Still, she was committed now, so raising her Gauntlet she summoned Voishem. The world shimmered and became a shadow of itself: unreal and sketchy. It resolved itself down to the basics: stone and gaps in stone. She staggered on through it, holding the rune before her like a talisman. Once the Deacon stumbled and fell to one knee awkwardly. She hadn’t tripped on anything, she couldn’t in phase, but it was confirmation her strength was limited. After taking a quick breath, she lurched to her feet and went on.
It was impossible to say how long Sorcha staggered toward the burning Rossin presence. It seemed like forever, and with every step she missed Merrick more and more—though he would have chided her for this rash dash.
However, finally she emerged gasping into the same space as the Rossin and was able to drop Voishem. It was like having a huge load removed from her shoulders.
For a long moment, Sorcha rested her hands on her knees, drawing her breath as slowly and evenly as she could and trying to control the spasms in her legs. If the Beast had wanted to devour her then, then he would have had no better time.
He did not. Slowly the Deacon raised her head, and took in the Rossin. Every time that she’d been near the great cat she’d been in awe of him. He’d demonstrated tremendous power and bloodlust whenever she had seen him. She’d been a witness to him ripping Deacons and citizens apart, and been a grateful observer to him destroying another geistlord. However now, he looked capable of none of those things.
The Rossin lay on the simple stone floor, his eyes half-lidded, his massive head propped up on his outstretched paws.
Sorcha was able to observe all this because she was jammed into the tiny cell with him and was only a couple of feet away from his heaving flank. He was hot—so hot that she could feel it on her exposed skin as if she stood near to a bonfire.
Despite everything she had seen the Rossin do, and people he had slain, she dropped to her knees and touched him with no thought to her own life. Aside from a flinching of the muscles beneath the skin, the creature did not acknowledge her presence. She slid around him, placing herself behind the great bulk of the geistlord, just in case his captors were nearby.
Captors…of the Rossin? It seemed impossible, but there it was. Someone or something in this fortress had imprisoned the terrifying geistlord. Why was he even still here? The Rossin devoured, sated itself on blood and then retreated, leaving Raed in charge of his own body once more. However it seemed this time was different.
The creature was burning both himself and his host up. A geistlord gained many things from claiming a foothold in a human, but it remained a complicated relationship. No one frail human body could contain the power of a geistlord all the time. Even a common geist could burn out the flesh of their host, and that was what it felt very much like the Rossin was perilously close to doing to Raed Syndar Rossin.
But why would he do such a thing?
“Raed,” Sorcha whispered into the soft fur of the Rossin’s ear. “Raed, it’s me. Come back.”
The Beast stirred, opening one of his eyes. His characteristic rage was indeed burning low, because she saw nothing of the hatred and hunger in him that she had seen all the other times they’d encountered each other. A low growl was all there was, and even that was felt through her hand rather than heard.
The Rossin swung his head about and inhaled a breath, tasting the air with all the intensity of a predator trying to smell a piece of prey. Then he turned awkwardly on his back and closed his eyes once more. The fur around his thick neck twitched and spasmed. Sorcha knew the signs and stepped back. Her heart was hammering far too fast, and she clenched her hands tight.
The change took a long time—much longer than she had ever seen. The outline fluctuated between man and beast in drawn-out madness. She was completely unable to do anything to assist but felt the helplessness deeply. It must have been painful because both Raed and the Rossin were wracked by spasms. They arched their backs, their mouths stretched in silent screams of pain—but somehow they managed not to make any noise. It was an impressive feat.
When it was finally over the Young Pretender was left curled up, naked on the floor, his skin pale and waxy looking. He looked thin and very vulnerable—and her breath caught in her throat at the sight. Finally, the Deacon unclenched her hands, letting her breath out in a long gasp. Part of her couldn’t believe it was him and dared not touch him least he evaporate and spin away from her like mist. At last, gathering up her courage, Sorcha bent and wrapped her cloak around him.
Under her fingers his skin was chill but somehow still covered in a layer of sweat.
“Raed, please get up,” she whispered, cradling him in her arms, and rolling him over gently. For a long few heartbeats she was afraid he was dead from the strain of the change, but then the Deacon discerned his chest moving slightly. Sorcha couldn’t help it; she bent and kissed his cheek. “Come on, please Raed. We have to get out of here.”
He groaned and opened his eyes. They were the same beautiful hazel eyes that she’d craved seeing for months. All Merrick had told her about him leaving after the disaster at Hatipai’s temple did nothing to remove her feelings for him. He must have had his reasons. Now holding him in her arms, she just wanted to protect him and make him smile again. It was strange to see the normally strong and brash Raed as weak as a newborn kitten.
“Sorcha,” he managed to croak out her name through parched lips as she took off her cloak and draped it around him. It was not the first time she’d done so.
“Yes.” She smiled and pressed a hand to his cold skin. “What trouble have you got yourself into, foolish man?”
He blinked at her, and then that handsome mouth twitched upward a fraction. “Oh you know…the usual business where I need you to help me out of it.”
She tried to glare at him.
Raed Syndar Rossin’s smile broadened. “Now,” he whispered, wrapping his fingers around hers, “why aren’t you kissing me?”
It didn’t matter the situation, there was none so dire that she could deny him a kiss. Sorcha pressed her lips against his, and for a second that was quite enough. Once again, she told herself this time there was no way she was letting this man out of her sights.
When she’d quite thoroughly kissed him, stolen both of their breaths, she pulled back. “No more cross-country jaunts for you,” she growled. “I don’t care if I can’t move…next time take me with you!”
Raed’s eyes went distant for a moment, then he looked back at her. “I stand…or lie…corrected. I won’t do it again.”
Taking him at his word, Sorcha helped him to his feet. She dare not use Voishem on him in this weakened state for very long; that rune was a terrible strain on anyone, let alone a person under strain from the change. She would need to find Aachon and the others and get him out that way. Along the fragile weirstone Bond, she pushed the image of a hurt but alive Raed to him. Hopefully he received it and understood.
Then Sorcha wrapped her arms around him and pulled Raed through the bars of the prison. Even just that small moment caused the Young Pretender to wince in pain.
“Hold on,” she whispered to him, while keeping her shoulder under his arm. Sorcha glanced left and right up the corridor. It was hot and it stank down here, and it was a smell she was familiar with: the wretched odor of unwashed and uncared-for humanity. It often came with the presence of geists. They were not able to control human bodily functions very well.
Holding Raed up was proving difficult too. At full strength it would have been awkward, but as she was currently, it wouldn’t be long until they both ended up on the ground.
“A little help please, Raed,” she grunted, maneuvering him as best she could down through the cells, in the direction of where Aachon and the crew were.
“Sorcha,” he stumbled over her name and shuffled his feet, desperately trying to get them under himself, “where are we going?”
“To safety,” she said, hauling him higher. “Haven’t you heard? Wherever you are, I n
eed to be. Some call it fate.” Despite the whole sorry situation, she squeezed his arm. Hopefully it conveyed reassurance.
He worked his mouth a few times, gathered some strength and pressed on. “You seem to be short one Deacon. Where is Merrick?”
The Young Pretender was always one for the questions. “We got separated, but I have Aachon with me. We’re using a weirstone so I can see, and we’re going to get you out of this.”
That got Raed’s attention. His head rose fractionally, and his face shifted into something that was a strangely concerned expression. “I have to get to Fraine.”
She’d had quite enough of him throwing his own safety to the wind so that he could chase his twisted sister. “She’s lost, Raed. You can’t save her.”
“No”—the Young Pretender tugged on her arm—“I know I can’t—but she is getting ready to start a rebellion. It will tear apart the Empire.”
Sorcha swallowed. This was just the kind of news she really didn’t need to hear, but it was also the kind she could do nothing about right now. As a Deacon her area of expertise was the unliving—not Pretenders to the Imperial throne.
So she murmured, “We’ll see, Raed, once we find Aachon.”
As she moved down the corridor supporting him, Sorcha saw they were not alone. She stopped, stock-still.
The rows of cells that lined the corridor were not empty. Her gaze locked with a woman in the cell next to the one the Rossin had been in. Sorcha had seen plenty of dead-eyed people in her time in the Order; it was pretty much a standard for the possessed souls who were the prey of geists. This was nothing like that. She could see no sign of the Otherside in the woman. All that despair and hopelessness was very real and very human. The way her twiglike hands clutched onto a far-too-swollen belly was not a protective gesture; it was almost a pleading one.
“Deacon,” the woman’s voice was barely a whisper. “By the Blood, a Deacon.” She gave a little laugh, one that sounded like a mockery of amusement. “I waited for a fellow Deacon to find me. I dreamed about it, and now here you are—but far too late.”
Sorcha stopped dead still in her tracks. “You…you’re a member of the Order?”
The woman glared at her, taking a step back from the bars and standing up as tall as her condition allowed. “I was. A Deacon of the Phia Abbey, only a year ago I was brought here, and now look.” Her trembling hands sketched the devastation of her body. “I dreamed of being an Abbot one day. All the women here like me had dreams.”
“All the women?” Sorcha swallowed hard, turned and looked up the line of cells. Around each doorway, she could see other thin hands wrapped desperately around the bars.
At Sorcha’s side, Raed levered himself upright, away from her. He looked as frail as a newly hatched bird, but none of the other women were any better. They were all trapped in a real living, breathing nightmare. Each of them had the tattered aura of members of the Order, and each of them had the dead eyes of a long-term prisoner.
“We can’t leave them here.” The Young Pretender staggered, holding himself upright as best he could. That was the trouble with Raed Syndar Rossin; in his presence Sorcha found herself doing things that weren’t particularly sensible.
She tilted her head, and closed her eyes for a second—not to reach out to Aachon—but to consider her options. Usually she would have gone to the nearest Abbey for support, and to clean out this damn nest of undead horror. That was not a choice she had here. The logical part of her mind said that they couldn’t possibly get all these emaciated, pregnant women out of this place—not when she was weak and underpowered.
Then she looked at Raed. In those hazel eyes she wanted to be better than logic permitted. Sorcha sighed, “Yes, you are completely right.” Activating Voishem once again, she thrust her Gauntleted fist through the bars and toward the woman. The once Deacon however stepped back, shaking her head. “Too late. I told you too late!”
“Don’t be a fool,” Sorcha hissed waving her phased arm. “Come with us.”
The woman folded herself into the dank corner of the cell and continued to shake her head violently. “You don’t know how powerful they are. There is nowhere you can go where they cannot.” She jammed her tiny fist into her mouth as if to block out any more words that might escape her.
Sorcha pulled her hand back and turned to Raed in despair. “I can’t make her come, but I can…” She shook her head in frustration. “This is so—”
“Then we move on.” The Young Pretender clasped her hand. “Find if there are others.”
Merrick had spent hours with Sorcha when she was locked in her own body, telling her what had happened to him when he’d gone missing from Orinthal. He’d also spent a bit of time talking about Raed, and how he had left her. Merrick had emphasized how he suspected Raed’s disappearance had something to do with the Young Pretender’s sister.
Sorcha heard the crack in his voice, and didn’t need to be a Sensitive to understand how important it was for him to save a young woman—even if he had given up on his sister.
“Raed,” she said as gently as she could manage, “we can’t force these women to come with us. We can’t save everyone…”
“I know that,” he snapped. “Fraine’s different—she’s trying to start a bloody civil war. I have to stop her.” His expression was so tormented that Sorcha reached out to him. “We have to take her,” he repeated, and she knew that look. Raed could be funny, jovial and gregarious, but when he put his mind to something that was it.
“Fine,” she whispered, “then let’s get moving.”
Like two old men after a hard night drinking, they staggered farther up the hallway, heading gamely in the direction Sorcha could feel the tug of Aachon. As they went, they passed more women in the same state as the previous ones, all of whom turned away and hid their faces when Sorcha reached for them. It was by far the most ghastly thing the Deacon had ever seen in her time hunting geists, and yet she found herself walking past her colleagues with a masklike expression.
We’ll get them later. We’ll go back to the Mother Abbey and bring a contingent of Deacons back here to clean this nest out. We’re not abandoning you.
It was the best she could do, but it didn’t make it any easier to walk past these fellow Deacons—these fellow women.
They reached the end of the cells with people in them. These last few were only full of shadows. When Sorcha propped Raed up against one of these, she leaned back to take a few breaths herself.
Darling.
The chill voice ran up her spine and made her spin around.
“What is it?” Raed’s fingers brushed hers. “I hate it when you see things I can’t.” He was trying to be amusing, but it fell flat in the darkness and shadows of the hive.
“I heard someone’s voice. It sounded familiar, but…” She stopped, uncertain, and peered into the empty cell. Was it truly empty? She narrowed her eyes as shadows flickered in the rear of the cage.
Beloved.
“We should go.” Now it was Raed tugging at her, but she resisted. The voice was feminine, soft and pleading. It broke with longing and sadness. A part of her twisted when she heard it; a deep primal muscle that jammed her breath in her throat and brought tears to her eyes.
Daughter!
“Sorcha?” Raed turned her head so he could meet her eyes, and flinched back when he saw her crying. Though she choked back sobs, the tears kept coming. Such a visceral reaction caught her completely off guard.
Her training told her that some tiny shard of a person remained here—most likely a rei. It would have taken nothing to dismiss such a tiny geist. Rei were the least kind of shade. While shades could sometimes be seen by normal folk as they repeated what their human selves had done, rei were emotions. They reflected a specific feeling that a person had felt when they died. They were in essence little capsules of the moment of a person’s passing.
Their effects were limited to an icy feeling on the back of the neck, or a touch of sadness for
no reason. Most Deacons did not bother to dismiss them, since there were many worse kinds of geists in the world that were far more important to get rid of.
As a member of the Order, Sorcha should have been able to brush its effects off easily, but instead she was almost unable to see out of her eyes for the tears. Reaching out, she pushed against the cell door and it opened with a slight creak.
Raed tugged her cloak tighter about him, and stepped in after her. “It’s very…chilly in here.” Even he could feel it, the difference to the oppressive heat in the rest of the fortress. “But shouldn’t we be going?”
Sorcha didn’t answer him for a moment, but cautiously examined the room. It, like all the others, had a small benchlike bed, and a waste chute. It also contained a set of shackles, though these were rusted and ill cared for. Standing over the bed, Sorcha examined it. This was the seat of the rei. She could tell by the great well of sadness that was threatening to choke her.
She was certainly getting an appreciation of what Sensitives dealt with every day. It was no wonder that they had to train just as hard as Actives. Sorcha was having difficulty understanding her own reaction to this one room. A rei should not have had this effect. She had no Runes of Sight to rely on, but she did have her Center.
It told her there was blood on the bed, and that knowledge made her feel quite ridiculously ill. Her hand hovered above the marks for a while—trembling in fact.
“Raed,” she whispered over her shoulder, “I have to experience this rei. It’s…it’s like nothing I’ve felt before.” She thought back to what the Fensena had said on the Autumn Eagle; he had promised answers ahead. The odd thing was, she hadn’t really had questions…until this moment.
Now her hand was only a few scant inches from the ancient blood on the stone. She was deathly afraid, but it drew her nevertheless; blood to blood.
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