Lizaveta still remembered with vivid clarity the first time she had seen them dance. She’d been crossing through one of Ninavel’s boisterous night markets, crowds of nathahlen falling silent and scrabbling to clear her path the instant they sighted the jagged red and black sigils on her gown. Until she came upon two dancers so intent on their performance they had not heard the panicked whispers of Blood mage! Blood mage coming! Oblivious, the dancers leaped and swayed and tumbled across the street’s packed sand like magefire chased by a desert breeze. Their dance displayed such power and grace it was like joy given form. In the months since, Lizaveta had summoned the pair many times to dance for her, and savored every moment of the experience.
But now she had need of the pair in a different way. Far across the world, her mage-brother Ruslan—her spellcasting partner, her lover, the other half of her self—had completed his months-long hunt for a certain prize, and was ready to return to her side. The distant shimmer of his triumph and yearning for reunion curled along the bond that linked their souls.
She was just as eager for his return, and not merely because she missed him. She had important news to discuss with him. News of a threat—and an opportunity.
She smiled and peeled back a quivering slab of muscle to expose reddened bone. The dancers’ torment would give her the power to bring Ruslan home. That was well worth the loss of evening entertainment. Ninavel’s teeming streets and sun-scorched spires held plenty of nathahlen. There were always more dancers.
Lizaveta paused. The maimed dancer’s ikilhia wavered like a candleflame in a sandstorm, soon to extinguish. His partner’s anguish had reached its peak. The time to cast her spell had come.
She took up a second blade, careful lest the hilt slip in her blood-slicked hand, and moved to where she could reach both dancers. Plunging one knife into the dying dancer’s heart, she whipped the other blade across his partner’s throat. The shock of violent death exploded through the aether, rich and dark and sweet, ah, so sweet! Lizaveta shut out the rapture singing through her soul, maintaining with practiced ease the diamond clarity of her focus. She contained the explosion of power and sent every last spark arrowing through the labyrinthine maze of spell-channels.
The vast natural confluence of magic that washed invisibly through Ninavel swirled and shifted in answer. Wild currents aligned into an ordered mimicry of her spell pattern. The confluence’s power was so immense that any mage who tried to touch it directly would burn to ash. Yet the strongest of mages, akheli like she and Ruslan—blood mages, as the untalented called them—could harness the currents’ strength with stolen soul-energies.
Even so, casting with the confluence was perilous, especially without a partner to smooth and control the harnessing channels’ flow. But Lizaveta wasn’t alone. Despite the vast distance between them, Ruslan reached along their bond with all his considerable strength, sharing her mage-sight, wielding his magic in concert with hers, acting as channeler for her though he was not physically present. No other akheli pair had ever managed such a feat of shared skill. Even among their own kind, Lizaveta and Ruslan were legendary.
One slip in concentration meant death for them both, but Lizaveta’s faith in her mage-brother’s skill and strength matched her confidence in her own. Their trust, first built long ago during their shared apprenticeship, had proved unshakeable. She need never fear Ruslan would fail her.
The translocation spell blazed into shape, gloriously perfect in every detail. Lizaveta blocked out satisfaction and cast, focusing her will through the shining spell-structure.
The world bowed to her desire. One instant the center of the spiraling channels was empty, and the next, the familiar tall, broad-shouldered figure of her mage-brother appeared. A far smaller figure huddled beside him. The child—Ruslan’s prize, the object of his long hunt—convulsed, retching.
Translocation was hard on its subjects, even an akheli. Ruslan’s nausea and disorientation shuddered into her, though his proud posture revealed no outward sign of distress. Working swiftly, Lizaveta damped down leftover energies. She spared a quick lash of power to burn away the dancers’ ruined corpses and the blood coating her arms, then funneled the remaining magic back into the confluence.
Ruslan mastered his discomfort; eager joy blossomed along their link.
“Liza!” He strode over the darkened channels that separated them, his gait still a trifle unsteady, and caught her in an exuberant embrace.
Even after all their years together, she treasured the feel of him in her arms. The brilliant red blaze of his ikilhia was as hot and vibrant as a second sun. When first they had met as children, she had thought him so odd in appearance. His skin was golden, not brown or umber, his hair russet rather than shining black, his eyes angular and hazel instead of pleasingly large and dark. It was the fire in him she had first loved, but now she thought him beautiful both inside and out. She kissed the smooth planes of his face, then his mouth, savoring the taste of salt and strange spices. He slid his hands along her body, his desire and delight merging with hers.
She pulled back, laughing. “What are you wearing?” Both he and the child were swathed in patchwork coats sewn out of some bizarre beast’s fur. A faint but distinctly rancid odor wafted off Ruslan’s garment.
“It was cold there. A desert of snow and ice.” Ruslan shrugged out of the coat and caught her hands. “Ah, how I’ve missed you!”
“I am delighted to see you home.” Lizaveta let the full measure of that delight flood their bond. “I’ve had important news we must discuss—”
“Discussions can wait. Come, see what kept me from your side.” He tugged her toward the child, his mind ablaze with excitement.
Lizaveta sighed. Clearly she would get nothing sensible out of him until she indulged his latest passion. She had tolerated with patient amusement Ruslan’s various obsessions over the long centuries of their partnership, but she thought his current project the most dubious of all. One thing to take apprentices—she’d always known he’d want to build a family one day. But when he’d taken his first child, several months ago, Lizaveta found his choice of apprentice deeply dismaying. Bad enough the child was damaged and half-mad, requiring long weeks of labor on Ruslan’s part to repair his mind.
The real trouble lay in the boy’s nature. He was far too soft-hearted to make a good akheli. Ruslan refused to see it, so captivated by the boy’s raw talent that he would hear no warnings. He’d locked the boy in a preservation spell that kept him insensible and unaging, while Ruslan hunted for a second child of the right talent and temperament to be the boy’s mage-sibling. Akheli always took apprentices in pairs. The only way to learn channeled casting was with a partner.
She hoped Ruslan had exercised better wisdom in selecting that partner.
“Meet my new akhelysh,” Ruslan announced, stripping furs from his latest acquisition. The child looked pitifully scrawny without them. He’d stopped retching, but he seemed dazed, so layered in spells meant to protect his untrained ikilhia from the confluence’s terrible power that Lizaveta couldn’t sense his soul. All she had was the evidence of her eyes: the boy was foreign like Ruslan in appearance, but not so exotically beautiful as Ruslan’s first choice. This one was sturdy, perhaps eight years of age, with hair and skin the color of sand, a flat face, and angled eyes as gray as slate.
“What is his name?” Lizaveta asked.
“He asked me for a new one,” Ruslan said. “I thought we might call him Mikail.”
Mikail had been the name of their own beloved mistress Vasha’s partner. Both Mikail and Vasha were long dead, but no amount of years could heal the aching void in Ruslan and Lizaveta’s souls where their bond to Vasha had been rooted.
“A nice sentiment,” Lizaveta murmured, and knelt to look the boy in the eyes. “Let us see if you are worthy of it.” She touched the child’s bare shoulder. He did not flinch, only blinked owlishly at her. Likely Ruslan had not yet taught him a civilized tongue. Liza
veta slid a delicate thread of power through the layers of Ruslan’s spellwork. Even squeezed down tight beneath protective bindings, the boy’s ikilhia was a healthy bonfire of green. He was certainly talented. As for his character...
Stoic; obedient; practical; an orphan grieving for a murdered brother and parents, yet taking savage solace in the bloody revenge Ruslan had provided him, and desperate to become strong like Ruslan, so he might never suffer loss again—
“You’ve chosen well,” Lizaveta said to Ruslan, relieved. Now he’d found a proper akhelysh, he might even rethink his first selection. She stood and reached through their bond, asking, Why not dispose of the flawed child and find another like this one?
His rejection of the idea was instant. Kiran is my heart’s choice, and I will have no other. Flaws can be overcome; I will make him strong.
Lizaveta hesitated, uneasy. Vasha had always told her, Your mage-brother’s greatest fault is his impetuous nature. You have the cooler head; you must help him use his reason. After so many years, Lizaveta had believed that task well in hand. It was rare for Ruslan to disregard her counsel.
Ruslan said softly, “Will you not have faith in me? I know this is not your choice, and I will not ask your help in their training. But I truly believe this path can bring both of us joy.”
He showed her a vision of the future: the boys grown into young men, their souls chained to Ruslan’s so that he ruled their minds and magic with complete assurance of their loyalty. Mikail and Kiran would be willing partners in his casting and in every way he and Lizaveta might wish to make use of them...and oh, the uses would be many, once they were old enough. Particularly for Kiran, with his silken black hair in such striking contrast to his strange, moon-pale skin.
You always did have a good eye for beauty, Lizaveta said, capitulating. Just be sure you train the weakness out of him before you bring him to our bed.
Ruslan’s delight rippled into her. That, I can promise. Have you ever known me to fail once I set my mind to a task?
No, she had not. She must admit he’d chosen Kiran’s mage-brother wisely. “So long as you remember the children are your responsibility alone.”
“Of course,” Ruslan said, but his attention was not on her, nor even the dazed, uncomprehending Mikail. His ikilhia reached for the room where little Kiran lay in spelled stasis. He meant to release the child this instant.
“No!” Urgency kept Lizaveta from softening the command.
“No?” Ruslan’s brows drew together. “You just insisted the children are mine to raise as I see fit.”
Ruslan was her mage-brother, the light of her heart. She could not simply stand by and watch him make a disastrous error.
“You wish to mold Kiran’s character using Mikail, yes? Then he must look up to Mikail as to an elder brother, not an equal, and Mikail must feel secure in your love, not see Kiran as a rival for your heart. Leave Kiran as he is while you begin Mikail’s training. Give Mikail a year with you, perhaps more. Only then should you wake Kiran from spell-sleep, and show Mikail your trust by giving Kiran into his care.”
Ruslan’s frown turned thoughtful. He inclined his head to her. “I see the wisdom in this. I will do as you suggest.”
That reassured her as nothing else could have. His obsession had not completely overthrown his reason.
Ruslan strode to the workroom door, opened it, and called a sharp summons. A middle-aged nathahlen servant obediently hurried in, gaze downcast. Ruslan consigned Mikail to the servant’s care, ordering the woman to feed and bathe him.
Lizaveta said dryly to Ruslan, “I suggest you bathe as well. I’ve never smelled anything quite like those furs. But first, if you’ve quite finished admiring your akhelyshen, I have news of far greater import. Our contact in Alathia sent a message: Simon Levanian has killed the spies sent to watch him, and vanished.”
Simon was akheli, a rival of old. For a time, he and Lizaveta and Ruslan had shared an uneasy truce in Ninavel, enforced by the city’s ruler. Lord Sechaveh was not akheli, not even mage-talented, but he was cunning as a dune viper and possessed one great weapon. When he first founded Ninavel in the desert shadow of the Whitefire Mountains, his mage-talented sister had bound him to the confluence in such a way that he could bar any mage, even an akheli, from harnessing the least drop of its magic. Few mages wished to risk losing such an incredible source of power, and Sechaveh insisted every mage in Ninavel swear a binding blood oath never to cast against him.
Simon alone had dared to challenge Sechaveh’s rule. Seven years ago, he fought to take the city for his own, and would have won—if not for Lizaveta and Ruslan. With Sechaveh’s sanction, they murdered Simon’s apprentices so he could no longer cast channeled spells. Simon fled across the Whitefires and crept into the country of Alathia to hide behind their border wards, which were famously impenetrable even to confluence-fueled casting.
His exile was surely not comfortable. Blood magic was outlawed in Alathia, and the Watch, a cadre of mages conditioned since birth into slavish loyalty to the ruling council, sniffed out and executed offenders with righteous zeal. Living in hiding, Simon would be restricted to casting only minor spells, as if he were among the least talented of mages. Doubtless he had spent the last seven years dreaming of revenge.
“You think Simon has returned across the border?” A predatory eagerness dawned in Ruslan’s eyes. “That would certainly bring opportunity.”
Sechaveh had forbidden them to kill Simon. He refused to share his reasons, but Lizaveta had her suspicions. Sechaveh was wise enough not to assume current alliances would forever hold, and Simon was the only mage in the west with talent to match that of Lizaveta and Ruslan.
Ruslan had been outraged, his pride bristling at taking orders from a nathahlen. Lizaveta had counseled patience. Let Sechaveh think he had their compliance; let Simon cower behind Alathia’s wards. One of the joys of near-immortality was that they had no need for haste. Wait long enough, she had told Ruslan, and our chance will come.
“If we strike at Simon, it must be subtly done,” Lizaveta said. “But first, we must find him. If Simon has returned to Arkennland, he’s veiled himself well. Working alone, I could find no trace of him. Now you are here to partner my casting, we can scry for him properly. Even if he has not yet broken exile, I think it clear he intends some move against us.”
Ruslan laughed. “Let him try. Partnerless, he has no hope of besting us.”
“He might be crippled, but he is also clever.” Not to mention wary, cautious, and methodical. Simon never acted on a plan unless he felt certain of success.
“Not clever enough.” The cold ferocity of Ruslan’s smile brought her a surge of dark anticipation. “If he heard news of my absence and hoped to take advantage, he has lost that chance. Shall we cast to hunt him?”
“Nothing would please me more.” Lizaveta too thought Simon’s timing no coincidence, but not due to news of Ruslan’s absence. More likely, Simon had learned of Ruslan’s decision to take apprentices. He must hope Ruslan would be too distracted by training his akhelyshen to hunt him properly.
A prickle of worry chased over her, as she recalled Ruslan’s blithe dismissal of her first mention of news. He’d been so eager to show off Mikail, he had no attention to spare.
Yet after his initial burst of excitement, he heard her counsel, returned to reason, and now his eagerness to seek Simon ran every bit as hot as she could wish. And was that not the strength of their partnership? Alone, Ruslan might yield to weakness. Together, neither would let the other fall. Ruslan’s confidence was not misplaced. Their combined strength was more than a match for Simon. All they had to do was find him.
* * *
Lizaveta stood beside the warded window of her study, gripping the jeweled silver band of a message charm. Outside, the sun slowly sank behind the serrated ridgeline of the Whitefire Mountains. Ninavel’s soaring white stone towers stood out sharp against a sky ablaze with crimson and orange.
The sunset’s beauty did little to assuage Lizaveta’s frustration.
Three years. Three long years, and no spell she and Ruslan cast revealed the least trace of Simon. That surely meant Simon remained in Alathia, concealed by the border wards, but the spies she sent to search Alathian cities and countryside had no better luck.
Ruslan was content to lie in wait and train his akhelyshen. Lizaveta was not.
She frowned at the message charm. She detested the need to depend on nathahlen spies, who were irritatingly limited and fallible. Before ciphered missives could be charm-sent to Ninavel, they had to be couriered across the border, a laborious process subject to all manner of delays. The message she expected today was already late. Perhaps it would only be another litany of failure, but she had particular hopes for this spy, more determined and methodical than most. His last message had said he intended to hunt deep into Alathia’s rugged northern wildlands, after discovering in some crude little village that two of the area’s most experienced trappers had never returned from a scouting trip. Lizaveta knew the trappers’ disappearance was probably the result of the wild’s many natural perils, rather than murder by a fugitive akheli intent on remaining hidden, yet she could not help but hope...
A tentative young voice spoke. “Khanum Liza?”
Kiran stood in the study’s arched doorway. His small face and hands were scrubbed to alabaster perfection, though chalk smudges and magefire burns still marred his clothes.
“What is it, little one?” She had to admit that so far he’d proved a better akhelysh to Ruslan than she imagined. That was in no small part thanks to Ruslan’s scrupulous adherence to Lizaveta’s advice in preparing Kiran’s relationship with Mikail. Once introduced, the boys had quickly settled into the ideal pattern to mold Kiran’s character: Mikail fiercely protective of his younger mage-brother, and Kiran idolizing him in return, doing his utmost to follow Mikail’s lead in their training.
Kiran bowed low. “I did well with my spell designs today, so Ruslan said I might ask you for a story.”
Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists Page 24
