Shadow & Flame

by Mindee Arnett

  Slowly, carefully, Corwin shifted his sword to his left hand and reached for the knife at his belt with his right. Across from him, he heard the soldiers groan, still fighting to save themselves and their friends. He had to trust they would hold Gavril’s will at bay long enough for Corwin to see this through.

  “Rendborne isn’t here to save you this time,” Corwin said, judging the distance carefully, willing his heartbeat to slow. He drew a breath and held it.

  “The Lord Ascender is everywhere at once. He is—”

  Corwin raised his hand and launched the knife at Gavril’s chest. The man’s mouth fell open, but he was too stunned to react in time. The knife struck just as Corwin intended—shattering the crystal vial around the man’s neck. Crimson spilled down Gavril’s front.

  Kate’s blood. Corwin knew it instinctively, remembering how she’d been so drained when they first escaped Norgard so many weeks ago.

  Terror spread over Gavril’s face as he realized what had happened, that he was no longer a wilder with the gift of sway—but an ordinary man. A soft one at that, slow and untrained in the art of war.

  At once, the soldiers lowered their swords from one another, and before Corwin could even take a step toward Gavril, the soldiers rushed him, surrounding the former wilder, blades up and eyes open.

  Gavril lay dead a moment later, beheaded by the last men he’d victimized. A dark pleasure surged through Corwin, but he didn’t dwell on it. He refused to let his hatred for Gavril turn him into a monster that celebrated the death of another—no matter how much it was deserved. But Gavril was truly dead this time, and nothing would ever bring him back.

  Vowing to forget the man forever, Corwin returned to Dal. Although the urgency to find Kate was blaring inside him, he took the time to drag Dal’s body toward the wall, away from the harm of the battle. It was a small thing, but the most he could do for his fallen friend.

  Then with tears still burning his eyes, he turned toward the uror horse, which hadn’t yet left his side. He quickly mounted and said, “We need to find Kate.”

  Again, as if the horse understood, it surged forward, darting through the gate, past the few soldiers remaining there and into the city. They raced down the familiar streets to Mirror Castle. As they rode through the opened gates into the bailey, a loud explosion rent the air. The horse shied at the noise and slowly came to a stop in the center of the courtyard. The explosion had come from somewhere ahead.

  Oh gods, Kate!

  Corwin urged the uror horse forward, and it raced up the steps into the castle itself, the doors once again left opened and unguarded. Corwin slid from the horse’s back and patted its shoulder.

  “You need to get away from here, my friend.” He didn’t want to know what would happen to it if Kate succeeded in killing Rendborne with the Hellsteel. And if she failed, Corwin would do everything in his power to finish the job.

  This time the horse ignored him, standing with all four feet planted and its gaze fixed unerringly toward the throne room ahead.

  With an ache squeezing his heart, Corwin turned away from the horse and headed through the entryway and up the stairs into the throne room. Signs of the blast he’d heard were everywhere, the columns charred and some of the plaster crumbling. Half a dozen Sevan soldiers lay scattered across the floor, their bodies bent at odd angles and their armor charred as well. One of Signe’s explosive devices did this. Lifting his gaze, Corwin spotted movement ahead.

  A few feet in front of the Mirror Throne, which had somehow come through the explosion undamaged, Kate stood across from Rendborne, the trident in her hand. Freed from its disguise, the Hellsteel glowed red. Fear shone in Rendborne’s eyes as he held his hands toward Kate, his palms aglow with magic. But Corwin knew the Hellsteel would deflect anything he threw at Kate, and if he’d been armed before, he wasn’t now.

  “You will never defeat me,” Rendborne said, taunting her despite his fear. “You will meet the same end as your father.”

  “You’re thinking of the wrong death,” Kate taunted back. “I will kill you same as I killed Vikas.”

  With his heart climbing his throat, Corwin rushed toward them, his sword at the ready. The very tip of it still glowed with magist enchantment, enough to withstand a single attack. At the sound of his pounding steps, both Kate and Rendborne glanced his way.

  Too late, Corwin realized his mistake. In the half second of surprise that had come over Kate at his appearance, Rendborne lunged at her. He yanked the Hellsteel out of her hands, swung in a quick arc—then plunged the three prongs straight into Kate’s throat, sinking them all the way through to the other side.

  “Kate!!!”

  Every part of Corwin screamed out in agony as he watched her fall, same as Dal had fallen. Blood and magic spilled out of her with the Hellsteel still buried deep in her neck, and a black, living shadow rose up from her body as the life left it.

  Rendborne turned his eyes onto Corwin now, his gaze triumphant. Although he made no move to retrieve the Hellsteel, no trace of fear showed on his face as the black smoke swept over him . . . and dissipated, with no perceptible effect. Somehow, he’d made himself impervious to the Ruin.

  But he is still a man, still vulnerable to steel.

  Corwin raced forward, sword clutched in both hands. Idly, Rendborne threw a bolt spell at him. Corwin caught it with his blade, deflecting it. It ricocheted up toward the ceiling, and a large chunk of stone crashed to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust.

  Still Corwin pressed on, reaching Rendborne just as he unleashed another spell. This one struck him in the shoulder and knocked him off-balance. He spun, just catching himself, then came at Rendborne again.

  Rendborne launched a jet of wind at Corwin, the blow sending him backward several feet. He slammed against the ground, starbursts crossing his vision as his lungs seized, robbed of breath and unable to draw another.

  Rendborne approached, peering down at Corwin with a broad smile on his face. “Welcome, Corwin, the very last of the Tormanes. May you be forgotten as I was once forgotten. Once, but no more.”

  With that, Rendborne reached into his pocket and withdrew a crude shiv, a single piece of Hellsteel sharpened enough to stab. Then slowly, suredly, he raised the raw red metal over his head, the tip pointed down toward Corwin, who lay there unable to stop the coming blow.

  32

  Kate

  THIS WAS WHAT IT MEANT to die.

  Passing from one world into another, like stepping through a veil. Kate felt her passing this time, the way her soul slid from its body and into something else, a not-body in a not-place.

  One she’d visited once before.

  Broad, white leaves surrounded her on all sides, bits of black nothingness in between them. Beneath her feet, the limb of that vast, ageless tree held her easily. A light ahead drew her forward. She moved toward it slowly, savoring the weightless feel in her new body, one that seemed to be made of light and air and nothing more. If she wanted, she could float up among the boughs, drifting through the leaves like so many clouds.

  But she didn’t want it. Not with that light ahead, calling out to her. Singing to her in a voice only she could hear, a song that strummed the cords of her soul until she felt herself singing in return.

  Soon she reached the glimmering pool residing in the conflux of leaves. This time, Kate didn’t hesitate at the pool’s edge. She stepped off it into the light, her heart soaring with no trace of fear. No knowledge of fear anywhere.

  The light consumed her. She felt herself being unmade, but it wasn’t an undoing; it was a mergence, her soul becoming a part of the light, until she no longer had a sense of self at all, only the expanse of that brightness forever reaching and unending.

  An eternity passed.

  And then another.

  Then finally the pain of her making started again. She felt herself pulled from the light as a baby is pulled from the womb, forced from one world into another. But it wasn’t pain as she once knew it—of n
erves firing warnings to her brain. This was pain in its primal form: separation from the whole.

  Kate felt her new body that was at once her old body, limbs that had belonged to her long ago. She stretched out with them, remembering. She could feel the tug of every bit of sinew, the rush of blood down every vein. Slowly, she became aware of the darkness around her, a void of nothingness. Not the absence of light but true dark itself, a separate, complete thing. She was alone in it, but not afraid. There was nothing to fear here, only to regret and mourn.

  The dark lessened, and light slowly took on form, resolving into the shape of a single candle standing on the ground in front of Kate, its flame dancing in an unknown wind. She saw that she was sitting, legs crossed beneath her and nothing but the void all around.

  Then the darkness across from her resolved into shadows. They parted, like dark leaves, and a figure stepped through them. She looked like a human woman on the surface, but beneath she was something else, something more. Her appearance kept shifting, the way light plays on water. At one moment her skin was as white as ivory, at the next as dark as onyx, and before long every other color in between.

  The only thing that didn’t shift in her appearance was her eyes. These glowed like an animal’s at night, steady as stars in the sky. Smiling, the woman sat down across from Kate, the candle flickering between them.

  “Who are you?” Kate asked, finding her voice at last. It had been so long since she’d heard it she barely recognized it as her own.

  “I am you,” the woman replied. “And I am no one and everyone.”

  Kate blinked. “What do you want from me?”

  “To give you a choice.” The woman raised her hand, and a slit of brightness appeared to Kate’s right. It spread, opening like a tear in a piece of fabric. Through the opening she saw a strange place, a massive room with marbled columns crumbling and charred and a throne made of mirrors. She was seeing it as if from the heavens, looking down at two men, one standing over the other, who lay helpless on the floor. Vaguely, she recognized them both.

  She turned back to the woman. “A choice to do what?”

  In answer, the woman raised her other hand and another hole in the darkness appeared. Through this one Kate saw only light. It was that place she’d been before, the one of completeness and a peace that was like an unending dream full of every bright memory and hope and yearning, all fulfilled.

  Kate turned back to the woman. “This is no choice at all.”

  “Isn’t it?” The woman cocked her head, her long hair rippling from black to white to black again.

  Kate returned her gaze to the throne room, seeing the two men once more. This time she focused on the face of the man lying on the floor. An ache spread through her chest as she realized it was Corwin. Memories flooded her, and she gasped at the strength of them. For the first time since entering these other worlds she remembered who she was.

  She faced the woman once more. “If I go back, will I be able to save him?”

  The woman didn’t answer, only stared at Kate, the whisper of a smile on her ever-shifting features.

  Kate turned and looked at the light, and the sight of it made her heart ache with yearning. Facing the woman once more, she said, “If Corwin dies, will he join me there?” She motioned to the light.

  Again, the woman didn’t answer, but Kate knew she could. This woman knew everything, was everything—and yet she was only a part of something greater, something vast and unknowable, other faces and names and beings lingering beyond the void.

  Kate closed her eyes, forcing such contemplations away before she was overcome by them. More questions flooded her mind, doubt rising up in her like a tide. There was so much unknown waiting for her through that side of the veil—whether or not she would survive the fight with Rendborne. Suppose Corwin died and she did not; what then? What if they both lived but the love between them continued to wither and die? What if she was left with this gaping hole inside her, an endless yearning that could never be fulfilled? What if she failed at everything she set out to do? What if—

  She stopped the questions before another could surface in her mind. There were no answers to them here.

  It didn’t matter. What did was the things she did know: That there were other people besides Corwin facing danger and death at this very moment. There were people who would suffer if Rendborne succeeded, who would carry on in misery and oppression.

  But she could end it.

  “You are the only one who can,” the woman said, as if hearing her thoughts. “You must ask yourself: What are you willing to lose?”

  The truth rose like the sun in Kate’s mind. I would lose it all. To save them. A great heat filled her heart as a light began to burn from inside her, seeping through the brand on her chest until the scarred skin shone like a star.

  Seeing it, the woman’s smile widened. She stood and held out her hand. Kate took it, and for a moment she felt that completeness again, that peace like a dream. Then the woman guided her to the awaiting portal, where she could see her own body lying in a halo of blood. The uror horse was there, standing at the doorway, watching these events unfold. She could sense its pain, the wound in its soul, one placed there long ago. This too needed to be corrected, an end made.

  And a beginning.

  Letting go of the woman’s hand, Kate stepped toward the portal. Just before she did, it transformed into a pool of light. Then she was falling through it and rising up again.

  But not as Kate Brighton.

  As the Paragon.

  33

  Corwin

  IN THE NEXT MOMENT, there was light. Only light.

  It was so bright, Corwin felt the strength of it sear his vision. But it passed as quickly as it had come, and he blinked the blurriness out of his eyes, realizing belatedly that Rendborne was no longer standing over him—that he hadn’t delivered the killing blow Corwin had been certain was coming, helpless to stop it.

  But he wasn’t helpless anymore. He scrambled to his feet in time to see Rendborne slowly standing up as well, as if he’d been knocked over by the force of the light. But that was impossible. There’s been no explosion, no wind, no force at all. And yet—

  Something pulled Corwin around, like an invisible hand on his shoulder. Kate stood before him. Alive and whole—the wounds on her neck nothing but white scars, as if they’d healed so long ago they were already fading. There was no trace of the trident anywhere. She was the source of the light. It shone over her left breast, through the hole it had burned in her armor. It shone through her—originating from the Paragon brand over her heart. Somehow, the ritual had worked.

  Corwin knew it without asking, could see it in the way her whole body seemed to glow, her face luminescent, dark eyes sparkling like crystal in the sun. Only the longer he stared at her, the less she looked like herself and the more like someone else. A woman with ever-shifting features, her face and hair first black, then white, then black again. It was like the way the light plays on water, at once casting shadows and banishing them in turn. And he understood that this wasn’t his Kate any longer, but the Paragon—the vessel for the goddess. His heart ached at the truth, and he felt the pain of her death all over again. There seemed no room for her inside such a being.

  The Paragon strode toward Rendborne, her courage unflinching, each step as certain as if she’d seen these events already and knew how they would come to pass. Corwin pulled his gaze away from her and onto Rendborne. He still held the Hellsteel shiv in one hand. In the other he held magic, a spell ready to launch at her. The shock had fled from his face, his expression hard and determined, but with fear lingering in his eyes.

  He didn’t yet understand that it wasn’t Kate standing across from him now.

  Pulling back his hand, Rendborne launched the magic at the Paragon. She didn’t move to block it, simply walked forward, letting it strike her in the chest, where it dissolved in an instant, swallowed by her light. With his face contorted in anger, Rendborne tri
ed again. He hurled fire this time, and although the heat of it made Corwin shrink away, the Paragon didn’t react at all. Once more it struck her, and once more the light swallowed it.

  With a scream of frustration, Rendborne raised the Hellsteel shiv this time, both his palms aglow with magic. Corwin sensed what he was about to do and hurled himself forward, trying to block the throw—the Hellsteel was a godslayer, and even though there was no sign of Kate, only the Paragon, her body was still the vessel.

  He almost made it, but the Hellsteel soared past him at the last second, driven forward with an unnatural speed by Rendborne’s magic. It traveled so fast, no one could’ve stopped it. With a cry rising in his throat, Corwin turned to the Paragon, certain to find Kate fallen once more. Instead, she’d come to a stop, one hand clutching the Hellsteel shiv, its deadly tip inches from her unprotected face. She lowered the weapon, and with her other hand, cupped the red steel. It melted beneath her touch, dissolving into dust.

  “That’s impossible!” Rendborne screamed. “What are you?”

  The Paragon spoke, the voice still Kate’s and yet so much more—as if it were a thousand voices melded into one. “I’ve come for you, Gershwen Tormane. To restore the life you have stolen.”

  Gershwen Tormane. My great-great-granduncle, Corwin thought, shock ripping through him. Gershwen was his true name. Son of Rowan and brother of Morwen. The Nameless One no more.

  At the Paragon’s words, Rendborne paled. For a second, Corwin thought he might collapse, but then Rendborne spun and fled. At once, Corwin launched after him, overtaking the older man in just a few strides. He tackled him, and they both tumbled to the ground, skidding through the rubble.