by S. R. Witt
What was his fucking problem?
He stared at it for a long moment, then steepled his fingers in front of his chest. “You’re really going to let me do this?”
He was starting to piss me off. Here I was, trying to be the bigger man. I was going to let him run the whole damn show if he’d stop questioning me. “Look, I’m not going to twist your arm. If you don’t want it…”
“It’s just,” he paused and shoved back from the table. He paced the floor, back and forth, back and forth. “You’ve done an excellent job with this quest, Saint. I’m not sure I could have done any better. You led us here.”
My eyes tried to roll out of my head. “Big deal. Once you pointed me at the right map, anyone could have guided us to this place. It’s not like it was hidden.”
Bastion shook his head. “That isn’t what I mean. You’ve been our leader. This whole thing almost fell apart, but you kept us all together. Hell, you convinced Indira not to turn you into the Hoaldites, and I don’t think she’d ever changed her mind about anything before that moment.”
We both laughed, and I was surprised to find a little speck of dust or something in my eye. Despite our differences and our arguments, Bastion was my brother. I'd never felt closer to him than I did in that moment. He'd finally accepted me, not just as his equal, but as a person worth listening to. He respected me. It was all I'd ever wanted from my brother.
I brushed the tear away with the back of my hand. “The truth is, I don’t want to lead. I’m bad at it. If I were meant to be in charge, they wouldn’t have made me a thief, you know?”
We didn’t say anything for a few minutes. The holy symbols were full. Their power hummed at the back of my mind like a television tuned to an empty channel.
Bastion cleared his throat. “Do we need to go back to town before we do it, or can we do it here?”
“We’ll need to get back to the Burning Throne. I don’t know the ritual that Corvus was using to bind the key from here.” I sighed. “She almost got us.”
The last symbol was no longer filling up, so I unplugged the thin primal thread and let it dangle in the air. No power surged from its disconnected tip. It didn’t try to attach itself to me and overload my pattern.
My Thief’s Eyes found the pattern of the table we were sitting at. On a whim, I tried to tie the primal thread to that pattern, for safekeeping.
SUCCESS! You impose your will over the raw elements of magic and bind a primal thread to your target.
You improved your mastery of the Threadweaving skill. (Rank 3)
Nice. I was getting good at this. I reached out to load the charged symbols into my backpack, but Bastion put his hand on one before I could retrieve it.
Bastion ran one fingertip down the symbol’s length. “Do you know what this means?”
“Sure. It’s a Hoaldite thing.”
“No,” Bastion paused and pulled his hand away from the symbol. “I know what that is. I mean, do you know what controlling the Dominion will mean for me?”
I didn’t know if he expected me to keep talking him into this, but his hedging was getting on my nerves. “I don’t know what you want me to say. It probably means a lot of management bullshit. Settling grievances between disgruntled peasants. Trying to keep the city council from screwing over every businessman in town with new taxes to build themselves fancy estates. Mostly a lot of boring crap.”
Bastion shook his head. “I don’t think you ever listen to me. Not that I blame you. I haven’t always made a lot of sense. But, this is a big deal. It means I’m going to be a paladin. Finally.”
“What?”
“This is what they wanted.” He said. “They wanted me to bring them the key. If I did, they said I’d have proven my worth, and they’d make me a paladin.”
He must’ve seen the shock on my face, because he kept right on talking, rolling over any objections before I could raise them. “They want to turn the town into a place where the faithful can find refuge. A holy city where they can help the weak and the poor find solace.”
The sick and queasy feeling clawed its way up my spine. I asked the question I knew the answer to but didn’t want to admit to myself. Who?”
“Who do you think? The Brotherhood of Hoald.”
My nerves jumped. It took all the effort I could muster to keep from shouting. It almost worked. “No. No fucking way.”
Bastion glared at me. “Why are you doing this? Why do you want to take this away from me? I’m trying to do the right thing. Paladins are the good guys.”
He reached for the key, but he wasn’t fast enough. I snatched it off the table before his fingers could close around it. We stared at one another, eyes locking across the small table, and something changed.
Bastion stood up and came around the table, a dark light burning in his eyes.
I snatched the last holy symbol off the table and circled in the opposite direction. “Stay back,” I warned.
This is what I got for trusting anyone. I’d thought Bastion would give up his stupid fascination with being a paladin if I offered him the chance to become a ruler. But, no, he couldn’t shake loose from the image he’d built of himself in his own mind.
Bastion the Paladin.
Bastion the Hero.
Bastion the Goddamned Idiot.
Bastion my brother.
He couldn’t have this. I wouldn’t let the Hoaldites take control of Frosthold even through the proxy of my brother.
It was difficult, but I started working on Plan B. I plucked a thread loose from my pattern and wound it into place in the Key’s pattern.
Something inside the key stirred. A cold intelligence glared up from pitiless depths and into my soul.
What the hell was this thing?
Bastion tried to close the gap between us again, suddenly reversing direction around the table. He wasn’t fast enough to stop me, and I skirted the table to keep my distance. “Don’t do this,” I pleaded. “You don’t know what those assholes are really like.”
His fingers squeezed around the hilt of his longsword, and its fire blazed brighter than I’d thought possible. “Don’t you dare steal this from me. The Hoaldites want to make the city safe again. They want Frosthold to be a place for everyone who intends to obey the law to live in safety. They’re looking out for everyone’s best interests.”
The words tumbling out of Bastion’s mouth weren’t his own. There were the lies fed to him by the priests of the faith he’d adopted to get ahead in the world.
“You believe that shit?” I spat. “Because I’m telling you, the Hoaldites are not what you think they are. Everything good they do is just another way for them to put a leash around the collective neck of the faithful. They don’t want to help anyone, they want to control everyone.”
Bastion raised his sword. Flames raced along its length. He pointed the burning tip in my direction. “You don’t know anything about them. How could you?”
There was no hiding from it anymore. If my brother was going to judge me, it was time for him to know who he was dealing with.
“You think you know them? I know them.” My hate for the Hoaldites boiled over and laced my words with stinging venom. “They’ve been blackmailing me for weeks, making me do their bidding. All those times when I wasn’t around? I wasn’t working for the Shadows. I was a slave for your fucking Brothers of Hoald. They had me picking the locks on the chests their treasure hunters brought in.”
I expected the news to send Bastion into a fury, but my words had the opposite effect. The color washed out of his cheeks, and his voice was cold and calm when he spoke.
“If you’re working with them, why can’t you just give me the key? You’ve seen them. They do good work in Frosthold. Without them, how many of the poor would starve? How many of the homeless would freeze in the streets?”
He couldn’t see it. He’d swallowed their line of bullshit whole, and now its hooks were twisted around his heart. They were offering him a chance to do good, to
become a paladin, to be a pillar of the community.
If I gave him the key, he would rule Frosthold. But the Hoaldites would rule my brother, and they would use him as their puppet to turn the whole place upside down. The Shadows would get run out of town. The people of Frosthold would be enslaved under the guise of charity.
“I can’t.”
There weren’t any other words. No explanation I could offer would do any good, and nothing I had to say would convince my brother I was right. “I can’t.”
Bastion stared at me. His shoulders rose and fell as emotions warred within him. We’d become so close over the past few days, but it had all fallen apart in the blink of an eye.
The key’s attention boiled inside my skull. Whatever it was, it couldn’t wait to be free. Something flashed between us and I understood more about the ritual than I’d thought possible.
The binding wasn’t to claim the Dominion. The binding was to claim the Key. And that ceremony was almost complete. It just needed power and a target.
Bastion didn’t move. He stared at the sword in his hands, shoulders shaking as he struggled to come to terms with what he thought he needed.
While he battled with himself, I wove threads from the holy symbols to my pattern. A rush of power filled me yearned to be unleashed.
Only one thread was left to weave. As soon as I connected my pattern to the Key, I could let the power flow, and the ritual would be finished. I’d be bound to the Key, and no one would be able to take it from me without starting a whole new ritual.
I tugged a thread free of my pattern and prepared to tie it off and end this thing, once and for all.
Bastion took that moment to screw everything up.
“Give it to me.” His words emerged through his clenched teeth, flat and dead. My brother was in there somewhere, but he was buried beneath rage and pain and thwarted ambition. He’d come so close to achieving what he wanted, and now I was the only thing standing in his way.
He didn’t understand it wasn’t that simple. He couldn’t see the dangers he was threatening to unleash on the world.
Worse, he didn’t care.
“No. I can’t let those fuckers take Frosthold. Not even for you.”
My brother lowered his head, and his sword arm fell to his side. The weapon’s tip touched the stone floor, and a ragged sigh leaked out of him.
My heart jumped into my throat. More than anything, I wanted to reach out to my brother and make him understand just how much I cared about him. Couldn’t he see I was doing this for us? I didn’t want the Hoaldites to take him away from me, and I didn’t want us to lose everything because of their misguided plans.
Bastion didn’t see it that way. Without warning, he reared back on his left foot and drove his right leg forward. His hobnailed boots slammed into the edge of the table, and it shot across the room.
The wooden rim caught me just above the knees and pinned me to the wall. My legs went numb from the point of impact down to my toes. With a gasp, I folded over the table.
The thread dangling from my pattern slipped free of my thoughts, and I couldn’t concentrate well enough to grab it. The power held within the holy symbols threatened to run amok and spew their power indiscriminately.
Bastion couldn’t see it, he didn’t understand what he’d done. He didn’t know how dangerous things had become. I tried to warn him.
“Don’t,” I said. “If you don’t let me finish this ritual, we’ll lose the key. We’ll lose everything.”
Bastion took two steps across the room and flung the table away with his left hand. Without its support, my numb legs wouldn’t hold me up. I crumpled to the floor and curled around the key, protecting it with my body. Bastion aimed his sword at my face. The blue flames were so close my eyes ached.
I couldn’t see Bastion through the flames. He’d become a towering, massive shadow. “Give it to me.”
I shook my head. “We’ll lose everything.”
“I already have,” Bastion snarled.
A croaking laugh stopped my brother from splitting my skull. He pulled the burning blade away to face the door.
Corvus limped into the room, her black eyes narrowed with hatred. “What do you idiots know of loss?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Bastion couldn’t decide who was the bigger threat. His weapon wavered between my position on the floor and warding off Corvus as she limped into the room.
It was impressive that the aryx was still on her feet. Patches of feathers had burnt away to reveal stretches of scorched skin on her skull and hands. Blood, wet, red, and steaming in the cold air blowing through the windows, stained her beak.
Despite her visible and painful wounds, she emanated an indomitable aura of strength. Her curved blade stayed rock solid before her, a barrier of barbed steel ready to lash out at anyone who approached. “Drop the Key. Walk away. If I never see the two of you again, I won’t murder you where you stand.”
Bastion decided she was the bigger problem. He probably had a point, given that my legs didn’t work anymore and all of my attention was focused on trying to reclaim the errant thread before the hoarded power burst free and incinerated me. I didn’t know how long I had to get the job done, but I knew it wasn’t as long as I needed.
Bastion stepped between Corvus and me. “Take another step, and I’ll cut you down.”
Corvus laughed. It was a pained sound as if it was dragged up from somewhere deep inside of her. She feinted with her sword, aiming a blow at Bastion’s face, and then reversed the stroke at the last second.
If she’d been trying to kill him, he’d never have stopped the attack.
Corvus was proving a point. She was faster than my brother, and faster might be enough to win this fight. “Get out of my way, boy. My masters have planned for this moment for centuries, they will not allow a whelp like you to block our path.”
Bastion took a two-handed grip on his sword. “Then let’s not delay the inevitable. Come, and we’ll see whose masters are more powerful.”
Corvus shook her head and chuckled. For a split second, I thought she was going to respond with a jibe in kind.
Instead, she lashed out with a brutal swipe of her sword. Bastion jumped away from the attack and raised his longsword to ward off her follow-up strike.
Corvus, on the other hand, didn’t wait to see whether her attack had connected. As soon as her blade passed through the space Bastion no longer occupied, she twisted her body and leaped from the floor. Her right foot sliced through the air and crashed into the armor covering Bastion’s sword arm. Before her foot touched the floor, her left leg lashed out and drove a snap kick into the side of Bastion’s knee.
Corvus’ left leg was injured, which limited the strength she could put into her kicks. Neither of the attacks was powerful, and neither put a real dent in my brother’s health. I could still see the glowing red bar over his head more than 90% full.
But Corvus wasn’t trying to whittle away at his health bar. Her attack had knocked Bastion off balance, and something was wrong with his leg.
Bastion tried to stand up, but his knee wouldn’t support his weight. He kept his sword held high, but it was evident he didn’t have the strength or stability to stand up to more attacks like that.
Corvus clucked her tongue at him. She wove a sinuous pattern in the air with the tip of her hooked blade, and its black length flowed and writhed like a serpent. “Who do you think you are, man-child? You are nothing. You’ve come here hoping to become a hero, but your death will only add to my dark legend.”
Bastion didn’t have the strength to respond. He’d backed himself up to a wall, using the stones to support his weight. A quick glance with my Thief’s Eyes showed me he’d taken a critical hit to his leg. Until it was healed, he’d suffer substantial penalties to his offense and defense.
It was a shitty thing to do, but I left Bastion to fend for himself. As long as Corvus was not focused on me, I was free to finish the ritual. I snatched th
e loose thread from the air and wrestled it back into position.
Corvus was sensitive to magic, I knew that. I didn’t want to tip my hand, just yet, so I waited to complete the pattern until they started fighting again.
Corvus didn’t even glance in my direction. One second, she was several paces away from my brother, the next she was surging across the room. Her blade flicked at my brother like a stroke of black lightning.
Bastion tried to deflect the blow, but he was far slower than Corvus. His longsword dipped toward the hooked sword, but she corrected its course, and her weapon slid around his defenses.
At that moment, I connected my pattern to the Key’s pattern.
Two things happened in the same instant.
Corvus’ blade carved through Bastion’s breastplate with a sound like a tortured cat being thrown into a fire. The black metal vanished through his steel armor, plunging into my brother’s side before bursting through his back and pinning him to the wall with a sickening crunch.
In the same breath, the power bound to the holy symbols burst free and poured through my pattern and into the Burning Key. The air around me went from winter cold to blast-furnace hot in the blink of an eye.
Power flooded my senses, pouring through me in a relentless flood. My fist tightened around the key, and it pulsed against my flesh. An ancient, powerful eye opened through the Key’s pattern, burrowing into me with its intent gaze.
Things were not going according to plan. The Key wasn’t content to be bound to me, it wanted to control me. I pushed back against its oppressive intent, and my skull ached with the effort.
Through the haze of my pain, I saw Corvus wrench her blade free of my brother. She stalked across the floor toward me, black eyes burning with unholy fury. “What have you done?”
Time shifted and slowed as my battle with the Key intensified. It struggled to gain the upper hand, but I was having none of it. The power flowing through me demanded to be used, and I bent it to my will. I forced it into my legs, where it repaired my torn muscles and stitched the blood vessels back together with lightning-quick needles. The table flew away from me and crashed against the fall wall, freeing me.
