Towers Fall

by Karina Sumner-Smith

  Abelane turned to her, switching off her spelled mask once more. Even after the time they’d spent talking, the sight of Abelane’s face was again enough to steal Xhea’s breath. Like seeing a ghost.

  “A Radiant?” she said, her voice low and urgent and all but lost beneath the sound of the laundry. “You brought a Radiant here? Have you lost your mind?”

  “No, not here—though she wanted to come. She’s just joined to me.”

  If Abelane raised her eyebrows any farther, Xhea thought, they’d disappear into her hairline entirely.

  “I don’t even know where to start with that. Letting your bondling stray that far—binding a Radiant at all—I just…” Abelane ran a weary hand across her face.

  “I’m not letting her do anything. It’s her choice.”

  “Don’t be naive,” Abelane snapped. “If she’s bound to you, then she’s tied to your will, your needs. The binding takes, Xhea; fast or slow it takes, bit by bit until there’s nothing left. The ghost’s tether might slow that process, but it doesn’t stop it.”

  “Then we’ve done something else,” Xhea protested. “Not just a binding. Because the magic flows between both of us, not just me taking but—”

  “Don’t,” Abelane said. “Don’t lie to me.”

  Xhea wanted to explain—but realized that Abelane wouldn’t know what was happening on the ground, or have any idea of the fate that even now was but a day away from befalling her one-time home.

  “She’s trying to protect the Lower City,” Xhea said instead. “Do you know what the Spire is going to do? They’re going to destroy it all, Lane—everything. Tomorrow.”

  Abelane only shook her head as if such things did not, could not matter.

  “If that’s what you want,” Abelane said instead, “then of course she is. The binding is a conduit for your will. She’d be helpless against it.”

  Xhea stiffened. Is it true? That Shai wasn’t trying to save the Lower City because she wanted to, but because Xhea did.

  No, worse: not just saving the Lower City—saving Xhea. Staying with her. Caring for her, now and in all the months past.

  Xhea thought of that moment in Farrow, Shai but a breath away from her, holding her feather-light as they rose. The thoughts, the feelings, that flowed between them. Surely that was not all forced. Not all lies.

  But what if it is? What if the only reason that Shai cared for her was because Xhea wanted her to? For she knew the depth of the loneliness that had once defined her life, and the intensity of the desire to have someone know her, understand her. Love her.

  Xhea said nothing, only stared as the meaning of Abelane’s words curled and crashed through her. Some fraction of that shock must have showed on her face, for Abelane grimaced changed the subject.

  “Does the Spire know about your bondling? Do they know what she is?”

  In all the tests, the poking and prodding Xhea had endured before being unceremoniously dumped on this floor, no one had so much as mentioned ghosts. But if they did not know, surely they had heard the rumors. Xhea nodded.

  “Then you have to go. Now. You have to get out of here.”

  “Oh really?” Xhea looked at her incredulously. “Thanks for that, I never would have realized.”

  “No, Xhea, I’m serious. They’ll kill you.”

  “That’s not exactly news.” Xhea gestured around the laundry room, as if the movement could encompass more than these walls and their piles of small clothes. The rooms in which she was kept; the hall, and the many rooms along its slow arc. “Nice as this is, I hardly feel like anyone’s trying to win me over.”

  Keep her out of the way, more like, until someone had time to deal with her. If she’d been anyone else, a locked door and strong walls would have been enough to hold her.

  See you tomorrow, one of her examiners had said; she’d thought he was speaking to the Enforcers, but now she wasn’t so sure. Oh, tomorrow, tomorrow; one way or another, everything would change. They would come for her—and what? She would not willingly betray Shai, no matter what they offered; nor would she do the kind of work for which they trained these children, the bindings that were their lifeblood.

  Abelane said, “Xhea, no one needs to win you over. You’re old, untrained, and too weak to be useful. Don’t make that face—it’s not an insult. You haven’t seen what these kids can do.” No admiration, there; only dread.

  And you haven’t seen what I can do. But Xhea kept the words unspoken; suddenly, she did not want to discuss the bindings that kept her magic, now and in the past, at bay. Instead she shrugged.

  “Don’t start that with me,” Abelane said, the gesture getting her back up. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. You think you’re not hurting that ghost? Fine. But know that one of the kids here certainly would.” She pointed angrily at the far wall.

  “The older attendants used to tell stories, you know, about the last dark magic child to bind a Radiant. Years ago, now. They said that he lived to be almost twenty, and his power…” She shook her head, horror seeming to stop her words.

  “It’s happened before?”

  Perhaps it was just a rumor, some old story turned into legend; the attendants, after all, seemed to have a shorter life expectancy than their charges. Even so, the thought was enough to give Xhea pause.

  Yet what truly made her recoil was the thought of Shai bound to one of the children she’d seen in the common room. It was too easy to imagine Shai ending up like that ghost girl huddled in the corner, eaten away to nothing. She would fight, of course; she had her magic. But what if she was commanded not to rebel? Commanded to be nothing but a battery once more, a source of life and power, her own wants and needs entirely inconsequential.

  Even now, Xhea could steal Shai’s magic. If she pulled on that power—drew and drew and drew against that Radiant wellspring of light, and gave nothing in return—how long would Shai last?

  The horror of that thought motivated her far more than the threat of her own death.

  “I think so,” Abelane said. “The worst stories are the ones that end up being true.”

  “Well, what, then? I never wanted to come here, and the last thing I want is for them to get hold of Sh—ah, my bondling. So if you know a way out, let’s hear it.”

  Abelane paced in agitation, while Xhea stood and gripped the metal top of her cane until it became hot and slippery with sweat. Abelane kept muttering and then shaking her head, seemingly coming up with ideas and rejecting them just as quickly. In the machines around them, sudsy gray clothes pressed up against the little round windows, squished and smeared as they tumbled.

  “Deliveries are through the main landing bay,” Abelane said after some minutes. “All food and supplies come in that way, all waste goes out. Two locked doors: the door to the bay and the door to the world beyond. No aircars or elevators are allowed to park in the bay or be left unattended at any time. And there are no deliveries scheduled for another three days.”

  “What about letting the children out?” Xhea asked. “Their work takes them beyond these walls, right?”

  Abelane shrugged. “Same deal. Guarded aircars through the main bay.”

  It’s a prison. What did you expect? Little though she believed any of the kids raised here thought much about running away, surely if any had tried Abelane would have heard stories about that, too. Another chapter in the ever-larger book of dire tales that detailed what happened to attendants who allowed their charges to come to ill.

  Xhea tried to imagine what she might do with the thin thread of power she could force beyond her binding. An attack on the guards who came for her in the morning—something quick and unexpected, like the magical equivalent to a blow across the back of the head. And then she could try to grab some keys and…?

  It’d never work. Fine, then—there was always her earlier idea of holding the kids hostage. She could overpower one of the smaller children and use the threat of the loss of that precious resource to force the Spire to free h
er.

  As if she could bring herself to hurt a little kid.

  Oh, where is Daye when you need her?

  “There’s a room,” Abelane said slowly, and Xhea turned. “Just one room where the prisoner transfers are conducted.” At Xhea’s blank look, she explained, “That’s what they call it, when the child takes a living person’s spirit.”

  Xhea nodded, swallowing. A room used only for that violation? She quailed to think of the frequency of the so-called “prisoner transfers.” But then, she had some idea of the numbers. She’d seen their empty bodies in the midnight streets. She’d heard them walking.

  “Prisoners are brought in by aircar,” Abelane continued. “There’s a special landing bay, its doors double-spelled. But there’s another door, a smaller one, that’s used for the bodies.”

  “Bodies that are sent to the Lower City,” Xhea whispered. The questions came tumbling out: “How are the bodies transported? Could you take me to that room? Do you know how to operate the door?”

  “Now why would you want to do that?”

  The voice made Xhea go still, and at the room’s far end Abelane froze, caught mid-pace. It was a child’s voice, young and high and sweet. A girl’s voice. Slowly, Xhea turned.

  Lissel stood in the open doorway. The laundry cart had been pushed to one side, the sound of its movement masked by the machines around them. She wore a long, white nightgown, while her hair—unbound from its braids—fell in soft waves to her waist.

  Behind her hovered her bondling, a white man in his thirties wearing pale, plain clothing. Clothing, Xhea thought, like one of Ieren’s bondlings had worn—the man who had come to her in Edren, screaming and raging as he vanished. There was no such energy in this ghost; his head was bent as if weighted, his shoulders slumped, his hands hanging limp at his sides. His eyes were open, and yet there was no intelligence there, just a glazed, gray blankness.

  Lissel smiled, looking from Xhea to Abelane and back again, then tilted her head. “Why did you bring the new girl into the laundry room, Laney? I don’t think you’re allowed to do that.” Sweet as her voice was, her tone said: You’re going to be in trouble. And that Lissel, at least, was going to enjoy it.

  Abelane reached for the metal band around her neck, then let her hand fall back without activating the mask. Too late for that; too late by far.

  “I was just giving her a tour,” she said instead, smiling. She sounded chipper once more—but Xhea, at least, could hear the fear beneath. “She wanted to see everything.”

  “No one wants to see the laundry.”

  “But she needs some new clothes. Just look at how messy she is. And the smell!” Abelane made a face, as if Xhea’s supposed dirty, stinky self was a funny joke that she and Lissel shared.

  As ploys went, it wasn’t a bad one; Lissel had already proven herself eager to maintain her superiority. Yet Lissel shrugged, seemingly bored. “Then why were you talking about the transfer room?”

  At Abelane’s hesitation, Lissel smiled again. It was the smile, Xhea thought, of a hunter glad to see some small, furry thing turning and twisting in his trap. The fight might not have gone out of the animal, but it was going to be dinner nonetheless.

  The girl turned to Xhea. “You wanted to see where the prisoner transfers take place? I can show you.”

  Abelane had to be nice to the girl; and she’d had years of experience dealing with powerful, ill-mannered children who could kill her at a whim. But Xhea had faced down things far worse than a little girl in her nightgown.

  Xhea looked Lissel up and down with disdain. “Get out of here. I need nothing from you.”

  “I told you,” Lissel said. “You’re just ugly and mean, and I don’t really like that.”

  “Does it look like I care?”

  “Looks like she does.” Lissel reached for Abelane and dark magic flashed like a whip of shadow; Abelane cried out and clutched at her hand. A hand, Xhea saw, that had gone white as bone, as if entirely bloodless.

  With the spell, Lissel’s ghost jerked at the end of his dark-spelled tether. He whimpered.

  Xhea moved between Abelane and Lissel, her body like a shield; she lifted her cane in obvious threat. “You want to try that again?”

  “Are you going to make me?” the girl asked, then smiled again. “Come on, I just want to show you the room. Wasn’t that what you wanted? Everyone else is asleep anyway.”

  Without giving Xhea a chance to reply, Lissel gestured again and another thread of power unfurled, fast as thought. Abelane! Xhea thought, moving to block the spell—but it wasn’t moving toward Abelane but Xhea herself. It wrapped around her neck, cold and tight.

  Her breath caught, and Xhea became very, very still.

  “This way!” Lissel said. She crooked her finger and the spell jerked forward, making Xhea stumble as it dragged her forward.

  It’s a test. Lissel was trying to goad Xhea to use her magic—and oh, how Xhea wished she might comply. The girl had called herself “first” here, a position dictated by the strength of her magic. Xhea, the newcomer, was a stranger in a place where the children had been raised since near-infancy, learning and testing their newfound powers together. Of course they would want to know what she could do, what risk she might pose, where she would fall in their little hierarchy.

  Before, seeing Lissel shape a tree of dark magic above her outstretched palm, Xhea thought she’d understood what she faced. But it wasn’t only the girl’s sheer power or control that she needed to fear, but her skill.

  She’d seen Ieren and thought that she’d understood what the Spire taught dark magic children.

  Yet she realized: Ieren had been sent down to Farrow, and had died in the Lower City’s mess and ruin. His death had been a waste, the last weeks of his life thrown away on a project that amounted to nothing. She’d assumed that the Spire had sent him because he’d been close to death. Now, watching the shocking ease with which Lissel wove complex spells—faster, even, than Xhea could have made her unbound power rise—she understood.

  Ieren had been old and weak; his power had been nothing compared to Lissel’s. No wonder he had lorded his talent over Xhea and hidden the truth of his age; it must have been a change for him to be the powerful one.

  It’s a test, Xhea thought again as Lissel gestured and sent her sprawling. And I’m failing.

  Xhea called on her magic and Shai’s strength beneath it, pushing against the binding—hoping, trying, to break it. Hoping, even, to force that crack wider, that she might have more than a bare thread of power.

  Lissel glanced at her, considering. “I made that spell, you know.”

  Xhea raised an eyebrow, trying not to let her pain show in her expression. “Spell?”

  “The binding on your power. My bindings are the strongest here—it’s why they always ask me to do the most important work.”

  “Don’t suppose you want to take it off then, do you?”

  “No. Why would I want to do that?”

  So I don’t punch you in the neck and stuff you in a closet until morning, Xhea thought. What she said was, “You scared I’m going to be better than you? Stronger?”

  Lissel looked surprised—and then she laughed, the sound full of genuine amusement. “You?” she said through giggles. “Stronger? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then what’re you afraid of?”

  Lissel just rolled her eyes. Rightly so, for no matter how she pushed Xhea could make little headway against the binding. Sweat broke out across her forehead and her breath grew short as pain built in the depth of her stomach. Only a trickle of power leaked past the binding’s constriction, all but useless, and still Lissel’s spell tightened around her throat.

  “Come on, Laney,” Lissel said, turning away. “We should show her the room. Show her how it works.”

  Abelane’s eyes were wide, but she nodded. With a cautious hand, she reached toward the collar around her neck.

  “No, silly. No masks! Leave it off.”

  Xhea d
idn’t think that Abelane had been reaching for the mask switch. What other spells were embedded in the collar’s metal? A communication spell? A panic button, a way to call for help?

  Abelane’s hand fell to her side. “Okay,” she said. She did not try to fight back—and yet Lissel gestured and bound Abelane in rings of dark power at her wrists and chest and throat. Abelane cried out.

  Why are you playing her game? Xhea asked herself suddenly. She pushed away the pain at her neck and chest as if they were nothing. Grabbed her cane and swung at the girl.

  Growing up on the Lower City streets, Xhea had learned how to hurt and incapacitate attackers, even if she lacked the strength of most would-be assailants. But Lissel was just a scrap of a girl, her body that of a six-year-old child’s, no matter her true age. Xhea could hurt her without thinking.

  Even so, she pulled the blow at the last minute. The girl yelped and fell back, clutching her shoulder. She spun toward Xhea, tears in her eyes, her expression a study in outrage.

  “You’re not allowed to hit me!” she cried. Her magic grew stronger and darker, swirling around her like a storm cloud, and Xhea couldn’t help but think of Ieren’s sudden, out-of-control rages. Abelane tried to shy away, but was held by those dark bands. Even Lissel’s bondling looked up, his eyes shadowed with something like dread.

  Yet Xhea touched the spell at her neck and directed the gray wisp of her power toward it, and at last the spell gave way. She shook off its remnants with a flick of her fingers, and stood tall in the face of Lissel’s building anger, as if all that dark power meant nothing to her.

  “And you’re not allowed to put spells on me,” Xhea replied.

  A pause, then Lissel gave a grudging nod, that sense of a rising storm vanishing as quickly as it had come.

  “Laney and I are going to the transfer room,” Lissel said, her tiny fingers still clutching her shoulder. “Try to catch up.” This time when the spell came flashing out, it did not catch or bind, but struck Xhea across her damaged knee. Xhea cried out as she tumbled gracelessly to the floor.

  Then Lissel left the laundry room, dragging Abelane and her bondling ghost thoughtlessly behind her.