But the glow in Isra’s eye faltered. She shuddered, and the force clutching Ebon vanished all at once. He came crashing to the ground as Isra sank to one knee.
At once she fumbled in her robes, reaching for something in one of her pockets. “I am so close now,” she muttered. “You will not stop me. You cannot stop me.”
For a moment Ebon was stunned, too surprised to act. But he recovered just in time, just as she pulled forth a brown cloth packet. He leapt as she pulled a black, translucent stone from within it, and bore her to the ground. The cloth packet spilled from her grip, and the stones scattered on the floor.
Isra scrabbled for them, fighting him with the strength of a madwoman. But her limbs were thin and wasted, and Ebon forced her hands away. One of his hands went to cover her eyes, so that she could not use her magic against him. The other went to her throat. Almost unbidden, he felt his power flow into him, and the tower grew brighter as his eyes began to glow.
He
saw
her. All the tiny parts of her that made up her skin, and the flesh beneath, and the blood that flowed through it all.
Almost, he changed it. Almost, he turned it to stone. But he froze at the last second.
He saw Cyrus plunging into the Great Bay. And he heard Matami’s screams in the sewers beneath the city.
She will kill you,
he thought. He remembered Lilith pitching over the tower’s edge, and his jaw clenched.
He
changed—
A glow flooded Isra’s eyes, and she flung him off with desperate strength. He flew back, landing flat on his back on the stone, and all his breath left him. Even as he gasped, he saw Isra scoop one of the black stones off the floor and shove it between her lips. Her whole body spasmed, back arching and then curling in on itself. She screamed, but the scream turned into a laugh, terrible and long and cruel. The black glow returned to her eyes, and she rose to her feet on the strength of her magic alone. Once more her teeth showed in a skull’s smile.
“Now die, you Drayden shit,” she growled.
Ebon flinched—and then flames erupted all over her body, and she fell to the ground, screaming.
He looked past her. And there, beyond all hope, was Xain. The Dean stood at the head of the stairs, and a mighty glow was in his eyes. His teeth were bared in a grimace just as terrible as Isra’s, and he screamed dark words as the flames leapt higher on Isra’s skin.
But Isra had the strength of magestones, and she recovered herself before he could press the advantage. She snarled, and the flames upon her skin winked out in an instant. Still smoking and smoldering, she turned and battered him with spells. Xain tried to fend them off, but she overpowered him and he fell back, landing hard on the stone floor. Still he raised a hand, warding off a blow that might have crushed his head to a pulp.
Somehow Ebon found the strength to rise. He tackled Isra from behind, and again he covered her eyes with his hand. Crying out, he tried to press harder, digging into her eyelids. But her fingers gripped his, and with terrible strength she began to pry his grip from her.
“Ebon! Get away from her!” cried a voice.
His gaze was dragged up, where he saw Lilith kneeling at the tower’s edge. Fury was in her eyes, and her lips spasmed in anger.
He rolled off and away. Almost before he was clear, Lilith sent forth a bolt of lightning. It flew straight and true, and struck Isra straight in the eyes.
Isra screamed, a scream so terrible that Ebon feared his eardrums might burst, and her head struck the stone as she flew back. She thrashed back and forth, clawing at her eyes, but between her fingers Ebon could see the damage: beneath her brow was a ruined pulp, a mix of burned and melted flesh and flowing blood.
Lilith stepped forwards, lifting her hands again. Her screams matched Isra’s own, as full of fury as the mindmage’s were of pain. Flames sprang to life on Isra’s body again, white-hot, so that Ebon had to shield his face from them. He scrambled away from the roasting fires, and the sudden sounds of melting, popping, sizzling flesh. Lilith did not relent. The flames grew in strength, rising higher and higher. Even when Isra stopped moving at last, Lilith kept the fires blazing, kept screaming, tears streaming from her glowing eyes as the corpse turned to slag upon the floor.
forty
THE TOWER FADED TO SILENCE. The only sounds were the crackling of the flames on Isra’s remains, and Lilith’s ragged, heavy breathing. Her hands began to shake. She looked at them, fear dawning in her eyes. Quickly she shoved them into her sleeves, and huddled her arms against herself as if for warmth—and indeed, now that the terror had begun to leach away, Ebon was again aware of how cold the air was. Outside the tower, a light snow had begun to fall, and it skittered in little eddies around the belfry.
Behind Lilith there came a groan, and Xain struggled groggily to his feet. Ebon’s heart skipped a beat as the Dean straightened and looked at him. When Xain walked towards him, Ebon fought to crawl away—but Xain only reached down a hand to help him up. Ebon stared at it a moment before reaching up to take it. They clasped wrists, and in a moment Ebon was on his feet.
“Are you all right?” said Xain gruffly.
Ebon tried to speak, but did not know what to say. In the end he shook his head.
Xain snorted. “Fairly said.”
Lilith was now shaking where she stood. Ebon stepped past Xain and went to her. Just before he reached her, her knees gave way—and to his surprise, she clutched his shoulders and held him in a sort of embrace. His hands hovered in the air, unsure of what to do, before he finally placed them gingerly on her back. It lasted only a moment, and then she stepped back, refusing to meet his eyes. But she left a hand on his arm, gripping him tight for support.
“She threw you from the tower,” said Ebon.
Lilith’s brow furrowed. She pointed to the edge over which she had been thrown, and together they went to it. Just below the edge, Ebon saw one of the great hanging banners with the Academy’s sigil upon it.
“I caught hold of the banner,” said Lilith. “If I had not, I would be dead.”
They turned to see Xain staring at both of them. Ebon could read nothing in his expression.
“You found her in the vaults,” said the Dean. There was no question in his voice. “How?”
Ebon shook his head. “Ever since we saw her in the kitchens, my friends and I have been searching for her—and my family as well. Even when the corpse was found. But our best efforts turned up nothing, and we thought she must not be on the Seat. It was only tonight I realized that the vaults were the one place on the island she could hide where no one would find so much as a trace of her.”
But thought of the vaults reminded him of Astrea. His eyes went wide. “In the vaults, hiding with her, we found—”
Xain raised a hand to stop him. “Astrea. She is in the healing ward now, and under Jia’s care. Erin is with them.”
His voice grew thick at that, and he blinked hard as he looked away.
“Kalem found me almost at once, for I had been roused by the sound of your flight,” he went on after a moment. “Then I followed the trail of destruction here, to the belfry.”
His eyes fell upon Isra’s corpse—or what remained of it. Ebon did not even wish to look at the body, it was so twisted by the flames. Xain recoiled, though Ebon saw it was not from the sight of melted flesh. He had focused instead on the black stones scattered upon the ground.
“The magestones,” he said. “Gather them.”
Ebon glanced at Lilith. She nodded and released his arm. Ebon went to do as he was bid, scooping the magestones up into the brown cloth packet from which they had fallen. Some had been caught in the flames that had consumed Isra, but Ebon saw that they had not been burned.
“Destroy them,” said Xain, once Ebon had gathered them all up.
Ebon raised them before his eyes. “Should I … should I crush them?”
Xain shook his head at once. “No. Not here. Not where we can … not here.”
“Shall I throw them from the tower, then?”
“No,
you fool,” snapped Xain. “Some student will find them, and go mad, or worse, someone
else
will find them, and then all the Academy will be purged as abominations.”
Annoyed now, Ebon thrust the packet forwards. “Fine, then. Destroy them yourself.”
Xain recoiled as though Ebon had thrown an adder in his face. “No! Get them away from me. Fire. Only fire will do it.”
Ebon pointed to Isra’s corpse. “They were caught already in the flames. It did not harm them.”
“Not magical fire,” said Xain. “True fire.”
The belfry’s torches were all cold. Ebon thought for a moment, and then with a flash of realization, he reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around Halab’s firestriker. With a few quick squeezes, he cast a flurry of sparks upon the brown cloth packet. It caught like parchment, blazing with surprising heat and forcing him to step back—but the flames were dark and twisted, and seemed to reach for him.
Xain quivered, his whole body shaking as a long and ragged breath slipped from him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and Ebon thought he saw the Dean sniff. When his eyes opened again, they were clear, and fixed upon Ebon’s.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Now, the two of you should come with me. We must fetch your friend Theren from prison, where she should never have been in the first place.”
Ebon’s heart thundered in his chest. “We are pardoned, then? I thought you might not, for we held the amulet in secret.”
Xain fixed him with a look. “Because you knew you would need it against Isra,” he said quietly. “And because you knew she held my son. Words will be had—with the King’s law, as well as between us. You are not free from all penalty, Drayden. But I will not let the mindmage girl suffer any longer, when she only tried to save my own blood. Come.”
Lilith took Ebon’s arm again, and he felt her hands trembling. He helped her make her shaky way down the bell tower steps after Xain.
forty-one
XAIN [22]
The rest of that night passed like some nightmare, a memory in reverse of when Ebon had gone with Theren to fetch Lilith from the hands of the Mystics. Only this time Theren had not suffered so greatly, for she had not suffered under mindwyrd, as Lilith had.
They all returned to the Academy, and there Lilith helped Theren to bed. But Xain took Ebon aside, and brought him to his office, and demanded to know everything.
For the first time, Ebon spoke freely of Isra. He told Xain what had happened in the Dean’s home, and how Erin had been stolen away in the first place. He told Xain of how Theren had used the amulet of Kekhit upon Dasko, and repeated the tale of how they had seen Isra in the kitchens, and now Xain believed him. He said nothing of Mako, of course, nor his uncle Matami, nor anything to do with the family, for some secrets were not his to tell. Neither did he mention Adara, but when he came to that portion of the tale, he only spoke of going into hiding somewhere in the city. Though Xain’s eyes flashed with interest, he held his peace. And at last Ebon told him how he guessed where Isra must be hiding, and came to find her.
When he had finished, Xain stared into the candle on his desk for a long while. In the end, he said only, “I see.”
Ebon’s brows raised. He tried to hold his tongue, but as another silence stretched, he felt compelled to speak. “Is that all?”
Xain’s mouth worked, as though he were chewing upon his own thoughts. “I understand what you have done, Drayden. I even understand why you did it, and your motives were nowhere near so dark as I thought. Yet you have committed crimes—crimes that can carry with them grave punishments.”
Ebon tried to hold his head high, but he could feel himself shaking, and knew Xain must see it. “Will those punishments be meted out?”
Xain shook his head, and Ebon’s heart leapt—but when the Dean spoke, his hopes were dashed. “I cannot say. At least not now. This is a matter for the morning.”
He stood, and bid Ebon to return to his dormitory and to sleep. Ebon obeyed—or tried to. He lay awake for hours before giving up and going to the common room, where he stared at the flames until morning light showed through the windows. The moment they did, he rose and traversed the Academy’s halls, making for the western wards.
Jia sat in a chair outside the door to the healing ward when he arrived. She sagged in her seat, her head drooping, but the moment she spotted him coming she straightened, and stood as he approached.
“Ebon,” she said, nodding stiffly. “I am glad to see you well.”
He stopped before her, lifting his chin and giving her a formal half-bow. “And you, Instructor. I much prefer our meetings when you are not trying to throw me before the King’s law.”
Jia’s nostrils flared. “I prefer it when you and your friends are not holding a member of the faculty under mindwyrd.”
His face fell, and his mouth worked for a moment as he fought for words to say. In the end, the only thing he could muster was a strangled “I spoke only in jest.”
She softened, but only a little. “I know why you did it, Ebon. But sky above … what were you thinking? How could you be so foolish? Do you have any idea what it did to Dasko?”
Tears sprang into his eyes as he turned from her. “I do,” he said. “I wish I had not … that I had not asked Theren to …” He stopped before his voice broke.
Jia let the silence rest for a moment. “We can reflect on what we might have done,” she said at last. “But that is of limited use. Look to your future instead. You must be better from here on. If you are truly sorry, then you must never be so foolish again. And you must do what you can, now, to make it right.”
He swiped his sleeve against his eyes. “I will, Instructor,” he whispered. “I promise.”
She waited until he met her gaze, and he saw that her eyes shone as well. “I believe you.”
Then the door to the healing ward opened, and by unspoken agreement they looked away from each other. A plump older woman stepped out into the hallway, and fixed Ebon with a look.
“You’re the transmutation student, I imagine?” she said, frowning.