by Rachel Aaron
She paused at the end of the corridor and smoothed over her hair with her fingers one more time. When she was satisfied that she looked as collected and competent as she could make herself without a mirror, she turned the corner into the promenade hall and stopped dead in her tracks.
The throne room looked nothing at all as it had when she’d last seen it. The marble floor was smooth again, with no sign that it had ever been scoured by the acidic soul of a dead enslaver. The colored-glass windows were unbroken, filtering the sunlight into colorful streams that played across the gracious golden fixtures and delicate ornamental stonework, all of which was back in its proper place. The roof had been restored to its original graceful arch, and the walls were smooth and straight again, as though they’d never been broken. Only the great golden doors were immune to this miraculous repair. They hung sadly from their hinges in a cascade of melted gold and iron slag, just as Eli’s lava spirit had left them.
Men in austere black coats were standing in pairs over the few remaining spots where the damage was still apparent. Most of them seemed to be lost in deep contemplation, studying the last bits of wreckage as if the shattered stones were works of art. As she watched, one of them waved his hand, and a cracked stretch of wall righted itself before her eyes.
“Should you be up, Lady Spiritualist?”
Miranda jumped at the voice, and she turned to see a handsome middle-aged man in a long black coat standing a few feet behind her with a polite smile on his face.
“My apologies,” the man said and held out his gloved hand. “I did not mean to frighten you. I am Alric, deputy commander for the League of Storms. ”
Miranda took his offered hand firmly, keeping her eyes locked on his face. This was not the time to show weakness. “Miranda Lyonette. ”
“Ah,” he said, smiling, “Master Banage’s young protégé. ”
“How unfair,” Miranda said, taking back her hand. “You know who I am, but I’ve never heard of you, Sir Alric. ”
“The League lives to serve, lady. We have no need to make a show of our achievements. ” He smiled as he spoke, but the thin-lipped expression did not reach his blue eyes. “Now”—he took her arm and began walking her toward the throne room—“to business. I was hoping you would wake up before we finished our work. I have several questions I’d like to ask you about the night all this unpleasantness occurred. ”
Miranda nodded. “You want to know about the Great Spirit. ”
“Of course not,” Alric said. “That’s your realm, lady, not ours. Our interest lies in the one called Nico. ” He stopped, and his grip on her arm tightened. “You know what she is, of course. ” He smiled at her. “Tell me, then, why did you let her escape?”
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Miranda stepped back, putting some space between them. “It was my duty to see to the welfare of the spirits first,” she said, keeping her voice steady and neutral. “Considering the extraordinary circumstances that night, I judged her to be the lesser threat. ”
“The ‘lesser threat’?” Alric chuckled. “I sincerely doubt that. ”
As he spoke, his pleasant smile took on a sinister tint and, despite the warm sunlight, a shiver ran down Miranda’s spine. Suddenly, she was uncomfortably aware of just how powerful a wizard the man standing in front of her was.
“That night,” Alric said, “the demonseed inside the girl awakened, correct?”
“She did change,” Miranda said, choosing her words carefully. “But things were happening very quickly, and I have no experience with demons. Some of your members must have been close by, since you arrived in Mellinor in such a timely fashion. Surely you can ask one of them. ”
“The League can move quickly when it needs to,” Alric said. “And seeing how every spirit within a hundred miles of this place was in a screaming panic on the night in question, we felt it necessary to move very quickly indeed. Thus, imagine our surprise when we arrived and found not only no demonseed but no spirits that would tell us where it had gone. I was hoping you could shed some light on the subject. ”
“I’ve told you what I know,” Miranda said coldly. “She changed, and my ghosthound was injured trying to subdue her. However, one of Eli’s companions was able to bring her under control, and she changed back. ”
“Awakened demons don’t just ‘change back. ’ ” Alric leaned closer. “Isn’t there something else you’d like to tell me?”
“No. ” Miranda glared stubbornly.
Alric’s blue eyes grew colder still, but before he could speak, a man’s voice called his name from the throne room.
Miranda jumped at the low, rumbling sound. Alric gave her a final warning look before turning on his heel and marching back into the throne room where the man who’d called him was waiting. The man was standing at the center of the sun-drenched hall and was wearing the same long black coat as all the rest, but Miranda was positive he hadn’t been there when she’d arrived—there was no way she could have missed a man like that. He was enormously tall, close to seven feet, and every inch of him—the ready tenseness of his broad shoulders, the lightness of his boots on the stone, the clenched hand on the hilt of his long blue-wrapped sword—spoke of a man who lived for one purpose: to fight. To fight and win.
He turned as Alric approached, and his silver eyes flicked to Miranda for only a moment, but a moment was enough. She felt blinded by the intensity of his attention, the sheer weight of his focused gaze, enough to make her lungs falter. She hung on his look, pinned like a fly, until his eyes flicked down to Alric, and the air came thundering back.
Without a word, she turned on her heel and fled. Her spirits were wide awake, yet oddly silent, their attention buzzing against her shaking fingers. She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked faster. So that was the Lord of Storms. For the first time, she understood why Banage had been so adamant about leaving demon matters in League hands. The silver-eyed man did not look like someone who took well to having his affairs meddled in. She almost felt bad for Eli and Josef. If the Lord of Storms himself was here looking for Nico, it was only a matter of time before they found her. Alric had said that awakened demons don’t go back to sleep and, whatever Josef’s sword had done, Miranda believed him. She shuddered, remembering the flickering glow of Nico’s lantern eyes. Despite Eli’s pleas, she didn’t see how something like that could ever go back to being human. Hopefully, the thief and the swordsman would have enough sense to give her up quietly when the Lord of Storms came, or there wouldn’t be enough of them left for her to catch, much less bring back to Banage.
That thought nearly made her sick, and she put the whole affair out of her mind. Whatever horrors were yet to happen, it wasn’t her problem anymore. That thought cheered her up immensely, and she threw open the door to the stables with remarkable gusto for someone who’d spent the smaller half of a week in bed.
Gin was where she knew he would be, sprawled at the center of the stable yard, eating a pig. The stains on the cobbles around him spoke of many such meals, and she stopped at the edge of the walkway, putting her hands on her hips with a mock glare. “Are you eating them out of house and home?”
“Nice to see you, too,” Gin mumbled between chews. He licked his chops and rolled to his feet. Miranda winced when she saw the long, still-healing gash that ran across his shoulders, interrupting the flow of his undulating patterns.
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“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he growled when he saw her expression. “I’m not made of paper, you know. ”
Miranda walked over and reached up to scratch behind his ear. “I’m glad to see you doing so well. ”
“So am I,” Gin said, but he leaned into her scratching. “So, where now?”
“Home,” Miranda said. “I have to let Master Banage know what happened, especially now that the League’s involved. I think our Eli hunt is going to get a bit more hairy from here on. ”
> “If Banage lets us keep going,” the hound said. “League nonsense aside, Eli still got away with the increased bounty and more than eight thousand in loose gold. Banage isn’t going to be happy about that part, and he’s not the forgiving type. ”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we reach it,” Miranda said, giving him a final pat. “Finish your pig, we’re leaving as soon as I find where they put the rest of my things. ”
They left that afternoon, after Miranda said good-bye to Marion and paid her respects to the king. Henrith was in a bit of a panic when she found him, for the league members had left just a few minutes before, vanishing as mysteriously as they had appeared.
“It really is too much,” he said, slumping down in his chair. “First we have no wizards, then we have too many, and now none again. ”
“It doesn’t always have to be that way,” Miranda said, sipping the tea he had insisted she try before leaving. They were sitting in the rose garden behind the main castle, just below the throne room’s windows. It, like the rest of the palace, had been repaired, but here and there the plants were bent at odd angles where the falling stones and overflowing water had crushed them. Deep inside her, Mellinor shifted uncomfortably at that thought. Miranda sent a warm reassurance before setting her cup down and meeting Henrith’s dejected gaze. “The Spirit Court would be delighted to send a representative. We might not be as flashy as the League, but no country was ever worse off for having a Spiritualist. ”
“I think I may take you up on that offer,” the king said thoughtfully. “After all, of all the wizards who’ve tromped through my kingdom over the past week or so, you’re the only one who did right by us, and we won’t forget that. ”
“Your Majesty flatters me,” Miranda said and smiled. “Perhaps I can do you another good turn. I’m going home to Zarin to give my report to the Rector Spiritualis. Master Banage is a powerful man, and he might be able to convince the Council of Thrones to throw out Mellinor’s part of Eli’s bounty. I think coercion of a monarch counts as extenuating circumstances enough to justify a slight bending of the rules. ”
The king set down his teacup. “I appreciate the offer, but it won’t be necessary. After all this ruckus, I think thirty-five thousand is the least we can do to reward the person crazy enough to catch Eli Monpress. ” He smiled broadly. “I hope, lady, that it will be you. ”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,” Miranda said, laughing. “But I shall do my best, all the same. ”
In the end, he gave her three bags of the tea to take with her. She bundled them into her pack, along with the generous store of sandwiches, fruits, nuts, and bread from the palace kitchens, and secured the lot across Gin’s lower back. Then she climbed into her spot right behind the ghosthound’s ears and let him put on all the show he liked as they bounded over the gates and out of the town. Once on the road, she was careful not to comment when he set a slower pace, and if she made them take more breaks than they usually did, Gin didn’t mention it. So, in this casual way, they crossed the borders of Mellinor and followed the trade roads north and a little east toward Zarin, the wizard city at the heart of the world.
Far to the west, on the other side of Mellinor, Eli was having a harder time of things.
“I give up,” he said, turning his back on the deep, fast river he had spent the better part of an hour trying to convince to pull back its waters long enough for them to cross.
“Why don’t you just give it an order?” Josef said from his perch on the enormous bag of gold. “Worked well enough on the big lake spirit back there, why not a river?”
“It was a sea spirit,” Eli growled. “And that was totally different. ” He turned his scowl toward Nico, who was sitting on the ground beside Josef drawing patterns in the sand with a split twig.
“This is all your fault, you know,” he said, pointing at her. “If you hadn’t been so careless and ripped your coat to shreds, the river would have no idea what you are, and we would have been safely across thirty minutes ago. Now it thinks we’re part of some vast, demonic conspiracy and is looking for a way to drown us. ”
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As if to prove his point, the river chose that moment to splash several rocks onto the shore, which landed in the sand inches from Nico’s bare knees. Eli shook his head and glanced forlornly upriver. “Nothing for it, we’ll have to find a bridge and cross like normal people. Fortunately, I think there’s one in our direction. ”
“Our direction?” Josef scratched his chest where the bandages poked above his shirt. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Eli said. “We can’t get anything done with Nico in that condition. We’re going to get her a new coat. ”
“A new coat?” Josef cocked an eyebrow at the wizard. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” Eli said, starting up the sandy bank. “So make sure you don’t lose any of that gold. If we’re lucky, we’ll have just enough to pay for it. ”
“We’ve got enough gold to purchase a fully stocked villa and the noble title to go with it!” Josef said, kicking the bag with his boot heel. “What kind of coat are we buying?”
But Eli was already a good distance ahead, digging through the maps in his shoulder bag and muttering to himself. Josef rolled his eyes and stood up. With a grunt, he heaved the bag of gold onto his back and balanced it on the flat of his sword while he tied it in place. Then, with the Heart of War secured over one shoulder, and the bag of gold tied across the other, he tromped down the bank after the thief. Tossing down her twig, Nico stood and followed, fitting her small, bare feet into the swordsman’s large tracks. Every few minutes, the river would send a new volley of rocks at her, which she dodged easily, never taking her eyes off Josef’s back. She stayed less than a step behind him the whole way, one thin hand clutching the tattered remains of her coat and the other stretched out in front, her long fingers resting on the cutting edge of the Heart of War’s blade.
