by JA Andrews
“It happened so fast. She started screaming, and it just pulled everything out of her. She went from laughing and talking and living…to nothing.
“Rett went crazy. He tried to rip the stone out of her hands, but as soon as he touched it, it started to take him too.” He squeezed his eyes shut again, twisting away from the memory.
“It was Killien who stopped it. He wrested the stone away from them both. But by the time he did, Raina was dead and Rett was…empty. He still had some abilities, but there’s nothing left of him.” He drew in a deep breath, and blew it out. “Killien and I have never been able to figure out if he even remembers who Raina was.”
“That’s why Rett likes glowing green stones, isn’t it?” Will asked.
Hal let out a growl. “Lukas gives him those… Something in him must remember because he watches those stones like he’s waiting for something. And when the green light fades, he’s heartbroken.”
“Is Lukas trying to be cruel?”
Hal shook his head. “Rett begs him for them and sometimes Lukas gives in. And while they glow, he’s so happy, it almost feels like the right thing to do.”
“How did Killien save him?” Alaric asked. “Why didn’t the stone just take him too?”
Hal closed his mouth.
“Because magic doesn’t work around Killien,” Will said. “Does it?”
Hal clenched his jaw, but didn’t disagree.
“That’s why I couldn’t do anything near him.” Will turned to Alaric. “He was sitting at a table with me. I could feel the vitalle from everyone around us, but when I tried to grab it, it just slipped through my fingers. I don’t know what kind of magic he has in one of those gems he wears, but I couldn’t do anything near him.”
Alaric’s hand felt absently for something at his chest that he didn’t find. “Could you touch the vitalle at all?”
Will started to shake his head, then paused. “It was like smoke. I knew when I had reached it, but there was nothing to hold.”
Alaric turned his eyes up to the ceiling. “Fascinating.”
“What’s fascinating,” Hal said, his face dark, “is that after all your protesting, Will, you obviously did try to use magic against Killien.”
“Once. After he’d drugged me, imprisoned me, forced me to translate an evil book, and threatened to kill my sister. After all this, you can hardly expect me to give Killien the high moral ground.”
“What happened to Raina and Rett is why Killien is the way he is,” Hal fired back. “Why he studies everything as extensively as he can before he does anything. Why he spends the Morrow’s money on as many books as he can find.”
“Like this?” Will pointed to Kachig’s book. “What we need to do is free Lukas. Then Killien won’t have the power to do anything.”
“You can’t do that to Lukas,” Hal objected.
Will stared at him. “I think he’d be in favor of being freed from slavery.”
“He won’t leave Killien. His limp isn’t from a normal injury. A few years ago he was attacked by a stonesteep. The healers fixed his leg, but the pain never went away. It’s driven by some sort of magic because if Lukas is close to Killien, it stops.”
Will sank back. “That explains a lot.” The closeness to Killien. His foul mood anytime he was away from the Torch. How his limp seemed to change in severity. “Why doesn’t Killien just give Lukas one of the gems that stops magic from working around him? Is it in one of his rings?”
Hal fixed him with a look that clearly said Will didn’t know what he was talking about.
A thought struck Will. “Unless it’s not in a gem. It’s something about Killien himself.”
Hal scowled more deeply.
Alaric’s eyebrow rose. “Killien can nullify magic?”
Will shrugged. “I only tried to move vitalle around him once, but if it’s like that all the time, I’d say yes, he can nullify magic.”
Both Keepers looked at Hal questioningly. Hal’s shoulders sank. “I don’t know how it works,” he admitted, “but no magic works near Killien. He’s been like that since we were boys. So Lukas stays near Killien as often as he can. Even at night. The room he sleeps in shares a wall with Killien, and that’s close enough.”
Alaric’s eyebrows rose more. “He can do it through walls?”
Hal nodded.
Alaric eyes were bright with curiosity. “Fascinating,” he repeated.
“If Killien nullifies magic, why does he wear all the rings and have the runes on his leathers?” Will asked.
“Only a handful of people know he has the ability. He thinks it’s more valuable if he keeps it a secret.”
“This is all very interesting,” Douglon interrupted, hefting a crate off a shelf and bringing it over to the table, “but if we’re not leaving the Sweep, where are we going?”
“I need to go where Killien has Ilsa,” Will said.
“He’s in the rift,” Hal said. “We were supposed to leave for the enclave tomorrow, but after everything that happened, I’d imagine he’s waiting impatiently for us to bring you back.”
“How are you going to reach her?” Sora asked.
Will scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know, but I can’t leave her there.”
“It’s gonna be tricky sneaking Queenslanders and dwarves into a Roven rift,” Patlon pointed out. “We don’t blend in.”
That was true. It would be stupid to take this group into the Sweep. Will dropped his head into his hands. There was no way any of them were going to get anywhere near the rift, never mind Killien’s own house, without the Torch finding out.
The room was silent for a few breaths while Will searched desperately for an idea. It was Hal who broke the silence.
“I can take you in.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Will looked up at Hal sharply. “Somehow I don’t think walking into the rift with you will work out much better for us.”
“We’ll go in the back entrance. There’s a tunnel that leads from the Sweep directly into the back of Killien’s house.” He ran his fingernail along a groove on the table. “Ilsa’s been helping Lilit recover since the baby was born. That’s where she’ll be.”
“Who knows about the entrance?” Sora asked.
“Killien, Lilit, Me. Lukas.” Hal turned to the dwarves. “Do you have an exit closer to the rift?”
“There is one,” Douglon answered. “Only a couple hours away.”
“Cousin,” Patlon warned. “The High Dwarf isn’t fond of foreigners in the tunnels.”
“I don’t see Horgoth here, cousin.”
“He’s going to be furious.”
“That’s hardly new.”
“Can we get into Killien’s house without being seen?” Will asked.
“If we go during the night,” Hal answered. “We’ll have to avoid rangers, but we’ll have Sora with us.”
“And me,” Rass said. “Rangers stomp around so much you can hear them long before you can see them.”
“The hours before dawn would be the easiest,” Sora said. “But what if we run into Killien before we find Ilsa?”
“Trade me for her,” Hal said.
Will glanced at Sora. “Would Killien make that trade?”
“Hal’s family owns half of the herds in the Morrow Clan. Killien would be stupid not to. But if we run into Killien, we won’t be in a position to trade.”
“Then let’s not run into Killien.” Will turned to Hal. “Are we going to be able to find her?”
“The tunnel comes out in a back storage room near the slave’s quarters. Killien’s sleeping room is one floor up. If we’re quiet, we can go in, talk to Ilsa, and leave before Killien knows you’re there. I’ll find a different way back into the rift once it’s daylight.”
Sora’s face was hard. “Why are you helping Will?”
Hal ran a hand through his hair. “Ilsa’s served Lilit for a long time, and she seems like a good person.” He glanced at Will. “And the Torch h
ates you with a ferocity I haven’t seen before. I don’t think Ilsa should be a pawn in that. You’re letting me go. Killien’s letting her go. It’s fair.”
Sora’s mouth pressed into a reluctant acceptance, before she turned back to Will. “And what if Ilsa doesn’t want to come?”
Will’s stomach tightened at the words.
“Will you be able to leave her there?”
“I’m not taking her against her will.” He pushed aside the memory of how she’d flinched away from him. “But when she hears the truth, I hope she’ll come.”
Sora leaned on the table and fixed him with an expression that told him how likely she thought that was. “You’re following a man who’s angry with you, into the home of a man who hates you, to try to convince a woman who’s terrified of you, to leave everything she’s ever known.”
Will shook his head “You’re telling the story all wrong. A Keeper is journeying through the night, using a secret tunnel shown to him by a friend, to reach the house of…an old friend, in order to save an innocent girl from slavery, and possibly death.” Her expression didn’t change and Will gave her a hopeful smile. “And he’s taking the greatest ranger on the Sweep with him, so that counts for something.”
“Changing the story doesn’t change the truth.”
“The truth is complex enough for more than one story.”
She shook her head and stood up, walking over to where Evangeline and Patlon were discussing supplies. Will glanced at Hal who was running his thumbnail pensively along a grove on the table.
“Is my horse alright?” Will asked.
Hal nodded without glancing up. “Killien made him a workhorse in the barley fields. He’ll be cared for.”
Will sighed. “I liked Shadow. Although I suppose he’d probably have been eaten by a dragon by now if he was here, seeing as how he wouldn’t have fit in the entrance to this tunnel.”
He watched Hal run his hand along the grain of the table. “I am sorry that I lied to you about who I was.”
The big man paused for a moment. “Telling us you were a Keeper would have been a death sentence.”
“Does it make it any better to know that it wasn’t long into knowing you that I regretted the fact that the lie existed?”
Hal grunted noncommittally and Will let silence fall between them for a moment, wondering if there was a better way to ask his next question. “Are you sure you should be helping us?”
Hal didn’t answer immediately. When he did, he sounded reluctant. “I’ve spoken to your sister several times, and I like her. I don’t think it’s right, Killien using her like this.”
Will thought back on the past few weeks. “I’ve never seen you with a slave. Do you have any?”
“My father did. I grew up with some of them. One was a girl just two years younger than me. She was…like a sister.” Hal ran his fingers through his beard. “And one day my father traded her for a breeding ram.” In the dim light, Hal’s eyes were hard. “When my father died, I took all our slaves to Kollman Pass and sent them off the Sweep.”
“You set them free?”
Hal nodded. “Never sat right with me, owning people like that.”
“But you’re friends with Killien, and he has plenty of slaves.”
“If I kept my distance from every Roven with slaves, I’d have no friends at all,” Hal answered. “Killien and I have been friends our entire lives. I love him like a brother even if we don’t agree on everything.”
“Won’t he see this as a betrayal?”
Hal ran his hand through his beard. “Maybe. But there’s a lot of what he’s done lately that feels like betrayal as well. I can’t believe he did that with the frost goblins, and still wants to capture more. Also, he already knows how I feel about slaves. I’ve tried to convince him more than once to free his.”
“How did he take that idea?”
“Not well. I don’t think Rett would know what to do with freedom, but Sini and Lukas deserve it. Sini is too fun and happy to be kept as a slave. And Lukas is bright, he could probably do anything he set his mind to.”
Except be pleasant. “Well, thank you. I appreciate the help.”
Hal gave Will a hard look. “When I met you, I thought you’d make my journey north more enjoyable. Instead you’ve made my life much more complicated.”
“I introduced you to dwarves,” Will pointed out. “And brought you into their tunnels.”
A smile showed behind his beard. “True. Maybe that’s the real reason I’m helping you. And I do like the stories.”
“Maybe after we eat I can tell the one about a dwarf princess who was so ugly she was mistaken for a rock.”
“I’ve never wanted to hear anything more.”
Down the table, Alaric leaned close to a page in Kachig’s book, squinting at a rune and muttering.
“What we need,” Will said to him, “are the more elementary books on how to do magic with stones. All the books I’ve read expect a familiarity with a process we don’t know anything about.”
Alaric cleared his throat and smoothed his hand across the page. “I may have figured out a little bit of it.”
“When?”
Alaric glanced at Evangeline, then began the story of how she was poisoned and how he drew out her vitalle into a Reservoir Stone to keep her alive.
Will stared at his old friend, stunned. “That sounds like the absorption stone that Killien’s book talked about, drawing the life out of someone.”
“Very much like it.” Alaric told of the long, painful search for the cure, and how it led to the discovery of a wizard named Gustav who planned to awaken Mallon.
“He was the reason the dragon attacked us the first time,” Douglon said.
“How did you fight it off?” Will asked.
Douglon looked away and took a bite of his bread.
“Ayda did,” Alaric answered.
“Ayda the elf? I underestimated her,” Will said.
“Everyone did.”
Will looked back and forth between them. “I followed a wizard onto the Sweep because he claimed he was going to wake Mallon. I found him, eventually, but he was just a doddering old man. His name wasn’t Gustav, though. It was Wizendor.”
Alaric laughed. “That’s him. His full name was Wizendorenfurderfur.”
“The Wondrous,” Douglon added.
They seemed perfectly serious. “That’s ridiculous.”
Douglon shook his head. “You can’t even imagine.”
“He was a master of influence spells.” Alaric’s distaste of the idea was obvious. “He fooled all of us.”
Will shifted. “Influence spells can be useful when you’re surrounded by enemies.”
Alaric raised an eyebrow, but after a moment’s thought, gave a nod of agreement. He explained how Ayda had been the last elf, and held the power of all the others, how she’d used it to help destroy Mallon and Gustav.
“But you said before there are no more elves.” Will looked at each of their somber faces, not wanting to ask the next question. “Did destroying Mallon kill her?”
Alaric shook his head. “No, that came later.”
Douglon let out a long sigh and pushed away from the table, going to rummage through another crate on the shelf.
“Douglon,” Will whispered, “and Ayda?”
Alaric nodded.
“That’s…” Words failed him.
“It is,” Alaric agreed. “When we got back to Evangeline, she was far too weak to revive. Until Ayda…”
Evangeline looked pensively at her own hands.
“She was tired of being the only elf, tired of carrying the weight of her people. She’d done it long enough to see Mallon destroyed, and she was done.”
Will sat back, taking in the whole idea. “So there really are no elves?” The idea felt so hollow. Granted he had only seen a handful of elves in his life, most of which were polite but distant emissaries at court, but elves always felt like a breath of life in the world. He’
d often thought of returning to the Greenwood to find Ayda again. “Is that how you knew the dragon?” he asked Evangeline. “Whatever Ayda put in you recognized it?”
Both Alaric and Evangeline nodded.
“She put some of her memories into me,” Evangeline explained. “It’s like when you’re doing something and you have that feeling that you’ve done it all before. Sometimes I see something, or Alaric says something, and I know about it. But it’s like a dream. If I think about it too much, it all goes away. So Alaric’s taken to slipping things into conversations to catch me off guard.”
“You would not believe the things I’ve learned about the elves,” Alaric said. “It’s fascinating. And depressing.”
“We should go.” Douglon pulled some squash and onions out of the crate. “There’s a cavern not far from here with a chimney. We can cook and get a few hours sleep before we need to head to the rift.”
“I thought we’d just sleep here.” Alaric glanced at the bedrolls.
“Trust me.” Douglon shoved the crate back onto the shelf. “You want to get to the other one.”
Patlon poured water into cup-like lanterns. As he did, each one began to glow with a faint orange light.
Sora pulled her own glimmer moss lantern out of her bag, and using a bit of Patlon’s water, set hers glowing a ruddier color. Patlon peered into her lantern and grunted. “Frostweed?”
“Mixed with crushed tundra lichen.”
Patlon gave her an approving nod. “You may be the most competent human I’ve ever met.” He motioned her toward the tunnel. “You’re going to like where we’re headed.”
Sora walked into the tunnel next to him, the sound of Patlon’s voice dropping to muffled echoes. Everyone else followed.
The world shrank to the size of their group. The lanterns cast four patches of orange light. Bits of the ceiling and walls slid through them. A nagging discomfort began to plague Will that they weren’t actually moving. That they were doing something like treading water. A peal of laughter echoed back from Sora, and Will craned around Hal to see her. She talked animatedly, outlined in the dim light of Patlon’s lantern. It felt partly reassuring, partly irritating that she was so at ease.
