Syphon's Song

by Anise Rae

  A spotlight flicked on above Claude. “Ahh! Give me some warning, assholes!” His shaggy, brown hair smashed flat against his head. He wore his usual jeans and grubby t-shirt. No shoes. Was there a policy against shoes for the basement’s prisoners? Her feet chilled at the memory of her own barefoot experience.

  She strode to her designated spot four feet in front of him. He noticed her finally. His mouth fell open and then closed with a sharp frown that dimpled his fat cheeks. He sneered. “Bronte. Now this is a surprise. Guess you figured it out. Didn’t think you were smart enough.” Sarcasm bled through his voice. “So you were the one who told. A traitor to your own kind.” Spit flew through the pool of light.

  “I didn’t figure it out.” She felt no shame in admitting it. “The people here did, although I suppose they looked at you because they were digging through my life.” She studied him, detached. How had she missed the anger and resentment inside him?

  “Why would they ever investigate you? Pretty, insecure, little Bronte. Never colors outside the lines, never breaks the rules, a proper, powerless Non. All respectable in your white suit. Untouchable.”

  She shrugged away his disdain. “They suspected I was involved in my grandfather’s death.”

  “You?” His laughter cackled harshly in the darkness. “Fucking vibes, that’s rich. He wasn’t even supposed to die.”

  Her heart jumped at the information.

  Vincent’s words tickled at her ear. “Get him to talk to you. Ask him what he means.” Her syphon drank down his power.

  “Damn it!” Claude screamed. “They’re driving me nuts. The creeps are everywhere around here. How can you stand there so calm? All these damn mages and their creepy energy.”

  Bronte shrugged. “I suppose I’m used to it.” Her mind raced behind her calm words. “What do you mean he wasn’t supposed to die? What was supposed to happen to him?” Bronte wanted to cringe. Interrogation was not her strength. Specific questions to ask would be helpful. Too bad she couldn’t throw her voice and tell Vincent.

  “His heart.” Claude rolled his eyes, his words loud and exaggerated. “His cold-ass heart was supposed to open up and pour out love for us Nons. He would have helped solve all our problems. He might’ve liked you, Bronnie, once his heart was opened with that potion. He might have invited you back home.”

  “A potion? You were working with a mage?”

  He laughed again, short and sharp. “You’d never guess who. Those vibrating freaks will never guess either. He’s one of their own, after all.” Despite his bindings, he shrugged. “You’ll know soon enough anyway. When the fucking powermongers let him in, he’s going to make everything all better for the Nons.”

  “Why would he do that? If he’s a mage, why does he care about the Nons?”

  He closed his eyes and breathed in as if there were a sweet smell. Maybe the scent of the general’s post-torture muffins had drifted down to him. “I’ve always loved your voice. Did you know that? It’s what I liked best about you. It wasn’t your playing, or that pure white face that makes me want to rub some mud on it. It was your voice.” He opened his eyes. “Maybe they’ll put you in jail with me since you helped me do all this. Then I can hear you forever. Talk, talk, talk. Even if you have betrayed your own kind. You could have been the queen of us, you know.” He gave a laugh. “Our own Mayflower Non. These fucking mages are on their way down. Down to the pits of hell!” Fire and brimstone burst through his voice.

  She stepped back. The fast move jostled her arm painfully. She tried not to wince as she tucked her arm against her chest with her left hand. It had been hanging unsupported for too long. The burning pain was making her sick, but she refused to wear a sling in front of him.

  Claude kept on with his rant. “The mages are losing it. Too much power eating at their minds. Their strength has become their weakness.” He leaned forward as much as his arms would let him. She tried not to scramble back into the shadows. Even now they held secrets she couldn’t see. “Now is the time for Nons to step up and demand a fair take.”

  Wanting to get this over with, she tried again. “So who’s going to keep working toward your cause now that you’re locked up?”

  He glared at her. “Never fear, Bronnie.” His words fell slow and angry. “The work will go on. And if the damn mages know what’s good for them, they’ll go along with it. There’s a whole bunch of senators who are going to be mighty sorry if they don’t. All of them, actually.” A laugh vibrated from his throat.

  She looked into the darkness from where Vincent’s vibes flowed. She wished her eyes could penetrate the shadows. “With all those deaths, I’m sure the senators already regret what’s happened.” She certainly did.

  “Not like they’re gonna! It’s about to get up close and personal,” he whispered dramatically. “But don’t tell. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.” He leered at her with a grin stretched across his face.

  “I wouldn’t think there’s much you can do from in here, Claude.” A nervous shiver ran down her back.

  “God, you are so stupid sometimes, Bronte. There are other people I have working for me. They’re competent enough to do the job on their own. You’ll have to wait and see. Don’t worry about me though. As soon as my man gets the power, I’ll get a pardon. We’ve had this part planned for a while now. Thanks in part to you,” he taunted. “Double-Wide is grateful for your loyal service. We enjoyed using you, though I didn’t use you as much as I wanted. I’ve always liked that ass of yours, rocking back and forth on the stage.” He sighed and shook his head. “We were going to have to switch communication methods soon anyway. You weren’t doing a very good job.”

  Anger pushed away any remaining numbness or fear. “I wasn’t doing a very good job helping you blow up people?” The wall she’d erected between his ugly emotions and her own feelings cracked with the question. She had to know. “How many people did I help you kill?” The question bubbled over. It had been brewing since the moment she’d understood the role she’d played. She hadn’t found the courage to ask until now.

  “Bronte!” Vincent’s tone bit at the air while William Ansel rang out with his own warning at the same time.

  “Miss Casteel, it’s time to go.” The two came out of the shadows.

  Claude flipped his stringy hair back and gave a low, hard laugh. She felt more tortured than when she’d sat in that chair. Spinning on her heels, she walked away, conquering the steps at a fierce pace, leaving her former friend behind.

  She took the first landing with a quick twist and sidestepped around the guard at the top of the steps. The air in the kitchen smelled sweet—the general’s muffins. The scent and the bright color of the room felt wrong, too close to the hell below for this much happiness.

  “Hello, senator. You didn’t talk long. Not much to say to your old friend?” General Wilen stood beside the oven removing muffins from tins one by one, his black uniform and bald head pristine and perfect under the lights. “We needed a name, Bronte. Muffin?” the general offered with one raised eyebrow. “They’re hot.”

  “She got us the name and more, general,” Vincent said behind her. “If he’s taking out senators, then the Gathering has to be the next target. General, you’re going to need to get the High Council on the landline. We’ve got less than twenty hours before the senators arrive there.” Vincent walked up to her, kissed her on the forehead. “Good job, love.”

  The general pulled apart a muffin. Steam billowed out as he faced Vincent. “We’re invading the High Council? I’ve been wantin’ to do that my whole career. That’s just the way I’d like to go out.” He smiled into his muffin.

  20

  Bronte withstood the stares of over three hundred mages as she lingered at the edge of the High Council’s mark. She stood alone. The rest gathered at the fringes of the cavernous room, avoiding the mark as best they could. Avoiding her? Perhaps. She let them look their fill, safe for now under the Order of Truce that bound all who entered the High Council
House. Safe due to the feared might of Rallis that promised deadly retribution should the new senator of Casteel come to harm.

  Tonight’s Gathering had pulled every founding family to the mark that bound the Republic together. She was the sole representative of Casteel. Unburdened by her isolation, she studied the High Council’s huge sanctuary. Above her, a domed glass ceiling let starlight twinkle through. The enormous dome was supported by white marble columns that stood close to the walls of the round room. In the center was the mark, a series of thirteen connected spiral labyrinths set flush in the stone floor.

  Its long-dead creators had extracted a deep cross section of rock, laid it on its side, and forced the layers to spin into the complicated maze that spanned most of the floor. It must have taken enormous power. But unlike the Rallis gyre, which was alive with the goddess’s blessing, no sense of sacredness dwelled here. It was consumed with itself, with ambition and authority.

  The uneasy crowd, segregated by family, was solemn and quiet despite their ballroom attire. Dozens of warrior mages stood guard outside the massive room, ready for the attack that the majority of those present were unaware of. The High Council had forbidden Vincent and General Wilen from sharing the threat they faced, even though the extended families of all senators were present, from the youngest to the oldest. No, it was not the expected DW attack that inspired their fear. Nor was it being in the presence of a syphon. It was the threat of the mark’s power that had them shivering in their finest garb.

  Vincent leaned against a column near the rest of his family. He gazed at her as if she were on the other side of an impenetrable divide. The sadness in his eyes matched her heavy heart. She gingerly held out her right hand to him. It wobbled in the air, and the medallion clattered around her wrist. Her courageous warrior mage walked forward, daring to venture closer to the powerful mark.

  He bowed to kiss her hand and then tucked it back across her stomach. He wrapped his arm under it like a living sling. With his other arm encircling her back, he pulled her into a sideways embrace. She savored the moment with him, even it if it was under the eyes of the most powerful mages in the world. After a lifetime of avoiding mages, her lack of worry was a new experience.

  She leaned against him, his uniform scratchy along her bare shoulder and upper back. The elegant navy dress, courtesy of Helen, displayed her every curve. It had a sleeve for her left arm, but the right arm was bare. It showcased the medallion—the wretched thing. But she wouldn’t let her resentment of it pollute this time with Vincent. She closed her eyes and focused on his energy. He’d been distracted since they’d left the basement, security uppermost in his thoughts. Though she’d spent last night in his bed, she’d been alone. He’d worked, finalizing defensive measures for this event, and coordinating a quiet search for their main suspect.

  “Is there a solution to the maze?”

  Vincent chuckled. “No. The thirteen families are symbolized in the mark. No one gets in. No one gets out. The labyrinth is too powerful to walk anyway.”

  A small whisper of voices slowly built. Vincent’s laugh had caused a stir. The crowd relaxed a bit as they took their cue from the colonel.

  His lips brushed against her skin. “Can you feel the mark’s power?” he whispered.

  She ought to be able to, considering the intensity of the last Gathering here had killed three senators and two Council members. That had been a quarter of a century ago. The mark’s power had grown since then.

  “Barely. It’s nothing like what I pick up from you or the gyre. A soft hum, nothing more.”

  “It senses you. I can feel it brushing against my vibes as you syphon it away. Some of its energy anyway. Enough for everyone to stand inside this room.”

  “Is it too much for you?” she asked. “The energy? The mages?”

  “No. I can handle anything with you. I was seven years old when the Gathering was last held here. Mother nearly passed out. Grandfather couldn’t be moved for three days afterwards, so we couldn’t go home. But right now, I’m fine. As is everyone else.”

  Bronte glanced around at the mages lingering along walls. “I feel like I was born blind. All this energy that I don’t know exists until someone tells me it’s there.”

  “It’s the goddess’s way of making sure you can’t take advantage of the rest of us.” Behind them, an old woman’s crackly, loud voice rang through the sanctuary. The crowd hushed.

  The crone walked up next to her. “It allows the rest of us to take advantage of you though.” Long gray hair hung in thick waves to her knees. Her face was finely wrinkled all over. Bronte was the exact height to look the woman in the eye. Except the woman’s eyes were stitched shut.

  The remaining seven councilors, clad in white ceremonial robes, stood behind her. The blind woman reached out and plucked at the medallion wrapped around Bronte’s wrist. “An improvement for Casteel. If you weren’t a senator, I’d keep you for the Council.” She shifted to Vincent, patting his cheek.

  He let go of Bronte’s right arm slowly enough that she could take over supporting it, and he bowed to the woman.

  “Lady Glender.” He greeted her with a cold, formal tone.

  “Such a handsome man, you are.” Lady Glender stepped up to the edge of the mark and took Bronte’s bare elbow. The move ousted Vincent from Bronte’s side. “She’s mine now, colonel.”

  Bronte met Vincent’s eyes over the old woman’s head. She couldn’t find a smile for him. He seemed to share the same problem. She could almost hear the damn clock carelessly ticking away, a countdown to the dissolution of the bond that existed between them. They didn’t have a future. Vincent could never be bound to Casteel Territory. He was a Rallis clear through to his soul. She was the Casteel senator. They only had now. She smiled after all, bittersweet and small, but there. He narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t given up. Yet. Her heart cracked a little more at the hopelessness of it all. He turned away.

  The other councilors floated around the room and took their positions along the huge labyrinth. The remaining twelve senators left their families at the walls of the sanctuary and filled the spaces between the councilors. Vincent’s grandfather stood on the other side of Lady Glender. The only other woman senator stood four mages away. Bronte was the youngest by at least twenty years.

  Behind them, the founding families moved forward as other spectators crowded in along the walls of the room. The High Council’s entrance was the lower guests’ cue to cross the threshold of the sanctuary. Selene stood among them, her white sheath, the color of the Council, blended with the rest of her coloring, elegant and frosty.

  “The Gathering is the time that each family renews our commitment to hold a free land for all mages.” Lady Glender’s voice permeated the vast space. “We devote our lives, our blood and our energy to the goddess’s gift of this Republic. Let the heirs come into the labyrinth to represent the people of the land, and we will seal the circle.”

  “No,” a young mother protested, clutching an infant to her chest, her eyes wild with fright. Other parents joined in. “I won’t do it. The last time—”

  “This time is different, Annabelle,” Lady Glender snapped. “This time the power is muted thanks to our newest senator. Your babe will be fine. You, of course, will go in with her. Choose your marks, children.” One by one the heirs walked into the labyrinth. Some were young, others adults. All were tense as if they expected to be thrown out by the force of the power. Everyone knew their history.

  Edmund walked in for Rallis, winking at Bronte as he passed by. Apparently he wasn’t tense.

  “Now there’s a big boy,” Lady Glender chuckled.

  The heirs stayed in the spirals closest to their senators. The circle in front of Bronte was empty.

  “Casteel needs an heir.” The High Councilor’s tone slashed through the air, her sightless face stared at Bronte. “Call my daughter to you.”

  “She’s not your daughter,” Bronte retorted. She held no fondness for Selene, but the High C
ouncil had left her sister devoid of warmth and love, her heart welded shut without a touch of lightness. It was a dismal way to raise a child.

  Lady Glender cackled. “The brave senator defends her people already,” she announced to all. “Now call your sister.” She threw the last words to Bronte’s ear.

  Bronte looked through the crowd until her eyes found Selene. Her sister was oblivious to the situation, focused on a tall, dusky man whispering in her ear. Selene shoved him away, her face narrowed in a scowl.

  The man stumbled back with a grin.

  “Sister, come stand as my heir.” Bronte revealed their relationship with the single, bitter word. The crowd’s murmur rose as Selene strode out of the audience, rewrapping herself in her usual cold grace. She passed between Bronte and Lady Glender. Bronte had yet to forgive her.

  “See, I told you she likes you,” the old woman said to Selene.

  The moment Selene stepped into the spiral in front of Bronte, something snapped. The mages jerked like it had touched them. Complete silence fell.

  The councilors and senators held out their hands, palms up, elbows only slightly bent, but the circle was too large for anyone to touch. Bronte looked around her. She could not reach out her right arm for long. It was too sore.

  “Just stand there, Senator Casteel.” The high, sweet voice came from the councilor to her left. “You can’t throw out any power anyway. We’ll close the energy’s circle into you.” The young woman, draped in a councilor’s robes, was no more than twenty. Her golden hair fell around her shoulders in fat ringlets. Lush red lips turned into a snooty smile.

  The air grew heavy. A slow current moved through it and blew Bronte’s dress against her legs. The force batted her back and forth from the inside out. Selene stared with wide eyes. Her chest moved in shallow, quick breaths. She was scared. Bronte had no words of reassurance to offer.