Fallon’s spirit shrieked in helpless rage as the orbital strike enveloped the building’s northwest corner, where his soul’s true house resided, mere inches from his host’s feet. The black mist that had frozen Teg’s soul burned away, leaving him blessedly alone in his head. He rejoiced at his newfound freedom and his most satisfying kill to date.
But only in the second before he hit the pavement.
40
Nakvin stared across green hills to the war raging below Seele’s western slopes. Even at this distance, the drydock built into the hill where the Exodus had crashed afforded a panoramic view of the battle for her kingdom.
This used to be my kingdom, she corrected herself. And the admission was like a shard of ice piercing her heart. The numbing cold was a relief compared to her anguish over Elena.
A winged shadow fell from the sky over Seele. Standing behind Nakvin, Zebel clicked her tongue.
“Shaiel’s Will met his match,” Zebel said. “I warned Fallon about his pride. Of course, that’s the trouble with prideful people. They don’t listen.”
Nakvin noted her father’s hypocrisy with a rueful laugh but said nothing. Zebel had fooled and betrayed her, striking down Elena and giving Shaiel free entry into Avalon. Far more humiliating than the political coup she’d achieved were the deep emotional wounds she’d inflicted.
Now the two of them stood atop an observation tower atop the drydock. The round building’s roof was sheltered under a domed canopy supported by four fluted pillars. Nakvin was sure that Zebel had chosen this spot because it allowed her to watch Seele’s destruction in safety.
And she’d brought Nakvin to make her watch, too.
Nakvin rounded on her father. Zebel still looked like a mirror image of her, but with folded black wings. The former baalah had discarded Jaren’s uniform jacket and Worked the rest of his clothes into a diaphanous light green shift that left disturbingly little to the imagination.
“Since you’re in a gloating mood,” Nakvin said, “tell me what you did with Jaren.”
Zebel smiled, exposing a pair of small fangs. Her silver eyes glinted. “There was nothing to be done. Our dear Captain Peregrine blew himself to atoms at Tzimtzum.” Her expression soured. “I’m the one who suffered! Every second on that rusted tub with those unwashed Nesshin was worse than an eternity in hell.”
“So Elena and Astlin couldn’t read you telepathically because you have no soul,” Nakvin mocked.
Zebel tossed her loose black hair and sniffed. “Your socially stunted daughter and her dimwitted friend simply failed to comprehend what is beyond their experience. Those Anomian locusts lack souls, and none of them could have used the partitioning rod. Few besides me can wield it well enough to cleave the soul of a goddess!”
“Then what are you?” Nakvin asked.
“Your own stake in the matter no doubt drives your curiosity,” said Zebel.
Nakvin crossed her arms. “And your vanity drives you to answer. You couldn’t resist bragging now if you wanted to.”
“Trying to regain a semblance of control?” Zebel smirked. “You can do nothing but play your assigned role in the paroxysms to come, just as I can only follow my nature. My body and soul are one, a composite formed by the Nahash himself to advance his inevitable triumph.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be Shaiel’s Right Hand?” asked Nakvin. “Vaun won’t be happy about your divided loyalties.”
Zebel laughed. “Shaiel fancies himself the Lord of the Void. He’s just an upstart who will presently be shown his place.”
The tower shook. Nakvin braced herself against a pillar to keep from toppling over the edge. The clouds above Seele parted, forming a blue circle in the grey sky. Dread unlike any Nakvin had known clutched her heart.
“Behold!” Zebel exulted. “I succeed where all failed before me. Thera has awakened!”
Elena, was Nakvin’s only thought as her last spark of hope died.
“Come, daughter,” said Zebel. “We will aid Thera in slaying Shaiel and casting down Zadok. Fulfill the end for which you were made, alongside your issue and your sire!”
Nakvin’s heartbreak fed her rage as she spun to face Zebel and began the motions of the Steersman’s Compass.
Zebel shook her head. “You would vent your anger on me? It will profit you not at all. I am nothing. You are less than nothing, and your feckless grandson is nothing’s pale shadow! I know you, daughter. All your long life, you have lusted for acceptance; for family. You cannot raise your hand to your father.”
Nakvin’s hands fell to her sides; not just because Zebel’s words rang true, but because while Nakvin was fashioning Tefler had strode up the tower steps to stand behind his great-grandfather.
“Grandma’s got a soft spot for you,” Tefler said.
Zebel rounded on her great-grandson just before he ran her through with a shadow sword.
Tefler’s left hand twisted the blade. “I don’t have her inhibitions.”
Zebel looked down at the grey scimitar piercing her stomach and chuckled. “I am no shard of a stumbled angel cloaked in tarnished light! That blade bears the breath of my father. It cannot slay me.”
Tefler’s face was emotionless as he raised his right hand. A nimbus of prana covered his fist, which was closed around the hilt of a mirrored white scimitar.
“This can,” he said.
Zebel fought to pull free of the grey sword that had impaled her, but its white twin severed the head from her shoulders, cutting short her final scream. Her decapitated corpse slumped to the floor. A second later, so did Nakvin.
There was only the hard stone beneath her and the hard vacuum where her heart had been. Then someone helped her sit up. He was wearing armor and had light brown hair and strange eyes. Nakvin knew him. He was one of the last family members she had left.
“Tefler?”
“Yeah,” he said. She smelled machine oil and blood as he leaned closer.
“What are you doing here?” asked Nakvin.
“I was down at the dock helping them make repairs to the Serapis.” Tefler raised the mirrored white blade. “Found this in the hangar. Xander wanted Cook to have it, but he’s dead, so I figured—”
Nakvin’s reeling mind didn’t register the rest of what he said. “How did you know about Zebel?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” Tefler admitted. “I wanted to get Jaren’s opinion on recalibrating the drum turrets, but I couldn’t raise him via sending. So I followed the Void thread tied to his rodcaster.”
Nakvin stared at the jacket that lay beside the stairs. The butt of a large gun peeked out from under the dark green fabric.
“Void thread?” she repeated.
Tefler helped her up. “A little trick I learned while poking around the local ruins,” he said. “A rodcaster can shoot down a small ship. I’m not handing out firepower like that without keeping tabs on it.”
“Oh,” said Nakvin.
“Where is Jaren, anyway?” Tefler asked.
Nakvin faltered under a sudden weight. Tefler kept her from falling.
“Zebel…” she began to say. But fear and revulsion twisted her words, which emerged as a near-whisper. “Zebel killed him.”
Tefler squeezed her shoulder. “Sorry.”
“So am I,” she breathed.
The light of a hundred suns shone from behind Nakvin, which was unusual because Avalon didn’t even have one. She turned and felt a hot breeze on her face as a loud rumbling emanated from a dome of blinding white light on Seele’s west face.
“That much prana could run a city for a year,” Tefler said. “Or kill one instantly.”
“I think Elena just did,” said Nakvin.
Astlin fought at the head of Avalon’s army beside Xander, Anris, and Jarsaal. Though reinforced by the north and south divisions, the Gen were still outnumbered since the enemy had been reinforced by their own dead.
Both sides’ formations had broken down, leaving two wide chaotic lines shooting at, char
ging, and retreating from each other. Gen and Cadrisian soldiers traded gunfire. Greycloak swords cast living shadows that froze their victims where they stood. Faerda’s Chosen fought Isnashi tooth and claw.
Alongside Xander, Astlin cowed the enemy with her light while Anris cut men down with his scythelike sword. At the same time, Astlin’s spear flashed across the field and returned to her hand, sending a soul to the Void with each throw. The enemy answered with a hail of bullets, but the wall of nexic force that Xander projected before the vanguard turned every shot.
Jarsaal thrust at the enemy with his own wooden spear, and the prana he channeled was a godsend against undead soldiers who proved harder to kill a second time. The White Well’s light burned them to the bone on contact, and bursts of white radiance scattered across the battlefield marked the presence of Dawn Gen priests.
Astlin’s spirits rose when she saw that the enemy line was about to break. Only a force of undead soldiers—identified by their grisly wounds—stood in the way.
Looking for Jarsaal, Astlin caught a white flash off to her right.
Too far off, she realized. Jarsaal had broken off to aid a fellow shaman who’d been overwhelmed by greycloaks. The shades bound to their grey scimitars swarmed over the surrounded priest, preventing him from summoning the Well’s light.
Jarsaal fought his way to the fallen shaman’s side and erased the shadows with a prana burst. He was checking the motionless priest when a loud crack rang out and Jarsaal fell to one knee.
“Xander!” shouted Astlin. “Jarsaal’s hit. Can you shield him?”
“Not without exposing us,” Xander said grimly.
Astlin scoured the enemy line and saw a Cadrisian in the distance aiming at the Dawn Gen. She threw so hard that her arm throbbed and went numb, but her burning spear struck the ground in front of the gunman.
The spear faded from the ground up and reformed in Astlin’s hand. The Cadrisian was beyond the reach of her weapon, but not of her mind. Luckily, almost getting skewered by fiery missile had distracted him, giving Astlin just enough time to invade his thoughts. His next shot blew off the top of his own head.
Forcing a man to kill himself twisted Astlin’s stomach in knots. She took little comfort from knowing that he’d get back up in a minute or two.
Jarsaal was limping away from the shaman he’d sadly failed to save. The greycloaks were closing in, and Jarsaal’s body compacted itself into the form of a lean but still wounded wolf. Surrounded, he ran straight toward a shocked Lawbringer and leapt.
A dark grey shape sprang from the melee to Jarsaal’s right, taking him in midair and driving him to the ground. Jarsaal wrestled with the Isnashi, but the larger, unwounded wolf pinned him down as the Lawbringers closed in.
Astlin struggled to cast her will over the Isnashi and the circle of greycloaks, but she was still shaken from her last telepathic attack. Two greycloaks escaped her mental net and ran their curved blades through the injured wolf. Its corpse reverted to a Gen clad in hides with brightly painted beads in his hair.
A deafening roar and searing radiance interrupted Astlin’s grief-stricken cry. Shaiel’s army stared in helpless awe at the terrible light on the hill.
Astlin turned with all of her comrades to see that an entire town had vanished in a sudden whiteout. The light soon faded, leaving the hamlet apparently untouched.
Astlin had no trouble picturing her destination on the slopes above. The town that had been deluged with prana was the same one she’d searched for survivors.
Appearing in a narrow lane beside Xander, Astlin saw that the buildings and streets were undamaged, though the cobblestones were hot beneath her feet. But something immediately struck her as wrong, and a moment later she realized what it was.
Gen architecture was airy and lively, designed to stand in harmony with its surroundings. Astlin noticed with a start that the oaks and willows that the buildings had complimented were gone. Shrubs and even grass had left bare soil in their place. Looking at the town now was like hearing a lone instrument play a song written for a full orchestra.
“Everything living is gone,” said Xander.
His words revealed the true horror that Astlin had hidden from herself. She sent her will out over the village as she had before, listening for the thoughts of living minds.
Her blood ran cold when she realized there was nothing to hear.
“There were hundreds of people here less than an hour ago,” she said. “Now there’s no one left.”
A tremor passed through the street. Chimes hung from houses’ eaves jangled, and clay pots that had survived the death of their flowers crashed to the pavement.
“Perhaps we are not entirely alone,” Xander said.
The quake had come from the public square. Astlin’s mind found the small common with its pavilion of wood and old stones just as empty as the rest of town.
No, that wasn’t quite true. There was a deeper emptiness in the hamlet’s heart; a lack so profound that it took on a being of its own.
Astlin shared her mental image of the square with Xander, and they were there. For a second time, though, the reality differed from Astlin’s memory.
The delicate seashell-like roof had been blown from the pavilion and scattered across the square. Now the age-old stones stood free, like rotted teeth biting through the ground.
A solitary figure waited just outside the ring. Light brown hair fell in waves to the small of her back, and white skirts descended from there to the ground. Her white-sleeved arms were stretched out in front of her as if to embrace the ancient circle.
“Elena!” Astlin called out.
Elena’s head turned, and Astlin’s breath caught in her throat. Bright gold eyes gleamed with cold contempt in place of the goddess’ strange but mindful rose-colored irises. Without a word, she faced the ring of standing stones once more.
“What is wrong with her?” Xander asked.
Astlin tried a second time to reach Elena’s mind. Once again, she found only a glaring absence.
“I don’t know,” Astlin said. “Elena’s always been strong enough to shut me out, but whenever I tried to make telepathic contact with her, I always had a weird sense of thinking to myself. That’s gone now.”
The sharp crack of splitting stone rang out from the center of the circle like a call to silence. The pavement encircled by the ring crumbled and sank as the ground shook.
A shadow passing overhead drew Astlin’s attention to a winged form descending toward the square like a falling star.
“It’s Anris,” she said.
Xander looked up. “If he has left the battle, whatever’s happened to Elena is far worse than we thought.”
Anris landed on his feet between Elena and the Zadokim. The malakh still wore his torn leather armor, and he sported fresh wounds from the continuing battle on the field below.
“I have dire news from Tefler,” he said. “Zebel used the rod of partition on Elena. Her soul has truly become Thera’s!”
Shock stole Astlin’s words.
“So that is how Shaiel opened the gate,” said Xander. “Thera betrayed us to her brother.”
“If only that was the worst of it.” Anris took a step toward Elena. “Lady Thera, cease this destruction, I beg you!”
Elena lowered her arms but didn’t turn around. “Who invokes my name?” she asked in a soft, distant voice. “Are you my father, that you dare bid me cease the work for which I was made?”
Anris’ jaw clenched, and his purple face paled.
“Knowing what befell her father, I would tread lightly,” Xander said
“If you know what she’s doing,” Astlin said to Anris, “tell us. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”
Astlin had never seen fear in Anris’ eyes—not during her training, not when he led his men in battle, and not when he’d fought Shaiel’s Will. She saw it now, as he stared at the collapsing ground within the ring of stones.
“You know that Zadok devised this cosmos as
a contest between good and evil?” the malakh said.
“We discussed the subject with him at some length,” said Xander.
Anris went on. “The Righteous One pooled his own life force into the White Well, yet he lacked a comparable source of evil to fill the Void.”
“Doesn’t prana turn into Void after it’s used up in the Strata?” asked Astlin.
“Yes,” Anris said, “but a force was needed to draw down the light, like a black hole’s gravity. Without such a force, all prana would remain locked in the Well. The Strata would not have formed, and there would be no life.”
Xander asked the question that now chilled Astlin. “Where did Zadok find such a power?”
The ground shook again, and the hole deepened beyond sight.
“Your crowns reflect perfect light from the world beyond,” said Anris. “There, evil is not a substance; merely a shadow cast in the light’s absence. Zadok envisioned a world where evil would have its own being, and so he thought, could be destroyed. Thus he built his ideal order where the shadow lay deepest.”
A tremor from far below the hill signaled a gust of bitter cold air that flowed out between the standing stones.
Astlin shivered. “Where is the deepest shadow?”
“The prison of the Nahash,” Anris said somberly. “The Serpent who deceived the world beyond lies bound beneath our own. These standing stones, which are scattered throughout hell, were raised by its Builders. They are supports touching hell’s foundation in the Ninth Circle—the roof of the Serpent’s cell. And Thera is delving into it.”
How can we stop a god?
Astlin racked her brain for an answer. Something that Shaiel’s Will and Anris had said came back to her. They’d called the light that she and Xander reflected crowns, and it was true that they granted certain authority in Zadok’s world.
Astlin made a leap of faith. “Try willing the hole closed,” she told Xander. “We might be able to reweave Avalon like Nakvin can.”
The Secret Kings Page 35
