53. Fifty-three
Chapter 53
With each step we took the corridor changed shape. The walls widened and grew; sloped, dropped. I could never be sure that my feet would hit solid ground. We kept running anyway, until Oraik threw a hand out to stop me.
We weren’t in the hallway anymore. Somehow it had turned itself inside out to drop us in the middle of the great room, in front of Kalcedon and the Sorrowing Lord on his raised throne. My eyes were even with the Lord’s polished, tall boots.
“What a quaint little sorcelle,” the faerie lord said. The droning of his voice buzzed like wind through dead branches.
Then the Sorrowing Lord twisted his hands.
My concealment ripped apart sigil by sigil, stitch by stitch. Murmurs rippled through the crowd of faeries. Some of them drew near, curious sparkling eyes looking us over.
Without the sharpening spell the room seemed to change. My perception dulled. The dancers looked more human as their strange details blurred away. Sound softened.
Unprotected and in the open, I felt naked. My fingers stayed cramped into the shape of the spell, but there was nothing there, nothing to hold on to. Slowly I let them straighten.
“I’m sorry,” Oraik whispered to me. There were tears in his eyes. “It’s my fault. I let Bird—”
“What enchantment is this?” The Sorrowing Lord continued, ignoring the prince. “I cannot grasp their minds.”
He reached for Kalcedon, who turned towards him as if on silent command. Gripping his son’s chin in one thin, long-fingered hand, the Lord peered into his eyes.
“Child of mine, are these your… companions ?”
“Don’t touch him,” I shouted.
They both ignored me.
“Perhaps,” Kalcedon answered his father. His own voice was distant.
“Then have a care and end them.” The Sorrowing Lord waved his horrible long fingers. Like claws, or talons, I thought. You could see the cruelty all over him, like he was made of malice; as terrible as I’d ever thought faeries to be.
“Whatever spell you’ve got, let go of him! He’s not a puppet.”
“As you command,” Kalcedon told his father. He turned towards me, a blank look in his eyes. The Sorrowing Lord smiled. A wisp of mist passed in front of Kalcedon and resolved into a long silver blade.
Be pretending, I begged silently. Be stronger than the spell.
“Yes, end them!” I heard one of the fae creatures gargle.
“Make them bloody!” another chorused.
The faeries around us laughed. A horrible sound, mirth mixed with baying dogs and rattling insects. I quickly drew my choking spell, then launched it at the Sorrowing Lord.
His lips parted slightly, and for a moment I thought I had him; had cast it so quickly he couldn’t react. But then his lips tilted up in a strange smile. His fingers curled, and silver fire ate my spell apart.
“Fortune save us,” I said. Oraik couldn’t see the magic, but he could see Kalcedon’s sword, and I guess the worried look on my face. Shaking, he drew the tiny knife from his pocket, unsheathed it, and held it out in front of him. As if that could do a thing against the ancient horrors of this hall.
Kalcedon slowly stood. He examined his sword, head tilted to one side.
“Kalcedon, don’t!” I begged again, even though he hadn’t seemed to hear a word I’d said yet. “It’s me. It’s Meda.”
He didn’t answer. There was no awareness on his face.
“Don’t you want a real son?” I tried again, talking to the Lord now. “It’s fake, whatever this is, just pretend. Release him. Let him be him .”
He arched an eyebrow, yawned, and leaned back on his throne. He twirled the fingers of one hand. I felt another spell come at me, so fast I didn’t get a shield up. A blistering heat wrapped around my throat and sank beneath the skin. I gulped air, and realized I could still breathe. I didn’t know what he’d done.
“You’ve interrupted my celebration,” he informed me. “Silence your mouth, and entertain me.”
Kalcedon stood, the sword dangling in his hand. He took a step down the marble stairs, radiantly beautiful and achingly cold.
I couldn’t fight the Sorrowing Lord, and I would not fight Kalcedon. All I could do was try to run. I turned around and threw a shield out behind us, plowing it right through the crowd to clear a way. They stumbled back as if pushed.
“Run,” I tried to tell Oraik. My lips moved, but no sound escaped. The spell. I was voiceless.
It was a problem for later. I moved into the crowd, but not fast enough. The dancers were thick around me.
“Meda!” Oraik yelled. “Watch out! Kalcedon—”
Something punched me from behind. My stomach was wet. I looked down. At first I couldn’t make sense of it. There was something sticking out of me. A sword. And there was blood. My blood.
Kalcedon pulled the sword back out through me. Then the pain hit, hot and violent, worse than anything I’d ever felt. My head swam. I heard laughter, all around me. Everywhere I looked I saw grinning faces. But they were all blurry.
“Meda!” Oraik shrieked. I fell to my knees.
“The other, too,” the Sorrowing Lord said. “Slower.”
“Yes, father.” That was Kalcedon. But it wasn’t Kalcedon at all. His voice was soft, distant, strange.
I fell forward and caught myself on my hands. Every breath felt like an effort. Drops of blood kept falling from me, smacking onto the marble floor. I drew a deep breath. Then another.
I lifted my head and fell flat onto my stomach, watching helplessly as Kalcedon approached Oraik. His bloody silver sword was out to one side. I was so distant from life that I almost didn’t care. It almost felt like watching strangers. Or figures in a dream.
“No,” I tried to say. “Kalcedon.”
I didn’t make a sound. No breath gave weight to my words.
I had thought death was cold. But death was nothing at all.
Oraik backed away from Kalcedon, who was slowly advancing. The prince fumbled at his neck, grabbing at the clay charm. Then he ripped it over his head.
He threw himself at Kalcedon. As the faerie sword gouged into the prince’s arm, Oraik pulled the charm over Kalcedon’s head.
Kalcedon jerked forward. His hands flexed and dropped the sword. It clattered to the floor.
“What?” Kalcedon’s voice shook. “What am I…?”
“Oh, how dull. It was only a trinket,” I heard the Sorrowing Lord say behind me, his voice bored. Kalcedon turned. And then his eyes locked with my fading ones. He caved over like he’d been punched, his eyes going wide and painful and confused. Kalcedon threw himself towards me, hands twisting into sigils. He slid across the floor, racing to reach me as the spell took hold.
I cried out silently as the wound stitched closed, coming together so rapidly it was like being stabbed in reverse. His hands yanked at me, pulling me against the rapid beat of his heart.
“God, no. What is—”
But I could see Oraik over Kalcedon’s shoulder. One of the prince’s arms was bloody and limp at his side. He bent down and picked up Kalcedon’s dropped sword with the other. Oraik’s dark eyes looked horribly blank.
“Oraik,” I tried to say. No sound—in the pain, I’d forgotten. I pointed instead.
Kalcedon turned to see Oraik coming at him.
“Don’t!” Kalcedon yelled.
“He will not harm you,” the Sorrowing Lord snapped. “Move aside.”
Now that the faerie knew the source of our protection, it wouldn’t help us much longer. Even if I managed to fight Oraik off, he could simply command the faeries to tear us to pieces, or force Oraik to kill himself, and shatter the amulets.
The fae lord had brushed my attack away like it was nothing, ripped my shield to shreds like it was made of gossamer. There was only one thing I could think of trying.
A cannibal shield, like Tarelay’s Ward. A shield that would eat his defenses; would devour and feast on anything the Sorrowing Lord threw. I pushed myself back up onto my knees, sat back, and started to build my shield. It was more complex than a hand casting had any right to be. But I’d spent hours staring at the sigils. I knew its form, even if I still hadn’t made sense of it all. I wrapped it around on itself, doubling pivots onto the same fingers so I could hold it with just my two hands.
Kalcedon kept himself between Oraik and me. Oraik circled, unwilling to stab Kalcedon.
Unable to find an opening, he at last charged and knocked Kalcedon aside with his fist. Kalcedon threw himself back between us, clawing his way in front of me. Oraik lifted the sword, then jerked back. The command not to hurt Kalcedon seemed to war with his need to kill me. Kalcedon’s fingers twisted into an attack spell.
I didn’t have time to wonder if he was really going to hurt Oraik. If I didn’t finish my shield, Oraik was as good as dead anyways. So was I. I drew limit after limit, ending each devouring phrase with tight barriers. A spell like this wasn’t meant to be cast by hand, not by one person. It was too large, unwieldy. The sigils buckled and wavered like plants in need of a trellis.
The caged rock-thrush peered through its silver bars, following every shape I drew.
Kalcedon’s ceramic charm shattered as a bolt of gold light hit it. The spell must have come from the Sorrowing Lord. I watched Kalcedon step calmly aside, his face smoothing as blank as the mask he’d worn on Koraica as the enchantment once more took hold.
Oraik drew his sword back to skewer me a second time.
My cannibal shield was done. I rammed it straight through Oraik. He dropped to his knees with a sob, heaving. His hands trembled as he gripped at the ground.
With my fingers deep in the shield, I felt my spell eat through the Sorrowing Lord’s mind-control enchantment.
Though Kalcedon was enchanted too, I couldn’t use the shield on him. It wouldn’t just strip away the spell on him. It would kill him.
But I could already feel I’d gotten it wrong. The limits I’d drawn weren’t quite right. It was too complicated a spell. Too powerful, and too much to hold by hand.
“Please, Veiled One,” I mouthed.
The shield pulled from me, draining me. As more magic poured in it solidified, the finger-holds firming until I realized I couldn’t drop it. My hands were buried too deep in the devouring pattern. My chill was staved off by the outland power, which flooded into me from behind. Flooded straight through me, and into the shield, which kept growing, like I was a funnel guiding magic into it. Unlike the Ward the excess magic didn’t gather and wait to be devoured. It simply knotted in on itself, the shield expanding.
The palace was blisteringly hot, but it wouldn’t last forever. The magic would reach an end. Then the shield would eat me, too. The Sorrowing Lord tossed another lazy spell at me, trying to rip the shield apart. When his spell vanished he leaned forward with a frown, then rose from his throne.
Kalcedon pointed an attack spell at me, his fingers curving. It wasn’t going to work, but what if he charged at me? He’d die.
A hand at the back of my neck, fingers digging into my skin. I lurched forward with a gasp and spun, expecting an attacker.
“Hold still,” Oraik said, and dragged at my amulet. The twine circle jerked over my head. It caught on my chin for an awkward moment before he got it free.
The hall was emptying. The courtiers must have felt the sick draw of the magic, like being near the Ward. Kalcedon threw the spell at me, to no effect. He began to draw another.
I turned the shield towards the Sorrowing Lord as Oraik charged Kalcedon.
The prince got the amulet over Kalcedon’s neck just as Kalcedon released his next attack spell. Oraik collapsed, coughing blood and shuddering. Kalcedon heaved once more and came back to himself with a sob. Oraik was flat on the ground.
“Run!” I yelled soundlessly to Kalcedon. “Far as you can!” In the dense panic of the fight, my brain kept forgetting my speech was lost.
I kept trying to end the spell, to find a way out of it. The sigils I added weren’t doing anything.
The Sorrowing Lord speared another beam of light towards the amulet around Kalcedon’s neck. With a lurch I slid between them, stumbling to my knees. His spell collided with my shield and disintegrated.
“This is a disgrace. You have truly vexed me, human.” The fae lord’s voice snapped like a broken branch. Mist swirled around him. When it vanished, there was a silver sword in his taloned grip, wreathed in pale flame.
I couldn’t tell whether Oraik was still alive. Kalcedon was looking around in horror; I wondered if he even understood where he was or what had happened to him. The magic was draining from him even though I wasn’t letting the shield touch him. He fell to his knees, gray skin paling, eyebrows furrowed.
Another strand of power ripped through me, pulled out of the palace and fed into the shield. The walls around us shifted, groaning, as the magical supports waned.
The lord tossed a sigil at my shield and swept his sword in an arc across it. I guess he didn’t realize just what my spell could do. His sword caught on the shield and drained, leaving nothing more than an oak branch in his hand. His face twisted in confusion for a moment.
“What have you done?” he asked. And then, growling: “you utter fool. You will destroy…”
I didn’t care what else he had to say.
With a feral, silent cry, I slammed my cannibal shield right through him.