Chapter 70 A Wild Ghost Appears
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A Wild Ghost Appears
Levan surveyed the village of Lunes from atop an axelmare, feeling deep in his bones that something was wrong.
Their dwindled party reentered Vallin via the Everswallow Bridge, which arced across the River of the Patrons (or, if you asked the Bellandrians, the River of the Augurs) in a sweeping curve of dark stone and oak.
Saffron rode her own axelmare—black cloak spilling over its haunches, wild white-blond curls spilling over her own shoulders, all rather breathtaking—while the wounded Miret slumped in the saddle in front of Levan.
The legendary steeds were enormous, jet black, skeletal, though not quite the creatures associated with portari itself.
The two they’d hired from a stable in Almere County lacked the broad gray-silver wings, having been bred for more practical purposes than surging through time and space itself.
Rasso trotted alongside them, panting. The axelmares had hurtled through the Havenwood so fast that the wolf had finally been able to sprint to his fullest potential.
Of course, now he was rather exhausted, on account of being used to a life of luxury in Bloodmoon mansion and thus rather out of shape.
When they reached the river, he dipped his entire head into the water and drank so deeply Levan thought he might drown.
Levan squeezed his thighs and jerked the reins, drawing his axelmare to a halt while Rasso recovered his composure.
They stood at the foot of the Lunes side of the bridge, to their right Donan Trilmere’s stable, where they’d leave the steeds for transport back to Almere, and to their left, a winding path through the trees that Levan knew led to Saffron’s childhood home.
She was trying too hard not to peer in that direction, her gaze fixed firmly straight ahead—at the village itself.
The village where something was wrong.
Clouds drifted across the waxed moon, causing the spectral light to shift, vanish, and brighten by turns.
All the buildings were exactly where they ought to be, and the smattering of people he saw milling outside the nearest tavern and the portari station seemed perfectly normal.
The night air smelled of forest and honeywine and woodsmoke, of soft loam and looming rain. Peaceful, ordinary.
Yet there was a…charge.
Much like the peculiar frequency Miret had taught him to pick up while searching for nearby magic. A resonance, like the inside of a ringing bell, felt in the prickle on the back of his neck, the needles at his temples.
Perhaps he was simply exhausted from a long, fraught quest to the far north. Then again, perhaps his perilous life had taught his body to perceive a threat before his mind made sense of it.
He peered over at Saffron, the former detective, the mage whose instincts should have been as talon-sharp as his own, and yet she had the same misty, nostalgic expression she’d worn the last time they’d set foot in her hometown.
Deciding to trust his own body, trust the intuition sharpened against years of torture and danger, he dismounted the steed, making sure Miret was compos mentis enough to take the reins, and said to Saffron, “Return the axelmares to Donan Trilmere. Rasso and I will scope out the portari station before we all go charging in.”
The clouds behind Saffron’s gaze parted. “Why? Are you expecting—”
“I don’t know. But my spine feels like an icicle, and the hairs on the back of my arms are standing on end, and I intend to find out why.”
Once Rasso had filled his belly with river water, Levan drew his wand, ordered the wolf to heel, and then set off in a stiff saunter on the straight road into the center of the village. By the time they reached the portari station, Rasso was growling beside him.
“What is it, boy?”
Levan swept his gaze across the village green.
Everything seemed…ordinary.
At the far end was a Saints hall, illuminated from within, crimson-and-gold obelisk cast in ethereal moonlight. Behind it was a half-circle curve of buildings—taverns, apothecaries, a cloakery, a shabby inn, few of them attracting many patrons.
To the right of the green was a tavern called the Brimming Keg, which seemed disproportionately full compared to the rest of the village, but perhaps the ale was cheap and good and strong.
Next to the tavern was a low stone building where the local streetwatch was housed, but the lights inside were off—if there was anyone on night shift, they were likely on call and perched atop a barstool next door, debating whether to risk a second pint on the clock. So it went, in villages like this.
Still, that prickle on the back of his neck.
Still, Rasso growled.
Levan slipped into the half-moon portari station, wand drawn, but it was deserted. The gate stood in the middle of the room, the air beneath its axelmare arches shimmering and shining, but there were no mages to be seen.
Rasso stood outside the station, still growling threateningly. Levan went back out, crouching by his companion’s side.
“What is it, boy?”
Then—
—shapes.
White-cloaked shapes spilling from a tavern, moving toward him.
White-cloaked shapes with wands drawn, vicious smiles cutting moonlit faces in two.
And one white-cloaked shape in particular, the shoulders of her robes raised and black, as though to mark seniority. Battle experience. Importance.
Levan stood, raising his wand, adrenaline bolting through him like a hot metal rod. As the marked leader moved beneath a streetlamp’s pool of golden light, his legs turned to water.
It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be.
Alucia.
Alucia, who was supposed to be dead.
Alucia, who he had loved, and who had betrayed him.
He staggered back, and Rasso’s growls turned feral.
“No, boy,” Levan whispered, sensing the forward twitch of his companion’s legs, sensing Rasso was about to tear the throat out of his former betrothed.
Striding ahead of her henchmages, Alucia muttered similarly, keeping them at bay. Insisting that he was hers.
She looked different now—leaner, sharper, her dark brown hair hacked off bluntly at her jaw, a white felt patch strung over one eye. Had she lost the eye in the battle with Vogolan? The battle she had apparently won?
As she approached, Levan’s emotions bled into one another like overlapping wounds.
Hatred, confusion.
Revulsion, devastation, the faint afterimage of love.
And, though he hated to admit it, fear.
Alucia was a skilled enough Enchanter, but ordinarily he’d easily be able to best her in a duel—if his magic was cooperating, and if she didn’t have half a dozen mages in her corner.
He didn’t know what would be worse: for Saffron and Miret to come to his aid, or for them not to.
“Judging by the shock on your face,” Alucia said, and oh, hells, he never thought he’d hear that quiet, crisp voice again, “the King’s Prophet did not betray my little secret.”
It was all Levan could do not to stagger backwards again.
Harrow knew?
How could he possibly know such a thing? Simply through the royal grapevine, the whisper network among Highcloaks and lowborns alike? Or was there something more sinister at play?
Relar’s words: You can’t trust the King’s Prophet.
Levan’s vision vignetted, his throat blockaded with shock.
He could not speak, could not think.
Alucia was alive. Harrow was a traitor.
Beneath all the crosshatched emotions was one stronger than the rest: shame.
Failure.
He had not known any of this, but his father would’ve.
His father knew everyone in the city, their weaknesses and strengths, their lies and loyalties.
Levan, on the other hand, had been so consumed by his own internal struggles that he hadn’t seen what was right under his nose.
Hadn’t even tried to pull at the strings of the Whitewing deaths.
Had been too concerned with saving one apothecary’s grandson, neglecting the bigger picture.
“You aren’t dead,” Levan said, intelligently.
A feline grin spread across Alucia’s face, like a velvine who’d been pursuing the same inkmouse for a year and finally had him cornered. “No, though I can see why Vogolan wouldn’t have wanted to confess as much. I must admit I wasn’t devastated to learn of his death.”
From the bustling tavern, raucous laughter erupted onto the green. Lute strings twanged as someone in another world struck up a song.
“You overpowered Vogolan?” Levan stood taut and rigid. “Fled?”
“Brewers are notoriously weak in dueling.”
Yet the loyalty brand had not killed Vogolan for the lie of omission.
“Where have you been for the last three years?”
Another shrug, those black-embroidered shoulder pads lifting and lowering in the moonlight.
“Organizing. Amassing loyalty. If you’d bothered to recruit another rat in the Silvercloaks, you’d know this—they’ve been watching our drophouse for months.
” Another strange smile, the lashes of her lone eye fluttering almost…
flirtatiously. Coyness, suggestive lust, used as a force of antagonism.
“You look as hurt as you did on the night you learned what I really was. Haven’t the last three years hardened that hurt into anger?
It’s surprising that you haven’t channeled more energy into destroying us, especially given the heavy losses we’ve dealt recently.
Sando Segal should’ve set you ablaze with fury. ”
Levan felt as though his ribs were being plucked like the nearby lute. “You’ve been trying to provoke us? Because—why?”
“First, because you killed my brother. But also to lure you to our door.”
“And, what? Kill me?”
She laughed, bright and cruel. “Taking you prisoner would’ve been preferable. Supplanting myself at the head of your very lucrative operation.”
“To what end? Why do you want or need so much wealth?”
“The same reason you do,” Alucia said, though he had never confided in her the truth about his mother lying in the ascenite crypt. “So that I never have to feel powerless again.”