by Rachel Aaron
Sara flinched at the scorn in his voice. “I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Of course you do,” Banage said, his deep voice rich with power. “Or you wouldn’t be hiding down here. You always were a show-off. You’d done the impossible, created a spirit that could be broken into three parts separated by any distance and yet still be connected enough to pass words between them. The Relay is possibly the greatest innovation in the history of magic, and yet you’ve never said anything about how it works. Nothing. That alone was proof.”
“Proof of what?” Sara snapped. “That I was guarding the Council’s secrets? The Relay is the base of the Council’s power. Of course I hid it.”
“So you really think you’ve done nothing wrong?” Banage said, looking at the tank. “Well then, since I’m a traitor and no one will listen to me anyway, it won’t matter if I see for myself.”
“Etmon,” Sara said, her voice ringing with warning. “Etmon, no.”
She flung out her hand, too late. Banage’s ring flashed as his stone spirit pushed up, breaking the tank’s metal supports like straws. The tank fell with a groan of twisting metal. The floor shook as it hit, and the metal casing broke with a loud, cracking pop. The only thing that didn’t make a sound was the water that spilled from the tank’s sundered side.
The water shone bluer than blue as it fell. Heartbreakingly clear, even as it mixed with the dust and grime on the floor below. It made no sound as it fell and no sound when it landed, not a splash, not a burble, nothing at all. Banage was just as silent as he watched it pour, but when he raised his eyes to Sara again, they were full of fury.
“I thought it would be happy,” he whispered. “When I broke the first tank, I thought the water would leap to freedom. Even then, I didn’t realize how bad it was. I didn’t know you’d taken everything from it, even its voice.”
Sara watched the blue water pouring from the tank stoically, resisting the urge to scrub her eyes. All her work, gone.
“You collected the water,” Banage went on. “You picked the small spirits, the ones too weak to have a full consciousness of their own.” His voice grew disgusted. “I saw the hole where you combined them below your office. You poured the water together in utter, oppressive silence, quieting and mixing them in that stone hole in the ground until you had a new spirit large enough to be awakened. And you did awaken it. That’s the worst part. You kept the water awake, but you never let it speak. You never even let it discover its name, did you? You couldn’t. In order for the spirit to be quiet enough, still enough, empty enough to transfer voices clearly, it had to be isolated. Stunted.”
“It’s not like that,” Sara said. “You’re skipping several key—”
Banage’s hand shot out, his finger pointed accusingly at the silent fountain flowing from the broken tank. “You created something pure, a distilled water spirit, and you locked it in the dark. It’s water’s nature to flow and mix and create new spirits wherever it pools, but you, you trapped it in a tank and pushed it down. You and your wizards took a newborn spirit and locked it away like a child in a closet.”
“There was no other way,” Sara snapped. “I needed to transmit a human voice instantly between one place and another. Any human voice, wizard or spirit deaf, and the only way to accomplish that was through vibrations. Water worked excellently, but I couldn’t just run a hose between whoever was talking. If my plan was going to work, I had to divide the water, but even the largest, most alert spirits forgot about their water as soon as it left them. I’d take a bucket from an awakened fountain, and by the time I’d lifted it, the water in the bucket was its own spirit, disconnected from the first and utterly useless.”
“That is the nature of water,” Banage said scornfully. “To disconnect and reconnect, to flow.”
“It was a problem,” Sara said, standing straighter. “A problem I solved. Quieting spirits is nothing new. Your own rings are quieted to make room for the spirits they house.”
“Rings are different!” Banage shouted. “Jewels and metal are still by nature. Water moves constantly. To quiet water is cruel.”
“It was brilliant!” Sara shouted back. “I was the one who discovered that if you took a water spirit and isolated it from everything from the moment you woke it, something extraordinary happened. The quieted water never realized it was part of a larger world. It never learned its name, and it never connected with the greater spirits above it. This disconnection gave the quieted water an extraordinary property. With only its own spirit for comfort in the world, the water had Spirit Unity like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I could chop a tank in half and sail it across the Unseen Sea and it would still be one spirit with the half I’d left behind.”
Sara took a step forward, her voice trembling with the excitement of finally being able to explain her Relay to someone who would understand, if not appreciate, her cleverness. “Don’t you see, Etmon? It was perfect. The quieted water was still enough to pass voices, and its ignorance of other spirits besides itself meant I could divide the water up and send the pieces across the Council. I could pass voices instantly over thousands of miles, and even better, I could do it without wizards. Oh, I kept wizards with the points to make sure the water stayed isolated, but the Relay passes sound, not will. Even Sparrow could use them. It was brilliant. The only downside was how long it took me to make a point and how much water was required. I needed enough to make sure the spirit was big enough to have a cohesive soul, but in order to preserve the isolation, the majority of the water had to be locked in silence. That’s where I got the idea for the tanks. Hundreds of spirits all held together, and each one thinks it’s alone in the world.”
Sara took a deep breath. “Absolutely brilliant. Someday I hope to find a way to make the tanks smaller, but even if I never figure it out, the Relay was the discovery of a lifetime. The foundation of my career. Even you have to admit it’s genius.”
“It’s cruelty!” Banage screamed. “Inhuman, unforgivable cruelty! I’d call it Enslavement, but you found a way to subjugate a spirit without touching it. You’ve shackled living spirits with their own ignorance, their fear of being alone, and for what? Sending trade deals? The business of running a Council?”
Sara heaved an angry breath. “Powers, Banage, it’s only water.”
“Only water?” Banage’s cry was horrifying. “Are you truly that far gone, Sara? Look around you!” He threw out his hands at the remaining tanks, the water lapping at their feet. “Every one of these has a mind. They feel pain, loss, suffering. Far more than their share of suffering, thanks to you. What if you’d had to Enslave a person for your Relay. Would you have done it then? Would you have kept a child locked down here alone in the dark if it served your career? Would you have done this to Eli?”
“Don’t be stupid, Etmon,” Sara said, forcing her voice to stay measured, stay calm. “There’s a world of difference between people and spirits, even between the spirits themselves. You said it yourself, water flows. Its ability to flow in and out of itself is unique in the spirit world. Cut a rock in half and you have two spirits with half the power and intelligence of the original. They can never be rejoined, only reforged and born again in the molten fires beneath the mountains. But water is different. Pour out half a bucket of water and the half that remains is diminished. But, unlike a rock, you can pour that water back in, and the spirit is restored. Or you can pour the whole bucket into a river and it becomes the river, which becomes the sea.”
She pointed at the water that covered their feet. “All this water is draining away. Maybe it will flow to the Whitefall River. Maybe it will evaporate and become rain. Maybe it will just stay here forever. But whatever happens, this water you’re so deathly concerned about will eventually become part of something else, and anything I did to it will be forgotten. An abused child is damaged forever, but water can forget a hundred years of torment between one wave and the next.”
“So if suffering is forgotten, that makes it forgivable?
” Banage said, his voice low.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Sara said, crossing her arms. “The water is ignorant. It doesn’t even know it’s being wronged. And when you look at the larger picture, even you should see that I’ve actually been doing a great good. Think about it, the Relay gives the Council of Thrones power the individual kingdoms cannot touch. This power provides a lasting peace and prosperity that will ultimately make everything’s life on this continent, spirit and human, better. So yes, I think the temporary suffering of water spirits who will forget all about it as soon as they’re released is perfectly forgivable considering what we all get in return.”
Banage’s face twisted into a look of pure disgust. “I would never believe anyone who’d bound a spirit in service could think such thoughts.”
“Well, you never were any good at knowing what I was thinking,” Sara said bitterly, crossing her arms. “And I only ever bound one spirit.”
“I remember,” Banage said. “I was there. Ollor was a calm, deep water spirit. When I first heard that the Relay’s full name was the Ollor Relay, my heart lifted. I thought it was proof that a part of you remembered your oaths. Now, I’m not so ignorant.” His eyes darkened as he stepped forward. “Which tank is he in, Sara?”
Sara stiffened, then forced herself to relax. There was no point in lying anymore.
“The center one,” she said. “He was the first, the spirit who helped me learn how to make the Relay work. It seemed only fitting the final product should bear his name.”
Banage closed his eyes. “After such loyalty,” he whispered. “That spirit stayed with you when you renounced your oaths. He followed you here, let you experiment on his water. He served you faithfully, and this was how you rewarded him?”
“I put him to sleep,” Sara countered. “I’ve seen your own protégé do as much to the sea she shoved down her throat. And now that sea is lost to the waves while my Ollor is the anchor for a network of spirits that are helping to bring world peace.” She lifted her chin with a haughty stare. “Who served their spirit better, Etmon?”
Banage looked away in disgust. “Enough,” he said, raising his arm. “This ends now, Sara.”
“And what will you do?” Sara said. “Destroy everything I’ve built? Make yourself a true enemy of the Council? Whitefall will have to kill you for this, you know. The Spirit Court won’t be able to stop him, not that they’ll want to. The Relay is the heart of the Council. Destroy it and you’ll be known forever as the man who killed our best hope for peace.”
Banage hesitated then, and Sara bit her lip, reaching down to call her fire spirit for a surprise attack on his open back. But before she could reach the red jewel at her waist, a slow smile, the same one she’d once found so handsome, spread across Banage’s face.
“Better to be the man who destroyed peace than the man who saw suffering and did nothing,” he said, clenching his fist.
“No!” Sara shrieked, but she was too late. Even as her fire spirit roared forward, Banage brought his fist down.
As it fell, the ground began to rumble, the quiet water shaking in delicate waves that grew larger and larger, soaking her legs. All across the cavern, the tanks were shaking, bobbing back and forth like corks. And then, with an enormous rumbling crack, Banage’s fully opened spirit struck her like a hammer, and the ground exploded.
Deep black stone shot up from the floor, but it wasn’t her bedrock. It was Banage’s stone spirit in its full glory, the huge rocky outcropping he’d won over years ago, when they were still in love. Then, it had been the size of a small castle. Now, with the help of his will, the rock had broken itself into hundreds of enormous hands, and each one was gripping the bottom of a tank. High overhead, the fire bird screamed. The jade horse galloped through the water, bucking in triumph while the tangled roots retreated to form a ring around her and Banage, a barrier against what would happen next.
Banage flexed his fingers, and the black stone hands responded in kind, filling the air with the squeal of crumpling metal. Etmon’s eyes never left hers as he flipped his hand over, his wrist turning in a quick, snapping motion, like he was breaking a neck.
The stone hands mirrored his movement, and the tanks collapsed, each one falling like a felled tree. They hit the cavern floor with a deafening clang that knocked Sara to her knees. She fell hard, too stunned to catch herself, and then curled in a ball, her face inches from the dirty water as the silent tide poured out. The water hit the ring made by Banage’s roots with a soft rush, but otherwise there was no sound at all.
If Sara had not known already, she would have had no hint that her life’s work, the great discovery that had launched every other, was draining away. Ollor was somewhere in that flood, but she didn’t call him. She’d given up that bond long ago, just as she’d given up another.
When Sara raised her eyes at last, Banage was standing over her. His face was hard, set in firm approval at the rightness of his actions, the justification of his wanton destruction.
“You have no idea,” she whispered, staring up. “No idea at all what you just destroyed. What you’ve done.”
“None of us know the full extent of our actions,” Banage replied. “But I know I was right, Sara. I know I was right.”
And it was those words, spoken with such conviction, such blind, mindless faith, that undid her.
“Right?” she screamed, heaving herself off the ground. “You’ve undone the work of nations, set us all back decades, and all you can say for yourself is that you were right? Right by what? Some water that won’t even remember to thank you? Do you even understand the concept of the greater good?”
“Good built on exploitation is no good at all,” Banage said calmly. “And you know it.”
He would have kept preaching forever, but Sara didn’t give him the chance. The moment he closed his mouth, she threw open her spirit.
It had been a long time since Sara had opened her spirit fully. She preferred more delicate instruments, and besides, opening her spirit in the presence of the tanks would undo all the effort she’d put into keeping them quiet. But Banage was a blunt man. Blunt tactics were needed, and the tanks were already broken beyond repair. So, with nothing left to lose, Sara threw herself open and let her power pour out, doubling and tripling until she filled the room.
Sensation flooded through her. She could feel the weight of the stone, the heat of Banage’s fire bird, the cold water of her broken tanks. More important, though, she could feel the lines of power, thin as thread but stronger than steel, connecting Banage to his spirits, both those who were out and the ones still in his rings. Focusing on those thin lines, Sara kept going, opening herself as far as she dared. And then, when the power was throbbing through her, surrounding and filling every inch of the cavern, she shoved it down.
The effect was immediate. Banage’s spirits slammed to the ground when her power crashed into them. The root wall collapsed, the stone horse fell to its knees, the stone hands crumbled, and the fire bird plummeted, its light going out in a puff of smoke. The room went pitch black for a moment before a red glow bloomed from the ring of tiny rubies at Sara’s waist.
She stood in the red light, her soul still roaring open, and glared down at her husband lying prone on his stomach, pinned by his connection to the spirits she was grinding under. His head lay sideways in the water that was beginning to leak through the sundered wall of roots, the flood slowly rising to cover his mouth and nose.
“I should let you drown,” she whispered, panting under the strain of her own power. “How fitting it would be if you died under the water you’d worked so hard to free. It wouldn’t even notice, you know. It would fill your lungs just like any other crevice and drown you without a second thought.”
“As it should be,” Banage said, rolling his eyes up to look at her. “If you think I did this with a care for my own life, then you understand nothing, Sara Banage.”
Her whole body went rigid. How long had it been since anyone had
called her that? Twenty years at least. Not long enough.
“I never should have married you,” she hissed. “I never should have let you near my work. You break everything you touch.”
“It’s not my fault your work breaks when it is held to a standard of morality,” Banage said, coughing a bit as the water filled his mouth. “You were the one who chose to build your greater good on a flawed foundation. If I did any wrong in this, it is that I did not act sooner.”
Sara closed her eyes. Her open spirit was vibrating with her rage. Through it, she could feel the water flooding through the cavern, still creeping along under the pressure of her will. How easy it would be to lift her hand and let it rush over Banage, silence his arrogance forever. But as soon as she thought it, Sara shrank away from the idea. Even in her fury, she couldn’t do it.
She sighed bitterly, trying to decide her next step when she felt a familiar but unexpected twinge against her chest. She welcomed the signal with a smile and turned her head just in time to see Sparrow slip silently out of the cover of a fallen tank. Without his coat to draw her attention, she had trouble keeping her eyes on him, but she could see well enough to know he was alone. Her smile faded.
“Sparrow,” she snapped. “What are you doing back? Where’s Eliton?”
Sparrow shrugged and kept walking, his feet moving silently through the still water.
Sara scowled. She didn’t have time for his games. “Forget it,” she muttered, returning her attention to Banage. “You can give your excuses later. For now, I need you to help me secure the former Rector. There should be some rope on the floor.” She glanced at Banage, lips lifting in a haughty sneer. “This time we’re going to throw his rings in Whitefall’s vault. Let’s see them get out of that.”
She paused, waiting for the splash of Sparrow’s hands moving through the water for the rope, but she heard nothing. “Sparrow, this is not the time for—”
The knife was in and out before she felt it. It slid into her back, between her ribs, twisting up once before pulling out. She gasped as she realized what had happened, only to find she couldn’t. Her lung, her mind scrambled as the left side of her chest blazed up like a fire. He’d hit her lung.
