Spectyr

by Philippa Ballantine

  Onika’s shoulders pressed back, the only discernible sign that he had even heard the Deacon. After a long moment, in which Sorcha decided which rune she might need if those around them pulled out knives, the Prince’s head suddenly flicked around like a viper’s and stared at her.

  “Everyone, leave me to talk with the Deacons.” The tone was deep, powerful and suggested imminent pain if it was disobeyed. The courtiers and the guards recognized that too—scattering to the rear of the chamber.

  “Your Highness,” Yohari began, “I do not think that these Vermillion Deacons can quite understand the uniqueness of our position—”

  “Enough!” Onika held up one hand and cut the Abbot off. “I charged you with watching your Deacons just as I charged all your predecessors. You failed me, Abbot Yohari.”

  Sorcha’s brow furrowed. Just how old was the Prince? Along the Bond, Merrick was unsurprised. The feeling that her younger partner knew something she did not was rather frustrating.

  “As for you,” Onika began, and Sorcha’s hands clenched on each other, “I expected you to find the killer in our midst—and instead one of my daughters is murdered. Explain yourself.”

  His tone now was so flat and dreadful that even though he did not have the resources he once had, Sorcha was sure Onika could still find a way to make her dead. She would have defended herself, tried to find the best words to say, but Merrick stepped between them.

  “You should take my word on this, Onika—Sorcha did not kill your child.” That was the way of Sensitives—they saw so clearly that they could dance around the truth so much more easily. Sorcha knew she might not have killed Jaskia, but she had contributed to the situation that had led to it. Deacons often did.

  The word of a member of the Order, least of all one so young, should not have had any sway with this imperious and mysterious monarch, yet he let out a breath that suggested beyond the shimmering veil he might actually be crying. “Merrick—you don’t know what else has happened.” Even without seeing his face, Sorcha observed the set of his shoulders, the weariness in every muscle—it was as if a great weight was pressing down on him.

  “Onika?” Merrick took a step forward and actually grasped the Prince’s elbow. Such a breach of protocol could have resulted in a challenge to a duel or at least a reprimand, but the monarch did not move. Sorcha grew more confused by the minute, especially when the next words came out of the Prince’s mouth.

  “It is your mother.” There was no mistaking the tone; there was grief in his voice. “They have taken her.”

  Her partner’s face went white, and a surge of fear suddenly rose above the other emotions muddled in the Bond. Sorcha could no longer stand still and let these strange events unroll around her.

  “Mother?” Her eyes widened. “By the Bones—who is he talking about, Merrick?”

  When he turned around, his eyes were wide but his jaw set. He looked younger than his twenty and five years—almost like a frightened child stepping toward anger. His voice was flat as he told her, “You’ve already met her—she’s pregnant with his child.”

  She recalled the woman, beautiful and heavy with pregnancy and curiously devoted to the Prince. Suddenly the similarity between her and Merrick smacked his partner between the eyes. She almost laughed—there were plenty of good reasons she had never been considered as a Sensitive.

  Sorcha hadn’t heard much from Merrick about his family—but then neither had she told him anything about hers. Most of the Deacons were trained from childhood, many orphaned or sent into the Order by impoverished parents. It was so common that it was taken as the rule. But Sorcha knew from what she had heard in the harem that the royal concubines and wives were no commoners. They were proud of it.

  So, if the woman she had seen was Merrick’s mother, then that meant by consequence that he was no common orphan picked up off the street.

  “We have no secrets from each other,” Onika stated, “and she was so happy to fiou.”

  Sorcha, please. Through their connection she could taste Merrick’s panic. Her partner. He was her partner, and he, unlike her, had family. That had to mean something.

  When this situation is sorted out, she replied, we will talk about this.

  Just help me find her. It was the voice of a son, traced through with love and fear. Some part of her yearned to have that loving connection with kin and was jealous that she did not.

  Sorcha, who had never known her own mother, had however loved the Presbyter of the Young deeply. Merrick was her partner now, and his family was her family. “Where was she last seen this . . . ”

  “Japhne,” Onika broke in. “Her name is Japhne, and she was in her bed. The baby was tiring her, so she went to her room early this afternoon to rest. This was before Hatipai’s madness infiltrated the palace.”

  “Perhaps she is simply hiding from the rioters?” Sorcha glanced across at Merrick.

  He was opening his Center, spreading it farther than she had ever felt him do before—the effort traveled through his body like a vibration and humming along the Bond.

  “Nothing,” he gasped and reached for the Strop. Only the last two runes of Sight required the Strop, and she knew he meant to use the sixth one, Mennyt. Without questioning him, she drew her Gauntlets out from her belt and slipped their comforting weight over her hands.

  Mennyt meant looking into the Otherside, and sometimes the Otherside could look back. She would protect her Sensitive. “Stand back, please, Your Highness.” The beaded curtain swayed before Onika, but he took several steps until he was against the wall of the audience chamber.

  Merrick strapped the wide leather around his head, hiding his brown eyes behind the Runes of Sight carved into the Strop. Then he slid the round of obsidian, with his own personal sigil hammered into it, up on its brass loop to sit in a spot between his eyebrows. Sorcha was not sure if the Third Eye that it was meant to be covering was just some strange Sensitive myth, but she knew when it was brought into play, things were serious.

  In the Bond everything went still as Merrick’s concentration sharpened to knifelike intensity, and his partner was once again reminded how powerful the young Deacon was. The brightest star of the novitiate. Despite a rocky start to their partnership, she was proud of him and the strength of what they had.

  Still, looking into the Otherside was nothing to be taken lightly. Careful, Merrick, don’t look too deep.

  The image of his mother, young, beautiful and laughing, bending down to kiss the top of his head, flashed through the Bond along with a surge of powerful emotion.

  I have to know if she is there.

  Merrick opened his Sight to the Otherside. The winds raged, and Sorcha swallowed panic. The view of the palace was different when seen through Mennyt; it was a wild place of dark shadows and whispering voices from unseen people.

  Every building that had ever housed humans bore some echo of them after they were gone, but in places like palaces, where great and dreadful events played out, a geist could snatch away a human soul and leave the shattered remains to wander. Those who had been murdered were especially easy targets for the unliving—and this was what Merrick was looking for.

  Now his Sight spread through the palace, looking for a familiar shape and yet terrified to find it. Some isolated survivors lingered in distant rooms, and some broken souls ripped from bodies still floated through the corridors.

  Yet Merrick still cast about, delving deeper. Shadows grew darker, and the distance between the human world and the Otherside grew thinner, like someone rubbing at a painting with a piece of cloth. Now he was boring down until his blood called to her blood. Deep in the tunnels a few tiny drops called to him.

  Merrick—that’s enough! Sorcha stretched out across the Bond to him. She knew all about going too far, having done it herself in front of the gates of the palace at Vermillion.

  Eventually her partner heard her and pulled back. Looking deeply could draw the attention of things that were best left lying. With shaki
ng hands, Merrick slid the sigil back on the Strop and undid the belt of leather from around his head.

  “She’s not dead.” He turned to the Prince of Chioma. “By the Bones, she is not dead, but there is blood . . . just a little.”

  “Then where can she be?” Onika sank down on the dais where his empty throne stood. None of the Deacons answered.

  Blood was powerful magic when used with runes or cantrips even, and royal blood more powerful than that. And there were indeed terrible dark things that could be done to a pregnant woman and her child to summon geists. Sorcha sometimes hated the knowledge of a Deacon; it made dreaming or imagining a stained thing, and she was cursed with an active, powerful imagination.

  “I wonder what they are planning.” Despite the horror of it, she found herself pondering what their unknown assailants would want with Merrick’s mother. He was doing the very same, though with considerably more pain and bleakness.

  So drawn in by these dark thoughts was Sorcha, that for a minute she didn’t register the Prince’s movement—his raised hand to the swaying mask of beads.

  “They are planning to make me pay.” His deep voice was edged with resignation and fury, and then he ripped the mask from his face.

  Nothing else mattered. Sorcha dropped to her knees as if poleaxed, as the glory that was Onika filled her. He filled her with beauty and adoration, so much so that tears spilled from her eyes even as she raised her hands to him in supplication. Sorcha felt the true dawning of faith, and it cut more deeply than she had ever imagined.

  He was everything, and life before had no meaning. It had been gray and hollow until this moment.

  As if through a mist she heard Merrick cry out, his voice cracking, “Onika, please!” It sounded half a prayer, half an admonishment. Sorcha turned, her chest full of sudden anger. This was their god—how dare the young fool question him? She was going to tear his heathen eyes from his head.

  Onika, with a sigh from his perfect mouth, bent, scooped up the mask and threw it around his head once more.

  It was like plucking the sun from the sky. Sorcha sank back on her knees, a dreadful grief welling up to take the place of faith. It was hard to shake, but eventually, after wiping away her tears, she levered herself back to her feet. Merrick had recovered far more quickly and helped her.

  Sorcha had read widely on the subject of the little gods; how they were foolish, and those that followed them were even more so. She had even as part of training studied the reckless religion of the Wyketel tribesmen in the forests of the West Highlands, and how even now they could not be persuaded to give it up. Having had a taste of faith, having seen a god on earth, she was a little more forgiving.

  “A god . . . ” She shook her head.

  “No.” Onika’s voice was firm but still angry. “Not a god—merely the son of a geistlord, Hatipai—one that has been pretending to be a god since before the Break.”

  Her reaction was primitive and instant; Sorcha drew her sword, the ring of it sounding loud in the silent audience chamber. She should kill him now and save his people.

  It was Merrick who brushed aside the point of her blade. “Onika abandoned his mother; he fought with the Ancients against her. He is not the threat here, Sorcha.”

  “How do you know?” The prick of humiliation had her now, and she would not back down. She could feel the eyes of the Court on her, the held breaths, the aimed rifles.

  “Because I saw. ” His fingers clenched on the tip of her blade. “Nynnia took me there, before the coming of the geists.”

  Sorcha frowned. The sword wavered slightly in her hand.

  “I was one of those who imprisoned my mother, along with the Rossin family and their geistlord.” Onika’s hands disappeared behind the mask, holding his head or crying, it was impossible to tell. “And this is her revenge. I was never able to have any sons of my body—until Japhne came into my life.”

  He looked up at Merrick. “I remembered what you had told me, and I found love and acceptance as I never had in a thousand years. Even when I was not wearing the mask, somehow she still was able to love me as a man.”

  Sorcha made up her mind, sheathed her sword in one smooth gesture and realized foolishly that she still had her Gauntlets on. “Then we have to get her back.”

  “I am the only one with any hope of stopping my mother.”

  All three of them paused, ragged and torn.

  “Then I will make it my mission to find my mother,” Merrick said, his hand resting on his own sword hilt. “I will follow those tunnels, and I will find her. You must both go after Raed and stop Hatipai.”

  “But—” the Prince made to disagree.

  “No, Your Highness,” Merrick snapped. “This is how it has to be.”

  For a long moment the two men stood toe-to-toe, and Sorcha merely watched. For once she would let her partner tell her what to do. She owed him that.

  Onika laughed shortly. “It has all come down to mothers, then—because if I do not stop Hatipai, then she will make a graveyard of Chioma. Starting with the Rossin.”

  Sorcha flinched. “Raed?”

  It was Merrick who answered, “No, the Beast. Remember, there is no hungrier creature than a geistlord. They dine on one another.”

  “And my mother has a terrible hatred for the Rossin—since his family helped me restrain her.” Onika strode to the window and pointed east. “I closed her primary Temple—the one in the desert. That is where she will go to make herself a new body and devour the Beast.”

  Sorcha clenched her teeth, her throat tight, for a moment stopping any words. The Bond, which had been their greatest strength, was now stretching her in opposite directions. Raed was her lover, possibly even more, and Merrick was her partner. She didn’t want to have to choose.

  Merrick took her arm, pulling her out of the circles her mind was running in. “I need you to go with Onika and help him. Hatipai is far more powerful than any bunch of kidnappers.”

  “I can’t.” Sorcha paused, shook her head. “I can’t just leave you—” He was her Sensitive, and she’d only just gotten him back. He was her responsibility. Everything that she had ever learned in the Order told her not to leave his side—least of all when the world was exploding around them. Her mind flashed to Kolya and when he had been attacked right in front of her.

  “Sorcha.” Merrick squeezed her arm hard. Sometimes she still forgot his strength—too used to thinking of Sensitives as weak. Her partner, she had learned quickly, was anything but that. “I’ll take some palace guards, and we will be fine. You have to stop Hatipai and save Raed. I will be with you—our Bond is strong.”

  Sorcha felt his strength surge around her. It was funny how she had never truly appreciated it as much as she did in this moment. Their Bond, which she had forged so carelessly, was now an essential part of her life—as much as her affection for Raed.

  I am inside you. My Sight is yours, no matter where I am. Such a thing was impossible—at least as she had been taught—but she and Merrick had already broken so many rules. She looked into his steady brown eyes, and she believed him. He had never lied to her. For once in her life, she believed. While this spread through the Bond, she nodded slowly.

  And with a final squeeze of her hand, Merrick turned on his heel and strode out the door. Like every Active, Sorcha had always assumed that she was the dominant in their partnership. If they survived this, she realized, she would have to reassess.

  I will find you soon, were the final words he shot across the Bond before sealing it shut, cutting off communication though not the strength. Sorcha was not one to weep and wail over a man, even if that man was bound to her as tightly as Merrick.

  Onika called the remaining members of his guard, told them to follow after the Deacon, and treat him as they would their Prince. They were all well trained and obeyed without question.

  The doors were shut, and without turning, she listened to Onika’s footsteps walking on the polished stone toward her. She was not without a
llies, even if she still didn’t have the full measure of them.

  Sorcha contemplated the Prince of Chioma, hidden behind his swaying mask. “So, how difficult is it going to be getting into this Temple?”

  “I think you have seen I am not without my own resources.” His voice was hard, distant and worthy of a god. “It was how I stopped the mob getting into the throne room, after all. The trouble will be getting to the desert Temple in time. Unfortunately, I do not have wings.”

  It was hard to tell if he was attempting some kind of joke—certainly Sorcha was not about to ask him to remove the mask, and besides she did have an idea.

  “Tell me, Your Highness—have you ever traveled by Imperial Dirigible? It is quite the way to fly.”

  His low chuckle was the most cheery noise Deacon Sorcha Faris has heard in many, many hours.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A Son’s Love

  Walking away from Sorcha was hard, and Merrick was afraid to do it. Everything that he had ever been taught told him to stay with her—but a child’s love for his mother went deeper even than that. It was certainly not a situation he had ever envisaged, but if they found Japhne quickly enough, then he should be able to get back to his partner before she faced the goddess.

  The palace was not making Merrick feel confident about his goals, though. He kept his Center open, but all he captured was the feeling of panic and terror.

  “Sir.” One of the guards, by his insignia a sergeant, glanced around the corner of the corridor. “If you don’t mind me saying, don’t you Deacons always travel in pairs?”

  Merrick could smell the fear coming off the man; these guards were trained to deal with assassins, rabble-rousers, and maybe a catfight between the Prince’s women. “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Dael.” His eyes flickered uncertainly to Merrick.

  “Well, Dael”—Merrick led them around the corridor brusquely, communicating certainty he didn’t feel—“while members of my Order do indeed customarily travel together—we are also trained to look after ourselves.” He left out the bit about the strange Bond and the power it gave him and Sorcha over and above a normal Deacon.