Apostate: Forbidden Things

by Nikki Mccormack

  She inclined her head in a nod to express respect for his decision and moved back out to the edges of the army where she could more easily ignore the bitter glances so many of them cast her way.

  When the army stopped for their brief midday rest, Chozai sought her out with the sucar skin in hand. The urgency in his manner gave her a small twinge of satisfaction. Now that she’d brought it up, he was as eager as she was to learn more. They found a secluded spot on the edge of the clearing and sat facing one another. Chozai held the skin out to her. She hesitated. He had never offered it to her first. Was there some significance to the gesture? Perhaps he didn’t really intend to follow her. He had tried to kill her before. After all their confrontation in the last few days, might he be hoping to incapacitate her to rid himself of the burden? The others certainly wouldn’t hold it against him.

  He frowned, the movement of muscles in his face bringing the tattoos to life for a few seconds. “This is your walk,” he said in Kudaness. Then he shifted back to the trade tongue. “This time, you will lead. I will watch and guide if needed.”

  She nodded, a warm flush infusing her cheeks when she realized her hesitation was only perpetuating the mistrust that had built up between them. After all the progress she made before in gaining acceptance with him, it was foolish to keep pushing things back the other direction. She accepted the skin. Her eyes met his dark copper ones as she tipped her head back to drink. Despite the horrid taste, she had trouble making herself swallow the foul liquid sitting on her tongue. What did her eyes look like now? Were they becoming like his, like the eyes of all the suacs?

  She forced the swallow, fighting a blast of nausea. He took the skin from her as the sucar rushed through her system. Their surroundings spun out of focus, sinking her fast into blackness.

  “You know what you want to see.”

  She glanced to her side, finding Suac Chozai standing there, swaying to the odd rhythm of the poison. Around them was blackness, an empty void. Frustration pulsed through her, passing out from her in the form of an orange haze that dissipated into the darkness. Chozai struggled to hold back a grin that finally won out and she scowled at him.

  “I knew what I wanted before, but I never found him. I only—”

  Chozai cut her off with a sharp hiss. “That is between you and the gods. Perhaps you did not want to find him as much as you believed.”

  She scowled at him and her irritation now became a red haze in the darkness around them. The suac chuckled for a second then his gaze gained an almost palpable weight.

  “You have great power, Indigo un Ani. Your mood alone molds this experience. Focus that power. Use it. I cannot teach you to control the walk as we do without a great deal more time. You must use those skills you already have.”

  “But… you don’t believe in using ascard in that way. I’ve been reminded of that time and again. Now you want me to use it,” she questioned with an edge of exasperation, though she was already opening up the connection within her to begin probing about in the darkness for something that might guide her.

  “The gods have not chosen to strip you of this power when you walk with them. It seems that they must want you to have it. If that is true, I think they will let you use it to find what you seek. If you die using it here, then we will know I was wrong.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, but she was only partially paying attention to his words now. The ascard around her was completely malleable, formless on its own without any distinguishing signature. Closing her eyes, she thought of the city of Yiroth, as she had seen it from the outside with Yiloch’s army. She thought of the city itself and the walls, of the magnificent palace nestled within.

  “Impressive.”

  The tightness in Chozai’s voice made her open her eyes. They now hovered above the city and surrounding land. Below them, thousands of Grey warriors were gathered. The glow of an orange sunrise filled the sky, which meant that what they were seeing had either already happened, or had not happened yet. A large section of the massive outer city wall was reduced to a pile of rock and mortar. More of the fierce warriors were within the city already and numerous buildings burned unchecked.

  Her stomach twisted into a cold knot. Bile rose in her throat and she forced it back down. Trying to hold her focus, she moved over the city to where the defenders had retreated behind the inner wall. Yiloch stood on the wall near the main gate, his silver hair blowing in the wind, his pale eyes flashing. He was engaged in a heated discussion with Hax and Adran. One hand toyed with the hilt of his sword, hungry to put it to use. He was magnificent, but ineffective in his rage against this enemy, a state that would only make that rage burn hotter. A little further down the wall, Ian stood amidst a group of adepts, his face full of concentration, desperation, fear. As they watched, the inner wall trembled with an assault from the adepts within the mass of Grey warriors sitting bold on their mounts outside the wall.

  She heard a moan of anguish and realized it came from her own lips. The anguish morphed to desperation, and then fury burst to the surface, drowning everything else. The scene vanished, returning them to the blackness, but this time the dark, again reflecting her emotions, flashed with bolts of light like lightning.

  Chozai met her eyes for a few seconds, his expression unreadable, then he vanished. She pulled herself forcibly from the sucar’s hold.

  Leaning to one side, she retched, then turned to Chozai, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She took a mouthful of the water he offered to rinse her mouth and spit.

  “We must move, now,” she demanded, handing the water back to him.

  “It will take a good four hours for our warriors to reach the city, and they will need to rest and refresh before they attack,” Chozai said. “What we saw takes place at sunrise, more than likely this coming sunrise. The gods rarely show what has already passed.”

  She ground her teeth. Looking around, her eyes came to rest on her horse and she nodded, resolute.

  “I’m going to go ahead. Join me as soon as you can.” She stood and he rose with her, his hand closing on her wrist.

  She met his eyes, drawing on ascard to push him away with force if necessary. He released her arm, seeing the determination in her gaze.

  “It doesn’t matter how strong you are, Indigo un Ani, you cannot fight them alone.”

  “No, but I might be able to bring down their barriers or at least figure out how to buy the time you need to arrive.”

  Chozai held her eyes for a long moment. Finally, he stepped back and nodded his head once. “The gods be with you. We will follow as soon as we are able.”

  She returned the nod and strode to her mount. Swinging up in the saddle, she turned him toward Yiroth and kicked him up to a canter, fast leaving the Kudaness behind. From there, she drove the gelding as hard as she dared. She had no desire to injure the horse, but the images of the collapsed outer wall and the inside wall shuddering under their attack pressed her on.

  Fear and worry created a painful lump in her throat and twisted her stomach in knots that resisted her healing skills. With the Grey Army protected behind their barriers, Yiloch’s soldiers and adepts would be unable to fight them. They might be able to hold them off for a time, but the power necessary to overcome those barriers wasn’t going to be found among the adepts Yiloch had available to him.

  Barriers and masking were things she had a natural aptitude for and, with her power, she didn’t doubt that she could find a way to bring them down. She had to. After this last use of the sucar, her connection to her inner aspect felt stronger than ever. Still, the Grey Army’s controlling adept was skilled at his work and powerful in the sheer number of adepts whose power he had feeding into his own. It would take all of her strength to overcome them, perhaps more, and if she did succeed in bringing down the barriers, she would be weak and vulnerable to any adepts or warriors that chose to come after her. The Grey warlord had been aware of her before when she tested the barriers. There was no reason to believe tha
t he wouldn’t be aware of her when she tried to bring those barriers down. She would have to be very careful.

  She was familiar with the landscape on this side of the city, but not infallibly so. As night fell and she suspected the road was bringing her close to the open fields outside the city, she reached ahead with ascard. When her power touched the river no more than four or five miles ahead, she drew it back and slowed her mount. The animal required little encouragement, stumbling to a walk, his head swinging low as his sides heaved. They proceeded at a more measured pace while she scanned the area, wary of stumbling upon scouts from the Grey Army.

  The gelding dragged his feet along wearily enough that she finally dismounted. She could lead him from here as fast as he would walk on his own and he needed the break. A twinge of guilt pierced through her when she noticed sweat running in rivulets down his legs. Droplets spattered to the ground from his belly, shimmering in the light of the rising moon.

  She spared a tiny fraction of power to ease the animal’s distress on a mental level so he might recover faster physically. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and she might need him again soon.

  They hadn’t walked for long before she could hear the river. She pulled the weary horse along, forcing herself not to reach ahead and search out the Grey Army now. There was no point in wasting the energy and risking detection. This time, line of sight would have to do for information gathering.

  She skirted through the woods around the river town, not wanting a close look at what the army had left behind there. A small side stream that flowed toward the river offered some guidance and provided a spot where she and the horse could drink without fearing contamination from potential carnage up the river. From there, they followed the stream to where it joined the river and she searched out a calm, narrow spot where they might cross without much exposure.

  This close to her objective, she began to consider the possibilities. The first time, when she had breached the army’s barrier to learn more about them, she had detected hundreds of adepts in their midst, their power funneled through one adept. If that adept focused all of the power on the barriers, then it would be a much greater struggle to bring them down. The assault on the walls, however, had to require a fair bit of that power. If that assault were in progress when she went after the barriers, she would have a better chance of succeeding. There would be a strong link from the barrier to the controlling adept and, through him, to the other adepts, which presented another appealing opportunity. If she could bring down the barrier in such a way as to send the power surging back through that adept and along those connections, she might be able to disable a large number of the Grey Army’s adepts in the process.

  You might even kill them.

  Jayce, lying dead on the floor of her apartments, swept to the forefront of her mind, his blank eyes staring up at her. She pushed the image away. Now was not a time for guilt. There were too many lives at stake.

  Before proceeding beyond the river, she checked again to make sure that her connection to Ian was blocked off the same way her connection to Yiloch had been for some time. That link alone, if left active, might be enough to warn the warlord of her presence. The thought of letting Ian or Yiloch know of her presence through that link before she began work on the barrier, of giving them reason to hope, was tempting, but not worth the risk of discovery.

  After the river, she remained in the cover of the trees to avoid attracting the attention of anyone in the fields beyond. She could see the besieging army before she heard much. There were none of the usual noises or smells of war. This was a silent, insidious siege. Under the light of the moon, she could see that the outer wall still stood. In the fields between the tree line and the outer wall the Grey Army appeared to be patiently waiting. If not for the power she could feel being directed at the wall in waves, she might have believed they meant to starve Yiloch’s people out.

  She wasn’t going to get any closer without someone spotting her. Her attack would have to happen from here unless she wanted to try to work around to the port side where she might be able to get closer, but that would take too much time. Time she was sure they didn’t have.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Indigo wrapped the gelding’s reins on a tree branch, leaving enough length for him to forage and keeping the wrap loose enough that he could work free if she didn’t return. The animal stopped and hung his head, lipping halfheartedly at the ground in a weary attempt to find food. She took the ring she had given Yiloch off and put it in a saddlebag in the unlikely event that someone who knew them both would find it if things went wrong.

  Walking a short distance away to put herself out of range of the horse’s feet if he moved around, she found a smooth spot next to a tree and sat, leaning back against it. The trunk was strong, a solid living presence to support her physical form. Sight didn’t matter for this and would likely be more distracting, so she closed her eyes, knowing it might be dawn or later before she opened them again, if she ever did. With a small bit of ascard, she forced calm over herself. Then she took the time to investigate her own shields and barriers, testing their strength and tying them fully into the ring that Yiloch had given her so that she would not have to maintain them actively while she worked. The draw on the ring would push its limits, but she hoped to be done before it weakened too much.

  The simple tasks of securing her protections calmed her more and her heartbeat began to even out, her breathing becoming slow and deliberate. When she felt ready, she refocused her inner aspect using it to gather ascard from the air, earth, and even the trees, drawing in as much as her environment could give. When it felt like the power gathered in and around her might be enough to destroy an entire city, she channeled a small thread toward the army, masking it meticulously as she sought their protective barriers. Her pulse and breathing sped up when she encountered the extraordinary creation. Pausing, she spared a moment to calm herself again. She was only going to get one chance at this, it had to be done right.

  When she was ready, she continued, her working slow and deliberate, meshing her power into that of the barrier rather than pushing through it, making her presence simply one more in the hundreds of ascard signatures already integrated into it. The barrier protected the army from physical weapons as well as from direct ascard attacks, but this wasn’t a direct attack on the army or even a direct attack on the barrier. It was a joining. The barrier itself had no safeguard against the subtle way she was insinuating her power into it. Even with that lack, it was a beautiful thing, like an immaculately woven gown. It felt almost criminal to destroy such artistry, but they had used it to destroy so much. They would continue to destroy things she loved if she let them go on unchallenged.

  When her meshing was complete, she moved through the barrier, finding the primary connection to it that marked the lead adept. Inching along that connection, she felt her way to the adept himself, stopping every few minutes to be sure that he hadn’t noticed her actions. The necessary caution was maddening in that it made progress slow, but it was the only way she could hope to succeed. When she touched his inner aspect, she created a discreet link that would guide the backlash of power released when she destroyed the barrier. That backlash would certainly kill him, but it might not harm the other adepts in the army.

  With the utmost caution, she began reaching power out along the binding links through which the lead adept drew power from all of the other adepts in the army. Taking them a few at a time, she tied the inner aspect of each one into the guiding link so that the backlash would affect them all. It would weaken after it passed through him, but any level of harm it caused the other adepts would help Yiroth.

  Time was ticking by, the wall getting closer to collapse with each assault, but impatience would destroy the delicate web she wove. She would need to dissolve each point of the web immediately after the power surged through the connections or the destructive force of the backlash would rebound along it and hit her as well. Better that though, than failu
re.

  Her physical body stiffened when she recognized the ascard signature of one of those adepts. Turning all of her attention to that one point for a moment, she followed the link and found the clear signature of Myac’s inner aspect. She reached in to his inner aspect and investigated the link that bound him to the lead adept. The nature of the binding was invasive, forced, leaving Myac only enough connection to ascard that he would be aware of the way the other adept used his power. It was a cruel torment and she could hardly imagine a more deserving victim. He had come after her and now he was the one imprisoned. There was a certain justice to it and yet she felt no joy. Knowing his power was at the Grey Army’s disposal only brought fear. She had to succeed.

  With even greater resolve, she tied a strand of the web into his inner aspect before moving on to the next set of adepts.

  •

  The wall shuddered, dust rising as cracks formed. Adran grabbed the stone parapet to keep from falling. Yiloch did the same, his face twisting with rage again, before he closed it off, forcing calm once more. He wasn’t the type to take defeat easily and Adran could only imagine the black vortex of fury boiling inside him now. All day long, they had tried different attacks, both with physical weapons and with ascard, to no avail. The enemy’s shields were impenetrable. The emperor’s storm-filled eyes turned to where the adepts were working. Adran followed his gaze to see Ian walking toward them, his expression grim.

  “What’s going on?” Yiloch asked, the barest edge of frustration apparent in his tone.

  Ian’s voice was thick with disappointment. “They’re putting more power behind the attacks now and our defenders aren’t that strong. They must have had more adepts in reserve. Their barriers are as strong as ever,” he added at the flicker of interest in Yiloch’s eyes.

  Yiloch closed his eyes and shook his head. Adran swallowed, trying to ignore the growing pit of despair hollowing out his gut. When those pale eyes opened, they still burned with a fevered determination that made him almost believe they stood a chance.