Chapter Eight #3
“Which you did.” Catseye gestured to Ben’s bones. “Look at you. You’ve paid your dues.”
“Sikras—”
“Benjamin, I will get on my knees.” Catseye pressed the tip of his finger into Ben’s sternum.
“I will fall before you and scuttle pathetically, bowing, begging, and praying to whatever god or goddess will listen to keep you from sacrificing yourself, and I assure you, it will be very embarrassing for the both of us.”
The bickering voices of both men faded into the background as Helspira cupped her hand over her mouth.
If this worked, if Ben could get close to Vessik and end this without Catseye’s power, not only could she help save Nyllmas but she could spare herself the nightmare of having to follow through with Rowan’s order.
Her excitement was cut short by Catseye’s concern.
“Too many things could go wrong, and then what? You’d have no way out of there.
Vessik can’t manipulate your mind, but in case you forgot”—Catseye rapped his scythe against the cuirass Ben kept from the armory—“the only thing keeping you upright is a loosely planted rock and a thin piece of thread. Dionus has been clamoring to claim your soul for years. We got lucky in the Grand Hall, but next time, he might beat me to it before I can pull you back from Enos.”
Helspira stiffened at the sound of his panic.
Dread was a strange look for a man who had come off as horribly nonchalant for most of the time she had known him.
His concerns weren’t unfounded. A lot of things could go wrong.
But ... “What if Ben had a way to get out of Stow’s Peak immediately after killing Vessik? ”
From where he very nearly started groveling on the ground, Catseye faced her. “I’d say that would be a miracle.”
“Close,” she said. “I was thinking more magical.”
He arched a brow, expression flat. “Need I remind you that I failed my wizardry apprenticeship? Unless it’s a corpse or a shadow blade, it’s outside my realm, and even if it wasn’t, I’d need eyes on Ben to pull off a teleportation spell. You can’t teleport what you can’t see.”
“I ...” Ugh, why did it take so much effort to say? Helspira placed a hand over her stomach, a poor attempt to soothe the discomfort swirling beneath her palm. “I know a wizard in Everferd. He’s an acquaintance of an old”—she cringed—“an acquaintance of an acquaintance.”
Catseye dusted the dirt from his knees as he stood. “You two sound close. I’m sure this wizard of yours would be delighted to help the acquaintance of an acquaintance of an acquaintance.”
“Theodore—err, the wizard—would never participate in the battle,” Helspira said, “but he has a library of enchanted items. He’s a very serious collector of anything arcane.”
Though his flat gaze indicated disbelief, Catseye encouraged her to continue, with a small nod. “Consider my interest piqued.”
She scrubbed the back of her neck, muscles tight. “I never saw it for myself, but Cecil, um ... my acquaintance ... spoke of Theodore’s collection all the time.”
“And what exactly is it from this collection that will aid us in brutally murdering my old friend?” Catseye asked.
“A scroll of sacred passage. The enchantment allows the speaker of the scroll’s words to bend time and walk between planes to another location, almost as if they’re transporting themselves from one place to another in an instant.
Ben could infiltrate Vessik’s army of undead to kill him, and if anything went wrong, he could use the scroll to escape before he met any harm, no knowledge of the arcane required. Cecil called it magic for idiots.”
“Really?” Cradling his chin, Catseye paced the field. “I don’t know. A magical scroll? That seems a little on the nose, doesn’t it?”
“Says the guy who accidentally gained the full force of Enos from eating cheese with a magic spoon,” Ben muttered.
Had she heard him right? Helspira blinked, certain she would never hear those words strung together that way again.
“We’ll circle back to that story, because it clearly begs telling, but first I must alert the banneret.
One moment.” Unable to contain her excitement, she all but bounded toward the front of the line, shedding the sorrow of her circumstances with each springy step.
Sweet, merciful fate, if this worked, she wouldn’t have to kill Ben, wouldn’t have to betray a poor, mentally unstable widower, wouldn’t have to worry about Nyllmas or her parents’ safety within it. They could finally start living freely.
As freely as demons could live in a land that greatly feared them, anyway.
“Banneret.” Helspira slid in front of him, hands outstretched. “I just had the best idea.”
His forehead wrinkled when he arched a brow. “If it involves you smashing that lute against a rock and breaking the necromancer’s legs, I’m all ears.”
“Can we discuss this privately?” Helspira stood on her tiptoes, peering over the crowd to find Catseye and Ben still at the back. She leaned in, voice lowered. “I have a plan for getting rid of Vessik without having to kill Ben.”
The banneret grimaced and glanced over his shoulder. He motioned her to follow, parting from the small company, until the likelihood of them being within earshot waned. “I hesitate to believe this plan of yours will yield any results but spill it.”
“I know a wizard in Everferd with a collection of arcane items, one of which is a rare scroll of sacred passage. If we can secure the scroll, Ben can pose as one of Vessik’s undead, infiltrate Stow’s Peak, kill Vessik, and if anything goes wrong, he’ll have the scroll to get out without repercussion. ”
Silence cut like a knife as Helspira studied the banneret’s stoic face, searching for signs of his thoughts. He gave away nothing. She started to doubt the validity of her strategy, until he whispered, “That’s perfect.”
“Isn’t it?” Even at a whisper, her voice squeaked with delight. “We don’t have to kill Ben.”
“He’ll either succeed in killing Vessik or he’ll finally be destroyed, and Catseye will direct his rage at Vessik as originally intended.”
“Yes, I—wait, what? No.” Helspira held up her hands. “If Ben’s in any danger, he’ll have the scroll to escape.”
An unsettling spark lit the banneret’s eyes. “And if he doesn’t?”
“Catseye would never let him go in there without a failsafe.”
After ensuring neither Catseye nor Ben paid them any mind, Rowan refocused on Helspira.
“I’ll take the sentinels to Stow’s Peak to verify that’s where Vessik is hiding.
You take those two sons-of-bitches to the wizard.
Get the scroll and meet us back here on the outskirts of the village.
If Vessik is, indeed, holed up there, we’ll swap the enchanted scroll with a fake before we send in the skeleton.
If he succeeds in killing Vessik, Nyllmas is safe.
And if he doesn’t, he’ll be stuck in the belly of the beast and have no choice but to die by Vessik’s hand.
” Rowan smirked. “Then Catseye will finally make short work of him.”
All the guilt she thought she had shed upon the creation of her plan returned in the form of a metaphorical sucker punch to the gut. “You ... You still want me to betray them?”
“Should be easy,” he muttered with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. “He already seems to trust you more than most. How did you pull that off?”
Helspira frowned. “I don’t know. Basic human decency?”
A raspy chuckle rattled through Rowan’s throat. “Leave it to a demon to exercise human decency. Now go, sentinel, and make haste. I can hardly stand their company as it is.”
Her upper lip twitched, and she bared her teeth. Only for a moment.
Strangle him with his own entrails.
Wrestling her demonic rage into submission, Helspira pinched her eyes shut. Would the banneret notice her brief display of defiance? She wondered until she heard his dissatisfied grunt.
“Don’t forget what’s on the line, sentinel. Fuck this up, and you demons will find yourselves back in Chthonia. Is that clear?”
It was nothing short of a miracle that her teeth didn’t snap from the force with which she clenched her jaw. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save Nyllmas, Banneret.”
“See that you do. Before you go, tell that bastard to leave a vial of his patchouli oil behind.” Rowan glared at the undead guide leading the pack. “That sonofabitch is starting to smell.”