CRUSADE #3
“Where’s Nines?” Jacen asked. It had been far too long since he last saw her.
No one answered. Ged’s focus was fixed on his father—still refusing to speak.
“Die here or follow me to the deepriver,” said Ogden. “I won’t wait long.”
He turned on his heel and stalked back toward the throne. He manipulated a hidden mechanism, like Seth had done in the White Cathedral, and the wall slid aside. He disappeared into the narrow passageway.
“Kheris,” Ged ordered. “Dig it out of his head.”
But Jacen didn’t need to. He could not guess at the specifics, but it seemed rather simple. How, after all, did one High Lord succeed another?
“He has to die,” Jacen said quietly.
He saw the truth of it in Avram’s face, set in grim resignation. Perhaps he didn’t believe his son had the will to murder him for this—or perhaps he thought death would be a mercy.
“Kill me, take me hostage . . . It doesn’t matter,” the High Lord said. “Nothing you do will make a difference.”
Ged’s face twisted. His consciousness was a noxious cloud of pain and rage that drowned out his capacity to act on anything else, boiling over with nowhere to spill—except against the man who stood before him. Jacen realized what Ged meant to do in the seconds before it happened.
Seth knew it an instant later, and had time to say “Don’t—” before Ged drove his sword through their father’s heart.
Avram choked on blood. Ged’s arm was brutally steady as he twisted his blade—the iron determination of a man with nothing left to lose, who knew no choices remained but to stay the course. Through clenched teeth, he said, “I will not let this all be for nothing.”
He let Avram fall.
Slowly, Ged knelt and placed the High Lord’s ring on his own finger. He stared at his blood-soaked hands. “Ilusha knows how to use this,” he muttered, half to himself, half to his brother. “This is not the end.”
As if in a trance, he traced the symbols of rulership on his own forehead. The gestures were so perfect, it occurred to Jacen that he must have practiced it many times. With one last, stricken look at his father’s corpse, Ged ran after Ogden.
With a cry like a wounded animal, Seth fell to his knees and took Avram’s head in his hands.
Jacen touched his shoulder. “We have to go.” Beyond the chamber he sensed others approaching. But where had Nines gone? He desperately scanned the room, as though mere sight might detect what his extradimensional senses had failed to.
“How dare I mourn him,” Seth was saying. He looked up at Jacen, almost pleading. “How dare I mourn him, when what my family has done—if half of what he said is true—”
Jacen said, “I know.” Guilt, at least, he understood. “But you’re no good to Neri dead.”
They had lingered too long. Several minds, capably defended, closed in on the audience chamber.
“Seth!” Jacen shouted. Finally, it worked.
Seth’s expression shuttered off. He stood, drew his sword, and let the four knights at the door come to him.
Jacen inflicted fear on the first man’s mind, so potent, it made him stop in his tracks. It made for a powerful weapon, because right now, it consumed Jacen, too. The knight trembled. His grip on his sword slipped—
Another presence seized hold. With the strength of a cyclone, it flung Jacen out. The knight’s eyes slid out of focus. His stance solidified. In the instant before he attacked, Jacen understood what had happened.
Akkani.
The Holy Mother stood at the entrance to the audience chamber, one delicate hand raised to her temple.
She directed the knight like a puppet. Jacen could not breach the man’s defenses, could not manipulate his thoughts, because his thoughts no longer mattered. Only Akkani’s implacable will remained.
Jacen lunged for the closest corpse—the lieutenant Ged had killed when they arrived. He took up her sword. Raised it just in time to block the knight’s. The blow landed with a force that nearly knocked him flat. He rolled sideways, struggling to his feet.
He held on to the sword for several pathetic seconds.
The knight was clumsier than he might have been autonomously, but he attacked with no regard for personal safety.
Seth couldn’t help; he had his hands full with the other three.
A metal fist clanged against Jacen’s skull.
He tasted blood. He was going to die there.
The knight faltered. Without stopping to wonder why, Jacen let him lose his balance and pitch forward. Jacen wrenched out his dagger and drove it under the man’s jaw. Bright, arterial blood spurted out. They both went down.
With a strangled yell of effort, he managed to push the knight off him—in time to see Akkani on her knees, face contorted in soundless agony.
Behind her stood Nines. Right hand outstretched, fingers clawed, eyes wide with shock that whatever she’d tried was working.
“Go!” she shouted, louder than Jacen had ever heard her speak. “I can’t keep this up.”
He stared, in stunned fascination, as the color bled out of Nines’ eyes, leaving behind an eerie, luminous white. The change was usually more gradual, built up in increments over many years of manipulating extradimensional energy. She must have been exerting an incredible amount of effort.
Seth had gotten the message. He seized Jacen by the arm, pulling him back, as Akkani seemed to regain control of herself. But she did not attack. She fixated on Seth. She stood very still, lips parting as though to ask a question.
She frowned.
Then Nines redoubled her efforts and began to hurry backward toward the passageway, giving Jacen little choice but to follow. Once all three of them were inside, Nines cried out. She swayed on her feet. Jacen barely caught her in time. Akkani’s shoulders tensed, and she stood.
“Together,” Jacen said to Nines, between breaths.
They drove Akkani back. They held her in place as they ran, until it proved too much of an effort to split their focus, and she broke free once more.
Jacen’s nose was bleeding. When he wiped his face, he couldn’t be sure what was his own blood and what was the knight’s, or even Lev’s. He sensed Akkani hunting for them, her mind racing far ahead of her body.
And then—he simply lost her.
“She’s gone,” Nines gasped. “Do you think—”
“That she gave up?” Jacen choked out a laugh. “Never.”
The thought crossed his mind that this was too easy. Akkani had let Ged send Neri to the canyon because it benefited her plans, and might well be doing something similar today. But what could she possibly accomplish by letting them go? She must have decided to withdraw and reassess.
There was a rumble behind them, then a roar that shook the ceiling. Jacen, Seth, and Nines skidded to a panicked halt, all momentarily united in their certainty that they were about to be crushed.
“Tunnel’s collapsing.” Seth could only muster faint surprise. “Keep going!”
No time to wonder about it—about any of it. They ran.