The Sacred Hunt Duology

by Michelle West

  No. There had been no escape in his dreams; no true light. And ahead of him, past Espere’s steady shoulders and bowed head, light streamed in, cast in shards by the chandelier above and the beveled lamps that lined the walls. He smiled, but the relief was short and quickly gone; these lamps were finer than those behind him, but no more magical, and no more proof against the shadows that sought to engulf everything.

  Or were they?

  Light defined itself into a sharper glitter than he was used to seeing, and as Espere continued to shift and move in front of him, he saw why: The grand foyer, large even in the distance, was full of armed and armored men and women. Steel caught the light and sent it scattering; they stood their ground, firm and fearless, a living fortress. A testimony to Terafin.

  • • •

  Jewel watched in silence from her perch on the stairs. Carver was above her, and Finch below; Jester and Angel were higher up. Teller, flat against the ground with daggers in either hand, was on the landing; he didn’t trust the stairs to provide cover, and besides, it was always useful to have an attack from a totally different vantage point.

  They had all heard The Terafin speak her high and fancy words—and they all, with one exception, felt a yearning to be one of the men or women that she spoke to. Just for a second, of course; after that, the practical demanded attention.

  “What the hell?” Carver whispered. His leader elbowed him sharply in the thigh, and his jaw snapped shut.

  Jewel watched.

  The dogs came first, running to a halt and skidding slightly across the shiny, smooth floors. They were bigger than most dogs she’d seen—of course, that wasn’t hard, given that most of the dogs she’d known were alley scroungers, same as she’d been—with broad, flat heads, ears turned down to skull, and short, glistening fur. Brown; black and white; black and gray; gray and brown. The minute they stopped, they turned and stood, growling, four perfect sentries. It was almost frightening, to see dogs behave so unnaturally.

  An almost entirely naked woman came next, but she could have stopped on a banker’s heart, she was so quick and light on her feet. She glanced up the steps, narrowing her eyes as she met Jewel’s. They were brown, her eyes, and odd, although Jewel couldn’t have said why she thought so; they flickered slightly and then looked away.

  Back to more important things. Jewel grimaced, tightening her hold on dagger hilt and rope.

  She recognized the man who came through the arch next; she’d met him once before in The Terafin’s public office. Stefan, Stephen—something like that. The foreigner. He was red with exertion; she could see his sweat beneath the harsh glare of too many lights. He stumbled, righted himself, and stopped in the front of the line of the Chosen, all the while holding fast the wrist of a slightly built woman in dark blue robes.

  She, too, looked up the length of the grand stairs to meet Jewel’s gaze—and this time, Jewel looked away. There was something in the violet stare, distant as it was, that was uncomfortably perceptive.

  Last to come was the foreign Lord; the obvious master of those who waited. He brought two more dogs, each flanking him—a gray one, bigger than the rest, and a white and black that seemed to be preoccupied with the halls it had just stepped clear of.

  “Terafin,” the fair-haired Stephen said. “We’re—we’re being pursued.”

  • • •

  “Let them through.” The Terafin’s voice was steady and calm. “Let them through and close ranks around them.”

  Her Chosen moved at once to follow her commands, maintaining as much of a defensible formation as they could while opening their ranks to allow the Breodani free passage.

  Stephen stumbled in, as did his young companion—but the Hunter Lord, Gilliam of Elseth, chose to stay outside of the protection her Chosen offered. He did not look exhausted; nor did he appear frightened. He was on edge, but even the edge was a strange one—it was as if he were aware of every element of his surroundings, without being affected by any of them.

  “Lord Elseth,” The Terafin said, slightly irritated. “Please.”

  But Lord Elseth did not respond. Instead, he motioned, and the wild girl—the unkempt and unknown danger—came running to his side, flanked by the rest of the Hunter’s pack.

  “Terafin,” the flushed huntbrother said, striking his chest with the flat of his hand and kneeling in the deferential posture.

  “Speak,” she replied, watching him carefully, impressed in spite of herself at his ability to maintain this much composure in the face of his obvious fear.

  “We—there is a demon-mage in pursuit.”

  “Demon-mage?” she said. “What do you mean?”

  “She—it—calls herself Sor na Shannen. She is a very powerful mage, but also one of the kin. The darkness follows her; she is its lord here.”

  “Who else?”

  He seemed nonplussed. “Who else?”

  “Besides this demon of whom you speak. Who else follows her?”

  His brow furrowed, fair and gleaming; at last he looked back to his very young, and until now silent, companion.

  “The—I think—the Allasakari,” the young woman in the dark robes said softly.

  “You think?”

  She swallowed, and then caught the breath that Stephen of Elseth was struggling with. Although her movements were still tentative, she had decided something, for she thrust her hands nervously into the depths of her robes, and from them pulled out a single, large glass sphere.

  Except that it was not glass, and within it, trapped as if alive, were roiling mists and the ghosts of swirling images. The Terafin’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. The young girl’s eyes, luminous and violet, held a hint of smugness as she met The Terafin’s. Then it was gone, as the silver mists demanded—commanded—her attention.

  There were so many questions that Amarais wanted to ask, for she had only read tales about the seer’s crystal, and in her adulthood, discounted the veracity of them. Until now. For the girl’s robes rose about her with a magic of their own; there were shadows that had nothing to do with the darkness and everything to do with the hidden depths of a young woman’s private tragedy that gathered in the grim lines of her face, her carriage; she had seen much, and at The Terafin’s unknowing request, was willing to see more.

  Amarais knew that the nature of the seeing would not be pleasant.

  “Allasakari,” the girl said, speaking without inflection. “They wear the pendants; they bear the scars.” She took a breath, her eyes narrowing so much they appeared almost to close. “They carry the darkness, Terafin; they barely contain it, and it will consume them if it does not find release.”

  The Terafin could hear the drawn breath of her Chosen; the rising tension. “Numbers?” she demanded, her voice cool.

  “Thirty. Maybe a few more or less. There is one other mage with them and his signature is powerful.”

  She cursed, but silently. “Put it away, child,” she said, turning. “We have no more need of your sight now.”

  It was true. Shadows burst out of the southern hall like black fire gone wild, lapping at light as if it were mystical kindling.

  • • •

  “Stand back!” Evayne cried, as she realized that the men of Terafin intended to stay their ground. “Get out of its way—it’s deadly to you unless you’re shielded!”

  But they listened as if they were deaf—which is to say, they moved not at all. Only The Terafin could command them, and she chose to hold her place as foolishly as they.

  “Evayne,” someone said, and she turned to see Stephen’s pale face. “The Terafin is no fool. Trust her.”

  “She doesn’t know—no one does—”

  “Trust her,” he said again, catching her trembling shoulders and stilling them. But he watched the growing shadows with the same dread fascination that she did, wondering the same thing.

>   The mistress of the darkness, limned in ebony that somehow glittered and shone, stood out like the jewel at the peak of a crown. If there were Allasakari at her back, they were momentarily forgotten; she was the obvious power,’ and she was due the full force of Terafin’s attention.

  Her hair was a dark fine glory that lay in a barely concealing web across her body; she was fair, and her lips were very, very red. The pursuit had not ruffled her, or even tired her; she paused to look at the Chosen of Terafin before her lips turned up in genuine pleasure.

  “This is almost a worthy welcome,” she said, her voice so perfect it was hard to listen without being stirred. “A fitting beginning for what is to follow.

  “Lay down your arms, turn over to me those three who are my rightful quarry, and you will come to me in peace. Fight me, and you will come in pain.”

  • • •

  “That is not,” a new voice said—a voice that seemed as strong as hers was warm, with tones as pure and as demanding of attention, “much of a choice.”

  Sor na Shannen’s expression shifted as she stared into—and past—the Chosen as if they were suddenly so much chaff. “What is this?” she questioned softly.

  A man strode across the foyer, coming from the northern halls. His hair was loose and long, as hers; it shifted in a breeze that touched no other man in the room. Where Sor na Shannen was the velvet of endless darkness, the promise of pleasure and pain in the shadows, he was not day—but starlight shone about him like raiment, the bright face of the night.

  The Terafin drew breath; held it. The sword, which she had seen for the first time this evening, was more easily recognized than the mage who wielded it. But if she stared long at the clarity of his features, the intensity of his expression, she could see enough of the familiar—barely—to recognize Meralonne APhaniel.

  There were others there who should have but could not; Evayne a’Nolan, young and terrified, who stood this eve on the edge of magics which would form the whole of her life. She watched, lips parted slightly, as this tall man—this slender giant—strode past her with purpose. He turned, once, to see her youthful face, and she blushed, although she wouldn’t later remember why; his gaze was cool and saw much in the second he spared before he turned his full attention upon the only other creature in the room who equaled him. Sor na Shannen.

  He raised his sword and swung it in a wide, whistling arc; light lanced out from its edge, cutting the fingers of shadow that clung to every crevice in the foyer.

  Dark eyes widened; she raised both of her arms, lifting them in either command or supplication. Shadow surged forward, but slowly. “I do not know how you come to be here,” she hissed, the velvet of her glamour cast aside like refuse. “But this is not your battle. I have chosen these as my own. Remember it, and you may walk from the field.”

  “It is not for one such as you,” he replied, “to choose my battles for me. And as for these—surely they will decide their own fate.” He laughed then, and the laughter was wild and not a little bitter.

  “Very well,” she said softly. Her left hand fell like the sudden stroke of an executioner’s deft blade. The shadows parted, and a man unmarked by the worship of the Allasakari stood at her left side. He was taller than she, and older; his face was framed by streaked dark hair and a dark beard. He wore robes, simple and light in color, a contrast to the shadows that surrounded him; there were no obvious weapons at his side.

  She turned to this new companion. “Kill him.”

  He nodded, and then raised his head, seeing the enemy against whom he was to be set. “Well met, Member APhaniel,” he said, his voice just shy of contemptuous.

  Meralonne APhaniel frowned. “Krysanthos,” he said at last, shifting his stance.

  “Indeed.”

  “I believe you barely made second circle at the last ordination.”

  Unruffled—barely—Krysanthos shrugged. “Should I have revealed more of my powers to the council? It was only barely worth the effort I did put in. But I am curious, APhaniel. Why do you play with the sorry sticks of lesser men when you have the power of the mage-born?”

  Meralonne APhaniel stared at him in silence. After a moment had passed, it became clear that he did not intend to dignify the question with an answer.

  “Very well. Let’s get this over with.” Krysanthos raised his hands in an intricate, almost hypnotic dance; the air responded with the music of flames and the cries of those who stood, suddenly, in its midst.

  Challenge offered.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  MERALONNE APHANIEL SMILED and nodded almost gently. He was ice and winter; so distant and so removed from the flames of the majestic and sudden summoning that it seemed the fire itself feared him. In a radius of ten feet, it burned nothing, touched nothing, changed nothing.

  Called out by the enemy’s challenge into a known and despised arena, the mage stepped forth, his light feet crushing the flicker of fire wherever he trod. He carried his sword, flat across his left shoulder, as he approached the waiting shadows.

  Krysanthos frowned. The flames leaped and struggled under his dominion, but they did not threaten Meralonne; if they snapped too closely, the silver-haired mage sliced at their odd limbs with his bright and shining sword, and they drew back. His blade was a chill and icy thing.

  The fire guttered as Krysanthos turned his effort to a different form of attack.

  The earth shuddered beneath the feet of Meralonne; the Chosen of Terafin faltered as their landscape suddenly shifted, breaking away into joists and stone and dirt along the thin, narrow line that Meralonne walked. But his feet did not seem to touch the ground, and what occurred beneath the surface, invisible but sure, that they did touch did not concern him.

  Lightning strove groundward, fizzling feet away from Meralonne’s unprotected head; blood-rain fell, turning to water as it reached the ground. Krysanthos was a learned and powerful mage, and he had studied the arts of attack well; many were the forms that he tried that had no visible signature—but these were least effective of all. For Meralonne resisted the magical purchase that Krysanthos struggled to gain as if the shadow-sworn mage were no more than a ghostly visitation.

  At the last, Krysanthos brought the chandelier that was the pride of the grand foyer down. Meralonne walked, unheeding, toward it. Several voices cried out in warning and in fear—but an inch above his head, gold and crystal flailing, the chandelier stopped its rapid descent. He passed beneath it, touching it gently with the very tip of his fine, sharp blade.

  Gingerly and carefully, it lowered itself to the ground at his heels.

  Behind the lines of battle, beyond the center of the foyer, Sor na Shannen waited in repose, her smile couched in velvet silence. There was no fear in her, but her eyes looked almost fevered, and the fire that burned there burned high and bright. “So,” she said, as she noted the pale, sweaty brow of her companion. “Even this is beyond your ken.”

  “I would appreciate,” Krysanthos snapped, through lips that barely opened, so rigid were the muscles of his face, “your assistance.”

  “You will have it,” was her answer. “And it will cost you. Never question me again, little mageling.” She stood, lifting her hands in supplication. To them came two things, out of the folds of dying fire that laced the ground in a magical pattern: a sword, curved, with an edge that bore teeth, and a shield.

  Krysanthos did not question her choice of weapons. He stepped back, grim in his fury and his humiliation.

  But Meralonne only smiled as he saw her step down from the shadows that held her onto the reality of The Terafin’s floor. He snapped his right hand, and to it came a shield, silver and fine and ringed all round with runes that glowed white. She waited as he approached; he neither tarried nor hurried. They did not need to take each other’s measure; they knew it.

  “This man is mine,” Sor na Shannen said, pitching her voice i
nto the shadows behind her as if they were alive. “But now is the time. Take the others, leaving only the quarry that I demand as my right.”

  The shadows surged forward, and the darkness that Meralonne’s presence had dispelled grew strong indeed as his attention turned to Sor na Shannen. She leaped up, using the air to turn and angle the sword from a vantage no human could have used unless they were winged.

  Meralonne was not there when the sword singed the air.

  Challenge met.

  • • •

  In the wake of the dying fire, the Allasakari came, caught and hidden in the bowels of the shadow until they were almost upon the Chosen of Terafin. The sheath of their blades was darkness; their faces were hidden by shadows so deeply etched that natural light could not disperse them. But worst of all were their eyes; for beneath their lids, and behind them, was a darkness so complete that it showed nothing, reflected nothing.

  They crashed into the defensive line of Terafin with a thundering . . . silence.

  There was no noise; no clang of steel striking steel, no sound of the impact of bodies as men were driven back several feet, no battle cries.

  Let loose, the darkness seemed intent on devouring all. And soundlessly, the Chosen of The Terafin began to die.

  • • •

  Blood ran.

  From the edge of a sword raised and swung wildly, it splattered Stephen’s cheek and chest. He felt it, but there was no sound, no comfort of sound. Not ten yards away from where he stood, rooted in marble as if he had grown there, a man in armor was screaming with his last breath—he could see it in the contorted lines of the man’s unrecognized and unrecognizable face. But he could not hear it. The very wrongness of the theft stilled his breathing.

  He felt a hand at his elbow and cried out—but the cry was stifled. Turning, he saw Evayne, the folds of her robe raised high over her shoulders like the protective wings of a Guardian. Her eyes were wide; she spoke, but he could not make out, in the semidarkness, the words she meant him to hear. Deaf and mute, he tried to follow her gestures.