Ward Against Destruction

by Melanie Card

  “I’m not sure I’m the best judge,” Ward said.

  Lauro snorted. “You’ve heard of the Eye and you’ve heard of sangsal.”

  “Well.” Ward shifted. “The sangsal can create an army.”

  “A small army. The Eye can hold more magic than a hundred soul jars. I could walk past dozens of cemeteries and raise battalions of the dead with that much power,” Lauro said.

  “Of mindless soldiers,” Stasik said.

  “Yes.” Sweat beaded at Ward’s temple. “They both have their advantages and disadvantages.”

  “And…?” Stasik said, drawing out the word, daring Ward to pick Lauro.

  “And this kind of who’s-the-best contest is best done over wine,” Celia said. It was a risk to be so forthright, but she needed an excuse to change the focus from Ward—not to mention find a way to get them alone, if only to get off this damned island.

  Lauro threw his head back and laughed, the sound booming over the octagon. “I can see why you didn’t kill them. Not only are they fascinating, they’re also immensely amusing.”

  “Wine, my lords,” Celia said. The Eye of Ivia was dangerous and so were the sangsal-infected pirates, not to mention both Innecroestri without any other aids. Goddess, she’d never run into so much magic before meeting Ward. Now it was an everyday occurrence.

  “So be it.” Stasik clapped his hands, and two pirates not infected with sangsal stepped forward. “Show Lauro to the parlor. We can continue our conversation there.”

  “I need to make sure my men are situated first,” Lauro said.

  “Your men can wait. The lady has suggested wine, so wine we shall have.” Stasik waved at the men, and they led Lauro away.

  With a chuckle, Stasik headed back to the stairs. As he passed Ward, he clenched his fist. Pressure twisted in Celia’s chest, and Ward gasped.

  “Diplomacy will not win my confidence, apprentice.” The pressure released. “Come along.”

  Ward pressed his hands to his chest, panting. His legs buckled, and he sagged to his knees. Thanos sneered at him, then he and the others followed Stasik down the stairs.

  Celia rushed to Ward’s side. “Does it hurt that much?”

  “No,” he said, his voice soft. “We need a plan, and feigning collapse was the only way I could think of to give us a moment alone.”

  He was learning. Thank the Goddess.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  He offered her a weak smile. “You’re happy I’ve finally got some common sense.”

  “That wasn’t—” But in a way it was. How did he know? Obviously they’d spent enough time together—or gotten into enough trouble—for Ward to have figured out how she worked. But Remy’s knowledge said it had more to do with the soul chain binding Ward to her.

  A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision, and she fought to focus on Ward.

  “Celia?” he asked, his tone thick with concern.

  “I’m fine. How bad is this Eye of Ivia?”

  “Bad.” He stood and stared at the fissure. Another tremor slid over him. “I don’t know if it’s worse than the sangsal or not. Stasik’s ability to infuse his men with the sangsal is based on a ritual. Casting a spell, any spell, even one with a blood sacrifice, can take a lot out of you. If he wants to perform the spell again, he’ll need to wait or use more than one sacrifice. I’m guessing, given that Maura said he’s been here just under a month and how many sangsal-infected men he has, he’s waiting.”

  “And this Eye?” They needed to head in soon. If they waited too long, Stasik and Lauro would become suspicious, but she wanted to know from Ward what they were up against—and not give in to Remy’s memories.

  “The Eye is like a soul jar.”

  “Can’t an Innecroestri already make those?”

  “Yes, but an Innecroestri’s soul jar can only hold one or two souls, so the amount of power in each jar is limited, and souls can only be put in a jar one at a time. The Eye is imbued with a spell that sucks up souls. The Innecroestri doesn’t even need to do anything, he just has to be around when someone dies. The Eye of Ivia was one of Diestro’s greatest magical items.”

  “The blood magi who killed hundreds of people? Wonderful.” The impulse to grab Ward and run thrummed through her.

  His gaze captured hers—warm, dark, depthless pools—and he closed the distance between them and took her hand. He pressed it to his chest, capturing it with his palms. His heart beat strong and steady, with a surety she wouldn’t have expected given their situation. This was not the awkward man she’d met in her father’s house, and yet, it was still the same soul. The one she’d manipulated into helping her solve her murder.

  “Celia.” He breathed her name, sending shivers through her.

  He inched closer, his lips parting. He was going to kiss her. She desperately wanted him to kiss her. Except they needed to talk about their situation.

  She pulled her hand free, stepped back, and prayed he wouldn’t renew the contact. It was hard enough to concentrate with him only a step away. “So with the Eye, Lauro can do what, exactly?”

  He pursed his lips, his expression growing hard. He wanted to be close to her, and she wouldn’t let him. It made her chest ache with regret, but it was for the best right now.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said.

  He growled and ran his hands through his hair. “With the Eye, Lauro can do anything—depending, of course, on how many souls he has in it. All he needs is to be around someone when he or she dies to collect the power of their soul before it crosses the veil. Then he can create dozens of vesperitti, or he could use that power to raise thousands of zombies and skeletons. ”

  “Every man killed would become trapped in the Eye.” The horror of that fate chilled her, and a flash, unbidden, of a black jeweled medallion—the Eye—swept through her. It could capture an enormous number of souls, trap them for an eternity of being stretched torturously thin, never able to cross into the heart of the Goddess. It was powerful. It was—

  She shoved at Remy’s memories, using all of her will to stay focused. “Does that make Lauro more dangerous than Stasik?” She headed to the stairs and the path leading to the temple, her pace slow. Shadows flickered, just out of sight.

  Ward fell into step beside her. “Depends. If war is the goal, Lauro could conceivably control a massive number of zombies like Diestro did. He’d kill innocents, men, women, and children, capture their souls, then animate their bodies and create an army.”

  “So Lauro kills half of Stasik’s normal pirates and they all become zombies as well as strengthens the Eye.”

  “Yes. Stasik, on the other hand, can only infuse sangsal into one man at a time, but they’re more powerful than zombies.”

  “I’d say a lot more powerful. All right, well, I don’t think we need to know what their plans are. We need to stop them. I think it’s time we find your grandfather.” That would get Ward safe and off the island, and then she could figure out her mess of emotions and this issue with Remy’s memories.

  “We can’t risk leaving yet.”

  “How did I know you were going to say that?” She could just strangle him and his damned honor. “Let me guess, you’ve come to your senses and realized you can’t kill them?”

  “Actually, I think killing them is our only option.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The muscle in Ward’s jaw tightened. Celia had seen that look before. It wasn’t good. Shadows danced among the trees, hints of movement in the predawn gray. The sense of evil emanated from the octagon behind her.

  “The catch,” Ward said, “is that Innecroestri are hard to kill even without their vesperitti around.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Yes, she could definitely strangle him. Kiss him first, then strangle him.

  Ward ran his hands through his hair again. His eyes looked tired, but the rest of him looked fine. He finally looked healthy after almost a fortnight of looking starve
d and beaten up. Even the black eye he’d gotten at Macerio’s mansion was gone. “Well, if you were going to kill two people in close succession to each other, what would you do?”

  “Sneak into their house and slice their throats while they slept. But that option requires patience. Since we don’t know when these two are going to sleep, and I’d like to get off this island as fast as possible, the patient option isn’t ideal.”

  “And a simple slice across the neck might not kill either of them depending on how many vesperitti they have.”

  Celia snorted. “Well, I have good news there. Stasik destroyed all his vesperitti because the fissure makes them go insane.”

  Ward crossed his arms against his chest as if being reminded of the fissure’s effect on vesperitti made him uncomfortable. “Lauro, I’m sure, still has his vesperitti, and he has the same number of Rings of Habil as Stasik.”

  “What about poison?”

  “We don’t have—” His eyes narrowed. “We do have access to poison. There was a bottle of mortical in Stasik’s workroom.”

  “Would poison work?” They were already planning on drugging Stasik. The plan wouldn’t have to change that much, although with a second man in the room, things became potentially more difficult.

  “If Stasik no longer has his vesperitti, the poison might actually kill him or at the very least incapacitate him long enough for you—for us—to finish him. I don’t know about Lauro.” He shivered and hugged himself tighter.

  “Hey.” The urge to touch him was overwhelming. He would welcome it, but would he take it as she intended—as a friend offering comfort? Of course, was that what she really intended? She didn’t want to be friends, but she didn’t know how they could be anything else after what she’d done to him. “You’ve tried everything else. This is our last option, and we have no choice.”

  “I know.”

  She knew that wouldn’t make him feel any better. He might be a necromancer and have control over death, but he wasn’t death like she was—had been. He was life, and setting out to murder someone went against everything he believed in, no matter how much he said it was the best thing to do. It looked like the Master was getting what he wanted.

  “So the poison should incapacitate them?”

  “Yes. It might not affect Lauro as much, even if his vesperitti aren’t nearby.”

  “So I’ll kill him first.”

  Ward swallowed hard. “We have a plan.”

  “We have a plan.” Now to finish this and…and what? Goddess above, she didn’t know, but she hadn’t really had time to think seriously about anything from the moment Remy had stabbed Ward.

  It wasn’t me.

  “Not now.”

  “What was that?” Ward asked.

  “Nothing.” Focus on the job. “Let’s get this poison.”

  You can’t ignore me forever.

  The wool in her head billowed, and the damned flickering at the edge of her vision increased. Try me. “Come on.”

  She headed down the stairs. Ward followed, quiet as a shadow. It was unnerving. A reminder of what she’d done to him—changed him from awkward Ward to a silent, deadly monster. They passed the guards at the archway to the temple. The men shifted, watching them with wary gazes, but none said anything and they didn’t offer to escort them inside. There were advantages and disadvantages to hiring mercenaries, particularly Gordelian pirates. If you wanted a small force able to make violent strikes with little morals, Gordelian pirates were the men to hire. It also helped if you had a lot of gold ducals to pay them. If you wanted reliable, conscientious men, though, pirates weren’t your best choice.

  They slipped through the antechamber, skirted the hall to Stasik’s parlor, and headed to the workroom. Celia raced through all the possible situations. No one found them: perfect. They were caught by a regular pirate: just heading to their room to freshen up. If the pirate didn’t believe them: Ward could enthrall him. If Thanos or one of the other infected pirates found them…she hoped they didn’t. She didn’t know if Ward’s vesperitti enthrallment would work on them.

  The halls remained empty, and they reached the archway to Stasik’s workroom. The witch-stone glowing in the hall caught in smoky glass bottles and metal boxes. It created shadows among the bookcases and trunks and between books haphazardly placed on shelves.

  Ward rushed to the shelf where the vials had been. Celia stayed just inside the archway, her attention on the hall. Funny how a fortnight ago it had been Ward positioned by the door watching for trouble while she broke in the Keeper of the Assassins’ Guild’s secret safe.

  “Got it,” he said, his voice low.

  “Good.”

  He handed her the smoky glass bottle. “It feels like it’s half full of liquid. With luck, Stasik will serve us whatever is in the decanter on his center table. Put everything in the bottle in there. We can’t risk the dose not being strong enough.”

  “Are you telling me how to do my job?”

  “Well, no—I just—”

  She swallowed a smile. That was the Ward she knew.

  He straightened. “Herbs are my thing. I think I should know the dosage.”

  “Yes, they are.” She brushed his arm, wanting to maintain the contact but knowing it wouldn’t be wise. “Let’s do this.”

  Ward’s heart pounded. Celia had the bottle of mortical. All they had to do was put it in the decanter of wine and get the two Innecroestris to drink it. No problem. How hard could that be?

  They rounded the corner and stepped into the hall leading to the parlor. Thanos stood in the doorway, the light from the chamber illuminating one side of his craggy face and throwing the other side into shadow, as if mirroring what was happening with the pirate’s soul.

  “About time,” Thanos said, his voice gruff, but his eyes held a hint of dark amusement.

  Celia twirled the stray lock of hair that always curled by her cheek and flashed a flirtatious smile. Cold, steely determination slid through the soul chain, belying her expression, but Ward still had to push back the sour knot in his gut at her outward reaction to Thanos.

  “I wanted to look my best for our new guest,” she said.

  Thanos’s gaze slid down her body, and the knot in Ward boiled.

  The pirate shrugged. “You don’t look any different to me.”

  Which was true, since she’d done nothing, but Celia huffed, offended, and stormed into the room. Ward followed.

  “I see you haven’t taught your pirates any manners.” She eased onto the cushions closest to the door, beside Stasik and across from Lauro.

  Ward prayed they wouldn’t need a quick exit—particularly since they’d need to go through Thanos—but starting trapped in the corner of the room was a worse idea. Except how were they going to deal with Thanos once it was clear Lauro and Stasik had been poisoned? Ward had only heard about how deadly mortical was. He’d never seen the rare herb’s results, but with his luck, he doubted it was subtle.

  Shit. Panic rushed through him. Surely Celia had thought of that, but cold determination seeped steadily through the soul chain, and he couldn’t sense anything else.

  “Thanos hasn’t had a lot of experience with noblewomen,” Stasik said with a chuckle.

  Celia tucked that stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Obviously.”

  “That, dear Thanos, is what a noblewoman looks like,” Stasik said.

  Thanos stiffened in the doorway.

  “Doesn’t he have more important things to do?” she asked. “I doubt your guest’s men are fully situated on the banks. I would think that’s something the captain would want to make sure of.” Her tone made it clear that she didn’t trust Lauro’s men.

  The muscle in Lauro’s jaw twitched. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Would you?” She eased back on the cushions and slid her gaze to Stasik, who laughed again.

  “I can see why you embraced the blood magi’s path,” he said to Celia, then motioned at Thanos. “Make sure Lauro’s men are
secure.”

  Thanos glared at Celia. A curl of frozen mist escaped from his nostrils. “Of course.”

  “I like the idea of your new pets. I’m sure they’re powerful, although that really has yet to be determined,” Lauro said. “But they’re too willful. Your captain, Thanos, didn’t even call you Lord. I’m not sure the lack of control makes up for their strengths.”

  Stasik ran a hand through the Rings of Habil in his left ear. “Control isn’t my goal. I make enough of them and the balance of death tips in my favor.”

  “You mean my favor, since I’m going to rule the Council of Blood,” Lauro said.

  Stasik snorted. “The Eye won’t make you stronger than me.”

  “It will when I use it to break open the Gate to the Abyss.” Lauro sat forward.

  Stasik matched Lauro, leaning closer to the table. “The Abyss is mine. I found it. I’m weakening it. Even with the Eye you can’t crack it open without me. How much power is in it now?”

  Lauro pulled at a chain around his neck, drawing an amulet from within his golden robes. A black gem caged within gold strands pulsed with red soul magic.

  Stasik sneered. “Not even close to being powerful enough.”

  “You think I need more? Fine. There’s a village south of the island. More magic ready for the taking.” Lauro stood. “I’ll return with more souls, and we’ll see how powerful I am then.”

  Ward went cold. “Now? You just got here.”

  Lauro sneered at Ward. “Does the apprentice pet fear he’s picked the wrong master?”

  Stasik pursed his lips. Magic crackled through his bloody aura. Whatever Ward said, he’d make an enemy. He had no idea who was stronger between the Eye or the sangsal, and he didn’t want to find out.

  He struggled not to glance at Celia. She needed to poison them. Now. Neither of these men could leave the room. “I would think after such a long journey you’d want to rest.”