No Earthly Treason

by Genevra Black

  “I pray he may grant me this.”

  His father whispered a few ancient words, and the light pouring through the secret door’s cracks grew more intense. Marius braced himself for what came next.

  A whistle, a crack, and a thump. Squelching. A long, strangled groan of pain. Marius shivered as he recalled the moment in his own memory. It had been the worst pain he had ever experienced in his life. Every time he thought of it, it was almost like he was experiencing it all over again. The pain had been intense at first, but it had built and built until his mind had fogged, face and limbs going numb. He had been suddenly certain that he was going to collapse and die.

  Then, something had filled him. A strange, foreign fortitude; an intense burning sensation to fight off the numb cold. Painful still, but different than the blade—seething, deep, cleansing. Dizziness had turned to raw power surging in his chest.

  He sucked a breath in through his teeth as the waking world mirrored his lifelike memories: “Do you welcome the righteous light of justice into you, body, mind, and spirit?”

  I do. “I do.”

  “Do you promise to wield proudly Sól’s light in the name of Tyr, striving to bring justice to the Nine Worlds and honor to your people?”

  I do. “I do.”

  “Do you swear to purge or bind the wicked for the sake of the innocent, the gods, and, as Tyr did, for the sakes of the wicked themselves?”

  I do. “I do.”

  “Do you vow to spill blood, or give your life if you must, to uphold and protect the ideals of our people?”

  I do. “I do.”

  “Do you swear complete devotion to the Aurora and the Pantheons it serves?”

  Marius gritted his teeth. Do you?

  “I do,” said Ynga.

  “Finally, do you promise never to disgrace yourself with treachery, especially perjury, on punishment of death?”

  “I do.”

  Fire licked Marius’s aching heart. How long had his father been giving this oath, threatening others with death when he had been doing the very thing they were swearing not to do? The hurt, the anger, was almost too much to bear.

  There was no more time to wallow over this. Eirik had taken the oath. Marius had taken it, too. Punishment of death.

  His soul burned as he kicked open the secret door and stepped into the mellow amber light of the chapterhouse.

  Ynga and his father stood in the center of the room, bedecked in gold and bronze. Forty vivids sat on benches set into the chapterhouse walls, along with Tiralda, who looked rather bored with the whole ceremony. Every head turned to behold Marius’s blinding fury.

  They want righteous justice? They’ll have it.

  From behind him, as if she had read his mind, Edie’s Radiant army spilled into the room.

  A number of vivids stationed near the door jumped up with cries of surprise, but were cut down before they could even summon their weapons. Blood washed the stone floor. More vivids leapt to their feet, conjuring swords and shields, but their attackers seemed to give them pause. Some looked distressed; others simply looked confused.

  “Stay your blades!” Eirik turned, eyes touching Marius briefly. As he scanned the skeletons, it seemed like he didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “What is this?”

  Radiant Geir dropped the bleeding vivid he’d been holding, wiping his falchion on his white cloak. He rolled his neck as he squared up to Eirik, blue and gold lights shimmering around him.

  Eirik glanced at the corpse in disgust. Then he stopped and looked again, recognition dawning on his face. “Geir.” He gaped at Marius, then Edie. “The crypt. What in the gods’ names have you done, Marius?”

  Ynga was no longer clutching her wrist stump to her chest, as she had been when they’d entered. The fire powering through her veins had already staunched the bleeding. “How could you let that monster do this?” she demanded. “Why are you with them?”

  Marius’s stomach soured. Snapping his gaze to Ynga, he raised his voice loud enough that the whole room would hear the truth.

  “The hellerune did not raise the honored dead. I tripped a booby trap in the crypt, and they woke by themselves. It was only because she was able to gain control of them that I’m still alive.” He narrowed his gaze at Eirik. If only a glare alone could burn a hole through him. “Charms of necromancy on our honored dead? How long has this been going on?”

  Eirik didn’t respond. His face remained stoic.

  “But that’s not the only secret you’re keeping, is it?”

  “Marius—”

  He held up a hand, blood racing, breath coming hard. “No more lies! I found the last survivor of the attack on the runepriest monastery, the attack that supposedly only you survived. She told me what she saw. You broke your oaths and betrayed the Aurora.”

  For a long moment, Eirik said nothing, staring at his son in sober silence. It wasn’t long, however, before the room erupted in groans and curses and boos in Marius’s direction.

  Tiralda stood from her seat and pointed at him. “That child is lying. He is a menace. I’ve caught him snooping around in my room and all over the temple. If anyone is the traitor, it is him!”

  “He saved the hellerune’s life and then released her at the Gloaming Lord’s party,” Ynga added. “And now here he is with her again.”

  Before Marius could say anything in his own defense, the vivids were yelling again. “I don’t suppose you have any proof of what you say,” said one, venom dripping from his every word.

  “Traitor!” Tiralda spat. “Liar.”

  Do you promise never to disgrace yourself with treachery.... As the crowd closed in, readying their weapons, Marius thought of the vow; an oath never to lie to their people. An oath to which he was sworn. An oath to which all the Radiants who had come before were sworn, too. He reached for his belt.

  The silver dagger sang when he drew it, and as he held it high above his head, it began to glow.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Edie watched in awe as the vivids’ expressions began to change. Anger was replaced with awe and uncertainty. They all knew what they were looking at, just as they had all known whose skeletons she controlled.

  In front of her, Marius swelled, his confidence renewed as the blade’s light washed over him. He took several deep breaths.

  “He who bears the Puretongue’s blade cannot dishonor himself with a lie. He must tell the truth; not the truth as he knows it, but the absolute truth,” he reminded them. He leveled the blade at his father, who still stood before him. “You made a deal with a Gloaming Norn in exchange for your life. You’ve been feeding her information and doing her bidding for gods know how long. You betrayed the Aurora.”

  “I would never put my own life above the Aurora,” Eirik replied in a whisper.

  “The dagger doesn’t lie. She gave you foresight. She told you you’d be great.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “But that was not why I did it.”

  A confession. Silent heartache filled the room, and Edie’s stomach sank. She couldn’t help but feel bad for these people. They were watching the Rising Aurora crumble before their eyes and they knew it.

  The vivids looked to Tiralda, the eldest being among them, for help.

  After a few moments, the vættr sorceress stepped forward, eyeing the back of the Radiant’s head. “We shall soon deal with Eirik … but now is not the time to stand divided. We know who our enemy is here.” She pointed one claw at Edie and bared her teeth.

  Marius aimed the silver dagger at Tiralda, now. “She is innocent. I won’t let you lay a finger on her.”

  The sorceress looked at the blade, sneered, and smacked it out of his hand. It flew across the room and clattered to the floor, lifeless once more. “Then you’ll perish with her.”

  Edie wasn’t sure who struck first, but all of a sudden, the room erupted in fighting. She dropped to the floor, ducking a blast of energy someone sent her way. Spread out, go! Take down! Kill! She barely had to think
the orders and her army of undead Radiants plunged themselves into battle.

  She watched as the Mournful and another skeleton with a huge silver hammer cut a swath through the vivids in front of her. A large man wove between them and dove for Edie, but one of Swift Wind’s broadheads whistled over her shoulder and slammed into his forehead. Her little army shone. Many of their opponents hesitated to hit their honored dead, and that hesitation usually meant their death.

  But not all the vivids were so torn—the Radiant army was still suffering losses. An Auroran archer at the far end of the room had felled the Vengeful and one or two others, and was now was aiming for Geir, who flanked Tiralda with Satara. No!

  Fresh blood coated the stone, and as Edie crawled to her feet, it coated her hands, too. Her eyes flew over the bodies bleeding to death at her feet. I’d rather have you accidentally boil a guy’s blood than rot him into a skeleton….

  Why not both?

  Beside her, Cal’s shotgun boomed, and she took off at the sound, sprinting like it was the start of an Olympic dash. An icy blue mist enveloped her as she ran. She could feel the power building up her arms.

  The archer didn’t even have time to lower his bow before she slammed into him. The blue wove with scarlet, flourishing up her arms as she grabbed the archer’s hair with one hand and gripped his face with the other. Her fingertips dug into his skin as it decayed, and the blood coating her palms sizzled. Edie watched in sickening fascination as his veins were laid bare, bubbling. His blood revolted against him.

  He was dead almost as soon as she touched him. When she dropped him, she felt invigorated, renewed with the life she had sucked out of him. It was a beautiful and horrible feeling.

  Boom! She spun when she heard the chapterhouse doors burst open. Several adherents stood there, their mouths agape. Three rushed into the small vestibule, and one scrambled to run down the hall.

  Kill them all.

  The Mournful, the one with the hammer, and the one with the flail drove them back. Swift Wind bolted after the deserter.

  Edie looked over her shoulder, careful to be aware of her surroundings. On the far left-hand side of the room, Satara was turning Tiralda’s own magic against her with some sort of reflective spell. Cal’s bullets were breaking the vivids’ shields of light quickly, and he was picking off a good amount, but had to keep stopping to reload.

  Cover him! She sent the Mournful and the Puretongue over to help.

  Just beyond the altar, Marius dealt with Ynga. She had conjured her own lucent weapons, and hers were wilder, less controlled and bursting with light. Flares of plasma sparked off them and flew this way and that, hitting friend and foe alike.

  That left one person unaccounted for. Edie’s eyes darted around the room until she spotted his bronze armor. He was backing away from the fray, toward the secret door through which they’d come.

  No way. They might not have to kill him like Marius had said, but she sure as hell wasn’t letting him get away.

  She conjured flames of death in both hands and barked, “Eirik!”

  He couldn’t hear her over the battle, but he must have felt her watching him. As she sprinted around the altar, their eyes met; in the split second before they collided, his flashed gold.

  Pain blossomed in an instant, exploding through her body. She didn’t need to look down to figure out that he had drawn his blade across her chest—the burning told her all she needed to know. Her vision wavered. Mistake.

  Eirik slashed again, grazing her chest and leaving a screaming gash on her stomach. Then his glittering blade dissipated and coalesced into a blast of energy that knocked her back. Her jacket was torn from her body as she skidded across the floor, the broken stone and grit shredding her back and shoulders.

  She lay there for a moment, the sheer intensity of the pain taking her breath away. Even minuscule movements made it feel like fire was coursing through her veins.

  Suddenly, she was obscured, closed off from the rest of the battle by a wall of vivids. They had rallied and were cutting through her Radiants. She wanted to give her army orders, but she couldn’t seem to focus….

  Eirik broke through the wall of vivids and stood above her, looking down with a stern expression. “Why are you doing this?” His voice was soft; she could barely hear him. “You know the Reach will never be able to defeat the Gloaming.”

  The initial shock of her pain was wearing off, and she mustered enough strength to pull herself into a sitting position. She tried to scuttle backward, but her hand slipped on something cold and sharp, and she tumbled down to one elbow again. “Wh … why do you care who fights it off? Doh— don’t talk to me like I’m the one ruining things. You betrayed the Aurora, not me.”

  His expression wavered slightly. “In the end, it’s not the Aurora I answer to.”

  “You … you lied to Marius. You let innocent people die so you could have power.”

  “No,” said Eirik. “It wasn’t for power. It was never for power. I knew from the very beginning that my only reward would be disgrace—and death.”

  Slowly, so as not to alert him, Edie reached behind herself, groping for the thing she had slipped on. Finally, her hand closed around it; her mind cleared.

  Eirik followed her the half-step she’d scuttled a moment earlier and knelt beside her, searching her face. “But you…. Who do you answer to? Why allow all this fighting for your sake, abomination? What is it you want?”

  Edie looked back at him and mouthed something, but her voice was too small for him to hear. He leaned closer until her mouth was almost touching his ear.

  “I just want to survive the fucking afternoon.”

  She gripped the silver dagger and swung forward, jabbing it into his armpit.

  His chainmail stopped it from piercing his skin, but he cried out as she struck him, the blunt pain stunning him for an instant. It was enough of a distraction that she was able to roll away and onto her feet.

  I’ll show you an abomination.

  Edie sucked in a breath, and with it, the energy buzzing around her. Death spun, twisting, tangling within her until it reached a fantastic crescendo. The golden glow around them dimmed, the room turning dark and icy in her very presence. She dragged her clenched fists up from the ground as though she was pulling power out of the earth itself.

  Then she dropped it, hard.

  Ynga lashed Marius with wave after wave of her unstable magic, beating him until his back was against the wall. Her onslaught was relentless; when she didn’t need her shield, she summoned two swords of fire.

  She was talented and precise, and her fury was as volatile and boiling as her light. Marius was starting to wonder if he would survive this encounter.

  He watched his flank as he fended Ynga off, waiting for a weak spot. Edie’s gilded army was slowly falling around him, and nearby, hand-to-hand had left Cal worse for wear. In addition to his guns, he’d stolen one of the undead Radiant’s weapons, but he wasn’t particularly skilled in melee. Vivids were beginning to overwhelm him. Satara helped where she could, but Tiralda was a formidable enemy. Between her water, light magic, and viciously sharp claws and teeth, she required most of the shieldmaiden’s concentration.

  Marius himself had already had to buck off a dozen other vivids trying to join their stand-off. They had cut the number of vivids down, but there were still too many, and they were overpowering the Reach.

  “How could you side with her over us?” Ynga raised her flaming blade. “Traitor!”

  He was barely able to lift his shield high enough in time to deflect the strike. “Edie is innocent of whatever crime you’re accusing her of.”

  “You may as well be Gloaming yourself.”

  He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t spend more time fighting Ynga—he needed to help the others. She needed to be dealt with now.

  “Are you brainwashed or just stupid, Marius?” she taunted.

  “I could ask the same of you!” He bolstered his shield and pressed her unexpectedl
y, knocking her off balance.

  When she clattered to the floor, the room seemed to dim suddenly, as if someone had knocked out a light bulb. The only problem was, there was no electricity in the chapterhouse, and it was midday.

  Marius lowered his weapons slightly at the sight in front of him. What was left of the vivids had created a wall to face their enemy undivided—but now they were keeling over, falling to their knees or collapsing completely. His gaze was drawn to the floor, where a curious circle of dark blue flame smoldered. As he glanced around the room, he noticed Cal and Satara shying away from it. It had to be….

  “Edie?” The word left his mouth like a prayer, and he watched in awe as the collapsing vivids revealed her standing there, shrouded with crisp blue smoke.

  Her eyes and the runic tattoo on her right wrist blazed the color of the magic surrounding her, her raven hair floating as if lifted by a strong wind. She was moving her hands rhythmically, almost as though she was weaving the spell to maintain it.

  At her feet was his father, lying still on his side.

  It was over almost as quickly as it had begun. The darkness and the magic shrank back into Edie, and she fell to her knees.

  Marius’s heart skipped. He dropped his weapons to go to her, and—

  A fiery blade dug itself into his shoulder, the untamed magic cutting right through his armor. Agony exploded, his vision turning white. Ynga had recovered from her fall and from whatever Edie had done. As she lifted herself up by the hilt of her blade, it spat plasma and sank deeper into him.

  His mouth open in a silent scream, he collapsed to the chapterhouse floor. Blinding points of white light, like the end of a child’s sparkler, danced in front of his eyes as he sank further. They exploded, threatening to fill his vision…. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. He had been distracted, and it had only been a second, but it had been enough. Stupid.

  Ynga stood above him for a moment, breathing hard. Fire ravaged his veins, his skin, and just when he thought he might pass out from the intensity of the pain, she yanked the blade out. It hissed as the blood on it almost immediately evaporated.