The Office of Shadow (67 page)

She looked away from them to catch a glimpse of Silverdun and Hy
Pezho. Hy Pezho had Silverdun on the ground, kneeling over him, wrestling
the knife from Silverdun's grasp.

She screamed "Silverdun!" Oh, how she loved him. Despite all that was
going on around her, all she wanted was for him to be safe. She knew he could
never love her. It hurt, but it didn't change how she felt.

After all that Lord Tanen had done to her, after all that she had seen in
her time with the Shadows, she wondered whether she could ever be whole.
Lin Vo, in the time they'd spent alone together in the Arami's tent, had told
her that she was like a bird who'd lived all her life with clipped wings. She
was capable of flying higher and farther than other birds. She was capable of
seeing so deeply into the heart that if Lord Tanen had nourished her rather
than hobbled her, she might have ascended beyond what she was.

Sela had no idea what Lin Vo meant by "ascended," but it brought back
memories of childhood. Memories of a feeling of wholeness, of a knowledge
of things that now baffled her. It was something akin to what Ironfoot and
Faella were now discussing. Seeing beyond. Seeing through. When she was a
child she had known bliss.

And then Lord Tanen had come and taken that bliss away from her and
turned her into a monster. That word "ascended" also reminded her of the
thing in her that she'd showed to Lord Tanen and the crones, to the doctor at
Lord Everess's apartment, and to the Bel Zheret in Elenth.

She'd asked Lin Vo whether she could ever be whole again.

"No," Lin Vo had said sadly. "Not in this life. You will never know bliss.
But you may find a way to live."

She heard Silverdun grunt and Hy Pezho swear. She looked but couldn't
see them anymore.

Ironfoot and Faella had reached some sort of understanding. Something
flowed out of Faella, something that Sela could neither see nor comprehend,
and everything began to change. Pain leapt up at her from the floor, a hot
wind of re blowing up from beneath her.

Caught off guard, she lost the threads with Ironfoot and Faella, but it
didn't matter. Faella already had what she needed. She was in rapt concentration. All around her, the floor was turning dark, becoming iron.

Unfortunately, Faella and Ironfoot appeared to have forgotten that they
were now standing on it.

There was a violent crash, then a series of smaller concussions that reverberated in the chamber. Sela swayed and fell, scorching her palms on the
now-iron floor. A chunk of cobalt landed on the floor next to her and she leapt
onto it. Ironfoot was with her.

"Faella!" he shouted. "A little help for the rest of us!"

"Sorry!" said Faella. She waved backward toward them, and a disc of pure
silver flew from her palm and slipped beneath their feet. It rose up into the
air and the pain withdrew.

Sela looked up and gasped. One of the bound gods, Ein, was bound no
more. He was sitting up, stretching. He was impossibly large. Sitting up on
the platform, his fiery red hair nearly brushed the ceiling. He looked around
at the scene below him.

"What is this?" his voice boomed. So loud that Sela covered her ears.
"Awake, brothers and sisters!" he shouted, even louder. "Awake! Our bonds
are broken at last!"

"No!" shouted Faella. Sela could feel the re in the room swirl, faster and faster. Whatever Faella was doing, it was stirring the essence into a
frenzy.

Sela looked around. "Where's Silverdun?" she said.

"I don't know," said Ironfoot, holding on to her. "As soon as Faella's finished I'll go find him."

"It's working!" shouted Faella. I got to the bonds before the other gods
could move. They're still trapped!"

Ein looked over at her, his eyes glowing. "They might be, little Fae," he
shouted. "But I am not." Ein lifted his finger and gestured, and Faella flew
backward, halfway across the chamber, slamming into a wall that was now
made of pure iron. She screamed.

Silverdun was fading fast. A chunk of Ein's bindings, if that was what it had
been, had struck him in the forehead, hard enough to make his head spin. It
had given Hy Pezho the advantage he'd needed to pry Silverdun's knife out
of his hand. Now Hy Pezho had the knife and was trying to bring it down
across Silverdun's neck. Silverdun gripped Hy Pezho's wrist with all his
strength, but it wasn't enough.

Silverdun heard Ein's voice rattling in his ears, so loud he couldn't make
out the words. He heard Faella shriek in the distance. "Faella!" he shouted.
"I'm coming for you!" But there was nothing he could do for her. There was
little he could do for himself.

"You have no idea what I went through to survive," hissed Hy Pezho.
"You have no idea what I've sacrificed. Only to become Mab's errand boy. I
was to have been an emperor. Now I'm a lackey. And a happy lackey at that.
She has turned all of my ambition to love."

"I really couldn't care less about your problems," Silverdun managed. "To
be honest, I don't really know who you are. To me, you're just some evil bastard who likes to blow things up."

Hy Pezho made no response, but pushed the knife down farther.

Oh, well.

"You! "

Em's voice was so loud that Silverdun thought his eardrums would burst.
He looked straight up into Ein's bearded face, his enormous eyes glaring
down at him. But Fin wasn't speaking to him. He was speaking to Hy Pezho.

"You are the one who pricked me while I lay helpless! You are the one
who taunted me, thinking me asleep!"

Ein leaned down farther, and Silverdun could feel his terrible breath, the
heat of a thousand ovens, the stink of death. "I have not slept! I lay in wait,
gathering strength bit by bit over eons, waiting for my time. And you, flittering insect, dare to steal from me! From Ein?"

Ein's fist came down hard toward them. Silverdun rolled, flipping Hy
Pezho off of him, and the knife clattered to the floor.

But now the floor was of iron, and it burned Silverdun's hands. The pain
was white-hot, intense. He lurched for the knife, snatched it from the
ground, burning his knuckles anew as he wrapped his fingers around the hilt.

Ein was slow, very slow, but made up for it in strength. His fist connected with the floor in a shattering blow, spilling Silverdun down again. He
could barely feel his hands now.

Hy Pezho was next to him. He'd fallen as well, and was now scrabbling
to his feet.

Silverdun thought of calling out to him, speaking his name to resume
their fight face-to-face, as propriety dictated.

"To hell with that," he muttered. He stabbed Hy Pezho in the back, and
the Black Artist fell to the floor, quivering on the iron as it burned his skin.

"Well done," said Silverdun. "But now what?"

Sela had never felt so helpless. She and Ironfoot were standing on the floating
silver disc, twenty feet in the air. Ein had stood and was stomping his foot,
howling in rage. On the other side of the room, Faella lay writhing, trying to
get to her feet, but the iron burned her all over, stealing her ability to use re.

"What do we do, Ironfoot?" she cried.

"I don't know!" he said.

Something glittered in the corner of her eye. A moth fluttered toward her, swaying and dipping crazily. Hy Pezho?

No, not Hy Pezho. Silverdun.

She smiled in spite of herself and cried out.

"Amazing little creation!" Silverdun shouted. "I haven't a clue how to fly
it, though!"

He flew toward them, almost collided with the ground, then righted
himself and glided toward them. He hit the disc a little too hard, with his
midsection, and glanced off of it. The disc shuddered but remained erect.
Again Silverdun righted himself and fluttered back, grabbing hold of the
disc's edge.

"Where's Faella?" he asked.

Sela pointed.

"Let's go," he said. He squinted in concentration and the wings of the
armor flapped violently, pushing them forward, toward where Faella lay.

Ein continued stomping, his footsteps like percussive spellbombs. The
literal wrath of Ein was dreadful to behold.

"Apparently, Hy Pezho made himself an enemy," said Silverdun.

They reached Faella, and Silverdun let go of the disc and drifted down to
her. He gathered her carefully in his arms and rose, placing her gently on the
disc next to Sela.

"Faella, darling," he said, fluttering next to her. "Wake up. You need to
get us the hell out of here."

She opened her eyes, groggy but conscious. "Silverdun, love," she whispered. "You came for me. You didn't leave me again."

Silverdun looked at Faella. "Never again, love," he said. "Never again."

Sela's feelings were contorted into an unrecognizable shape that dug
inside her like a many-pointed knife.

"Ein," said Faella. "He's loose."

"We need to go," said Silverdun.

"No," said Ironfoot. "Look."

Ein had finished with Hy Pezho, and now turned to regard his bound
siblings.

"Althoin!" he cried. "The wise! I must know your counsel!"

Ein stepped toward the platform next to his own. He grabbed the iron bonds on his brother Althoin and pulled at them. They creaked but did not
break.

"Althoin!" he shrieked. The bonds began to give way.

"Get us out of here!" said Silverdun.

"Yes," said Faella. "Let me think of how to reverse the fold. Give me a
moment."

Sela looked at Fin and felt his pain. He was alone, bound for so long, a
bird with clipped wings.

"Here we go," said Faella. "We'll work it out, won't we?"

"Let's just get clear," said Silverdun. "One thing at a time."

The air began to shimmer.

Sela leaned over, off the edge of the disc, and kissed Silverdun lightly on
the lips. "Good-bye," she said.

She leapt.

"Sela!" shouted Silverdun. But his voice was faint, distant. Silverdun,
Faella, and Ironfoot vanished into the fold.

Sela was on the floor. The pain of the fall mingled with the fire of iron on
her skin. She stumbled, staggered toward a chunk of cobalt, one of the few
remaining. She pulled herself up on it and stood.

"Ein!" she called.

Ein continued to tug at his brother's bindings.

"EM!" she shrieked. "Look at me!"

She grabbed the Accursed Object and tore at it. For a horrible instant it
clung to her, but it slipped on the sweat that covered her and fell away for
the last time.

Ein turned.

He looked.

A thread formed.

She knew a god.

He flowed into her and she flowed into him. She showed him all that she
was and all that she could have been. He let out his grief in waves that nearly
consumed her. She showed him her childhood, her sweetest memories of
devotion in the Chthonic temple of her youth, showed him Lord Tanen's cruelty and Milla's dead body. She showed Ein what he was. The full extent of her power, without the Accursed Object. To show what truly was. What was
beyond what was.

She let it all flow out of her, into her, though her. Without the Accursed
Object to restrain her, she drew in all of the re around her, channeled it into
Empathy, hurled it all at Ein. All of her love and her loss and what remained
of her purity.

All of her.

The thing that had risen up in her, that had destroyed Lord Tanen, the
doctor, the Bel Zheret. It wasn't inside her. It was her.

Her last thoughts were of love.