Inkmistress

by Audrey Coulthurst

  And then I remembered what spirit users could do: give other people emotions and feelings that didn’t belong to them. All Ina’s worst fears were coming to life inside her mind. Raisa was not a fighter with weapons, but with emotions.

  At first, Ina shrank back, but as soon as she realized she couldn’t escape the illusions Raisa had woven into her mind, her fury boiled over. She thundered around the ring, roaring, shooting out random bursts of flame. The audience shrank back from the edge, some of them only narrowly avoiding incineration. Raisa wove a spell around herself like a luminous golden shield, separating herself into two people, then three, then four. The illusions kept splitting until a dozen of her circled Ina.

  Would Nismae do her part to stop this?

  Ina turned in a panicked circle in the middle of the arena, then leaped into the sky. All the Raisas raised their hands, and Ina crashed to the ground as her equilibrium was thrown off by Raisa’s spell. Then the illusions closed in.

  The crowd surged to its feet. This had never been how we expected this battle to end, with Ina cowering in the center of the ring, keening from the psychological torture wrought on her by a person centuries older than her. Only Ina’s tail twitched, sweeping through one of the illusions, and then her head snapped up. Something about the feel of the magic as her tail passed through it must have reminded her of the Sight. One of my gifts. A gift she could now use thanks to my blood.

  She caught Nismae’s eye, and one of the streaks of blood painted on her face lit up with magic. With growing horror I watched it glow more and more brightly, saw Ina begin to distinguish reality from illusion. Perhaps I had underestimated Nismae’s skill and power. She seemed to be using the strength of Ina’s fire magic to give more power to the enchantments she’d set with my blood.

  With an unfamiliar gift like Ina’s, there was no way to know how much energy she’d have left to use against the king. How deep did that well run? Would I be able to help him enough to hold them off? And did I even want to after what he’d done? I tried to tell myself that anything I did had to be for the best of the kingdom, but if I was honest with myself, all I wanted was the Fatestone and my family. I wanted to take them, run, and never look back.

  The moment Ina locked eyes with the real Raisa, she and Nismae pulled the next of my tricks. In a way that was sickeningly familiar, she began to unthread the magic that held Raisa together. I felt it keenly as she reached in, absorbing the power from Raisa and winding its threads into her own until she glowed more and more brightly in my Sight.

  Watching someone else do it, knowing the gift had been bestowed with my blood, made my stomach turn inside out. At least Leozoar had asked to die.

  As Raisa weakened, so did the illusions, vanishing one by one. The psychological torment must have quieted too, because soon Ina was rising, arching her neck, drinking in Raisa’s magic like it was water. She didn’t even bother going for blood. The audience had already seen enough of that.

  Raisa screamed as her body was stolen from her again, aging back into its previous form and then further, until her skin shrank over her bones, her eyes became empty sockets, and then her bare skeleton crumbled into dust.

  Ina roared in triumph, kicking Raisa’s ashes into the sky, and then making another lap of the ring. The crowd screamed, still on their feet.

  The time had come for Ina to face the king.

  The time had come for me to enter the battle in his support.

  At this point, it was the last thing I wanted to do.

  CHAPTER 37

  THE CROWD TOOK THEIR SEATS BUT RAGED ON AS INA retreated into the challenger’s quarters for her final preparations. I descended from the audience and hovered near the king’s entrance to the coliseum, my nerves jangling as I waited for Ina to return. Cold wind battered me, making the red cloak whip around my ankles.

  Ina emerged still in dragon form, her face painted even more ornately, the enchantments so bright she was hard to look at with my Sight. Then a familiar shape moved into place beside Nismae: Hal. A jolt ran through me, equal parts relief and desperation. What was he doing still over there? I needed to tell him what the king had done. I wanted the security of his hand in mine.

  The people of Zumorda cheered as their king entered the arena, perhaps for him, or perhaps for the hope of his blood being spilled. I was no longer sure which I hoped for. The dragon’s eyes narrowed when she saw the bloody armor, and then she glanced to where I stood. This wasn’t something she’d expected. Her surprise was satisfying, but no match for my despair. I’d helped my betrayer, and it was too late to turn back now. If I did, the kingdom would be destroyed, and there was no guarantee I could get the Fatestone from Ina if she won.

  I had no doubt Nismae would be more than happy to claim the Fatestone as proof of her revenge on the king. And even if she handed it over, my powers would drain away along with the magic as it left Zumorda. I’d have to flee to Havemont, where the gods would still be worshipped and nothing had been done to upset the order of their kingdom.

  Ina reached for the magic of the king’s life force immediately, attempting to rend it into pieces. She tugged at it as if to snap the neck of a small animal. I felt her magic pulling at me, too, but it was easy enough to push it off. The king’s enchantments held strong, and the magic slipped away from her. She couldn’t use my powers against a person enchanted the same way—especially with me at his back.

  The king was slow, but calculating. Ina was fast and filled with fury. Few sounds made it above the shouts of the crowd—the awful sound of teeth on metal when Ina landed a strike, then her roar as he shocked her with lightning that burst from his fingertips, borrowed from the storm clouds brewing on the horizon. Ina retreated, head low, tail whipping.

  I felt every jolt of magic, even the fierce shocks as he drew on the powers of all six gods.

  The king advanced. I saw him try to draw on her magic as she had attempted with him, but the power slipped away. Though she was bigger, he was more experienced at using magic. He also had the gods on his side, and Ina had only Nismae.

  The king took his boar form and charged across the coliseum. The crowd roared incoherently, their screams a demand for blood.

  Ina didn’t keep them waiting.

  She lunged toward him, breathing a storm of fire into the face of the boar. He waited, unperturbed as the flames scudded around a magic shield he threw up as though it was nothing. What he didn’t realize was how Ina had closed in behind the fire until she stood only a pace away from him. The moment the flames subsided and he dropped his shield, she snapped for his neck. He tore away with a squeal and her jaws closed around his shoulder instead. He struck back immediately, attempting to gore her with a tusk.

  I trembled as they fought, unable to do anything to help with the physical aspect of the battle, but still feeling the king’s pain resonate through me. Ina whirled out of reach and reared up on her haunches, never taking her eyes off her prey. The crowd stomped its approval until the earth felt as though it might split in half. In some of the rows near the front, people had begun passing around a container of carmine, painting their cheeks to match the streaks of my blood on Ina’s face.

  There were no words for the depth of my horror at that sight.

  The king returned to his human form to more easily manipulate magic, giving little indication in the way he moved of the deep wound she must have made in his shoulder. I saw it as he turned to the light—the slow drip of blood from beneath the shoulder piece of his armor. Ina saw it too and took her advantage, pressing him back toward her side of the coliseum. He threw up another shield, this one pulsing with red light. Ina’s flame rippled around it, sending smoke into the sky. He was going to need more power to maintain these kinds of shields, much less heal. And more yet to put himself back on the offensive.

  I felt it coming before the king’s magic touched me. He tried to reach through our bonds of blood and drain my magic to use for his own. I whispered a prayer of thanks for my shadow cloak hi
dden beneath the red wool to protect me from that kind of magic. Ina and Nismae were the ones I’d expected to need protection from. Not the king.

  Fury rose, hot in my chest.

  How dare he?

  With the gods to channel and my blood enhancing him, there was no reason to steal my magic unless he wanted me dead.

  Perhaps he did.

  I couldn’t trust him—not when he’d left me for dead in Veric’s tomb and now was trying to end me a different way. I’d already sacrificed enough to help both sides of this battle.

  I wasn’t going to help him anymore.

  I looked around, trying to guess what else he might draw magic from, realizing that only one other person in the entire coliseum glowed brightly in my Sight.

  Hal.

  The king reached for Hal’s power and began to tug.

  “No!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the crowd.

  Wispy threads of magic unwound themselves from Hal as the king drew them in to use as his own. Through my connection with the king, I felt the wound in his shoulder begin to close. Hal stumbled a few steps into the coliseum, like a puppet pulled by strings. Shimmering threads of magic joined the two of them, and the audience gasped in awe. Even the mortals were able to see the transfer of power.

  Nismae sprinted into the arena, and then grabbed Hal in an embrace as though to drag him back into the challenger’s quarters. The moment her arms closed around him, the king’s magic exploded against her iron cuffs. The threads snapped loose and recoiled on both of them, sending a shock all the way back through the king to me. Hal and Nismae fell to the sand, unmoving.

  It took everything I had not to bolt out of the doorway of the king’s side of the coliseum and straight to Hal, but it wasn’t safe. Ina was still on the move. She arched her neck and opened her wings, roaring with fury, falling on the king more savagely than ever.

  Even with Ina’s rage fueling her, the king had drawn enough power from Hal that he was not going to be easy to destroy. He nimbly shielded himself from her and flung magic back into her face, battering her until she slunk backward around the edge of the ring. He was playing with her like a toy. Nismae’s enchantments on Ina had weakened or broken. She had to be unconscious, if not close to death, for that to happen. My heart pounded with fear for Hal. I only knew he was still alive thanks to his aura in my Sight, but it was weak. Too weak.

  The entire audience was on their feet again, the floor trembling as they stomped.

  It seemed the king was going to defeat a dragon—something unheard of.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  The king disgusted me. He’d used me; Nismae had been right. He only cared about himself. In the space of two days he’d shown willingness to sacrifice me for his cause, and now Hal. Neither of us had ever done anything but support him.

  The time for loyalty was over—I had no one to be loyal to but my family and myself. I knew what I had to do to save Hal—and my kingdom.

  I needed Ina to win.

  As volatile and dangerous as she was, she wasn’t as selfish as the king. A chance of recovering the Fatestone from Ina was worth avoiding letting the king achieve his goal of virtual immortality. If the kingdom was destroyed in a few days by Ina’s win, I could run for Havemont and rewrite it. If the king had the Fatestone and destroyed the kingdom over a hundred years or more . . . that future was far too vast to tame and shape.

  First I broke all the enchantments on the king. A few murmured words and the magic faded, leaving him painted with nothing but ordinary blood. The only sign that he felt it was the way he paused in his advance on Ina, just for a heartbeat. He believed he’d already won. He still had the power of the gods, and he switched to channeling theirs with barely any sign that I’d inconvenienced him. My blood was of help to him, but not a necessity.

  He wasn’t counting on what else I was willing to do to take him down.

  I pushed past my exhaustion and reached for the dark river of my magic. I let it flood through me and sent questing tendrils out toward the king. He was so absorbed in sending waves of water crashing over Ina to douse her fire magic that he didn’t notice me. I didn’t touch the magic of the gods, but instead wove my power through the very magic that gave him life.

  Then I pulled. Hard.

  That stopped him in his tracks.

  Ina raised her head. She knew something had changed. The predatory gleam in her eye was back, and she wasn’t going to waste an opportunity.

  I waited to feel guilty, but the feeling didn’t come. All that came was a rush of energy flooding in as I stole it from the king, making me feel more alive than I had in weeks.

  His face contorted in fear as Ina slammed him to the ground. She tore off his armor piece by piece, giving the audience time to crescendo into a deafening roar.

  Between me and Ina, the king was helpless, pinned to the ground with nothing between him and death but cloth and leather. Ina slowly dug in the claws resting on his chest. The king’s scream rose to join that of the rest of the crowd.

  Ina’s fangs closed around his throat to choke off the sound. She tore out his windpipe, spattering her white scales with his blood. A pool of red spread beneath him.

  Zumorda had its new queen.

  CHAPTER 38

  I IGNORED THE OVERWHELMING SHOUTS OF THE CROWD and ran into the combat arena.

  My focus was singular: I had to get the Fatestone.

  Ina still stood over the king’s body, both of them now in human form.

  When she saw me coming, she stepped in front of his body like an animal defending her kill. Then she saw where my focus lay. She bent down and tugged the golden ring from his finger.

  I came to a stop before her, staring her down in a way I’d never done before. My place had always been to accommodate her, to please her, to love her.

  My days of subservience were over.

  “Give me the ring!” My voice cut through the roar of the audience.

  Ina behaved as if I hadn’t spoken. She cast a nervous glance at Nismae, who still lay in the sand, unmoving. Hal wasn’t far from Nismae, but I could still sense the brightness of his life force in spite of what the king had drained.

  “I just helped you win the crown,” I said. “Give me that ring.”

  “You did that?” Ina hesitated. She had to have sensed the transference of power. It was too big to ignore if she had the Sight activated at all, and I knew she had.

  I was out of patience, and power still coursed through me. “I did it to him and I’ll do it to you if you don’t give me that ring right now.” I let my magic slip into hers and tugged just enough to be a warning.

  She fell to her knees. The audience gasped to see their new queen on the ground.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I must,” I said. She undoubtedly knew how priceless the Fatestone was, but not necessarily what it would allow me to do or how badly I needed it.

  Her gaze flickered to Nismae. Worry creased her brow.

  “Only if you agree to help Nismae,” Ina said, raising her chin. Her eyes flashed in a way that once would have frightened me.

  “You’re in no position to bargain with a daughter of the shadow god,” I said.

  Ina’s eyes widened. She only knew the version of my story that had long since been proven untrue.

  “Demigod or not, I’m still your queen.” She didn’t back down, even on her knees.

  I crouched beside her. “Queen or not, I can tear you apart.”

  Our eyes locked.

  “I’d like to see you try,” she said, but her voice faltered. She was tired from the battle, and maybe she could see the truth in my eyes—that I no longer loved her like I had back home.

  “Give me the ring and you’ll have your crown.” I held out my hand.

  She pulled off the ring and threw it into the dirt, then scrambled to her feet and fled toward Nismae.

  I snatched the ring and put it back on my finger.

  Hal.

 
I hurried to where he lay.

  “Hal,” I cried, checking for a heartbeat. It was faint, but it was there. Without hesitation I threw most of the king’s magic that I’d stolen into him. Power flooded through him, pulsing and twisting wildly until the glow of his energy brightened in my Sight.

  His eyes flew open and he sat up, gasping for breath.

  I threw my arms around him, so grateful that he was all right.

  “Nismae doesn’t have the Fatestone,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” I murmured, burying my face in his neck. “I got it.”

  He kissed me softly and then looked to where his sister lay.

  “Oh no,” he said, scrambling through the sand to her side.

  Ina fixed him with a look fierce enough to melt rock, but he paid her no mind.

  Hal checked Nismae’s pulse and listened for breath.

  “She’s barely breathing,” he said. “She’s going to die all because she saved me. Oh gods . . .”

  His pain cut through me as Ina’s once might have. I wanted to help Hal. But Nismae had never done me a single kindness, unless not killing me counted. But she’d saved someone I loved.

  “Do something!” Ina looked at me. “You fixed him. Now fix her!”

  On the far side of the coliseum, a palace attendant was approaching with the crown in his hands.

  “I can’t do this without you,” Ina whispered to Nismae.

  Hal hung his head.

  Their combined suffering was too much. I poured the last of the king’s magic into Nismae.

  A few moments later she coughed weakly.

  “Nis!” Ina said, hugging Nismae as she sat up. “Oh, thank the gods.”

  “My blade is yours, Invasya. So are my scrolls. Now and always,” she said, her voice gravelly.

  Ina’s eyes softened and a shaky smile came over her face as she looked at Nismae in a way she’d never looked at me. Nismae gazed back with equal intensity in spite of her weakened state. What passed between them in that moment—I couldn’t help but notice it looked a little bit like love.

  “We need to go right now,” I said to Hal.