“I was told I could find you here.”
Tassariel jumped, then turned to face the voice. Striding down the corridor towards her was a man who looked far more comfortable in the shadows than she would ever be. Smooth, ebony skin stretched over a muscular yet compact frame, all topped by short, spiky hair.
“Draevenus,” she said.
“So you do remember me,” he said.
“Was that ever in doubt?”
He shrugged. “Our one and only meeting was brief, amidst chaos. And—pardon me for saying—I don’t think you were quite yourself at the time.”
“No,” Tassariel said, remembering the ethereal sensation as she surrendered control to Elos, watching from behind her eyes, a passenger in her own body. “But I was still able to observe everything that happened.”
“I can’t imagine,” he said, echoing Arivana’s words on the same subject.
“No. You cannot.”
“I suppose you and I are, if not unique, then the same sort of rare. Not many get to speak directly with their god.”
“The gods are dead,” she replied. “If they were even ‘gods’ to begin with.”
Draevenus clamped shut his eyes, holding his breath, and his body started to tremble, like someone suffering from an acute, powerful headache. Tassariel glanced at Arivana, who seemed just as confused by the reaction.
With a gasp, his strange state ended as quickly as it began. He took several calming breaths, then nailed her in place with his piercing brown eyes.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, inexplicably donning a smile. “If you’d like, we can discuss the nature of . . . higher beings later. If you accept my invitation, we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
“Invitation?”
He nodded. “I’ve been asked to provide a unique service to the war effort, one which will take me deep into rukavi-held territory. However, given the nature of our enemy, it would be suicidal to go without the help of someone like yourself.”
“You mean . . . a valynkar? But why me? There are plenty to choose from.”
“None with your particular set of skills.”
Tassariel swallowed hard, feeling something rise from within her. A sweet ache, indefinable. She didn’t even know what to call it, though, and her distrust of abnormal impulses made her instinctively fight to keep it in check. “My calling. It can’t be that rare. I’m sure—”
“I won’t find another as able-bodied, or as experienced in their craft.
“Nor will I find someone so wasted in their current line of service.”
“But—”
“Please, Tassariel. There is no other that can do this task half so well. I need you.”
The bubble inside her burst, and she realized, now, what it meant. What it was trying to tell her.
This is the purpose you’ve been lacking. This is what you need.
And yet . . .
“Behind enemy lines?” she asked. “Just the two of us? Hundreds of leagues from anyone that could come to our aid?”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Extremely.”
Tassariel smiled. “Count me in.”
Draevenus simply nodded, then turned around to walk back the way he came. She hugged Arivana, somehow even more fervently than their first, as they both said their tearful goodbyes, then stalked off after her new partner as he disappeared down the darkened hallway.
Vashodia took her eyes off the approaching daeloth to watch a snake as it slithered nearer. Fully elongated, it would barely reach from finger to outstretched finger, far too small to consider her for its next meal. Having done nothing to disturb its hunting ground, she couldn’t think why it would advance on her with such obvious fixation.
“Perhaps you think me a kindred spirit?” she said, examining the scales adorning her arms. “But yours are too small, too square, too bright. And I, alas, do not have any kin. I’m the last of my kind. Unique. The rest of them were too short-sighted, fretting over the mostly superficial drawbacks, to fully appreciate all that immortality has to offer.”
She squatted as it came closer still. A forked tongue flicked in and out of a wide head that stayed arrow straight despite its body’s weaving. Eyes sharp as the diamonds suggested by its green-and-yellow pattern seemed to peer into her soul. She reached out a hand. The snake hesitated a beat, then crawled up her bare arm. Its smooth belly rhythmically scraped across her coarse, dry scales, coiling about limbs and torso alike until the last tip of its tail disappeared beneath her robe. Vashodia found the sensation . . . pleasing.
She straightened—not too quickly of course—as the daeloth pushed aside a hanging branch and came to stand beside her beneath a vine-choked tree.
“Good morning, Feralt,” she said. “I’m so very glad you decided to keep our appointment.”
“It was that or end up on your bad side,” Feralt said, flicking back his perfectly groom hair. “Wasn’t much of a choice.”
“And what makes you think you aren’t there already?”
He stepped back, eyes widening as he stuttered over a reply.
“Now, now,” she said, “you’re a pretty enough boy, Feralt—if far too old for my tastes—but wearing stupor so plain on your face ruins what little charm you have.”
“I—I don’t understand. I did everything you asked!”
“Everything?”
Somehow, he blanched even further. “Look, I tried, all right? It’s not easy getting a virgin to open up her legs. And even if I could have forced the matter along, you told me explicitly not to. What was I supposed to do?”
Vashodia sighed. “Oh, nothing of course. The fault was as much mine as it was yours. Your success would have granted me an excellent means of control, but even your failure gave me key insight into her resolve. Into her—” Vashodia snorted “—passion.”
Feralt exhaled deeply. “You’re not mad at me, then?”
“Mad? No. But neither am I entirely pleased.”
She shook her arm, and the snake poked its head out the end of her sleeve. She gripped it by the neck, holding it up before the daeloth’s quivering face.
“A tool,” she began, “is only good so long as it’s in your grasp, carefully handled to prevent it from wearing out or being used for other purposes. Someone smart can deploy it any way they wish, over—” she touched the reptilian lips to Feralt’s temple “—and over—” his cheek “—and over—” his neck.
She stepped back and began wriggling her fingers before the gaping yet immobile jaws. “But once you lose control—” She let go. The snake darted out, fangs puncturing through the meaty part of her hand, eliciting a gasp from her throat. “—even the best tools have a tendency to strike where you least expect.”
She flung the snake away. It slithered into the underbrush, vanishing in beats.
Feralt wiped a hand across his forehead; it came away acrid and drenched. “Wh-what do you want from me?”
“Well, seeing as how you tried to curry favor by volunteering for an assignment—which you failed—it’s only appropriate that you owe me a favor in return.”
“A favor? Sure. Anything you want. Just ask and it’ll be done. I swear.”
Vashodia smiled. “Keep an ear out, then. You’ll be hearing from me soon.”
Feralt stood there a moment, too stupid to realize he’d been dismissed. Vashodia rolled her eyes and had to flick the backs of her hands at him twice before he got the hint. He spun on his heel, but paused before taking a step and looked back over his shoulder.
“Was that thing . . . venomous?”
A stinging, virulent burn was rising up her veins, only a few beats from entering her heart. “Quite,” she answered. “And a flavor I’ve never tried before. What a productive morning it’s been!”
Eyes flaring, he faced forward and ran.
Vashodia giggled.
Energizing, she probed her insides with dark power, surrounding and isolating the insipid l
iquid. She let it run its course as she analyzed the effects, savoring each wave of pain it delivered whilst keeping it away from anything vital. A most productive morning indeed.
With a sigh, she scoured the rest of it clean from her blood, lest it do any permanent damage, and began skipping along through the tangled jungle. Birds chirped and cawed in counterpoint to the incessantly buzzing insects, and a great cat growled in the distance. She was surprised at how wild nature was allowed to be, even here within a league of the city. An amusing dichotomy. And, to be honest, she understood the allure of surrounding oneself with danger on all sides.
No better way to feel alive.
She came clear of the stifling canopy, spotting the city filling half the horizon. Even from here she could make out the phoenix statue, ever shining, and the sphere of darkness blotting out its nose, which she’d left active in her absence. No point letting people know she was away from the nest.
Focusing her eyes on the sight, she shadow-dashed towards it.
Wind and cold and dark greeted her arrival, all changes that were welcome. The intruder, whom she noticed a beat later, was not.
Jasside raised an eyebrow, appearing not the least bit surprised by Vashodia’s sudden appearance. “Busy morning?” she asked.
Vashodia smoothed out her robe, still unbalanced from the lengthy jump. “Perhaps. Are you checking up on me now?”
“And what if I am? You’ve haven’t exactly been—” Jasside paused, inhaling deeply then softening on the slow exhale. “I came,” she began again, “to see how you were doing. If you needed anything. I know I haven’t been a very attentive apprentice lately, and for that I’m sorry.”
“An apology? My, my. Someone must want a favor from me very badly.”
“Not a favor exactly. Just wondering if you had any insights about the ruvak. Something that might help us fight them, or at least understand them a little better.”
“And what makes you think I’d have anything of the sort?”
Jasside shrugged. “I’ve been too busy fighting, which—” She stopped herself again, flashing a tight, unhumorous grin. “Which doesn’t allow much time for . . . meditations.”
Vashodia returned an equally mirthless smile. Truth be told, she hadn’t learned much about them at all, a faulty situation this morning’s adventure would work to rectify. She couldn’t tell Jasside about any of that, of course. No master—or mistress, in her case—ever wished to look less than efficacious in their pupil’s sight.
And I certainly do not plan on starting now.
Dark chords struck inside her mind: her machines singing their song. Perfectly on schedule.
“I might have learned one thing,” Vashodia said. “And a rather pertinent bit of news at that.”
“What is it?”
“The ruvak are smart, it seems. They’ve figured out who controls all the little pieces of scattered humanity that dare to stand against them. They’re on their way right now to eliminate those who hand out the orders.”
Jasside hissed in a breath. “You can’t mean they’re coming—”
“Here,” Vashodia said. “By this time tomorrow, a fleet larger than all the rest you’ve faced combined will be at Panisahldron’s doorstep.” She giggled. “I think it’s about time we meet!”
Chapter 5
Arivana gave up trying to count the ruvaki ships after her head grew dizzy from the attempt. They would not keep still. Even estimates were useless as many held back, clustered one moment to appear as if a single, large vessel, then dispersed into dozens of individuals the next. And there seemed to be no logical transition between states. All she could tell for certain was that the horizon itself churned like an angry sea, marred and broken by their presence.
How can we fight something like this? How can anyone even try?
She’d listened to all the reports on them with a strong yet vague unease. The enemy seemed impossible to understand, but there had still been victory—if endless retreat could be called that. Now, seeing them herself for the first time, that unease snapped like a tautly pulled string. Fear of the unknown seemed preferable to this mad reality.
This city—my city—they have come to destroy it. And I do not see how we can stop them.
She glanced upwards at their defenses. Halumyr Domicile and the Baudone family greatship lumbered overhead, the former twice the size as the latter. Less than fifty other allied ships hovered at various points around the city, none larger than a sapling compared to those two ancient oaks, and themselves little more than aerial platforms, sparsely manned, mounted with her nation’s famed sorcerous batteries. With but one small change: half were now powered by darkness. All the rest of the ships—those that could carry passengers—had a different task this day.
Turning to face the opposite direction, she switched which forearm held her weight against the balcony’s polished, marble rail. She hadn’t bothered to style her hair today, as all the servants had already been evacuated, allowing the breeze to push it forward, framing her view westward in flapping orange strands.
The shipyards were busy, as usual, but not with the same kind of activity.
Unfinished ships stood empty and abandoned. The rest of the launching platforms had been cleared of all tools for construction, and were now crammed with mobs of humanity waiting their turn to board the next vessel. Of which—by an order of magnitude—there were simply too few. A compromise had needed to be made. Thus, each ship was filled far past normal capacity, then departed to drop off their passengers a hundred leagues out, at the very southern tip of the Nether Mountains. She could just make out the long, thin line, keeping low over the canopy, disappearing between distant hills to make their lengthy round-trip journey. They’d been rotating in and out ceaselessly for most of the last twenty tolls.
And still, massed throngs of refugees flocked through the streets. The crowd at the shipyards had not diminished in the least.
Too many had waited, she knew. Packing up valuables or just waiting for the foot traffic to thin. Or, like her, they’d been too skeptical to think the city might actually fall, considering themselves safe behind their guarded and gilded walls. Like they thought wealth was infallible defense against any sort of hardship.
A great many assumptions are going to be tested today. Even—perhaps especially—my own.
Ripping shrieks, as if the air itself had been sundered, blasted at her from behind. She tensed at the noise, then turned once more to face the ruvak with reluctance. Dozens of projectiles spun wildly towards the city from as many enemy ships that had swept near enough to fire. Closer they came, passing the farthest outskirts.
The great shields around the city activated. Darkness, then light. A double dome of protection that shimmered in opposing shades at each point the enemy blasts had tried to penetrate. It held.
For now.
Arivana felt a single thump of her heart throb within her chest.
Then the ruvak opened up in full.
The horizon blazed with sorcerous energy: light, dark, and chaos roiling together in a menagerie of wild violence. The salvo stretched on, unabated, for what seemed like tolls. At last, though, it ceased. And amazingly, the shields continued to hold.
But the ruvak formation had halved their distance to her city, spreading out in frenzied motion that made their previous condition seem crippled in comparison.
Arivana glanced down once more at the people fleeing through her streets.
Hurry, she thought, shaking at the sight of so many still exposed. For the love of all the beauty left in the world, please, hurry!
Gilshamed clenched his jaw at the sight before him, a swath of enemy ships unbelievable in its enormity. Yet it was the sight behind him that was even harder to believe.
Valynkar and mierothi stood, preparing for war. Not as foes, this time, but as allies.
The combined sorcerous power of his hundred kin hummed bright within him. He had chosen only those least skilled in combat or the healing arts,
both of which, he knew, would be in desperate short supply. The mierothi had done the same. Only thirty of them were gathered here on the leading edge of the domicile, mostly women, but he’d been told that number would be sufficient. The diminutive figure who stood at his side, holding the reins of the thrumming dark energy, had gone so far as to call it excessive.
“Lovely morning, is it not?” Vashodia said, pointed teeth peeking out between curved, parted lips.
Gilshamed swept his gaze around for a beat. “There are no clouds, at least. That will make it hard for them to approach unseen.”
“Quite right, my dear old foe. Our only difficulty will lie with correct prioritization of targets. You did read the instructions I sent, right?”
Sighing, Gilshamed nodded. “We are to focus on the smaller targets. Our batteries and ships are not accurate enough to hit them anyway, and will be occupied by the larger enemy vessels. Darkness leads to attune their defenses, while light strikes for the kill.”
“Very good! It makes me so very happy to see that you’ve put aside ancient grievances at last.”
“Perhaps,” Gilshamed said. “But do not think that means I like you, let alone trust you.”
Vashodia flipped her hand in a dismissive manner. “Naturally.”
Gilshamed shook his head, unable to convince himself to be comfortable in the creature’s presence.
Looking over his shoulder, he made eye contact with Lashriel, standing foremost among the other valynkar. She gifted him with a secret smile, a knowing smile. A smile that gave him strength. He knew that he was in the right place, doing exactly what was needed, for both the world and for himself. Because of her, he could tolerate any amount of distaste so long as it aided the right cause.
Through you, my love, I can do anything.
He faced the horizon once more, ready for whatever might come, just as the first ruvaki ships dipped their noses through the dome.
“All right,” Vashodia said, folding her hands into her sleeves. “Let the fun begin.”
Floating three stories up on the arrowhead-shaped platform—which she’d constructed herself—Jasside surveyed the broad arc of the allied fortification that protected Panisahldron from ground attack.
The Light That Binds Page 7
