The Labyrinth of Flame

by Courtney Schafer

  Yet her chin lifted, determination blazing off her as fiercely as it had from Cara the night before. “You’re going to get Kiran back, right? I’ll help you.”

  I’d only hurt Melly if I told her it’d be a bright day in Shaikar’s hells before I took her help against creatures as dangerous as demons. She’d think I was saying she wasn’t worth anything without the Taint.

  So I didn’t argue. I choked down the impatience still burning in my gut and said, carefully mild, “First things first. Is there any water? Hard to make a proper plan when your mouth tastes of old lizard.”

  That got a grin out of Melly before she grabbed a waterskin for me. “All the animals here taste terrible. I liked traveling the mountains better. At least there Cara caught things we wanted to eat.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Cara said, sighing. “Sure wish we had a nice fat snow grouse to roast.”

  Janek sidled up, peering at me with huge, solemn eyes. Pello had said he was nine, but he was so small and slight he looked far younger. He was as dark as Zadikah—his mother must’ve been Sulanian—but he had his father’s mop of soft, spiraling curls. He hadn’t Pello’s quick tongue, but he had a knack for stealth that would do any shadow man proud. Kid was quiet as a ghost when he moved, and he could vanish in terrain I’d swear had no chance of a hiding spot. Thank Khalmet he wasn’t the contrary, mischievous sort who’d hide on purpose to frustrate adults, but he was such a sober little thing it made me sad for him. Kids should know how to have fun.

  He didn’t like anyone but Melly to touch him, so I didn’t offer him a hug. I settled for a grin and a wave. He ducked his head in a shy little nod. The thin copper chain of Pello’s malachite-moon necklace was bright around his neck.

  “C’mere, Janek,” Melly said with all the confident authority she’d held as boss Tainter over the younger kids in Red Dal’s gang. “I’ll get you something to eat before we pack up our gear.” He trotted obediently after her.

  “Still shadows her everywhere, I see,” I said to Cara.

  “She’s as patient with him as the trail is long, even when she’s busy acting the cocky, smartmouthed brat for me.” Cara nudged me. “Good thing I had all that practice enduring your idiocy in your apprentice days. Even at her worst, Melly’s not half so obnoxious.”

  “What can I say? I’ve always been talented.” My gaze skipped from Janek to the distant bulk of the Khalat, visible on the horizon beyond a score of wrinkled ridges and rock formations. I could imagine Yashad perched up there, waiting with cold patience for Bayyan to bring me back with the news of Janek I’d promised her.

  She’d be waiting a long time. I had no intention of going near Prosul Akheba again. Gavila must hold better information on demons than stacks of old books could provide.

  Lena forced down the last bite of her hardtack. Finally! I scooted over to her.

  “You ready to look at this Shaikar-cursed binding?”

  Lena nodded, swiping back her ragged hair. I didn’t think she’d hacked it off in some attempt at disguise, or even so she wouldn’t have to fuss with braiding it. I figured she’d needed an outward sign of the break she’d made with her old life, to help her endure the pain of loss.

  “Take off your shirt,” Lena said to me.

  Cara snorted in surprised mirth. “Sure you don’t want him to take off everything?”

  “Just the shirt,” Lena said, though I saw her mouth twitch.

  “Wouldn’t want anyone to get too distracted,” I said dryly, and skinned off my shirt, aware of Cara’s amused, appreciative gaze. Both of us were caked with days’ worth of sweat and dirt, but I didn’t give a damn for the grime. The moment I had a proper chance, I’d show her just how badly I’d missed her over these last weeks.

  Lena laid her hands on my chest. Sometimes when mages cast on me, my skin would prickle, or my muscles shiver. I felt nothing now but the warmth of her palms.

  The sun slipped over the eastern horizon and turned the desert to copper and gold. Melly and Janek finished packing and plunked themselves down nearby, whispering to each other. Cara’s expression as she watched me no longer had any trace of humor, only a grim, worried intensity. Teo kept glancing back at us with his head tilted as if he were listening, though Lena wasn’t chanting as she often did to cast. She kept one hand over my heart and moved the other to touch different spots on my chest and my brow. At last she dropped her hands and sat back.

  “Did you get rid of it?” I asked, eager.

  Her mouth tightened, and I knew she hadn’t. “The binding is rooted very deeply in you, and the magic has spread to touch your mind, not just your body. I need time to consider how best to sever the spell without harming you.”

  “Gods all damn it.” I jumped up, unable to sit still. I wanted to insist Lena try anyway to break the spell, that I didn’t care if she hurt me, but I knew how well that’d go over. “Even if you can’t yet get rid of the spell, is there any way you can keep demons from spying through it?”

  Lena said, “I’m willing to try casting a block, although I know too little of the binding to be certain such a spell can shield you. But I need Teo’s help.”

  Teo tensed. “In what way? I told you last night that I won’t do any spellwork.”

  My frustration boiled over. His pain over his lovers I could understand, but his mulish refusal to use his talent made me want to throttle him. “If Lena needs you to cast, you’d damn well better. I don’t care what reasons you’ve got for pretending you’re not a mage. The demons killed Veddis. You want them to keep hold of Kiran, is that it? You want them to win?”

  Teo shook his head, looking more haggard than ever. “I vowed never again to cast. I held to that oath though it cost Veddis his life. If I break it now, I betray him utterly.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I growled at him. “Veddis is dead. How can you possibly betray him more?”

  “You have no right to question my decisions.” Teo’s glare could’ve melted an entire rack of pitons. “I know what choices you’ve made to keep your oath to Melly’s father. The lies you’ve told, the friends you’ve betrayed, the lives you’ve endangered. When you fought Vidai, Kiran believed you would let all of Ninavel burn rather than break your promise to keep Melly safe. It’s why he killed Stevannes.”

  I felt as if he’d whacked me across the head with a hammer. He was right, damn him, which only made me more angry. Melly was looking between us, wide-eyed and dismayed. I opened my mouth to respond with something truly vicious.

  “Enough.” From the gimlet look in Lena’s eye, she was ready to start casting on me and Teo both if we didn’t shut up. “Dev, I know you’re upset about Kiran. But for the twin gods’ sake, stop jumping into an argument before I even have the chance to finish an explanation.”

  I’d never been good at ruling my tongue. I set my jaw and jerked my head in a nod, the closest I could manage to an apology.

  Lena turned to Teo. “I understand how difficult it is to break an oath that is the foundation of your life. I would not ask it of you. I only ask that you use your mage-sight to monitor the rhythms of Dev’s body while I weave a block, and warn me if you feel the least faltering in them. Can you do this?”

  Teo nodded, though his tension didn’t fade. Neither did mine. I wanted to rip out his tongue for dragging up my past decisions in front of Melly. I never wanted her to know the depth of shit I’d been willing to crawl through to keep her safe.

  Cara gripped the back of my neck and gave me a little shake, murmuring, “Be civil. You were a walking disaster after Jylla left you; just think how much worse Teo’s got it. Don’t worry about Melly. I’ll talk to her.”

  She strode over to crouch at the cliff’s edge. “Melly, Janek. Come help me keep watch.” Melly and Janek shuffled over to join her, stealing anxious little glances back at me.

  I eyed Teo. All right, with one lover dead, another hating him, and a third happy to wallow in betrayal and murder, I could see how he migh
t cling to the last shred of the life he’d wanted to build.

  “Let’s get this done. I—ow!” I grabbed at my chest. Felt like someone had sunk a grappling hook between my ribs and was hauling on the line.

  “Dev? What’s wrong?” Lena and Teo both scrambled for me. Their evident worry only doubled mine, but I couldn’t get breath enough to speak. The hook in my chest yanked, hard.

  The air before me shimmered and Kiran appeared. His clothes were crusted black with blood, his blue eyes shocked wide.

  “Kiran!” I grabbed for him in startled instinct. He was solid and real under my hands, though he was shivering like he’d come straight from some glacial cirque. Everyone crowded around, exclaiming in surprise, but he didn’t seem to notice. His gaze was fixed on me as if he couldn’t see anything else.

  “You were the anchor. Your binding, of course. The demon can touch you, find you… that’s why it sent me to you…” His eyes rolled up and his legs gave way.

  I caught him before I could think that might not be a good idea. I froze, fearing to have the life sucked out of me—but Kiran only hung limp and unconscious in my arms. A babble of worried questions surrounded us, everyone talking over each other.

  “Quiet, all of you!” I eased Kiran onto the stone. Lena and Teo shoved me aside, reaching for Kiran. I backed to give them room. Kiran was so sickly pale I wasn’t sure if he had any blood left in him or if it was all on his clothes. Yet he couldn’t be that badly hurt, or I’d be dead already. He couldn’t take my life knowingly, but blind instinct was a different story. That fun little loophole in Ruslan’s vow—

  Ruslan. Oh fuck. “Does Kiran have his amulet?” If he didn’t, we were screwed.

  “He’s wearing it.” Lena peeled aside the crusted rag of his shirt to show gem-studded silver. “His barriers are in place. Best I can tell, he’s protected from Ruslan. He doesn’t have any physical injuries, but his soulfire is very weak. Also…different.”

  Not in a good way, if her frown was any guide. She looked at Teo. “Is this change the result of your cure?”

  Teo shook his head, equally concerned. “This is new. Yet I don’t sense any dangerous imbalance.”

  Lena said slowly, “He said a demon sent him here. One tale I read in the archives spoke of the demons living in a land that is poison to mortals. Mages taken there might last mere moments; the untalented longer, though they too would sicken and die if taken too often.”

  I remembered Vidai’s sunken cheeks and fever-bright eyes. “If Kiran’s sick, can’t you fix him?” Alathians had no qualms about casting healing magic, thank Khalmet.

  Lena said, “I can strengthen his soulfire. Perhaps that will allow him to wake.” She put her hands on Kiran’s temples and took up a slow, near-silent chant.

  Cara had hold of the kids, keeping them safely distant. She called to me, “Dev, are you all right? Right before Kiran showed up, you yelled like you were hurt.”

  The reminder of that hook in my chest was no good thought. “Kiran said something about the demon using my binding. Think I felt it, too. Not pain exactly, more like a hard pull. I don’t feel anything now, but…” I turned to Teo. “Can you tell if a demon’s spying through me?”

  He touched my brow. His fingers were surprisingly gentle, given all the yelling we’d done at each other. “I sense nothing different in the spell binding you, but that means little. Perhaps Lena has the skill to see more. At least I sense no injury.”

  That was small comfort. But my biggest worry was for Kiran; it was a huge relief when he sighed and stirred under Lena’s hands, his eyes fluttering open.

  “Lena? You…how…?” He looked so pole-axed I couldn’t stop a cracked chuckle.

  “Yeah, that’s just how I felt when she showed up. Don’t worry, you’re not dreaming.” I helped Lena sit him up. “You’ve no idea how glad we are to see you. When that demon took you, I thought—fuck, it doesn’t matter.” He didn’t need to know how close I’d come to despair. “Just tell us what happened.”

  Lena broke in. “First, I must know: are we in any immediate danger?”

  Kiran had hold of my wrist like he thought I’d be the one to vanish if he let go. His fingers still felt like icicles, though he wasn’t shivering any longer. “The ssarez-kai can’t reach us here on inert ground. But Dev—Dev’s not safe. While I held blood-right, the ssarez-kai couldn’t touch him through his bond to Ninavel’s confluence, but that’s not true anymore. Lena, you’ve got to break the binding spell.”

  Lena threw me a worried glance. “I know, but I dare not try before I’m certain the severing won’t kill him. I intended to cast a block…”

  “Cast it now,” Kiran said. “I want him safe before I explain what the demon told me.”

  I sure wasn’t going to argue, even if I was dying to know what his talk of blood-right meant. But one thing couldn’t wait. “Does Ruslan know where you are?”

  Kiran said, “The ssarez-kai might tell him. In one sense, that’s an advantage—if he knows I’m at your side, he can’t cast anything against us that might break his vow. But he might insist the ssarez-kai use your binding to take the revenge he can’t. Your body is bound to a source of power so vast that not even Ruslan can touch it directly and live. If the ssarez-kai should force a measure of that power along the channel of your binding—without shielding, you would not survive it.”

  A nice way of saying I’d incinerate into nothing but vapor and ash. My imagination promptly began tormenting me: was that heat I felt deep inside?

  “I thought Ruslan wasn’t the sort who’d waste a chance of advantage. Wouldn’t he rather ask his demon friends to spy through me than burn me to a cinder?”

  “Ordinarily, perhaps. But now…” Kiran gave a jerky little shrug. “He is so angry I can’t be certain what he’ll do.”

  Oh, I believed it. Hell, I broke out into a sweat just thinking about it. I’d hoped grief and fury might blind Ruslan into making mistakes—but not a mistake involving my death, damn it.

  Lena and Kiran moved away and held a low, hurried conversation, presumably about what spell she meant to cast. When they returned, Kiran insisted on observing me right along with Teo, which meant all three of them crowding around and laying hands on me. I felt both nervous and ridiculous, standing like some half-naked temple statue with everyone touching and gawking at me.

  When Lena started chanting, my innards crawled like I’d been invaded by an army of corpse-eater beetles. I locked my hands together so I wouldn’t start clawing at my chest, and prayed to Khalmet for Lena to hurry.

  I’d never been so glad to hear her stop chanting. “There,” she said wearily, and turned to Kiran. “I’ve shielded him as best I can.”

  Kiran didn’t look happy. He said to me, “She couldn’t block the binding entirely. I suspect demons could still find you. Hopefully that’s all they can do.”

  I’d have felt a lot more confident if he hadn’t said “hopefully,” and I didn’t at all like the idea of demons being able to track me. Well, no point in whining about it. I’d just have to treat it like a cornice overhanging an ice gully: a danger I’d have to work around.

  I snatched up my shirt and pulled it on. At least beetles had stopped crawling through my guts. “If everyone’s done with the fondling and chanting, then I want to hear what happened to you.”

  “I thought I would never see any of you again. It’s still hard to believe…” Kiran’s gaze skipped from me to Lena to Cara, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a soft, bemused smile. But the smile died fast when he started his tale, and no wonder. My mind was soon in a whirl, chasing through implications. I might not fully understand his talk of magic and multiple realms, but the part about the demons’ weapon—that, I understood all too well.

  “Khalmet’s bloodsoaked hand,” I said. “The demons’ weapon is what powers Alathia’s wards. If the damn thing’s supposed to be someplace nobody can reach, how did Denarell pull that off?”

  “I don’t know.” Lena frown
ed down at her rings. “I wish more than ever that I’d had another chance to speak with Marten. The demon’s talk of the weapon drawing on the ‘substance of our realm’…I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Kiran was looking more pole-axed than ever. “Wait, what? Ashkiza’s weapon is in Alathia? How—”

  A crack of thunder blotted out his words, the explosion of sound so loud I ducked in startled reflex.

  As the echoes died, Kiran screamed, “Ruslan, no!”

  Above the distant butte of the Khalat, a second sun blazed, red and vicious. Scarlet gouts of fire arced downward, spreading over an area large enough to include all of Prosul Akheba. Smoke boiled up black where the fire touched, except at the top of the Khalat, where the fire was repelled by flickering columns of green and yellow lightning. Defensive wards, struggling to protect the citadel from the onslaught. Zadikah had destroyed the outer wall wards, but individual towers must still have spells in place.

  The sea of tents outside the Khalat would have no such protection. I remembered the blackened rubble of Julisi district after Ruslan had struck at Vidai in Ninavel. Ruslan hadn’t been trying to destroy the district; he’d considered the hundreds crushed and incinerated an inconsequential side effect. That had been terrible enough, but this… Tens of thousands of people lived in Prosul Akheba. To think of all those I’d seen with Zadikah—the nosy oldsters, the young mothers with shy toddlers clutching their legs, the teens slouching on the temple steps, all of them burning, men and women and children screaming in agony, their flesh blackening and bubbling off their bones…

  “Raishal!” Teo’s shriek was so anguished that a cry of my own burst free. Oh gods, I’d assured him she was safe in the city.

  Melly had her arms tight around Janek, both of them staring transfixed at the burning city with their mouths open in horror. Cara was rigid, her face gone ash-gray. Lena had her hands raised, her expression agonized—she must want to cast, but Prosul Akheba was so far away, and Ruslan so strong—

  Kiran grabbed hold of me. His blue eyes were blazing and his mouth drawn in a rictus. “Show me the quickest path back to the sacred pools.”