She slammed into Meylnara, and they tumbled over rotting logs and ferns. Scrambling atop the other woman, Vic pinned her between her knees. Woern surged through Vic’s nerves and blood, and she called upon the wrath that had brought down a mountain. No matter what vessel contained Meylnara’s essence, she still could not live without a head. Meylnara kicked and clawed the dirt, her face bent round a twisted screech. Power thrumming, Vic gripped the other woman’s crown and jaw and twisted. Electricity blasted her. Her vision went white, her ears filled with crackling, and ribbons of searing pain raced along her bones and muscles. Shrieking, she pulled away, but her hands were glued to Meylnara’s skin. They screamed together until something yanked Vic loose and flung her into the bracken.
A sea of black-striped rings, zigzagged circles filled her vision, blooming against a white background. Blinking fast, she shook her head like a wet cat. Her gut turned over, and vomit surged out, a hot, foul mess. The crackling in her ears slowly faded into clicks, scrapes, and keening all around them. And Bethniel, speaking aloud in a voice hard and clear as crystal: “Do you accept my challenge?”
“You cannot kill me,” replied Meylnara in her stringy, ill-used voice.
Panting, Vic rubbed her eyes. Pocked with jagged rings, the forest resolved. Meylnara and Bethniel stood in the center of the clearing, each wreathed in blue-hot flame. Vic tried to stagger up, but to move felt like swimming through stone.
Saelbeneth was there, her hand on Samovael’s arm, holding him back. “Do not interfere. This is what must be. The treaty of the First must be upheld.”
“What have the Caleisbahnin to do with this?” Samovael spat.
Saelbeneth didn’t reply. Groaning, Vic pulled at the Woern. Searing fire pounded her skull, and her stomach heaved again onto the grass. Agony robbed her strength, leaving her nothing but a whimpering heap upon the ground.
* * *
Out the corner of her eye, Bethniel glimpses Vic crumple, but her attention is focused on Meylnara. A flood twists down her cheeks, as if all the rain in this forest poured from her eyes. Aside from this passing wonder, she ignores her tears. Blubbering never did anyone any good.
She mounts the dais, lowers her head for Velbaor to place the Ruler’s copper pendant round her neck. Mother, arm in arm with Papa and Nana, smiles proudly. Timny, a handsome youth, kneels so she can designate him Heir until her own children are born. Cimba nudges an elbow into her brother as he rises, and they share a grin. Ashel steps out of the crowd, wearing a Loremaster’s robes, and sings an anthem for her reign, while Vic nuzzles the cheek of a burbling baby.
Thabean, standing beside her, takes her hand.
Lightning bursts, singeing her hair, jarring her spine. She feels no pain, just deepening sadness that all her ambitions must shrink away in the face of this single, utmost duty. She fires a weak stab of energy. Meylnara parries it easily. Bethniel reflects it back at her.
Sunlight shafts through golden leaves. White bark gleams like silver. His fingers squeeze hers, and his lips curve.
“You buried your father here?”
“My mother and I and Vic, with our own hands, like you did for Dealn.”
“I’m sorry I could not meet him.”
She lays a palm on the trunk. “His life is in her now.” A wicked thought pulls a corner of her mouth up. “Remember when you wove that bower for us?”
His eyes pop. “Here? At your father’s grave?”
She laughs. “He won’t mind, and neither will the cerrenil.”
A vise grips her throat. She gulps for air, straining against the hold, and mirrors it around Meylnara’s neck. She can’t let the other woman feel herself weakening from her own attacks. Elesendar, why doesn’t she do something sudden and final? But she suspects the Woern don’t work that way, not in a wizard’s duel. They would keep at this, lightning and fire, choking, battering until one of them dropped from exhaustion. Then it would be done.
She breaks Meylnara’s hold and sucks air into her lungs.
Her chair creaks, the rails squeaking softly against the floorboards. In the corral, the grandchildren take the ponies through their paces, walking, trotting, cantering, in circles.
Thabean clasps her hand. His hair is white. Wrinkles spread over his cheeks and brow. They share a smile, their chairs rocking together, in time.
White fire punches through her. A spear haft juts from her abdomen. Her blood drips from the steel-tipped head. A wild chorus of keening rises, and the ground shakes as Kragnashians melt out of the forest into the clearing, their heads back, antennae waving wildly. Her eyelids droop, and she shakes her head. She wants to speak but has no breath. Meylnara stares at her, eyes stretched, mouth wide around a silent cry of surprise or fear. Bethniel drops to her knees. Meylnara stumbles and falls limp.
Kragnashians emerge from the woods. Moaning, they lift the rogue, holding her gently in their mandibles, and raise her over their heads.
This is the last thing Bethniel sees.
* * *
Beth crumpled.
Howling, Vic scrambled toward her. Lillem pulled his spear through and dropped to his knees, moaning. Charging full tilt, Vic rammed him down onto the grass. She pulled at the Woern to smash him into the sodden earth, but it was like sucking on an empty flask. Head pounding, heart lurching, she rolled off the lieutenant and scooped the princess into her arms.
Keening chorused from the trees, a bleak echo of the wail ripping open her jaws.
“Shield them,” Gustave croaked, his sword pointed at the Kragnashians flooding from the forest. Lillem staggered up, braced the spear haft as Meylnara’s People lifted her. The body hung as slack in their grasp as Bethniel lay in Vic’s. A Caldera warrior leapt forward and snatched Meylnara’s legs. Another grabbed her shoulders, and the pair wrenched away from each other, tearing the woman apart; gore sprayed the clearing.
Vic rubbed the hem of her tunic across Bethniel’s brow, smudging blood and soot. “She can’t look like this.” Desperately, she worked some spit into her mouth, wetted the cloth, and rubbed again. She looked between Gustave and Lillem. “Do you have any water? She hates being dirty.”
A force wrapped around her, freezing her in place. Eyes bulging, the seaman and soldier groaned and strained, but none of them could move.
“Now we’ll deal with this rogue,” Samovael said.
“Let her go,” Saelbeneth ordered. “Victoria shall not trouble us again. Feel her.”
The wizard grabbed Vic’s wrist and flung it aside. “She still deserves to die.”
“She will,” Saelbeneth said. “Leave her, Samovael. You know what will happen.”
Growling, the painting wizard shot into the night.
Vic stared at the Council leader. “What happened?”
“I’m afraid your Woern are dead, Victoria. You should never have grappled with Meylnara. Didn’t Thabean teach you?”
“He did,” she whispered. She hunched over Bethniel, a sob stuck in her throat. Lillem mumbled a tuneless dirge, and desolation pooled in Vic’s limbs. Rain pattered on the leaves above, drumming down through the understory and plinking on Bethniel’s face.
Saelbeneth sighed. “You have done well, Victoria. The forest will survive this day. May you find your way home. Farewell.”
The sob tore its way out, and Vic clutched Bethniel to her chest. You have done well. She did nothing! Saelbeneth’s parting words stung like Bethniel’s. I love you. It was her task, not Beth’s—the task of a killer—not a princess. Not a sister. Failure heaped on failure.
“Madam.” Gustave knelt, his good arm around her shoulders. “In honor of what was, my life and my sword remain yours. Now and always.”
The Caldera Center clicked from the edge of the clearing and flowed forward. “The One has fulfilled her promise,” Gustave translated. “Events have turned about the Fulcrum, and the Sacrifice has been made.”
“I did nothing,” Vic said aloud, half-whimper, half-c
urse. She did not mean him to, but Gustave translated for the Kragnashians, slapping his remaining hand against his thigh.
“The Child is dead. The Fulcrum, the Sacrifice, and the One are one. The promise is fulfilled.” Gustave squeezed Vic’s shoulder. His skin ashen, his eyes gleamed with fever—or hope. “It says it will send us home now.”
Lillem’s dirge trailed into silence, and he placed his hand on Bethniel’s head. Vic jerked her body away from him.
“She died like a queen, marshal.”
“You killed her!” Vic spat.
Lillem winced. “She fulfilled the mission as she and I planned it; it was the only way.”
Gustave nodded, and Vic moaned. She was a soldier—she understood, but it made no difference. Her sister was dead. She pressed her face against Beth’s, growling with frustration and impotence, then threw back her head and howled. “I did nothing!”
The men waited until her sobs faded and shoulders stilled.
“Marshal,” Lillem said softly. “I’ll carry her home, if you’ll let me.”
Taking a deep breath, Vic sat back, laying Beth back on the ground. “Gustave, ask the Kragnashians if they can make a litter for her.” The rain had washed blood and soot from Beth’s face. Vic combed fingers through her hair, taming frizz into curls. Kissing her brow, she finally said words she’d never said to this woman who had been her friend and sister: “I love you.”
Fulfillment
Softly glowing globes staggered across the walls like pearls on a fine dress. The air was cool as a cellar. Startled, Elekia looked up from a flat platform in a strange room at a console studded with many hundreds of knobs and gems and levers. White walls bent around them in irregular curves instead of perfect hexagons. The dais, the ramp leading to the doorway, the Kragnashian who guarded the Device in Direiellene were . . . missing. The fear that had fired her blood during the battle turned to cold dread.
“You’ve never been here before,” Geram said.
“No.” She helped him to his feet. He grimaced and expelled a long, slow breath, working to relax the muscles of his face. His next inhalation stuttered, but his grip was strong as they stepped off the platform, hand in hand.
On tiptoes, she peered over the top of the console. Dozens of blue and green gems shone in the pale light, knobs and levers pulled this way and that. She should have realized there could be more than one master Device—why should the only one be in Direiellene? The consequences of this mistake—bile clambered up her throat. Eyes tearing, she said, “If I can make some sense out of this, we can go back.”
“Wait. I think . . .” He cocked his head. “Ashel is coming. I think he’s coming here.” He drew her away from the console. “The Kragnashians in Traine turned on Parnden and helped Lornk win.”
Her throat closed on gall. “That does not put my mind at ease.”
“They said they ‘fight for Victory.’ They . . .” He shivered. “They touched Ashel. It was . . . disconcerting, but he trusts them.” His grip tightened. “Elesendar, a lot happened while we were . . . in between. I don’t know how long we were there.”
A panel opened in the wall beyond the console, and a Kragnashian wearing a stole of copper fiber ducked inside. “Dealmaker. Slayer. Welcome. We considered keeping you away, but in honor of the One, we will permit you to witness the changing of the world.”
Elekia stared at the creature, dread pebbling her skin. Squaring her shoulders, she replied with staccato claps. “We will not submit to you.”
Eyes whirling red and green, it loomed closer, antennae twitching. “You would have doomed your species.” The antennae came to rest on her forehead, conveying fierce, blood-boiling resentment. Jerking away, she clapped defiance. “You should never have supported Meylnara in her time.”
The Kragnashian reared, eyes turning a fiery yellow. “The Center in Direiellene would have saved the Oppressor. My lineage honors the treaty of the First!”
Elekia’s heart stuttered. “If that is so, why would the Center in Direiellene have given Vic the power to destroy Meylnara?”
The rival Kragnashian’s antennae revolved in slow circles. “Our lineage discovered the One and the Fulcrum in the desert. Our lineage brought them to Direiellene so the Center could not refuse to deliver the Waters of the Dead to the One. The Direiellene lineage would have left the One and Fulcrum lost in the desert. They would have let them die.”
Elekia shook her head. “No. No—you’re lying.” The Direiellene Center had promised to bring her daughters home . . . if she submitted to it. “Where is the Direiellene Center?”
“Dead. The world changes, Dealmaker. The Voice and the Traveler arrive to bear witness.”
Trembling, she shrank back as two hazy forms took shape and solidified. Ashel stepped off the dais, drawing a young woman with him. Elekia remembered her as the Listener whom Bethniel had taken to Olmlablaire.
“Hello, Mother.” Dried blood speckled Ashel’s face. The black stubble covering his chin was threaded with gray. Deep beneath her fear, she felt a terrible sadness for all he’d suffered. More than anything, she wanted to hold and comfort him as she had the night Sashal was murdered, but the pain in his eyes held her at bay. Swallowing, she crossed her arms as two more shapes shimmered on the dais. One was a ragged young stranger. The other was Lornk.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise for me, although I suspect less so for you, Elekia.” His clothes were spattered with blood, and an angry red weal encircled his neck. Yet clean-shaven, with his eyes like ocean depths, he reminded her acutely of the young man she’d loved long ago, not the filthy wretch she had taunted in prison. Cheeks burning, she dug her fingernails into her fists.
Lornk offered a short bow to Geram. “Eminence.”
“Commissar.” His shoulders perfectly squared toward Lornk, Geram returned the bow, making his a hairsbreadth deeper, as a regent ought to a head of state. In all the chaos of her feelings, Elekia felt a flash of pride.
Lornk gestured at the Kragnashian. “May I introduce the Center of the Free Peoples and the descendant of the lineage who will be sending your daughter and Victoria home, if all goes well with History.”
“The world changes,” the Center said. “When the forest of Direiellene was destroyed, the lineages fought over whether we should reclaim the lands given to the humans. Our lineage prevailed, and we destroyed those who would break the promise made to the First. We killed their nymphs and larvae and their egg layers and drones. We made the warriors and workers our slaves, and when they died, we sold their skins and their blood to the humans. That was how much we valued the word given to the First.”
Elekia exchanged bewildered looks with the others.
“It isn’t talking about the Caleisbahn First,” said Geram, voicing their doubts.
“It means Craig Nash,” said the stranger. “He made first contact with the Kragnashians and negotiated landing rights with them.”
“Time passed, and my lineage took up habitation along the borders of this land, and we grew numerous and wealthy through trade with your people. Yet the lineage of the Oppressor remained in the heart of the land, recovering their numbers more slowly, rebuilding the city of Direiellene, and keeping alive the memory of magic by giving the Waters of the Dead to any human who came to them. That was how they honored the bargain of the First. Yet when your people outlawed magic, when the numbers of wizards dwindled to none, the Oppressor’s People began to believe humans could not be trusted to honor their contracts.
“This they did not say openly, for our own lineage still outnumbered them. Yet as the City was rebuilt, and crops were sown inside the domes, and warm-blooded animals were husbanded, the Oppressor’s lineage multiplied and sought to dominate our own. The Concordance is here. The world changes. We must wait to see the outcome.”
The Center ushered them into an antechamber furnished with white cushions, molded out of their larvae’s excretions. One hand pressed to his ribs, Geram sa
t down, and the Listener settled beside him, mumbling, “She lives, she lives.”
“Craig Nash,” Ashel said, a hand on the stranger’s shoulder. “I should have thought of that.”
“I suspect he must have been the first wizard,” said Lornk. “The Logs say he went mad before he died a withering death. Wineyll, what is Victoria doing?”
“She lives.” The young woman drew in a sharp breath. “She knows what to do! She’s going to save the trees.”
Elekia winced. She had no idea what was happening. Her chin high, her eyebrows arched, she projected calm, but inside she quailed with terror. She had made agreements with the wrong Center. How could she not know there was more than one?
Wineyll moaned, and Ashel knelt beside her and clasped her hands. While they conferred in whispers, Elekia looked everywhere but at Lornk.
Screaming, the Listener bolted to her feet, eyes and mouth wide, then collapsed.
The Kragnashian threw back its head, trilling with victory. “The Oppressor is dead! The world changes. Come and behold the changing of the world!”
It flowed out of the room. Leaving the men clustered around the swooning woman, Elekia followed the Kragnashian. A few steps up a sloping passageway, she heard Lornk behind her. His scent stirring old sensations, she did not dare look at him.
The air grew warmer, drier, as they strode uphill, and a hot wind slapped her face when they walked onto a platform jutting out over steeply sloped sands. All across the face of the dune, Kragnashians stood silhouetted at other openings, softly trilling.
Stars flooded the sky. The wind died, and trilling filled the silence, growing louder as clouds spread like ink. Lightning sharp, rain plunged in sheets. A dark smudge appeared, growing larger with each flash, spreading toward the bunker at frightening speed. Puzzled, Elekia stared at the oncoming shadow. “What is it?”
“Our salvation,” replied the Center, its antennae pointing straight up.
“The future,” Lornk added, his voice thick.
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