Heat boiled through Ariana and she fought the urge to claw at her torso, fighting the awful sensation of her clothing biting her. She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath, and then another. Then she opened her eyes and started toward the flowered walk Oniwe’aru had taken.
“Ariana’rika!” Maru called. “Where are you going?”
“This is a palace,” she snapped over her shoulder. “There will be a room where I can stay.”
She followed the walk but saw only a solid wall, carved with intricate tessellating design. She did not hesitate but continued down it, keeping a steady pace. She would not return to ask direction, she would not allow them to see the hot tears spilling down her cheeks now. She did not seek the palace itself so much as she sought privacy.
A circle of flowering vines offered a screen, and she sank beside an upright boulder with a little sob. What had happened—how had this happened? She’d only wanted to pursue the dall sweetbud. She had never dreamed her friend would use her to shield himself, would allow harm to come to her father, would kill Shianan...
Would her father live? Did he even live now? Oniwe’aru had suggested he’d grounded himself, but there had been no time for the Ryuven to check his victim. Perhaps her father had not protected himself completely. Perhaps he had died in the moments afterward.
And she’d recognized the power of the bolts which struck Shianan. They would have broken through any mage’s work, would have devastated any inversion well a mage dared to throw before them. She had seen his body thrown and broken. And her final words to him, their last encounter, when she had angrily chastised him and walked away...
She had fought down her emotions and found civilized speech for their murderers, saying what had to be said. She had made herself address them for the good of their peoples rather than for herself. She had played the part of a diplomat, though she was in fact a prisoner. But now, at least, she could give vent to her worry and fear and grief.
She wept, choking at first and then releasing herself to full cry. She struck at the boulder and welcomed the impact. She thought of her father, and of Shianan, and of her broken trust in Tamaryl, and she let magic rise and pound through her as she braced herself against the boulder and wailed.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
A LITTLE DISTANCE AWAY through the sheltering plants, Maru shifted uneasily and tried to pretend he could not hear Ariana’s sobs. He set down the heavy Shard and sat next to it, biting at his lip. An arm’s reach away, Tamaryl rested his forehead against his arm, looking weary and frustrated.
Maru drew breath. “Are you injured?”
“No,” Tamaryl answered curtly. He flexed a wing tentatively, betraying his words. The inversion well over Ariana had cost him, but not irreparably. He glanced toward Maru almost guiltily. “You?”
“No.” The mages had not dared to risk harming the Shard, and then they had been wholly fixed on Tamaryl and Oniwe’aru.
Tamaryl looked away again. “She claimed him as a bereavement.” His voice was bitter and resentful. “Did you hear that?”
Maru dropped his eyes, ashamed he had kept the secret. “He wanted to marry her.”
“What?” Tamaryl’s open expression hurt. “When?”
Maru felt miserable. “You were occupied with the Shard and shield. And I only overheard a bit, and I thought that you...”
Tamaryl looked sharply away. “You should have told me.”
“And what good would it have done, Ryl? You had already purposed to come home. What would it have done, beyond torment you?”
Tamaryl said nothing, only clenched and unclenched his fist as he stared beyond the flowers.
Maru looked around at the twilit garden, looked at the Shard, looked at his hands. He asked at last, “Did you mean to kill him?”
Tamaryl took a long moment to respond. “I’ve killed many humans, Maru.” The muscles of his jaw worked visibly. “I—I don’t know.”
Cold sorrow seeped through Maru.
“I’ve killed so many humans... And there are always more of them, always. And they come at you with not just magic, but with their steel and their unnatural muscles and their unreasonable covetous greed. They trade grain across the sea for gold but they shed their soldiers’ blood to keep it from us.” Tamaryl shook his head. “I don’t care anymore, Maru. I don’t care if this war ends, I don’t care if we let brainless reckless che advance through foolhardiness alone. I don’t care to sacrifice myself any longer.”
Maru’s chest ached. “Ryl, don’t. You don’t mean that. You’ve had a very bad day—”
“I’ve had a very bad span of years,” Tamaryl snapped. “Don’t presume to correct me—I have spent fifteen years as a slave in the human world, sacrificed my position here, lost my betrothal, hid from my kin and my closest friend while I sought to end this war. And what have I done in the end? Daranai’rika is embittered and abandoned, she has lost her civility and her social standing. You were left to the nearest lord of obligation, you were abandoned to the furious mercy of a scorned female, and you were Subdued in a human household. Parrin’sho died to public jeers under a human axe. What of that fifteen years was profitable? In the end, there is no shield, there is no feast to end the famine, my friend is gravely wounded or dead, his daughter has seen me murder her lover, and we have won no peace at all. No, I think I am justified in resenting the entirety of this wretched affair.”
Maru bit at his lip. He had no response.
“I just want to preserve what little I can, now. Bring you home, keep the hungry fed. If the stupid vainglorious che want to waste themselves against the stupid greedy humans, that’s on all their own heads.”
Maru shook his head silently, but there was no argument he could give which Tamaryl had not once held and surrendered.
Tamaryl rose abruptly, stretching his wings in the expanse of the garden as he had rarely been able to do in Hazelrig’s home. “Come. We’ll find Nori’bel and see what can be done for us.”
Maru nodded. “What about Ariana’rika?”
Tamaryl faltered. “What would you have me do?” he asked softly. “You heard what she said.”
“You are charged with her care.”
“That will mean nothing at all to her. She thinks me a murderer, and I have no defense.”
“Let me go,” Maru offered. She had been weeping. She might speak to someone other than Tamaryl or Oniwe. “Let me talk with her.”
Tamaryl nodded. “Yes. Try.”
Maru left the Shard with his friend and made his way through the garden, listening for Ariana. He could not hear her now, but she could still be nearby. He peered behind bushes and within plantings, guessing she would have sought shelter.
A circle of flowering climbing vines seemed a likely place, and he ducked within it. Bent greenery showed where someone had rested for a time, but there was nothing in the circle but for an upright boulder, ordinary stone on one side and glassy slag on the other.
Maru’s chest tightened. He reached cautiously to the boulder and felt the residual heat radiating from the stone. Ariana had done this.
All his old terror of human mages returned, sharpened by his imprisonment and Subduing. He had shrunk from her after she had raged at Daranai’rika—how much more now that he knew her capability and that she had every reason to view the Ryuven as enemies. He was suddenly very glad he had not found her in the garden.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
THE RYUVEN VANISHED from the cellar with a crack of closing air. Shianan Becknam’s limp body slammed into the stone pavers and flipped once. It slid with momentum and did not move again.
Luca shoved through the crowd, heedless of the mages he elbowed, and threw himself beside his master. “No, no, please, no,” he begged aloud. He seized Shianan’s shoulder and turned him. Blood ran jaggedly over the unblinking left eye and down his slack face.
Luca could not move. “Help,” he whispered. “Someone, help...”
THE SILVER MAGE KNELT beside Hazelri
g, one hand rooting madly though the little bag at her waist. “Clear a space!” she snapped as others pressed close. She tore an amulet free of the bag and activated it, leaning over the white-robed form. “Don’t you leave us, Ewan,” she said fiercely. “Stay with me. Ewan, do you hear me?”
The White Mage groaned. “Ariana?”
Parma’s relief was visible. “Thank the Holy One.” She pressed the amulet against his torso and folded his hands over it, leaving hers atop his. “She’s not here, Ewan. But she wasn’t killed. She went to the Ryuven again, but we did not see her harmed.”
Hazelrig blinked. “So many of you...”
Parma glanced around at the crowding mages. “It’s not often we see you fall. You frightened us. Stand back, all of you, and give him some air.”
As they shifted, Hazelrig looked blearily to the other figure on the floor. “Who’s that?”
“None of us, Ewan. We’re singed and sore, but you’re the only serious injury. That’s Bailaha. He’s dead.”
A man shook Becknam’s body as if to wake him, his face twisted with shock and grief.
Hazelrig’s voice cracked. “Dead?”
Parma hesitated. “He took two bolts directly, full bolts. If he’s not dead yet, it’s only because he wasn’t mage enough to die instantly, but no ordinary man can take that and live, either.”
“Save him.” Hazelrig grasped for Parma’s hand. “Luca... Call Luca.”
The Silver Mage looked around uncertainly, knowing no one by that name, and guessed at the young man bending over the commander’s sprawled body. “Luca!”
He did not respond, but he did not seem to hear anything as he wept. A friend, she supposed—no, she saw, a slave. A grieving slave.
“Help him, Elysia. Save him, for me.”
“Ewan, it’s impossible. He will be dead in a moment, if he’s not already.”
“It can be done.” He drew breath, fighting for strength. “Help me up.”
“Ewan! Lie still.”
But he had rolled to his side and was struggling upright, and several hands reached to support him. “You must work as if you would create an amulet, but do it within him, at the site where the energy entered.”
Parma shook her head. “It can’t be done, Ewan.”
“It can! It is possible, Elysia, for magical injury, trust me. I will—”
“You will do nothing! You will rest, Ewan, by all that’s holy.” She glared at a grey mage, who jumped and rushed forward to kneel behind the White Mage, taking his weight. “We’ll try to help him.”
“It will need multiple mages. Do it—do it for me.” He squeezed her hand weakly.
She looked at the watching mages around them. “If several of us funnel power together as if to rapidly create a single amulet—but inside him? That could kill him itself.” She hesitated, looked at Hazelrig, and then sighed. “But I suppose we have nothing to lose, right?”
“Save him, Elysia.”
“You’re unreasonable, Ewan.” She gave his hand a quick encouraging pressure and then straightened. “Crimson, Forest, Amber, stay with the soldiers, in case they have need of you. There may be more Ryuven. We don’t know how these came here, and they obviously had something to disguise their energy auras. Gold, Emerald, get to the royal family and keep them safe. Orange, stay with the White and keep him on the mend. Scarlet, Violet, come with me. You, grey—run and fetch some amulet gel, hurry!”
LUCA TWISTED HANDFULS of Shianan’s tunic and tugged weakly at it, making the body shift. “No...”
“Move aside,” ordered a voice, and the Silver Mage knelt across from him. She placed a hand on Shianan’s forehead and eyed him for a moment, finally shaking her head. “There’s nearly nothing—but we’ll try. Gather round!” She looked sharply at Luca. “Move aside, I said.”
Luca stared at her, barely comprehending her words. “He’s dead!”
“We’re going to try to remedy that. Where’s that amulet gel?” She pulled at Shianan’s tunic, but the laces caught.
Luca blinked and then ripped at the cloth. “Save him! Please, my lady mage, save him!”
She snatched a jar from an extended grey arm and began smearing a fat globule over Shianan’s bare chest. “Where’s Callahan?” she demanded.
“Here,” answered a scarred man in dark blue robes.
She gave him a hard look. “If you have any special skill,” she said in a brittle voice, “this would be an ideal time to use it.”
His marred face stiffened. “I’ve told you all again and again, I am no tapper,” he snapped. “I do not know myself how I survived. And even in tales I’ve never heard of even a tapper drawing strength from one person and giving it to another.”
“Then find another way to help. Hazelrig wants this one to live.” She placed her spread hands across Shianan’s chest. “I’ll provide the focal point, and the rest of you feed power. Steadily, don’t overwhelm me. Ready.”
The Violet Mage began, “I don’t understand—”
“Work exactly as you would set an amulet! But instead of using a reservoir token over months, we’re going to pool it directly inside him now. Enough questions, now act.”
The Indigo Mage knelt with the others. Luca waited, but it seemed nothing happened. They only sat around his master, doing nothing. A long moment passed, and he fought the urge to shout at them to get away, to let Shianan die in peace, at least...
“He’s right,” breathed the Silver Mage. “He’s right, it could work, if it doesn’t kill him. Easy, keep it steady.”
Luca’s lungs ached for air. He had forgotten to breathe.
“Parma...” warned the mage in red.
“I’m aware.” She looked sharply at Luca. “You, be ready to hold—”
Shianan convulsed, his back arching high off the floor as he wheezed suddenly for air, a drowning man’s gasp. Luca dove for his shoulders and pressed him to the floor.
“Hold him!” Parma snapped. She moved her hands slightly. “A little more, Callahan. Easy, Vana, keep it slow and steady.”
“Right,” the Violet Mage replied.
“Hold him steady, Luca.” Hazelrig’s voice was strained as he was lowered to the floor beside them. “This is uncharted magic. Some of the energy may touch things in his mind.”
“My lord!” The sight of the White Mage infused Luca with irrational hope. He leaned into Shianan’s shoulders as the commander’s fingers jerked. “Can they save him?”
“Possibly.” Hazelrig clutched a healing amulet closer to his chest. “I hope so.”
Parma was sweating, lines of concentration etched into her face. Luca’s attention was torn from her when Shianan spoke. “Bright round...”
“Master Shianan! Are you—can you hear me? What is it?”
“Give face for it,” he muttered, staring upward with glassy eyes. “Bread quarrels.”
Fresh horror shocked through Luca. “Shianan,” he whispered. He looked beneath his arm at Hazelrig. “My lord, is that—?”
Hazelrig leaned heavily against a grey mage. “This isn’t something we’ve done before.”
Shianan shook, making Luca press harder, and his face crumpled into bloody tears. “It goes on... the race...” His body slackened. “Lonely grooming shiny metal, kissing clay feet.”
“Concentrate!” ordered Parma. “Don’t be distracted.”
Luca’s own cheeks were damp with tears. If they could not save him, or if he were left raving and mad...
Shianan giggled. “Hammer steely honied scripting.” His eyes rolled loosely, unseeing. Luca wanted to wipe the bloody haze from the left eye but dared not release him.
Parma’s breath was coming quick and shallow. “I’m tiring,” she said levelly. “Callahan, I want you to take my place directing. Do you see it?”
The Indigo Mage nodded. “I don’t believe it, but I see it. King’s oats, has anyone ever done this before?”
“We don’t have leisure to discuss that now. Take it.”
&nb
sp; She moved back as he cupped his own hands over Shianan’s chest. She sat panting for a long moment, and then she spoke again. “Vana, you’ll take it next. Soldier! Go and bring those of the Circle who aren’t engaged elsewhere. We’ll need rounds. And I want reports on the royal family.” She shifted around Luca toward Hazelrig. “Ewan—how are you?”
“I’ll live.”
She looked toward the commander, dropping her voice for Hazelrig, though Luca could hear if he listened. “It’s working. I don’t know exactly how, but it’s working. How did you know it would?”
Hazelrig shook his head. “I did not. I only hoped. I’ve seen it just once before.” His voice trembled. “He’s the bravest man I know, Elysia.”
“There aren’t many men who’ve singly challenged Pairvyn ni’Ai.” She shook her head. “He tried to save her. After you fell, he tried to save her.”
Hazelrig looked at Shianan, mumbling now about woven carpets. “I’d be proud to call him my son.”
“Careful, Ewan, you’ve never been one to let your tongue slip.” She rubbed her temple. “He’s a very lucky fellow. A mage would have died instantly under that, and even a fit fighting man should not have lasted more than a few minutes. If he’d not had the whole of the Circle here to—”
“Not the whole of the Circle.”
She took his hand. “Ewan... They returned her once. We’ll pray they do so again.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
LUENDA, THEY CALLED this place.
Tamaryl passed among the shattered bodies, human and Ryuven collapsed together in ugly, brutal death. He walked, going nowhere in particular but uncomfortable standing still in the midst of the dead.
He had told Oniwe’aru he would not fight this day, and he had stood unmoving in the center of the field, waiting, ignoring the shouts and pleas and threats of those around him. But it was not so simple for a Ryuven of such power to die. He had removed the bright sash marking his rank, and no one sought him out. Injuries from the incidental arrows and strikes and spells which reached him were healed almost involuntarily. It was hard to resist instinct, even when he expected to die.
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