Siege and Sacrifice (Numina)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  A chill coursed down the length of Sandis’s body.

  “Impossible,” scoffed Triumvir Peterus.

  But Sandis didn’t agree. “The numina . . . they’re not merely animals. They’re . . . more. At least, some of them are.”

  All eyes bore into her, and Sandis hugged herself, as though she could shield her body from the stares. It was so strange, talking openly about the occult. Once, it would have been enough of a crime for her to be thrown into the very prison they’d just mentioned.

  “Ireth is, what’s the word—”

  “Sentient?” Jachim supplied.

  Sandis nodded. “He thinks individually. He acts on his summoner’s will because of the blood bond. No blood, no bond. Some . . . Some are not the same.” Hapshi’s gaze held no banked intelligence, and Kuracean had gone wild as soon as Kazen’s hold on it dissolved. “But Kolosos . . . I don’t think a being can have that much power and not know it. I think it’s using its vessel the same way I use Ireth.”

  Jachim brightened. “And fueling its host with the energy in the amarinth.” He began sketching something.

  Sandis hugged herself tighter. “But I can’t summon him completely. Not into myself. What Kolosos is doing is complete.”

  Jachim shrugged. “It is a magic we don’t entirely understand, so hypothetically, anything is possible. The monster has the vessel, and it has the amarinth. An amarinth made of the combined energy of a vessel and a numen. There may be more power in it than we understand. Still, there is hope. Kolosos does not thrive here. Its vessel is growing weak. I’ve been documenting its visits, and they are getting progressively shorter. If we hold out long enough, maybe the monster will burn itself out.”

  Sandis swallowed. If Kolosos burned itself out, it would be because its vessel died.

  “And the country will burn with it,” Triumvir Var snapped.

  Jachim slammed a fist onto one of his books. “If only I could study it.”

  Sandis turned toward the Angelic. He met her eyes, then merely said, “I must pray. Alone.” And departed without a backward glance.

  Triumvir Var said, “We will use what we do have. You two should rest; there will be little time for it in the coming days. We must do whatever we can to stop Kolosos. Rip up this gold plate. Find these . . . hypnotized persons. Kill its vessel—”

  Sandis could not stifle the small gasp that sucked through her lips.

  “—destroy the amarinth. We will use everything we have.” He passed a hard glance at Sandis. “Everything.”

  Chapter 20

  “Destroy us all? How do you know?” Rone asked, nearly jogging to keep pace with Ireth. The stars beneath their feet clustered together so tightly there was more starlight than night sky. The empty heavens above them remained dark.

  I am very old, and I have been watching for a very long time. He will try to merge the planes. His greed surpasses his wisdom, if he ever had any.

  Ireth paused and hoofed the ground. The glassy surface swirled into an aerial view of the ruined Innerchord. A gold plate gleamed up at them. It reminded Rone of the much smaller one he’d found in the ruins.

  “What is that?” Rone whispered.

  Gold. It conducts magic. It is why Sandis is marked with it, why it twists around your amarinth. He said the last word with disgust. He is making pillars with it, at the cardinal points of the city. He will use it there, and here, and destroy both our worlds.

  The vision vanished and Ireth resumed walking.

  “I . . . Wait.” Rone jogged again, until he stepped in front of Ireth, blocking him. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. He needed his senses right now. “There’s nothing here but numina, right? There’s no gold.”

  The horse shivered, which made the pale halo around his breast darken. There are only numina. But Kaj’s magic has fused with us.

  Rone stared at the coal-skinned beast a long moment, trying to understand.

  The image of numina melting under Kolosos’s hand sprang to his mind.

  The plane shook. Ireth stiffened and lifted his long neck. A glimmer of red shone in the distance.

  Quickly. Fire swirled around Ireth as he turned. We must move quickly. And then I will show you. I will help you understand.

  Hunger forgotten, Rone peeled his eyes away from the red light that could only be Kolosos.

  He ran.

  In their shared bedroom, Rist slept on a pallet on the floor, and Bastien reclined on the bed. Sandis wasn’t sure if he was awake or not, but he didn’t start when she grabbed his shoulder.

  “We need to leave,” she whispered.

  Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark, and she could just make out Bastien’s pale irises finding hers. “What happened?”

  Sandis chewed on her lip, warring with herself. What would Rone do?

  Rone had never wanted to come here in the first place. He hadn’t trusted any of them—the triumvirs, the army men, the scarlets, or the Celesians.

  “I know we have to save the city. I know that. But I don’t trust these people, Bastien. We know more about this situation than they do. It’s in our blood, our bodies. We need to leave.” Her words were accented by a sliver of fear.

  Bastien pressed his lips together, contemplating. “I-I don’t know, Sandis.”

  She squeezed his shoulder tighter. “I know you’re hurt. I know it’s asking a lot—”

  “It’s not that,” he whispered. “I mean, it hurts, but my legs are fine. Mostly.” Leaning forward with a wince, he turned toward her. “But leaving them . . .”

  He made a weak gesture to the rest of the house. To the powerful men who would do everything to stop them from leaving.

  She swallowed hard. “Please.”

  A small sigh escaped him. “I’ll follow you. Wherever you go. But they have guards everywhere, remember?”

  Sandis nodded and turned toward the window, though she couldn’t see any soldiers through the gauzy covers shielding it. “Mahk could get us out, but . . .”

  Bastien licked his lips. “But Mahk isn’t an option anymore.”

  Her eyes dropped to his bandages. “Maybe.” His burns were angry and blistered, with a few worse spots that no longer looked like skin. When it came to summoning, scars mattered. Scars were the reason Kazen hadn’t kept Alys.

  Sandis swallowed down a sore lump in her throat at the memory of her friend. “We can’t summon anyway. If you’re unconscious . . . I can’t carry you.”

  “I can.”

  Both she and Bastien started at Rist’s voice. Watched as his silhouette sat upright on his pallet.

  Rist continued, “On any other day, these men would kill me. I don’t trust them, either.”

  “W-We have other options. Besides Mahk,” Bastien said, and Sandis didn’t miss the quaver in his voice. “But we’d have to do it where the soldiers can’t stop us.”

  Her heart filled with sympathy. “I want you awake, Bastien. And ready, in case we need you.” She didn’t want him to host, not with his injuries. Not unless they had to, and even if it worked, it would have to be with the lowest-level numen she knew.

  Rist asked, “Is the basement hatch guarded?” When Sandis looked at him, he added, “I’ve been all over this place. I know all the doors and windows. There’s a ground-level door in the basement. They’re standard.”

  “Probably,” Sandis whispered, eyeing the door. She didn’t hear anyone in the hallway. Ignoring a fresh pang in her chest, she said, “If Rone were here, he could incapacitate the guards long enough for us to run.”

  “Rone’s not here,” Rist said. As if Sandis had forgotten. The words struck her like a dull cleaver.

  “They have to sleep sometime,” Bastien offered.

  “They take shifts.” Sandis released Bastien’s shoulder and sat back on the mattress, curling her legs against her.

  “I could set a fire,” Rist suggested. “In the basement. Draw them away. Go out the back.”

  Sandis shook her head. “We can’t risk hurtin
g this house. All of Jachim’s notes are here.”

  Rist glowered. “Do you want to escape or not?”

  “I don’t want to condemn the others in doing so,” she retorted.

  Bastien, shifting, said, “What if we can start a fire outside the house?”

  Sandis turned to him. “How would we do that?”

  “There’s a cellar below the kitchen that has wine and stuff in it,” he explained. “You can make a bottle explode. You put something flammable in it, then plug it with a strip of cloth, leaving the end hanging out of the mouth. Then you light the cloth and throw the bottle.”

  “Out the window?” Rist asked.

  Sandis considered. “How much fire would it make?”

  Bastien shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to throw it where it will catch.”

  “But not burn another home,” Sandis said.

  “Much,” Rist added. “Maybe they’ll get a Kolosos scare, or they’ll think you’ve called Ireth.” He gestured toward Sandis. “As soon as they’re distracted, we run out the other way.”

  Bastien squirmed. “If w-we’re caught—”

  “I’ll summon Hapshi before we’re caught.” Sandis put a hand on Bastien’s knee. Hapshi was a flying numen, only a level one—a creature Bastien should still be able to hold despite his injuries. It couldn’t carry Sandis and Rone before, but Rist was lighter than Rone. Maybe it would work. Sandis didn’t know the name of any other flying numina besides Isepia, and she wasn’t built for burden. “I’m sorry. But I can’t break my bond to Ireth, and you won’t be able to carry Rist.”

  Bastien, prodding at the bandage on his arm, hesitated, then nodded. “You should break my bond to Mahk, just in case. It’s worthless now. I’m too damaged for a level eight.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Mahk is not Ireth,” he said with a faint, reassuring smile. “And I’m not you. I-I’m not heartbroken over it.”

  Pressing her lips together, Sandis nodded.

  “Bastien’s the least suspicious.” Rist stood and pulled his shoes on. “He’ll have to get the bottle.”

  Sandis nodded. “And you have the best arm, so you’ll have to throw it.”

  While the fire blazed on the north side of the property, Sandis, Rist, and Bastien headed south. Sandis held Bastien’s good arm as they went, helping him keep pace. His scorched hip surely bothered him, even with a thick application of the salve that Sandis had swiped from the medic. She’d also taken some light provisions from the kitchen.

  They didn’t go unseen; someone shouted after them. They hadn’t looked back. Bastien claimed that only Inda, one of Oz’s vessels, had seen him as he prepared the explosive, but she hadn’t said anything.

  “Doesn’t mean she w-won’t,” he explained as they took off down the street. “Oz is . . . different. H-Her loyalty will be to him, n-not me.”

  They took a zigzagging route, not stopping until they put some distance between themselves and the gate of the elite neighborhood. Panting, Sandis carefully checked Bastien’s bandages. So far, everything seemed intact, though he was paler than usual.

  After their second run, they paused outside a fabric shop. Sandis couldn’t see any garbage bins, but she could smell them. Trash had begun to heap up in alleyways, another sign they were a city under siege. Eyeing a nearby manhole lid, she ached for Rone. He might have led them through the underground passages and to safety. Then again, maybe the sewers weren’t safe enough to travel right now, with all the road damage, not to mention what filth might sneak under Bastien’s bandages.

  “Where are we going?” Rist asked, hands on his knees. The question was both a worry and a relief. The first because she didn’t know; the second because it sounded like Rist planned to stay with them.

  “Tomorrow night, wherever Kolosos is,” Sandis said. “Right now . . . away. Come on. Keep to the main roads.”

  She didn’t know what to expect in the dark streets of the damaged city, but she swallowed her fear. Rone would have kept her close, made her feel safe. He would have known a smart place to hole up. But Sandis reminded herself that she had Bastien and Rist, along with their numina, at her side. They would be all right.

  Glancing to the taller man, she said, “Rist, I . . . just in case, I need your blood.”

  Rist tensed beside her. “You’re not summoning on me.”

  “I would trade you if you could summon on me,” she said, though she inwardly cringed at the thought of losing what control she’d gained. “But you can’t. I can.”

  His dark glare hit her like a whip. “I haven’t forgotten what happened the last time you did.”

  Kaili, he meant.

  “Either do it,” Bastien said, leaning on a garbage bin, “or see if the afterlife exists. We don’t have options right now, Rist. We all have to make selfless choices.”

  Sandis passed a grateful look Bastien’s way, but guilt gnawed on her stomach. Am I making selfless choices? Bastien was capable of summoning, too, unless he hadn’t kept up his exercises. Summoning was the better choice for him, being injured. And Ireth was a far more useful ally than Hapshi.

  But Sandis didn’t know if Bastien could think on his feet fast enough, or say the words without stuttering. And in her heart of hearts, though she was loath to admit it, she knew she was afraid to give him the reins. Afraid of losing control.

  It had taken her so long to gain it.

  Rist didn’t respond to Bastien. They walked another block, passing a family circled around a garbage-bin-contained fire, before a low growl sounded in his throat.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “When the sun comes up. We’ll figure out something.”

  He was stiff as bone and didn’t meet Sandis’s eyes, but she nodded, pushing down her insecurities. “Thank you.”

  “What are they doing?” Bastien whispered.

  They’d wandered clear to the edge of the smoke ring, where they’d dragged their exhausted bodies up a fire escape ladder outside a cotton factory and finally slept for a few hours on some scaffolding. The nights were growing colder.

  Dawn had broken over the wall, and now Sandis, Bastien, and Rist hovered at the edge of the factory’s tar-covered roof, peering eastward, shielding their eyes from the morning light. Sandis had applied more balm to the side of Bastien’s face and neck, which were no longer bandaged. The blisters on his ear were nearly gone, though the ones on his shoulder looked angry.

  Below them, a dozen people walked as though on leashes, staring straight ahead, carrying various knickknacks, all gold. Cups, scraps, even wallpaper speckled in gold leaf. They walked single file, all moving toward the eastern wall.

  “I wonder if those are the . . . minions,” she said, for lack of a better word. She related what she’d overheard in the kitchen last night.

  “Is it”—Rist licked his lips—“controlling them? But Kolosos isn’t even here.”

  “Maybe there’s something near that gold plate,” Sandis offered, but her voice trembled. She didn’t want to go anywhere near it. Rone would have. But Sandis . . .

  “Let’s follow them,” Rist suggested.

  Sandis shook her head. “Let’s stay safe. Besides, the triumvirate is that way.”

  So they climbed down, helping Bastien along, and followed the back alleys through the city.

  They happened upon three more minions near the cathedral, digging through the ruins. Their clothes, hands, and faces were smeared with soot, and their fingers bled, but that didn’t hinder their work. Sandis tried to speak to one of them, but he ignored her. Found a golden morsel and pocketed it before digging further.

  Swallowing, Sandis watched in sick fascination as one of the minions, arms full of charred gold bits, started marching north. This time, Sandis and the others followed, keeping their distance. The man walked in a straight line, taking main roads. The streets weren’t empty, but most shied away from the minion, Sandis, and her friends—until Bastien offered a child half a loaf of bread. Other beggars descended upon him in a
flurry, pushing one another to reach into Bastien’s pockets. When they grabbed his burnt arm, making him cry out, Rist clocked the beggar and the trio ran.

  They’d only traveled a few blocks when a thick arm snaked out from an alley and snatched Sandis’s wrist.

  The edge of a scream escaped her mouth before a dirty palm covered her lips. Rist cursed and raised his fists, but the assailant swept out a leg, knocking both him and Bastien onto their backsides.

  Recognizing the fluid movement, Sandis looked back at her attacker’s face. She mumbled his name against his palm. “Arnae.”

  Rone’s old master dropped his hand from her mouth. “Sorry, lass, but I didn’t want to draw attention.” He nodded toward Bastien and Rist, the latter of whom had picked himself up and muttered something foul.

  “You know him?” Bastien asked.

  “This is Arnae Kurtz. He’s a friend of Rone’s.” The one who had taught them seugrat, the Kolin style of fighting. Arnae’s clothes were tattered, and dirt creased his skin, but he otherwise appeared hale.

  “They’re going to the corners of the city. Figuratively,” the seugrat master said, and Sandis realized he was referring to the minion they’d been trailing. “There are about two dozen of them, give or take. Collecting gold and dumping it at the compass points. I saw some poor bloke try to steal some. It did not end well. These slaves, they’re mindless, but a man is lethal when he has no care for himself.”

  Sandis shook her head. “But . . . why?”

  “Sherig thinks Kolosos warped their minds somehow. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but there’s a golden plate near the Degrata. He—it—put them there, and suddenly they became mindless slaves.”

  Sandis blinked. “Sherig? From the mob?”

  Arnae nodded. “You’re acquainted? Her men have taken over a few things in these parts. Making sure folk are doing the work that matters and enforcing a sort of martial law.” Then, lower, “The government has forgotten us.”

  Bastien, standing and favoring his left arm, said, “They’re focused on eliminating Kolosos.”