by Sarah Hawke
He wasn’t wearing his bracer.
“What?” Jessara breathed, taking a step back. “How…?”
Rohen stared at the glowing disk of energy, every bit as shocked and bewildered as she was. His wrist was still bound against the table, but he had reflexively twisted his elbow and arm up as far as they could go when he had braced himself. The shield above them thrummed softly, and the tiny hairs on his forearm tingled strangely as if he had built up a charge from rubbing them over carpet. The sensation crawled up his arm, though his chest, and across his entire body.
Then suddenly, inexplicably, the entire world changed around him.
“Maiden’s mercy,” he breathed when he looked up at Jess. He couldn’t just see her looking down at him—he could feel her standing nearby, almost as if her body were shedding raw heat like an open flame. He could feel other currents of warmth, too, especially from behind the closed door. After a few seconds, they all began to swirl together in an eddy of unimaginable power he couldn’t believe he had never noticed before…
The Aether.
Jess shook her head, the shock in her amber eyes slowly twisting into horror. “Sorcery,” she breathed. “How could you possibly…?”
Rohen sluggishly shook his head. He had no idea what was happening or why, but he had never experienced anything as soothing or as exhilarating as the currents mysteriously coursing through him. The pain of the lashes marring his body ebbed away, and his muscles felt completely renewed and energized. He was ready to charge straight into a horde of Chol without breaking a sweat.
“Another lie,” Jess breathed. “Another sin you’ve been hiding from me!”
Rohen swallowed. “I don’t understand,” he said, staring at the shimmering disk. “This doesn’t—”
“No!” she screamed, cracking her whip at him again. He instinctively tried to lift the shield to block her attack, and it worked—the searing cord cracked harmlessly against the magical barrier. In the process, his newly reenergized arm pulled at the leather strap binding his wrist…and effortlessly snapped it in half.
Rohen stared at the torn binding, every bit as mystified as before. The sheer strength required to break through a strap that thick was immense…even a raging orc probably wouldn’t have been able to burst free with brute force. Yet when Rohen tried, he snapped the leather band restraining his right hand just as easily as he’d snapped the left.
“Watcher save us,” Jess gasped. She let go of the shimmering magical whip, and it dissipated harmlessly into thin air.
Rohen lifted his hands in front of his face as if he didn’t recognize them. The current of power was still surging through him—he had no idea how to stop it or if he even could. But ripping free his ankles was as trivial as his hands, and he quickly twisted and swung his legs off the table.
“Don’t move!” Jess warned, conjuring a brilliant sphere of energy into her palm. He could feel the power surging through her—the same power surging through him—but he could also tell that it was different. It was intense but diluted, like an echo of power rather than the source itself.
“Call off the Keepers,” Rohen said as he stood from the table, the shield still thrumming over his arm. “Call off the Purges, and let’s talk.”
Her head shook back and forth as if she couldn’t stop it. “Don’t move!” she repeated, her entire body trembling. “I will not let you escape!”
“Jess, I don’t understand what’s happening,” he told her, holding out his empty hand. “But we need to—”
“No!” she screeched, shaking her head. “You will pay for this treachery!”
She thrust out her hand. A scorching beam of light erupted from her palm, and Rohen hoisted up his shield just in time to catch the blast. This time, it struck him so hard it pushed him back until he skidded into the table, but once again, the bulwark held. Wave after wave of radiant golden energy reflected off the shimmering blue barrier, scorching the walls, the door, the floor—
And then the shield exploded. A wave of force hurled Rohen up and over the table, and he crashed down on the stone floor so hard he couldn’t believe his bones didn’t break. With his ears ringing from the deafening blast and his eyes blinded by the searing afterimage, he was barely able to crawl back to his feet without falling over. But by the time he braced himself against the smoking, overturned table, his vision had cleared enough to see that his shimmering shield had vanished. He flexed his fingers experimentally, wondering if it would reappear…but the current flowing through him mere seconds earlier had ebbed into a trickle.
“Guardian guide me,” he breathed, searching the room. The stone on the ceiling and walls had been seared black in several places, and the handle of the dungeon door was hissing and glowing an angry red. Jess herself was lying in a motionless heap nearby.
After rubbing at his eyes in a vain attempt to smear away the afterimage, Rohen stumbled forward and placed his hand on Jess’s shoulder. He could still sense a spark of power radiating inside her, and when he gently rolled her over, he touched her neck to make certain she still had a pulse. He wasn’t an apothecary or a healer by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn’t look seriously injured.
“Gods, I wish I could make you understand,” Rohen said, brushing her white hair from her face. Given what she had just put him through, he had every right to be furious. By the bloody void, he had every right to bash her head into the wall. But he did still care about her, whether he wanted to admit it or not, and he also knew he couldn’t stop her father by himself. Jess remained his best and maybe only hope of stopping the Purges and bringing an end to this insanity before the Culling consumed them all.
Sighing, Rohen took the ring of keys from her belt. The lashes on his chest didn’t look nearly as bad as they had a few minutes ago, but they were starting to hurt again—badly. He needed to find some bandages and healing salves, too, but he knew he was running out of time. Gods, he might already be out of time. The Keepers could have reached the Deadwood—they might have been dragging the girls back here right now.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here,” he said, hoisting her body up into his arms. “For both our sakes.”
***
“Gods forgive us,” Sehris breathed as she and Delaryn ran through the Pale, each step taking them farther and farther away from the cabin in the Deadwood. “We can’t stay in this place!”
“We have to,” Delaryn told her. “Just a bit longer…”
She continued jogging as fast as she could. As odd as it seemed, she tried to focus on the growing ache in her leg muscles and the relentless thumping of her pulse in her ears. The pain was uncomfortable, but at least it was real. Anything was better than thinking about the still, odorless air or the fact that the snow crunching beneath their boots wasn’t even cold. Everything about the Pale was subtly wrong in one way or another, and the longer Delaryn was in here, the more she felt her grip on reality slipping away.
Open the door, Queen of the Pale. We are the only ones who can save you—we are the only ones who can give you the power you need.
Delaryn grimaced and willed her legs to move faster, as if they could somehow carry her away from the relentless onslaught of demonic whispers scratching at the corners of her mind. She didn’t know how long she and Sehris had actually been in here—distance and time seemed far more elastic in the Pale than the physical world—but it already felt like hours had passed since they had left the cabin in the Deadwood. At the very least, they had been in here far longer than their brief flight out of Rimewreath, and with every step, she swore she could actually feel the demons bearing down upon them…
“There!” Sehris called out, pointing off in the distance. Delaryn glanced up to see a giant black obelisk looming before them. In the physical world, they would have been able to see the Galespire for miles in any direction, but it was so dark and gray in here that it hadn’t appeared until they were a few dozen yards away.
Delaryn considered it a blessing. The Spir
e of Shadows looked even more ominous here in the Pale.
“Ilhari vlos,” Sehris exclaimed between labored breaths as they came to a halt. “The beacon is still lit…”
Delaryn hunched over and tried to catch a second wind while her eyes slowly crawled up the length of the massive tower. Strangely, the glowing beacon at the top was every bit as radiant as in the physical world; it was the only source of light she’d seen that truly seemed capable of driving back the oppressive shadows in here. Even the gray, formless sky seemed to part around the beacon as if it were a blue sun pushing through the clouds.
“Where do you think Rohen will be?” Delaryn asked.
“I have no idea,” Sehris said, shaking her head. “There are thousands of sorcerers packed into thousands of rooms. He could be anywhere!”
We can tell you. We can show you. Just open the door.
Delaryn winced and set her jaw. “You had your own quarters, right? We could start there.”
Sehris nodded. “It’s a start, but we can’t just wander through the tower! The Keepers will recognize me and—”
“We’ll worry about that when we have to,” Delaryn said, undeterred. They were going to find Rohen, and then they were going to get as far away from this dreadful place as they could. That was all she cared about.
“My quarters are on one of the lower levels near the Foundry,” Sehris said. “If the Purges have started…”
Delaryn nodded in silent understanding. As harrowing as it had been to see Chol up close, watching and hearing sorcerers being Purged would probably be worse. If she and Sehris were captured, the Faceless shell could be their fate as well.
We would never allow that to happen to you, Queen of the Pale. Our power is your salvation.
Delaryn clenched teeth and shook her head. The voices didn’t relent, but she forced herself to ignore them as best she could.
“Come on,” she said, taking Sehris’s hand and tugging her along. The main entrance was sealed, but physical barriers were irrelevant here in the Pale. Delaryn merely focused her mind upon the stone, and a heartbeat later, she stepped through the door as easily as if it were made of water. The foyer on the other side sent a chill down her spine, even without any Keepers standing guard. She had never actually been inside the Spire before, though she’d had nightmares about this moment ever since her sorcerous powers first manifested.
Sehris squeezed her hand and took the lead. She led them through a seemingly endless maze of labyrinthine corridors and stairwells until they reached her quarters. The room was small but relatively isolated, though for all they knew, there could have been a dozen Keepers in the hallways back in the physical world.
“Please tell me you can get us out of here,” Sehris said, glancing around at the monochrome walls and ceiling. “I can’t take much more of this…”
Delaryn stretched out her hand and took a deep breath. The energies of the Pale flooded through her body, and she could feel the wall between worlds tearing at her touch—
The room exploded in color all at once, and Delaryn actually had to close her eyes and glance away as if someone had just opened the curtains to the blinding rays of the afternoon sun. Even the normal sounds of the physical world were so loud she had to cover her ears for a few seconds to get her bearings.
“Oh, gods,” she gasped, squinting to study their surroundings without going blind. The door to Sehris’s room was closed, thank the Guardian, and when her ears started working again, all she could hear was the faint clank of hammers striking metal.
“Bel’la lil ilhari,” Sehris whispered. “We actually made it…”
Delaryn nodded as another chill raced down her spine. It was disturbing how easily she could cross over now, but the worst part was that she could already see the fractures forming around them. The whispers in her mind had stopped, but the demons were closer than ever. What if she set more of them free? What if she turned the Galespire into another Sundermount?
“I never thought I would be in here again,” Sehris said, darting over her desk and grabbing her journals. The room was immaculately organized, from the books on the shelves to the vials in the alchemy station. Even her bed was still made. “I locked the door, but the Keepers obviously have a key. I figured someone would have stolen my copy of In Amlug Yassene by now…”
Delaryn took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she released her hold on the Aether. When they fluttered back open, she could no longer see the fractures in the Minamar or feel the magical currents surging through the nearby Foundry. The reprieve was remarkably calming, albeit short-lived.
“‘The Dragon Within?’” she asked as Sehris pulled the book from the shelf. “I didn’t realize the Spire even had Avetharri tomes.”
“Most of them were destroyed or moved after the Seven were abolished,” Sehris said, dragging her fingertip over the cover of the ancient book. “Zin stole this copy for me from the Lord Vigilant’s vault.”
Delaryn winced at the mention of Zin’s name. The massacre at Rimewreath felt like a different lifetime, yet the pain was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.
“When the first rumors about a new Wyrm Lord reached the Spire, this book and others like it became highly coveted,” Sehris added quietly. “It was fantasy for some. You know, the idea that the dragon blood still exists in the world after all these centuries. Every child in the Spire wants to believe that he or she is secretly a Wyrm Lord just waiting to be discovered. They liked to imagine that they could spread their wings and be free from this place.”
The dark elf clutched the book to her side and turned. “Plenty of the women—especially the younger girls—just wanted to dream about the Dragon of Highwind showing up and whisking them away.”
Delaryn nodded in understanding. “I spent more time than I care to admit dreaming about what it would be like to be free of Thedric. I never imagined it would end up like this…”
Sehris retrieved a pack from her narrow closet, then darted around the room and stuffed it with all the books and clothes that would fit. Once it was full, she tossed it over to Delaryn before she started filling another.
“Now we just have to find Ro,” she said. “Gods, I don’t even know where to begin.”
Delaryn hoisted the bag’s leather strap over her shoulder and glanced over to the door. “There must be someone you trust—another artificer you could ask?”
“Sure, but the trouble is avoiding the Keepers,” Sehris said. “We outnumber them about thirty to one, but I’m the only dark elf who has ever been in the Spire. They’ll recognize me on sight.”
“But not me, necessarily,” Delaryn said. “I could try to—”
A loud thump rattled through the door, followed almost immediately by a roar…or was it a scream? Delaryn’s heart skipped a beat. Her first reaction was that they were hearing some poor sorcerer getting Purged, but then Sehris dove over to the door and pressed her long ear against.
“Maiden’s mercy, what was that?” Delaryn asked.
“There’s a fight just above us,” Sehris said. Her face twisted in concern for a moment…but then her lips suddenly curled into a smile. “It’s Rohen.”
***
The Galespire’s prison was large but mostly empty right now, thank the gods, and it didn’t take long for Rohen to locate his gear in a holding cell nearby. Jess’s keys opened the door, and he was dressed and fully equipped within minutes. The lingering question was what in the bloody void he hoped to accomplish next.
The main door is the only way out of here, but there’s no way I can possibly get that far without being spotted—or getting lost. The Keepers might be undermanned, but that doesn’t mean I can fight my way out of here. There has to be another way…
Rohen grimaced as he hoisted Jess back up into his arms. Using her as a hostage was probably his only real option—from what he’d seen so far, the Keepers were terrified of her. They wouldn’t risk harming the Lord Protector’s daughter, and that might buy him the time he needed
to escape…for a while, at least. It wasn’t as though they would simply allow him to vanish into the frozen flats without pursuit.
And then there was Delaryn and Sehris. For all he knew, they could have already been captured. He couldn’t run away with Jess only to have the other girls end up trapped in the Spire…
One problem at a time. Get out of here alive, then worry about the rest.
Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Rohen charged back out into the prison. This floor was essentially a giant cross with hundreds of cells, though only a small handful of them were currently occupied. The Keepers probably didn’t use them all that often these days—the Brand allowed them to discipline their sorcerers more easily than imprisonment, and any truly dangerous channelers were simply killed. He wouldn’t have been surprised if these cells had seen the most use during the days of the Seven when “disobedient” channelers could be stowed away down here before they were Purged.
Rohen stopped about halfway to the exit and swore under his breath. It was eerily quiet in here, especially compared to the cacophony of the Foundry, and he wondered if this might be his one and only chance at creating a distraction. On impulse, he dashed over to a few of the occupied cells and unlocked the doors without even stopping to examine the men and women trapped inside. For all he knew, they might have been so brow-beaten that they would stay locked up. But if not…well, a little chaos couldn’t hurt.
Miraculously, he made it all the way out of the prison and up to the main level (or what he prayed was the main level) before he encountered any resistance. The instant he heard the clanking of heavy, armored boots outside the stairwell, he lowered Jess’s legs and held her limp body upright in front him, then drew Varlothin from its sheath with a single crisp motion. He held the moonsilver blade near her throat, hoping it would deter the guards from trying anything stupid. But when he finally emerged from the stairwell, he realized the heavy footfalls he’d heard hadn’t come from a Keeper.
