by Carol A Park
Vaughn dropped his invisibility, since it didn’t matter anyway, drew and loosed the arrow. It was a perfect shot. The corpse threw up a wall of ice at the last moment, stopping the arrow in flight. It hung in the middle of the wall while everyone stared.
My gods.
“I trust you’ve taken my warning?” it said. No one replied. No one dared.
And then Ivana appeared directly in front of it. She held out her hand, and it went rigid, eyes wide in shock.
She twisted her hand, face contorted in concentration, and it started to bend backward.
It screamed.
She kept her hand up, kept walking toward it, and it kept bending, bending, bending…
“You’ve allied with them?” it screeched, sounding indignant.
A sudden crack. It dropped to the ground, limp, and Ivana dropped her hand. She walked over to it and nudged it with her foot. It didn’t move.
Then Yaotel made a gesture with his hand, and Perth, Hueil, and two other men Vaughn didn’t know well surrounded Ivana. She held up her hands. She was currently weaponless.
“Seize her,” Yaotel said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Implications
Vaughn followed as Perth and Hueil dragged Ivana through the smoking ruins of the shed and back into the manor. He tried to keep Ivana in his sights. She was walking calmly, head held high, and not struggling at all against her captors. But when she glanced back, just once, her eyes were ice.
Many of the uninjured—or at least not seriously injured— Banebringers stayed behind. The walls had been breached, and they knew a handful of bloodbane were still roaming in the woods.
Besides that, there was a gigantic mess to clean up, as quickly as possible.
But the procession through the manor’s halls was nevertheless long. It was led by Yaotel, and Danton had come along, as well as the other two men who had originally seized Ivana. Perth and Hueil, of course, held Ivana’s arms firmly, and Perrit the ex-priest trailed behind—as well as a few stragglers: Banebringers who had been healed satisfactorily by the bindbloods emerging from the infirmary, a few who had ignored Yaotel’s order to start cleaning up and followed anyway…
All in all, at least a dozen people entered the meeting chamber. No one sat. Those who weren’t actively involved in guarding Ivana were standing around nervously, wondering what this portended. Or curiously. Or eagerly.
As for Vaughn…
He thought he was going to throw up. He didn’t know if it was the residual effect of the battle, or the fatigue and terror and horrific sights were finally catching up to him, or over-use of his aether, or if he were worried for Ivana. Or all of them. He had no idea what Yaotel intended by this.
“Search her,” Yaotel said.
Perth eagerly obeyed and performed a search for weapons that ended up being more like a systematic groping. Vaughn gritted his teeth, feeling the sudden urge to slug the man. But Ivana leveled a cool stare at Perth that made him instinctively quail, though he tried to cover it up by coughing and picking at the blood that had dried on the side of his face.
Maybe she would slug him. That would be almost as satisfying.
“Easy, Perth,” Hueil said, frowning at Perth.
Vaughn knew he had always liked Huiel.
Perth pulled out a slender package that was tucked into the back of Ivana’s trousers, looking triumphant. He let the makeshift wrappings fall off, revealing a kitchen knife.
Vaughn winced. The knife he had given her. Not weaponless, then.
Perth slid it across the table that was at the front of the room to Yaotel. Yaotel glanced at it, frowned, and shook his head.
“She tried to escape,” Perth said before Yaotel could speak. “You ought to have her executed.”
That was it. Vaughn was going to punch him. Or maybe strangle him. Yes, that was more fitting. He felt himself inching forward, fist curling into a ball.
Danton spoke up, timidly. “I don’t know if coming out to help defend the manor counts as an escape attempt, Yaotel.”
“She’s clearly dangerous,” Perth spat back.
Vaughn lunged at him. “She saved your worthless life!” Vaughn shouted, shoving the man back against the wall.
“Enough!” Yaotel said. “Perth, shut your hole. Vaughn, control yourself, or I’ll have you thrown out.”
Vaughn stepped back, matching Perth’s glare.
Perth rubbed his head. Vaughn had almost forgotten the man had suffered a pretty hard blow to the head. Probably had a massive headache. Maybe dizzy. Being shoved against a wall wouldn’t have helped.
Vaughn grinned savagely. Good.
Yaotel massaged his temple. “Now. Perth, your concern is noted, but I agree with Danton. She made it outside the manor. If she wanted to escape, she could have easily slipped away without endangering herself.” He looked at Ivana. “Which brings me to the point. When did you become Gifted?”
“I’m not…Gifted,” she said, her voice even.
Yaotel frowned. “Lying about this isn’t going to help you.”
Ivana lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing a bloody gash across her waist. It had stopped bleeding, but it hadn’t turned to aether. “Does that look like aether to you?”
Yaotel’s frown deepened. “Then how,” he said, “did you do what you did out there?”
There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation before she responded. “Ask Vaughn.”
He grimaced. Yeah. All right, then. She had warned him, after all.
The room fell silent, all eyes on him. Even Ivana was looking at him, but her eyes were unreadable. He shifted uncomfortably. The last words they had exchanged hadn’t exactly been friendly.
“You had better explain yourself,” Yaotel said. “Now.”
There had been an unmistakable flash of hurt in Vaughn’s eyes when she had given him up. Good. He had become far too comfortable with her. He needed a hard lesson.
Vaughn didn’t attempt to dissimilate. “We discovered that when you combine the blood of a Gifted with the blood of a non-Gifted, it creates an aether that the non-Gifted can use.”
Yaotel blinked, several times. The silence of the room took on a stunned feel.
Vaughn kept talking. “We created a stockpile of this aether for her use, at my suggestion. Obviously, she used it tonight.”
“When did you discover this?”
“Shortly before we arrived, by accident.”
“And you’ve said nothing about it before now?”
Vaughn remained silent.
“And you specifically set out to create this…mixed aether to help her escape.”
“I gave her options, should she grow desperate. I should point out, she chose to use those options instead to help defend all of you.” He cast his eyes around the room, meeting the gaze of each person in turn.
And still he defended her? Burning skies, this man was unbelievable. What did she need to do, take off a few of his fingers?
Yaotel held up his hand. “All right. We’ll deal with that later. Let’s go back to the aether. You’re telling me a non-Gifted could use aether if they were to mix their own blood with that of a Gifted.”
Vaughn hesitated. “Well. I only know about our tests with my own blood. But I assume so, given the abilities she used during the battle.”
“Test it. Now. I want confirmation.” He gestured to Hueil. “Hueil.”
Huiel pricked himself with a knife and then held the knife out to Ivana. She almost snorted. Had he really just done that?
No matter. She accepted the knife calmly, pricked her own finger, and put her hand out. Huiel smeared his finger onto hers. She set the knife down silently, right next to her hand, while everyone else was staring at her finger.
It turned to aether a minute later.
“What does it do?” she asked Huiel.
“I’m a windblood,” Huiel said.
Wind. All right then. She imagined turning the aether into a tiny whirlwind.
A
sudden breeze wafted across the room. Papers skittered across the table at the front, and Ivana’s hair rose and sank. The aether on her finger had turned to powder.
Yaotel let out a long breath. “This is…” He shook his head, apparently at a loss for words.
A shaky voice spoke up. “Could I…say something?” Perrit. The ex-priest.
Yaotel waved his hand.
Perrit looked troubled. No, beyond troubled. He looked shaken. “Do you realize the implications of this?”
“I’m sure there are many,” Yaotel said. “What are you referring to?”
“The priests,” Perrit said. “I never rose high enough in the ranks to learn how they did their magic. Since I was rejected, I’ve often thought it ironic how so much of what they did mimicked Banebringer powers, to a lesser degree, and how the sacred texts never mention magic as a gift from Yathyn.” He hesitated, glancing around at the faces watching him, and then down at his feet. “Perhaps irony isn’t the right word.”
“What are you saying, Perrit?”
“We know the priests keep Sedated Banebringers somewhere, presumably to care for them in a humane manner and to keep the rest of us safe from them when they die. What if…what if they’re doing more than just caring for them? What if they’re—” He broke off, seemingly unable to continue.
My gods. “Harvesting their blood for their own use,” Vaughn finished softly for him.
The silence turned to whispers as everyone repeated what they had heard to each other, making sure they had heard correctly, making sure they weren’t crazy.
Vaughn’s head was spinning. An idea was forming, the barest outline of an idea, but… “This could be it,” he said, and then repeated it, louder. “This could be it.”
The whispers dropped off.
“Don’t you see?” he said to everyone in the room. “If this is true, then it means that the priests are living a lie. At the same time they damn us, they themselves use the very magic they’ve condemned. And call it a gift from Yathyn, when in reality it’s a gift from the heretic gods.”
Saylyn, ever the researcher, broke in. “But how could they use aether from Sedated Gifted? Wouldn’t the aether be useless once they’ve rendered it neutral with the Sedation formula?”
Vaughn blinked. He hadn’t thought about that. “Unless they aren’t actually Sedating everyone,” he said. “Or there’s another factor we’re unaware of at work. Have we ever experimented with aether directly from a Sedated Gifted?” He glanced around, half-expecting Yaotel to stop him, but even he was listening. “Maybe they’re all hypocrites. Maybe Yathyn doesn’t care. Maybe Yathyn doesn’t even exist. I don’t know, but whatever is going on—”
A sob broke the air, and Perrit swayed back and forth, and then fled the room.
They all allowed a moment of silent pity for the priest. Most of them treated the Conclave’s damnation as a joke. No one believed it. Or at least, no one knew what to believe.
But Perrit…Perrit had always kept his faith in Yathyn, choosing instead to believe that the god had rejected him—that he had some offense or sin in his life that had damned him. To have that belief questioned…
Poor man.
But Vaughn was growing too excited to linger over it for long. “Yaotel,” he said. “This could be our salvation. If the general populace knew about this—”
“It wouldn’t make a difference,” Yaotel said roughly. “No one is going to miraculously accept us back into society because the Conclave is proven corrupt. Most people believe that anyway, to some degree.”
“No.” Vaughn shook his head. “No. You’re right, of course. The prejudices run too deep for that. But it’s a seed of doubt. There are already those who support us—Gan Barton isn’t the only one. And there are those who doubt, but are too afraid of being branded heretics themselves to speak up. The Conclave’s fall would strengthen those people, giving them a voice. Yaotel, this could swing the political tides in our favor. Even the king might be convinced, given enough time and effort.” Without war. Without massive bloodshed. Without Setana being ripped apart in a bloodbane’s claws. “The power of the Conclave has only grown strong in the past century. It doesn’t run so deep into Setanan heritage that it will be impossible to uproot.”
Yaotel shook his head, slowly. He still wasn’t convinced. What would it take? “What would you have us do? March into the Conclave and declare their corruption, without any evidence? You think they would take kindly to that?”
“No, of course not. We’d need a plan, a way to get them to reveal it themselves…”
“Except that this is all still theory. We don’t know for sure the priests are harvesting aether from Gifted for their own purposes. It could be coincidence. It could be ignorance. The only way to know for sure would be to know where the Sedated are kept so we can find the evidence. And we don’t know.”
Vaughn deflated. Yaotel was right. There was no point in even brainstorming plans until they knew for sure Perrit was right. As quickly as hope had flared, it died.
“I do,” Ivana’s voice said.
“What?” Yaotel said.
“I know where they’re kept.” She paused. “Or, at least I know someone who could tell us.”
Yaotel stared at Ivana, incredulity on his face. And then: “Out,” he said. “Everyone but Vaughn and the woman, leave now.”
The others left reluctantly, wanting to hear the rest of this, but Yaotel’s voice had the ring of authority that compelled obedience.
When the door had slammed shut behind the last person, Yaotel pinned Ivana with an impressively intimidating stare. “Explain.”
Not that she was actually intimidated. She shrugged. “I told you. I know someone who knows where Sedated Banebringers are kept. She’s on the inside, in fact.” She used the term “Banebringer” deliberately, trying to irritate him.
“And you’ve waited all this time to tell me this? You didn’t think that might be useful information to us?”
“Contempt and disdain are hardly the tools with which to win someone’s trust,” Ivana said, matching his gaze without flinching.
Yaotel shifted and looked away. “You’re telling me now. Why?”
“Because I have something to gain now,” Ivana said.
“Your freedom?”
“My freedom has never been in question. I’m here because I’ve chosen to stay here.”
Yaotel’s face darkened at that, which was precisely Ivana’s intent. She was in control. She was the one manipulating his moods, not the other way around.
“What I stand to gain is your help,” she continued, as if nothing had happened.
“Our help,” Yaotel said, disbelief in his voice.
“A trade,” Ivana said. “Mutually beneficial. I can see, despite your endeavors at making it seem otherwise, that you’re intrigued by Vaughn’s proposal.”
Yaotel was silent. He rubbed his hand over his face, and then spoke as if the words were being dragged out of him. “What do you want from me?”
“Simple. I want in.”
“Why in the abyss would you want to be part of a plot to infiltrate and expose the Conclave? What possible advantage could that have for you? Unless you have a death wish, that is.”
Finally time to play the card she had been holding close, for the right moment. “The Conclave has imprisoned some people who are important to me. I can’t imagine their intentions are benevolent. I want to find them and rescue them. I can’t do it alone.”
Yaotel sighed and sat down for the first time. “I can’t let you go. I don’t trust you.”
She rolled her eyes. If she wanted to leave, she could. But she would continue playing, for now. She needed his help. “If you won’t let me go myself, then I need someone to go in my stead to deliver a message and obtain the information we need from my contact.”
“I’ll go,” Vaughn volunteered. He had remained silent the entire time and didn’t look at Ivana now. “It’s my idea. I’ll take the risk.”
The door flew open. “Yaotel! There’s a problem—the woman—she’s, she’s dead!” Airec stood in the doorway, panting.
Yaotel looked up sharply. “What do you mean, dead? She was alive when the attack started. Who killed her?”
“No one, Dal. She’s just…dead. Collapsed on the ground of her cell. No pulse.”
“And the bloodbane?”
“As far as we can tell, no bloodbane was summoned. We’ve already tested her blood, and it doesn’t turn to aether. She’s no longer Gifted!”
Ivana raised an eyebrow. How was that even possible?
Yaotel stood up. He addressed Vaughn and Ivana. “Work out the details. Let me know when we have more information.”
Yaotel strode out of the room with Airec, leaving Vaughn and Ivana alone together for the first time since…had it really only been hours before?
She went over to the table and started rummaging around in drawers until she found a clean piece of paper and a pen and ink. She sat down at the table, dipped the pen in the ink, and started writing.
Vaughn shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable in the sudden silence, and wishing she would say something.
Finally, he broke the silence. “How did you do that?”
She didn’t look up. “Do what?”
“Whatever you did to that…corpse-thing? It was like you were controlling his body.”
She paused in her writing and then looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “With your aether?”
“My aether?”
“Don’t you realize how much water the body contains? In your blood, your bladder, your bones, your organs…” She raised a second eyebrow. “Have you people never dissected anyone?”
He certainly hadn’t. He didn’t know about the researchers.
“Of course, I couldn’t be sure if that thing’s biological makeup was the same as ours—so I didn’t even bother to try and be more precise. I just grabbed whatever I could and tried to break it.”
Vaughn’s mouth dropped open. “Burning skies,” he whispered. The possibilities swirled in his brain. Could he make someone’s bladder explode? Someone’s heart? Drain all the blood to one side of their body? Break bones? The power…
