CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE FIRST MAGICAL CRAFT I learned was artificing from the first mage I ever met, Glenda. It was she who taught me how to make beautiful jewelry, then layer spellwork into the metal and stone.
From Ozora’s personal journal.
I came to, and everything was dark.
My breath rasped through my nose, and rank, oniony body odor crawled up my nostrils.
The rag jammed between my lips filled my mouth, and I clenched my teeth on it to hold back from gagging.
From the stench, I guessed the man who’d knocked me out was carrying me. I was bound, blindfolded, and gagged.
Shit.
If I couldn’t see or speak, I couldn’t cast. There were some amulets in my belt pouch that activated by touch, but he’d stripped it off me. How long was I out? Long enough for him to incapacitate me.
Not good.
I made myself stay limp to hide that I was awake.
His footsteps shuffled along a wooden floor.
We were inside. From the way the air had changed and his footsteps echoed, I guessed he’d brought me into the house.
I hoped it was the house Cleobah had flown us to.
If I’d been out long enough for them to take me somewhere else, I doubted I’d be able to break free.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Breathe. Think.
I was still alive. If I wanted to stay that way, I had to stay calm, so I kept my breathing slow and steady, and listened to his footsteps and whatever else was around us. The echo changed when he stepped into a room, exiting the hallway he’d carried me down.
I had a hard time not reacting when Fraser roared.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” It sounded like he tore the words from his throat, but the next ones came with chilling intensity. “I will kill you for this.” Despite our desperate situation, I did not envy them, death laced Fraser’s words.
“Heh, sure, pal.” The man’s voice vibrated through my chest. He sounded bored. Without warning, I dropped onto a hard bench, and he gave a rough shove to prop me against the wall.
“That would be a neat trick.” Gordon’s voice dripped with light amusement, then turned intent. “Nice catch, Carl. Do you have a numin-blocker on her?”
“Don’t worry. She won’t be waking up for hours, but—” His arms tightened as his upper body turned. “Stevan, go check on the men in the barn. I think she might’ve cast something on them.” Another pair of boots stomped across the floor, and faded, presumably down the hall we’d just come through.
“Shit. Why didn’t you put a numin-blocker on her?” he snapped.
“Because you didn’t tell me to prepare for the mage,” Carl answered just as sharply.
“You’re lucky I had a knockout spell, and I got the drop on her.
Not to mention, you didn’t give me enough money for a numin-blocker.
Mages get pretty upset when you ask them to make one.
They also ask for lots and lots of gold.
” My captor’s foul breath washed over me as he answered the other man’s sharp question.
He sounded annoyed, his voice tight. Nausea filled my mouth and stretched my ability to remain calm.
My regular techniques didn’t help when all I could breathe in was his stench.
Carl lifted my bound wrists with sweaty fingers, then dropped my hands on my chest. It helped to picture a rabbit, frozen and hiding from a wolf, while he dragged his hands down my body, when every instinct screamed to fight.
Caution won, and I held still as he lifted my legs to wrap a scratchy rope around my feet, pull it tight, and secure it with a knot.
“Look. She’s tied. She can’t speak, can’t cast, can’t see or move, even if she does wake up. Satisfied?”
Coarse rope chafed against my skin, and I tensed to block the urge to squirm and get some relief.
Carl slapped the wall just above my head; surprise and fear he’d seen my minor shifts burned through me but he just needed the leverage, and that low groan to hoist himself upright and take a few steps.
For the first time since I woke, I was grateful, and relaxed.
Finally! I could take a deep breath when he stepped away. A few more helped keep my muscles loose when the bench rocked under me, creaking as Carl’s weight settled onto it above my head. Gordon grunted, then his bootheels clicked away across the wooden floor.
I had a bad feeling about this. Carl was right. I’d never be able to scribe a glyph or sigil with my wrists bound, and I couldn’t whisper a cantrip. Gordon was talking to Fraser but their words were unintelligible and I couldn’t make them out, just their strained tones.
In the dark, behind the blindfold, my thoughts ran wild. Ever more gruesome ends to this scenario filled the darkness, and I was lost in an abyss of regret.
I had my eyes opened to the truth about Fraser and the ‘camps, and it still ached that I’d been that na?ve.
Worse, I’d broken off our relationship in the worst possible manner, for all the wrong reasons, and all because of Gordon.
That he had never been a friend was obvious from Fraser’s revelations, and his conversation with Carl.
Gordon’s bootheels rang as he strode across the wood floor to rejoin us, and broke me from my dark musings.
I controlled my breathing, low and slow, out and back through my nostrils, mimicking sleep.
As far as I could tell, they thought I was still under Carl’s spell, but Gordon had reservations.
If they didn’t know I was awake, they might drop some piece of information I could use, so I focused on them.
“You’d better be right about that knockout spell.” His voice came from nearby, low and full of threat.
Carl replied in just as low a tone, “Question me again, and I’ll slit your throat myself.”
“Try me.” Gordon’s reputation was deadly; he wouldn’t have been Fraser’s right-hand man if he weren’t just as lethal as his captain. I guessed he was confident enough to turn his back to Carl from the way his heel squealed as he walked away.
Cautiously, I engaged my magesight. Even with my eyes covered, I still sensed the numin fueling the different spells around the room.
As Fraser learned, these energies are not visual, even though it’s called magesight.
So I could ‘see’ in a sense, the same way Fraser ‘saw’ the numinous energies in the water while his eyes were closed.
No details, only vague forms, but the energies were distinct.
The shape that glowed with a sickly pale fire was Gordon, infused with numin not his own.
A sigil hovered over him, with hazy, pale threads anchoring it to the back of his head.
Fresh horror formed a clammy twisted knot in my gut when I saw how it pulsed and filled him with Cilirian numin.
I turned my inner gaze away. Instead, I scanned the room, seeking Fraser but couldn’t find his numin. A worrisome sign.
I readily found my belt pouch, glowing on the table I’d seen with the eye-spy spell.
However, it took two sweeps to find Fraser.
His numin was so depleted, I had trouble finding it against the background flux of energies and wondered that he still had the energy to roar and threaten.
Except he’d been quiet for a bit now. Even more worrisome.
“This is quite a delightful surprise, I must say.” Gordon sounded genuinely pleased.
“The very mage Vallar sought comes directly to my doorstep. What was that you said, Fraser, about getting her away from that dragon up there?” Now, he was gloating.
Fraser said nothing, only coughed, a dry, hacking sound.
Was he fading further?
A dry nereid is a dead nereid. It had to be his human half keeping him alive, but how much longer could he take it? Gordon was savage for bringing him out there. Away from the lushness of the coastline, those hills were arid as the southern deserts, especially that time of year.
“Who’s so interested in her?” Fraser barely got his words out before more dry hacking interrupted him, and roughened his voice when he was able to ask, “Who’s holding your leash?”
Gordon answered without hesitation, “House Vallar returns to its rightful domain.” The sigil was the most obvious sign he was under their sway.
However, his prompt answer suggested a deeper, more emotional connection to his enchanter.
“The emperor bid them return to our former lands and reestablish Cilirian rule.” Gordon’s voice moved, as if he were pacing, and I lost the rest of his words.
Oh shit.
Bootheels sounded again, Stevan returned. “Sir, the men outside, they’re knocked out. I can’t get close to them. They’re covered in sleeping powder.” His unfamiliar voice spoke up across the room.
That’s everyone. Carl’s heavy breathing still wheezed above my head, and Stevan said, “The horses are fine, but I don’t know when those men will wake with that much powder on them.”
“I think I saw breeze cantrips in her belt pouch. Might be able to use those to clean off the men.” Carl still sounded bored, like he wanted to do anything else but sit there.
“Then you two go take care of it. Get them loaded onto the wagon after,” Gordon ordered. Two sets of footsteps left, closing the door behind them.
Silence filled the room. It smelled of dust and sorrows in there, and Gordon’s steps echoed, drew closer, until he stood above me. The Cilirian’s numin burned in my magesight, billowing around him like an obscene fog.
I’d calmed my heart from my earlier panic, but the sight of that eerie energy caused it to spike again. I didn’t dare try and put up a shield with him looking right at me; I had to keep pretending unconsciousness.
“I know you, little human. Too curious for your own good. So small and weak yet you come poking about where you shouldn’t.” He spoke with a voice not his own. This one lyrical, crystalline, in a way Gordon’s baritone would never match. “Just wait ‘till he brings you to me. What fun we’ll have.”
I did not want to be face-to-face with a Cilirian mage. Hearing that lilting voice speak through Gordon made my brain lock up, and I understood why prey freeze.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Not-Gordon hissed. “I saw you when you drew my sigil.”
“Tell me, Gordon.” Fraser’s voice rang out. I sought him again with my magesight. He sounded stronger, but his numin remained a thin thread. “Where did you meet this Cilirian? Did you send him an invitation? Did he buy you a beer first?”
The soft chuckle was the scariest thing I’d heard yet from Gordon.
“They need no one’s invitation. They go where they please and take what they fancy.” Footsteps returned to Fraser’s side. “The emperor learned his lesson in the Sundering; invasion isn’t needed, not at first anyway. With the right suggestions, a city will destroy itself.”
“The sigils.” Fraser’s hoarse voice revealed his inner turmoil.
“After that, only a small force will be needed to retake this place.” Gordon’s soft chuckle was menacing.
I went through everything I’d brought with me, searched mentally for something, anything to use to loosen the ropes so I could cast. Just a tiny loosening. Gordon’s glowing form was across the room, so I dared to shift my wrists and stretch my fingers to try and scribe a glyph.
My fingertip brushed the talismans Cleobah had pulled from my collection and told me to wear. A short gasp escaped before I could stop it. I’d forgotten about them, and Carl hadn’t found them under my high-necked shirt.
The shape of a rain talisman made an uneven lump under my fingers. Made for farmers to ensure their fields got adequate water, it was bespelled so anyone with a bare trace of numin could activate it.
Perfect.
Golden numin glowed as it raced into the ingot inscribed with runes and embedded with aquamarine chips, triggering the enchantment bespelled in the necklace. Skin-to-skin contact and a silent, conscious command was all it took.
“No!” Gordon shouted; the sound of his boots raced toward me. Too late. A deluge cascaded down, flooding the room. Fraser’s numin flared to life as soon as the water touched him.
The beating rain restored his energies in moments.
I didn’t need eyes to see his beautiful form.
Drenched in his element, the magic of his soul blazed to glorious life and melted my heart with regret.
I’d been a blind fool. I hoped he’d forgive me someday because I did not deserve him.
He’d been right to hate me, and I vowed I’d make it up to him. Somehow.