by Rachel Aaron
Coriano’s fingers tightened on the ruined hilt, leaving dark finger prints on the crimson silk. “No,” he breathed at last. “Nothing is worth losing her. ” He brought the broken sword toward him, clutching it to his chest. “But it was the only end that could make us happy. ” He smiled. “Our souls will remember your name, Josef Liechten, and when we are reborn, we will hunt for you. Do not disappoint us…”
The last words were a hiss as Coriano’s final breath left his body and he lay still, Dunea’s hilt cradled against his chest. Josef watched as long as he could as the Heart’s power faded. As it ebbed, the pain of his wounds came crashing back, and his heavy, tired body faltered under the impact. He slumped against the dull edge of his blade, fighting to breathe.
High above him, through the tons of stone, the castle began to quake.
CHAPTER 23
I see you’ve ruined my doors. ”
Renaud’s voice slid through the darkness. Miranda jumped and squinted futilely against the lava spirit’s light, but still she saw nothing. Only when Renaud turned his head could she see him clearly, standing on the dais by the pillar.
“They were ruined long before I got to them,” Eli said, stepping forward. Karon bent down and glared menacingly through the warped remains of the doors, casting his fiery light over everything. Miranda and Nico walked under him to stand beside Eli.
“Step away from Gregorn’s Pillar, Renaud,” Miranda said.
“Well, well,” Renaud said. “I told the lie myself, but I never thought it would turn into the truth. The Spiritualist and the wizard thief, working together. ”
“Your crimes dwarf his, at the moment. ” Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “Give up, Renaud. There’s no sandstorm to save you this time. ”
“I have no need for such childish ploys. ” Renaud turned back to face the pillar. “Not anymore. ”
“Stop!” Miranda shouted. “Listen to reason! Gregorn was the most feared enslaver who ever lived. He was not the kind of man to leave a boon for his ancestors. Whatever he left in that pillar will only hurt the balance between man and spirit that all life depends on, even yours, Renaud. If you use it, I guarantee the power you gain won’t be worth it in the end. Step away, now!”
Renaud chuckled at her vehemence. “It’s far too late for that, Miranda. ”
He shifted, turning toward Karon’s light, and Miranda’s eyes went wide. The enslaver’s arms were buried in the pillar. Not just buried, eaten, up to his elbow. Where they met its surface, the pillar had corroded, leaving a black, gaping hole that glistened in the firelight like a rotten wound. As she watched, the pillar made a soft, wet sound, and another inch of Renaud’s arms disappeared inside. Miranda covered her mouth, fighting not to be sick.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Renaud sighed, gazing lovingly at the pillar’s rotten surface. “Gregorn’s greatest accomplishment lies just beneath this shell. Even now, the lineage of Gregorn in my flesh and blood is eating away at his barriers. When it is finished, Gregorn’s legacy will be mine at last. ”
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“You’re mad,” Miranda said, regaining her composure. “Anything Gregorn conquered as a wizard died with him long ago. What treasure could he have left you?”
“The only kind that matters,” Renaud said calmly. “A spirit. ”
“Nonsense,” Miranda scoffed. “No bond between human and spirit, not even an enslavement, can last past the wizard’s death. ”
“Ah, but you see,” Renaud said as the pillar ate another inch of him, “Gregorn’s not dead. ”
It took Miranda a few moments to find her voice after that pronouncement. Fortunately, Eli spoke for both of them.
“What do you mean ‘not dead’? It’s been four hundred years. You’re kidding yourself if you think anything human can hold on that long. ”
“The human will is the greatest force in this world,” Renaud said. “It can conquer any spirit, any natural force, even time, if only the wizard can master himself. Gregorn’s will conquered a spirit powerful enough to raise Mellinor from the inland sea. A spirit so strong, so dangerous, that nations trembled at Gregorn’s feet for three months before the strain of controlling the spirit finally destroyed his body. ”
“As it should,” Miranda spat. “I hope that spirit crushed—”
“His body,” Renaud said, cutting her off, “not his will. Our bodies, our shells are fragile. They age and die, but while we have will, we have life. Gregorn understood this in a way your Spirit Court, with all its self-censorship in the name of arbitrary balance, never could. When his flesh began to fail him, my ancestor used the last of his power to enslave the only human soul a wizard can control, his own. ”
“Impossible,” Miranda said grimly. “You can’t enslave yourself any more than you could lift yourself off the ground by grabbing your own shoulders. ”
“That is the blindness of your discipline,” Renaud sneered. “You Spiritualists are so quick to dismiss things, aren’t you? So quick to say this is impossible, or that is impossible, and so, when the impossible happens in front of you, you’re as blind and deaf as any human. ” He looked up at the pillar triumphantly. “Gregorn mastered himself and turned his own dying body into a pillar of salt, binding his spirit to this world. He left only one decree to his followers: form a kingdom around him and never let another wizard within its borders so that their spirits could not interfere with the delicate balance of his control. ”
Renaud leaned into the gaping, black blot that had now consumed over half of the pillar’s surface, caressing it like a lover. “That’s the real reason behind Mellinor’s wizard ban,” he whispered. “The reason why I was forced to grow up as a stranger in my own home, the reason I was banished, and the reason I returned. Everything in Mellinor grew from that one purpose: to protect Gregorn’s control. Everything in this kingdom still serves her first king. Everything here exists so that this spirit who raised kingdoms and frightened nations, the spirit Gregorn gave up rebirth to gain, could never, ever escape him.
“That, Spiritualist,” Renaud said, grinning cruelly, “is the true power of the human spirit, which you, with your rings and your self-limitations, will never reach. ”
Miranda trembled with rage, but before she could speak, Eli stepped forward.
“If you’re so impressed by all this,” he said casually, “why are you even here? If everything in Mellinor is in service to Gregorn, what are you doing to that pillar except undermining a greater wizard’s work?”
“Taking what is mine,” Renaud hissed. “I am Gregorn’s heir, the first wizard in the Allaze family since Gregorn himself. ” He thrust his hands deeper into the pillar, which shuddered and ate. “It is time for a new wizard king in Mellinor. Time for me to receive at last what my ancestor has held in trust for me for all these years. Together, we shall finish what Gregorn started. We will crush the trembling world into submission until every spirit waits on my demands and every wizard depends on my whim. ”
“Don’t fool yourself!” Miranda cried, her voice shaking with barely restrained anger. “Gregorn isn’t holding anything for you. A man who was willing to give up rebirth and sleep in a salt pillar for eternity just to keep a stranglehold on a spirit isn’t the type to quietly pass on his legacy to a new generation. Even if that pillar eats you whole, Gregorn will never give that spirit to you!”
“Any other time you would be right, Spiritualist,” Renaud said. “But what you don’t realize is that, at this point, he doesn’t have a choice. ” The enslaver looked at the place where his arms met the pillar, and his haughty smile became a mad grin. “After four hundred years, his soul has degraded so far past human, he’s no better than the salt he’s trapped in. ”
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As he spoke, the black surface of the pillar began to bubble and hiss. Renaud laughed and plunged his hands in deeper. Then, with a sickening thrust, he threw open his spirit, and Mirand
a gasped as the black, sickening weight of his triumph-drunk will rolled over her.
The pillar groaned as Renaud’s spirit crashed against it, stabbing into the black wound where his arms were buried and pressing down, forcing the hole wider. The black taint on the pillar’s surface bubbled and hissed as Renaud forced himself in, using his spirit as a wedge. The harder he pressed, the faster the dark stain spread, eating what was left of the pillar’s knobby gray surface as rot from an infected wound devours a limb. With a final, triumphant stab of his spirit, Renaud’s arms disappeared into the sucking maw. His head followed, then his chest and his legs until, finally, he vanished completely. The pressure of his opened soul still pounded through the room, but the man himself was gone, eaten by the pillar, which was now entirely covered in the slick, black rot.
The second the last inch of his heel disappeared into the pillar, a wailing scream cut through the air. Miranda slapped her hands over her ears, but it was no use. The spirit scream cut straight to the well of her soul. It was worse than the sound the sandstorm had made, for that had been many small voices and the effect had been broken up. This scream was one enormous, anguished cry that set her teeth on edge and brought tears to her eyes, but worst of all, worse than anything, was the ghost of a human voice behind it.
Black sludge began to pour off the pillar’s surface, oozing from the hole Renaud left behind him and pouring onto the marble floor. It eroded the stone where it touched, hissing loudly as it washed down the dais steps, and the smell almost made Miranda vomit. The liquid stank of rotten meat, like open sewage on a hot day. The stench filled the room to bursting, until Miranda could feel it eating her skin.
“What is it?” she choked out, looking frantically at Eli.
“Gregorn,” Eli said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief he’d covered his nose and mouth with. “Or what’s left of him. Renaud’s forcing him out. ”
The ooze from the pillar showed no sign of stopping. It flowed down the dais to pool on the floor. The stone floor hissed and cracked as the acid spread across it with frightening speed, and yet the pillar showed no signs of slowing. Above it all, Renaud’s spirit hung like an iron weight, and the fearsome spirit wail went on and on—almost human, yet never stopping for breath. When the black pool reached the center of the throne room, Renaud’s spirit jerked and the pool froze, quivering like a caught leaf.
“Gregorn,” the enslavement boomed through Renaud’s voice, sending enormous ripples through the black liquid. “Kill them. ”
The wailing scream spiked, and the black sludge began to boil. No, Miranda took several steps back; not just boil, grow. The pool was rising, bubbling up into an enormous mound of black slime between them and the pillar on the dais. It grew and grew, and as it grew, its screaming deepened, until there was nothing human in it at all.
Eli looked up at the quivering, putrid, acidic sludge that was all that remained of the world’s greatest enslaver, and his face paled. “Well,” he whispered, glancing sideways at Miranda. “You’re the Spiritualist, how do we stop it?”
“I have no idea,” she confessed. “I’ve never even heard of something like this. ”
High above them, the peak of the mountain of ooze had reached the highest point of the vaulted ceiling. When it touched the stone, it wailed again, sending a rain of acidic globs down on top of them.
“Wonderful,” Eli said, dodging the spray. “Just bleeding wonderful. ” He sighed deeply, though Miranda couldn’t imagine how he managed it, considering the stench, and he looked over his shoulder at the lava spirit, still waiting in the hall. “It’s never easy, is it?”
“Easy is boring,” Karon rumbled, stepping through the ruined doorway.
“I hoped that was what you’d say. ” Eli smiled. “Well,” he said and turned back to the blob, “let’s have some fun, then. ”
Miranda felt the lava spirit’s answering laugh deep in her stomach. The castle shook to its foundation as Karon charged forward, his glowing stone feet cracking the floor with every step, and his flaming fist aimed straight at the center of the quivering pile of black liquid. The blob that had been Gregorn surged forward to meet Karon midway, and Eli, Miranda, and Nico dove for cover as the two spirits collided in an explosion of black steam.
CHAPTER 24
Miranda hunched over, gasping for breath. For once, Nico and Eli were right down on the floor with her, coughing and choking as the black steam burned their lungs. Eyes watering, Miranda looked up in time to see the thick, acidic clouds swirling off Karon’s molten fist as the lava spirit prepared to swing again.
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“Wait!” Miranda choked out, but the lava spirit didn’t hear her. His fist slammed into the slick mound that had been Gregorn, but the blob barely flinched. Instead, it sucked in the blow, sending tarry tendrils up Karon’s glowing arm, trapping the spirits together. Black steam churned around them as the spirits screamed together. Karon struggled against Gregorn’s grip, but the more he fought, the tighter the black tar adhered. Finally, with a great, rumbling cry, the lava giant opened his enormous mouth and breathed a column of white-hot fire over both of them. The blob shrieked and pulled away, showering acid that immediately evaporated in the shimmering heat. A fresh wave of black steam surged across the room, covering everything in a stinging, inky cloud.
“You have to stop him!” Miranda wheezed in the direction she’d last seen Eli. “If he keeps evaporating the liquid like that, we’re going to suffocate before he can make a dent!”
Somewhere in the black clouds, Eli coughed a few words, and the roaring of Karon’s fires stopped. Almost instantly, the clouds began to clear. Wiping her eyes furiously, Miranda squinted up to see Karon frozen in midswing. Eli coughed again, and the lava spirit nodded. Karon brandished his smoking fist one last time at the black blob and vanished in a great puff of ash, which blew back to Eli.
“What are you doing?” Miranda shouted, struggling to her feet as Eli closed his shirt over the reemerging burn. “I didn’t mean get rid of him entirely!”
“Can’t have it both ways!” Eli shouted back. “Watch out!”
Denied its target, the acid blob screamed louder than ever, sending a rain of black sludge showering down. Miranda, Eli, and Nico ducked as the fist-sized globs struck the wall behind them, and sank deep in the dissolving rock.
“He’ll melt the palace into slag at this rate!” Eli shouted over the spirit’s wail.
“We have to do something!” Miranda cried.
“You tell me!” Eli cowered as more acid spattered around them. “I’m out of good ideas!”
“I’d take a bad one, at this point!”
Still screaming madly, the mound of sludge shivered from base to tip. Suddenly, with a sickening, liquid snap, a torrent of black water began to pour out of its base. It was as if a dam inside the sludge had burst, sending a river of foamy, black liquid roaring across the floor straight toward them. It happened so quickly, Miranda couldn’t do anything except watch in horror as the wave rushed at her. Only when the black tide washed over the piles of discarded treasure, dissolving the carved mahogany and precious metals in the time it took to catch her breath, did Miranda’s instincts gain the upper hand on her fear. She spun around and dashed for the far wall, her feet skidding across the marble. As soon as she was close enough, she launched herself at the wall, and her grasping fingers caught the edge of a decorative niche. She hauled herself up, tossing over the stone bust of some Mellinorian king or other to make room, and pressed her body as far back into the crevice as she would fit. Eli followed her lead, climbing into the alcove next to hers.
“Nico,” he shouted, “there’s a shelf a bit higher up you could jump to. ”
But Nico didn’t answer. Miranda peered over the lip of his hiding place. Several feet below, the girl was standing at the base of the wall, stoically watching the black tide as it rushed toward her.
“Nico,” Eli sa
id more urgently, leaning out of his crevice and thrusting out his arm. “Take my hand!”
“Josef told me to protect you,” Nico said, not even looking at him.
“Don’t be an—” He gasped and ducked as a black wave crashed against the wall, sending burning spray up the walls around them. Miranda turned away in horror as the black surge covered Nico’s lower body, and waited for the scream.
But there was no scream, not even a pained gasp. Miranda turned back. Nico was standing in inky liquid up to her knees. Smoke rose in white plumes where the acid touched her, yet her posture was as calm as ever. She might have been wading in a warm river for all the attention she paid the black water eating at her legs.
At the center of the room, the black blob quivered, and the tide of black sludge receded with a sucking hiss. Miranda watched in spellbound horror as the girl’s legs came back into view, bracing for the worst. However, while Nico’s trousers, boots, and the hem of her coat were completely dissolved where the acid had submerged them, her pale skin was untouched, as were the heavy silver manacles she wore on her ankles.
Gregorn screamed in angry confusion as Nico took a step forward, her bare, uninjured feet moving through the sludge of the dissolved treasure in quick, light steps. As she walked, a soft, dry sound cut through the spirit’s wailing. It sounded like dust blowing through grass, and it took Miranda a few seconds to realize that Nico was laughing. The girl hopped clear of the treasure detritus and stood before the screaming sludge spirit, tilting her head back so she could see all of him at once. When she spoke, her voice was full of that horrible, dry dust laughter.
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“You think you can beat us with that?”
The black sludge froze in midshriek and hung there, quivering. Nico watched for a moment, and then she raised one bony hand to her throat, and the temperature in the room plummetted.
In one smooth motion, Nico tossed her coat to the ground. Without its bulk to hide her, she was skeletally thin. Her threadbare shirt was sleeveless, and her bony arms hung like cracked branches from a crooked trunk. Her silver manacles glowed with their own light, casting weird shadows across the acid-etched floor as she reached up to take off her hat.
