The Spirit War: The Legend of Eli Monpress Volume 4

by Rachel Aaron

  “Well, well,” the Empress said. “The rat emerges.”

  Miranda blinked. The Empress hadn’t raised her voice, but Miranda could hear her as clearly as though the woman were standing beside her.

  “Come to meet my challenge at last?” the Empress continued, drawing a shining sword from the scabbard at her hip. “Come then, boy. I’ll show you who is truly worthy of the Lady’s favor.”

  “Nara.” Eli said the name like an insult. “You want her? Take her. Love her for another eight centuries. But this?” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the shore. “This land is mine. Go home. No one wants you here.”

  “I am not yours to send away,” the Empress hissed. “You claim this land? Fight to keep it. The Shepherdess has no love for the weak.”

  Eli tilted his head to the side. Miranda could feel the impatience radiating off him even at this distance, but Eli didn’t answer the Empress’s challenge. He just stood there, staring up at the woman with a smile so defeated it made Miranda’s chest ache. And then, without warning, he opened his spirit.

  Eli’s power exploded out of him. It filled the beach, filled the sky, and swept over the Oseran mountains to fill the channel behind them. It expanded and expanded, pressing down so hard Miranda had trouble breathing. And then, at its center, a light brighter than any Miranda had ever seen broke like the sunrise.

  All at once, the world, already bowed in homage to the Empress, turned its back on her and prostrated itself before Eli. Miranda clutched the window’s edge, staring in amazement. She’d seen this once before, in Mellinor, but the scale was totally different now. Everything Eli’s spirit touched woke, and every spirit that woke praised him. The sea flattened to glass below his feet and the winds circled him in supplication. On the island, the mountain woke and began to tremble, the very rock bowing in obedience. The sand on the beach swelled in reverence, burying the soldiers in its eagerness to show its respect, and even the stones of the tower were singing praises. Their song was little more than a buzzing under her fingers, but its meaning was clear. Miranda stood perfectly still, her eyes so wide they hurt. She had been amazed when the Empress opened her spirit, but this was so much more. Terrifyingly more.

  When she found her voice at last, the question was a whisper, more air than sound. “What is he?”

  For a moment nothing answered, and then Durn, sturdiest and calmest of her spirits, spoke.

  “He is the favorite.”

  Miranda caught her breath, trying to remember where she’d heard that term before, but too many new things were tumbling through her head and she couldn’t make it all fit together. It didn’t matter though, for in the next moment, something happened that put everything else out of her mind.

  Out on the glassy sea, the Empress fell as the wind abandoned her. She landed on the deck of her palace ship, crashing into the wood with an impact that made Miranda wince. For a moment the woman lay stunned, and then the Empress curled into a ball, burying her head in her hands as she began to weep. Down on the water, Eli, barely visible beneath his own light, shook his head in disgust and raised his arms.

  All along the Empress’s fleet, from horizon to horizon, white lines began to appear in the air. They fell like unraveling thread, the long, white slits growing until they were as large as the monstrous ships themselves, one for each boat. Miranda swallowed as the sea filled with white. Until this moment, she hadn’t actually realized just how large the Empress’s force was. The sight almost made her laugh. How had the Council ever thought it could win?

  A few seconds after they appeared, the white lines stopped growing. For one breathtaking moment they hung in the air beside the ships, each a shining, pure white beacon. Their light lit up the night, each line reflected in the beautiful, still water below. Tears pricked Miranda’s eyes as the scene the Shaper Mountain had shown them flashed again through her mind—the night sky lit up with a million lights, the things called stars. Unbidden, her eyes drifted up. The sky looked as it always had, enormous and black, the crescent moon hanging almost sulkily just above the horizon. She’d never thought of the sky as empty, but now, compared to the beautiful lights below, Miranda couldn’t see it as anything but.

  Below the blank curve of the night sky, Eli stood before the endless lights, the brightest of them all. He looked around at the white lines, almost like he was counting, and then, with a careless motion, he brought his arms down. In that one movement, the white, glowing lines vanished, taking the fleet with them.

  Miranda rubbed her aching eyes, but when she opened them again, the view was the same. The ocean stretched out to the horizon, dark and empty. Of the Immortal Empress’s innumerable fleet, not a single ship was left.

  Down on the glassy water, Eli’s light was the only one left. Without meaning to, Miranda found herself leaning forward, drawn to his light. But as she stretched for a better look, she saw that Eli was staring back, his eyes pinned on hers despite the distance. She smiled at him, a great, relieved grin. Five minutes ago she’d been ready to kill him. Now he’d just done the impossible and saved them all. But Eli didn’t return her smile. He glared at her, his face bitter and drawn as another light flashed beside his.

  Two white lines appeared on either side of Eli’s head. They fell to his shoulders, shimmering in the night as his own light faded. A second after they appeared, two white arms emerged, long and perfect and glowing like white fire. They reached out, folding around Eli’s neck until they were almost choking him in their embrace. Eli winced as though in pain, but his eyes never left Miranda’s. She stared at him, confused, and then she saw his mouth move.

  It wasn’t like earlier. She couldn’t hear him now. Actually, she wasn’t sure if he was making a sound or just mouthing the words. But his lips were expressive as always, and she could see the words plainly even at this distance.

  Hope you’re happy, he mouthed. Good-bye.

  And then the white arms pulled him back, and Eli vanished without a sound.

  Darkness fell with a physical force as his light snuffed out, leaving the world blacker than anything Miranda had ever seen. She could dimly hear a familiar sound repeating in the distance, but it took her several seconds to realize it was the waves lapping on the beach. The wind howled gently over the tower, a land breeze moving out to sea, carrying with it the smell of fire and smoke, but the sounds of battle were gone. As her eyes adjusted to the new dark, she looked down at the beach to see the Empress’s soldiers standing dumbly. Several simply dropped their swords in the sand and sat down, too stunned by the defeat of their Empress and the disappearance of their fleet to do anything more. In their midst, Josef stood and began rounding them up, calmly announcing that the war was over.

  Miranda wasn’t sure how long she stood there. Half an hour, maybe more. She certainly didn’t know when Nico joined her, but as she turned at last to go downstairs she found the girl standing at the window beside her, staring out at the dark sea with her coat wrapped around her shoulders.

  Miranda winced and backed away. Nico looked terrible. Her pale skin was mottled with bruises all the way to where it vanished beneath her coat. Dried blood caked her hair, and both her eyes were blacked. Her expression, however, wasn’t one of pain, but of dread. Miranda hovered a moment, unsure what to do, and then Nico spoke.

  “The light woke me up,” she whispered, her voice fragile and raw. “Where’s Eli?”

  Miranda bit her lip, trying to think how best to answer. After several moments, she settled on the truth.

  “I think he’s gone.”

  Nico licked her lips, but she didn’t move. Miranda didn’t move either. They just stood there, side by side, staring into the dark, looking in vain for what was no longer there.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Lindsay, whose edits, observations, and refusal to pull punches made this book five times what it was when I first gave it to her. Also, a huge thank-you to the hardworking people at the Watkinsville Jittery Joe’s. You are all coffee-mak
ing saints. Thank you for letting me take up the corner chair indefinitely.

  extras

  meet the author

  Alyssa Alig

  RACHEL AARON was born in Atlanta, Georgia. After a lovely, geeky childhood full of books and public television, and then an adolescence spent feeling awkward about it, she went to the University of Georgia to pursue English literature with an eye toward getting her PhD. Upper-division coursework cured her of this delusion, and she graduated in 2004 with a BA and a job, which was enough to make her mother happy. She currently lives in a 1970s house of the future in Athens, Georgia, with her loving husband, overgrown library, elfish son, and small, brown dog. Find out more about the author at www.rachelaaron.net.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed

  THE SPIRIT WAR,

  look out for

  SPIRIT’S END

  The Legend of Eli Monpress

  by Rachel Aaron

  At eleven, Eliton Banage was the most important thing in the world, and he knew it.

  Wherever he went, spirits bowed before him and the White Lady he stood beside, Benehime, beloved Shepherdess of all the world. In the two years since the Lady had found him in the woods, he had wanted for nothing. Anything he asked, no matter how extravagant, Benehime gave him, and he loved her for it.

  She took him everywhere, to the wind courts, to the grottoes and trenches of the seafloor, even into the Shaper Mountain itself. All the places Eli had only dreamed about, she took him, and everywhere they went, the spirits paid them homage, kissing Benehime’s feet with an adoration that spilled over onto Eli as well, as it should. He was the favorite, after all.

  For three happy years, this was how Eli understood the world. And then, the day before his fourteenth birthday, everything changed.

  It began innocently. He’d wanted to go to Zarin, and Benehime had obliged. It was market day and the city was packed, but the crowds passed through them like shadows, unseeing, for Eli and the Lady were on the other side of the veil, that silk-thin wall that separated the spirits’ world from Benehime’s. As usual, Eli was walking ahead, showing off by slipping his hand through the veil to snitch a trinket or a pie whenever the shadows of the merchants turned away. He was so fast he could have done it without the veil to hide him, but Benehime had ordered he was never to leave the veil without her explicit permission. It was one of her only rules.

  He’d just pulled a really good snatch, a gold and enamel necklace. Grinning, he turned to show it to Benehime, but for once she wasn’t behind him. Eli whirled around, necklace dangling from his fingers, and found the Lady several steps back. She was perfectly still, standing with her eyes closed and her head cocked to the side, like she was listening for something. He called her name twice before she answered. He ran to her, giving her the necklace, and she, laughing, admired it a moment before throwing it on the ground and going on her way.

  This was how it usually went. Benehime hated everything humans made. She said they were like paintings done by a blind man, interesting for the novelty but never truly worth looking at. Eli had long since given up asking what she meant. Still, she liked when he gave her things, and making her happy was the most important thing in his life.

  She stopped twice more before they made it to the main square. By the third time, Eli was getting annoyed. Fortunately, her last pause happened only a dozen feet from his goal—the Council bounty board.

  “Look!” Eli shouted, running up to the wall of block printed posters. “Milo Burch’s bounty is almost a hundred thousand now!” He stared at the enormous number, trying to imagine what that much gold would look like. “He’s like his own kingdom.”

  Benehime woke from her trance with a laugh. Come now, she said, stepping up to join him. You saw five times that much in the gold veins under the mountains just last week.

  “It’s not about the gold,” Eli said, exasperated. “It’s about being someone who’s done things. Big things! Big enough to make someone else want to spend that much gold just to catch you.” He took a huge breath, eyes locked on the swordsman’s stern face glowering out of the inked portrait. “What kind of man must Milo Burch be for his head to be worth that much money?”

  Who knows, Benehime said with a bored shrug. Humans have so many laws.

  “I’m going to have a wanted poster someday,” Eli said, fists clenched. “And a bounty. The biggest there’s ever been.”

  Nonsense, love, Benehime said, taking his hand. What would you do with such a thing? Besides—she kissed his cheek—no one could ever want you more than I do. Now come, it’s time to go home.

  “But we just got here!” Eli said, trying to tug his hand away.

  Before he’d finished his sentence, they were back in Benehime’s white nothing.

  Now, she said, sitting him on the little silk bed she’d ordered the silkworms to spin just for him. Wait here and don’t move. I have to take care of something, but I won’t be long.

  Eli glared. “Where are you going? And why can’t I come with—”

  Eliton.

  Benehime’s voice was sharp, and Eli shut his mouth sulkily. She smiled and folded her hands over his.

  I’ll be back soon, she whispered, kissing his forehead. Wait for me.

  Eli squirmed away, but the Lady had already vanished, leaving him alone in the endless white. He sat down with a huff and began picking at his pillow with his fingernails while he counted the seconds in his mind. When he’d sat just long enough to be sure she was really gone, Eli reached out with a grin and tapped the air. At once, a thin, white line appeared. It fell through the empty space, twisting sideways as it opened into a hole just wide enough for him to crawl through. Grin widening, Eli leaned forward and slipped through the veil after the Shepherdess.

  She was easy to follow. Everywhere the Shepherdess went, the world paid attention. All he did was follow the trail of bowing spirits. The first few times he’d tried this she’d caught him easily, but Eli had learned over the past few months that if he kept himself very quiet, Benehime didn’t always see him. And so, keeping himself very still and very silent, Eli slipped through the world until he saw the Lady’s light shining through the veil. He stopped a few feet away, lowering himself into the dim shadows of the real world before opening the veil just wide enough to peek through.

  What he saw on the other side confused him. When the Lady had left so suddenly, he’d thought for sure she was going to some spirit crisis. A flood maybe, or a volcano. Something interesting. But peeking through the tiny hole, he didn’t see anything of the sort. Benehime was standing in a large, dirty study, her white feet resting on a pile of overturned books. In front of her, a thin, old man sat on a single bed. The sheet was thrown back as though he’d gotten up in a hurry, but his eyes were calm as he faced the Shepherdess, his large jeweled rings burning like embers on his folded hands.

  Eli frowned. Why was Benehime visiting a Spiritualist? She disliked the stuffy, meddling wizards even more than he did. Yet the man was almost certainly a Spiritualist. No one else wore jewelry that gaudy. And the study they were standing in was clearly the upper level of a Spiritualist’s Tower. It looked just like his father’s, Eli thought, though Banage would never let his room get so cluttered. He never allowed anything to fall short of his expectations, the old taskmaster. Eli glowered at that, but before he could fall into thinking about all the things his father had done wrong, the old Spiritualist spoke.

  “You’re her, aren’t you?” he said, his voice full of wonder. “The greatest of the Great Spirits?”

  I am no spirit.

  Benehime’s voice was so cold and cruel it took Eli several seconds to recognize it. She leaned over as she spoke, bending down until her eyes were level with the old man’s. Her presence saturated the air, cold and heavy as wet snow, but the man didn’t even flinch.

  Who told you?

  “Doesn’t matter now,” the Spiritualist said, waving his hand, his rings glittering with terror in the Lady’s hars
h, white light. “You’re here, and I have questions.”

  Typical human arrogance, Benehime said, crossing her arms. To think I would answer your questions.

  “If we are arrogant, it is you who made us so, Benehime,” the old man said, his voice growing every bit as sharp and cold as hers. “We are your creation, after all. Or, should I say, your distraction.”

  Benehime sneered, her beautiful face twisting into a terrible mask. It seems the whispers of treason were grossly understated. I came here to silence a spirit who didn’t understand my very simple doctrine of silence and find a full-blown rebellion. Tell me, human, when those spirits who’ve stupidly thrown their lot in with you were spilling my secrets, did they also tell you that the price for such knowledge was death?

  “And what do I have to fear of death?” the Spiritualist said. “I am old, my life well lived. I have spent sixty years in duty to the spirits. I consider it an honor to die asking the questions they cannot.”

  With that, the old man pushed himself off the bed. He creaked as he stood, rings burning on his fingers as his spirits poured their strength into his fragile old limbs. When he spoke again, his voice was threaded with the voices of his spirits.

  “What is on the other side of the sky, Shepherdess?” he asked. “Why is it forbidden to look at the hands that scrape the edge of the world? Why do the mountains ignore the claws that scrape their roots? What secret horror do the old spirits hide from the young at your order? What are you hiding that is so dangerous that speaking of it, or even just looking its way, is cause for death?”

  His voice rose as he spoke, and by the time he finished, he was shouting, yet his calm never broke. The Spiritualist’s soul filled the room, its heavy power steady and tightly controlled. His spirits clung to it, cowering in their master’s shadow from the Shepherdess’s growing rage. By this time, Eli could feel the Lady’s cold fury seeping through the veil itself, but when she spoke at last, it was a question.