by Shae Ford
When she passed the main door, she saw it was heavily guarded. There were so many eyes upon it and backs pressed against it that she would’ve never been able to slip through unnoticed. Fortunately, there was another entrance marked on her map.
Elena ducked into a tower to the right of the main door and wound up its narrow flight of stairs. There was a guard stationed before the window, but he didn’t notice her approach … and by the time Shadow touched his throat, it was too late.
Once she’d dragged the guard’s body aside, Elena stepped up to the window. She leaned over the ledge, quickly planning her descent. There were enough holds to carry her safely to the bottom.
Beyond the tower’s base stood another line of guards. She didn’t take the time to count them all, but wagered there weren’t many more than a dozen. They were pressed against the tower, packed together on a slight hill of dry earth.
Everything beyond them was covered in water.
It was like a tempest dropped into the middle of the fortress: thick black clouds swarmed above the western courtyard and beat it mercilessly with a downpour of rain. The rows of barracks were gone, swallowed up by an army of white-capped waves. They pressed the gates and slapped against the walls, rising about a man’s height from their tops.
Debris from the soldiers’ barracks rode across the wastes — their shattered bits jutting out like the spines of creatures lurking beneath the swells. The hill the soldiers stood upon was the last dry strip of land in sight. Their heads moved up and down, cutting between the sky and the row of people at the waters’ edge.
Mages.
Lines of different colored lights arced from the tips of their staffs and into the clouds, where they swirled in a blackened mash. The mages stood in water that came up to their waists. When one of them turned to look down the row, Elena’s chest clenched tightly.
He was a … child. They were all children. Their arms shook as they struggled to hold their spells aloft. The sleeves of their robes slipped back, revealing the iron shackles clamped around their wrists. As the storm raged on, they glanced more frequently down the row — watching the man who stood at their center.
This mage was taller than the rest. The water rose to near the top of his thighs. And instead of a staff, he wore a pair of tight leather gloves.
Jake.
Elena nearly shouted his name. She had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from yelling after him. Jake stood with one hand raised towards the storm, an arc of bright green bursting from his fist — while the other held the gates.
He’d conjured one of his blue shields against it, no doubt to keep the water from leaking through the cracks. One of the child-mages said something to him, and Elena nearly jumped out of her skin when Jake’s voice boomed across the courtyard.
“No. Hold your spells. Do not stop until our enemies breach the gates.”
A red line bloomed across Jake’s wrist as he spoke. There was a heavy length of chain wrapped around the base of his glove. When the chain burned, all of the mages’ shackles flared up along with it. Their arms straightened and they forced their staffs higher.
Jake controlled them — or rather, that chain controlled them. Elena had a feeling that Jake was just as trapped as the child-mages. And she knew there was only one way to set them all free.
She swung over the ledge and climbed hand over foot to its bottom, moving faster than ever before. Her eyes swept across the guards’ backs before she ripped Slight and Shadow from their sheaths.
There was no way she could hope to keep them all silent. The guards were spread too far apart to control. All she could do was kill them quickly and make sure none of them escaped into the courtyard behind her. If they alerted the soldiers on the other side, Elena would be overwhelmed before she had a chance to reach Jake.
She couldn’t let that happen.
The world slowed as she darted in among the guards. Her blades danced across their throats in calm and deliberate arcs — each one marking the end of a life. Their gold-tinged bodies and the red spurts of their blood were nothing more than shades at the edge of her vision. All the while she fought, Elena kept her eyes on Jake.
She watched as he turned at the noise of the guards’ faded screams, watched as his eyes tightened upon her mask, as they widened in recognition … as his gaze turned dark with a maddened scowl.
No sooner had she cast the last body aside than Jake attacked her. She rolled out of the path of a fiery spell and ducked beneath the roar of the next. The magic wouldn’t harm her, but she feared she might go mad if it struck her face. She might wake to find Jake slaughtered beneath her — a victim of the whisperers’ curse.
So she forced herself to be patient.
Spells whipped past her on all sides. Jake was impossibly quick: he slung bolt after bolt, singeing the ground her boots left behind. Elena’s breath rasped from her lungs and her muscles screamed each time she forced them to twist away, but she was quickly gaining ground.
Finally, she came within reach. When she sprang to tackle him, Jake was ready. He raised his fist and a wall of earth peeled up from the ground at his feet, swelling into a hill.
Elena struck the hill chest-first. Her body sank inside its muddy flesh and the breath whooshed from her lungs. She could feel the earth gathering beneath her. It tightened along with Jake’s stare. He bared his teeth and stretched his hand towards her, preparing to fling her back.
She knew she might not get another chance to save him. She might never be this close again. Elena took a deep breath and, in the moment before he could toss her aside, she lurched forward — throwing a wild punch for his face.
The hill collapsed when her fist struck true. Elena landed in a crouch as the hill gave way beneath her. Tears swelled in her eyes. The scent of magic came through the slits in her mask and tried to cover her sight with darkness.
Across from her, Jake had fallen to his knees. Blood poured down his face, weeping from his broken nose. Though his eyes were clouded with pain and dulled without his spectacles, there was a message carved deep inside his stare:
It’s all right … do it.
Every inch of her wanted to stop his blood. A cool relief flooded her limbs at the very thought of tearing his throat away — it dulled the horrible, aching madness that washed her eyes in red. But there was one thing she wanted more than that. She wanted it more than anything …
And it made her next decision easy.
Elena brought Slight down quickly — one jab into the top of her leg. The pain jolted her from her fury; the crimson that welled inside her wound overtook the red behind her eyes.
“What —? Are you mad?” Jake scrambled over to her. He tried to staunch her bleeding with the hem of his robes, but she knocked his hands away.
Elena pulled her mask aside so furiously that it broke: the leather guard ripped from its binding and fell onto the ground beside her. But she didn’t care. How could she possibly care about that, about anything? Jake’s lips were pressed against hers once more, his hands dragged warmth across her flesh … he held her as if he never meant to let her go …
Those were the only things she cared about.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said when she pulled away, eyeing the blood he’d left on her chin. His stare trailed down to her leg. After a moment, he frowned. “You stabbed yourself to keep from killing me.”
“I remembered you said that pain weakens the King’s curse. I thought it might do the same for a whisperer’s madness,” Elena said.
“That’s … brilliant.” Jake tried to smile, but wound up grimacing against his broken nose, instead. “The pain won’t hold the curse back forever, though.”
“I know.” Elena grabbed the chains around his arm and nearly cried out at the jolt of magic against her skin. But she forced herself to rip them apart.
The chains broke. She went to pull them off his wrist and found they wouldn’t budge. In the half-second it’d taken her to adjust her grip, they’d sealed back together.
She tried again, but the same thing happened. No sooner did she manage to break them than the chains grew back. When she tried to rip the broken ends away, then chain only cinched tighter around his arm.
“You can’t break it. This is a living impetus. It will exist for as long as I exist. It feeds off the beating of my heart and the warmth of my blood.” Jake’s eyes dragged up from the ground and onto hers for a moment. Then he twisted around to the mage-children.
They’d dragged themselves from the water and huddled together upon the shore, all of their stares fixed warily on Elena.
Jake took a deep breath. “The only way to break the curse —”
“I’m not going to kill you.” The words burst hotly from her lips, and she expected Jake to meet them with a cry of his own. But instead, he only smiled.
It was a calm smile, a sad smile. His look drowned her anger in a knowing that crushed her chest. “Do you remember what you said to me, when we fought that bandit lord in the Valley? Someone’s going to die today, mage. You can’t stop that from happening, but you can make sure that fewer of your friends wind up among the dead. Now, when the wildmen come through that gate —”
“That isn’t what I —”
“— they’re going to unleash the full force of the sea: on themselves, on the pirates, the giants, and the entire camp beneath them. It isn’t magic,” he said, raising his voice over her protests. “These waters are real. I knew it would be the whisperers coming after us. So when I was commanded to find some way to stop them, I came up with this,” he waved a hand at the water behind him, “an ocean made of storms summoned from across the realm — a trap with enough power to crush anybody standing at the gates, and deep enough to drown the rest. Those who aren’t shattered against the trees will still have the life strangled from their lungs. Being a whisperer won’t save them.
“This is what I do, Elena. This is what I’ve always done. And to die is no less than I deserve. But once I’m gone, you can warn the others. You can make sure they don’t try to cross this wall. If someone has to die today, then I’d rather it were me. Please,” he added, reaching for her hand, “my life isn’t worth all of this.”
He was right. Elena knew how many men and women stood behind the western wall — and though she didn’t care for most of them, Nadine would be there among them, and Braver … and Aerilyn.
Three lives to Jake’s one. She stared down at the chains that wrapped around his wrist and watched its links began to glow. The curse was coming back. If she didn’t stop him now, far more than three lives would be lost.
Elena knew what she had to do … though it broke her heart.
She paced back to the guards and drew a sword from one of their belts. What she did to Jake would be done cleanly. It would be over before he had the chance to feel the pain.
He bent his head as she approached, exposing the back of his neck to her blade. “Before I do this, I want you to know that I love you.”
“Yes, I —”
“Quiet, mage. Let me speak,” she growled, even as her stomach twisted. When his eyes fell back to earth, she forced herself to continue: “I’ve loved you for a long while, I think. But for all that time, I’d been made to believe that I didn’t deserve you. I’d made myself believe it. Now I know for certain that I don’t deserve you, and I never will.
“Luckily for me, love’s not at all like the rest of life. Love isn’t about getting what you deserve: it’s about accepting what somebody else chooses to give you. That’s what makes love so bloody hard, isn’t it? Because in order to accept a thing like that, you have to first come to terms with the fact that you don’t deserve it. I understand that, now.” She braced the sword against his shoulder. “I just wanted you to know that I’ve tried to accept it. I will always love you … and I hope that someday you’ll be able to forgive me.”
“I … wait — what?”
Jake raised his head when she grabbed his arm. She flung him onto the ground and trapped his wrist beneath her heel.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. There wasn’t a single cord of her heart of a shred of her soul that wanted to strike him, but she had no choice. Her sword came down …
And the curse ended.
CHAPTER 52
A Mage’s Revenge
Jake let out an inhuman cry when the blade came down. His face paled and his eyes rolled back in shock. Elena threw the sword aside and grabbed his arm.
“Hold still — I have to stop the bleeding!”
“No … let me.” Jake’s hand shook horribly as he stretched it over the wound. A blue spell wrapped around its gushing end and hardened, stopping the flow of his blood. “Now … give me the …” He gestured, but couldn’t seem to get the words out.
Still, Elena knew what he meant.
His other hand lay upon the ground, drenched in a dark puddle that welled from its severed end. The chained impetus was wrapped around it tightly. But the moment Elena reached for it, something odd happened.
A high-pitched whistling stabbed her ears. It grew louder and more insistent by the moment, swelling until she thought her head might burst. The chain’s silver links glowed red and enflamed. They bulged out, stretching until their skin could no longer contain them.
Then, they exploded.
A blast shook the ground and peeled waves from the ocean’s top. It shattered the storm, sent the clouds rolling in every direction. Red shrouded the world for a moment like a mist of blood. It hung about them so thickly that Elena could feel it clinging to her skin.
She held tightly onto Jake as the sky roared and the mist swirled around them — focused on the pain in her leg to keep from drowning in the magic. Just when she feared she could bear it no longer, the mist ended.
It fell back to earth in a red drizzle, pattering harmlessly onto the tops of the waves.
Elena lay very still in the silence left behind. Her head rose at Jake’s deep, shuddering breath. “Well … I suppose that ends it.” She helped him sit up, and watched as his eyes roved blearily to the mage-children. “Is everybody all right?”
They didn’t answer. Each of them watched unblinkingly as the shackles around their wrists melted and fell away, sliding into dull pools at their feet. Hesitant smiles stretched across their faces — smiles that quickly grew to laughter.
Elena scooped the severed hand off the ground and handed it to Jake. “Here. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
“Don’t be. I’d much rather lose a hand and keep my head.” Jake capped its end in blue and slid it into the pocket of his robes. “Who knows? I might be able to patch it back on.”
“Knowing how your spells work, you’ll probably end up with a set of talons,” Elena warned.
His laughter went on for only a moment before he grabbed her beneath the chin. Warmth filled her to the top of her head when his voice dropped to a growl: “That was absolutely brilliant.”
Elena’s heart stumbled and tripped mid-beat. She’d never heard him speak like that before — never felt such heat in his touch, or seen such an edge in his eyes. The world melted beneath her …
“Battlemage, look!” one of the children cried.
Jake pulled away and turned to where he pointed. The sky darkened suddenly and the calls of hawks and crows filled the air. They tore off in every direction, their wings beating madly towards the lines of the four horizons.
Jake stared after them, his mouth parted slightly. “It’s over, then. It’s all truly ended.”
Before Elena could answer, a chorus of howls drew their eyes back to the gates. Rocks and weapons and small, spiked orbs flew into the mass of crows, knocking several of them off their wings.
“The wildmen are at the gates,” Elena said, leaping to her feet. She had no idea how she would cross the sea before her, but there wasn’t time to think. “I’ll try to warn them —”
“No. No time,” Jake grunted as he stood. He squinted at the sea before he turned to the eastern wall. The mage-children c
lustered together at his wave. “Does everybody remember how to cast a wind spell? Good. We’re going to need wind — lots of wind.”
Elena stood back as they walked to the waters’ edge. She didn’t know what Jake had planned, but knew she likely wouldn’t be of any help. No sooner had she backed up against the wall than the main door started to rattle.
Someone was trying to work the lock. The soldiers in the courtyard behind them must’ve seen the red burst. Now they clustered at the door and shouted after Jake.
“What’s happened, battlemage? Why has the storm stopped?”
Elena thrust Slight into the keyhole before it could turn, jamming the door with its point.
“It won’t bloody open,” the man with the key grunted.
“What do you mean, it won’t open?”
“It means the key won’t turn, you maggot.” He pounded his fist against the door. “Open up, blast you! Open in the name of the King!”
Elena kept Slight pressed inside the lock as the soldiers threw their bodies against the door. There was some swearing, a heated argument, and a few muffled punches — then someone suggested finding a ram.
To the south, the ramparts had come to life. The guards behind the next wall must’ve noticed the storm breaking, as well. A few of their helmeted heads appeared over the wall for a moment. When they saw the gold-tinged bodies littered at the tower’s base, they sprinted back down in a rush — bellowing for the archers.
Elena knew their time was up. She’d turned to warn Jake when a roar of wind cut over her words.
The mage-children stood in a line at the water’s edge. Wind blasted from the tips of their staffs and struck the sea before them. It was a monstrous wind, an impossible wind — a gale that lashed the waves so fiercely that it began to churn them aside.
Jake kept his wounded arm pressed against his chest, and with the other, he held a blue shield. The shield was easily as tall as a castle tower, and more than twice as wide. Sweat gathered upon his brow as the force of the wind drove the water against its curved blue sides, but he never flinched.
