The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  She stared, her face slack. “No. No, you’re wrong.” She thrust to her feet, her fists clenching. “I am no Jutras majicar. What is this? A joke? You talk about trust and then tell me this? You’re a lying bastard!”

  She strode over to him and slapped him hard. Once, then twice. Her mouth was a snarl. She cocked her arm to hit him again and he caught her wrist. “It’s true. I can see it in you and if you look, you’ll see it in me. I can’t hide it.”

  She held still as she scrutinized him. Suddenly she wrenched away and staggered back. The illusion fell from her eyes, turning them white. “No.” It was a broken sound, one that Margaret had never imagined hearing from Ellyn. The woman was too certain, too controlled. “No. I can’t be Jutras.”

  “That’s right,” Margaret said briskly. “You can’t be. You hate them. So does Keros. You’ve been changed, but you get to choose how you will use that change. And right now, with sylveth majick weakening, the blood majick may just save us all.”

  Ellyn looked dazed. “You can’t possibly trust us now.”

  “I can.”

  “Your brothers would disagree,” Nicholas said, looking shaken.

  “Undoubtedly.” Margaret lifted her chin, staring at him. “Do you?”

  A thin smile turned his lips. “I’ve always put my faith in my family and friends. I see no reason to stop now.”

  She was surprised at the relief she felt. She wanted his backing more than she knew. “We’re friends, then? And allies?”

  He nodded. “For now.”

  Her brows went up, but he said no more. Her throat knotted. For now. What did that mean? As long as the crisis lasted? And then what? She didn’t want to know the answer to that question. “I’ll take that,” she said.

  “You’ve got no choice,” Keros murmured. She glanced at him sharply and he shrugged. “No point in pretending otherwise,” he said.

  “None at all,” she said. And then she told them the rest, leaving nothing out, laying out secrets that her family had killed to protect. Keros chimed in with an explanation of what had happened when he fought the Jutras. By the time she was done, she was shaking and wishing for a stiff drink. How could she do this? Uprooting the hoskarna—Keros was confident he and Ellyn could manage to do that. But what if there were more of them hidden somewhere on Crosspointe? And how were the four of them going to stop Forcan and who knew how many mad majicars?

  “What do you plan to do?” Ellyn asked.

  “Take out the hoskarna first,” Margaret said. “Before the Jutras gods dig too deeply into Crosspointe.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” Nicholas asked.

  She looked at Keros. “By mixing blood and sylveth majicks,” he said. “The same way I broke the Jutras spell and killed the priest.”

  Ellyn suddenly thrust to her feet and stormed out of the camp.

  Keros stood. “I’ll talk to her.” He looked down at Margaret. “You should get some sleep. We’ll tackle the hoskarna at first light.” With that, he went after Ellyn.

  Margaret felt like a wrung-out rag. She took a sip from her water flask. She started when Nicholas stood and set more wood on the fire. He hesitated, then sat down beside her.

  “He’s right. You should rest.”

  She shrugged. She was exhausted, but sleeping meant dreaming and she was certain she’d have nightmares. She wasn’t in a hurry to experience those. “Where’s Carston? Was he all right?”

  “Scared, but unharmed. I left him with Cora at a goat farmer’s cottage. They’ll be safe there.”

  “Cora?” she asked in surprise.

  He nodded. “From the inn.”

  “That was kind of you.”

  “It would have been kinder if Geoffrey had never been in a position to put her in chains,” he said heavily.

  There was nothing to say to that.

  “I want you to know you can rely on me. My resources are at your disposal. I won’t let you down.”

  She glanced at him. His gaze was steady, his expression stern. “I know,” she said. And was surprised to find that it was true. “For as long as we’re friends,” she added with a wry quirk of her mouth.

  He reached out and took her hand. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it with a little grimace. “Come on. Sleep. I’ll keep the nightmares away.”

  He sat back against the boulder and pulled her against his chest. She stiffened, then relaxed and closed her eyes, trusting he would be as good as his word.

  Chapter 22

  Ellyn didn’t go far. She stopped on the edge of the Jutras spell circle. It was ash now, but Keros no more wanted to tramp on it again than she did. A flicker of gold light gleamed here and there on the hoskarna, reminding anyone who looked that the Jutras gods had arrived. Or perhaps it was only he and Ellyn with their changed perceptions that could see the gleams and the glimmers of gold dancing like fireflies.

  Her arms were crossed over her stomach and her face was drawn. It was the first real emotion aside from anger that he’d seen from her since meeting in the carriage a sennight ago. A glisten of tears tracked down her cheek.

  “I’m a monster.”

  “No. They have only changed you. The same way the sylveth did.”

  She whirled. “It is not the same!”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No. The Gerent did this to save Azaire—to have a weapon against the Jutras. Now I’m one of them.”

  He shook his head. “And the Jutras gods remade you to make you a weapon for their side. What did they do that was worse than what the Gerent did? Neither gave us a choice; neither cares what we think or what will become of us. Don’t try to argue that the Gerent is better. He’s just as bad, or worse. At least the Jutras inflicted this on their enemies and they make no bones about the way they conquer—they force the people they overrun to help them or they kill them. The Gerent used his own people and gave us no choice in the matter. He used us like cattle.”

  His mouth pinched shut on his fury. They were old wounds and they didn’t matter. Ellyn stared at him, her expression mulish. She wasn’t going to change her mind. She couldn’t without loathing everything she’d become.

  He drew a breath and let it out, trying to speak calmly. “But here is the thing you are forgetting—just because they made you, doesn’t mean that they own you. You can choose what you will be and who you will serve. I did the first time and I’m sure as the black depths not going to start serving the Jutras now.”

  Her chin trembled and she firmed it. “The Gerent will never accept me. Not tainted like this.”

  “Margaret will. Crosspointe will.”

  She snorted. “This is not my land. I want to go home.”

  “So go. Explain what has happened. You don’t think that the Jutras gods will stop here? They’ll infect Azaire and everywhere else. Azaire will need you. The Gerent will see that.”

  “But he’ll never trust me again.”

  Keros shrugged. It wasn’t much of a loss as far as he could tell, but it clearly pained her deeply. “You’ll prove yourself.”

  She nodded without any conviction and turned back to look at the hoskarna. She wiped at her cheeks with one hand. “Can we really resist the call of the Jutras gods?” she whispered.

  “I’m damned well going to try,” he said. “Starting with uprooting these cracking sticks.”

  She gave a bark of laughter that was instantly smothered. Grains dribbled by. Finally, “This blood majick. How do I use it?”

  The question shocked him. “Use it?” he repeated stupidly.

  “You said it yourself—sylveth majick is weakening. I’ll do whatever I have to do to stop the Jutras. Even use their cracking majick.” Her lip curled as if she wanted to spit. But she looked entirely resolved.

  He looked at the whirling glimmer of stars. They had been the catalyst. He licked his lips, looking down at his hands. The gold veining pulsed lightly through his lights. Could he pass the power to her? It would make sense. The Jutras wanted
their majick to spread. Having to send every majicar to the hoskarna to capture a star was not particularly practical or efficient and the Jutras made a habit of both when it came to conquering.

  He held up his hand. “I may be able to help. But are you certain?”

  She eyed his hand with a scowl. She clenched her fists. “Yes. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

  He nodded, then reached out and touched her cheek. At the same time, he called on the power of the thistle. Nothing happened. He grimaced. Blood. Withdrawing his hand, he pulled out his dagger and cut across the pad of his middle finger. Instantly he felt the thistle inside him flex and expand. With it came a rush of pleasure that made his entire body tingle. His cods tightened. He ignored it and this time when he drew on the majick, it flowed through him easily. He wondered what he could do with it really. He was no more than a base apprentice again, not knowing the chants or the patterns that blood majick seemed to require. But at the moment, he didn’t need any of that. He pulled power into his hand, forming it into a little ball. He put his fingers on her cheek again and gave a push. The droplet of power slid from him into her.

  Instantly gold veins started to grow, spreading like cracks over her face. She went rigid and swayed like she was going to fall. Keros didn’t steady her—he didn’t dare touch her.

  He only vaguely remembered the moments of his own transformation. There was the pleasure—intense almost to the point of pain. There had been a sense of something inside him melding into a whole with the majick of the firefly star, followed by the clawing reaction of the sylveth majick. He wondered whether he’d have survived the confrontation if sylveth majick weren’t so weakened.

  He rocked back on his heels as realization hit him, and wondered how he had not seen it sooner—it was so obvious. The Jutras had poisoned sylveth majick somehow. He swallowed. Sylveth in the seas was all that really kept the Jutras from overwhelming Crosspointe. The chaotic currents, the Koreions, the bores—the various hazards of sea were treacherous indeed and a Jutras armada would lose plenty of ships in the crossing, but if there were no sylveth tides, some would surely make it, even without Pilots or compasses. Without sylveth, perhaps the sea would even lose the churning chaos and the Jutras would sail across without losing a single ship.

  Without an army or majicars to put up a defense, Crosspointe was nearly defenseless. It would take only a handful of Jutras warriors to smother any resistance. And though Prince Vaughn was assembling an army to challenge the regent, Keros didn’t know what sort of progress he’d made or whether it would be enough to counter the experienced Jutras warriors.

  He speared his fingers through his hair, staring impatiently at Ellyn as he waited for her transformation to be done. She was breathing harshly and sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip. Then suddenly she jerked hard and dropped to the ground like a broken marionette. Keros knelt beside her. Her chest moved shallowly and relief slid through him. A jolt quaked through her body. She moaned. Heat rolled off her in palpable waves. Another jolt and her mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Her faced twisted.

  Keros hesitated a moment more. She convulsed and yellow liquid bubbled from her lips. She needed help. He grabbed her outflung hands. Her fingers clenched on his, though he doubted she was even aware of him.

  He didn’t know what to do. He felt majick roiling through her, felt the skim of pleasure seeping into him through their touch and, with it, the snarling fury of sylveth majick fighting the invasion of the blood majick. He scraped a nail over the cut on his finger and blood flowed again. He gathered himself, pulling together a melding of his sylveth and blood majicks. They went together more willingly than previously, though he could still feel the friction between them.

  He pushed his awareness into Ellyn. Instantly he was assailed by sensation—an overwhelming tide of pleasure and pain. The gold net of blood majick was still growing, encasing her inside a cocoon of power. Her lights flashed and fought against it, attacking ferociously. They converged on a portion of the net like a pack of wolves, biting and tearing. The blood majick responded with a hot flash of pure energy, sending the lights fleeing, only to converge together and attack again. Each time sent a tremor of pain through Ellyn’s body. It was weakening her terribly.

  Suddenly they changed direction. Instead of going for the net of light, they were swarming the thistle inside her. It was closed tight. It needed to open and she needed to find a way to balance the two majicks inside her. No, she needed to want to. That was the heart of the problem. She didn’t want the blood majick to succeed inside her. On some level, she wanted her lights to kill it, except that the blood majick was already part of her. Killing it would kill her. She didn’t want to die. That much he knew for certain. And at least part of her was willing to embrace the blood majick.

  And then suddenly he knew what to do. He pulled a hand away and snatched his dagger. He dragged the point along her forearm. Blood welled and ran.

  Instantly the gold veins of the net flared brilliantly. Inside her he felt the thistle open.

  “Tame the majicks,” he said, bending close to her ear. “Find your balance. They are both yours to command.”

  He wanted to hold on longer, but this battle was hers alone now. He withdrew and released her hands. He watched intently. He could see her lights shifting and coalescing in bulges and knots, but he no longer could see inside the net of majick.

  Minutes dribbled past, measured in Ellyn’s short, gasping breaths and his own thundering heartbeat.

  Then without warning, she opened her eyes. The illusion that gave her ordinary brown eyes was gone and the vacant whites fixed on him. “Thank you,” she said, then struggled to sit up.

  Keros slid an arm around her shoulders and lifted her.

  She looked down at her arm and put her hand over it to staunch the bleeding. She grimaced. “That shouldn’t feel so good,” she said with a little groan. “No wonder those bastards are so bloodthirsty.”

  “Torturing and sacrificing others must give a great deal of enjoyment as well,” Keros said.

  She shivered and shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

  He nodded, but said nothing. Because in the end, they both knew that it didn’t matter what they could stomach—if it would keep the Jutras from invading, they’d do it. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Please the gods that it didn’t come to that.

  Ellyn made no effort to stand up. She settled her elbows on her bent knees. “How are we going help the majicars?” she asked. “You know they won’t like this business of becoming a blood majicar. But on top of that, how do we help them make the transformation?”

  Keros sat on the ground beside her, raising his brows at her. “You’re going to stay and help?”

  She shrugged. “I’m here on Crosspointe and so are the Jutras. I’m not running away until I kill some of the bastards. After that—” She shook her head.

  He grinned and stood up, holding out his hand. She took it and let him pull her up beside him.

  “We have a lot of work to do tomorrow,” he said, motioning to the hoskarna. “We’d better get some sleep.”

  She nodded and they began to return to the camp. “Will they solve it, do you think?” she asked.

  “Who? Solve what?”

  “Margaret and Nicholas. He’s ass over teakettle for her. She’s harder to read, but even if she feels the same—she’s a Rampling and he’s . . .” She waved a hand. “Rumor is that he had King William murdered.”

  Keros nodded soberly. “I know.” He remembered the way the odd gauzy tendrils of Weverton’s lights had caressed her and fastened themselves to her. The man was besotted. And Margaret—he had no idea how she felt. But what a choice for either of them. How could she ever trust him? And the rest of Crosspointe—it would be a scandal. More than that. It would be treason for her and insanity for him.

  “But then again,” Ellyn said slowly, looking down at the cut on her arm. “Other stranger things have mixed. Perhaps there is h
ope for them.”

  They rounded a boulder and found Margaret curled up on Nicholas’s chest, asleep. He had one arm around her, the other pressed gently to her cheek. He nodded at them and closed his eyes.

  Ellyn exchanged a raised-brow glance with Keros. He lifted a shoulder. Maybe there was hope for them; maybe there was hope for all of them.

  Keros was stiff when he woke the next morning. His neck and shoulder ached from lying on the hard ground and he had a bruise on his hip from a sharp rock. He sat up slowly, muttering a litany of curses colorful enough to make a sailor blush.

  Weverton coughed and Keros cut off abruptly.

  “Impressive,” Ellyn said, sitting up on the opposite side of the fire. She stretched and yawned. She’d restored the illusion to her eyes.

  “You might have to teach me a few of those,” Margaret said. “They sound quite useful.” She pushed up from Weverton’s chest. She glanced down at him, her cheeks reddening, then clambered to her feet. “Excuse me a moment.” She hurried away and disappeared behind the boulders, no doubt going to relieve herself. Weverton watched her go, looking like a whipped puppy. Keros shook his head, reluctantly pitying the man.

  He stirred up the fire and laid more wood on it while Ellyn fetched water from the spring for tea. Nicholas stood and stretched, then went to check the horses. A half a glass later, the four companions had eaten the last of the bread and cheese and were drinking their tea in tense silence.

  “You and Weverton should head for Sylmont,” Keros told Margaret. “You can’t do any good here; if this Forcan shows up, you won’t be able to defend yourselves. You’ll just be in the way.”

  Weverton looked at Margaret measuringly, but she looked only worried, not unwilling.

  “We won’t do much good in Sylmont without you,” she said to Keros. “We’ll need your majick.”

  “Fine. Wait for us behind the Maida of Chayos. You should be safe enough there until we arrive.” If they arrived. He didn’t say it. But he could see from the expression on her face that she was thinking the same thing.

  Margaret and Weverton left soon after. They took all three horses. They’d spook from the majick, and if Forcan did show up, the animals would be lost.