A Darker Shade of Magic

by Victoria Schwab

  “Rhy.”

  Kell heard armored bodies break into the prince’s room as they reached his own, and he shut the door to the hall and pressed his bloodied hand to the wood and said, “As Staro.” Seal.

  As the word left his lips, metalwork spread out from his fingers, tracing back and forth over the door and binding it shut.

  “We can’t keep running from bedroom to bedroom,” snapped Lila. “We have to get out of this palace!”

  Kell knew that. Knew they had to get away. He led them to the private study at the far edge of his room, the one with the blood markings on the back of the door. Shortcuts to half a dozen places in the city. The one that led to the Ruby Fields was useless now, but the others would work. He scanned the options until he found the one—the only one—he knew would be safe.

  “Will this work?” asked Lila.

  Kell wasn’t sure. Doors within worlds were harder to make but easier to use; they could only be created by Antari, but others could—hypothetically—pass through. Indeed, Kell had led Rhy through a portal once before—the day he found him on the boat—but there had been only two of them then, and now there were three.

  “Don’t let go,” said Kell. He drew fresh blood over the mark and held Rhy and Lila as closely as he could, hoping the door—and the magic—would be strong enough to lead them all to sanctuary.

  XII

  SANCTUARY & SACRIFICE

  I

  The London Sanctuary sat at a bend in the river near the edge of the city, a stone structure with the simple elegance of a temple and an air just as reverent. It was a place where men and women came to study magic as much as worship it. Scholars and masters here spent their lives striving to comprehend—and connect with—the essence of power, the origin, the source. To understand the element of magic. The entity in all, and yet of none.

  As a child, Kell had spent as much time in the sanctuary as he had in the palace, studying under—and being studied by—his tutor, Master Tieren, but though he visited now and then, he had not been back to stay in years (not since Rhy began to throw tantrums at Kell’s every absence, insisting that the latter be not only a fixture, but also a family member). Still, Tieren insisted that he would always have a room there, and so Kell had kept the door drawn on his wall, marked by a simple circle of blood with an X drawn through.

  The symbol of sanctuary.

  Now he and Lila—with a bloody Rhy between them—stumbled through, out of the grandeur and current chaos of the palace and into a simple stone room.

  Candlelight flickered against the smooth rock walls, and the chamber itself was narrow and high-ceilinged and sparsely furnished. The sanctuary scorned distraction, the private chambers supplied with only the essential. Kell may have been aven—blessed—but Tieren insisted on treating him as he would any other student (a fact for which Kell was grateful). As such, his room held neither more nor less than any other: a wooden desk along one wall and a low cot along another, with a small table beside it. On the table, burning, as it always burned, sat an infinite candle. The room had no windows and only one door, and the air held the coolness of underground places, of crypts.

  A circle was etched into the floor, symbols scrawled around the edges. An enhancing sphere meant for meditation. Rhy’s blood trailed a path across it as Kell and Lila dragged him to the cot and laid him down as gently as possible.

  “Stay with me,” Kell kept saying, but Rhy’s quiet “sure” and “all right” and “as you wish” had given way to silence and shallow breaths.

  How many As Hasaris had Kell said? The words had once more become a low chant on his lips, in his head, in his heartbeat, but Rhy was not healing. How long until the magic worked? It had to work. Fear clawed its way up Kell’s throat. He should have looked at Astrid’s weapon. Should have paid attention to the metal and the markings on it. Had she done something to block his magic? Why wasn’t it working?

  “Stay with me,” he murmured. Rhy had stopped moving. His eyes were closed, and the strain had gone out of his jaw.

  “Kell,” Lila said softly. “I think it’s too late.”

  “No,” he said, gripping the cot. “It’s not. The magic just needs time. You don’t understand how it works.”

  “Kell.”

  “It just needs time.” Kell pressed both hands to his brother’s chest and stifled a cry. It neither rose nor fell. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat underneath the ribs. “I can’t …” he said, gasping as if he, too, were starved of air. “I can’t …” Kell’s voice wavered as his fingers tangled in his brother’s bloody shirt. “I can’t give up.”

  “It’s over,” said Lila. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  But that wasn’t true. There was still something. All the warmth went out of Kell’s body. But so did the hesitation, and the confusion, and the fear. He knew what to do. Knew what he had to do. “Give me the stone,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Lila, give me the bloody stone before it’s too late.”

  “It’s already too late. He’s—”

  “He’s not dead!” snapped Kell. He held out a stained and shaking hand. “Give it to me.”

  Lila’s hand went to her pocket and hovered there. “There’s a reason I’m holding it, Kell,” she said.

  “Dammit, Lila. Please.”

  She let out a shaky breath and withdrew the stone. He ripped it from her fingers, ignoring the pulse of power up his arm as he turned back to Rhy’s body.

  “You told me yourself, nothing good comes out of this,” said Lila as Kell set the stone over Rhy’s unbeating heart and pressed his palm down on top of it. “I know you’re upset, but you can’t think that this …”

  But he couldn’t hear her. Her voice dissolved, along with everything else, as Kell focused on the magic coursing in his veins.

  Save him, he ordered the stone.

  Power sang through his blood, and smoke poured out from under his fingers. It snaked up his arm and around Rhy’s ribs, turning to blackened rope as it tangled around them. Tying them together. Binding them. But Rhy still lay there, unmoving.

  My life is his life, thought Kell. His life is mine. Bind it to mine and bring him back.

  He could feel the magic, hungry and wanting, pushing against him, trying to tap in to his body, his power, his life force. And this time, he let it in.

  As soon as he did, the black rope tightened, and Kell’s heart lurched in his chest. It skipped a beat, and Rhy’s heart caught it, thudding once beneath Kell’s touch. For an instant, all he felt was relief, joy.

  Then, pain.

  Like being torn apart, one nerve at a time. Kell screamed as he doubled forward over the prince, but he didn’t let go. Rhy’s back arched under his hand, the dark coils of magic cinching around them. The pain only worsened, carved itself in burning strokes over Kell’s skin, his heart, his life.

  “Kell!” Lila’s voice broke through the fog, and he saw her rushing forward a step and then two, already reaching out to stop him, to pull him free of the spell. Stop, he thought. He didn’t say it, didn’t raise a finger, but the magic was in his head and it heard his will. It rushed through him and the smoke rushed out and slammed Lila backward. She hit the stone wall hard and crumpled to the floor.

  Something in Kell stirred, distant and hushed. Wrong, it whispered. This is … But then another wave of pain sent him reeling. Power pounded through his veins, and his head came to rest against his brother’s ribs as the pain tore through him, skin and muscle, bone and soul.

  Rhy gasped, and so did Kell, his heart skipping once more in his chest.

  And then it stopped.

  II

  The room went deathly still.

  Kell’s hand slipped from Rhy’s ribs, and his body tumbled from the cot to the stone floor with a sickening thud. Lila’s ears were still ringing from the force of her head meeting the wall as she pushed herself to her hands and knees, and then to her feet.

  Kell wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing.

>   And then, after a moment that seemed to last hours, he drew a deep, shuddering breath. And so did Rhy.

  Lila swore with relief as she knelt over Kell. His shirt was open, his stomach and chest streaked with blood, but under that, a black symbol, made up of concentric circles, was branded into his skin, directly over his heart. Lila looked up at the cot. The same mark was scrawled over Rhy’s bloody chest.

  “What have you done?” she whispered. She didn’t know that much about magic, but she was fairly certain that bringing someone back from the dead was solidly in the bad column. If all magic came at a price, what had this cost Kell?

  As if in answer, his eyes floated open. Lila was relieved to see that one of them was still blue. There had been an instant, during the spell, when both had gone solid black.

  “Welcome back,” she said.

  Kell groaned, and Lila helped him up into a sitting position on the cold stone floor. His attention went to the bed, where Rhy’s chest rose and fell in a slow but steady motion. His eyes went from the mark on the prince’s skin to the mirrored mark on his own, which he touched, wincing faintly.

  “What did you do?” asked Lila.

  “I bound Rhy’s life to mine,” he said hoarsely. “As long as I survive, so will he.”

  “That seems like a dangerous spell.”

  “It’s not a spell,” he said softly. She didn’t know if he lacked the strength to speak louder or was afraid of waking his brother. “It’s called a soul seal. Spells can be broken. A soul seal cannot. It’s a piece of permanent magic. But this,” he added, grazing the mark, “this is …”

  “Forbidden?” ventured Lila.

  “Impossible,” said Kell. “This kind of magic, it doesn’t exist.”

  He seemed dazed and distant as he got to his feet, and Lila tensed when she saw that he was still gripping the stone. Black veins traced up his arm. “You need to let go of that now.”

  Kell looked down, as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. But when he managed to unclench his fingers, the talisman didn’t fall out. Threads of black spun out from the rock, winding down his fingers and up his wrist. He stared down at the stone for several long moments. “It appears I can’t,” he said at last.

  “Isn’t that bad?” pressed Lila.

  “Yes,” he said, and his calm worried her more than anything. “But I didn’t have a choice. … I had to …” He trailed off, turning toward Rhy.

  “Kell, are you all right?” It seemed an absurd question, given the circumstances, and Kell gave her a look that said as much, so Lila added, “When you were doing that spell, you weren’t you.”

  “Well, I am now.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked, gesturing at his hand. “Because that’s new.” Kell frowned. “That rock is bad magic; you said it yourself. It feeds on energy. On people. And now it’s strapped itself to you. You can’t tell me that doesn’t worry you.”

  “Lila,” he said darkly. “I couldn’t let him die.”

  “But what you’ve done instead—”

  “I did what I had to do,” he said. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. I am already lost.”

  Lila scowled. “What do you mean by that?”

  Kell’s eyes softened a little. “Someone has to return the stone to Black London, Lila. It’s not just a matter of opening a door and casting the object through. I have to take it there. I have to walk through with it.” Kell looked down at the stone binding itself to his hand. “I never expected to make it back.”

  “Christ, Kell,” growled Lila. “If you’re not going to bother staying alive, then what’s the damn point? Why tether Rhy’s life to yours if you’re just going to throw it away?”

  Kell cringed. “So long as I live, so will he. And I didn’t say I planned on dying.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I said I’m not coming back. The seals on Black London were designed less to keep anyone from going in, and more to keep anyone from getting out. I can’t strip the spells. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. And with the spells intact, even if I manage to make a door into Black London, the seals will never let me back out.”

  “And you weren’t going to mention any of this. You were just going to let me follow you on a one-way trip to—”

  “You said you wanted an adventure,” snapped Kell, “and no, I never intended to let you—”

  Just then the door swung open. Kell and Lila fell silent, their argument echoing on the walls of the narrow stone chamber.

  An old man was standing in the doorway wearing a black robe, one hand against the doorframe, the other holding up a sphere of pale white light. He wasn’t old in a withered way. In fact, he stood straight and broad-shouldered, his age belied only by his white hair and the deep creases on his face, made deeper by the shadows cast from the light in his palm. Kell pulled his coat around himself and buried his damaged hand in his pocket.

  “Master Tieren,” he said casually, as if the informality of his voice could cover up the fact that he and Lila were streaked with blood and standing in front of the body of a nearly dead prince.

  “Kell,” said the man, frowning deeply. “Kers la? Ir vanesh mer. …” And then he trailed off and looked at Lila. His eyes were pale and startlingly blue; they seemed to go straight through her. His brow furrowed, and then he began speaking again, this time in English. As if he could tell, with a single glance, that she did not understand, did not belong. “What brings you here?” he asked, addressing both of them.

  “You said I would always have a room,” answered Kell wearily. “I’m afraid I had need of it.”

  He stepped aside so that Master Tieren could see the wounded prince.

  The man’s eyes went wide, and he touched his fingers to his lips in a small prayer-like gesture. “Is he … ?”

  “He’s alive,” said Kell, hand drifting to his collar to hide the mark. “But the palace is under attack. I cannot explain everything, not now, but you must believe me, Tieren. It has been taken by traitors. They are using forbidden magic, possessing the bodies and minds of those around them. No one is safe—nowhere is safe—and no one is to be trusted.” He was breathless by the time he finished.

  Tieren crossed to Kell in a handful of slow strides. He took Kell’s face in his hands, the gesture strangely intimate, and looked into his eyes as he had Lila’s, as if he could see past them. “What have you done to yourself?”

  Kell’s voice caught in his throat. “Only what I had to.” His coat had fallen open, and the man’s gaze drifted down to the blackened mark over Kell’s heart. “Please,” he said, sounding frightened. “I would not have brought danger into these halls, but I had no choice.”

  The man’s hands fell away. “The sanctuary is warded against darkness. The prince will be safe within these walls.”

  Relief swept across Kell’s features. Tieren turned to consider Lila a second time.

  “You are not from here,” he said by way of introduction.

  Lila held out her hand. “Delilah Bard.”

  The man took it, and something like a shiver, but warmer, passed beneath her skin, a calm spreading through her in its wake. “My name is Master Tieren,” he said. “I am the onase aven—that is to say, the head priest—of the London Sanctuary. And a healer,” he added, as if to explain the sensation. Their hands fell apart, and Tieren went to the prince’s side and brought his bony fingers to rest feather-light on top of Rhy’s chest. “His injuries are severe.”

  “I know,” said Kell shakily. “I can feel them as if they were my own.”

  Lila tensed, and Tieren’s expression darkened. “Then I will do what I can to ease his pain, and yours.”

  Kell nodded gratefully. “It’s my fault,” he said. “But I will set things right.” Tieren opened his mouth to speak, but Kell stopped him. “I cannot tell you,” he said. “I must ask for your trust as well as your discretion.”

  Tieren’s mouth became a thin line. “I will lead you to the tunnels,” he said. “From there
you will be able to find your way. Whichever way you need.”

  * * *

  Kell had been silent since leaving the small room. He hadn’t been able to look at his brother, hadn’t been able to say goodbye, had only swallowed and nodded and turned away, following Master Tieren out. Lila trailed behind, picking Rhy’s dried blood from the cuffs of her new coat (she supposed she would have had to get her hands—and sleeves—dirty sooner or later). As they made their way through the bowels of the sanctuary, she watched Kell and the way his gaze hung on Tieren, as if willing the priest to say something. But the priest kept his mouth shut and his eyes ahead, and eventually Kell’s step began to trail, until he and Lila were side by side in the head priest’s wake.

  “The clothing suits you,” he said quietly. “Do I want to know how you came by it?”

  Lila tilted her head. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking. I bought it from a woman in the market named Calla.”

  Kell smiled faintly at the name. “And how did you pay for it?”

  “I haven’t yet,” retorted Lila. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t.” Her gaze dropped away. “Though I don’t know when I’ll have the chance …”

  “You will,” said Kell. “Because you’re staying here.”

  “Like hell I am,” shot Lila.

  “The sanctuary will keep you safe.”

  “I will not be left behind.”

  Kell shook his head. “You were never meant to go farther. When I said yes, I did so with the intent to leave you here, in my city, to deliver word of my fate to the king and queen.” Lila drew a breath, but he held up his uninjured hand. “And to keep you safe. White London is no place for a Grey-worlder. It’s no place for anyone.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. “I’m going with you.”

  “Lila, this isn’t some game. Enough people have died, and I—”

  “You’re right, it’s not a game,” pressed Lila. “It’s strategy. I heard what the queen said about the stone being broken in two. You need to dispose of both pieces, and as of right now, you only have one. The White king has the other, right? Which means we have our work cut out for us. And it is we, Kell. Two of them means there should be two of us as well. You can take the king, and I’ll handle the queen.”