Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-seven
“Catalaya and Jonas are already too much for one night. Why does he always have to ruin my drunk?”
“He shows up at night when people are vulnerable.”
“Because he’s a gods-damned coward. Luna,” I said again.
Unfortunately, no silvery girl or fluttering moth appeared in the darkness.
“Strongholders!” the practitioner called out to the market, holding up his arms. “I am the Luminae—the first in Carethia in years to carry that title. To own that power. I will challenge the evildoers who have controlled our country for far too long and bring prosperity. I will take down the Lys’Careths, and riches will be shared among the people. ”
People stared at the man, the mask, the army he’d begun to build. A few people moved closer, despite the horror of the possessed, drawn by the promises of something better. Something more than just bare survival.
And the practitioner saw it. “Aetheric power will be spread, as well. All who join me will have power of their own.”
“He’s lying,” I called out, and stepped forward. “He isn’t going to give you Aetheric power. He’s going to control you using the Aetheric. He forces possessions, just like he did with Innis. Just like he tried to do with Tommen and Jonas. He is your enemy.”
There were gasps in the crowd now. Word would have spread of Tommen’s and Jonas’s deaths, but few would have seen the practitioner in the flesh.
“Release the humans,” I said.
“No.” The practitioner’s smile was thin. He moved forward, his army around him. “I have plans, and you won’t interrupt them.”
I couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but I could see the glimmer of befouled Aetheric green. That still bothered me—the color of his magic. And why would it show in his eyes?
“I was hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you,” he said. “But I didn’t think it would be as soon as this. You opened a doorway into the Aetheric.”
Not a discussion I wanted to have in public. “Of course I didn’t. I’m no practitioner.”
“But you have skills all the same. Are you using Anima to do it?”
“Using Anima?” I didn’t understand the question. “No. Let the humans go,” I repeated. “You have no right to control them.”
“No,” he said forcefully. “The fact that I can control them gives me the right. I was gifted with the power, so of course I may use it as I will.”
That sounded like something the Emperor Eternal might say. But no Lys’Careth would hide his face behind a mask.
“Is that why you killed Jonas? Because you could?”
“He didn’t take to unification. But I still think you might matter, and I want to see. If you won’t come to me willingly, you’ll be taken.” His eyes flashed, and with that apparently silent order, his possessed men moved forward to grab me.
Wren pulled her windblade from her cloak, wrapped her hands around its handle, and kissed the tip of the blade for luck.
I pulled her smaller blade out of my cloak, although I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Dodge, I imagined, until something Aetheric occurred to me.
They reached us. Wren immediately engaged one of the possessed humans on the left.
The possessed woman on the right swung her sword at me.
I dropped, dug Wren’s blade into the side of her calf, then jumped to my feet again.
Her scream was hard and jagged—like rocks being dragged across each other.
It wasn’t a sound that belonged in this realm, and it had the intended effect.
She dropped, and the Anima flew up and away.
“One down,” I said, and scrambled away, then nearly ran into a human assassin.
“Someone call out the damned garrison!” Wren yelled.
I cursed and barely avoided being skewered through the waist by the assassin; my tunic wasn’t so lucky. I heard the fabric rip.
The assassin didn’t wait to strike again. I remembered what Red had taught me; fighting my instinct to run, I stepped closer and grabbed his arm just above his wrist. His eyes widened, and in that instant I pivoted, then struck his elbow just like Red had done.
He jerked in surprise and dropped his sword, and both of us scrambled to grab it. I managed to snatch it up first. It wasn’t a good weapon—the blade warped and the cutting edge jagged—but better in my hand than an assassin’s.
I stood and was immediately lifted up by a heavy arm around my waist. I dropped the bad blade but still had Wren’s; I stabbed the arm that held me.
The assassin grunted, dropped me, but grabbed the back of my tunic before I could get away.
I hit my knees, was pulled backward, and was yanked to my feet again.
Then I was turned to face the Aetheric practitioner, and the cold edge of a blade touched my throat.
The ember raged, but the pain, at least, was muffled by terror.
I caught Wren’s alarmed gaze but shook my head as much as I was able.
There were still no garrison soldiers in sight and the prince hadn’t arrived yet.
A few strongholders were fighting off the human assassins with rough-hewn blades, broomsticks, axes.
They proved you didn’t have to be wealthy or royal to help; you just had to be brave enough to care.
She needed to worry about them. I’d deal with this. I hoped.
I shifted my gaze back to the practitioner. “Let me go.”
He didn’t answer me, but his lips pursed, and I imagined his brow was furrowed beneath his mask.
“Hold her,” he said, and my heart raced, the ember flaring anew as he moved closer.
He put his hand—so cold—over my heart, and the pain was a knife in my chest. I wanted to dissolve, to faint against the pulsating pain, but the blade kept me upright.
“You are burning with magic,” the practitioner said.
“I have…” I whimpered as one wave followed another, “only pain.”
“Then I will use your pain,” he said, staring at me like I was one of Gryffin’s puzzle boxes, something that needed to be pulled apart and sorted out. “I will use you to conquer Carethia.”
“You think you can beat the Lys’Careths?” I tried to laugh, but the sound was hoarse.
“You can see I’m making soldiers.”
“You can’t use Anima and possessed humans as your personal army.”
“All evidence to the contrary.”
“And your funding? Your weapons? Where’s the Aetheric weapon you paid Tommen to make?”
He didn’t answer. Maybe it hadn’t been finished.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You won’t make it to the City of Flowers alive.”
“I don’t need the City of Flowers. I have the stronghold, and I have friends with connections. That’s more than enough. I’ll open the door, and I’ll use every Anima that comes through, and I’ll make soldiers of every human.”
“Fuck you.”
“Maybe you’ll feel better about this process if your friend becomes your tool.”
The pain lessened when he moved his hand away, but my eyes swam with tears, and I couldn’t see clearly what he’d done.
“Stop!” I said, and tried to get free, but the blade bit back. Pain and steel held me where I was, unable to stop or help.
“Drop her,” he told the assassin, who stepped away from me. I stumbled and hit my knees, the sound of fighting still echoing through the market.
Something drew nearer, shuffling down the road.
Heart now pounding as strongly as the ember, I looked back.
Crouching as she moved, Wren stared at me with eyes gone green with Aether. She’d been possessed, and she had her windblade.
“Fuck the moons,” I murmured. Slowly, I climbed to my feet, legs wobbling from fear and pain, and held out my fist like I might have done to soothe a stray cat. “Wren, it’s okay. It’s me.”
Wren stalked closer, her knuckles white around the weapon’s handle.
I cursed again. A cut across Innis’s abdomen had driven the Anima out of him, and I’d had luck with the possessed woman tonight. But my blade was gone, and I obviously didn’t want to do that to Wren. I wasn’t even sure I could hurt her; she was ten times the fighter I was.
“Fight it, Wren. I know you’re in there, and you’re strong enough to fight back.”
I’d have sworn I saw the flash of humanity in her eyes. Maybe that was the secret? Not to fight the practitioner or the Anima, but to help the human?
She swiped out. I spun, the hem of my shredded tunic swinging like a ribbon as I moved.
“Wren! Stop! I don’t want to hit you. And if you kill me, I swear on all gods and their acolytes that I will haunt you forever in a very annoying way.”
We faced off again, and she prepared to lunge. I tried the pivot move again, but she knew it was coming, and I got an elbow against the skull for my trouble.
“Damn it,” I said, grabbing my now-spinning head. “Maybe that’s payback for the time I pushed you in the river, but it wasn’t even that cold. Fight this arsehole.”
Another swipe with that blade.
“I’ll give you my good socks. The thick ones. They only have the one hole—and I’ll mend that!”
She drew closer, glimmering with Aether from the Anima the practitioner had shoved into her. “I’m sorry,” I said, tears falling now, guilt a new pain around my heart. “I’m sorry I couldn’t prevent this. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. I’m sorry that I don’t know how.”
She stopped, and I saw that flash again. “Socks.”
“Yes,” I said. “Socks. No holes! Fully darned! And coins! I’ll give you so many coins. And I’ll find you another windblade.”
She blinked. “Windblade?”
It was working; I was getting through. But the practitioner wouldn’t be stopped so easily. I felt his push of Aether, and saw the spark go out of her eyes. She focused on me again.
I didn’t know what to do. “How do I help her,” I said to no one in particular, “without nearly killing her?”
There was a glow, pure and green, and a moth fluttered into view.
Luna became a girl, and stood between me and Wren. Wren swiped at her, but the blade had no effect on an Anima without a body.
“Open a doorway,” Luna said quietly, not in signs, but in words.
I wanted to ask her what she meant, or how it would help. By way of answer, she looked toward the practitioner.