The Smoke-Scented Girl

by Melissa McShane

  “Quite the character flaw, I’ve always thought. Desini cucurri!”

  Evon countered it with a flick of his left hand. “I’m not leaving without her.”

  “You’re not leaving here at all. Frigo!” she shouted, and threw herself to one side as Evon shouted “Recivia!” and sent the spell flying back in her direction. She ducked, far too agilely for someone wearing that layer cake of a dress, and Evon took the opportunity to look behind him. His heart sank. Her desini cucurri hadn’t gone astray; it had been aimed at the four magicians behind him, who now lay in varying frozen positions he would have found comical if he weren’t fighting for his life. They were so slow and now he was on his own, which was what he’d always thought would happen, because the Gods were not on his side. He ran for a door and got it open to dive inside just as Odelia unleashed another frigo at him. She was good enough that any breaking spell she hit him with would splinter his bones. Across the hall, Piercy stood in the shelter of another doorway, glancing out occasionally. “I’ll distract her, and you go,” Evon called out, and Piercy nodded. Evon left his doorway long enough to direct four different spells at Odelia, and Piercy made his run as Odelia had to concentrate on defending herself. She half-turned in Piercy’s direction as he passed her, and Evon cast his own frigo to keep her from pursuing him.

  “Your shadow won’t do you any good. There are plenty of guards on that room,” Odelia called out. “Though I would like to know how you located her. I have enough obstructions on this building to block anyone, especially you.”

  “Oh, Odelia, you know I’m better than you are,” Evon said. “Gold medalist. Top of the class. And your spellbuilding never did compare with mine. You had to cheat to even come close to matching me.”

  “I am not a cheat!” Odelia screamed, and the door behind Evon shattered, showering him with wood splinters. “You always had everyone believing you were the golden boy, they gave you all the chances and I had to claw my way to the top! I should have arranged an accident for you years ago, but I’ll just have to settle for killing you now. Forva!”

  The doorway burst into flame, and Evon rolled away from it and scrambled to the doorway Piercy had occupied. “Recivia!” he shouted, and the next forva rebounded on Odelia. He heard her scream and looked out just in time to see her extinguish the fire burning her tiered skirt. “Forva!” he shouted, snapping his fingers, and a circle of fire surrounded her. He sank back into the shelter of the room and tried to catch his breath. He was tiring, and losing his focus. At some point, his reflexes would slow enough that he couldn’t cancel whatever she threw at him, and then he’d be dead.

  Soft footsteps approached along the carpeted corridor, and he flattened himself against the wall next to the doorway. The footsteps slowed, and then—

  “Frigo!” Odelia shouted, and the wall collapsed on him, knocking him to the ground and filling his lungs with plaster dust. He rose to his hands and knees and then cried out, hacking and spitting plaster, as she kicked him hard with her pointed boot. “Do you know how many ways I could kill you, Lorantis?” she said in a conversational tone. “I figured out your little shielding trick. I’d say it was brilliant, but it was really pathetically simple. Presadi.” The shield sprang up around him, clinging to his nose and mouth, and with his last breath he gestured to cancel the spell. He sucked in air and threw himself away from Odelia, wincing at the pain in his side. “Forva,” she said, and again Evon rolled to avoid the fire that sprang up where he’d been lying. He wouldn’t be able to last much longer.

  “You see, Lorantis? I am better than you,” Odelia said.

  “Better at torturing people, possibly,” Evon wheezed.

  “Better at being ruthless,” she taunted him. “Really, a trait you ought to learn.” She stood over him where he lay on his back, feeling as paralyzed as if in the grip of desini cucurri. He had perhaps one spell left in him. The right spell.

  He returned her gaze and saw mad obsession in her eyes. She would never stop trying to kill him and Kerensa both. And he knew what that one spell had to be. “All right,” he said. “Frigo.”

  Odelia’s neck snapped back so hard the crack was audible. Her shocked eyes met his once more before the life drained out of them and she collapsed to the floor.

  Evon lay, breathing heavily, unable to move for a moment. He closed his eyes. He’d never killed anyone before. It had been far too easy. Then the horror of what he’d done struck him, and he rolled over and vomited up whatever it was he couldn’t remember eating. It smelled of bile and the lemony tang of frigo. He crouched there on hands and knees, breathing heavily. He couldn’t even swear he’d never do it again, if it meant protecting Kerensa, and he felt sick again to know he was capable of such a thing. Time enough to hate yourself when she’s safe. He pushed himself to his feet and went wearily to the door.

  Someone rushed at him, and he was too tired, he couldn’t react before the person attacked him with his bare hands. No, it was Piercy, grabbing at his coat. “Evon, you have to come now,” he said. “She won’t let me take her. Keeps saying something about the spell. She’ll listen to you. Come now.”

  Fresh strength poured through him. She’s why I’m here. He ran with Piercy down the corridor to the servants’ stairs and down the narrow hall to the room he’d seen in spexa, passing the limp bodies of four men Evon didn’t recognize, blood pooling beneath them. Piercy could be deadly when he wanted. They burst through the door and skidded to a halt. The red-bearded man, Valantis, stood in the center of the room with Kerensa bundled over his shoulder. She was struggling, but weakly, her legs hanging limply down her captor’s chest, and Valantis seemed not to notice her exertions. “Out of my way,” he said. His voice was deep and raspy, the voice of a man with a long tobacco-smoking habit.

  “Put her down,” Evon said.

  Kerensa struggled harder and cried out, “Evon—”

  “The weapon is mine,” Valantis said. He reached up with his free hand and casually struck Kerensa on the back of her head, hard, and she fell silent. Evon shouted, “Frigo!” but he was too exhausted for it to do anything more powerful than make the big man sway where he stood.

  “Not much of a magician, are you? Now get out of my way and I won’t kill you where you stand.”

  Evon began circling to the man’s right, limbering his fingers. Piercy went to the left, flexing his wrist and letting a knife fall into his open hand. Valantis shifted his weight trying to follow them both. “Clever,” the big man said. He dropped Kerensa, making her cry out in pain, and whipped out a long knife and put it to her throat. “I’ll kill her, and then neither of us will have the weapon. But I judge you care more about her welfare than you do about the spell.”

  Evon looked at Kerensa, whose face was set and white. She looked exhausted. He felt as if Valantis’s knife had gone through his chest. “All right,” he said, raising his hands in submission, his mind working frantically. “Don’t hurt desini cucurri!”

  He had never tried targeting only part of a person before, and it didn’t work as well as he had hoped—Valantis could still move at the waist, but his arms and neck were frozen, and that was all that mattered. Evon carefully pulled Kerensa away from the knife before Valantis realized he was still conscious and that his legs were free. He wrenched the knife out of the man’s frozen hands and gave it to Piercy. “Take him to Mrs. Petelter,” he said. “I’ll bring Kerensa.”

  “No,” she said in a voice raw from screaming that made Evon wish he had the power to kill Odelia again. “You have to get everyone out of here. I can’t hold it off much longer.”

  He knelt next to her. “You—the spell. You’re keeping it from activating?”

  She nodded. “I don’t know how long. You have to get everyone out. I can feel it building.”

  Evon exchanged glances with Piercy. “Forget him,” Evon said, nodding at Valantis. “Use the mirror to get everyone out of the manor. If he wants to live, he can find his own way. Do you understand?” he said to Val
antis, who looked very confused. “You’re about to see that weapon you were so interested in demonstrate its power. If you don’t want to be part of the display, I suggest you start running.”

  Valantis gave him one more stunned look, then stumbled out of the room, his neck and arms unnaturally still, unbalancing him so he bounced off the doorframe on his way out. “Evon—” Piercy began.

  “Get out. I’ll help Kerensa. Move!” Piercy ran out the door. Evon turned to Kerensa. “This isn’t a safe place for you when you’re reborn,” he said. “You won’t be able to get out of the wreckage. Can you stand?”

  She shook her head. “She broke my legs,” she said. “You have to go.”

  “I told you I’d stay with you, didn’t I?” He scooped her up in his arms, staggered a little under her weight, then headed toward the servants’ stairs. “We’ll go out the back. It might still destroy the house, but we won’t be under it.”

  “I can’t control it much longer,” she cried. “You’ll be killed.”

  “Just tell me when you’re going to let go.” He went down the stairs as fast as he dared with his burden. Kerensa tucked her head into his shoulder and clasped him tightly around the neck. Her skin was hot to the touch and reddening as he ran. She must have extraordinary willpower, to prevent a spell of that magnitude from activating for even a short time. He could hear her whimper every time he went down another flight of stairs, jogging her broken legs, and cold fury filled him to the point that he could barely see.

  They reached the entrance hall and Evon turned toward the back of the house. He hadn’t paid much attention to this part of the building, since it had nothing to do with the route to the fourth floor, and he was casting about for a door that might lead to the outside when Kerensa said faintly, “It’s happening.” Evon quickly set her down. Her skin was bright red and faint irregular lines of yellow began to form underneath it. He realized, too late, that his reserves were low and he had no idea if he could cast a spell strong enough to withstand this blast. Nothing to be done. He rolled into a ball and said, “Presadi,” just in time to see Kerensa convulse on the floor, and then he squeezed his eyes tight shut as the blast hit his shield.

  The light was so bright it burned his eyes through his eyelids and the forearms he put up to shield his face. He felt himself buffeted by a wind that rolled him in his shield across the floor, bumping as if the smooth floor were made of jagged rocks instead. The airtight shield blocked sound as well, blocked it so completely that he felt as if the blast had knocked him deaf as well as blind. He kept his arms up, afraid to look, afraid he’d already been blinded, and waited for the shield to stop rolling. No heat, isn’t that lucky? I guess it works. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. Was the event over? How long did it last? He wished he’d thought to ask Kerensa, then realized she was probably too preoccupied with dying to notice things like the passage of time. Kerensa. He dared open his eyes a crack and saw a red haze and the afterimages of the white, searing light. He needed air. He dismissed presadi and felt panic clutch at his heart; he couldn’t see anything, not fire, not walls or masonry. He blinked, hard, and saw red and orange in the distance, and felt cold air that smelled of char and old stone on his face. Heat seared his palms, and he rolled onto his back and panted, drawing in deep breaths of the frigid air. Then he let out a cry and leaped to his feet, swatting at the back of his head and Kerensa’s bag, still strapped to his back, where they had begun to burn. The searingly hot ground gave off waves of heat he could see in the moonlight and began to burn through the soles of his boots. “Presadi,” he said with a gesture, acting by instinct, and a flattened bubble appeared on the ground before him; he stepped onto it, wobbled, and found his balance. He really ought to learn to cast that shield as a wall rather than a sphere.

  Things began to swim into focus, and far above he saw specks of light. Some of them danced and sparkled with rainbow light, and they were probably imaginary, but others remained stationary and he was fairly certain they were stars. The manor was nothing more than heaps of ash and still-flowing stone, rising at intervals around him that mirrored the walls and pillars. Steam rose from the cracked, blackened tiles beneath his feet. About twenty feet away, a dark shape huddled on the ground, weeping. Evon wobbled his way toward her by kicking presadi until it rolled, awkwardly, knocking him off balance with every rut and bump it went over. He removed his coat and draped it around her as he’d done once before, though what he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her until her tears stopped.

  “You’re not dead,” she said. Her voice was dull and emotionless. “I thought you would be dead.”

  “You have such little faith in me? I won’t say it wasn’t hard, but I do have some small skill as a magician. And—” He pulled her bag off his back and rummaged in it. “I brought you a dress.”

  She looked up at him, holding out the blue gown with a flourish, and began to laugh, somewhat hysterically, but it was a laugh nonetheless. He laughed with her. She would be all right, he thought, and turned his back so she could dress. “Your legs,” he said suddenly.

  “Reborn, remember? She—” Kerensa’s voice cut off abruptly. “She mostly just tried to take the spell off, and that terrified me, but otherwise she didn’t hurt me much.”

  “I know Odelia. I think you’re lying to me.”

  “Well, I know you, and I think you’re trying to make all of this your fault, so you can just stop that right now. I don’t even feel any pain. You can turn around now.” She was looking through her bag for her shoes. “The worst part was feeling like...like a thing. Like all they cared about was the weapon.”

  Evon felt sick again. “The magicians are here,” he said. “They helped rescue you. I’m afraid some of them will see you only as a weapon too.”

  Kerensa put on her cloak and shivered. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “I’m going to be lucky if Mistress Gavranter—that’s their head magician—can arrange for me to stay here rather than be shipped off to Matra. I think I impressed her, and I did just manage to survive the weapon at its most powerful. But...it’s likely they won’t let me work on the spell anymore. I might be allowed to consult.”

  “That’s so unfair.”

  “It will give me time to work on the other spell. The one that proves the Despot is the spell’s target.”

  Kerensa came close enough to him that he could see her smooth face in the moonlight. “You really think that’s true?”

  “I try to trust my instincts. But not so much that I won’t try to prove it before acting on it.”

  Kerensa took his hand and squeezed it, sending a thrill through his body. “Thanks for coming after me.”

  His vision was still a little blurry, but he could see her eyes, and his heart ached. He’d thought—he’d hoped, by the way she had clung to him as he carried her, that possibly...but no. The look she gave him had nothing but friendly affection in it. He managed a smile. “How could I do otherwise, and still call myself your friend?” Though a friend wouldn’t be feeling this way about you right now. Oh, Kerensa.

  The devastation extended far beyond the ruined manor, farther than Evon’s blurry vision could see in the moonlight. The smoking ground was rough, and presadi was awkward, so it took them some time to cross the hundred yards or more to where the frost-burned grass began again. They saw no sign of life anywhere, all across the fields. They neared the forest, and Evon worried that the others might not have gotten out in time, that Piercy—

  “There you are! You had me worried, dear fellow. I was about to come looking for you.” Piercy detached himself from the trees and embraced him, pounding him hard on the back. “Kerensa, you look well.”

  “I feel well,” she said. “The urge has passed. I thought you came with a lot of people.”

  “We’re all here, Miss Haylter, and are astonished at that display,” Mistress Gavranter said. “Belitha Gavranter, and I hope we will be able to discover the secret of that spell and free you fr
om it.”

  “I hope so too, Mistress Gavranter,” Kerensa said. “Was...was anyone killed?”

  “Five of Mrs. Petelter’s agents did not return, and two of our magicians were caught in the weapon’s fury,” she said. “Please don’t look that way, young lady. It’s not under your control, and they knew what the risks were.”

  Evon almost told her about Kerensa’s holding off the blast for several minutes. He decided to wait until they were alone. If those magicians knew Kerensa could do something like that, they might draw the wrong conclusions. Better not to confuse them now.

  “It’s hard for me not to feel guilty,” Kerensa was saying. “Even though I know it’s the spell doing it.”

  “Well, I think we can rid you of it soon, with Mr. Lorantis’s help,” Mistress Gavranter said. “I suggest we go on to Ostradon and find shelter there. In the morning, if you don’t mind, Miss Haylter, we’ll begin our studies.”

  Evon kept his mouth shut. If Mistress Gavranter was going to ignore his summons back to Matra, he wasn’t going to make an issue of it. He mounted, and took Kerensa up behind him, wishing her hands on his waist meant more than just her need to stay on the horse. His terror for her safety had dissolved into misery at his own situation. If he—if they—succeeded at freeing her, the magicians would take the spell to Matra, or to the Despot, and Kerensa would go home and back to her old life, and he would never see her again. She thought of him as the brother he’d claimed to be, would probably remember him fondly or with gratitude, and he would carry the memory of her face with him for the rest of his life. He clenched his hands on the reins. At least she’d remember him. It would have to be enough.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Piercy threw open a window, choking and gagging. “Evon Lorantis,” he said, waving the thick orange smoke out the window, “you are my best friend, and I would do anything for you, but I am nearly to the point of tossing you out this window along with your noxious fumes.”