Salvation (Scars of the Sundering Book 3)

by Hans Cummings

  “Oh, Archmage Delilah! Find anything good down there?”

  They found many valuable texts. Delilah wished she had thought to catalogue them as they went. “Plenty, but nothing to solve our current problem.” She put her arm around the blue drak. “Say, I don’t suppose you’ve come across any books with rune-like constellation illustrations in them in your work?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

  It was worth a try. The kitchen, having been built for a small family of draks, overflowed with the addition of two humans. The room became a jumbled mass of arms, legs, and wings. Katka was short enough to cram herself out of the way in a corner, for the most part, but Alysha’s stature reminded Delilah of Annah Brighteyes. That the Southerner had to crouch to move about the house didn’t help matters. Kali grumbled as she served everyone but seemed pleased at the gusto with which they all devoured their meal. She noticed Ori partaking and frowned. Delilah caught her eye and shook her head.

  When their appetites were sated, she took Kale’s mate aside. “I can probably get the Arcane University to reimburse you for the food, maybe some extra for the cleanup.” Delilah was unfamiliar with university policies for such compensation, but it sounded like the type of decision that should fall within her authority.

  “What else would you command us to do?”

  Delilah bit her lips and forced herself not to roll her eyes. “Oh, stop with that. You and Kale, I swear… Look, I got carried away. I should have asked if we could take over your cellar to look through those books and made our own arrangements for food. I was angry at Kale for messing up my plans, and didn’t think twice about bossing him around.”

  Kali crossed her arms over her chest. “Not as angry as I was about almost getting eaten.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t feed him his own wings.” Frankly, Delilah wondered Kali allowed Kale inside the house after that.

  “It was tempting.” Kali shrugged. “But he’s my mate. I have to make it work.”

  Delilah put her hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder. “He’ll come around. He’s not used to having to be responsible for, well, anything. Ever.”

  “I can hear you, you know.” Kale worked to clear the kitchen, just a room away.

  “So, stop me if I say something that’s not true.” Disregarding the boorishness of talking about her brother while he was in earshot, Delilah hoped he’d take the cue to sort out his priorities. Taking a mate was a lifelong commitment, and she reminded herself he’d made the decision on a whim.

  Kali pulled Delilah into a hug. “Go back to your books. I’ll help him clean up. Want some mulled wine for later?”

  “Sure, that’d be great.”

  ***

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Orion held the minotaur wizard’s arm as he lowered himself into a chair in his quarters at the Arcane University.

  Pancras felt his skin burn hot beneath his fur. Though he was flattered by Orion’s attention, he was also a little embarrassed by it, particularly because of the way it made him feel. The Justicar stirred up emotions and desires Pancras long ago buried and forgot.

  I guess they aren’t so forgotten after all.

  “Yes, I’ll be fine.” The chair, covered in burgundy suede with gold rivets, felt firm yet supportive. “Demons are challenging opponents, and this one seemed stronger than the last one I faced.”

  Orion pulled over the other chair to sit alongside Pancras. “Have you fought many demons?”

  “I make it sound like a regular occurrence, don’t I?” Pancras chuckled. It seemed frighteningly common since he left Drak-Anor, a trend the minotaur hoped to reverse.

  “Perhaps I’ll start calling you ‘The Demon Hunters Three.’” Orion’s grin overtook his face.

  Pancras smiled and picked at a loose string on the arm of his chair. “How strange are the paths life takes, eh? A year ago, I wanted nothing more than to tinker in my workshop and advise my friend on how to run Drak-Anor, when he asked for my advice, of course.”

  “And what is it that you want now?”

  “To be back in my workshop, to be honest.” Pancras gestured to the room in which he sat. “This is not bad. Teaching here could be fulfilling. But the rest? Tracking down demons, facing off with the Lich Queen, if that’s who our nemesis really is? I never wanted that. I hate travel. I hate going into dirty old ruins.” He regarded his withered hand and flexed it. The leather gauntlet creaked as his fingers bent. “I hate the pain, the wounds, the discomfort. The things lost that shall never return…”

  “Friends?” Orion leaned forward and placed his hand on Pancras’s knee.

  “Thankfully, no.” He looked up and shook his head. “I mean, not recently. Of course, friends in my past have gone. One in particular…”

  “Someone to whom you were especially close…”

  Pancras found Orion staring at him. No, not staring, exactly. Watching him with eyes filled with a mixture of sympathy and longing. He found it difficult to talk about his feelings with others, especially when he was not certain they would accept his preferences.

  “It is difficult.” Pancras looked away. “It is not accepted well among our people.”

  He felt a hand squeeze his knee. “I understand. Believe me, I do.”

  Pancras’s eyes met Orion’s. At that moment, he realized the Justicar understood. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t, at first.” Orion reclined in his chair. Pancras found himself wishing the Justicar had not moved his hand. “I took a chance. Small gestures that could be misinterpreted. Gradually, I came to recognize you were one to whom I could open myself.”

  The Justicar stood and clasped his hands behind his back as he paced. “I have never understood why we restrict ourselves, why we forbid ourselves from loving a person simply because of the circumstances of our birth. I had a mate once; she was strong, a fine warrior. She died in childbirth.” He stopped, his shoulders slumping as he lowered his head.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Pancras shifted in his seat. He never desired a female mate and decided at a young age he did not want offspring.

  Orion turned and smiled. “It was tragic, but such is life. I was so certain she and I were the perfect pair, blessed by Aurora, that I turned from my lover. He understood my desire to have children, but he no longer wished to remain where he thought he might encounter me and be reminded of what we once had.”

  It was not the first time Pancras heard of lovers parting amicably and settling remote from one another to avoid reliving the heartache every day. “What became of him?”

  “He joined a trading caravan bound for the south. I’m not sure where. I was so enamored of Sarra that I didn’t think to ask.” He pulled his chair closer to Pancras and sat again. “It doesn’t matter now. I hope you don’t think I’m too forward. I have been alone for many years here in Vlorey, ever since Sarra died.”

  “Forward?” Pancras smiled. “Yes, but it’s not unwelcome.”

  He took Orion’s hands and lowered his head. The two minotaurs touched foreheads. Pancras felt his horns slide along Orion’s, and the familiarity of the gesture caused his heart to leap. He caught himself smiling as their breath mingled in the warm coastal night.

  ***

  “I found it! I found it!” The cry from the cellar stairs disturbed Kale’s mental self-flagellation. He found Katka’s voice grating, having interrupted his concentration as he catalogued all the ways his life had gone wrong since embarking upon the mission to Ironkrag with Pancras a year prior.

  Kali popped her head into the kitchen where Kale still cleaned the mess dinner left behind. “What’s that all about?”

  “She found it, I guess.” Kale tossed his dirty rag onto a pile of similar rags spent from the deep scrubbing he gave the kitchen.

  “Great.” Kali entered the kitchen and retrieved the dirty rags. “What is it, exactly?”

  “The symbols they need to get that stupid moon gate in the basement working.”

 
; “That’s what I thought.” She stopped before him. Kale stared at the counter and concentrated on the spot he aimed to erase from it. “Hey, look at me.”

  Kale suppressed a scowl and forced himself to raise his head. Her dark eyes seemed soft, and she offered him a small smile. “Hey, they’ll be out of our scales soon.”

  “You’re not still mad at me?” He continued rubbing the spot on the counter.

  “Oh, I’m still angry, but I’ll get over it.” She nodded at the counter. “You know that’s a knot, right? It’s never going to come out.”

  He examined the spot again. She was right. “Yeah, I know. I thought I saw a stain on it. I must have gotten it out.” He placed the rag on top of the pile she carried. “What else do you want me to do?”

  “Unless you want to check on them in the cellar? Nothing. I’m tired and don’t want to work anymore. You?”

  Exhausted, but recalling his night of fitful slumber on the floor in the front of the shop the night before, he sighed. “I guess I’ll check on them.”

  His mate rubbed her cheek against his. “Hurry back. I want to go to sleep. I’ll keep the bed warm for you.”

  “Oh, okay.” Kale’s pace quickened at the thought. The front shop lay deserted; Ori left for his own home as dusk fell across the undercity. He flung open the door that concealed the steps to the cellar and hopped down to where the three women gathered around a black, leather-bound tome, talking over each other and pointing at drawings on the pages.

  He cleared his throat until his sister looked at him.

  “What, Kale?”

  “You found what you need, right? So, Kali and I can get some sleep now?” He braced himself for the inevitable protest.

  Delilah closed the book. “Yes, I think this is exactly what we’re looking for.” She motioned to the two other sorceresses. “We’ll study this in my chambers at the Arcane University, so you can enjoy some quiet time.”

  As she passed him on the stairs, she stopped to touch his arm. “Will it be all right to return tomorrow to do some experiments?”

  His sister’s polite demeanor gave Kale pause. He could not remember the last time she asked him for permission to do anything. “I guess, sure. Not too early.”

  Delilah shook her head. “I don’t want begin working too early. It will be well after Ori opens shop.”

  “He has Aurora’s fever, you know,” Kale blurted. He wasn’t sure Ori was ready for Delilah to be quite that aware of his feelings, nor could Kale guess if Delilah held any interest in the blue drak, but for once, he desired her to feel as uncomfortable as she’d made him the last several days. “For you.”

  The archmage shut her eyes and made a gurgling sound deep in her throat. “I am aware, Kale. But thank you, I’ll try not to turn him into a cave lizard.” She glanced at the two humans. “Let’s go.”

  Kale let them out, locking the shop door behind them. The enticing lure of his own bed was a siren call he was eager to answer.

  Chapter 19

  The next morning, while in her chambers, Delilah broke her fast with Katka and the grouchy Frost Queen. Alysha’s eyes were puffy, and Delilah counted in the lines on her face the number of hours the southern sorceress spent awake.

  “Rough night?” The archmage hoped there would be gold in the Frost Queen’s answer.

  Alysha stabbed a sausage with her fork, rattling the other dishes on the table. “Maris take them all! Pock-faced, artless, clay-brained, maggot-pies. All of them!” She bit into her sausage with fury, heedless of the stream of hot grease it sent down her chin.

  “Ooh.” Katka winced. “Your guest quarters are above the elder apprentices, aren’t they?”

  Delilah concentrated on chewing her sweet roll in an effort to refrain from chortling as Alysha continued her tirade. The drak archmage had not ever heard of sheep-biting skainsmates or unchin-snouted clack-dishes, but the staccato fashion in which Alysha delivered the insults and the way her head bobbed with indignation, caused Delilah to stifle more than one snicker. She would have recorded the various invectives the Frost Queen spewed, but she didn’t wish to risk her ire.

  “Gorbellied, milk-drinking miscreants!” She threw her fork onto the plate before her. It skipped off it and clattered across the table, embedding itself into the side of a fat sausage. Hot juices dribbled out, blood-like grease spreading in a pool around the slain meat. “You should send them all down to the Southern Watch as punishment. I’ll show them how to behave around their betters.”

  The elder apprentices had, no doubt, been celebrating their upcoming graduation. Delilah was kept informed by Headmaster Agata, but they agreed until it was time for her to confer their newly earned status as guild mages upon the graduates, her involvement in the minutiae of testing or ceremonies was not required.

  “Some of them”—Delilah coughed as she choked, suppressing another giggle while she ate—“no doubt, deserve that. We should finish up here and get back to work on the moon gate.”

  By the time they reached the undercity, the business day was in full swing. Having to wait for merchants to push their carts across streets or for crowds gathered around market stalls to dissipate and allow them to move past made the already-impatient archmage seethe.

  The draks, of course, made way for the striped drak, bowing to her and asking for her blessings as she passed. Delilah did so as an afterthought, much to the amusement of Alysha. Their veneration reminded the sorceress why she avoided traveling to her brother’s home during mid-morning on market days.

  “Would you draks get out of the way!” A minotaur pushing a potato cart snorted and stomped his feet as a deluge of draks crowded around Delilah, blocking his path and trapping him on a rickety bridge spanning the gorge.

  Delilah tapped her staff on the walkway and gathered aetherial threads of arcane energy. The lizard skull atop her focus glowed. “You will all have a prosperous day. Now, let the potato-pusher through.”

  Her proclamation had the desired effect, and the draks parted, like a sea draining into a newly opened chasm in the ocean floor. She motioned to the two humans to follow, and they rushed to cross the bridge before more draks corralled them.

  Ori sat at his desk, already hard at work when they arrived. He directed Delilah to the kitchen, where Kale and Kali dined. She instructed Alysha and Katka to wait in the shop, and she announced herself to her brother.

  “I’m just letting you know we’re here. We’ll be in the cellar.”

  Kale’s wings fluttered as he held up a sweet roll. “Want one?”

  “Maybe later, I’ve experiments to run. It might be safer if you stay up here.” She glanced over her shoulder into the hallway, lowering her voice. “I don’t actually know how this thing will react.”

  Kali pointed her fork at the archmage. “If you blow up our house, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your days.”

  “Hopefully the rock will contain the blast.” Delilah ignored Kali’s dire warning and led the two humans to the cellar.

  Katka sat on the floor with the tome and described each rune to Alysha. The southern sorceress marked the ones she described with a bit of chalk.

  “Okay, Archmage,” Alysha brushed the chalk off her hands. “The ones I’ve marked are the rune sequence we think leads to my castle. We know that moon gate is intact.”

  Delilah channeled arcane energy into the circle. Azure tendrils poured from the skull atop her staff and swirled around the ring. The runes glowed like sapphires in the sun, and an image of two grey globes appeared in the center.

  She needed to manipulate the representations of the King and Queen to match their current phases. One was still dark, but the other entered another phase, now that the double-dark period ended. But was it waxing or waning?

  Delilah hesitated. Alysha pointed at the smaller of the two orbs. “Queen’s waxing.”

  The archmage reached toward the Queen. Her clawed fingers felt as if they touched a warm stone, and she turned it until a slight crescent appeared.<
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  “The other way!”

  Oops, that’s waning. I should have spent more time studying astronomy with Kale when Terrakaptis offered. She corrected her mistake. When she completed her manipulation of the moons, the King was dark, and the Queen waxed.

  Pebbles bounced on the floor as the cavern shook. Dust drifted down from the ceiling. She stepped around the moon gate. Alysha had marked a sequence of seven runes with numbers indicating the order in which they should be pressed. Each one flared with azure flame as she touched them.

  The vibrations settled with each activated rune. Her hand hovered above the seventh, a rune that resembled a solid circle, the symbol of Selene, goddess of magic. She touched it.

  Sucking the air out of the cavern with a whoosh-hiss, a shimmering rectangle sprang from the center of the runed circle. Delilah’s eyes widened, and she failed to stifle a squeal of triumph. From the back, it appeared as a swirl of turquoise. The archmage returned the front. Alysha’s eyes were wide, and the sorceress nodded.

  “I recognize it! I can see the chamber where the Runes of Selene reside.”

  Through the moon gate, Delilah perceived the edge of the circle. Several runes on the other side glowed, although she couldn’t distinguish which from her current angle. Sconces, not unlike the ones in the cellar, illuminated the room, and the translucent blocks which composed the walls glittered as they reflected the light.

  “Are your walls made of ice?” Katka, still seated on the floor, squinted at the moon gate.

  “My entire castle is ice.”

  Delilah shivered. “Ugh. Cold.”

  Alysha took a deep breath. “It’s not so bad. Shall I?”

  “Do you know the sequence to return?” Delilah took the book from her apprentice and leafed through the pages.

  “I think so, but if I don’t reactivate it in five minutes, do it from this end.” The sorceress nodded at Katka and Delilah before she stepped through. The surface of the door bent as though she pressed against it. Then it rebounded and wobbled before the rectangle retracted and the runes extinguished themselves.