He turned.
There was little in that face of the man she’d known. Oh, his features were the same—that sharp nose, the strong chin—but his expression belonged to another person entirely. Gone was that passion that had burned within him like fire; gone was that unthinking confidence in posture and word and movement. His dark eyes were like sunken hollows, and his hands lay limply in his lap.
“You’re still here,” Xhea said quietly.
He smiled, a pained twist of his lips. “There is nowhere else for me to be.”
It was only then that she saw what he had attempted. There were cuts in his arms to which he’d bound wires with medical tape and strips of knotted fabric. The dust that coated his hands had stuck not merely to sweat, but to blood—old now and dried. Blood, too, coated some length of the wire that stretched from his arms to the flickering heart, and had dripped to pattern the floor.
He had no dark magic binding, like those that she and Ieren had woven for Farrow’s so-called volunteers; no link of magic and spirit, as was needed for any true connection to a living Tower. He had only his own attempts. Bright magic spells flickered around his scabbed-over wounds, and Xhea saw in their lines of intent some hint of the spells’ purpose: to tie, to bind, to make his magic flow.
She wanted to ask why he’d bothered with the wire—why he’d bound himself here, when he might have simply lifted his hands and let his power flow. Yet, watching that wire, she could see: flawed though the transfer was, his spells worked regardless of his attention. In sleep or awake, that trickle of power would flow from him, sure as blood.
But one man could not fuel a Tower, no matter how strong the man, no matter how small the Tower’s heart.
“I tried to cut it free,” Ahrent Altaigh said. “It wasn’t supposed to form inside the wall. In the plans…” He shook his head, his eyes focusing on something far away—the reality that had never come to pass. “So much did not go according to plan, not least of all this. I could not move the wall and so I tried to cut it free. Thinking that there was some way, some hope…”
It was Shai who spoke: “A heart cannot live outside its body, neither human nor Tower.”
There was no need to pass along the ghost’s soft words. Ahrent already knew.
Xhea looked again at the flickering, fading remains of the skyscraper’s once great dreams. No magic flowed in from Farrow’s bound citizens, or so little that it made no difference. Were they dead, then, all those people she had bound? All those anonymous faces—and one that she had known. Marna, her grandmother’s wife—Xhea’s only tie to the family she’d once had.
No wonder it was dying.
Xhea stepped forward, her hands upraised as if Farrow’s heart was a small fire at which she might warm herself. Ahrent moved to stop her, his dusty, bloodied hands plucking ineffectually at her sleeve. His weakness, too, showed in every movement, and Xhea wondered when he’d last eaten.
“Don’t,” he said. “You can’t—”
“I won’t hurt it,” Xhea said, but still he tried to stop her.
“Let me.” Shai slipped past Xhea and Ahrent both, making Ahrent shiver as she neared. He looked up, his eyes widening. They grew wider as Shai cupped the flickering heart in her hands and let her magic flow.
Farrow reached for that power and drew it in greedily, sucking it back the way a starving child drank soup: near choking on sustenance. Even its hunger was nothing compared to Shai’s power. As fast as it absorbed her magic, she sent it more and more, letting it eat its fill.
A moment, and then Shai drew in a sharp breath. “Xhea, it’s—” The ghost broke off, turning the whole of her attention to that tiny, flickering life.
“Hello,” Shai whispered, her tone turned soft. She smiled.
At last Ahrent seemed to understand, and he sagged into his rusty chair with something that was almost relief.
“Your Radiant.” The words were bare; Ahrent Altaigh seemed too worn, too exhausted for wonder.
“She is not mine,” Xhea said, “any more than I am hers.”
“Yours, then,” Shai murmured absently. For a moment, Xhea could not breathe.
She made herself look only at Farrow. Already, the flickering heart had become steadier, its light brighter. Its song, too, was changing; Xhea imagined that she could hear in that faint, whispered chorus of notes some hint of the entity it could become—yet it would need more than a few minutes of a Radiant’s power to become anything greater. It would need a lifetime, and they had only a day.
“Shai,” Xhea said. “If we can’t move it…” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence. There had been so much death, so much pain and loss to create this small, inhuman entity. She did not blame it, no more than she could blame an infant whose mother died giving birth. But what was the use in saving it now if it was only going to be destroyed tomorrow?
Or perhaps that was all they could do. Perhaps they could not save it; perhaps they could not save anyone. But Shai could make the moments before its death hurt a little less.
It doesn’t deserve to suffer. None of us do.
Xhea stood at Ahrent’s side as Shai held the newborn Tower and gave it light and life and hope in these last few days before its end.
Xhea watched Farrow’s light grow brighter; felt magic thicken the air like fog. Too late did she think of the consequences.
As the heart’s magic strengthened, her own power tried to protect her—and slammed hard against the barrier of its binding.
Xhea gasped as the tracking spell called out. The sound vibrated through her bones.
Control the magic, she thought. Push it down.
It was easy as holding her hand in a fire.
Again the tracking spell called out—louder this time, stronger—and the sound and its vibration almost drove her to her knees. Here, it cried. Here, here, here!
“Xhea?” Shai’s voice sounded distant, lost beneath the spell’s call.
Farrow’s growing power no longer just tingled across Xhea’s skin but burned, too hot and too cold, as it sank into her. She drew in that fog of power with every breath, and it numbed her from the inside out. Yet bright magic counteracted her power—suddenly her dark magic did not fight against the binding but struggled, twisting and writhing as Farrow’s light burned it away to nothing. Deprived of its fuel, the tracking spell’s song sputtered and died, and Xhea sagged forward, her mind echoing with that sudden silence.
Her relief was short-lived, for still Farrow’s magic washed over her, sank into her, burning. Xhea blinked, struggling to focus. She looked at Shai and saw a glimpse of cream-pale skin and shining blonde hair, a spark of blue eyes as the ghost turned to her—and then very little at all.
She was blind without her magic.
Xhea stumbled back, thinking only: Get away.
Her shoulder blades hit the far wall and she fumbled for the door, her numbed fingers dropping her cane.
“Shai.” She could barely hear her own voice. “Shai, I…”
Shai must have turned to her, for the heart wailed as Shai’s magic was drawn away. Xhea felt Farrow reach for that sustenance, magic flaring and grasping—and Ahrent gasped as the newborn Tower pulled hard on the only available source of power.
Xhea tried to crawl, but could not support her weight. Instead she reached out with clawed hands and dragged herself across the floor. She could only think, Away, away, away. Something cold fluttered against her arms, her shoulders—Shai’s ghostly hands. She felt Shai’s rush of fear as if it was her own.
Thinking felt like drawing stones up through thick mud. I can’t stop it, she realized. She couldn’t get far enough, fast enough, and the bright magic burned.
In desperation, Xhea reached for her magic—that cold, dark lake; that hard, painful stone—and pulled. Her magic was bound, but Shai’s was not; and as Xhea struggled to call her power, fighting binding’s constriction, she felt some of Shai’s strength flow into her. She could not see Shai, but the ghost was suddenly w
ith her, real and present, her emotions pouring into Xhea with her magic.
Fear and love and anxiety wrapped around Xhea like strong, steadying hands. She was weak, blinded, unable to stand; but Shai believed in her.
Xhea pulled harder on her magic harder, willing it to break the bindings that held it and roar free once more. Again her power rose, and again the tracking spell stole that magic, calling out louder.
Here, here, here!
No, Xhea thought. It was her magic, her power—she would not have it turned against her. Xhea screamed as she fought, but could not hear her own voice; she drew on her power with all her strength, all her will, and forced it past the binding.
Crack!
Xhea gasped at the sharp shock in the depth of her chest. The tracking spell warbled and sputtered, then fell silent, and Xhea sagged to the ground, suddenly boneless. For a moment, the only sound was the high-pitched ringing in her ears.
The binding had cracked, she realized slowly, and the tracking spell had been destroyed, unraveled by the force of magic she’d pushed through it. She felt the last shards of the spell fade away. A thin stream of dark magic trickled free of the damaged binding and washed through her, thin and weak but there.
She drew a deep breath, for she could suddenly inhale again without pain. She blinked, and she could see in blessed black and white.
Shai hovered anxiously, while Ahrent had fallen from his chair and lay sprawled on the ground. Farrow’s heart shone behind them like a broken moon, glowing tarnished silver.
Tarnished…
The thought, half-formed, was swept away by the physical relief. Xhea blinked, and let herself sag against the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Shai stood over her, her light like a second sun. Bright magic was thick in the air, but the dark power in her blood now held back the worst of it, and the silence as her magic flowed felt like a blessing.
It was not.
“The tracking spell is gone,” Shai was saying. “And there’s damage to the rest.”
“I know,” Xhea murmured, rubbing her aching eyes; she felt none of Shai’s obvious joy. She sat slowly, aching, then felt the ground around her for her cane. Her knee throbbed, but not so much that she could not stand. And she would have to stand, she knew; she would have run if she could. But where?
Fear that was too cold, too hard, to be panic lodged in her stomach. Because in the tracking spell’s final moments, Xhea had heard something respond to its call. Not Farrow, or Shai, or anything around them. Something far distant.
Something above them.
Sweetness.
Ahrent lifted his head and groaned. That bare length of copper wiring had been pulled from his arm in the fall, and blood dribbled a slow track down his arm. It wasn’t necessary, Xhea wanted to tell him. Not the wire or the blood—but what did it matter now?
“We have to go,” she said, ignoring Ahrent. She struggled to her feet and stumbled back, heading out into the hall and away—away from Farrow’s heart and the glow of its magic, away from Ahrent and his wounds and accusations. Away, away, away.
Shai followed—and so, staggering and unsteady, did Ahrent.
“Wait!” His voice cracked. For all his new weakness, he was angry now, coming toward her with blood dripping black from his outstretched hand. “You can’t just leave. Not again. Not like this.”
Unheard beneath his words, Shai asked her, “What is it?”
“I have to get out of here.” Xhea leaned heavily on her cane. “Go as far and as fast as I can. I think—”
She froze. The words evaporated from her mouth and mind—for there, on the edge of her senses, Xhea felt something else. A presence—
No, two presences. More. They were above her and somewhere to her right, and drawing closer by the moment. Ghosts, she thought, and her blood ran cold.
“Too late,” Xhea whispered. “They’re coming.”
“Who is?” Ahrent asked. “What did you do? What—”
Xhea wasn’t listening. “It wasn’t just a tracking spell, was it?” She looked to Shai for confirmation. “Wasn’t just tracking where I was, but whether I tried to use my magic. Whether I had any magic.”
If she was powerful enough to unravel the tracking spell—if her magic had the strength to crack its binding—did that count as “off the charts”?
She laughed; it was a tired, bitter sound. She should run, she knew—but where could she flee that a ghost could not follow?
“Who’s coming?” Ahrent asked again. He blinked, stunned. “What’s happening? What have you done?”
“We have to get away from the heart,” Shai said suddenly.
Xhea had barely taken a step when there came a muffled thump from somewhere above, and the walls around them vibrated. Ahrent stiffened, his hands rising into a defensive pose, heedless of his fingers’ exhausted trembling.
Ghosts, Xhea thought, don’t try to knock in a hole in the wall. But who would the Spire send after a rogue dark magic user?
Someone with a lot of magic or a very big gun. She didn’t like either option.
Shai was right—they had to get away from Farrow’s heart. Perhaps the Spire would not care about Farrow any more than the thousands of other living beings in the Lower City, but she could not be sure. Xhea stumbled into the far stairwell, not running away from the intruders but toward them.
Behind her, Ahrent was saying, “You can’t leave. Xhea, you have to—”
She ignored him, leaving him struggling in her wake.
Again there came that deep thumping, and the walls shuddered. The hair-fine cracks that patterned the concrete widened, and dust trickled down. Trying not to think of the weight of the building above her, Xhea grabbed the railing and hauled herself up the stairs.
“Do you have a plan?” Shai asked.
Xhea glanced back. If her expression did not tell Shai everything she needed to know, then perhaps the emotion echoing between them did. Regret and sorrow and determination.
It was that last to which she clung as if it were fuel enough to keep her moving.
“You can’t just give up,” Shai said. “Not here. Not now.”
“It’s not giving up.”
Oh really? some part of her replied. Then why aren’t you running?
But there was nowhere to go, no way that she could physically run. And for all that she’d cracked the binding, she had access to no more than a trickle of dark magic.
The Spire cared little for the Lower City or anyone in it; they’d tear Farrow apart floor by floor if that’s what it took to find her, no matter the human cost. There was no standing against the Spire.
She thought again of the defensive spell generators on Farrow’s roof. If Shai could reach them, power them—if she could, perhaps, find someone to transport them to the
ruins… Oh, Xhea did not know what good it might do; it was such a thin, tenuous hope, and yet she clung to it as if it alone might spell salvation.
But not for her.
“If I surrender,” Xhea said, “they’ll only have me.” Such a noble sacrifice, she mocked herself in silence. “You’ll be safe. You just can’t come with me.”
“Don’t,” Shai said, and there was nothing left in her voice of the hesitant, fearful ghost Xhea had met all those months ago. “That isn’t your choice to make.”
Xhea reached the top of the stairs and took a shuddering breath before pulling the door open. Her hands were numb; her fingers shook. Weaknesses that she could do nothing to hide. Xhea stepped into the hall and tried to walk as tall and as strong as her damaged knee would let her, pretending that her cane was not a support but a weapon upon which she deigned to lean.
Anything to keep from looking at Shai or facing her sudden anger. Xhea wanted to take Shai’s hand to bridge the sudden gap she felt yawning between them. Instead she walked.
“No,” Xhea admitted. “No, it’s not. But I’m asking. They’re going to take me, and—”
Kill me. That was the thought that rose, no matte
r how she tried to push it away. She was a dark magic user—a powerful one, if she understood correctly—and the only one outside of the Spire’s control. Ahrent had told her once that her dark magic made her more valuable even than a Radiant, and far more rare; that dark magic users—and the spirit bindings they created—were the key to the Spire’s power over the Towers. Xhea knew that whatever the Spire wanted of her, she would not, could not comply.
Not unless there was some way they could force her. Not unless they had leverage.
Shai.
Dead though she might be, Xhea knew that the Spire could still hurt Shai—or use her against Xhea. Destroy her ghost. Sell her to a Tower for her power—did it really matter which? None were possibilities that Xhea could bear to contemplate.
Perhaps something of her thoughts showed on her face, for the ghost’s expression turned bleak.
“Don’t ask it of me,” Shai said. “Don’t make me stay here while they take you.”
“I can’t stop you,” Xhea said instead. “I won’t. But I don’t know where they’re going to take me, Shai. I don’t know what they’re going to do. And you…”
“I know what they’d do to me.” The words were like an admission of defeat.
This hall was a mirror of the one below; it, too, had once housed the bodies of the volunteers bound to Farrow’s walls. It, too, felt empty, silent but for the pounding and scraping against the building’s exterior.
Xhea pushed open a door and walked inside, following the sounds. No beds here anymore, no inhabitants, living or otherwise; only a span of dusty carpet and a chair in the far corner. A few cracks of daylight shone through the far window. The rest was covered with black strands that wholly blocked their sight of whoever or whatever was outside.
But Xhea could feel them. She could hear them pounding.
“Then what’s the point?” Shai whispered. “If you’re not here, what’s the point of any of it?”
“Maybe you can save people. Use the defensive spell generators. Help them save themselves.”
Towers Fall Page 13
