Ward Against Destruction

by Melanie Card

  Jared’s eyes were so wide, his pupils dilated. “It’s so powerful.”

  “Don’t get used to it. It’s dangerous.”

  Metal clanged against metal. Men grunted. Celia’s white aura whirled at the edge of Ward’s vision. Pirates screamed. Maura yelled something about her medical bag, and Celia swore. Cold determination hardened the soul chain, and Ward struggled to ignore it all and focus on saving everyone—and not licking the blood from his hands.

  “Now, concentrate.”

  The red in Jared’s aura flared and poured into a ball between them. Ward grabbed at the rest of the magic bleeding from the dead pirate and shoved it into Jared’s spell.

  “Ten feet.” Jared frowned. “We need more.” He pressed his hand to the gash in the pirate’s chest.

  A man fell into the water beside him.

  “Any time now, Ward,” Celia growled.

  “It’s not going to be enough. The spell needs to be bigger,” Jared said. “There are too many of them.” Sweat slicked his brow, glistening with his stolen magic.

  Ward grabbed at the magic burning around him, at the sunlight and the water and what little lay in the boards of the walkway, and shoved it into the spell.

  Jared gasped. His dark gaze searched Ward’s face, filled with questions Ward couldn’t answer. Yes, this kind of magic wasn’t supposed to be in anything other than blood, and no, he had no idea how he could see it now when he hadn’t been able to see anything before.

  Ward shoved more magic at him. His chest burned. The soul chain was on fire and yet frozen at the same time. Celia held on to him so tightly, so determined to keep him safe. Their only way out was this spell.

  Jared pulled the final, desperate dregs of magic from a bleeding pirate. With a scream, he leapt to his feet, and the spell blasted around him. But it wasn’t focused enough. Shit. It hit Celia, Nazarius, Declan, and Maura.

  Ward shot a panicked blast of power through the soul chain for Celia and somehow found the strength to throw magic into Nazarius’s, Maura’s, and Declan’s souls to keep them conscious enough to fight the effects of the reverse wake. The world started spinning, and darkness swept around him. Strange how he’d been surrounded by blinding light and now everything turned dark.

  Someone said something, but the words were muddled, clogged. No, he was muddled and clogged. He just wanted to lie down. Yes, put his head down and—

  Warm hands grabbed his arm. Heat beat through the soul chain, and light burst around him.

  “Ward. Stand.”

  Celia’s will jerked him to his feet. Goddess, that hurt.

  “Would you stop doing that,” he said.

  “Stop scaring me.”

  She pulled him forward. Nazarius raced ahead of him carrying Adolfus, and Jared ran beside Declan and Maura—who held the tether but not her medical bag. Red blood magic wept from Declan’s side. It wept around Nazarius and Celia as well. They needed a place to rest and heal. And Goddess above, Ward was starving.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ward scrambled around the rocky outcrop hiding Declan’s secret cove and followed Celia inside.

  “This way.” Declan drew in a ragged breath and headed to a crack in the wall.

  “I’m not going to fit in there,” Nazarius said.

  “It’s wider than it looks.” Declan slipped around the edge and disappeared behind the rock.

  “I’d be happier if you stayed out here, monster,” Maura said.

  Ward’s stomach growled. He’d be happier if he stayed out as well, but Celia glared at the old woman and her will tugged him to the crack.

  It was indeed wider than it looked, only an illusion that it was so narrow, but it led into darkness—or what would have been darkness if the walls weren’t alive with magic.

  “Come on,” Declan said. Flint struck steel, and a lantern flared to life, the light stinging Ward’s eyes. He squinted against the brightness that revealed a cavern with four alcoves and a narrow stream running through it. The scents of moss and wet rock flooded Ward’s senses. So, too, did the damp and chill.

  Celia chuckled, the sound soft and strange given what they’d run from, but pulling his attention to her before he became overwhelmed with every minute detail of the cave.

  “What’s so funny?” Nazarius asked. In the lantern light he looked pale.

  “Once again,” Celia said, “Ward and I find ourselves taking refuge underneath a lot of rock.”

  It was true. Rock was one of the steady, reliable things in the chaos that had become their lives. Celia had found an Ancients’ cavern in Brawenal City, they’d found refuge in a temple to the Light Son in the basement of Macerio’s mansion, and Dulthyne was a city carved into the side of a mountain riddled with underground passages and caverns.

  “You make a habit of this?” Jared asked.

  “Unfortunately,” Ward said.

  “I have some blankets and cushions over here.” Declan motioned to the closest alcove. “I like to come here to think. It’s not much and we don’t have food—”

  “It’s perfect.” Maura patted the young man’s shoulder, then she hobbled to a cushion and eased down with a groan. “I just wished we’d managed to grab my medical bag from the lake.”

  Ward wished that as well. Blood magic curled around the floor, seeping from everyone including Maura, indicating they were injured.

  “There were too many pirates, and it had floated too far away,” Nazarius said.

  Ward dragged his attention away from the blood. “Let’s get the Seer set up over there.” He pointed to the alcove beside Maura. “And everyone but Jared needs to see me. You’re all hurt.”

  “How do you know?” Jared asked.

  “Because he can sense the blood,” Maura said. “That’s what they do, necromancer.”

  Ward bit the inside of his cheek. “Declan, do you have any medical supplies here?”

  “No,” the youth said, his face pale and slick with sweat.

  “Well, maybe no one’s that badly hurt,” Ward said, but that was wishful thinking. Declan had a pool of magic around his ankles and looked ready to fall over. Even Nazarius didn’t look well.

  Celia squared her shoulders. “I’ll sneak back into the village.”

  “That’s a terrible idea,” Nazarius said.

  “I only got a few scratches, and those seem to be healing.”

  “That’s because of your monster,” Maura said.

  Nazarius turned to Ward. “Is that true?”

  “Vesperitti accelerate their Innecroestri’s healing,” Jared said.

  Celia held out her hand. “Give me a dagger.”

  “Celia.” Ward jerked his chin toward the entrance, and they stepped away from the group.

  “We need medical supplies,” she said. “And I’m the most capable.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Without us to encumber you, you’ll be fine.”

  She leveled an icy stare at him. “Then what?”

  “It’s dangerous, and we don’t know if the soul chain will stretch that far.”

  “It hurts you more than it hurts me. I’ll be able to function. Nazarius and Declan are injured, and you need supplies to help them.”

  “What about giving them my soul magic? Isn’t that how you saved me from being poisoned in Macerio’s mansion?”

  “No.” The command snapped through him, squeezing in his chest. He gasped, and her expression softened. She drew him closer to the crack in the wall leading outside. “That will deplete you, and you’re already weakened.”

  You look gaunt again. Casting that reverse wake against the pirates had sapped his strength.

  He pressed a palm to his temples, and the sangsal flickered icy in his chest. “I don’t care if I look gaunt. I’m fine.”

  “What?”

  “You just said—”

  “No. I thought it.” Her eyes flashed wide. “You can read my thoughts now?”

  “I think it’s more like you can imprint your thoughts on me. Just
like you can command…you know…me to do things. Macerio could summon his vesperitti to him with a thought. Our connection is the same, so…”

  “So now you can read my thoughts. Wonderful. Well, we’ll deal with that when the world isn’t ending.”

  “This time or the next?”

  “There will not be a next. If there is, we’re sitting it out. You deserve a break.”

  “And so do you. I know you can get the supplies, but you shouldn’t have to. I can heal everyone just enough to get them out of danger. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it when I worked on Adolfus.”

  “You were kind of new to the whole being-a-vesperitti thing yesterday.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “The answer is still no. And that’s still a command.”

  “Celia—”

  She pressed his hand to his heart, hers over top of it. The heat from her palm radiated across his skin and through his shirt. “Do you honestly believe anyone other than Nazarius would let you heal them that way?”

  He glanced back at Maura and Declan. The magic around Declan billowed and undulated. He was losing a lot of blood somewhere, somehow. “Probably not.”

  She brushed his cheek, turning him back to face her. “You’re a physician and a surgeon. I’ll get the supplies, and you do what you do best.”

  Declan gasped and sagged to the ground beside Maura.

  “And I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Celia said.

  Celia rushed out of the cavern and hidden cove and back down the path, keeping her footsteps as quiet as possible without losing speed. Declan hadn’t looked good, Ward had looked desperate, and a pressure in her head that was the fractured, unintelligible screaming of Remy’s memories had only increased but hadn’t revealed anything helpful.

  She reached the edge of the village walkway where the trees parted, revealing the back of a two-story house. Smoke billowed over the rooftops, darkening the sky, but she couldn’t see flames, so the fire wasn’t close. She slowed her breath and listened. Men yelled and laughed somewhere deeper into the village, away from the smoke. Most likely by the dock. The fighting was over. She could only pray that most of the villagers had gotten away, but from the pirates’ jovial sounds, it was clear they thought the massacre was a success.

  She slipped into the water. The only medical supplies she knew of were in Maura’s house on the far side of the village, and the best way to get there was staying hidden under the houses and walkways.

  Sunlight shone between the boards of the walkway, pouring into the water with thin bands of light. Footsteps clattered above her, and pirates laughed.

  Celia pulled herself behind a thick stilt and waited. Except she couldn’t wait for long. She doubted Declan could last much longer or that Maura would let Ward transfer any of his soul magic into the youth to save him.

  Ward was too weak as it was.

  Goddess above, this was a mess. She hadn’t thought any of this through when she’d brought him back. She hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d been dead, and she’d been willing to do anything to change that. She had done anything.

  The pirates strode away, and she swam out from behind the stilt, following the shadows of the walkway until it branched away from Maura’s hut. One man stood on the walkway with his back to her. He said something to three more men ten feet down toward the docks. Beyond them, the ruins of a dozen houses smoldered, half collapsed in the water. A great boom snapped and the side of one of the houses tumbled into the lake.

  “Fish them out?” the closest man said. “I’m not fishing bodies from the water.”

  “That’s what Lauro says.” The biggest of the three strode up. “Every corpse lined up on the dock.”

  The first man shivered. “It’s unnatural.”

  “He’s a necromancer. There’s nothing natural about him.” The big man shrugged. “But there’s a whole lot of gold in it for us. So if he wants the bodies, we give him the bodies.”

  The first man shivered again. “Fine.”

  Another boom, and the rest of the house collapsed with a flurry of sparks, smoke, and hissing water.

  Celia eased back behind the stilt, sinking low so just her eyes and nose were above the water.

  The pirate bent and did a cursory glance at the open area between the walkways. “None down there.”

  “What kind of look is that?” the big man asked.

  “The kind a creepy necromancer who wants bodies gets.”

  “Take a better look.”

  “No.” The first man yelped as he splashed into the lake.

  Celia ducked under the water and swam back down the path, away from the dock and the pirates. She surfaced, her chest burning for air, still in the shadows of the walkway, on the far side of a stilt from the man in the water. The fastest way to Maura’s was across the open area. It wasn’t that far across, but it was closer to shore and shallower, and the risk of being seen was greater.

  The first man grabbed the edge of the walkway and hauled himself up.

  “No, you don’t.” The big pirate kicked at him. He grabbed at the man’s foot, missed, and fell back into the water. “Start looking.”

  If everyone was searching for bodies, it was going to be difficult to get the supplies and get out. A fortnight ago, she would have found the situation exciting. She still did, but now there was a cold dose of worry as well. If she died, Ward died, and she hadn’t risked her soul to bring him back just to let her thrill of the hunt kill him again.

  Celia ducked under the surface and swam. Out of the corner of her eye, water churned. The men wrestled, tossing each other around in the lake. Light sparkled around her. Ahead lay the promise of dark shadow and the thick legs of the walkway’s stilts.

  She reached the shadow and drew her eyes and nose out of the water, putting the closest stilt between her and the men. Her chest burned. She drew in a long breath, keeping it quiet, but the burning didn’t ease. It radiated around her heart, a heat, a pressure. The soul chain.

  It was stretched beyond its reach. The urge to call Ward, command him to come to her, trembled through her. She could make him come. If she called, he’d obey.

  The pirates hauled themselves from the water, their friends roaring with laughter.

  She wouldn’t summon him, but the need burned through her. It was all she could think about, even beyond the death and danger.

  Goddess. No. She ground her teeth.

  She. Would. Not.

  But if you summon him, the pain will ease, Remy’s fractured essence whispered.

  No.

  Ahead, beyond the wide expanse of house and the walkway, a hand reached down and hauled the corpse of a woman out of the lake. Bloody water dripped from her, and the pull of the power in that blood flared within Celia. She could fix Ward, fix the Gate, fix everything if she just had blood again.

  Just focus on the job. She forced herself to swim through the shadows. The burning in her chest increased. The yearning for the magical power in the blood pulsed hard. Once. Twice. Then the need to summon Ward overwhelmed the sensation.

  Her throat tightened, and she couldn’t expand her lungs, couldn’t draw in enough air.

  Call him.

  No.

  Goddess, her chest hurt. She strained to make her breath last and her limbs propel her faster. Specks danced across her vision as she hit the shadow of Maura’s house. With the last of her will, she eased out of the water and inhaled as silently as she could. Her chest was on fire.

  Call.

  “No!” Her heart skipped a beat, and she glanced around to see if anyone had heard her.

  Silence. No one came running. Thank the Goddess.

  The Goddess can’t save you.

  “Well, you aren’t helping,” she hissed.

  I’m helping more than you know.

  “Then help by shutting up. Just until this is done.”

  More silence from the pirates, and now from Remy as well—and she wasn’t going to wait for a response, since it would most l
ikely be unintelligible ranting or screaming. With trembling legs, she staggered inside, panting. This was supposed to be the easy part—getting back to the cave unnoticed, without dunking the medical supplies in the water, was supposed to be the challenge.

  A rucksack hung by the door beside a shelf filled with jars and boxes. She grabbed the sack, filled it with bandages, a needle and thread, a loaf of bread, a quarter wheel of cheese, a half-full water bottle, and a jug of wine. It wasn’t much, but it was all Maura had that Celia could recognize and grab fast.

  With luck, Ward could help Declan, and they wouldn’t need to hide in the cave for very long. She snorted. An assassin didn’t count on luck. An assassin counted on skill. But right now, they all needed a large helping of luck.

  She left the house and slipped back into the lake, keeping the rucksack above her head. The water here was as high as her chin and getting deeper the closer she got to the docks. Ahead, she caught glimpses of the pirates. They gathered at the dock, near their longboat. A second longboat had joined them, and Stasik and Lauro stood before that.

  Bodies lay lined up in front of the Innecroestri. There were too many dead. Men, women, and children. The pirates had slaughtered everyone they could, and it looked like not even half of the village had managed to escape before the attack had begun. So many dead. So much blood. A shiver of need swept over her.

  Stasik huffed. “Not much of an army.”

  “It’s a start. There’s a larger village downstream, and more all the way back to the Bantiantan Sea.” Lauro pulled the Eye from the folds of his golden robes. Sunlight flashed off the gold setting but seemed to be devoured by the black stone in the center. “The potential is unlimited.”

  “My sangsal soldiers are more powerful,” Stasik said.

  “That is the question, isn’t it? What’s better, quality or quantity?”

  The weight in Celia’s chest burned, and the urge to draw forward and touch the blood was overwhelming.

  Focus.

  Yes, on the blood— No, on the job: getting the medical supplies to Ward.