by Aaron Crash
Lillee appeared as if out of nowhere. The elf girl grabbed the woman’s arm, cranking it down.
Jenny was there, on her feet, and she slipped Lillee’s essess onto the assassin’s left arm. The golden spirals glowed, and the woman howled. She sank to her knees, crying, laughing, and her hand went to the wound on her neck. She wasn’t trying to close it. She was rending her own flesh and screaming in what might have been grisly delight.
Ymir pivoted and reached out his left hand. “Jelu jelarum!” Once again, the Black Ice Ring flashed, and he froze as many tentacles as he could. He then waded in, driving his dagger into one of the eyes of the demon squid. He pulled out the dagger and was sprayed with blood. And he’d just cleaned his face from the last demon he killed. He stabbed out each eye, and the tentacles slowed from his fucking magic, which proved to be so useful in battle. Over and over, the Sapphire Fang found a home in the flesh of the demon.
It let out a final shriek before coughing out a death rattle. Its coils began to shake spasmodically in death. The demon slipped from the wall, its skin already dripping, sizzling, smoking into a foul puddle of stinking fluid. The thing didn’t have bones, only flesh, teeth, and eyes.
Ymir turned to see Hayleesia Heenn tearing at her wound, driven insane by the essess on her arm.
Walking behind her, he finished the job of cutting her throat. She slumped forward, dead.
Ymir took a section of sheet, cleaned the dagger, and put it back into his sheath. He worked his arm in the shoulder. It hurt, and he’d have bruises from where the demon squid had grabbed him, but he was alive. His enemy was dead.
The Honored Princept slept on.
Lillee bent and removed her forearm cuff from Haylee’s arm. The elf girl put it back in place, though the metal was now bloody. She was pale and shaking.
As for Jenny, she was barely on her feet. He crossed quickly and caught her before she fell. She turned her head, looking into his face, and though she didn’t look good, she’d looked far worse recently.
“That’s two crazy professors I’ve killed for you,” she said, a little drunkenly. Had Doctor Naymer given her something for the pain?
Ymir wouldn’t squabble with Jenny. He’d let her have the kill because putting the essess on the assassin had been ingenious.
The Josentown princess laughed. “Second time is easier. When I heard you found my assassin, I wasn’t going to let you kill her alone. I wanted to see that bitch bleed. Guess I got that.”
“We need to go,” Lillee said quietly. “Tori is only going to be able to stall the professors for so long.”
Jenny giggled. “With how that dwab can talk? We have some fucking time.”
“Language,” the elf girl complained. “The professors might be on their way up here now. We can leave through the secret entrance to avoid them. We found it.”
“I found it,” Jenny insisted. “And fine. We’ll go.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Ymir said. He had one little errand to run while the Princept slept. He might not get another chance to see the Illuminates Spire.
Ymir left the Princept’s chamber fifteen minutes later. He cast an Obanathy cantrip to cover his tracks, and to remove the presence of his friends. He went through the mirror in the bathroom, replacing it perfectly before climbing down the ladder. Out the secret door he went, replacing the books so the entrance was once again locked. Jenny and Lillee were waiting. They hid in shadows as they watched a collection of professors tromp up to the sixth floor. When Professor Slurp started pounding on the door, Ymir, Jenny, and Lillee crept away. They had to get back to the infirmary so they’d have an alibi. From what Lillee said, they’d been able to slip by Doctor Naymer without her seeing them.
Getting Jenny back into the hospital room was easy.
Lillee was the perfect distraction. All the elf girl had to do was ask Doctor Naymer about a lock for her essess. The Ohlyrran doctor then went into a long lecture on the evils of sex, and how an artist needed a clear head, and how could the doctor do her job if she was obsessed about the procreative act? No, an essess was needed, and if one couldn’t control themselves, they should be Locked. Jenny slipped past the lecturing doctor and back into the room, where Tori waited for her.
Ymir hadn’t been there, and so he was free to walk outside, to the entryway. Lights glowed from the top of the Librarium Citadel. He could only imagine what the professors would see once they stormed the room. Della sleeping. Haylee dead. The puddle of the demon corpse would already be ruining the Princept’s fine carpet.
The clansman watched the rain fill the night. He inhaled. The air smelled sweet. He was alive. Others weren’t. They’d tried to hurt his friends, and he’d killed them, and if he had any doubts, he could find honor in that.
There were a couple of things that niggled at him and he couldn’t shake either of them.
For one, he had the idea that Hayleesia Heenn might not be the only assassin at Old Ironbound.
Secondly, it was exam week, and by the Axman’s sharp blade, he hoped he wasn’t scheduled to take his Third Exam later that Monday. It had been a long night.
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE HONORED PRINCEPT had weathered the two months after the death of Hayleesia Heenn, but she hadn’t weathered them well.
The eight weeks had been full of regret, disappointment, and withdrawals from kharo.
And here Della was, with another exam week, the Fourth Exam, upon her.
Sunday afternoon, she stood in the middle of the Librarium Citadel. Della didn’t want to go to work, but in essence, she only had two more weeks of work to go. She’d survive the last week of exams, she’d suffer through graduation, and then she’d be able to repair the pieces of her fractured life over summer break.
Maybe. There had been talk of growing conflicts between the merfolk and the Sorrow Coast Kingdom. Before that happened, King Velis Naoar IX, of the Naoar dynasty in Kreenn, would want a meeting with the merfolk to avoid war. King Velis suggested the meeting take place at the Majestrial.
And that might not be the only peace conference. Gulnash, the rogue orc, expressed some interest in making the journey to Old Ironbound to discuss his growing army and the carnage he’d caused on the Blood Steppes. That was odd, but Della wouldn’t turn him away.
The Age of Isolation had been peaceful, and if the Princept could help keep that peace, she would. Yet, as most suggested, the age was ending. Demons were about. There was unrest and the threat of war. The world seemed to want to boil again.
So, Della’s summer might very well be as chaotic as her winter.
That winter and its cold rains had ended about a month after the Princept woke to find the half-elf professor dead in her room. The air had stunk of something worse than Haylee Heenn’s corpse. Gharam Ssornap had been pounding on her door. She wasn’t going to let those professors see the mess, and so she’d gotten her robes on, rushed down, and talked with the collection of worried teachers. Jennybelle Josen had been attacked by another demon. She was in the infirmary. Hell had broken loose.
The Princept had spent that night putting hell back into a bottle. She put the body of the half-elf in the Scrollery, hunched over a book on demonology, and, yes, with her throat cut. The cleaning had taken forever, and she wasn’t sure what the puddle in the corner of her room had been.
Gatha found the body of the murdered professor. The she-orc had followed the correct procedure, and only the professors knew about the death. The librarian was an odd creature, but she could be counted on. The Third Exam went on as scheduled.
Eight weeks later no one spoke of Haylee Heenn. For most, her presence was all but forgotten. Again, Della spread a rumor, a bit of idle gossip. Professor Heenn hadn’t gotten the Studia Dux job, and she was upset. She stormed out of the Majestrial and stomped all the way back to her job at Wootash College in Panseloca. That was one story.
Another? This one Della didn’t start, but she watched it grow. There had been another affair with Ymir,
and it had ended badly. Still others thought the half-elf was behind this new brand of xocalati, the Amora Xoca, which drove people wild with lust. Few knew the truth—or Della’s version of it—that Haylee Heenn summoned demons to murder Jennybelle Josen and someone had cut her throat.
Della had to take over Haylee’s classes, which pissed the Princept off to no end. Della sent a strongly worded sand letter to a certain Jiabelle Josen and had received no response. In the Flow magic, though, Della saw Auntie Jia coming to the school herself at some point. The Princept saw little else. There was someone in the school who was using ancient magic to block her sight. It wasn’t hard to guess who that was.
In the Librarium, Della left her thoughts and returned to the moment. She glanced up to see Ymir in his normal place, at his table on the second floor, head over a book. That damned man. She never should’ve let him into her school. She didn’t know how he was mixed up in the Haylee Heenn business, but he was. She couldn’t prove it, but she had the idea that the barbarian had cut the half-elf’s throat himself.
She walked up the steps to her mezzanine office and there, on the edge of her desk, was a single volume that never should’ve left the Illuminates Spire. It was a copy of Akkiric, Akkoric, Akkarotic by Derzahla Lubda. It was a mess of a book, short at least, but it had some powerful sorcery in it. Again, there was a section on the Akkiric Rings, including a page on creating one of them. Which one, Della didn’t remember. But that was why it hadn’t been in the general stacks.
She shivered. If Ymir had snuck into her apartment to cut Haylee’s throat, he would’ve had time to plunder the Illuminates Spire. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or anger that drove her down the steps from her office, across the polished floor, and up to the second floor where she slammed the forbidden book onto the pile of books that littered the barbarian’s table.
“You didn’t need to bring it back, thief,” she spat. “You and those damned rings piss me off. And just because you can parade around wearing the Black Ice Ring doesn’t mean I will let you make another one.” The Princept realized she was ranting. Quitting kharo had ruined her nerves. Also, there would be another investigation from the Alumni Consortium on the murder of Hayleesia Heenn. Her interest in demonology would aid in that. And Linnylynn Albatross would make a fine witness. To that end, Della had offered the Scatter Islands woman a job. Not the Moons Studia Dux—that had gone to Ibeliah Ironcoat.
Ymir eased himself back. He motioned for her to sit.
Della did. Why did she feel like she was interviewing for a professorship? This shouldn’t be happening.
Ymir picked up the book. “Akkiric. Royal. Akkoric. I’m beginning to wonder if the akkor are the same as the orishas. As for that last word, Akkarotic, I’m not familiar with it. And I haven’t made another ring. Just this one. And only because Siteev Ckins suggested it.” He smiled. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what it does? I have no idea.”
“Jelu jelarum,” Della whispered. Her Focus ring lit up in a savage light. And yet, she got nothing from the clansman. Not a single image. He was the cause of her blindness.
Ymir smirked. “I don’t think that’s very polite, casting spells on me while I sit here. But what do I know? I’m a simple barbarian from the north and hardly civilized.”
The Princept’s Focus ring faded. “You are hardly simple, Ymir. You won’t give me a thing, will you?”
He pointed at her right hand. “You used to have a mark there. It was the Lover’s Knot. You couldn’t help how things worked out with Haylee, so I wouldn’t blame yourself. As for the book you set down? I’ve never seen it. I do have to study for the Fourth Exam tomorrow. I’m still learning how to wield my power through my Focus ring. It hasn’t been as easy as I thought.”
Della laughed, and it was genuine, and it felt good. “So I have you to thank for breaking the spell?”
He shrugged. “We all have our secrets, Princept. I lived most of my life on the Ax Tundra speaking my mind, doing what was right, with my battle brothers, my woman, and my family. I didn’t need to lie, or cheat, though I did sometimes steal. I lived, loved, and laughed out in the open. Here? Here things are different. But would you like to know something?”
Della found herself nodding, interested.
“Part of me likes it...the intrigue.” His smile was wistful. “I never thought I would be so adept at it.”
“You don’t miss home?” she asked.
He paused, and his eyes went far away. “June on the Ax Tundra, and winter has finally pulled her claws from the land. There is water, so much water, and it brings the insects, life, food for the animals. The hunting is good, the days warm, and there is always light, or most of the time anyway. There are feasts, and games, and laughter. We have lived through another winter. Ilhelda’s hair is gold in the light. She smiles, and I smell her, and she smells of campfires, and summer flowers, and her own sweet self. At night I sit with my family and listen to Grandfather Bear and Grandmother Rabbit tell stories. Ilhelda and I leave to watch the sun fall to the horizon. The stars are almost visible as the lights dance across the sky.”
Della felt a twitch of terror and suppressed it with a shudder. These weren’t just memories. He’d lived this moment, and recently, but there was no way an imprudens should have been able to steer the Flow so precisely.
His gaze fell on her. “My home is gone forever. My family is gone. Ilhelda would cut my throat if she could because I’ve been poisoned by magic. Miss home? It’s nothing so prosaic as that. I feel like I’ve lost an arm. Or had my heart cut from my chest. My soul feels crippled, Princept. My very soul.” Another bittersweet smile curved his lips. “And yet, I’ve found a home here, a troubled home, and I have a family, and I don’t just have one lover, but three.”
“You don’t mean Toriah Welldeep from the kitchen,” Della said, burying the unease she now felt around him, at what her unwashed little barbarian was becoming. “The Morbuskor don’t mix with other races lightly. Then again, Toriah is a beardless dwab.”
Ymir shrugged. “I don’t need to tell you who I fuck.”
“You don’t.” The Princept inhaled and regained her self-control. Heaven knew, when she masturbated that night, she’d think of nothing else. Having a lover, even for a single night, had been so much more satisfying than her own fingers. However, the aftermath wasn’t worth those moments of pleasure. She’d buy a new glass phallus and that would be fun for a while. And she had her very active imagination, as well as her memories.
“So,” Della said, “in this family, who am I? The mother? A cold aunt? Don’t you dare call me the kindly grandmother.”
Ymir smiled at her, and it was warm, friendly, and showed some genuine affection. “I don’t believe you are any of those things. Perhaps the strong but austere older sister, always watching for some impropriety, but also always there to fix things. You aren’t afraid to punish us, but you will feed us in the end, for we are your troublesome brothers and sisters.”
“Did you kill Haylee Heenn?” Della asked.
His smile didn’t dim. “Ask me no questions. I will tell you no lies. After my first adventures here at Old Ironbound, you threatened to kill me if I delved into forbidden magic. I’m still alive, and my soul isn’t tainted. After this latest trouble, let’s let this year end with us as friends.”
“We can’t be friends,” the Princept said. “I’m not your older sister. I’m not your mother. I’m your Princept. And while I care about you and your studies, I care about this school more. I had a lapse in judgement this semester. As you have said, I was ensorcelled. Next year, if you return for your second year, my head will be clear, and I will unravel the magic that hides you. I’ll take a closer look at the Obanathy cantrips that I foolishly allowed you to study. I find it interesting that they are near the Scrolls of Octovato. It was a mistake to put them in the Scrollery. I’ve had them and the Obanathy spells moved to the Illuminates Spire.”
Ymir shrugged. “I enjoyed Octovato’s four vo
lume set on mathematics.”
She showed her displeasure. “I will be putting a ward on all the entrances to my chambers. You won’t be able to sneak up there again.”
Another shrug. “I’m sure you’ll be very safe. And I will be returning next year. Also, I have the rest of my tuition. I’ll keep my sea cell, though I don’t sleep there much anymore.”
Della stood. She wouldn’t get much more from him. She did want to leave with one last barb. “No, but your sea cell is a good place for you to store supplies for your xocalati business. I must warn you that if you make enough money, the Undergem Guild will send their agents to make sure you become a member.”
“I worry more about the Midnight Guild than the Undergem Guild,” Ymir said. “The merchants only want my money. This other guild wants my life. You wouldn’t happen to know much about such a secret organization, would you?”
“It’s rumor,” Della said. She wasn’t about to admit anything to the clansman. “What’s not rumor? There are fairies who make their competitors disappear. Fairies aren’t to be trusted, especially when money is concerned.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Ymir’s eyes, though, said he didn’t believe her. “We’ll have more of these conversations over the summer, I’m sure. Me, Jenny, and Lillee are staying.”
“Perhaps.” Princept touched his shoulder. She bent and whispered into his ear, “The Flow suite is expensive. Jennybelle will lose all of her money. I don’t think you can sell enough xocalati to keep the suite and pay for everyone. I think you three will be cleaning toilets and living in the sea alley next year.”
She laughed a little. He smelled good, and he was warm. She and Ymir would never sleep together, but she could fantasize all she wanted. Then again, she’d thought the same about Haylee, and her faith in herself was shaken.
He laughed as well. “I like your whispers far more than your threats.”
“If you only knew how much of a threat I am.” She walked off, feeling better than she had when her evening began.