Sorcha raised her right hand, spread her Gauntleted fingers, and called Voishem. The air bent around her, twisting, breaking into the space between things. Brick, stone or wood could not stop her now.
On the heels of the geist, Sorcha slipped through the wall and into the adjoining attic. The Bond, though, held tight, and she still shared Merrick’s sight. In fact, once through the wall, the influence of those cursed weirstones was mercifully dampened.
This second attic was completely empty except for two crates by the far window. It was full of enough dust that Sorcha was surrounded by dancing motes, and for an instant she was confused by the flicker of light. The spectyr she half expected to have moved on was in fact huddled at the far end of the new room, crouching in shadow. All of her training as a Deacon told her this was very strange behavior for this kind of geist.
Though her heart was pounding, this was the one remaining problem from the whole vicious nest. She wasn’t afraid of it. Still, she kept her Gauntlets raised as she approached the cloaked form. Stopping two feet from the spectyr, Sorcha waited. It had been a long time since she had tried to communicate with a geist—usually the mistake of a newly minted Deacon—but she opened her mouth and said the first thing that came to mind. “Why are you here?”
Slowly the spectyr pivoted toward her, like a circus ringmaster revealing the final act in his show. Despite all her power, all her training, Sorcha swallowed hard.
In the dim light of the attic the transparent skull in a gray shroud flickered, a reminder of every humans’ fate. Suddenly Sorcha was no longer thinking of it as a simple, single geist. It was a part of the great void that waited for them all: the Otherside. She had danced there for a while the previous season—but her memory of that time had faded. Now, as the geist faced her, flashes of it returned. Sorcha wanted desperately to smoke a cigar in that moment—remind herself that she was still among the living.
She cocked her head, Gauntlets half raised, waiting to ignite a rune and send the apparition tumbling back to the Otherside. The spectyr mimicked the gesture, and then its bone white jaw creaked open.
“Sorcha!” The voice was like the wheezing cry of a dying man, stretched out and desperate in the silent warehouse attic. The Deacon could not have been more surprised than if the geist had started a song and dance routine.
“Sorcha?” Merrick’s voice came from below and was an eerie echo. She heard her partner’s boots on the stairs and was reassured that soon he would be here.
“Sorcha,” the geist repeated, raising a shimmering hand and reaching out to her. “You must save him, Sorcha.”
In many of the religions it was said three repetitions of a name were required for a binding. As a Deacon she didn’t believe in such foolish nonsense—but, oddly, a chill still ran up her spine. She smothered the rune that she had been meaning to cast—because she guessed who the apparition meant—and now she had to know.
Sorcha remained stock-still as the spectyr’s hand touched her face. She let it—something that went against every ounce of her training. Beyond reality and time, the Otherside held knowledge that no human could ever possess, so the greatest Deacons of the Order had often taken chances to snatch what they could from the void. This was her moment.
Slowly her eyes drooped, heavy with the cold of the undead. As Sorcha trembled on the edge of death itself, she accepted its vision.
Raed Syndar Rossin, Young Pretender to the throne, fugitive, and the man she had not stopped thinking of since she met him. Sorcha could see him, like looking through water: as if she was below, and he was above.
A girl who she couldn’t quite make out was screaming while men carried her away—then her face changed to a terrifying smirk. Raed was there trying to save her, yet dark hands reached out and took him. Lured into a trap under a circle of spinning stars, he and the Beast within were devoured by a creature of snapping, snarling gold and scarlet. It was awful, terrible, and as she watched, Sorcha was sure it had not yet happened. However, it would—this was Raed’s fate.
A sense of peace stole over her, and for an instant the voice of the spectyr was familiar: light, womanly, one that had given her life for them all. Nynnia, the creature from the Otherside, was whispering into the mind of the Deacon. The words were far off, but Sorcha caught “angel,” “son,” “trap” and “stars.”
The Deacon strained to hear the rest, but then Merrick was screaming her name more forcibly: standing on the top stair and shouting to her. Her concentration was broken, and Nynnia’s voice melted away into the still air.
Merrick’s yells were not without reason. Sorcha shook her head and looked up. The shrouded skull now loomed forward, and its eyes caught fire. A cloud of freezing air blasted into her face and knocked Sorcha back a step.
The burning skull under the hooded cloak snarled, its teeth snapping as its hand of bone reached for her. Sorcha spun away and summoned Yevah from her Gauntlet. The shield of fire leapt between them, giving her a moment to breathe.
Raising her Gauntlets, she next called the rune Tryrei. Opening up a tiny pinhole to the Otherside would draw away the power of the geist and send it back where it belonged.
Opening even a tiny crack to that place hurt. The sound of the hungry void was like a thousand screaming voices, calling for love, friends, life. It was a noise that would have driven a normal human insane, but a Deacon was trained and honed to not bend in the face of the undead. Sorcha stood before it, hands spread, directing the anger of the Otherside toward the spectyr.
Yet, it did not succumb but rather elongated. It came at her still, stretched and spinning, the white bones of its fingers reaching for her. However, the Otherside continued to exert its pull, and the vengeful geist had nothing to hold it eade human world. It scrambled, it fought, but then the terrible void took it.
Sorcha closed her fist on Tryrei, and the crack was sealed. Just as suddenly as it had come, the terrible noise and fury was gone. The two Deacons stood in the silent warehouse and stared at each other, not even panting.
“Nynnia was here.” Sorcha took a deep breath. “She used that last spectyr to send us a message.”
Her partner’s deep brown eyes studied her for a minute. The Bond between them was stronger than any normal Deacon pairing—she had no doubt Merrick had seen a portion of what she had.
Carefully Sorcha removed her Gauntlets, folded them up, and took out the remains of her cigar. The sole window in the warehouse attic looked over the mercantile quarter and toward the Imperial Palace.
Merrick stood beside her, by now used to her smoking and her silences. For a young man he was very good at being still. He was well aware of his partner’s feelings for the Young Pretender but also of the bind they were in. Even in the best of times no Deacon was a free agent. And these were not the best of times, for Arch Abbot Rictun had them under close observation. He would never let them leave Vermillion.
Sorcha inhaled the smoke, letting it sit heavy in her mouth for a moment before exhaling it toward the window. She was trying to logically assess the situation, but each time she did, she saw Raed’s dying gasp. “He’s not dead yet,” she said calmly, “or we would have felt it.” An attempt to control the Beast inside the Young Pretender had also ended up binding the two Deacons to the fugitive—a triple Bond.
“It could be a trap,” Merrick replied softly, pulling his cloak around him.
“Yes.” She blew a smoke ring. “It very well could be. Yet—”
“—apparently we have allies on the Otherside.” Her partner glanced up and then away. Nynnia had undoubtedly been more than human, but neither of them had expected to hear from her after death.
Sorcha examined the glowing tip of her cigar. “But we don’t know what her nature really is. Quite a bit to hang our future on, don’t you think?”
“Raed is our friend . . . more than that.” Merrick’s mind reached out, tugging on the Bond like a boy might pull on a fence wire to test its strength. The part between them sang, and there was
a distant whisper of the one between them and the Young Pretender.
Sorcha had made the Bond in haste, but none of them had been able to cut it. Wordlessly, both Deacons reached out for the Young Pretender, searching for the connection they had spent the last three months denying. He was out there somewhere—they could tell that—but too far for them to sense very much else.
“I saw them kill him, Merrick.” Sorcha turned to her partner, her blue eyes gleaming in the half-light. “We can’t let that happen—even if it is a trap.”
He sighed, looked up at the ceiling as if searching for answers from some uncaring little god. But when he looked back, on his lips was a wry smile. “No—you’re right—we can’t. The trick of it though will be getting the Arch Abbot to agree to us leaving.”
Sorcha’s expression was amused as she knocked the end off her cigar to save for another occasion. “We’ve spent long enough playing by Rictun’s rules. There’s no fun in it anymore.”
Her partner’s reaction was a slightly nervous laugh—but he didn’t for one second try to stop her. Sorcha knew it was another reason she liked the boy.
THREE
The Bonds of Duty
The instant a drunk sailor grabbed the quartermaster’s behind and then pulled her into his lap, Raed knew there would be trouble. Laython was a kindly sort of woman, but she only liked to be manhandled by those she knew.
Her scarred hand grabbed up the nearest object, in this case a full mug of ale, and smashed it against the offending sailor’s head. The crew of the Dominion leapt from their chairs and rushed to the aid of their companion.
Raed, who had long been without a decent brawl, joined them. He might be the Young Pretender to the throne, with a royal lineage going back to before the Break, but he was not the sort to put himself above his crew.
The wharf-side bar was packed with more than three ships’ complements, and since night had fallen they’d all been waiting for a moment to get some trouble started. Before he knew it, Raed was in among the swinging, swearing mass of sailors, giving just as much he got. He was splashed with a goodly amount of ale but found he was grinning.
Looking almost haughty, his very tall first mate pulled a red-faced man off Raed. It had crossed the Young Pretender’s mind more than once that Aachon should have been born the Prince—not he.
“Is this not, perhaps, an inappropriate pastime for you, my—” The first mate paused and managed to stop himself before his said “Prince.” “My captain?”
Raed took the offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. “We’re in a rough, isolated little port town—what else is there to do?”
He caught a glimpse of Aachon’s dark eyebrows drawing together into a dire expression but then found himself whirled away by another opponent. Raed grappled with him, getting in a few good punches, before the larger man tossed him through the pub’s window.
Luckily, this particular establishment was not exclusive enough to afford glass, and Raed sailed through where it would have been, only catching his shoulder against the shutters. He landed on the ground, had the breath knocked out of him, and lay there for a second. Slightly dazed, he contemplated when he’d last felt this unfettered.
Before he had met the Deacons Sorcha Faris and Merrick Chambers, he had spent very little time on dry land. The Beast inside him was triggered by the nearness of other geists, and so he had spent his life on the open sea. Until that safety too was denied him. So, indeed, it had been a very long time.
When Aachon flew through the window and nearly landed atop him, Raed couldn’t help bursting into real laughter. It must have taken at least three men to sling the first mate in such a way. As Raed pushed him off his chest, he was reminded of his friend’s considerable weight.
He was just about to commiserate with Aachon, when he realized that a pair of fine boots were standing only a few inches from their heads. Cautiously he rolled onto his side and looked up at their owner.
And there she was. Captain Tangyre Greene looked down at him with an odd sort of smile tugging the corner of her lips. She was older than the last time they had talked, though her hair had always been gray, and the long scar on the right side er face earned in the service of the Unsung was as deep as ever.
“Tang!” Raed bounded to his feet. “You remember my first mate, Aachon?”
The brawl inside was reaching some kind of crescendo, and another body was tossed through the window. Laython landed nearby, cursing through her split lip.
“Oh, and my quartermaster.”
“Still the same old Raed.” Tangyre dusted off Raed’s shoulders. “But I am surprised with you, Aachon—how can you let your captain get into such antics?”
“Even I cannot perform miracles, Captain Greene.” The first mate rolled to his feet. Behind them the noise in the pub had died down, and all that could be heard were the cheers of the Dominion crew. Now they would be spending their hardearned coin on buying drinks for their opponents. Laython shot a glance between her captain and this newcomer and then strode back into the pub. A fresh chorus from the sailors revealed they fully expected her to buy them all a round.
Raed and Aachon did not join them. Instead, the Young Pretender clapped Tangyre in a tight embrace. She had been one of the few officers in the Unsung’s forces who had treated a young Prince like a friend rather than a royal. “Wonderful to see you again, Tang. What brings you from the Isles?”
She pulled back, and the hint of a smile on her lips faded. Suddenly Raed knew that her arrival was more than coincidence. “My Prince”—she seldom called him that, and his stomach lurched appropriately—“if only I could come on the wings of better news.” From her belt she produced a folded missive and held it out to him like it was poisoned.
Raed took the piece of vellum with his father’s seal on it from her extended fingers. That piece of wax said the Unsung was still alive—so there could be only one other person who could bring Tangyre so far.
His hands were sweating as he snapped the seal and read what was written there. Even in panic and loss, his father wrote long and florid passages. His son found himself scanning down the letter to get to the real story as quickly as possible.
The raiders came in the middle of a storm—they took Fraine. You have brought attention to our family after so many years of peace. This is all your fault.
“I am sorry, Raed.” Tangyre touched his shoulder and squeezed.
A wave of numbness passed through him as he recalled his sister’s curls and deep blue eyes. She was fifteen years younger than he—a product of their parents’ reunion after years of separation. He remembered carrying her on his shoulders when he’d been home between sea battles.
All this was naturally before the Rossin’s Curse came to fruition and their mother was killed under its claws. Fraine had been so sweet, yet with a streak of genuine stubbornness that was required of anyone bearing the name of Rossin.
His sister’s existence was the one reason Raed had not taken his own life in the terrible dark times after their mother had been slain by the geistlord inside him. Like he, his sister had been born outside of Vermillion, and therefore if he were to die, the Curse that plagued their family would fall on her next.
Now Raed feared that his father was right. He had opened the door when he’d gone into Vermillion. Their enemies had almost forgotten that the Rossin line still existed. Even the Emperor.
Tangyre’s hand tightened on his shoulder. She smelled of sea salt and leather armor.
“How hard did the old bastard try to get her back?” Raed was fully aware his voice cracked with anger and guilt.
Tangyre stiffened. “It wasn’t his fault; there was a storm and—”
“He should have sailed through it!” he snapped, yanking his shoulder back out of her grip. “He should have chased them to the Otherside if necessary!”
“Your father is far too sick to take to ship,” Tangyre replied, “but he sent all those at his disposal to get your sister back. We los
t four in the storm, and the scum still outdistanced us. Once they reached Imperial waters they went up the Saal River—and that was as far as we could go without frigates.” She looked him in the eye defiantly. “Having our ships blown out of the water by the Imperial fleet would not get Fraine back.”
For an instant Raed wanted to scream that she’d been a coward, that they should have followed his sister down to the last man—but then logic washed over him. He nodded stiffly. “So how did you find me?”
The corner of Tang’s lips twisted in an ironic smile. “I still have plenty of contacts on the mainland. I took a guess that reports of a Pretender to the throne along the coast of Gallion pertained to you.”
Though she was a friend, Raed did not like the idea of anyone being able to track him so easily. To mask it he replied swiftly, “So you brought Gullwing? ”
Captain Greene turned and pointed toward the ships moored at the jetty, bobbing under the light of a full moon. Dominion was as identifiable as his own hand, but also now he could make out another familiar shape tied next to it.
He had many fond memories of running the deck of this sloop as a child. She might be one of the older ships left to them, but she was also light, fast, and often carried the word of the Unsung from the Coronet Isles. In the last few decades, though, there had been precious use for that to be transmitted anywhere.
“She is my ship now,” Tangyre replied, “and one of only three others to survive the storm.”
The two captains, trailed by the still-wary Aachon, walked back toward the jetty. Tangyre ran her eye over the Dominion. “However, you look in good order.”
“Not good enough to take on the whole Empire”—Raed stroked his short beard—“so you best tell me what you know.”
“Our informants tell us only that the ship sailed up the Saal—but from there, the trail runs cold.” Tangyre tucked her thumbs into her belt. “Your father asks you to follow.”
Had the Unsung really thought he wouldn’t? Raed managed not to take his anger out on Tangyre; she was but the messenger. “You may tell him I will find her.”
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