Chapter 72 Saints, Forgive Me
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Saints, Forgive Me
Auria’s hand trembled as she trained her wand on Saffron.
She still associated her friend’s face with nights spent in the common room losing at polderdash, with spells of silence peppered with dirty jokes and fascinating facts about modern history, with hot chocolate and sarcasm and a general aversion to any manner of tidiness.
Not with this. Not with blood and fear and death.
She looked so vulnerable. Here, in the place where her parents had lived and died, in the hall of the Saints who should have saved them and didn’t.
Her curls corkscrewed in a thousand stubborn directions.
She cradled a broken wrist to her ribs, the bone jutting through skin, pain etched in all the lines and grooves of her face.
Auria’s heart hurt for her. She’d gone undercover, and it had gone wrong, and now she was badly trapped.
“Ans mederan,” she murmured, aiming the healing spell toward Saffron’s arm. In a braid-twirl of raw magic, the bone sealed itself back together in perfect alignment.
Saffron looked down at the mended wrist, then back up at Auria. “I thought it wasn’t worth risking your own neck to rescue me.”
Despite it all, Auria laughed. It was such an absurdly Saffron response, heavy with sarcasm and rich with scorn. “I was wrong, alright? But you’re safe now. I have you.”
“Safe.” The word dripped with cynicism.
“Yes.” Auria ignored the babble of arrest and casualty updates streaming through her wand. “The kingpin is about to be arrested, and if you testify against him, against the Bloodmoons…we could finally have an organizational bust.”
Saffron clambered to her feet then took a step back, wet boot heels squeaking on the tiles.
“Not with Dematus and Karvas still—no. I’ll be thrown in Duncarzus with the rest of the scarlets.
” A fraught head shake, gaze darting to the exit, to the village green where hell had broken loose. “I have to flee.”
“And go where? Freedom is never really freedom when you’re running from the law.”
“Plenty of countries don’t have extradition treaties with Vallin.”
“Mersina? Nomaden? You’d want a life there?”
Saffron thrust her chin and her wand higher. “King Quintan is about to pass a death penalty for traitors.”
Auria frowned. “What? No. We won’t go back to capital punishment.”
“Yes, we will.” Saffron’s voice was small, hollow. “He’s paranoid about the Bloodmoons coming for the throne—he’d kill them with his own bare hands if he had to.”
“No,” Auria repeated, stunned by this revelation, feeling a sort of internal shifting of tectonic plates. “The Grand Arbiter will never let that happen.”
“She’s not beyond bribe or blackmail, as we know.”
Auria lowered her wand, took a few steps closer to Saffron, but her friend backed away like a cornered animal.
“It won’t come to that for you—neither the bars nor the gallows.
Nissa, Jebat, and I can all fight your case, prove you’ve been undercover.
And Karvas is not infallible. I defeated him in an inquest, and I can do it again. I’m quite good at arguing.”
“And if you can’t? If Karvas and Dematus are too powerful to overrule? What then, Auria?”
There was no way to win this argument—because Saffron was right. It was a reckless gamble with her life and freedom.
But there was also something else.
A careful hesitance, as though Saffron was…stalling. Waiting to see how the cards of the evening fell before calling a winner. Auria couldn’t blame her. In both the dock raid and the Havenwood, the Bloodmoons had appeared cornered then wriggled free.
“Either way, you’re going to be arrested,” Auria said softly. “It’s just a matter of whether you plead your own undercover case or not.”
Saffron’s face hardened. “Surely you aren’t going to arrest me.”
“I am,” Auria said, trying to convince herself of it. “It is lawful.”
The great conundrum of Auria’s life distilled into a single moment.
What do you do when lawful and right are not the same?
“Auria.” Horror peeled Saffron’s eyes wide as her hand clenched tighter around her wand.
“I can’t let you go back out there and fight against the silvers,” Auria whispered. “You know that.”
A ragged roar tore apart the night outside—louder than was really feasible, given the thickness of the creamstone walls. A shredding male scream of anguish. The sound seemed to pierce Saffron like a sword.
“With all due respect,” she said to Auria, “I don’t think you can stop me.”
She strode toward the exit, fear on her face, determination in her stride.
“Sen effigias,” Auria incanted, firing the statue curse at Saffron, but the turncloak feinted effortlessly, sending back one of her own before raising a spellshield around her body.
Auria dodged the statue curse with a lurch to the side, but it was close—too close. She’d never been skilled in dueling, her body slow and uncoordinated. She was a good shot, through many hundreds of hours of target practice, but the rest of her combat technique left a lot to be desired.
Trying to tackle Saffron to the ground would be a fool’s errand. Killoran had several inches of height and several stones of weight on Auria, plus a natural fighting ability and an arsenal full of mattermantic spellshields.
“Et vocos, Tenébo Jebat,” Auria muttered desperately into her wand tip, Saffron halfway to the exit.
“Here,” came Jebat’s panting voice.
“Requesting backup to the Saints hall.”
Jebat grunted. “We’re taking heavy fire out here. Be prepared to fight on your own.”
Auria rarely cursed, but every fiber in her body flinched.
Where was Sebran? He’d offered support. If he was already in the fray, he could use his physicality against Saff.
There wasn’t time.
Saffron was running, almost at the kiosk, and for a moment, Auria considered letting her flee into the night, to Mersina, to Nomaden, where the gnarled fingers of corrupt lawmakers could not drag her back to the gallows.
But from the look on Killoran’s face, it seemed she had no intention of fleeing. She was going to him. The kingpin, who had just roared as though his life was ending.
Auria couldn’t let Saffron spoil this arrest. Not when she’d already cost them the Havenwood mission. Once Saffron was in custody, once the reality of a harsh sentence was staring her in the face, then Auria could play to her strengths, convince Killoran to finally prove she’d been undercover.
“Saints, forgive me.” Auria aimed her wand at the statue of Aevari, the patron of Timeweaving. “Sen iruinan.” The statue shattered into a hundred jagged pieces. “Sen ascevolo.”
A hundred hunks of smashed stone hurtled through the air toward Saffron.
The mattermantic shield could only repel magic, not mortal materials.
Most of the rocks missed, but one particularly large piece slammed into Saffron’s temple. She hit the ground, not unconscious but severely dazed.
Auria crossed in a sprint and sank to her knees beside her arrest, wrenching the deminite manacles from her belt and cuffing them around Saffron’s newly healed wrists. She disarmed her captive the old-fashioned way, tugging the wand out of a concussion-loosed grip and tucking it into her waistband.
Her wand tip crackled again, but this time, it was not Jebat.
“Et vocos, Auria Marriosan.”
Auria was surprised by the twist of relief she felt at the sound of the low female voice.
“Nissa.”
“What’s happening?”
Trembling madly, Auria looked down at her prisoner with a burrowing sense of dismay.
“I have Saffron Killoran in custody.”