House of Blades

by Wight, Will

  “That doesn’t sound like a choice to me,” Alin said, attempting a smile. Was she really still considering letting him die?

  She wagged a finger at him. “Power unearned, in this case, could lead to worse than your death. Worse even for you.” Rhalia shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, really, but trust me. The more power I give you, the more likely it is to run out of control.”

  “I will earn it,” Alin said. “I promise. I’ll do whatever I have to.” He tried to make himself sound as earnest as possible. He really would do whatever she asked, if it kept him from roasting like a chicken.

  “Why did you attack the Overlord when you walked in?” Rhalia asked suddenly.

  Truth to tell, he had been fighting his way through the Naraka creatures guarding the door first. There had been a few human guards as well, though they had mostly run when they realized Travelers were fighting. With his blood hot from the fight, he hadn’t thought at all; he had simply attacked. “If I hadn’t, he might have killed me,” Alin responded.

  Rhalia pulled her legs up underneath her, sitting cross-legged in midair. Her white dress hung down almost to the floor. “You don’t even know for sure the girl Leah is here.” She started to drift in a slow orbit around Alin’s head.

  “If she wasn’t here, Simon wouldn’t be either,” Alin pointed out. “And Keanos led me to this house. Besides, Malachi is the one who sent his men to the village. Malachi is the one who ordered her taken in the first place. He deserves to die.”

  Rhalia floated back in front of Alin, smiling a little sadly. Her golden eyes shone with…tears? Was she about to cry? “That’s what I mean, Alin. I don’t see patience or temperance in you. You’re not ready for this yet.”

  “I won’t ever be,” Alin said, “if I burn to death here.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Rhalia said. “And I don’t want you to get incinerated, anyway. I kind of like you.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  She stared into Alin’s eyes until he gave her his full attention, looking more serious than Alin had ever seen her. “I’ll give you the green, Alin, but I wanted to warn you first. Unearned power is a curse more often than a blessing.”

  Did she really think this was important now? “I’ll be careful,” Alin said. He extended out a hand. “Please.”

  Rhalia sighed and held her own hand out to Alin’s. As she did, her palm was filled with a glowing green crystal. It spun in place, and Alin realized that the crystal was formed of dozens of tiny, whirling, ever-shifting plates of solid green light, like layers and layers of glass turtle shells, eternally spinning and dancing in mysterious patterns.

  “The green light of protection,” Rhalia announced. “It’s a lot of fun. And it’s usually earned through patience, but this time we’ll make an exception.” He could hear a smile in her voice, though she kept her face mostly serious. The tears were gone from her eyes, and she seemed almost cheerful again.

  “Use it well,” she said, and vanished.

  Suddenly he was standing once again with his arm over his eyes, with heat washing over him, about to reduce him to something less than ash.

  Then his world was filled with green light. He opened his eyes and saw a dome of interlocking crystal plates, like a honeycomb of green glass, covering him. It stretched around him in every direction, so that he could reach his arm out in any direction and touch solid green light. The fire washed over his shield and streamed on behind him, leaving him as unharmed as a rock in a river.

  Well, almost. As he watched, cracks began to form in the green, glowing even more brightly than the plates around them. The cracks grew and spread as he watched, the bright light of the shield dimming, the heat growing.

  The fire was too much. It was overwhelming even the protection of the emerald barrier. He had to try something else, or he was going to die in spite of Rhalia’s gift.

  Alin placed both hands against the wall and called on Elysia, picturing a star of green where he normally imagined a golden sun. He poured his own strength and the borrowed power of his Territory into the wall, as much as he could, holding nothing back.

  The cracks held. They did not heal, but neither did they grow.

  Sensation drained from his fingers and toes. He felt like someone had strapped a boulder to each of his arms, and it was all he could do to keep them in the air. He couldn’t inflate his lungs, couldn’t get a breath, and for a moment his vision fuzzed and almost went black. He kept pushing everything he had into the shield, kept calling power from the City of Light. He would not die. Not before he got back to the village. He would not.

  After a handful of minutes, the great roar of the fire dwindled and faded away.

  Alin let his shield fade with it, and his muscles shook. He sagged to his knees, vision dimming. Vaguely he was aware that everything on this side of the room was scorched and broken, except for a clean space immediately around him. Malachi stood on the opposite end of the room, the half of his face not covered by a mask looking shocked.

  Shocked he may have been, but Malachi waved his branded hand in a pattern Alin recognized. He tried to struggle his way up from his knees, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. Vaguely, Alin regretted that Rhalia had taken a risk to save his life, but it had all been in vain. Green light or not, he was about to die.

  He needed one more attack. If he had just one more weapon, he could hit the Overlord before he finished summoning. He just needed one more weapon.

  Just one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

  A VICTORY

  Simon held steel and essence both, peering out of the broken doorway and into the hall. The fire had been almost blinding, blasting a ragged hole the size of a house all the way through the far wall. He could see a chunk of Bel Calem’s rooftops in the afternoon sun through that hole; some of them smoldered with small fires. Unless Alin had gotten something really special from his Territory, he was nothing but a scorch mark on the tiles by now.

  Simon wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Alin had certainly asked for it, but Simon had never wanted to see Alin consumed in a fire.

  Adrienne tried to push past Simon to reach her husband, who still stood in front of his broken throne. Simon held her back with one arm. Until he was sure the fight was over, he wouldn’t even want to step out there himself. He certainly wasn’t going to let Adrienne or the girls get themselves killed by walking out unprotected.

  Simon squinted at something that knelt on the floor where the fire had been. Alin’s body? Or had he somehow managed to survive?

  Malachi began moving his hand again, calling on his Territory. Alin’s hand raised, wavered with exhaustion, and then steadied.

  And a thousand golden arrows burst from the air in front of him, spraying across the entire room.

  Including a wave that rushed straight for Simon. Without the Nye essence in him, Simon would never have been prepared, but he was able to summon Azura before the arrows reached him. He was ready.

  Malachi apparently didn’t know that, or else fear for his family had overwhelmed his reason. The Overlord saw where the arrows were headed and threw himself to the side, putting his body between Alin and the bedroom door. His Gate went up, shielding him and the bedroom behind him, but it was too late: a wave of gold arrows streaked past him.

  Azura’s blade was too long to work well in the relatively small doorway, so Simon moved his wrist as little as possible, snapping the arrows from the air with the last few inches of the sword. Their speed was nothing compared to the dart traps from the Valinhall armory.

  Not a single arrow made it past him.

  The arrows stopped, and Malachi’s red Gate shuddered in the air, then vanished. Only then did Simon notice the Overlord was wounded; one gold arrowhead stuck out from the back of his chest, one from just below his ribs.

  Malachi fell to his knees. Adrienne noticed at the same time Simon did, screaming something and trying to push her way past again.

 
Simon held her back effortlessly. Alin was still out there, and Malachi still wasn’t down. Not yet.

  “Wait,” Simon said to her without turning around. “It’s not safe.”

  Alin walked unsteadily up to Malachi, who sat on his knees, blood trickling onto the tiles. His half-mask had fallen to the floor. Somehow he seemed older than he had before the fight, a few more wrinkles, more gray in his hair. Maybe he just looked tired.

  Alin stretched out a hand in the same gesture Simon used to summon Azura. He grimaced, as if in pain, and the gold light that gathered in his hand seemed reluctant somehow, hazy, as if Alin’s power was on the edge of running out. But the light formed at last, pooling in his hand into a solid outline. The outline of a broad-bladed sword.

  “Alin, wait,” Simon said. He started to move forward.

  That was when he felt the knife slide into his back.

  The liquid strength running through him numbed the pain, but he still felt like he had been impaled with a burning spear. He cried out and had to release Azura to catch himself on the half-solid doorframe. Adrienne ran past him, holding her purple skirts up with one hand, bloody knife clutched in the other as though she meant to use it on Alin.

  “Alin!” Simon called hoarsely. “Hold on!”

  Malachi turned and saw his wife running toward him. He smiled a little.

  Then a golden blade swept through his neck, and the Overlord’s head tumbled to the ground.

  Behind Simon, two little girls screamed. He closed his eyes. No one should have to watch their parent die.

  The wound in his back burned.

  “Simon,” Alin called. Simon looked up. Adrienne tried to reach Alin with her dagger, screaming, but he casually pushed her away. “Where is Leah?”

  Simon tried to talk around the pain in his back. “You didn’t have to do that, Alin.”

  “Yes, I did.” Alin’s voice was grim. Adrienne tried to stab him in the heart, and he shoved her to the ground.

  “His family saw. His kids are right behind me.”

  Regret flashed across Alin’s face, but he shook his head. “Please, Simon. Where’s Leah?”

  “I’ll...” Weakness and pain surged through Simon. He had been going to say that he would get Leah himself, but he needed to go back to the House. Soon, before he lost too much blood. The imps would have a holiday with him as it was.

  “Door behind the throne,” Simon said finally. “Top of the tower.”

  Alin nodded and started jogging away. The bells were ringing again, and Simon thought he could hear raised voices in the house below. He didn’t have much time.

  He raised Azura, dragging it slowly down the air. As the portal opened, he noticed a bright spot of color at its base: a red half-mask. It had slid across the floor with Malachi’s death. Hardly thinking, Simon scooped it up with his free hand tucked the crimson mask into his belt. Who knew? He might find a use for it someday.

  His last sight before he entered the Gate was of Adrienne Lamarkis Daiasus cradling her husband’s severed head and weeping as her two daughters ran to join her.

  Success at last, Simon thought.

  The only thing worse than a victory in battle, Otoku said, is defeat.

  He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or not.

  ***

  Leah winced, staring at the crystal disc in her lap. She sat on her bed, which sat in the center of her room in Malachi’s tower. The disc, an artifact of Lirial, showed her Malachi’s severed head rolling across the tiles several floors below. Malachi was vain, disrespectful, and he shirked his duties. But he hadn’t deserved this. Certainly not in front of his children.

  The whole street still shook from the fight, and the air had filled with screams and otherworldly howls, so even a blind woman would have been able to tell Travelers were fighting. But with the disc, she had seen everything since Alin strode through the door. Apparently Simon was there as well, but she had only caught glimpses of him.

  Even Simon was some kind of Traveler now, judging by the way he had summoned that enormous sword. Tartarus, maybe, despite the black cloak. How had he learned that?

  She had first intended to go down and intervene in the battle herself, but her orders had been not to reveal herself except in the face of personal danger. Besides, she realized she didn’t even know which side she would support. Malachi had served the Kingdom well, and she had no quarrel with him personally. Logically, she should find herself on his side. But Alin was her friend, and he was only fighting because she was here. What kind of person would she be if she let him die when he was only trying to save her? Then again, that was what her father would want her to do.

  Even after more than two years, this spy business never got any less confusing.

  Alin turned, letting his sword of light evaporate and walking away from the Overlord’s bleeding body. Was he walking toward the throne? No, not the throne. The stairs. He was coming for her.

  Two Travelers overthrowing an Overlord on her behalf. Her mother would tell her that she should be flattered, but all she felt was sad and a little sick. They really were naïve. If they learned who she really was, the truth would hit them like a knife to the gut.

  Alin seized the iron ring of the door at the bottom of the stairs, pulling it open and stepping inside. Very well, then, she would wait for him here and pretend to be surprised. She would have to hide the disc, of course; a kidnapper would never leave his captive with a rare and expensive seeing crystal.

  The disc was fading away, sliding back to the shelf of her sanctum in Lirial, when Leah noticed what she was wearing. Malachi had given her court clothes: a silver dress and shoes, with pearls at her throat and rings on her fingers.

  Leah cursed, a habit she had picked up in Myria, and stripped out of her dress faster than she would have dreamed possible. A kidnapper would never let his captive wear expensive dresses, except in a few bizarre and complicated situations she didn’t feel up to inventing for Alin’s benefit. She tossed her dress into a corner, followed by her shoes. A few frantic seconds of searching turned up her old, brown village clothes. It had always been brown, in Myria, never any spot of real color.

  Halfway through pulling on a stocking, she hesitated. Maybe she should let Alin catch her changing. He was young, and innocent in his way; the sight of her might distract him enough to let her dodge any awkward questions. No, perhaps not. That tactic could easily create more problems than it solved. She shrugged into her clothes and danced around, looking for the simple leather shoes that she had worn when she was playing a captive.

  A knock at the door. That was somewhat adorable; if he really thought she was being held against her will, he should have charged in without knocking. Still, she welcomed the delay.

  “A moment,” she called, finally spotting her shoes. As she pulled them on, she noticed her fingers, gleaming silver in the light from her window. She had almost forgotten her rings! With hurried, jerky motions, she pulled them off and tossed them into a corner on top of her dress and shoes.

  “Who is it?” Leah said at last, trying to adopt fear into her voice, as though she thought the man at the door might hurt her.

  “Leah, it’s Alin.” His voice glowed with pride, even muffled by the wooden door. “I’ve come to rescue you.”

  Leah pulled the door open and faked a look of shock. “Alin! How did you...I mean, how did you get here?” Perhaps her shock wasn’t entirely feigned; seeing him from a distance, through the Lirial lens, did not prepare her for the sight of him in person. Smoke rose from his clothes, he was covered in a layer of ash, and he smelled like a campfire. His dark gold hair shone through a veil of blood and dust. When she met his eyes, she almost didn’t recognize the man behind them.

  Leah cleared her throat and started again. “Were you the one making all that noise?”

  Alin stared at her seriously. “Leah, are you hurt? Can you travel?”

  For a moment she thought he was asking her to open
a Gate for Traveling, and her thoughts grew panicked. Does he know? She thought. How much has he realized? How did he find out?

  Then she caught the real meaning behind his question and relaxed. “Oh, no, I’m fine. Hurry, let’s get out of here before the Overlord comes back.”

  He gave her a small, self-satisfied smile. “Don’t worry about that. Malachi’s dead. I killed him.”

  Leah made her eyes well up with tears, a trick with a thousand uses that she had perfected as a child. For some reason, men always expected women to be crying. “Oh, thank the Maker. Are we safe, then?”

  “No, we need to run.” As if to illustrate his point, shouts came from below, and running feet on the stairs. Alin immediately put his back to Leah, standing between her and danger, facing the stairs. He brought his hand up as if to call on his Territory, but nothing happened, and his fingers wavered in midair.

  Exhausted, then, or so it seemed. Not surprising. That half-mask Malachi had used clearly came from Ragnarus, and nothing from her father’s Territory gave anything but incredible power. The fact that Alin had survived at all was miraculous, but his exhaustion might come in handy in the immediate future. Maybe she should capture him and bring him to the capital?

  That was probably the best option, but she found herself strangely reluctant to reveal herself. Alin would call it a great betrayal. She would save that option, then, for when she had no other choice.

  The pounding footsteps reached the top and Simon stepped forward, looking years older instead of scarcely two months. He was thin and dark as always, but he had filled his scrawny frame in with a bit of muscle since the last time Leah had seen him in the flesh. Fresh stubble darkened his face, as though he had missed shaving this morning, and a black cloak flowed out into the hallway behind him. He wore a cloak, even in this heat. He must have been stifling.

  Then she caught sight of his arms, with black chains that slid down his forearms like living tattoos. The sight of them triggered something in her memory, something she should have known immediately, but she couldn’t quite call it up. Where had she seen those marks before?