He tried to speak, but the only sound that came out was a gurgle from deep inside his broken chest. Calista blinked away tears and watched the life fade from his eyes. She lifted one of his hands and pressed it to her cheek.
The movement caused his sleeve to fall back a few inches. Calista saw black lines, a burst of color. Something had been drawn on Lance’s skin.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”
The tattoo was only a few hours old and still inflamed around the edges. It wasn’t Meartha’s work, but that of a less-skilled artist who had used a needle instead of a wand. And yet, the design was vibrant and unmistakable—and horrifying.
Snakes.
It was a tattoo of snakes, curling around the stems and bulbs of flowers. Snakes much like the ones Calista had gotten around her shoulders and arms. Except these creatures looked peaceful, as if they were slumbering on Lance’s cold, dead flesh.
A moment later, Artemis and the others heard a scream. They returned to find Calista sprawled on the floor next to her brother. She had fainted.
CHAPTER 51
“G envella,” Synthia said, rushing to her sister’s side.
The adoring gaze she cast over the girl reminded Emmanuel of the way he and his wife, Lana, had once looked over their slumbering children, Tomas and Amina—as if nothing else in the world mattered and to lose them was to lose everything. Yet Emmanuel had lost all of them. He had failed his family, but he would not fail Genvella.
There was one more thing to take care of.
“Give me a moment,” he said.
He stepped out into the frigid morning, shut the door, and pulled out his Araband. The message he recorded was short and to the point. He saved it to the band’s memory and went back inside.
Pris blocked his path. She wasn’t angry or annoyed, just worried.
“You said you could help her. What does that entail, exactly?
Emmanuel slipped his glasses back on. Even the low candlelight in the room strained his eyes. Soon, very soon, he wouldn’t need them anymore.
“Genvella will be fine,” he said. “That’s what matters. But I need your word, Pris. When I’m finished, you’ll go back to Theus Academy. You’ll look over Milo and Emma, teach them to defend themselves, never let any harm come to them.”
“When you’re finished?” Moisture gleamed in her eyes. “Why do you say it like you won’t be there to help?”
“Just promise me, Pris.”
“Manny…”
Her voice trailed away, the nickname having slipped out accidentally. She hadn’t called him that in so long. The memories it evoked made all the time between then and now seem like seconds.
Emmanuel almost kissed her then. But he held back. Lana had come after Pris. Lana had been his wife and the mother of his children, the woman to whom he had sworn himself, the true love of his long life. Any feelings he still had for Pris were the longings of a young man, one who had been too much of a coward to explore his heart as he had explored his intellect.
All he and Pris had known of romance was that one night, the memory of which he used as a trigger for his shield spells, if only so he wouldn’t lose it. The night they had spent together while camped out on a battlefield during a war that now existed only in history books. It was the same war that had split them apart, when Emmanuel, stationed on another continent, had met a pretty nurse named Lana, who’d convinced him that teaching others to defend themselves was more noble than slinging spells on a battlefield.
And yet, he still loved her. Pris.
“Promise me,” he said again.
“I promise. I’ll take care of them.”
Emmanuel pulled out his Araband and hooked it onto her belt.
“Don’t lose it,” he said. “You can use it to find them. I recorded a message that’ll help you gain their trust.”
“Don’t do anything brash.”
“Never.”
He gave her a quick smile, which he dropped on his way to Genvella’s side. Before reaching her, he stopped, took off his glasses, and handed them to Pris.
“Give these to Milo,” he said.
“Oh, gods,” she said. “You’re serious.”
Emmanuel ignored the look of pain that had crossed her face. He removed his gloves and tossed them to the floor as he approached Genvella.
The girl was barely breathing. Her eyelids slid open, and she smiled warmly at Emmanuel. Joel stood on the other side of the bed, watching them through a look of distrust.
“Hi, Genvella,” he said, and placed a hand on the girl’s sternum. “I’m here to help you, but I want you to promise me something.”
Yellow light burned beneath his palm. The girl looked ready to fall asleep again.
“Promise—what?” she murmured.
Emmanuel gave her a proud smile. The glow beneath his palm intensified, strands of it creeping across the girl’s chest like vines made purely of sunlight.
“That you’ll love your family forever,” he said.
The vines exploded outward, covering Genvella. With a shudder, the girl began to cough and convulse.
Synthia screamed. Joel went to grab Emmanuel, but Pris held the man back.
The vines turned from yellow to purple as they drank the infection from the girl’s body. Once her skin went back to a healthy color, Emmanuel yanked the diseased strands off Genvella and stood back.
With his free hand, he threw a misty pink spell into Genvella’s face. The girl fell asleep instantly with a light snore. No child should have to watch this.
Pris and the others looked on in horror as the scabby purple vines trailing from Emmanuel’s right hand like grisly fingernails very suddenly leaped onto his face and chest. They sank their sharp ends into him. The pain was enough to make him howl.
“You bastard,” Pris cried out. “You didn’t have to. Oh gods, Manny!”
Emmanuel fell to his knees with a ragged gasp. The infection was quick to devour its new host and spread across his flesh like fire.
Pris caught him before he could tip over. She was sobbing.
“You didn’t have to. I wouldn’t have let you—”
“Shut up,” he managed to say between gasps.
The pain was incredible. The spell must have aggravated the bacteria. Despite the agony clouding his mind, Emmanuel found the energy to admire Pris’s beauty. Her face hung over his. His hand rose to touch her cheek.
He let it drop when he saw the purple patches all over it, so much like mold. He wouldn’t let it dirty that face. Not hers. Not if there was a chance it could.
“Protect them,” he whispered.
Pris lifted his hand and placed it against her cheek. She smiled sadly, and two tears detached from her eyes and fell coldly against his burning face.
“With my life,” she said.
As Emmanuel slipped into darkness, he thought of Genvella. The girl had been right. The pain really did feel like fire ants biting his skin.
TIME WENT BY.
Emmanuel was unaware of its passage. He awoke only once, but that was days later, after Pris had buried him in the icy earth.
His eyes were frozen solid. His heart was little more than a chunk of ice. His lungs were still, never to taste air again.
But it wasn’t his body that awoke. It was another part of Emmanuel, son of Sargos—a part that could not be corrupted, frozen, or melted; that could not be weighed or measured; that he, several years ago, during the most painful spell he had ever devised, had purposely stored away for this moment.
That part of him—alive and yet dead in many ways—invisibly left his body, curved away like a refracted beam of light, and entered a place to be found on no earthly map.
CHAPTER 52
M ilo sat hunched over an open book in one of the library’s central tables. There were few students about. The windows had darkened at night’s approach, and he was only vaguely aware of the oncoming curfew that would force him back to his dorm.
He didn’t wa
nt to leave; the answers seemed just within his reach. The book was about low magic, one of about a dozen stacked next to him, none of which seemed to contain what he was looking for. Yet he felt close.
Questions haunted him. What kind of low magic could allow access to another person’s mind? What spell could possibly cause a victim’s mind to shut down other organs? The more he studied the history and methods of his enemies, the more aware he became of what he was dealing with. Now, he just had to understand why.
With a frustrated sigh, he slammed the book shut and sat considering his fate. He would be blind in one eye forever. And what if it happened again? What if his mind shut down his other eye? How would he survive here without the ability to read books and observe his teachers?
“You’re going to hurt your back sitting like that,” came a fragile-sounding voice behind him.
Milo spun around so fast he almost tipped his chair over. The first thing he noticed about the man was his wheelchair, followed by the way he sat bent and crooked in his seat like a withered branch. Though he was old, he was not dressed like a professor. Instead, he wore a simple outfit consisting of a brown vest over a white, button-down shirt and tan slacks. Everything about him looked meticulously polished, including his parted white hair and wire-thin, gold spectacles.
“Oh, um, thanks for the tip,” Milo said, straightening his spine.
The man winked at him. His eyes looked perpetually sleepy beneath a pair of heavy lids. And yet, they also seemed to contain vast stores of knowledge, like the stacks of books that filled the room. He smiled furtively at Milo, as if he held a secret he was just aching to share.
“You have his face,” the man said.
“Whose?”
“Your uncle.”
Milo relaxed a little. The man was probably just a fan of the Champions. He had probably read every book about Milo’s family, and now he wanted to see one of them firsthand. Not uncommon at Theus Academy at all.
“People tell me that,” Milo said. He glanced at the dark windows across the room. “It’s almost curfew. I should be going.”
He turned to the stack of books piled on the table.
“Don’t worry about those,” the man said, his wheels squeaking quietly as he rolled up to the table. “I can put them away. It’s obvious you won’t be taking any with you tonight.”
Milo rose from his chair and stepped aside as the man inched closer. There was something off about him; he made Milo more uncomfortable than any helpless old man should.
“Why wouldn’t I take them out? I’m a student here. I might need one for—for homework, or something.”
The man shook his head. “None of them is the right one.”
Milo frowned without meaning to. The last thing he wanted was to offend the man, and yet every cell in his body burned to be as far away from him as possible. These riddles would only stress him out even more. He decided to change the subject.
“Are you a librarian here?”
The man pursed his lips and squinted. “Yes, well, I guess you could say I’m the librarian around here. Name’s Keygrath.”
Milo had never heard of him.
“Keygrath, son of…”
The old man shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“I’m Milo Banks,” Milo said, if only to be polite. “What did you mean about these books not being the right ones?”
Keygrath put on that secretive smile again. Instead of answering, he did something that took Milo completely by surprise. He reached over with a grunt and toppled the stack of books. They fell with a loud clatter against the table’s surface, two even sliding over the edge. The old man was stronger than he looked.
“What did you do that for?” Milo asked him.
“What good are these books—or any, for that matter—if we’re all too blind to understand what’s on the pages?”
Milo’s left eyelid twitched. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? That we’re all blind? That I’m not alone?”
There was no hostility in his voice, only a troubling curiosity. Did he think Milo was some sort of pity case?
“Come with me, cadet. I’ll show you the one book that might… let’s just say, clear up a few things.”
That smile again, wider this time. Milo didn’t trust it.
“Go with you where?”
“To the Restricted Section.”
“Only professors can go there. Besides, why should I go anywhere with you? Why should I trust you?”
“A long time ago,” Keygrath said, rolling himself toward Milo, who responded by taking a step back, “a very powerful magician gave me back my life. I used to be taller, you know.”
He said this last bit as if it were a joke. But Keygrath had lost the smile. He tried to straighten his back, but the effort cause him to wince in obvious pain.
“The injury crippled me, and as I lay broken on the battlefield, begging for one of my comrades to put me out of my misery, this magician used his magic to transport me away. Not only did he save my life, but he paid for my passage to this campus. He knew that my father, a former soldier with a heart as cold as ice, would never, ever accept a cripple for his only son. But that wasn’t all; this magician even set me up with a new career, though he didn’t have to.”
Keygrath placed a hand tenderly over one of the books.
“I always hated reading. But he saw something better in me—something not even my mother and father noticed when they forced me to become a soldier. This magician saw my mind for what it really was. And by sending me here, against my wishes to let me end my life in private, he also gave me a reason to live.”
Keygrath gazed at the bookshelves towering all around him. This time, his smile was one of pleasure, like that of a man admiring a house he had built with his own two hands.
Milo couldn’t bear the silence. He wanted to know more.
“That man was my uncle,” Milo said. “Obviously. I mean—right?”
Keygrath nodded. “Emmanuel. He was my commander and my savior. And now I’m going to return the favor. I’m going to give you something you’re not supposed to have.”
This time, Milo held firm as the man inched closer to him—so close that one of his wheels touched the tip of Milo’s shoe.
“Are you afraid?” the old man asked him.
Milo shook his head. “Never.”
“Then follow me.”
CHAPTER 53
O scar had forgotten all about the Araband.
He sat up and dug the device out of his pocket. He couldn’t see it in the dark, but he remembered the way it had looked, with its crystal embedded in a wraparound headpiece he might have considered effeminate in a different situation.
His fingers searched the Araband’s curved length. When he landed on the crystal, he tapped it once. A tiny ball of light sprang out and hung in front of his face like a rather courageous lightbug.
“What are you?” he said in wonder.
He hadn’t expected a response, but the light immediately flattened into a rectangular screen, and then a pretty brunette in uniform was staring back at him. She looked almost like a flight attendant Oscar had seen once in a magazine, back when he used to dream of taking a trip on an airplane as a child.
Except this lady was way prettier.
“My name is Ara, and I am at your service. What is your name?”
Oscar could only stare at her in stunned silence.
“What is your name, valued user?”
“M-my name? Um, Oscar. Oscar Reza.”
“Nice to meet you, Oscar. I’m your personal Ara. This Araband is the result of cutting-edge advances in luminotronics, courtesy of Pantheon Technologies. We summon the new gods of the luminotronic age to make your life easier. Do you wish to browse the lumosphere? Or would you like to make a call?”
Oscar looked beyond his cell bars to make sure no torches had appeared in the distance. Then he turned his body around, back against the gate, in order to block as much of Ara’s light as possi
ble.
“Hey, um, Ara—can you dim the light?” he whispered at her. “I can’t be seen here with you.”
“Certainly, Oscar.”
The display dimmed until it was no more than a ghost of its former self. And yet, Ara’s smile remained as cheery as before.
“Thank you, Ara.”
“You are very welcome. Oh, before I forget, you can create a mini-display in the palm of your hand in case my hoverscreen ever becomes intrusive.”
She lifted her right hand, palm facing up, as an example. Oscar decided to give it a shot. He slipped the Araband around his forehead, snatched the display mid-air, and stretched it like a soap bubble inside his caged fingers.
His excitement became too much to bear.
“Okay, Ara, listen to me. I need you to call Milo Banks. No, wait! Call—call Emmanuel. Emmanuel, son of Sargos. Call him.”
Ara’s face vanished, replaced by a cartoonish icon of a white crystal. It revolved slowly as the call was made.
“No way,” Oscar said, stunned.
Any moment now, Emmanuel’s face would appear to greet him. Not a recording, but the real thing. The magician would know what to do. He would call on his army to come rescue Oscar. They would be here in no time.
Or… not.
With a depressing hum, the crystal turned red and dropped off the screen. Oscar’s hope sank with it.
“I am sorry, Oscar,” Ara said, her face now looking glum. “I am unable to make calls at this time, nor can I connect to the lumosphere.”
“Why not?”
“My positioning system tells me you are in the caves of Krilkan Haut, north of Theus. They were once used by the low-mage priests of the Tenefraterni to practice necromantic spells. As a protective measure, the members of this illegal sect embedded a magical essence into the surrounding stone to deflect all luminether-based spells. Unfortunately, my communications system relies on a very similar form of transmission…”
“I get it. So these enchanted rocks make it impossible for you to help me.”
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 79
