The lycan carries me all the way to my room. Once we enter the building, I expect him to put me down. When he doesn’t, I tell him, “It’s all right. I can walk now.” He ignores me, as does the rest of my escort. A few minutes later, he deposits me wordlessly on my bed, turns, and walks out.
The mages mill about, checking the wards in my room one last time. They complete their work, casting me glances as they leave. I don’t look up. Whatever they’re thinking doesn’t seem all that important right now. The remaining lycans file out with them.
Ravenflight pauses at the foot of my bed. “There’ll be a guard posted outside your room. I’ll tell Brightsong to check on you.”
“Thank you.” My voice is raspy and small in the room.
She hesitates a moment longer, then departs, closing the door behind her.
I sit alone on the edge of my bed, my fingers curled into the sheets beneath me. I should take off my boots and lie down. I know this, but it seems a far greater effort than I can manage now. Slowly, I turn my head to gaze at the dark sigil brushed onto the wall above my bed. In my mage’s sight, it pulses with a muted light, nothing like the bright blue-white of the sigils on the other walls.
At least I have this: I can still see the magic in the world around me, still sense the spells enveloping me. Even if I will never again be able to cast one.
My hands tighten into fists around the sheets.
I am still a thief. One way or another, I will steal my freedom back.
But without my magic, I no longer quite believe myself.
I look up from contemplating the near impossible feat of taking off my boots. From the hallway I can hear raised voices: the gruff tone of a male guard, and a cool steely voice that cuts right through his. I’ve barely been in my room three minutes. Who could they possibly be arguing with?
The door flies open. My mother sweeps into the room in a rustle of silk, the door slamming itself shut behind her before the lycans can reach it.
I stare at her, my thoughts stuttering. She is wrapped in a sea-green kimono, lavender embroidery spreading over the silk in a cascade of flowers and petals. Her hair has been done up in an elaborate styling of curls and waves, pinned with hair combs that glitter with amethysts and pearls.
Wordlessly, she drops a charm on the floor and steps on it. I hear the faint crackle as it breaks, and then a familiar pressure builds against my ears.
“You know who I am,” she says. Behind her, a guard pounds on the door. She gives no indication of noticing.
“I—”
“I neither know nor care how you lied about your name to the High Council. I cannot believe you do not know me.”
“My name,” I stumble. My mother is here, my heart whispers. She came here for me. But I told a story of my past before the Council that wrote my mother out of my life — my mother, who cares nothing for Blackflame’s source slave, and whom I am not sure I can trust. “I gave the only name I remember. If I had another one, I lost it with the spell I cast a year ago.”
She considers me, the slight narrowing of her eyes the only sign she feels anything at all. “What is my name?” she demands.
Outside, the hallway falls silent.
“Hotaru Brokensword,” I say, my voice cracking. Okaa-san, my heart cries. Mother. I don’t want to lie to her. I want to know why she’s here, if she’ll help me, if she’ll tell me truly whether or not she supports Blackflame. Now, after I’ve lost so much else, I want my mother back.
“You used my name-spell. Did you think I would not take notice?”
I shake my head. Perhaps, in those desperate moments before casting my spell, some part of me had hoped she would know me by it. Know me and help me. “I don’t recall learning it from anyone. I’d heard of it, and I didn’t want to kill the guards, so I tried it.”
She must have first cast it for the same reason, all those years ago — not wanting to kill in order to defend herself. Surely that still lives in her as it lives in me now?
“Do you know my past?” I ask, unable to help myself. “My family?”
My mother does not speak.
“Please?” My voice is small and uncertain.
“No.”
My heart stops, pain stabbing through my chest before it stutters back to life. The sound of this one word hurts in a way that the fire of Splinter’s potion never touched me. I keep my eyes wide so Brokensword won’t notice the tears pooling there. In all the possibilities I envisioned of meeting her, I never imagined this: that my mother would disown me with a single word.
“I did not know you that well,” she continues. “However, I would not see you dead for your actions. I have managed to convince Arch Mage Blackflame that it would be wise to keep you alive for the time being.”
I try to focus on her words, their meaning. “I’m … to be a source slave?”
“Yes.” The word is not quite as firm and cool as the rest of her. But then she goes on, equilibrium restored, “There is a list of masters who have requested source slaves, should they become available. Arch Mage Blackflame did not consider any of them capable of holding you.”
A list? Available? The very callousness of the system my mother describes leaves me appalled. I’ve always known how source slaves are used — but this, the idea that there are mages waiting for wild Promises to be found so that they might be enslaved, jockeying for a position on a list in order to get them first, this I had not fully considered.
“I requested another mage add herself to the list. Both Arch Mage Blackflame and Arch Mage Nightblade have separately agreed to grant you to her if she consents.”
I cannot guess at Nightblade’s motivations. I suspect that Blackflame wants me to suffer. I do not believe for a moment that he wishes me anything well by granting me this reprieve. If it would be impolitic for him to demand my death, then this would merely be a slower path to the same end. Whoever he would approve as a master for me can’t be good.
“What mage?” I ask.
“She is a rogue hunter, and therefore makes the perfect match for keeping you in check. She also has very little to do with the High Council and its politics.”
Which means what? That she’ll keep me away from Blackflame? Or my mother? “Who is she?” I demand.
“The same woman who headed your escort of mages today: Ravenflight. I am hopeful she will agree.”
My mouth opens in a small, silent O. It takes all my presence of mind to click my jaw shut again.
Brokensword says carefully, “She will not treat you unfairly.”
“Unfairly?” I echo, incredulous.
“If you cared for your freedom or your magic, you should not have come here.” Though the words are harsh, her voice is soft, tired.
“Some things are worth fighting for.” I wonder if my words will touch her at all. This woman who did not fight for me five years ago, and won’t acknowledge me as her own, and now thinks she has done me a service by choosing a rogue hunter as my master? When she knows how source slaves are treated — when she has stood by and watched what Blackflame does to his source slave? When she must know that, of all the mages I might escape, a rogue hunter will be the most difficult?
Brokensword dips her head, all cool detachment. “If they are worth fighting for, then they are also worth losing what you risk. You have lost. That will have to be enough for you.”
“It is,” I say, surprised by the truth of the words. “Stormwind — she was all the family I’ve had this last year. I couldn’t let her be imprisoned unjustly.”
“Indeed.” Her expression remains neutral, but there is something in the slight tilt of her head, the hint of tension in her shoulders, that tells me she is displeased. She gestures toward me, an elegant opening of her hand. “Show me your markings.”
I almost argue with her, but I can’t see any harm in it. I push back my sleeves and straighten my arms. She takes a step closer. I see the slight widening of her eyes, the way her lips part, as she focuses on them.
&nb
sp; “They are— delicate, indeed.”
Delicate. That had been the word Splinter used.
“You expected them to be?” I ask.
Brokensword raises her gaze to me. “I hoped. You will recall that I saw you before your trial.” I nod. “I sought out Mistress Splinter while you were in the hearing room. She agreed to explain to you how the potion worked, should you be sent to her. Though she doubted that someone as young as you could withstand the pain the markings incur without at least attempting to fight back.”
“You,” I begin and then stop. “Why?”
“We have met before,” Brokensword says, as if this encapsulates all our history. “Where I can speak a few words to ease your way, I have. Your markings will not appear as such to most who see them. Your master will not treat you cruelly. This is what I may do for you.”
Behind her, the door shudders. The wards on the wall flare up, magic pulsing around the room.
“Brokensword,” a woman’s voice calls. “Open this door at once!”
My mother sighs and raises her hand toward to the door. It bursts open. On the other side stands Mistress Brightsong, her hands raised — one shielding, the other ready to send forth a magical attack. Behind her stand the lycan guards, swords and daggers drawn.
“I was merely having a word with the prisoner,” my mother says with cool amusement. “There’s no call for worry, healer.”
Brightsong’s gaze flicks to me, checking to make sure I’m all right. “I understand you forced your way past the guards.”
“They were being tiresome,” my mother says, moving toward the door. Brightsong has to back up to let her by. “Really, they should be trained to understand the orders of their superiors.”
“The prisoner is not allowed visitors,” Brightsong says.
“I was not visiting.” Brokensword’s voice drips disdain. “Arch Mage Blackflame requested that I verify some information. I have done so, small thanks to you or your guards. Good evening.”
Brightsong glares after my mother as she departs. I hold my breath, listening, hoping against all reason that she will come back, speak with me once more, promise that she is still my mother, will always be my mother. Or simply bid me farewell.
In the quiet, the faint tap of her shoes fade to an inaudible echo.
“Let’s see your arm then,” Brightsong says briskly, crossing the room to me. I stumble back a step.
“It’s fine,” I say, my voice rough with tears. I pull my hands to my chest, fingers curled. “I’m fine. Nothing to check.”
A silence.
“Did she hurt you?”
I shake my head jerkily. I cannot give voice to this lie.
“Mistress Brightsong?” Arch Mage Nightblade stands at the door, head tilted, eyes sharp. “Is something amiss?”
I swallow my tears, drop my chin a notch to hide my unease. Nightblade. Could it not have been anyone else? I push the conversation I just had with my mother to the back of my mind. I will need my wits about me now.
“No,” Brightsong says, her gaze lingering on me a moment longer. “Not anymore. Can I help you?”
“I understood Miss Hibachi had returned to her rooms and I wished a word with her.”
“By order of the Council, she is not to have any visitors,” Brightsong says coolly.
“I know.” Nightblade smiles faintly. “I helped set that rule. It does not to extend to Council members.”
He waits, his expression amiable.
“Miss … Hibachi,” Brightsong says to me. “Do you wish me to remain here?”
Nightblade gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. I don’t trust him, don’t want to know why he’s here, but tomorrow he’ll vote on my future … I am not sure I trust him to keep his word to my mother.
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “No,” I tell Brightsong. “You can go.”
She departs without a word, closing the door behind her.
“Miss Hibachi,” Nightblade says.
I nod, cornered suddenly, my hip pressed against the bed and nowhere in the world I can go from here.
He lifts his hand and a spell spins out, radiating out to attach to the walls and dampen all sound. It is far beyond the charms both Talon and my mother used, and appears to cost him nothing at all.
He wastes no time on pleasantries.
“My people are long-lived, and our mages study widely,” he says, watching me intently. Whatever he’s looking for, I don’t want to betray myself to him. I take stock of my face, my stance, and make myself slide into stillness as he goes on. “There are few breathers left in the world since the Great Burning, but we still know something of them.”
I keep my expression blank, even as fear prickles the back of my neck. He knows.
“You are bonded to your breather, are you not?”
It takes all my presence of mind to answer with just a note of curiosity, “I don’t know what you mean by bonded.”
“Don’t you? Tell me, how did you evade the Huq spell today?”
I shake my head, pretending confusion. “I didn’t.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the slight narrowing of his eyes, the flare of his nostrils. He paces to the wall. With his back to me, he lifts a finger and touches the sigil anchored there. It flares to bright life, pulsing.
I stiffen at the sudden rush of magic tightening around me, as if I were a fly caught in its web.
He half-turns toward me, finger still touching the sigil. “Call him to you.”
Sweat dampens my palms. I take a shaky breath, staring at him, and remember suddenly that Val had come to me when I was marked. And when Osman Bey recognized me on the stairwell. And when the tentacled beast chased me. He came when I was afraid or in pain.
I clamp down on my fear, breathing slowly. “There is no one to call.”
His finger moves, barely more than a twitch, and the magic woven through the room yanks at me. I fall to my knees with a strangled gasp as it cuts into me, binding my arms to my side, a tide of pain flowing through my veins. It deadens my hearing, washes out my vision until the world turns a blinding white.
Breathe. He won’t kill me. He’s just trying to frighten me. Breathe. I will not give him this truth. I cannot trust what he will do with it. Breathe.
The pain subsides, ebbing away.
“Call him to you, Miss Hibachi. I do not wish to see you in pain.”
It takes two tries to get the words out. “Then don’t … hurt me.”
He leaves the sigil, his robes sweeping the floor as he comes to kneel before me. If I raised my chin, I could look him straight in the eye. I don’t. Instead, I ease back on my heels and wait. The pain is fading quickly, but I don’t let myself relax. He could easily activate the sigil from here. There’s no need for him to physically touch it. That was simply for show.
And then I feel Val’s presence in my mind, slight but steady.
No. Go away.
What’s happening? Val demands.
He’s guessed about you. He wants me to call you. You need to leave before he realizes you’re here.
Nightblade sighs. “You must understand. A breather bonded to a mage of your ability is no small thing.”
“I have no ability,” I say carefully, the words a little easier this time. “I’ve been marked. You need not … fear anything of me now.”
“Markings by themselves only do so much.” He drops his gaze to my hands, missing my look of disbelief. I don’t know much about how the enchantment works, but the basics are pretty straightforward. Markings bind a person’s magic within them so that it cannot be used in a casting. The usual second step binds the intended source slave to a mage, allowing that mage to access and channel the slave’s magic whether or not they wish it.
Nightblade gestures, slim fingers indicating my hands. “Show me.”
Val, if you’re still here, you need to leave now.
Call me if I can help you.
I uncurl my fists and hold my ha
nds out, palms down, as Val’s presence fades in my mind. I don’t push my sleeves up, and Nightblade has the grace not to ask. Instead, he studies what he can see, reaching out one finger to touch the dark flourishes above my knuckles. I try not to flinch at his touch, but I’m sure he notices.
“He helped you through it.”
“Nobody helped me through it. I am well acquainted with fire. I’ve killed with it, and it seemed perfectly just to be consumed by it.” His eyes widen slightly, as if he were seeing me for the first time. I go on while I have his attention, letting a little of the helpless anger building in me show. “You know nothing of me, or of Stormwind, if you think I am somehow bonded to a breather, and yet in the last year neither she nor I noticed anything amiss. Surely you don’t think she would have failed to report such a thing? Or did you actually believe the idiocy of that trial and support her conviction?”
“I didn’t support it,” he says, his words soft. “But Stormwind may not have known of your bond. Such things can be hidden.”
“Or not exist at all.”
“Or…” he pauses, tilts his head, considering me, “not be found until a moment of need.”
It takes all my willpower to reply steadily, “There is no bond.”
He eases himself back, until he sits cross-legged before me. “Miss Hibachi, it was my responsibility to cast the truth spell upon you. I knew it had not taken properly.”
“That’s not possible. Arch Mage Bastion even checked it with you.”
“He checked the casting of it. It was perfectly cast. It even took upon you as it should have at first. But the moment I turned my back on you and walked away, it shifted and lost its hold.”
“That’s—”
“Not possible,” he says blandly. “Unless you are possessed. Since you gave no sign of a malign spirit possessing you, that leaves the breather.”
“Why didn’t you say something if you truly believed that? You take your duty to the Council very seriously.”
Another faint smile. “I did not realize what had happened until some time after I checked the spell with Bastion. At that point, you were telling a story I wanted to hear, one that I didn’t doubt the veracity of. So I let you go on.”
Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) Page 32
