Unlocking Void (Book 3) (11 page)

“Misery,” Gabriel gasped with sweat beading on his forehead. “Lady Misery. It causes pain until all three pieces are on, making the captive wish for the entire set.”

“That is…” Adelaide trailed off lost for words.

Bootfalls behind him announced Lael, and he flung the white cloak around Gabriel’s shoulders. It immediately took the edge off the pain. “Lewis is here, ready the shift.”

Gabriel managed to stagger to his feet with assistance, and Lael kept a secure grip with both arms as Gabriel seized Void and set the shift-pattern. Mikelle gripped his forearm and reached out for Lewis as the aging man rushed up. As soon as she got a firm grip, Gabriel fueled the pattern and sent them rushing towards Kilkiny Palace.

They muttered to themselves as black and white images flew past them; staring up at the black sky and the white landscape; suddenly being encompassed by a gray ribbon as they ducked underneath a river. Structures appeared and vanish in an eye-blink. Anatoly City appeared on the horizon and raced up to meet them. Gabriel finished the shift with a quick spiral up the staircase and cut the pattern in the Queen’s anteroom. He hoped to the stars Robyn was not in the vicinity, and blessedly she was not.

Lael ran to Aisling’s door and pounded on it until Cordis let them in. The men spoke for a moment, and both bolted out into the hall. Cordis paid Gabriel a single inquisitive glance.

“Here, on the chaise,” Mikelle said gently and eased Gabriel onto the furniture. Lewis rounded the chaise and took up the left hand, pinching the wrist as he planned his attack.

“You are aware it will not be good as new, Head Mage?” Lewis asked with a doctorial voice. “Aisling and I cannot mend nerves. You may not have full range when we are finished.”

“I know,” Gabriel replied. “How many limbs have you attached?”

Lewis nodded and stroked his white beard. “A good many, Head Mage, a good many in my time. It has been a long while since I removed one though.” He peered at the wrist as if seeing through it.

“You’ll need to cut between the radius and carpal bones.” Gabriel instructed.

“If I cut higher I will miss the trapezium, and you would still have feeling up until there.”

“Then you risk too many bones. I want the cut here,” he traced a finger between spasms. “Pinch the veins here and here before you start.”

“You forget I can only handle three patterns at one, Head Mage. Your cloak has an anti-bleed-out pattern, aye?”

“Yes.”

“We might need it.”

Mikelle rushed up with a handful of towels and dabbed at his forehead, cooling the wicked moisture as she went. “What can I do to help?”

Lewis rolled up a long towel and put it in front of Gabriel’s mouth with both hands gripping by his ears. “Hold him down.”

Aisling rushed into the room in a flurry of rose-colored skirts; her perfectly twisted hair loosed from its pins. “Lael told us what happened.” Worry painted her face, and well it should be. Aisling had seen him at his worst while in Overturn.

“Ruddy good job knocking that Arch Mage out, my lad,” Cordis exclaimed, taking a knee beside the chaise.

“Gabriel, I am not sure I can do this,” Aisling said quietly as she looked over the wrist. Behind her Lael hefted a tall table and set it at the back of the chaise.

“I will make the incisions, you will heal,” Lewis said comfortingly to Aisling and set the hand on the table. “We will go in here and here, I will need you to pinch the cephalic vein here, and I will hold the dorsal venous. Secondhand, are you feeling strong? I will need you to hold the arm down here and here. It must be immobilized.”

Lael shucked off his coat and they rolled up their sleeves. Under Gabriel’s coat, his sleeves were already rolled. “Don’t worry your pretty head about the dress, Aisling. I can pull blood-stains out,” Cordis offered. Aisling gave him a bewildered look.

Another spasm of pain seared much deeper and chattered Gabriel’s teeth. Mikelle pulled him back; his head propped up on the armrest, and she looped the towel over his mouth to hold his head down. “Don’t watch,” he muttered through the loose fabric.

“I do not think I can.”

“Let us not dally,” Lewis said and snapped a slicer-pattern together, drawing glowing white spikes out of his hand and forearm. He secured one in his palm and touched the edge to Gabriel’s wrist. “Cordis, hold your boy. Mikelle, keep him down. Lael, do not let this arm move. Aisling…remove yourself and pretend it is just another soldier’s wound. And Head Mage, be very brave.”

Chapter 13

Robyn spent much of the week sitting court for her people. Once a month she spent three or four days listening to their requests to resolve issues. It seemed Miranda had promised a great deal of things and never took action. The people requested soup kitchens, schools, new buildings in various areas, cheaper goods, more infirmaries, more Spirit Mages, streets repaired, the harbor dredged, and of course more jobs.

Gabriel left the bridge unadorned, so Robyn hired masons and apprentices to begin carving. She requested larger and taller buildings built on the west side of the Ellonine, the slums torn down, and the people relocated in nicer facilities. She commissioned an academy to welcome children and adults to study science. The harbor could be dredged by an Earth Mage, so she gave Cordis the duty, and the streets could be fixed with the proper skills. The more she gave, the more they asked for.

She listened to endless squabbles of missing cows, stolen goods, fights, and pleading for
things
, and she wished she could be elsewhere. Virgil had spread the word that she outshot him in archery, and within the day her clout rose in the army. Soldiers now gave her smiles of respect, and many of them tapped below one of their eyes with a knowing grin.

Virgil had been all the more encouraged to visit and often took the shifts of her guards only to stand at the door while she worked. He was a pleasant companion during meals, and Marya brought up more of her meals if only to pay the Prince a wink. Though, she often glanced around with a sad expression as if looking for someone.

Yes, that
someone
was still absent. The more time they spent apart, the less Robyn missed him. She had been without him so long, this was no different. Slowly, she discovered who she was without Gabriel.

She still missed his company. She missed the ability to read someone’s face without effort. Truly, she missed companionship and knowledge that someone cared for her.

Virgil was a pleasant replacement, but he had ulterior motives trying to ally their kingdoms. It was understandable he wanted to save his people, and was he ever a charmer. She enjoyed it. He was free with compliments, something Gabriel rarely did, and it was lovely to be told she was beautiful on a daily basis. Still, he was not Gabriel, her quick-witted, towering, powerful, raven-haired Head Mage. It was time she summoned him to see if they could make it work.

However, today was a day for relaxation spent in Kilkiny’s library drinking tea. Virgil accompanied her; a small teacup perched comically in his large hand as he flipped through a book of maps. She watched him amusedly over her book on ancient economics as he looked without seeing, flipping the pages to have something to do, and his tea forgotten.

“You are bored.” Her voice rang through the silence.

He looked up with an expression of a child caught stealing sweets. “I confess.”

“Your brother is the one who needs books.”

Virgil nodded. “I read battles and soldiers and camps, and I speak with my weapons. Quinn understands politics and diction. It was all interesting until I realized he would lead a kingdom, and I would lead a battalion.”

“Last week?”

He gave her an ‘are you listening?’ look. It took him a moment to realize she was joking, and he quietly laughed. “She shoots better than some of my men and has wit to match. You are what we call a…” he rattled off a phrase in Arconian. “I am not sure how that translates.”

“I think we would call it a triple-threat. Which is the third?”

“Your lovely face.” She blushed. “It is good, too, because I have known many ugly nobles.”

She smothered a laugh. “You are going to get us thrown out of here.” It felt good to laugh.

He shut his book and realized he still held the teacup. He set it aside awkwardly as if he feared breaking it. “Perhaps you would show me how you shoot so well? We have time before supper.” He stood, extending his hand to her. She took it with a nod.

The halls were quiet until she reached her wing and saw guards and servants clustered, muttering quietly. They dispersed when they saw her, but her alarm grew with every flight of stairs, and she pulled Virgil’s elbow as she took the lead.

They reached her doors, and to her surprise, the guard held out an arm to stop her. “Your Grace, it is with great respect I advise you not to go in there.”

“What?” she breathed. “Why ever not?” She could hear raised voices inside.

The guard looked at the other. “Mage business.”

“The Advisor and Councilman? Their business is mine,” she said and pressed the latch, pushing the door open.

Blood. There was blood everywhere. A wounded man in a red shirt was pinned down on a blue chaise by two people she could not see. Above them stood the Secondhand, Aisling, and a man Robyn recognized as Councilman Lewis. Lael held down the forearm of the man in the chaise with all his weight while the Councilman and Aisling were covered in blood from their hands to their elbows.

“No, that vein goes there. Lael, more pressure here. Press
here
. Cordis, steadier.” The Councilman calmly gave orders, pointing bloodstained fingers. It took Robyn a moment to realize the man in red was not simply having a wound mended. His whole hand had been severed. As Cordis, his back to her, leaned forward to put more weight on the victim, he revealed the faces of Mikelle and—
Gabriel
. He was not wearing a red shirt—half of it was stained with blood.

Robyn stood speechless, her eyes filling with tears as she watched Gabriel fight the pain. He dug his heels in as he gasped and groaned, his hand clutching Cordis’s shirt.

“Someone get that cloak off him!” Cordis yelled.

“It’s keeping him from bleeding out,” Mikelle interjected.

“The vessels and veins are reattached,” Lewis said. “He is going to pass out. Let him go.”

Mikelle released her grip on the gag and unbuckled his cloak, but she saw Robyn standing in the doorway. “Robyn? Robyn, you can’t be here.
Robyn
, you need to go.”

Gabriel had enough sense to look down from his focus on the ceiling. His right hand was wrapped around his father’s back, and he released his grip to point to the door. Robyn’s tears spilled over as his body shook, and he gripped Cordis again, muffling screams behind his teeth. Mikelle quickly pulled the Mage cloak out from him. Gabriel released his grip and snapped his fingers, pointing to the door again.

“Your Grace, you should not see this,” Aisling finally said.

Gabriel’s arm slipped as he wavered, sinking his head onto the chaise as his eyes fluttered. His body stopped shaking and finally relaxed.

“There he goes,” Lewis said softly. His bloody hands waved and the fingers jerked as something within Gabriel’s hand reattached. “Can you manage the muscle? I will continue with the tendons then.”

Virgil looped his hand around her arm and gently pulled her out, closing the door behind her. She kept staring at it.

“What happened?” she whispered and looked at a guard.

He shrugged. “They suddenly appeared and brought the Lady Mage in, and next we hear screaming and yelling.”

“Was the Head Mage so badly wounded?”

“Wounded, Your Grace?”

“His hand was severed.”

The guard grimaced and looked at the other. “Not when he arrived, Your Grace.”

“They—they
cut it off
?” She put a hand over her mouth. She knew what it was like to lose a hand. She still bore the tree-like scar the lightning traced down her arm and to her thigh.

“Would you like to sit?” Virgil asked.

“No, no I want to wait here until they are finished.”

She stood staring at the door another ten minutes until Lael opened it, wiping his hands on a towel. His eyes were tired, and his lips drew a thin line. She looked behind him to see Gabriel gone, only a blood-stained couch left behind.

“Did he leave?” she asked.

“No, we put him in his room. He is still unconscious.”

“Lael, what happened?”

Lael looked at the guards and drew Robyn in, giving Virgil a polite dismissal. “I do not know how, but three Arch Mages and Nolen shifted into Castle Jaden. It was all a ruse to get a silver Castrofax on his wrist. We severed it to remove the wristlet.”

She lowered her voice to match his. “Will he be alright?”

“Once he wakes we will see how much feeling he has in the hand. There is a good chance he will not be able to use it.”

“And if he cannot?”

Lael thinned his lips further. “Jaden will have suffered a terrible blow with the crippling of their best fighter.”