I risk a glance toward Nightblade. His expression is steady, the lines at the corners of his eyes slightly deeper. They tell me nothing for certain. I focus on Blackflame instead. He’s talking to the mage to his right, but he seems tense. Blackflame unhappy with the verdict can only be a good thing, I try to tell myself. Unless of course he’s happy with it, but still concerned about dealing with the stories I’ve told about him.
As the Council settles down and the scribe rings his bell again, I focus on the table before Blackflame’s chair, so that I don’t have to look at him or anyone else. Breathe. Don’t let him see what this verdict will cost you.
I wish I had greater courage, strength enough to keep my hands from trembling, to keep my breath from shuddering. It’s easier to be brave when you can still take some action of your own. It’s much, much harder when you stand completely at someone else’s mercy.
The scribe, still seated at his table to the side, clears his throat and begins to read from a parchment. “Kiki Hibachi has been found guilty on the charges of aiding and abetting the unlawful escape of a convicted prisoner, and unlawfully hiding a magical talent from the purview of the High Council. However, in light of her efforts to preserve the life of High Mage Harith Stonefall, the High Council requires further time to debate the final sentence. The High Council of Mages has thus decreed the following measure to be taken immediately. Kiki Hibachi is to be marked such that her magic is bound within her. The Council will reconvene tomorrow to finish discussing the case.”
His words blur together in my mind, his voice echoing strangely in my ears. Marked. One step away from being bound as a source slave. I’ve said the words before, talked about it both seriously and flippantly, but this, the heart-clenching realization that it is happening, to me, here, now — that it has been read to me in a monotone, half-bored voice — this I cannot comprehend.
When I lost everything else, I always had my magic running through my veins, flowing in my blood. Now what I have will be sealed within me. And the Council has not yet decided whether to bind me to a mage as a source slave, or imprison me, or strip my magic from me completely. I swallow hard, tasting bile, and become aware that someone is grasping my good arm, just below the elbow. The grip steadies me, keeps me from swaying. I look slowly to my side to see Ravenflight gazing straight ahead, her features expressionless. I likely would have fallen without her.
It takes an agonizing moment or two for my legs to regain their strength. Blackflame is speaking now, but the words are garbled. I watch his face, the flat blue of his eyes, the way the skin around the corner of his mouth sags a little when he pauses. But the words— what is he saying? Something about tomorrow? It’s all running together. And then he’s done, and the bell chimes again, and Ravenflight gives my arm a slight squeeze.
I turn toward her automatically. She moves with me, guiding me out.
It seems a hundred leagues to the door. Beyond the door, an immeasurable distance rolls out before my feet. My escort forms around me, and I follow their lead, one impossible, unfelt step after the other. Instead of returning to the infirmary, we leave through a different side door and enter the nearest building. A few students catch sight of us; they are nothing but flickering shapes glimpsed from the corner of my eye, fading into the twilight.
Another hallway, stairs, and then a room. I pause just inside, surprised out of my stupor by the very normalcy of this room. It’s a workshop of sorts, cluttered and comfortable. But for the tall windows, the walls are covered in shelves full of potions and powders. Two work tables crowd the center of the room, half-buried beneath books, stacks of parchment and paper, and more bottles and jars. The room is lit by a host of glowstones, some in holders along the wall, more in lamps anchored beneath the jumble on the tables. At the back of the room sits a wooden chair with leather straps attached to the armrests and the two front legs.
I halt, not caring that I’m blocking half my escort from entering.
“Keep going,” Ravenflight says. Her words have the quiet ring of authority to them, and something else I cannot quite place.
I turn my head to look at her. I feel empty inside, hollowed out, but whatever she sees in me puts her on edge. She tenses. The lycans around me go still, focused completely on me. One false move, and they’ll cut me down, strangle me with magic.
She’s right, there’s no running now. But hell if I’m going to get herded about like a goat to the slaughter. If I go quietly, then I’ll do it my way. I offer her a brittle smile that is probably more snarl than softness, gather my strength, and stride into the room, sweeping past the first of my escort. Now that I’ve decided what I’m going to do, it’s easy enough to pretend courage.
“You need to sit,” Ravenflight says as I come to a stop beside the worktables.
“I’ll sit,” I agree, resolutely ignoring the chair. “When the mage who’s supposed to do this is here.”
She eyes me with faint amusement. Perhaps she can see through my bravado to the quaking girl beneath. The lycans make no comment, stationing themselves by the windows but for two by the door. The remaining mages enter warily, congregating around Ravenflight until, with a sharp word, she sends them to take up posts alongside the lycans.
I lean against the table, scanning its contents even though I know that, with a dozen guards watching, I won’t be able to pocket anything that might aid me in an escape attempt. A parchment lying by my hand catches my attention: notes on improving a charm used to keep foxes away from chicken coops. Really? This is what the mage who’s going to bind me spends time on? Curious despite myself, I shift my gaze to another paper near me. It details the shortcomings of a standard novice-level spell for lighting a candle.
“I’ll need you to step away from the table,” Ravenflight says.
There’s no point in arguing, so I take a step away and ask, “Who is this mage?”
“Mistress Splinter,” she replies.
“And? She works on basic charms and spells, but she’s skilled enough to— do that?” I nod toward the chair.
Ravenflight considers her answer. When she speaks, it’s with a certain weight. “She does not refuse a request for aid if she can help it.”
Indeed. “Think she’ll help me?” I quip, careful not to look toward the just-opened door.
“I do not aid criminals,” a woman’s voice says, the words hard as stone.
I force the corners of my mouth down. “Then we’ll get along fine.”
Facing her, I dip my chin in the semblance of a bow. “Kiki Hibachi.” I want her to think of me as a person, not merely a job to get done.
“Splinter,” she says. She is neither young nor old, her face unlined but tired, her eyes surprising me; they lack the warmth one might expect of brown eyes, yet they are not hard either, as her voice led me to expect. Her entire appearance seems a series of unintentional paradoxes. Her nightdark hair is braided back into a single long rope that falls over her shoulder, resting against her crossed arms. I would have thought she would pull her hair back tightly, in the almost severe way of Mistress Stormwind, but this braid is all softness, her hair lying gently against her skin, framing an otherwise austere face. Indeed, she stands bony and tall, her shoulders sharp angles beneath her robe. The robe itself flows in fold upon fold of cloth, darkening from a mossy green at her shoulders to a swath of forest green where it touches the floor. A golden dragon crawls down her sleeve, the embroidery glimmering in the light of the glowstones.
“Please take a seat,” she says, and the dragon flicks its tongue at me between sharp teeth.
“Tell me about it first,” I reply, wishing I were still leaning against the table. “I want to know exactly what you’re going to do before they strap me in.” I’m playing for time, a desperate, pointless strategy, and from the press of Splinter’s lips she knows it. But she humors me.
“I will give you a potion to drink. The ink will enter your bloodstream and from there come up to your skin.” She eyes me thoughtfully befo
re continuing. “There are three things you should know. First, the ink is indelible and, once it marks you, you will not be able to rid yourself of it. Second, it will hurt more than anything you’ve ever felt.” I doubt that, but I don’t interrupt. “Third, if you do not fight it, the markings will create a pattern on your arms that one might call delicate. The more you fight it, the harsher the markings. Once they set, they do not change.”
“You’re telling me that if I want to look pretty I should sit still?” I say with disbelief. Around the room, my dozen guards exchange glances, then eye Splinter uncertainly.
“It doesn’t matter how you sit,” Splinter replies, moving toward a shelf of jars between the windows nearest me. The guards there take a few steps out of her way. “The struggle will be within.”
I don’t answer.
It takes her a quarter of an hour to mix what she needs. She measures the ingredients from the bottles with precision, using silver measuring spoons and a dropper. Then, her back to me, she pauses over the potion. I feel the focused flash of power, snapping bright and strong from Splinter to the cup, transforming the potion. She turns, the cup in her hands, and nods toward the chair.
Fighting to keep my expression still, I walk over and sit. Don’t fight, I tell myself as a pair of lycans approach to strap down my arms. At least they are considerate of my wounded arm, careful not to jar it. They push up my sleeves, buckle the wide leather straps over my forearms, then kneel to secure my legs. My fingers curl around the ends of the armrests, my grip so hard it hurts. I can’t fight my way free, nor does Splinter want me to fight this potion. But what do I care about looking pretty? Why would Splinter even tell me that?
As she steps before me, I meet her gaze. She is all hard angles and grim flatness. She is not beautiful, but she is exceptionally striking. Hers is a face one is unlikely to forget. She holds the cup out to me, ready for me to sip from, but I continue staring at her, as understanding dawns: pretty things are easier to pass off, more easily accepted, and more easily forgotten.
“Thank you,” I say, and drink the potion.
It tastes like nothing in particular, mud and grass and metal and— apple? And then it slides into my stomach and I forget about the taste. It burns. For a heartbeat, I fight it, my stomach churning as the magic in the potion spreads its acid. Don’t fight, I remind myself, my whole body clenched around it. Images flash before my closed eyes … Val telling me to choose this. Stonefall warning me I sought my own death. The phoenix speaking of ash, his path through the sky a line of flame.
Ash.
I have already burned, and this pain, this potion, is but an echo of what I chose with my sunbolt. Welcome home, I tell the inferno. Come and be done with it.
The pain expands from my center to my entire being in the space of a single breath. And then it focuses, my arms blazing until I feel the skin peel back, blackening and falling away, my bones charring. Come and be done, I repeat, and in my mind I think of Kol, monster though he may have been, burning as I burn now.
I have done this to others. Let it come back to me.
The burning ceases. It stops so completely that I can barely comprehend it. I feel myself sag in the chair, am suddenly aware of the faint whisper of breath in my lungs, the rush of my blood in my ears, the reawakening of the wound in my arm.
“Well done,” Splinter says, somewhere above me. I nod my head once, without opening my eyes.
“Give her a few moments to rise,” Splinter tells my guards.
Are you there? I ask, wondering if Val would have sensed what was happening to me and already come. He doesn’t disappoint.
Yes. Are you well?
Well enough.
What just happened?
I’ve been marked, which means I might still have some hope of becoming a source slave. It’s a temporary measure while they decide.
I see, Val says. Perhaps there really isn’t anything more to say.
There’s a rustle of footsteps, and I open my eyes as two lycans unstrap me. I expect Val will leave when he needs to. I doubt I’ll notice when he goes.
“That’s a marking?” Ravenflight stands behind the lycans, studying my arms. Her voice is soft with surprise. “It looks like lace!”
“Yes,” Splinter agrees coolly. “She welcomed it. It did not have to fight its way across her arms.”
I rest my head at a tilt, make myself look down. Starting on the back of my knuckles and spinning out across my arms to disappear beneath my sleeves, a dark tracery shows, as fine as lace but shaped like the work of a calligrapher’s pen, swirls and flourishes and intricate interweavings. It is lovely in its way, as a spiderweb might be to the spider, though not its prey.
One of the mages behind me makes a sound of disgust. “What kind of coward welcomes it?”
Splinter spares me having to answer. “It takes greater courage to welcome fire into your bones than to push it away. Struggling is the natural instinct.” Her expression, as she considers me, is one of mild curiosity.
“Fire and I are old friends,” I tell her, my voice rasping. “Ice would have been different.” Even the comparatively light touch of the truth spell was difficult to bear.
“Perhaps,” she says. “But you also know what it is to burn.”
I shrug, and find that my body does not hurt quite as badly as I thought it would. I heave myself out of the chair, take two wobbly steps, and realize I’ve used most of my strength welcoming my future.
Ravenflight, barely an arm’s length away, steps quickly forward to steady me. The rest of my escort forms around me, some moving into the hallway to await me there, the others coming up behind me.
“Farewell,” Splinter says as we reach the door. I glance at her quizzically, still somewhat disoriented, but she has already returned to her papers and potions.
My escort slows to a stop just inside the building’s entrance. There are more guards here, guards I didn’t notice on our way in — or perhaps they were only posted here once I entered. They’ve closed the doors and don’t seem keen to open them. Ravenflight transfers my arm to one of the lycans and steps forward to speak with the guards.
I’m exhausted to the point of numbness, and my magic is irreversibly bound inside of me now. Whatever is on the other side of those doors doesn’t seem to matter very much. Except that I won’t be able to lay my head down and let go until I get back to my room in the infirmary.
“What’s wrong?” I ask the lycan beside me.
A slight hesitation. “Students outside,” he says, voice low. “The garden is filling.”
“You know I can’t hurt them now.” I say the words loud enough to draw the attention of Ravenflight and the two lycans conversing ahead of us. They glance back.
“Yes,” she replies.
“Then let them look. What does it matter?” I meet her gaze evenly. “After all, the more they see of me, the less likely I’ll be able to escape.” Unless I look like a weak, incapable girl, unable to stand on my own, with my head downturned so that all they’ll see is my hair. It’s the beginning of a plan, and not one of my better ones, but there it is. Make it clear that I don’t expect to escape, give those around me an image of my weakness, and run like a hunted deer. Assuming, of course, that I can get through the doors that will be locked against me.
One thing at a time, I caution myself. They should reduce my guard now that I’m marked and can’t use magic. That’s a start. Right now, I need to rest. There is still some time between now and tomorrow, when the Council finally decides what to do with me.
Ravenflight murmurs something to the lycans, they respond, and she turns back to me. “We’ll move as quickly as possible. Do not respond to the crowd, nor speak out loud.”
I nod. My escort pulls in around me. The guards at the door step outside to clear a space for our passage. And then we’re out, walking faster than I know how to place my feet. I stumble as we pass through the hastily cleared arcade. At the front, Ravenflight lights a bright blue ball of
magefire to precede her, sending students scurrying out of the way. It won’t burn them, but it makes it abundantly clear that she will not allow our way to be impeded.
As we step down from the arcade, I lose my footing again, and only the lycan’s grip on my elbow keeps me from sprawling flat.
“Slow down,” he snarls at the mages ahead of us, steadying me yet again. They do, but not much. We hustle across the gardens, cutting corners where the curving paths and low growing bushes allow. Night is falling, the glowstones lighting the paths so that the world seems bathed in shadows.
I can hear the voices of the students now, can see them following us, or hurrying through the gardens to line our path, faces seeking mine. I drop my chin another notch, wishing my hair was long enough to mask my face, and let my feet still falter when they will. I am weak. No one need worry about the threat I pose — there is none.
But as we turn right past the gardens and make for the infirmary, I hear a student call out, her voice carrying clearly over the shuffle and murmur. “You ought to be ashamed! She can barely walk and you’re making her run — for what? She could have killed half the guard but she didn’t, and you can’t let her walk in peace? Shame!”
Another voice echoes, “Shame!”
Someone else responds with a rather eloquent curse word, and a few choice descriptions of what they think of the speakers for defending me, and the next thing I know, the lycan has scooped me into his arms and we’re running. I bury my face against the stiff leather and velvet armor and consider how quickly these rumors escaped the confines of the hearing room. Who did the talking? And how much got out? Or perhaps the rumors were already out this morning, the comments I heard from the crowd their reaction to putting a face to the circulating stories. They had certainly sounded like they expected see a great towering warrior mage instead of me.
Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) Page 31
