When Ottul drew the cloth up to her face, rubbed it against her cheek, Marielle reached out, slowly, and touched the four gold rings in Ottul’s ears.
Ottul jerked back, breath hissing out harshly through her teeth, a barrier slamming up sharply between her and Marielle on the river—
But when Marielle didn’t react, she halted.
“What are they?” Marielle asked. “What do they stand for?”
Ottul frowned. The shield around her wavered, then dropped.
She stepped forward, one hand lifting to Marielle’s ear. “You . . . no.”
Marielle smiled. “No, I don’t have any.”
Ottul’s frown deepened. Then she touched the first ring in her left ear. “Ona,” she said, and began to draw the river close about her, not as a shield, and not in an attack. Instead, she seemed to be playing with the river at random, swirling its eddies, pushing it this way and that, creating whirls, tightening it and releasing it.
Manipulating it.
She pointed back to that first gold ring and said again, “Ona.”
The first ring indicates she can use the river—the Sight, I said through the Fire. That she’s a Servant.
Marielle slid into the river deeper, began to manipulate it, and at the same time said, “Ona.”
Ottul smiled, but tightly. A layer of sadness tainted the river, a whiff of emotion, strong and sweet and potent, like an onion. “Ona.” Her fingers touched the second ring. “Ket.”
On the river, Ottul pulled the currents of the river into a shield, the threads woven tightly.
Marielle did the same. “Ket.”
Ottul nodded, touched the third ring. “Tora.”
Releasing the shield, she drew a small bundle of the river into an outstretched hand, into a configuration the Servants in the palace had never seen before.
But I had.
I sucked in a sharp breath a moment before Ottul ignited the threads. Fire burst forth in her hand, a few inches above her palm, contained there, held there—
But not controlled. Not like the fire that had snaked its way across the deck of The Maiden and killed so many of its crew. This was simple fire. Ottul could call it, could perhaps hurl it toward targets so that it retained its integrity, but she couldn’t force it to obey her will. I could feel the strain of simply holding it in her hand already; sweat beaded her forehead, and her concentration remained on her hands, on the flames.
I can’t make fire, Marielle said internally, a twinge of worry snaking through her.
You could, I answered, if I showed you how, if we practiced. But for now—
I slid through the Fire and seized control of the river through Marielle. Sensing my intent, she held out her hand, palm upward.
I drew the river close, spun the threads the same way Ottul had done, as I’d done through Cerrin’s memories, only tighter, more controlled, and then I ignited them.
Marielle flinched when the fire sparked and bloomed in her hand. In a shaky voice, she said, “Tora.”
I let the fire go, Ottul doing the same.
“And the last ring?” Marielle asked.
But Ottul turned away, moved toward the windows.
“What comes next, Ottul?” Marielle said. “Ona, ket, tora . . . ?”
Without turning back, Ottul said, “Qal.” She hesitated, then said bitterly, “Ona, ket, tora, qal, etai, kona, u mer.”
The words were angry, laced with hatred, with an undertone of fear and want I didn’t understand. The scent of onion strengthened, until Ottul’s shoulders slumped, the scarf still clutched in one hand forgotten.
Enough for now, I said to Marielle. Work with her on other things. But keep working with her. I need to know if she can help with Erick.
Marielle grimaced at Erick’s name, then nodded, shifting forward to the box again, letting Ottul remain at the window.
I withdrew from the Fire, Reached back through the palace to the outer chamber of my rooms, slid into my own body with a heavy sigh. Exhaustion washed through me, arms tingling with sensation. I leaned my head against the back of the chair, eyes closed, waiting for the trembling to set in—
And noticed another presence in the room aside from the Servant set to watch over me while I Reached.
I lifted my head with effort, my strength drained, opened my eyes. “What is it, Keven?”
Face set in a serious expression, he said, “We have a problem.”
“This is how we found them,” Catrell said, his voice tight.
I stood in the doorway of the cell, one hand against the gritty granite of the wall to one side, still weak from the Reaching. The stench of death hung in the air, blood and piss and shit mixed with dampness and decay.
The Dredge. A rankness so familiar it barely turned my stomach.
But this wasn’t the Dredge. This was a cell in the depths of the palace, where the thirteen Chorl warriors captured alive during the Chorl retreat had been kept.
Now, those thirteen Chorl lay slumped against the walls of the cell.
I stepped into the room, knelt down beside the nearest body.
The man’s head rested against his chest at an awkward angle. I lifted it, felt the awful fluidity of the neck, the bones snapped, and set it back down gently. I glanced over the rest of the bodies, noted they still wore their Chorl clothing, the garish colors now blackened and stained with weeks of wear and use. They’d refused to accept the clothes we’d offered them.
Catrell moved into the room behind me, crossed to another body, the Chorl’s shirt black with blood.
“Most of them have broken necks,” Catrell said from where he’d knelt. “Four of them killed themselves with this.” He pointed to a thin spine jutting out of the man’s chest over his heart, no longer than a knife, with no handle. “It’s some kind of shell or bone. And there are inscriptions etched into it.”
“Where did they get it?”
Catrell shrugged. “I don’t know. One of them must have had it on him and we didn’t find it when we searched them, when we took their armor, their weapons. Perhaps it was in a shoe, the lining of their clothing. Something.”
“Are you certain it didn’t come from one of the guards?”
Catrell stilled, hesitated, as if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.
I stepped around the body, came to within a few inches of Catrell’s face. “Are you certain this was suicide, and not some guardsman taking out his anger over the attack on the city?”
He nodded. “Yes, it was suicide. We wouldn’t have snapped their necks, wouldn’t have killed them so cleanly. They would have been bloody and bruised and beaten. And none of us would have used a shell’s spine as a weapon.”
I frowned, glanced back at the bodies. Because he was right. The deaths were too clean to be revenge. And I’d never seen a knife like the one used to kill the last four Chorl.
But I didn’t understand it. Why would they kill themselves? They’d remained in the cells for over a month. Why now?
Catrell hesitated—I could taste it—then asked, “What should we do?”
I sighed. “Burn them. Like the others. Like all of the dead from the attack.”
As Catrell motioned the waiting guardsmen into the room and issued commands, I thought of Ottul.
I wasn’t certain how she’d react, but I’d have to tell her. She was our only connection to the Chorl now.
“The left flank is beginning to fail!” Liviann screamed over the roar of a thousand clashing swords and bellowing men.
I spun my horse from the back of the melee, my armor spattered with blood and gore, my sword held high. Liviann stood on top of a low rise, overseeing the battle on the outskirts of the town of Rymerun. She was surrounded by an escort of guardsmen, all watching the field intently, runners darting back and forth, flags being raised and lowered behind them. The huge banners of Venitte snapped in the wind coming from the west.
“The left flank!” she screamed again, her voice amplified by the river so it could
be heard, and then she pointed.
I turned, felt the line behind me surge forward, then back, felt the entire battle like a living thing, pulsing in my blood—
And then I saw the breach, saw the line of Venittian guards failing, struggling to hold.
But they couldn’t. Because the Chorl were attacking with the help of their Servants. Servants who weren’t supposed to be here.
I growled, kneed the horse sharply, felt the animal’s muscles tense and then surge forward and suddenly the wind was in my face, my eyes tearing, and I could feel the pound of the horse’s hooves vibrating up into my torso, could feel the spike of adrenaline scorch through my chest.
“Cerrin! Wait!” Liviann yelled, true panic in her voice. “Gods curse you, wait!”
I ignored her, thrust her words away with a disdainful shrug. I could see the shifting of the battle ahead, could feel the energy of the Threads wrapping around me as I charged, shivered beneath the White Fire as it scorched along my arms, could taste the Lifeblood on my tongue. I drew the Sight around me, pulled the Threads in tight, felt the Fire building inside me—
And then I plowed into the faltering line with a hoarse, guttural, elemental roar, sword held high as I forced a path through the Venittian lines with the Threads, then descending onto the Chorl when I broke through to their forces.
My first swing lopped the Chorl warrior’s arm off at the elbow. He screamed, a harsh, ululating cry, and then he was trampled beneath my horse’s hooves, the animal stamping down hard, snorting, eyes wild with the scent of blood. I swung again and again, felt the blade sink into flesh, blood arcing up and out from the edge of the blade with each swing, and with each connection of steel to flesh I grunted, lips drawn back from gritted teeth, putting all the pain, all the grief, into each thrust. Steel clashed, men bellowed.
Then I felt the Threads shift, felt the Sight gather and release.
Men screamed, fire flared, heat shimmered on the Threads and dissipated, and I spun left. Hate surged inside me, muting everything else.
I wanted the Servants. I wanted their blood.
In the moment of distraction, one of the Chorl cut down my horse.
The animal shrieked, the sound piercing the thundering roar of the battle, and suddenly I was falling sideways. I spat a curse, felt the beast slam into the mass of men on my right, felt them stagger and give way, and then I was kicking free of the stirrups, still falling.
We slammed into the ground, the impact jarring through my bones like a hammer, rattling in my teeth, two Chorl crushed beneath the writhing horse’s side, my leg free. . . .
But not completely.
Pain shattered upward as it was caught beneath the horse and the ground, white hot and seething. I roared, leaned up onto my elbow and pushed hard against the horse as it shrieked again, struggling, its weight rocking away. I dragged myself out from beneath its death throes through squelching mud, the ground already soaked with blood, my leg a dead weight. I realized I was sobbing, teeth gritted against the pain, the battle still roaring around me.
A Chorl warrior staggered out of the general fray, blood streaming from a shoulder wound. He saw me and grinned wickedly.
He managed one step forward before I released the fire.
He burst into flame, stumbled backward, arms flailing, body twisting until he fell over the dead horse’s body and lay still.
Using the sword for support, point dug into the ground, I pulled myself to my feet, leg dragging behind.
More fire gathered through the Threads, this time from three different directions.
And they were all targeted in my vicinity.
I pulled up a shield at the last moment, gasped as the three fires hit, clutched tight to the sword as fire boiled around me, heat seeping through the shield, fresh sweat drenching me beneath my armor. I could feel the Servants shifting position, could feel them approaching as they narrowed their focus, searching for me.
They only had an approximate location, but it wouldn’t take them long to find me.
Gripping the hilt of the sword tight, I drew my weight fully onto my good leg, then jerked the sword free of the earth and thrust it into the ground a step away, hopping forward. My leg twisted at the movement, fresh pain shooting up my body, but I choked the pain down, shifted, lurched forward again.
Another pulse and my shield hissed, a glancing blow, but the second shot was dead on, fire roaring up and over my head. Men in the battle around me bellowed as they were caught in the blaze.
Then the fire cleared, the smoke blown away by the wind, and I found myself facing one of the Chorl Servants.
I held her black eyes, saw her own protective shield drawn tight around her, so flimsy, so easy to circumvent with one of the other four Elements. Because these women were not Adepts at all, seemed only to be able to control the Sight, some of the Threads, but nothing more.
The Chorl Servant smiled, and I spat on the ground before her in contempt.
Her smile turned to rage. She raised one hand, the Sight gathering into a tight knot before it, and then her gaze shifted and her smile returned.
Four other Servants stepped clear of the battle still raging on all sides, two with seven gold earrings in each ear, the others with no fewer than four.
I straightened. I’d assumed there were three of them. Three, I could handle, even with shields to protect them, even if they all wore seven rings.
But five . . . ?
I began pulling Threads to me, began strengthening my shield. My leg throbbed like a bitch, and I tasted death. Like blood and smoke mixed together on my lips.
Rymerun suddenly felt like a trap. The Servants had lured us here, the chance to take back the town too good for us to pass up, especially with the knowledge that there weren’t any Servants here to protect the Chorl warriors.
But that wasn’t true. They’d remained out of the battle, hidden, until they were ready to lure me away from my position, away from Liviann.
They’d changed their strategy; they were hunting us now, instead of the other way around.
All five raised their hands and I felt the gathering force. Grimly, I pulled my shield tight, began weaving Threads to circumvent some of their own shields. My shield wouldn’t hold for long against the concerted effort of all five, but I could take a few of them with me.
They released and I cried out, stumbling down to my knee, weight full upon the sword. I felt my shield beginning to crumble, clenched my jaw, thought of Olivia, of Jaer and Pallin, and sent a sheet of fire out along the Threads.
The force raging against my shield faltered as two of the Servants screamed and their attacks cut off as they were incinerated, but the damage had been done. I couldn’t sustain my shield, felt it crumbling around me, felt the heat of the remaining three Servants creeping in, edging closer, closer.
I bowed down over the sword planted in the ground, the thought of death . . . calming. As the Servants’ fires began to lick my skin, I smiled.
And then suddenly the fire ended, the focus of the Servants shifting elsewhere. With barked commands, fire arched out from my position, angled toward the hill.
Toward Liviann.
I surged up onto my leg, saw Liviann leading a charge of reinforcements down the hill. She deflected one of the fireballs, threw a jagged lance of lightning that sizzled into one of the Servants, body juddering as it absorbed the current—
And then the remaining two Servants bolted, vanishing into the ranks of the Chorl like smoke, lost among the seething men.
The reinforcements hit the line of Chorl like a ram, thrusting them back, away from my position. Venittian men streamed around me, on foot and on horseback, and then Liviann stood before me, enraged.
“You fool!” she spat. “You bloody fool! What’s wrong with you? What in hells did you think you were doing? You were almost killed. We can’t afford to lose any of the Seven. Not now.”
“It was a trap,” I said, and then the weakness brought on by the pain, by the effort
to defend myself from the Servants, hit hard and I collapsed.
Liviann caught me, spat a curse. “We should never have come here. We should have remained back in Venitte, defending its walls.”
Rage filled me. “No!”
Liviann snorted, lowered me to the ground gently, eyes already scanning the leg. I could feel her reaching for the Rose, could feel its warmth enfold her, begin to enfold me as she directed its power.
“No!” I repeated, and grabbed her upper arm, pulled her in tight, until I was certain I had her attention. “We had to leave Venitte, Liviann. We can’t cower behind its walls and expect the Chorl to just leave. We have to stop defending and attack. If we don’t, they’ll never leave.”
Liviann met my intensity with a doubtful frown. “You may be right, Cerrin,” she said, voice hard. “But no one on the Frigean coast will survive without the help of the Seven. You’re too reckless. Olivia and your daughters are dead. You can’t throw your life away over them. Not when we need you.”
Then she turned her attention back to my leg and reached forward with the Rose and its warmth embraced me—
I woke in my chambers in the palace. My leg throbbed, as if it had been crushed beneath the weight of a horse. I shuddered at the memory, at the horror of the carnage on the battlefield. I stared up at the cloth draped from the tops of the four posts of my bed, hanging down in supple folds, and let the raw emotions wash away from me.
As they did so, Cerrin’s words sank in.
“We can’t stay in Amenkor,” I said to the empty room, my voice quiet. “We have to attack.”
Chapter 4
"I AGREE. WE’LL HAVE TO take the battle to the Chorl eventually. Otherwise, we’re simply a target to them. A vulnerable target.” Captain Catrell gazed down the table toward me. Between us, Avrell, Eryn, Westen, and Darryn shifted in their seats. Keven stood behind me. “I’ve been meaning to approach you about this,” Catrell continued, “but we’ve been so focused on repairing the wharfs and the gates that there hasn’t been much time, or manpower, for anything significant. We’re barely manning the walls as it is.”
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