03 - Sworn (51 page)

I couldn’t harm him with magic at that distance, but that didn’t make me useless.

I slowed my breath, strung my bow, pulled an arrow from my quiver, and took aim.

One deep breath to shut out the clamor around me.

Another to steady my tired arms and ground my body.

My magic swirled through me. It would not direct the arrow, but I trusted it to sharpen me, to help my mind and muscles remember the skills I’d already learned.

I released the arrow, and the man in black fell.

I waited for the fear and horror, but they didn’t come. Magic had aided me in killing, and the world hadn’t crumbled.

“At least that’s a step in the right direction,” I told myself, and turned to look for more observers in the trees.

If there had been more, they were gone. Hardly any time seemed to have passed since I first spotted the intruders, but the fighting was done. Bodies littered the ground, though in the dim sunrise light it was hard to tell how many were ours. Someone had opened the paddock—an enemy, presumably— and most of the horses were gone. I climbed down from the stump and headed toward the outer ring of tents to see whether I could help.

Aren’s cousin Morea stood over the body of one of Severn’s men. Half of his face had melted off, exposing the white globe of an eye that stared blankly into the sky.

“Did you do that?” I asked, speaking softly.

She turned to me. “We Potioners have our weapons, too. It’s not all healing and tea parties.”

“No, of course,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

She laughed, and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge. I suppose the real work begins now. Please excuse me.” She headed back to her tent, presumably to collect her healing supplies.

I moved slowly through the crowd, glad to see that most of our people seemed to have come through unscathed, if rather shaken. I stopped beside a smaller form. The bear Sorceress lay naked on the ground, a knife protruding from her throat.

In the shock of seeing her, in the aftermath of the high emotions of the fight, I didn’t feel an urge to cry. Just an overwhelming sense of regret and loss, an emptiness that left me dry-eyed. She’d been a stranger to me, but an ally to our cause, and a brave one. I removed my jacket and covered her as well as I could with it, and drew the long knife from her body.

I dropped it next to the man who lay beside her with his stomach clawed out.

A hand rested on my shoulder, and I jumped.

“Sorry,” Aren said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You all right?”

“Better than her.” I looked up into his eyes. They were filled with concern, and with sadness when he looked down at the body. “I um…” The tears suddenly threatened, but I held them back. “I didn’t know you… that people like you turned back into humans when they died.”

He swallowed hard. “We do. I suppose it’s a mercy, if a terrible one.” He reached out as though he wanted to brush my hair back from my face, but hesitated. His hand fell back to his side. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

“Least I could do.” I wanted to say more, to tell him how I hated all of this and how glad I was that it wasn’t him lying at my feet, and how horrid that thought made me feel. That the gulf between us that was so much more than physical distance was killing me. But I said nothing. No good would come of it.

“How many losses?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Not too many on our side. I’ve seen perhaps a dozen of theirs.”

I remembered the watcher. “Think any are headed back to the city to report? That’s what they came for, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. And I hope none escaped.” He reached up to rub the back of his neck. “I should find my father and grandfather. What will you do?”

“Help where I can, I suppose,” I said. “Maybe find Florizel and round up the herd.”

“Be careful,” he said. I sensed there was more that he wanted to say, but I knew he wouldn’t. No matter what was still between us, we had started on different paths. Looking back only made it hurt more.

I spotted a flash of cream-coloured feathers and ran to ask Florizel for help with the horses.

If Aren did choose to speak, I wasn’t sure I could take hearing what he had to say.

34

AREN

I
found my grandfather at the edge of camp, hard at work. He stood with his eyes closed and his hands raised, arms trembling and fingers hooked into claws by the strain in his muscles. His breath came in long, deep waves that lifted his shoulders, and with each inhalation the air grew heavier, weighed down by the magic he wove. I had never realized it was possible to call and control so much at once.

The invisible wall would solidify, built up in layers. I hoped we wouldn’t be there long enough for the camp to become as safe as Belleisle, but it would be far more than we’d hoped for before his arrival.

Though I moved almost silently, he heard me coming and glanced back. More footsteps, and my father appeared beside me. I braced myself for accusations, perhaps a fight.

“I should have stayed awake through the night working on it,” Albion said. His exhaustion came through in the gravelled tones of his voice. His shoulders slumped, and the magic faded. “I knew we weren’t safe yet, but I was so drained. I could have, though. I could have pushed it.” He sighed. “How many dead?”

“Perhaps half a dozen of ours. Twice that of Severn’s, if it’s any consolation.” The calm in my father’s voice surprised me, and I turned. His long, graying hair hung loose over his shoulders, tangled and wild. His eyes showed the strain of long nights and bearing the burden of deaths, but it didn’t appear he’d used his magic. He’d commanded. Others had acted. I wondered how that felt for a man like him.

“It’s not,” Albion replied. “But thank you.”

He didn’t ask whether the dead were his people or Xaven’s. Perhaps at that point it didn’t matter. We were one force, small though we may have been.

“It was a test,” Ulric said quietly as we walked away, leaving Albion to his incredible task.

“That’s what Rowan thought,” I said. Ulric nodded, but said nothing. “We passed, though.”

He grunted, displeased. “We defended ourselves, and didn’t lose many. But Severn gained information, didn’t he? If any of them got away, if they saw anything, Severn will know about our magical defenses and what skills we have available if we attack. And what have we gained?”

“Nothing. But thank the gods Rowan and Florizel were awake and spotted them.”

He let out a quick snort of a laugh and shook his head. “I thought I’d finally gone completely mad when I woke to that horse’s head popping into my tent and screaming, ‘Excuse me?’” He sobered immediately. “It is truly miraculous that we didn’t suffer heavier losses.”

“I didn’t note magic among Severn’s people.”

“No.” Ulric frowned. “No, he didn’t send his best. Not this time.”

Qurwin Black walked among the dead, half-carrying a wounded woman from Belleisle. A great wildcat, larger than any I’d ever seen, with a tawny coat, a long tail, and massive paws paced beside him, ears twitching and curved fangs bared.

The wildcat prowled closer to us, and a moment later Griselda stood there, fully dressed, though she’d dropped whatever weapons she’d carried before. I studied her clothes. Leather boots and pants, simply constructed. A plain brown shirt, unadorned save for laces holding it closed across the top of her chest. She rarely wore anything else, unless an occasion called for fancier dress. I’d assumed it was an issue of comfort and practicality, but wondered now if it was more of a necessity of her magic.

“Damn it, Maks.” She knelt beside a body, and I recognized one of her Sorcerer friends beneath the deep wound that had split his face. The other illusionist, in fact.

Griselda closed his remaining eye and stepped back.

“This is a terrible loss,” Ulric said quietly.

She squeezed her eyes closed. “We all knew the dangers when we agreed to come here. He was a good friend, though.” A tear slipped down her cheek as she looked back at the body. “I’ll miss him.”

Ulric nodded. “Aren, we’ll need to speak later. For now, do what you can to help them.”

A few people were already dragging the dead farther into the woods, outside of our circle of safety. There was no point trying to bury them in the thin soil of the forest, and we needed to get them far from camp before they started to rot or attract animals. I helped carry one and went back to assist with the others.

If we could spare a few people, I’d organize a crew to cover the bodies in stones to at least show respect and keep the animals off. If not—well, war was never pleasant business. I’d hoped I’d never see it myself, but we’d run out of options. We would have to move forward, or be trapped here.

Some time later, I watched as a pair of Xaven’s men deposited the last body and started back toward camp.

“You coming, sir?” one asked, and wiped his sleeve across his brow. He held his arm out and looked it over, surprised to see it covered in his own blood. He had no magic, and I couldn’t be bothered to shut out his thoughts, which raced and pulsed outward in the wake of the excitement. He’d been too busy taking care of the dead to notice his own wounds.

“Go on ahead, and get that arm looked at. Morea will give you something for the pain,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I want to pay my respects. ”

Surprise registered on his face, and in his surface thoughts. He hadn’t thought I cared. None of them did. But he was pleased. “Sure thing,” he said.

They left me alone with the pile of bodies. Birds twittered in the trees, and the sun shone down. Nothing in the wider world changed. We humans would go about our business, slaughtering each other, but it hardly mattered to anything else. I couldn’t decide whether that was comforting or terrifying.

“It’s a damned mess,” I told the bodies. With them all laid out as they were, wearing regular clothes rather than uniforms and few of them familiar faces, I couldn’t tell which had been our men and which were Severn’s.

Soon enough they’d be nothing but bones.

Stupid, senseless loss.

A deep, unsettling calm came over me as I looked at the corpses, and my magic moved. Ready. Excited. A chill passed over my skin.

It probably wouldn’t work. I hadn’t tried it in years. But the urge to try, to test the idea, was overwhelming.

Darkest magic
, whispered a voice I hadn’t thought of for weeks. Brother Phelun of the Dragonfreed Brothers, who had nearly convinced me to give up my greatest gifts. I’d decided he was at least half-wrong about the mind control. But this...

The body nearest to my feet twitched, a tremor that jerked his body up in the middle. His left arm, which had been resting across his chest, flopped onto the ground. Next to him, an older man’s fingers twitched like a spider’s legs, dancing in place as they drummed on his stomach. I focused on his wrinkled face, and blank eyes opened.

“No.” I stepped back. Bile rose in my throat. “Sleep now.” The eyes closed.

I turned and ran from the power I’d kept hidden for most of my life. My deepest secret.

Gods, but that was easy. A small thing, but so… natural.

I turned and threw up in the bushes as the image of dead, dancing fingers flashed through my mind.

T
HE EVENING AFTER THE ATTACK
, I made my way out to meet my father. I stuck to the woods, walking parallel with the road toward Luid. The camp was on high ground which sloped toward the city before I’d gone far. From the road I’d have had a good, if distant view of Luid, but on my current path it was all trees and tangled vines. The slope continued downward for a good distance, then leveled out again until it reached the next point of descent toward the great plain.

I found Ulric standing with his hands clasped behind his back at the edge of the road on the lip of the hill, keeping silent watch over the heart of what had once been his kingdom. The sight of the city filled me with dread, but he showed nothing but calm.

The plain, an empty stretch of wind-blown grass, stretched toward the handful of buildings outside the wall. From this distance the wall beyond was clearly visible, as was the shape of the massive iron gates, locked tight. I hoped Nox had made it through safely and found her way to the palace. Uneasy as the thought of her there made me, the alternative was far worse.

“Risky place to spend an evening,” I said, and Ulric turned.

“They already know where we are if they want us.”

I stood an arm’s length from him. “Do you think she got in?”

“No reports of her body hanging from the wall over the gate. That’s a good sign.”

“I suppose so.” Gods only knew what might be happening, though. I thought then that perhaps Ulric was right, and I shouldn’t have let her go. Too late now, though, and regret was as pointless as worry.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and handed me a rolled sheet of parchment. “Took a while to get here,” he said. “Came via rider, but he had a harder time finding us than Severn did.”

I unrolled the paper and my heartbeat quickened as I scanned the words, which ended with Cassia’s neat signature at the bottom.

Ulric held out his hand to take the paper back, but I read the words over again, more carefully this time. “The merfolk aren’t coming.”

He took the paper and rolled it before tucking it into his jacket. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but capable troops in the harbor would have been a great help.”

“At least we get to keep Kel.”

Ulric nodded. “He’s getting along well with Xaven’s men. Makes for a good bridge between them and us, especially when they see him and you together so much. You and I make them nervous, I think.”

I’d have laughed if I thought the understatement was a joke. Even the people who supported Ulric’s return treated him with deference and awe. He wasn’t one of them, and neither was I. Kel, on the other hand... Well, they’d tried to treat his heartbreak. No one would have dared offer me the same, had they known.

“I’m glad to have him here,” Ulric said. “And you. You’re doing well, Aren, now that you’re focusing on what’s important. Connecting us with Xaven’s people was a great help.”