by Barb Hendee
Leesil deflected the sword with his left blade as he thrust his right into the third guard’s throat.
* * *
Chane barely kept his feet as Magiere shoved him into the wall, but when she clawed beyond his grip, her fingers passed by and her hardened nails only tore rents in the wood. He could not comprehend how he had held something and she had missed striking it.
Worse, she appeared to have lost all her reason.
Then something struck his whole body at once.
It felt like a wind coming from nowhere, which had been hardened like stone, and everything darkened before his eyes. Stunned, he found himself—when his sight cleared—slumped down against the wall, and Magiere was trying to pick herself up at the passage’s far side.
Whatever had hit him had struck her aside as well.
A shadow darkened Magiere’s form. She twisted up to her knees, her mouth gaping and exposing elongated fangs . . . but no scream came out.
Chane grabbed for his fallen shorter sword.
Saving Magiere was not what drove him. If this thing could do all of this to him and a dhampir, what had happened to Wynn? He charged, striking at where he had seen that shadow. In the last instant, he remembered . . .
He could not kill the specter’s body, its host, with so many present for it to take instead.
Chane twisted the sword’s blade and drove one strut of the crossguard behind his swing. The crossguard went all the way to the wall. As the impact jarred his arm, something else struck his face.
Searing cold pain spread through Chane’s skull.
* * *
Chap grew desperate to get back to Magiere, and yet he could not abandon Leesil.
She could not be left to face the specter alone, and Chane’s help did not count. Neither did the blood in his mouth or what was left of the dead guard beneath him. In a wider space for trained armed men to move freely, these moments of Leesil and Chap holding their ground might not have happened.
And the plan was now worthless. The specter would never be trapped in the domin’s hidden room.
Chap looked up once at Leesil facing the remaining two guards above.
—Drive them up . . . out . . . before more come—
Leesil would not glance back, but his answer came as he lunged up another step.
“Get Magiere!” he shouted.
Chap started to wheel when his whole body was lifted off the steps. He did not have time to even feel a jolt of shock before he flew sideways into the side rail.
* * *
Chane let the hunger rise to eat the pain and cold in his head. When his sight cleared, he saw Magiere on her knees. She looked up at him with eyes—not just irises—flooded pure black.
The sight filled him with fear, not of her, but that she had completely lost herself.
Her head snapped around toward the stairs as something there shattered.
Chane looked in time to see Chap tumble down amid broken pieces of the railing. Leesil’s body slammed sideways in the stairway’s other side. The two guards above were likewise knocked away.
It was not until Magiere lunged up, grabbed her fallen sword, and pushed past toward the stairs, that one thought broke through Chane’s fear.
She had looked before he had heard anything. She had known—sensed—something that she could not see. And in her current state, she might not stop until she killed what had tormented her . . . and Khalidah would flee the host before dawn.
When Magiere reached the stairs, she ran right past Leesil and Chap, who both appeared half stunned while struggling to rise. Partway up the stairs, the final two guards—both still teetering—tried to stop her. She knocked the first aside, and Chane thrashed to right himself as he heard the crack of the man’s jaw. She split the other man’s chest with her falchion and ran past before he dropped.
Magiere had lost to her dhampir half, and Chane bolted toward the stairs.
He tried to shout at Leesil, though he only rasped, “Get up—now!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wynn halted on the house’s landing when Ghassan froze in the opened doorway ahead of her. Panting in fright and exhaustion, she tried to shove him out of her way to no avail.
“What are you waiting for?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, so she tried to push him aside enough to see into the house. And when she did . . .
A gray-robed figure stood down the long, dark hallway ahead. The pit of its hood shifted slightly from the domin to her.
“No!” Ghassan snapped.
Wynn thought that was meant for the specter, and then the domin’s hand clamped over her eyes, and he shoved her back. Stumbling, she swatted away his hand, but he stood fully in the doorway, blocking her as he stared into the house.
Something mournful, then pained, and finally hateful twisted the domin’s features.
* * *
Ghassan fixed on a gray robe he had not seen before this night. He could not see what—who—hid within the hood, but he felt something worming into his mind. His will alone could not stop it, and whispers swarmed over his thoughts to smother them.
One voice cut through all of them.
“Oh, so much anguish and hate—both so tiny and pathetic. A morsel compared to the meal I deserve, after what you and yours did to me . . . for so long.”
Ghassan tried to block out that voice. In its place, a swarm of whispers crawled over his mind like carrion beetles.
...worthless . . . coward . . . where were you . . . when they all died, even her . . .
He lost focus and cringed, fearing that name they might whisper at him.
...lovely . . . so truly kind . . . and so satisfying to us . . . your Tuthâna . . .
Yes, she had been the best in nature if not skill of all within his sect. She had warned him from afar to hurry back, when he had lost against Wynn and her comrades in seeking an orb in a forgotten dwarven city. Her warning had come too late . . . to reach her.
Ghassan did not know he had screamed until someone struck him in the side. That sharp pain made him gasp.
“Wake up!” Wynn cried. “Don’t let it get to you!”
All Ghassan’s pain-fed rage fueled the burning lines, sigils, and signs that filled his view. That fiery pattern overlaid his sight of the gray robe standing serenely in the dark. Then he heard a scream, and shouts, shattering wood and feet pounding upon stairs. The gray hood turned slightly, perhaps looking toward those sounds, as did Ghassan.
The others were below, but at least one was coming up. When his gaze shifted back in less than a blink, he looked into that hood’s blackness.
All lines of light shattered to splinters within his sight. Like glass shards, they cut and stung his mind instead of his flesh. He heard a spiteful titter in his head.
“And now there is another that I will take again, though not for myself. She belongs to her maker.”
Ghassan lurched back as an unseen force struck his whole body. He saw the gray robe drift up the hallway farther into the dark. He barely grabbed the doorframe’s sides as someone rushed up from out of the cellar.
Magiere spun, looking everywhere. No matter where she turned, she did not appear to see the gray-robed figure lingering just beyond her. Something was wrong with her face, though it was not clear in the dark.
Ghassan lurched again as the force upon him grew.
“Get out . . . you petty little pretender.”
Wynn began shouting, pulling on him, and all he could do was fix on Magiere. He barely raised and held one sign in his mind’s eye for an instant. He uttered one command into her thoughts before his focus broke.
—Clarity—
Ghassan stumbled back, dragging Wynn with him, and heard the front door slam shut.
* * *
As Magiere charged out of the cellar, her insides burned, her guts ached, and hunger overran all of that. Fed on hate born of fear while she’d been in that cell for a moon, something more had happened to her near the end that she’d told no one.
She’d lost everything except a name that wasn’t hers.
Each time her tormentor came, less and less of her life—her memories—remained when he left. She forgot faces, events, places, as piece by piece was taken from her or lost under anger, then panic, and then fear . . . and then nothing.
The last piece she clung to in the dark was only a name.
By the end she was alone and too weak to move. The face that matched the name blurred more and more after each visit. It faded further away in the dark of her cell and her mind. And she then couldn’t remember Leesil’s face anymore.
Even when he’d come for her, her first thought was to kill him.
She’d opened her eyes when he spoke because she could hear a voice too close that wasn’t in her head . . . wasn’t the torturer’s but was somehow familiar. That terrified her.
When she saw and then remembered him, it made it that much worse.
After that, Magiere swallowed down that moment and kept it hidden. She’d locked it in the place inside where she’d always feared that she was the worst threat Leesil might ever face. He mattered more to her than anyone, and she might have killed him if she hadn’t been so weak when he found her.
Magiere couldn’t bear this. Each time it slipped into her thoughts, she wanted to die.
As she lunged out into the main floor hallway and halted, she didn’t think—didn’t care—whose flesh was inside that robe. Hunger sharpened violently, and by that she knew her prey was close. Though the hallway was nearly too bright in her fully blackened eyes, she couldn’t find what she was hunting, no matter which way she turned.
Something moved at the hallway’s front end.
When she twisted toward it, dim light well beyond the open door seared her sight. She saw only a dark silhouette in a doorway and . . . pain cut through her head like a thin, sharp blade. So much pain that it stripped away hunger with one word.
—Clarity—
Magiere chilled as the hallway darkened before her eyes.
The fire in her that she’d longed for died with two thoughts.
What had she done now, and where was Leesil?
* * *
“Get up!” Wynn shouted to Ghassan.
She’d barely gotten to her knees after he’d shot backward and nearly flattened her. Just before that, she was certain she’d glimpsed Magiere in the hallway. Somewhere in the house, the others were trapped with Khalidah, and who knew what had—was—happening in there.
The domin lay on his back, breathing quickly and shaking as if struck. Shade leaped over him and went to the closed door, but it didn’t even flex when she hit it with her forepaws.
“Oh, seven hells. Please, Ghassan, get . . . up!” Wynn begged as she yanked on his arm.
His eyes snapped wide and did not blink as he looked at her. He lurched upright to a sitting position on the landing.
Wynn looked quickly about, for she’d dropped the staff in her tumble. When she spotted it lying farther back with its butt end overhanging the landing’s steps, she sighed in relief. At least the crystal hadn’t broken. She reached for it.
“They are coming up!” Ghassan said behind her.
Wynn looked back as she gripped the staff below its long crystal. “Who? I saw only Magiere . . . and that robe.”
“We must get inside another way,” he said. Strangely, he looked up at the landing’s roof.
Wynn never had a chance to follow his gaze, for the staff lurched in her grip. Shade snarled and wheeled from the door. All Wynn could do was tighten her grip, but the staff jerked harder. Her knees skidded and she barely twisted around as she was dragged to the edge of the steps, and she looked into the face of another imperial guard.
Where had he come from?
He held the butt of the staff with one hand . . . and a raised sword in the other.
Wynn did the only thing she could: she gripped the staff with both hands and shoved on it.
She never saw what happened as someone—something—snatched the fallen hood of her robe and yanked her backward. She heard the hood or robe start to tear as she skidded across the landing. When she pushed up, Ghassan stood over her. Nearer the landing’s edge, Shade half crouched with all her hackles stiffened.
A muffled crack made Wynn roll away to one knee, and when she looked beyond Shade . . .
Brot’an rose up and dropped the guard’s body. The man’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle, and his head flopped as it hit the street.
Wynn didn’t have time to turn sick at the sight.
Ghassan pulled her up by her free hand and wrist, and she swallowed hard once.
“Where’s Osha?” she asked.
Brot’an stepped up on the landing, ignoring Shade’s rumbled warning. “Watching from above, I would hope. Without further arrows, I came down . . . fortunately.”
Ghassan too quickly dragged Wynn past Brot’an off the landing and down into the street.
“Enough talk,” he commanded. “Wynn, hold on to the staff at all costs.”
“What are you doing?” she asked. “We have to get inside.”
“We will . . . from above.”
“What?”
Nearly lost in frustration, she was about to jerk out of his grip and run for the door.
Ghassan pulled her in and wrapped both his arms tightly around her. Shade lunged off the landing, closing in.
Ghassan ignored the dog and looked to Brot’an. “Let no one out of that door until you hear from one of us.”
Brot’an took another step, looking once at Wynn. Shade snapped her jaws at the domin.
Wynn had no idea what Ghassan intended—but she also had no notion for how to get through that door if the specter could drive him out so easily.
“Shade, enough!” she said. “Stay with Brot’an and do as he does.”
“Do not let go of the staff,” Ghassan repeated.
Wynn never had a chance to respond.
All she heard was another snap of Shade’s jaws as Ghassan’s arms tightened . . . and her feet left the ground. She should have never looked down.
Shade quickly became smaller and smaller below as Wynn rose higher into the night within the domin’s grasp. And it felt like her stomach had been left behind. She really was about to get sick.
* * *
Pain vanished from Magiere’s head. Everything around her turned suddenly dark, though she still felt that gnawing in her gut like hunger. The burning inside her began again as she turned.
She heard someone pounding up the cellar stairs but ignored the sound. That thing she wanted to mangle was close.
Magiere bit down against her elongated teeth, trying to stop any further change.
Her other half—her dhampir half—had been forced back, and she couldn’t let it take control again. She struggled to keep from losing her hold on reason. If she lost control and slaughtered the host before dawn, the specter could flee completely unseen and take another host.
She had to remember that; all they’d done this night would be for nothing.
“And nothing is what you are . . . but a toy and tool.”
Magiere spun at the voice so clear but without the torrent of whispers surrounding it.
“You could be so much more for your making . . . if you let me take you to your maker.”
Gasping, she fought to push hunger down again. She had to remember herself more than anything now as she caught the shimmer of something slipping up the stairs at the hallway’s right side.
Magiere ran for those stairs, clawing her way upward. She thought she heard footsteps in the hallway below and ignored them. No one else should get near that thing—no one but her—as she took the steps two and three at a time. When she reached the top, she pulled the Chein’âs dagger from its sheath at her back. With that and her falchion in hand, she ran for the first open doorway nearby.
White curtains hung over a single glass-paned window at the room’s back. There was a small bed on one side and a chest of drawe
rs on the other, and everything smelled faintly of dust. As she inched inward, she saw no place to hide, but she eyed the window . . . until she saw its latch was still closed on the inside.
Magiere turned, about to leave and search other rooms, and she froze.
The gray-robed figure stood in the room’s doorway, though she still couldn’t see his face.
It didn’t matter as hunger burned again, and she felt her rage rising up.
...what are you . . . why have you come . . . who do you serve?
Magiere held her place in that gale of whispers. She was not chained down this time. She bit down on her lip, hoping pain would keep her aware . . . keep her from charging blindly to hack that robe into shreds.
And the robe shifted into the room.
“What did you think . . . to kill me with steel? I have lived a hundred lifetimes and will live a thousand more. How long will you last denying what you are . . . why you are?”
Her head swam and then her sight of the room as well. Everything warped before her eyes.
“You are as trapped as in that cell, alone and helpless wherever you go, until you go where you belong . . . with me.”
In her growing nausea, something rose to eat it away. It came up her throat like the fire and hunger, and screeched in her head to drown out the whispers . . . and that one voice. Or had that sound like an animal burst from her own mouth?
Magiere’s right hand opened and the falchion fell. She held on to the dagger as the room became less and less dark. On the edge of her awareness, she knew this wasn’t entirely due to her dhampir half.
Outside the window behind her, night was quickly fading at the coming dawn.
She lashed out with her empty hand. Hardened nails like claws tore into the gray fabric covered in glinting symbols. The only thought she could hold on to was . . . Daylight.
Magiere twisted to fling her tormentor toward the window. Somehow he halted without going through it. The hood turned until its black pit faced her again. When the hint of his voice began to cut into her mind, she shut it out, lunged, and slammed into him.
Magiere barely heard shattering glass as she clawed at her prey.
