Serpent's Blood (Snakesblood Saga Book 6)

by Beth Alvarez

  Rhyllyn gaped. His mouth never closed as she recounted the events of the day, leading up to her orders and his retrieval.

  The ward remained up after she finished, a silent indicator she expected a response.

  It took some time before he could speak. “But Alira, if she’s taken the college, what about me?”

  Alira blinked. “What about you? You’ll be here in the Royal City, managing the barrier and helping the mages here in any way you can. They’re already working on finding an access stone that can be attuned to you.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He rubbed his arms against an uneasy chill. “She’s looking for another free mage to link with. She’ll be after Rune if she doesn’t know about the seal, but what if she does? If she’s taken the college, she’ll know I’m still alive.”

  He’d been a child when the last war happened. Envesi and her mages had unbound his power. But she’d left when the wild magic warped his body, claiming the experiment a failure. She’d left Alira and another woman he barely recalled with orders to kill him. Instead, Alira had struck down the other mage and fled. Though Envesi would know by now that Alira had escaped, she was unlikely to expect Rhyllyn still lived.

  Evidently, Alira hadn’t considered that. She pursed her lips and her face slowly twisted into a frown. “Well, I imagine the Royal City is the best place for you to be. After all, if you’re within the barrier, you’re untouchable.”

  Untouchable by magic, at least. Disheartened, Rhyllyn turned away.

  She released the ward and he remained quiet, trying to think of the task ahead of him instead of the conversation they’d just finished.

  A cluster of white-robed mages stood outside the mage quarters when they arrived, though the group parted readily to let them through. Some gave Alira curt nods, while others regarded Rhyllyn with suspicion. Knowing most of the mages and having shared lessons with a number of them, Rhyllyn knew he wasn’t the problem—it was what he was supposed to do they were suspicious of.

  But whether they were worried over his capability or the issue of expanding the barrier to begin with, he didn’t know. In the end, it didn’t matter. He saw his brother sitting on the floor with a handful of mages surrounding him, and Rhyllyn pushed forward to join them.

  One of the mages cradled Rune’s head. Her energies prickled in Rhyllyn’s senses as she explored for injury.

  “Are you okay?” Rhyllyn asked as he knelt in front of his brother.

  Aside from a trickle of black blood another mage wiped from beneath Rune’s nose with a handkerchief, he didn’t appear to be harmed. He waved the mages away, though he took the dirty handkerchief before he finished the motion. “The mage-barrier here is nothing like the one they had in Kirban when I was young. This one kicks hard when it doesn’t like you.”

  Rhyllyn crossed his ankles and rested his hands on his knees. “What happened?”

  Rune grunted softly, closing his eyes and shivering as the mage behind him finished her inspection and released his head. “I pushed.”

  “No, I mean the reaction.” Rhyllyn glanced at the handkerchief and the mottled black blotches on its folds. “Was there a physical backlash, or was it all energy?”

  “Both. Like you scuffing your feet on the rug and then touching me, times a thousand.” Rune rubbed his forehead and released a slow, hissing breath.

  “And it did that?” Rhyllyn motioned to the bloodied handkerchief.

  “No, she did that.” Rune glowered at a mage across the room, who bowed her head in guilt. He gingerly felt his nose. “We were linked, since I didn’t have my stone. When the barrier’s anchor threw me back, she went down with me. From the sound, I thought she broke it with her skull. Never mind what it felt like.”

  Rhyllyn mustered a smile. “Seems the mages gave you a clean bill of health.”

  “Nothing broken or bleeding anymore, at least.” Rune pushed himself to his knees, paused, and cradled his head with a grimace. “This headache is something else, though. Help me up. I’ll show you what I did.”

  Rhyllyn slid forward, put an arm around his brother’s ribs, and helped him to his feet. Rune was plenty taller, making it easy for him to drape an arm over Rhyllyn’s shoulders for support.

  “You said the barrier has an anchor?” Rhyllyn had never thought about what actually held the barrier in place. It was just something that had always been there, steady and unchanging. It made sense for it to require an anchor, since permanent Gates did and the barrier appeared to be a permanent installation as well. He wasn’t yet familiar with things like permanent energy loops and ensorceled objects. That it needed to be a physical anchor, not just a place the energy was put in an endless cycle, had never crossed his mind.

  Rune found his feet after a few steps, pulled away from Rhyllyn and walked on his own. He still cradled his head with one hand, but he moved as if his strength had begun to return. “Alira said she’d have you bring the stone.”

  “Oh.” Rhyllyn paused, dug it out of his pocket and turned it over in his hand. He hurried to catch up and offered it on one outstretched palm. “Here.”

  Rune took it without comment, though Rhyllyn felt the shift in the air as his brother drew power. Instead of fleeing, the energy flows homed in on the stone and allowed themselves to be snared.

  As he pulled power into himself, Rune sighed in quiet relief. That was one of many things the Alda’anan mages had taught him; to use energy around him to replenish his own stores when weak. He’d tried to explain the process before, but Rhyllyn hadn’t been able to do it on his own.

  Such lessons often ended with everyone around him expressing frustration, but Rhyllyn didn’t mind. As far as mages went, he was young. That he’d come as far as he had was a wonder on its own. The Alda’anan had taken Rune as a student weeks before Rhyllyn met him, meaning he’d had six whole pents to hone these skills. As far as Rhyllyn was concerned, feelings of jealousy or discouragement over his own inability to keep pace would be foolish.

  Rune led him to the back of the mage quarters through a narrow doorway. Formal mage business was handled in the front room, but halls leading to their private offices branched from this private study. Couches in muted ivory tones sat atop matching rugs, all positioned around a sculpture in the center of the room.

  A framework of silver rings, it moved of its own accord. Each ring rotated inside the next, moving at different speeds and, at times, shielding a large, polished orb of citrine. Light from the far windows struck it now and then, whenever the movement of the rings provided a clear path, and it glowed like golden fire in the center of the astrolabe.

  Before they neared it, Rhyllyn felt its power. What it was doing, though, he couldn’t tell. The energy around it was mighty but muddled. “Is that it?” With the ripple it caused in the flows around it, he didn’t know what else it could be, but he couldn’t help but ask.

  “The legendary nullifying barrier of the Royal City,” Rune said with a smirk. He moved ahead and dropped onto one of the couches beside it with a sigh. “Self-sustaining until the end of time. Or until someone jams up the rings, I suppose.” He extended a foot toward the outermost ring, yielding a harsh sound of reprimand from a nearby mage.

  Chuckling, he lowered his foot and flexed his clawed toes. “It likes me about as well as the mages here do.”

  “Self-sustaining?” Rhyllyn paced around it, studying the motion of the rings. “It’s... it’s feeding itself off the disruptions caused by the rings, right?”

  “Precisely. One loop of power keeps the rings in motion. The movement generates enough energy that it feeds itself, but also feeds the stone. Which is what anchors the barrier.” Rune shrugged. “Some of the court mages have concerns that if we extend the barrier to encompass a larger area like Vicamros has ordered, the rings won’t be enough to sustain it.”

  Rhyllyn looked toward the windows, crestfallen. “Which is why they want me to stay here.”

  “I’m sorry.” Rune leaned forward to rest his elbows on
his knees. “But it’s not a permanent solution. It only needs to be extended until the threat is eliminated. Then it can be restored to the original boundaries and the armillary will be enough to maintain it once again.”

  “Eyrion’s War went on for months,” Rhyllyn muttered. “How long will a war against a stronger mage last?”

  Rune said nothing.

  Smothering his frustration, Rhyllyn made himself sit. “All right. Show me what I have to do.”

  “Let me see if it’ll allow me to move it, first,” Rune said. “You may not have to do anything but help the mages here keep powering it.”

  Rhyllyn bit his tongue. He couldn’t do anything without an access stone of his own, unless they expected him to bat at the rings with hands and feet to keep them moving at a brisk pace.

  Rune slid the access stone on overhead, tucked it underneath his shirt, and settled it with the other necklace he always wore. Though Rhyllyn had never used one himself, he had a rough idea of how the stones worked. The barrier—a poor name for a complicated mechanism, really—reacted to the probing energy of mages and repelled the flows of magic from their grasp. No matter how a mage might try to reach the power, it slipped from their grasp, called by something greater. That greater something was the stone inside the astrolabe, he assumed.

  The access stones negated the barrier by counteracting its call. They attracted energy flows like a lodestone attracted iron. The nearby flows answered the access stones before they answered the astrolabe. By extension, a mage attuned to the stone attracted that power as well—so long as the access stone touched their skin, anyway.

  Of course, Rhyllyn could only assume this served to limit the power a mage could wield within the city, as well. A mage like Rune or himself wouldn’t be as hindered, since they were able to draw on and manipulate any power source, but mages bound by affinities could only reach so far before the astrolabe won out and the barrier pulled power from their fingertips. If there was another way to reach power within the barrier, he didn’t know. He preferred not to find out.

  “Go ahead,” Rhyllyn said. “I’ll watch. That way if I have to do anything, I’ll already have an idea of how I’m supposed to touch it.”

  “Suit yourself.” Rune slid off the couch and fixed his gaze on the glowing golden orb in the center of the astrolabe. He stopped just beside the swirling silver rings and studied their rotation the same way Rhyllyn had. It was that energy he touched first; the power generated by the gentle rotation that fed into the rest.

  Rhyllyn closed his eyes and let himself feel the proceedings. What happened visually was unimportant. Magic wasn’t visible, but shutting out that sense made it easier to envision what it might look like if it were. Gentle currents filled his mind’s eye, flowing patterns like swirling water and soft zephyrs.

  Each element felt different and he applied colors to them according to how the college mages represented them. Red for fire and blue for water. Soft, mellow greens for life and the white of pillowy clouds for air. Beneath them all was the gentle thrum of earth, reflected in the warm color of sand.

  All the elements interacted in the stone, but air and something else shone most brilliantly in his senses. Air made sense, with the movement of the rings shifting those flows around them, but what was the other one? Rhyllyn focused on it, his brow furrowing. It was something else, something the mages had never explained. Lacking an element, it created a low and steady buzz of pure power.

  Even with an access stone, the flows resisted Rune’s pull. The draw of the citrine orb was stronger, and the orb proved a jealous mistress. When Rune tried to seize a strand of power, it struggled to wrest it from his grasp. The fight went on for long moments between his brother and the mindless force the Alda’anan had set in motion, but after what seemed an eternity, Rune’s nimble manipulation of the power pulled the thread of energy free.

  It coiled around Rune like a snake, awaiting command, but alone it could do nothing. There were thousands of the same tendrils of energy swirling around the orb, and removal of the one revealed only the tiniest glimmer of something else. A knot of power inside the stone, the heart of the command the Alda’anan gave. It would have to be exposed fully to change its shape. If all went well, at this rate, the process could take hours.

  “I see why they needed one of us to do it. A whole room full of bound mages wouldn’t be able to contain that much power.” Rhyllyn chanced a look at his brother.

  Rune stared at the orb, though his attention was elsewhere. He didn’t move, his face pinched with concentration. Despite his stillness, he spoke. “Even if they could, they’d need a whole legion to rearrange the energy anchored in that thing.”

  “How do you know what to do?” It made sense once he was watching it in action, but Rhyllyn never would have guessed there would be power layered on power. He might have figured it out if he’d had time to pry at the energy flows, but Rune hadn’t been there long enough for that sort of study.

  “That’s the easy part. The Alda’anan left a book with instructions. The difficult part was getting the mages to hand it over.” Rune’s eye twitched and he stared harder at the gem sphere, correcting a pull that had almost gone wrong. “It explained everything, in case any adjustments ever had to be made. But it’s written in Old Aldaanan, so you’d need me or one of them to translate it if you want to know the exact wording.”

  The more strands his brother seized, the more the shining core of the barrier anchored in the gemstone blazed in his senses. Rhyllyn shook his head. “Seeing this, I find it hard to believe one of the Alda’anan would be able to do this easily.”

  “They couldn’t,” Rune said. “The book called for a half-dozen free mages. I think we’re a little short of that.”

  Alarmed, Rhyllyn jumped forward. “No wonder it threw you back! Let me—”

  “Stand by and watch,” his brother ordered through clenched teeth. “If I need your help, I’ll ask for it. Until then, let me work.”

  Rhyllyn shrank back, though he didn’t hide his displeasure. “You could at least let me hold some of that for you. It’s not like I’m doing anything else.”

  Rune eyed him and hesitated so long Rhyllyn thought he might change his mind. Then he looked back to the armillary and resumed work. “Just watch. As long as you’re not distracted, maybe you’ll be able to figure out what I did wrong.”

  The work continued on for ages before the tipping point in power came. Half the astrolabe’s energy still flowed to the orb, while the other half swirled around Rune. It was a sea of brilliance in Rhyllyn’s senses, though still dwarfed by the gem’s might. The power teetered between them in a delicate balance for a tense moment.

  Then it snapped, the flows of energy separating from the orb rapidly as Rune became the greater pull.

  Rhyllyn jerked upright as he felt the power tilt and everything shifted into better clarity. The knot of power bound to the sphere shone unhindered, displaying such intricacies as he’d never seen. Next to it was the blinding harmony of Rune’s power and the flows he’d pulled free. He didn’t hold them so much as control them. They coursed through his body, gravitating around a central point. A strange ball of tangled energies, so similar to the anchor in the orb.

  Rhyllyn’s stomach dropped. “Wait!”

  The last threads of power swayed from the orb as Rune reached for the barrier’s anchor and sought to change its orders.

  The magic embedded in the orb sparked, resonating with the similar knot in Rune’s energies. They pulsed quicker, and sizzling energy built between them like a static charge.

  Then it burst.

  Rhyllyn shoved between Rune and the astrolabe with one hand toward it. Pure, crackling power coursed through him, and every hair on his head stood on end. His other hand snapped upward to create a straight line from talon-tip to shoulder.

  The heat stole the air from his lungs as the magic lanced through his body and shot from his fingertips to crash against the wall.

  The whole tower sh
uddered with the explosion. The clatter of debris around them almost drowned out the way Rune cursed.

  Shuddering, Rhyllyn fell to his knees.

  His entire body tingled. His heart hammered off-rhythm and his pulse roared in his ears. A coppery taste filled his mouth and a hot, acrid scent burned in his nostrils. His stomach heaved, but he gulped against it, forcing himself to fill his lungs and release his breath slowly.

  Rune grabbed his arm and Rhyllyn moved blindly, dizzy and dazed as his brother helped him onto one of the couches. He said something, but Rhyllyn couldn’t hear.

  It didn’t matter. He grabbed Rune’s hand, forgetting to breathe. “The seal on your power,” he panted. “I know what it is!”

  11

  A Clean Slate

  Since her girlhood in the Grand College, Envesi had followed this path. More years than she wished to count had been invested in research and careful maneuvering, with painfully little to show for it.

  She wanted nothing more than to scream.

  “They are my mages,” the Archmage snarled, unable to rein in her temper. She did a better job controlling her power than Lomithrandel ever had, but myriad colors of light flared over the magic-bleached ice blue of her eyes. “It may stand within his territory, but Vicamros does not control the Grand College. He has no right to move them anywhere!”

  And to a city with no magic, at that! The man sought to cripple them for his own sake. She could think of no other explanation. Remove the mages, and it would remove anyone who could challenge his rule.

  “I’ve done the best I can,” Shymin insisted, though she cowered at the far end of the table. “The college council resists me. I lack your strength, so I cannot overwhelm them—”

  “Then the college council shall be dealt with.” Envesi twisted away to resume her pacing, unwilling to look at the girl. “I should have killed them all when I removed Arrick. Select a Master from each major affinity in the temple and they will go with you to act as the new council of the Grand College. Issue orders for all the Triad’s mages to return to the college and close those infernal Gates that lead to shore.”