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by Sarah Hawke

  The other Huntress chuckled as she unsheathed her own claws. “I knew we would run into you eventually, sister. It will be an honor to finally deliver your traitorous head back to the Inquisitrix.”

  “Not just the head,” the other woman said. “She’ll want you to suffer first. She’ll strap you to a rack and let your hunger consume you from the inside.”

  “Why wait?” Valuri asked. “You can fight me right now.”

  While the scowling women all sized each other up like qelvarks circling their prey, I tried to figure out what the hell I could possibly do. Blasting the Senosi without Kaseya’s help would only make them stronger, and there wasn’t much else I could—

  Jorem !

  I froze in place when Kaseya’s voice echoed through my mind. I didn’t risk making eye contact with the Huntresses on full alert, but I did twitch my thumb and activate the bond ring on my fingers.

  We can stop them together, she said. Use my senses as a tether.

  Swallowing heavily, I reached out through the Aether and focused upon the Senosi holding Telanya hostage. She and her kind were normally a cold, black void of nothingness, but through Kaseya I could sense tiny gaps in the vatari dust tattooed into her skin. I was reasonably confident I could exploit them just like I’d done with Ayrael, but I didn’t have a clear shot…

  Follow my lead, Maskari. Together, we cannot fail.

  “Last chance,” the lead Huntress said, tightening her grip on Telanya. A tiny bead of blood began trickling from the elf’s throat. “Put down your weapons and surrender, or the Headmistress dies.”

  “Fine,” Kaseya said. “Please, do not harm her.”

  Valuri turned, her face scrunched in horror. “Red, what the hell are you doing?”

  “What needs to be done.”

  The amazon slowly sank to her knees and gently placed her sword on the ground…and then abruptly swiveled to the side and angled the shield still fastened to her back.

  Now!

  Thanks to our bond, I reacted even before the word fully formed in my brain. Thrusting out my right hand, I unleashed a crackling bolt of pure Aetheric energy. I still didn’t have a clear shot at the Huntress from where I was standing, but thanks to Kaseya I didn’t need one—the blast struck her shield, reflected off the enchanted metal, and blasted the lead Senosi right in the back. The Huntress shrieked half in pain, half in surprise as she lost her grip on her dagger and collapsed to the ground, her armored robe smoldering. Her partner turned, her eyes wide in shock.

  She never had a chance to recover. Valuri pounced forward like a crazed maanka cat, claws unsheathed, and the two Huntresses rolled across the street. I summoned more energy to my fingertips while Kaseya retrieved her sword, but we needn’t have bothered. After a brief flurry of hands and feet, Valuri kicked her opponent against the wall and drove her claws through the other woman’s heart.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said, wrenching her blood-drenched hand free. “They’ll have reinforcements nearby.”

  “Traitor…” the other Huntress hissed from the ground. The acrid stench of her seared flesh filled my nostrils as she struggled to crawl with her one good arm. “You can’t…you won’t…”

  The moonlight glinted off Kaseya’s blade, and an instant later the Senosi’s severed head was rolling across the street. I glanced away from the gore and bit down on my lip. Considering how many men I’d burned alive with my magic over the years, I didn’t understand why blood still made me so squeamish.

  “Escar’s mercy,” Telanya breathed. “I don’t…I can’t…”

  “Keep your tits in your blouse, blondie,” Valuri said, grabbing the Headmistress by her arm and hauling her back to her feet. “We need to go. Now!”

  We vanished into alleys as quickly as we could, which was no small feat considering how few of them there were in this part of town. I still didn’t know the streets well enough to navigate particularly well, but thankfully Telanya eventually snapped out of her shock long enough to help.

  “My estate is that way,” she said, pointing. “The guards will stop us unless…”

  Telanya took a deep, calming breath then touched the arcane focus dangling between her breasts. I felt a surge of power as she shrouded us within another invisibility spell. Only Valuri remained unaffected.

  “Nothing like being the only target…” she hissed, retracting her claws before anyone on the street noticed the blood. “I’ll follow from the rooftops. Go!”

  Without waiting for a response, she vaulted straight up onto the closest building—an impossible jump for any normal human—and disappeared into the shadows.

  “I always forget that she can do that,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  Trying our best to strike a balance between safety and speed, we slithered through the Redwater District and arrived at the Archmage’s estate about twenty minutes later. Telanya had more or less composed herself at that point, though the haunting look behind her blue eyes remained. I wondered distantly if she had ever actually seen death up close before. If only we could all be so lucky…

  “This is close enough,” she announced, dismissing her invisibility spell when we approached the last turn before her street. “My husband and his guards will be waiting for me.”

  “I don’t expect you to thank us,” I said dryly. “But maybe you can at least admit that we’re still your allies.”

  Telanya scoffed, scowled, and crossed her arms all in a single breath. “We are nothing of the sort.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “Then how about you at least acknowledge that we aren’t your enemies?”

  Why did I ever agree to fuck this woman? More importantly, why in the hell does a part of me want to fuck her again right now?

  “I’m willing to accept that you didn’t openly betray us,” Telanya said. “But I will never—”

  “I hate to interrupt, but we have a problem,” Valuri cut in.

  “What are you…?”

  I trailed off when I followed her gaze around the corner. The Archmage’s enormous, fenced-in estate was well-lit and filled with guards just like we’d expected. But apparently the guards weren’t there to protect Beloran—they were there to arrest him.

  “Oh, shit,” I hissed.

  I had to blink twice to believe what I was seeing. I spotted at least twenty Highwind Guardsmen outside the estate along with several Guild wizards and a handful of Silver Fist knights. Two of the guards were presently escorting Archmage Beloran out of his own house, and his hands were secured behind his back by manacles. The old man’s face was twisted into a bitter scowl, and his eyes burned like hot coals in their sockets.

  “Faarea!” Telanya hissed. “What in the bloody hell do they think they’re doing?”

  She leapt forward as if to run to her husband, but I grabbed her arm and held her firmly in place. “If you march up there, they’ll arrest you too,” I warned.

  She tried and failed to wriggle out of my grip. “They wouldn’t dare!”

  “Just like they wouldn’t dare to arrest the Archmage?” Valuri countered. She shook her head and swore under her breath. “You’ve been outplayed, sweetheart.”

  “But this…” Telanya clenched her jaw, and I felt her arms start to tremble. “This is impossible!”

  “It’s a coup,” I said, a dark tingle rippling down my spine as the pieces slowly started falling into place. “With Kastrius and Vaneros dead, Serrane in Icewatch, and your husband in prison, the Council only has one member left.”

  The color drained from Telanya’s face. “Constable Mannick? But how…?”

  “The Senosi already knew where your crystals were hidden,” Valuri said. “They could have stolen them at any time, but from their perspective this is even better. They must have tipped-off Mannick—I bet he has a squad of men raiding your warehouse right now. They’ll find the crystals and accuse your husband of treason for lying to the Council. Who knows, he might even be able to convince people that Beloran was c
onspiring with the enemy.”

  “That’s preposterous!” Telanya protested.

  Beloran has never been a particularly shrewd politician, and the death of his closest ally has left him isolated and vulnerable.

  “It won’t sound preposterous to the public,” I said, Solemi’s prophetic words echoing through my mind. “People are terrified, and your husband doesn’t have a power base left to defend him. Even if Mannick can’t prove that Beloran was working with the Senosi, hiding a secret stash of crystals looks bad—really bad.”

  Telanya swallowed heavily. “I have allies in the nobility and at the Academy. I can fight this.”

  “Not from inside the Grey Citadel you can’t,” I told her. “We need to get you somewhere safe.”

  Her eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Safe? While trapped in the clutches of the Black Mistress?”

  “Believe me, if there were another option I’d take it in a heartbeat. But at least Mannick won’t be able to find you in Darkwind.”

  “More guardsmen are on their way,” Kaseya warned. “And I sense the presence of more Senosi nearby…”

  “Then we’re out of time,” I said, squeezing Telanya’s arm again. “You have to come with us, Headmistress. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.”

  I watched a dozen separate emotions flicker across her face. Her jaw clenched, and the flash of fury in her eyes was so intense I was genuinely worried she might transform me into a toad. Just because she was a wizard didn’t mean she couldn’t muster a tremendous amount of power—a blast of energy from her fingertips could incinerate flesh just as easily as a blast from mine. But just before her anger overwhelmed her, she hissed a vicious-sounded elven swear and clenched her delicate hand into a surprisingly terrifying fist.

  “Take me to your mistress,” Telanya said. “Perhaps it’s time we made a deal.”

  7

  Telanya spent most of the trip into Darkwind marveling at the web of illusions and our ability to navigate them, but I could also tell she was busy planning out exactly what she was going to say to our benefactor. I actually found myself pitying her, which was annoying for a whole host of reasons, but the bottom line was that she hadn’t actually wronged us. I believed her when she said she still would have paid us after our failed caravan escort. Her biggest sin was being outmaneuvered by the Senosi, and we couldn’t really hold that against her, all things considered.

  But the longer we walked in silence, the more my mind conjured up all sorts of other conspiracy theories about what we had just witnessed. Each one was even more disturbing than the last, but I had a nagging suspicion that a few of them were about to confirmed very soon…

  “What is this?” Telanya gasped when we finally arrived in Darkwind. Her eyes flicked around the enormous cavern in disbelief.

  “A second city for those the powerful have forsaken,” Kaseya said. “I believe that includes a number of your former students.”

  The elf’s cheek twitched. “The Academy has high standards for a reason. If we taught every idiot in the city to channel the Aether, we would have—”

  “This really isn’t the time to rehash old arguments,” I said. “The point is that the Highwind elite abandoned a whole lot of people, and a bunch of them ended up down here. The Black Mistress has given them hope when no one else would. And before you ask, no, she isn’t running a secret slaving ring, either. I don’t think she’s forcing anyone to stay down here.”

  “Coercion comes in many forms,” Telanya said. Her brow furrowed when we approached the main palace. “This is a drow structure…”

  “There are many more like it deeper in the cavern,” a voice called out from the shadows of a nearby street. Solemi appeared a moment later, several of her attendants in tow. “The dark elves ruled this part of the Underworld for many centuries, but many of the cities here were evacuated about the time Highwind was constructed.”

  “You,” Telanya rasped. “The girl who escaped from the drow…”

  “After years of enslavement,” Solemi said. “Many things in Highwind changed while I was gone, and unfortunately very few of them were for the better.”

  The Headmistress shook her head in disbelief. “You are the Black Mistress?”

  Solemi shrugged. “That’s one of the faces I wear these days. The title is a bit ominous, but it has served its purpose well enough.”

  “Unbelievable,” Telanya whispered. “Half the Council was convinced you were a Senosi operative. Some of the nobles thought you were the Inquisitrix in disguise!”

  “I am skilled with illusions, but even I would have trouble wearing the face of someone I’ve never met or seen,” Solemi replied mildly. “She is my enemy as much as yours, after all.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Your people have been smuggling magical artifacts to her for months.”

  “I’m afraid you are grossly misinformed, Headmistress. The Aether flows through my veins as surely as it does through Jorem’s here. Why would I wish to aid a madwoman who despises all channelers?”

  “All male channelers,” Telanya said. “She has quite the soft spot for sorceresses.”

  “Regardless, I can assure you that the Inquisitrix is no friend of mine,” Solemi said. “Unless you somehow believe that our friends here—including the rogue Senosi—are all secretly working for the Inquisitrix too.”

  Telanya glanced back to us. “I’m not entirely sure what to think.”

  “The Senosi tried to assassinate her near the vatari warehouse,” I said. “We helped her get away, but when we returned to her estate the Highwind Guard was busy arresting Archmage Beloran. Constable Mannick must have already known about the crystals.”

  “So we were too late,” Solemi said.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Valuri muttered. “Another is that the city is now effectively under martial law. Someone better get a messenger hawk to the Ranger-General before everything goes completely to hell.”

  “Serrane isn’t a politician, and frankly no one outside the Duskwatch will care what she has to say,” Telanya said. “If Mannick honestly believes he can keep my husband inside the Grey Citadel without starting a civil war between the Guild and the Guard and the Silver Fist…well, he’s clearly lost his mind.”

  Solemi shook her head. “I’m afraid the constable has accrued more power than you realize. He will be able to keep your husband out of the game for a while—long enough, I suspect, to consolidate his influence and make sweeping changes in the city.”

  “Unless you can help her,” Kaseya said.

  The half-elf smiled ever-so-faintly, and my heart began thumping in my ears as all my crazy conspiracy theories finally collapsed into a single coherent epiphany. I swallowed heavily as my mind raced through the details…

  “We may be able to come to an arrangement,” Solemi said. “I have allies in the Citadel and the Guard, and Constable Mannick himself owes me a few favors. It’s possible I could convince him to let your husband go.”

  For the most part, I didn’t need to take direct action at all, Solemi’s words echoed through my mind. I merely helped the ‘proper’ authorities in their search. The Silver Fist and the Highwind Guard deserve much of the credit. Ask any knight on the street—they’ll gladly take credit for destroying the Grim Fangs and the Lecasi Brotherhood and every other gang that used to plague the city. I provided them with all the information they needed to win their little crime war.

  My mouth fell open, and the pounding my chest became so loud I could barely hear anything else. Kaseya turned and looked at me, her face creased with concern…

  “Of course the constable owes you a favor,” I whispered. “You’re the reason he’s so popular these days. You helped him crush all the gangs, and in the process you gave the people another hero—one to replace the men who fought in the Winter War.”

  Everyone turned to look at me like I was speaking a completely different language.

  “What in the abyss are you talking about?” Telanya asked.r />
  I swallowed heavily and resisted the urge to punch myself in the face. Just like when I had finally realized that Solemi was the Black Mistress, in retrospect all of this felt incredibly obvious.

  “She’s the one who told Mannick about the crystals,” I said, staring directly at the half-elf. “You knew he would arrest the Archmage—hell, maybe you even told him to arrest the Archmage. You probably assumed Telanya would be with him, but it doesn’t really matter now that we brought her right to you. Either way, you knew the arrest and the resulting scandal would give you leverage over them both. There are only two councilors left, and both of them will be in your pocket.”

  Solemi didn’t reply. She didn’t move at all; her face had become an unreadable mask. Even the air around us seemed to freeze in place.

  “You’ve said all along that your purpose is to fix Highwind,” I went on. “You said that when you escaped from the Underworld, you planned to use the lessons you’d learned to change this whole region for the better. And then you said that the only way to save the city’s institutions was to destroy them.”

  I hissed between my teeth and glanced over to Valuri. “You were right to be suspicious. Don’t you get it? In the span of a few months, she has completely crippled the city’s government. Two of the councilors are dead, one is a hundred miles away, and the other in the prison. The only who’s left now is the man she’s been feeding information to for the better part of a year.”

  Valuri’s green eyes flicked between the two of us. “She couldn’t have been responsible for all of that. The Roskarim—”

  “Presented her with a unique opportunity, and she took it,” I said. My heart was still pounding, but at this point it was as much from certainty as nervousness. “She didn’t have to create a crisis to benefit from it, but think about it: when would she ever have a better time to make her move than when two of the councilors were out of the city and a third was mired in a scandal that could ruin him?”

  “Especially if she suspected that the Roskarim would win, or at the very least keep Serrane and Kastrius occupied for a good long time,” Valuri reasoned, crossing her arms. “Derec was right there. If he had a calling crystal, he could have told her everything that was happening on a moment’s notice.”