Arrow there was surjusi ahead, the sword waking up at her back.
“Is there a plan?” Zachary asked. He was carrying a pair of handguns and had strapped a bandoleer across his chest with more ammunition clips. There was a spark of amber at his shoulder. A translation spell. It looked like Gilean’s work.
“Iserat will know what to do. We have to defeat the surjusi,” Arrow told him and clamped her mouth shut against a babble of words. Defeat the surjusi. It was so easy to say. She remembered the huge, blackened head and the massive, clawed hand trying to break through the portal. Fragments of his name still echoed through her, the whole of it too big for her to hold at once. The only reason she was here, and he had been sent back to his own realm, was because of the heartland’s healing. She did not want to face him again. Her feet kept moving forward. No one and nowhere would be safe if Saul succeeded in destroying the heartland and seeding himself fully into this world.
“Good plan,” the Prime approved. He bared his teeth in a grin at her sideways look. “It’s simple. Simple is usually better.”
“I hope so.”
A short distance ahead was the first sound. It sounded like a thump against wood.
The group slowed, amber battle wards rising in response to Kallish’s gestures, the other magicians with mage fire ready.
“The bitch is gone. You said.” That sounded like the Gardener, his words punctuated by more thumps.
“She is.”
Arrow knew that voice. Every Erith around her knew it as well. Smooth. Deadly. Belonging to a disgraced courtier. Who should be locked up in the Palace somewhere. The hair on the back of her neck rose.
“Then why is this tree still standing.”
“It is a tree,” the voice answered, sounding bored.
There was no point in hiding, Arrow knew, and there was nowhere to hide anyway.
She moved forward, the rest of her group with her.
“So glad you could join us.” The voice had not changed tone. He had known they were there.
They arrived at the edge of a clearing. The buildings had faded away leaving a great, open space. At the centre of the space was the ancient tree that embodied the heartland’s presence in the world. Beyond the tree, other trees and buildings rose, oddly shadowed.
Unlike the last time Arrow had been here, when she had been given the mark on her cheek, there were other people here.
The Gardener had cast aside his robes for plain, dark clothing that sat oddly around his body, ill-fitting, the trousers too big and the sleeves to short. He was wielding an axe, attempting to cut into the thick trunk of the tree. He had done some significant damage already. The dark bark had parted to reveal a pale interior with sap seeping out of the wound. The further into the tree he cut, the darker the interior became. It was shading towards amber. The heartland’s power.
There were others around the clearing. Erith that Arrow did not necessarily know, most of them armed.
She had no attention for them, her focus turning to the owner of that voice. Priath. The lord who had conspired with Noverian to kill the Queen. Who had manipulated Diannea vel Sovernis to try to kill Noverian. Who liked to control matters from the shadows. Now out into the light. And not himself.
“We really should have killed him,” Kallish commented, matching the voice’s bored tone.
“You would find that difficult,” Priath answered, lip lifting in a sneer.
“There is not much of Priath left,” Arrow told Kallish, matching the tone. “It is mostly Saul.” Or, more accurately, bits of Saul. Arrow had vivid memories of facing the full presence of the surjusi lord. The crackling static around Priath told her that this was not the whole of the surjusi lord. More than enough to be deadly.
“Mostly?” The warrior picked up on that one word.
“He is not fully present yet,” Arrow confirmed. The static crackle was not nearly intense enough. Saul had been forced to access the world through Priath, not on his own account. And it was not a happy partnership. “Priath does not like his body being used.”
“You cannot possibly know that,” Priath sneered.
Arrow took an easy pace forward. She had mostly been guessing, but it seemed her instincts were right. Priath did not like something else being in control of his body. It fit with what she knew of the Erith lord. He liked control. He liked being out of the spotlight.
“You were in the temple,” she realised. “It was your box with the letters.”. The newer trace of a magician, underneath the Gardener. No wonder the spellwork had seemed familiar.
His lip curled slightly, a movement that she did not think Priath would normally make.
“Did you just watch? Or did you take part?” Arrow wondered, listening to the instinct that prompted her to question further.
The tightening of his expression told her that something she had said had drawn a reaction. She could not tell if that was Priath or Saul. She did not think that Priath would indulge in blood magic. But she did think that Saul would be insulted at the suggestion he had simply watched.
“I think Priath likes to watch,” she said, following that instinct.
Priath’s eyes flared amber then shaded to black, then back to amber. No, they were not happy together, Priath and Saul. A partnership born of convenience, at a guess. Priath may have found his gentle imprisonment suffocating after so many years used to the freedom of the Court. She remembered the chill she had felt when she had first met him. He seemed diminished somehow.
“Too much talking. Can we just kill him?” Zachary asked, the low sound of shifkin anger carrying around the clearing.
“You brought that creature here?” Priath hissed. And that was Priath, not Saul, the lord’s eyes flaring with amber for a moment. “To the heartland?”
Arrow laughed. It was a bitter, flat sound.
“You presume to tell us who should be here?” Gilean spoke, fury clear. “You have betrayed us all.”
“Oh. The little mage is angry.” It was Priath’s body, the voice and the words belonging to Saul.
“And how did you get here?” Arrow wondered, taking another step forward. “How
long have you been speaking with Priath?”
“Shadow-walker.” The disgust was clear. “Arwmverishan.”
“Not long, I think.” She ignored the insult. “There was a trace of your presence when I was in the Palace before. Very faint. Not Priath, though. Someone else.” She could almost see the progression in her mind. Saul finding someone in the Palace curious about the dark. Sadly, there were Erith who were drawn to the dark. Using that person, whoever it was, getting closer to an Erith with more influence in the Court.
“Clever little thing.” It was not a compliment.
“Does it matter?” Kallish asked, interested.
“Maybe.”
Priath had been at the centre of Erith Court politics for a long time. He had acted in his own self-interest, single-minded and determined. He reminded Arrow of Seggerat, the former head of the Taellan utterly ruthless, although Seggerat would never have acted against his monarch. Both were fiercely independent. Not minds that could be taken over easily.
And Priath conspiring with the Erith’s most feared enemy sat oddly with what she knew of him. She wondered what Saul had promised him. And whether she had judged the courtier wrong all this time.
“I wonder,” she said, slowly, as though puzzling the matter out. “Why did you start corresponding with surjusi? Was meddling in the human world too boring?”
She heard a slight intake of breath from Zachary. So slight that if she had not been listening for it, she would have missed it.
“The letters,” he murmured.
“The letters.” She confirmed. The letter that had been written by an Erith to humans, tucked into a recipe book in a house belonging to the former Mayor of Lix. The human replies that they had found, kept so carefully in Priath’s safe box, hidden by the Gardener behind a false wall that almost no one would be able to find or open.
“Careless.” It was Priath’s lips moving. She was confident it was Saul speaking. And he was not happy at his host’s actions.
“Priath is not careless,” Kester said, his own lip curling. “Anything but.”
“Not Priath, then,” Arrow suggested, folding her arms, hugging her middle. She was suddenly cold. “Not all of it. A former host.”
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