Lodestone

by Katherine Forrister

  “I already have use in this castle,” Melaine said, not bothering to acknowledge the strings of garlic bulbs hanging from the ceiling behind Karina. “And it’s not cooking and being ordered around by you.”

  “Ah, yes,” Karina said. “Well, if all you’d like to do is lie about and make lodestones, then by all means.”

  “That’s not all I do, and you know it,” Melaine said, her volume rising.

  “It’s all you should be doing!” Karina said as she slammed a wooden cutting board on the table. Melaine stiffened in surprise.

  “You have been allowed into the Overlord’s presence,” Karina said, her voice taking on a thin quality. “Someone like you should be groveling at his feet. You should be offering him your lodestones without question and without expecting any recompense in return. You are wasting his time.”

  “I’m not a waste of time,” Melaine said.

  “You are not worthy of his teachings,” Karina hissed.

  “And you are?” Melaine asked. “Is that it? You’re angry that he’s teaching me and not you?”

  “Of course not. He shouldn’t be wasting his energy teaching at all. He has far more important things to focus on, and so little time left to—”

  Karina stopped. She looked down but not before Melaine caught her eyes watering.

  “The Overlord has decided to use his time as he sees fit,” Melaine said, soft but stubborn. “If you don’t like that, then you must not be the loyal servant he thinks you are.”

  “Don’t you dare question my loyalty,” Karina said, her voice low with quiet anger. Her tears were gone when she looked back up. “You are a newcomer. You know nothing of me, of him, of what’s going on.”

  “You know what’s going on,” Melaine said, her narrowed eyes inspecting Karina’s. “Don’t you? You seem to know an awful lot about the Overlord’s condition, whatever it is. And you’ve been in Highstrong from the start, haven’t you?”

  “Foolish girl,” Karina said, seething. “The Overlord may be able to put up with your insolence, but I will not. Go back to your quarters.”

  Melaine scoffed. “I thought you wanted help with the garlic.”

  “I don’t want your filthy hands on it,” Karina said. She turned aside and tore two bulbs free, their white husks flitting to the floor.

  “We’ll see what the Overlord has to say about your treatment of me,” Melaine said, twirling his wand in her fingers.

  Karina eyed the wand again. Then she looked down at Melaine’s blue satin sleeve, at her bodice, all the way down her gown and to her fine, tall, buttoned boots. Her cheeks were still flushed red, and more tears watered her eyes before she blinked to clear them. Her expression hardened.

  “Don’t you dare hurt him,” Karina said. “He shouldn’t be wasting his energy on anything physically or emotionally strenuous. No matter how tempting the reason. Do you understand?”

  Melaine frowned. She glanced down at the Overlord’s wand and the dress she wore. When she looked back up, Karina had turned away to retrieve a copper pot.

  “He’s the Overlord, Karina,” Melaine said. “I couldn’t hurt him if I tried.”

  Karina paused but didn’t turn around.

  “Not all damage is done by magic, Melaine,” she said. “Grow up enough and you’ll realize that.”

  Melaine wandered amongst the library’s hexagonal shelves, but her mind drifted far from the myriad Insights upon them. Karina’s words were a repetitive gnat’s bite at her thoughts. She hadn’t sated any of her curiosity about Karina after their conversation. It had only brought on more questions. Then there was the other woman…the ghostly, horrific woman who looked rife with decay but whose whispered words carried comfort and a sense of warning.

  Who was she? Why was Melaine the only person who could see her? Was she a figment of her mind or a vivid taste of the dark magic that wormed through Highstrong Keep?

  Melaine fidgeted with the black lace of her gloves as she kept pacing amongst the shelves. The Overlord’s wand was pressed against the skin inside her white dress sleeve, contained by the line of pearl buttons all the way to her elbows. The wand had become a comfort when she wasn’t with him, but with all that had happened in the nightly corridors the past few days, it was starting to not be enough.

  Besides, thoughts of the Overlord were a complicated storm raging in her mind and body, at times swelling with anxious fears, with lulls of pity followed by torrents of longing. Pain and sadness peaked in tall waves before they crashed into bitterness and confusion. It was almost too much for her to take, but no matter how much she would try to banish him from her head, only for a night’s sleep or a momentary reprieve, his ghost of a smile would haunt her dreams and waking thoughts.

  Melaine tried to focus on the Insights again, desperate for a distraction. None seemed appealing. She must be tired if even Insights couldn’t excite her, she thought.

  But then, she saw a glistening ruby vial on a shelf ahead. Blood.

  She approached the vial, a small, innocuous thing except for its contents. She reached out and lifted it from its perch. The flicker of a nearby candelabra glinted off the red, uncoagulated liquid as she tilted the vial. The faint tang of iron hit her nostrils, and when she focused on the scent, it grew stronger. She could taste the sharp flavor of blood, and she could feel its slick, hot texture pouring down her hands. Magic rolled through her body, rising in her stomach like a sickness.

  The vial remained intact and unopened in her fist, but the bottle may as well have been a washbasin drenching her in blood. She closed her eyes tight but forced herself to hold on.

  This was blood magic. The powerful Insight contained knowledge of ways to overcome another person by turning their own body and essence against them. It was dark and tantalizing—power without parallel if wielded by a strong, dauntless hand.

  But Melaine’s hand shook as she struggled to maintain her focus. She reminded herself that this was why she had come to Highstrong Keep and presented herself to the Overlord. She had heard countless stories of the Overlord and his Followers using blood magic to fuel their army and overcome the White City’s walls. The details were always hazy in the telling. No one wanted to discuss blood magic in the light of day.

  Melaine wanted to learn. She needed to learn. This was the power she needed, what would set her apart from the rabble, from the weak and the afraid.

  She fell to her knees with another wave of sickness. She clutched her stomach, though the pain was far more than physical. Her fist shook harder around the vial. She squeezed tighter.

  It shattered. She cried out and watched blood—her own—mingle with the magical essence trapped within the vial. Both flooded down her palm and between her fingers. Blood ran down her wrist and arm and then spilled onto the stone floor.

  Melaine gasped as if she’d been drowning underwater and had finally been rescued. She slammed her palm on the ground, piercing her skin with shards of glass. Then her eyes flew open wide. A familiar gust of whispers assaulted her ears. The whispers of the urn, magnified, seeping out of the floor until they spun around her in a heady wind.

  Words were indistinguishable, yet they were telling her all the same things. Death…terrible deaths, slaughters and suicides, forced servitude, and then something greater, something darker, a catastrophic foe that ate through people like a swarm of locusts…

  “There’s blood in the walls,” Melaine whispered. “The walls.”

  A benevolent whisper echoed the word, and a vivid woman’s face swam into Melaine’s head. She was the woman from the armory, but she was beautiful and whole. She wielded a polished wooden staff, and long, white, First Era robes fluttered around her body as if in a heavy wind. She stood in the center of the library tower with fierce, determined eyes. The library was empty of shelves and Insights. There was nothing inside but stone walls and the gale of whispers rushing around the strange woman in a torrential storm.

  “Melaine.”

  A voice carried through the whi
spers, low and coarse. The whispers swelled over it like an avenging tidal wave, but their many droplets couldn’t break the strength of the single voice. They rose to a clamor but then smashed against the second word by the intruder.

  “Melaine.”

  Melaine opened her eyes, and the vision of the beautiful woman in the empty library vanished. She wrenched her spellbound gaze from the blood-soaked floor and looked up. The whispers dissipated, and only the Overlord’s concerned face commanded her senses.

  “My lord,” Melaine whispered.

  The Overlord knelt on one knee and took her wrist. She tensed but allowed him to coax her bloody palm from the floor. He turned her hand over and inspected her wounds. Glass shards poked through her lace glove, now matted with blood.

  He hovered his palm over hers and sighed, as if bracing himself for a wearisome task. He then emitted a low pulse of magic. It tickled her skin, tingling each minuscule place around her many, tiny wounds. Every glass shard lifted from the lace to hover and sparkle over her like little rubies and crystals. Then they vanished as if they had never been.

  Melaine tried to hold still as he tightened his gentle hold on her hand. He smoothed his thumb over her palm, and she winced.

  “May I?” he asked, stroking his finger down the side of her glove where it wouldn’t hurt. She parted her lips but didn’t speak. She never removed her gloves for anyone unless they had paid to watch her push a lodestone from her body. But the Overlord’s expression was earnest and comforting. No one had ever looked at her that way, with deeper care than she’d ever conceived to have for herself. Her shame and vulnerability ebbed away to the edges of her mind, supplanted by the warm glow blooming in her chest. She couldn’t control the flush of her cheeks as she focused on his soft touch and smooth skin.

  She licked her lips and nodded. The Overlord twitched a smile and cupped her hand in his while he used his other to coax the lace from her hand. Its tiny threads caught on the torn skin of her small wounds, but she kept quiet as she watched him slowly reveal her bare skin to his eyes.

  He took in every little crease of her palm as if he were reading a book and examined every tiny droplet of blood with a tender frown as if he wished he could kiss them all away. Melaine felt a flutter in her chest as he pressed his palm against hers.

  With his soothing touch, her cuts began to knit together. The pain was minuscule, but she trembled from the forbidden intimacy of his palm pressed against hers. She felt vulnerable, naked, and exposed yet more flooded with heat and consumed by a deeper ache than she’d felt when he’d almost kissed her lips. When her wounds disappeared altogether, she expected him to withdraw, but instead, he squeezed her hand with both of his, making her gasp. His hands were large enough to nearly hide hers from view, but his long fingers were as emaciated and pale as the rest of him. A knot formed in her throat. How much worse would he get before he…?

  The Overlord’s cracked lips parted as if there was a word on his tongue, but he refrained. He still didn’t let go when he dropped his gaze to the floor. The blood from the vial stained the stones. Its shining red had turned to a deep, black mar. Melaine felt as if she was going to sink into it, and her lips parted when the whispers began to pulse again in her ears.

  “Melaine,” the Overlord said. “Come away from here.”

  Melaine met his eyes. His voice had sounded so strong and loud when it fought through the ominous whispers, but now, it sounded hoarse and weak as always.

  “Yes, my lord,” she said, allowing him to help her to her feet. But as she found her footing, he swayed, and she gripped his hand tighter and pulled him close to help them keep their balance.

  The Overlord looked aside, his jaw tight, trying to maintain a cold mask to hide the shame of his weakness. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t be ashamed, that whatever was happening to him wasn’t his fault. But the silk of his black shirt rose and fell against her bosom with each of his shallow breaths, and she had the unprecedented urge to nestle into him and feel his heartbeat against her cheek. She instead slipped her hand out of his grasp and backed away. Her palm tingled in his absence.

  “Those whispers,” she said, swallowing. “Did you hear them? Were they a part of the vial or…?”

  “This keep has been around for hundreds of years,” the Overlord said. His hand hovered between them as if he wanted to draw her close again, but he closed his fist and lowered it to his side. “Rarely have its days been pleasant.” He nodded to a place across the library. “Come with me. I want to show you something different.”

  “Why not help me with that?” She nodded at the blood on the floor, though she felt hesitant at the prospect. “I was learning. I can handle it.”

  “Please, Melaine,” the Overlord said. Melaine frowned. He’d never requested anything of her so politely, as if she was a peer rather than a subject. What was his angle?

  He stepped away and tried to feign a slow, thoughtful pace. Melaine felt a pit of guilt deepen inside, knowing he had used some of his limited strength to heal her hand. She could have handled the pain, too, if he’d let her.

  But he hadn’t. Seeing what he had sacrificed, Melaine almost offered him a lodestone. But she held her tongue, shocked at herself for considering the idea of freely giving him one when he hadn’t even asked.

  She followed him in silence, and then felt a leap of excitement when his slow walk ended in front of the closed, mahogany and glass curio cabinet that held his collection of empty Insights. Insights that were useless except for those talented few, like Melaine and the Overlord, who were resourceful enough to repurpose magical residue.

  Ever since the Overlord had discovered that Melaine possessed that talent, he had forbidden her from touching the Insights within the cabinet. Now, he opened the glass doors and reached inside, pulling out a round sphere of amber.

  “I want you to study this,” the Overlord said. The amber, golden and deep, looked like the awe-inspiring honey Melaine had found on her breakfast plate her second morning in Highstrong. Inside, she saw the blurred outline of a caterpillar’s cocoon.

  “What does it hold?” she asked.

  “A wealth of healing spells,” he answered. “If you can tap into its reserves, it will teach you magic that is crucial for any sorcerer to learn.”

  “What?” she asked. “You want me to learn healing spells? You think I can’t handle anything else?”

  “If you have any desire to enter conflicts, there is a risk of injury, correct?” the Overlord said, his voice thinned as his eyes grew cool. “Healing spells may save your life one day.”

  “Armies have battle-healers,” Melaine said, not looking away from his hard stare. “I need to spend my time learning magic that healers won’t touch. That’s why I’m—”

  “Melaine!” the Overlord cut her off in a voice much louder and stronger than she could have expected. She tensed and drew back a little. “You came here for me to teach you. Don’t question my methods.”

  “You’re sick, aren’t you?” Melaine asked, her voice trembling as she struggled for courage and a firmer hold on her swell of anxiety. “You want me to learn healing spells so I can help you.”

  The Overlord growled in frustration and looked aside. “The spells aren’t for me.”

  “Are they for me, then?” Melaine asked. “Do you think I’m going to catch whatever it is you have?”

  “They’re for everyone else!” the Overlord said. “There’s no need for you to learn dark spells. Don’t you understand? I do not need Followers or battles or war. I gave Centara a peaceful rule! Didn’t I at least do that?”

  He gripped the amber sphere tighter and leaned into the wood of the cabinet. His breaths were ragged and fast, but he kept going. “I don’t want you to see what I saw, Melaine. There is no need for your corruption, do you understand? I don’t want to corrupt you.”

  His eyes were pleading with her. He clung to the cabinet as if a sword had wounded him deeply, and Melaine was the only one who could help
. Her bottom lip trembled as she considered reaching out to hold him, to comfort him as he’d done for her, but her indignation and rising rage stopped her.

  “You said I could become a Follower!” she said, her heartbeat railing in panic. All of her expectations of disappointment, of life always breaking its promises, renewed in agonizing force, bringing tears to her eyes. “I want to understand how you got your power—”

  “I’m trying to teach you, Melaine,” he said, shoving himself off the cabinet and grabbing her hand fast. She tensed, her entire body jolting with the fire of his touch.

  “No!” she said. She yanked her hand from his grasp. “You promised me you would teach me everything you know. Instead, I get this.”

  She snatched the amber out of his hand and threw it to the floor. It hit a table leg and rolled out of reach. She wiped the taint of residual magic on her elaborate white gown, her chiffon and lace now spattered red with blood from the Insight vial.

  “All I’ve done here is degrade myself by whoring out lodestones to you while I learn from your table scraps, your trash!” she said. “I expected more from you.”

  “And I should have expected less from you,” the Overlord said, now glaring into Melaine’s eyes. “If this is how you view your life here, then you will never be worthy of my teachings.”

  “And you will never be the powerful leader I thought you were!” Melaine countered. “The ruler I looked up to since I was a child. Not without my lodestones.”

  The magicless state of Talem’s body crawled into her mind, a background threat that had never left her thoughts. She took a step back but lifted her chin in challenge. “Unless you’re going to make me give them to you.”

  The Overlord stood still and silent, his breaths heavy with the exertion of a simple argument. Then his hard glare crumbled into a raw expression of unmistakable heartache, but it was gone in a flash. He looked aside.

  “You fool,” he murmured.

  Tears blurred Melaine’s vision. Her lip trembled in a pitiful way that she hated. She spun around and ran to the library doors. She shouldered them open with a heave and abandoned the Overlord, leaving him with his insults and pathetic, weak misery.