by Melanie Card
Ward sucked in a long breath and closed his eyes, and she slid her dagger from its sheath. Nazarius did the same with his sword. Jotham squeezed his goddess-eye pendant and drew a dagger as well. If anything physical happened they were ready. The problem was, riths weren’t something you could stab. They were magic spirits, and that was all on Ward.
The sun sat low on the horizon, and the sky was darkening faster than she would have liked. They should have brought torches. Even the shimmering glow of witch-stone woven into the walls seemed weak, as if, in this moment just before twilight, darkness—and the creatures within it—were at their strongest.
Then something soothing caressed her skin. A kiss of warmth. Fluttery, uncertain.
Ward.
Without a doubt she recognized his magic, his strength, the part of himself that he didn’t realize he had. This warmth was the same as when he’d used his magic those few times before.
The warmth disappeared.
She held her breath, yearning for it to return, for Ward to sense it, recognize it, embrace it.
The magic flared back to life and slid over her again, drawing gooseflesh in anticipation. It was solid now, no longer stuttering with uncertainty, and growing, building from warmth to heat, from dying candle to fully fueled lantern.
This was Ward the way he was supposed to be. Maybe after this, he’d finally see the truth about who he was.
She had never experienced anything like him before. A person couldn’t feel a Seer’s magic and could only feel an Inquisitor’s when he was ripping into your mind. She wasn’t particularly magically sensitive, which meant Ward had to have great magical strength deep within him, and he was coming into that strength. Only the magic from the most powerful necromancers and Brothers of Light could be felt like this.
The sensation wavered, and her heart skipped a beat. She had no idea if he was losing the magic or using it up.
Nothing was happening. The square, large enough to host a thousand people but accessible only by the three narrow archways across from the executioner’s slab, remained quiet. Dying sunlight illuminated the white wall of the building high above those arches. Soon, the sun would dip behind the mountains, leaving the threads of witch-stone, already glowing eerily, in a spiderweb of pale light around them.
A cool breeze sighed across her face, pulling at the loose strands of hair that had fallen free of her braid. Ward’s magic flared as if in a response, a warmth against the chill of the oncoming night.
The breeze came again. Stronger, colder.
Ward’s magic billowed. Swirling, caressing, absorbing.
The chill trembled, stutters of ice against her skin. Weakening. Dying. Ward’s magic was stronger. He was stronger. He would banish this rith, and his confidence would be restored. This was the success he needed.
But with a snap, the breeze slapped against her face.
She gasped, and as if powered by her breath, the wind gained strength. It whipped around her, yanking the rest of her hair from its braid and pulling at her clothes.
“I summon thee.” Ward’s voice rang strong. He squared his shoulders and turned his face, hard and confident, into the gust. The heat of Ward’s magic swelled, but the wind roared stronger.
“Come forth, rith, and be free.”
More heat. More shards of cold.
He leaned into the gale. “I summon thee. Come forth and find peace.”
Cold denial exploded around her, burning her face and hands. Her breath seared in her lungs, frost bit her lips and nose.
“I summon thee!” Ward slammed his hands against the octagon. A scream pierced the roar of the tempest. Sharp. Agonizing. Brittle as the ice snapping against her skin.
“I summon thee!”
Hot and cold beat around her. Summer and winter. Light and dark. Life and death. It threatened to consume her in its vortex, and she was powerless to stop it. Her heart pounded and she tightened her grip on her dagger. It might be useless, but she would be damned if she didn’t stand her ground.
Another frozen snap, and the tempest burst apart. It vanished as fast as it had appeared, leaving her ears ringing, her whole body ringing, with the unnatural silence.
Ward hunched in the octagon, his back heaving with quick gasps. His eyes were still squeezed shut, and strain furrowed his forehead. He tilted his head to the side as if he could hear something she couldn’t, then quiet, heartbreaking sobs oozed from the darkness.
His magic pulsed, sparks of lightning against her skin. The veins in his temples and along his neck strained against skin. This was too much. He was putting too much into this. She was going to lose him.
She reached for him, but Nazarius seized her wrist before her hand could cross the bloody line of the octagon.
“Let him finish.”
The sobs turned to laughter. Nazarius threw his attention to the square, but the sound came from all around them.
“Well I’m here, necromancer. What now?”
Ward tensed, the muscles in his arms and across his back taut and trembling. “Cross over.”
“How about something else?” More laughter spun around them. “How about a little blood?”
Jotham gasped and stumbled back. Something dark and viscous, like blood, bubbled from a crack in the brickwork.
“Cross. The damned. Veil,” Ward gasped.
More blood bubbled from cracks in the bricks. It seeped toward them, inching closer.
Ward jerked his head up, his gaze locked on the archway directly across from him. “I said cross.”
A man stepped from the shadows of the arch. “No. We’re not done playing.”
“I can make you cross.”
She’d never seen Ward so fierce before. He shook with effort and rage and determination. He was a completely different man, possessed by the magic within him. No, not completely different. This was the Ward she’d seen glimpses of before.
The rith-possessed man in the archway laughed again. The sound raced around them as if it hadn’t originated from across the square but from the air itself. “You have to catch me first.”
With a growl, Ward leapt off the platform and bolted toward him. Celia grabbed for Ward, but he was too fast. She rushed after him, Nazarius half a step behind.
The man disappeared into the shadows beyond the arch. Ward didn’t hesitate. He ran down the street into a narrow alley, his long legs carrying him away from her.
She pushed herself to keep up. Nazarius sped ahead of her—his height was closer to Ward’s, making his stride as long. Everything within her screamed that this was a trap. It had to be a trap. The rith had unfinished business. It made sense to eliminate the one man who could stop it.
Except Ward hadn’t been able to force it across the veil. It hadn’t even seemed affected by Ward’s magic.
She shoved that thought aside. She’d deal with whatever that implied later when she had time to think.
Ward darted around a corner. Nazarius followed. She lowered her head and pumped her arms. She had to keep them in sight, but damn, she’d never been too short or too slow before. Even Nazarius was losing ground on Ward.
Ahead, someone screamed. It sounded like Ward. She raced around another corner and twisted last minute to avoid slamming into Nazarius’s back. They were in a dead-end square, surrounded by half a dozen closed doors. In the center sat a narrow well, its bucket turned over on the ground beside it, the corpse of a headless cat hanging out of it.
Ward yanked on a door and rattled the lock. He screamed, stormed to the next door, and pulled on that. He turned to Nazarius and her. Blood was smeared across his cheeks and up his forehead into his hairline, making him look wild and fierce. His chest heaved, his breath harsh gasps between clenched teeth, and the witch-stone flashed from his wild eyes. “I had him.”
Did he mean in the chase or earlier with the spell?
“I had him. Goddess, I had to have him. Allette is going to kill again and—” He growled and wrenched on another locked door.
/>
Goddess, this was a Ward she’d never seen before.
Ten
Ward squeezed, released, and squeezed the railing on the balcony of the Quayestri suite again and again. His hands felt strange. He didn’t know how to explain it. Not the pins and needles Grandfather said magic felt like, but as if they were still sticky and coated in blood, and the only thing that eased the sensation was to flex them. It had only been a few minutes since they’d left the dead-end square and returned to the Quayestri suite.
The spell hadn’t gone the way it was supposed to. He’d never had a crossing go so badly before, but then, he’d never faced an angry rith before. He’d never seen one so powerful, either.
He’d witnessed his father and grandfather commanding restless spirits to cross the veil and watched them fight with winds and wailing. Once the veil had been parted, sometimes the spirit needed to be captured and shoved across. But for him it was all theory. His mystic blindness prevented him from seeing exactly what captured meant or from feeling the amount of magic required. And really, he’d been working from a memory more than six years old.
Itchy pinpricks danced over his fingers. He ran his hands over the smooth railing, back and forth, fighting the urge to scratch off his skin. Was this what the blood magic lure felt like? He’d thought he was supposed to feel despondent, yearning, desperate to have the power of magic washing over him. Instead, he felt angry. He wanted to yell and rant and force that damned rith to obey him. He’d finished setting up the octagon and focused on drawing power from the blood and rock crystal and hyssop like he’d been taught. He’d imagined the veil parting, inviting the rith into the Goddess’s eternal embrace, and with those thoughts he’d called the rith.
Except the technique Allette had taught him—to imagine his magic in place of actually seeing or sensing it—had only made things worse. The rith had resisted, so he imagined his magical ability as a glowing white energy within him that he could harness. Except he hadn’t been able to harness it. It had contracted, painfully tight in his chest. A force that he shouldn’t have been able to feel, because it was just his imagination, had pounded into him. He’d fought to keep sitting and had struggled to concentrate, praying his imagining and blind groping with magic would do something. But the rith had laughed, and a fury he’d never known before had roared through him.
This wasn’t the blood magic lure. It couldn’t be. This was weeks of frustration he could no longer deny.
Too much had happened, and he was done with being helpless. He wanted to fight back, wanted control, wanted his life back.
No, he didn’t feel as if he wanted to cast again, using more blood, human blood, to draw more magic. He just wanted to fix his mistakes, and no rith was going to stand in his way.
There had to be another way to capture the rith and prevent it from anchoring itself in someone. Ushering this spirit across shouldn’t be more complicated than releasing spirits imprisoned in soul jars or performing a wake. He’d always been successful with wakes. This spirit, resistant or not, would cross. As for Allette, he’d just have to figure out another way to find her or find another way to focus and make the essence-seeking spell work without needing more blood.
At the thought of the vesperitti, the itch in his hands turned into an inferno.
He stilled his hands and clutched the railing. Red lines along the back of his left hand wept blood. He’d been scratching and hadn’t realized it.
Behind him, Jotham’s voice rose, carrying through the closed glass doors. Not enough for Ward to make out what he said, but enough to catch the tone. The Seer of Dulthyne wasn’t impressed. Well, Ward wasn’t either. The proof that the city had a rith was undeniable. That it was powerful enough to make stone bleed also couldn’t be contested, but that Ward had the strength to force it across the veil could be.
Ward ground his teeth against the urge to scratch his hands, opened the patio door, and stepped back into the sitting room. All eyes turned to him. Nazarius, his expression grim; the Seer, a mix of worry and fear; and Celia…he couldn’t tell what she was feeling. For a moment, he thought he saw fear. But nothing scared her, so he had to be mistaken.
“I’m told Dulthyne has an extensive library,” Ward said.
Jotham frowned as if he didn’t understand. “Excuse me?”
“Your problems won’t go away until the rith is banished, and we won’t be able to get back to our original assignment until your problems are taken care of. I need to do some reading.” Heat seeped across his cheeks and forehead. Goddess, here he was again being forthright. At least this time he wasn’t lying. And really, he was too tired and angry to care either way.
The Seer’s frown hardened. “You’re not in a position to make demands, apprentice.”
Anger flared, tightening Ward’s chest, and he struggled to remain calm. “My lord Seer, do you still not believe there’s a rith in Dulthyne?”
Jotham’s lips tightened.
“And there aren’t any other necromancers in Dulthyne.”
“You’re not a necromancer, you’re an Inquisitor, and an apprentice at that,” Jotham said.
“I never said I was a powerful necromancer.”
“Then how do you expect to banish this rith?”
Nazarius shifted. He had to have been thinking the same thing. Celia, too. Without a doubt they’d been arguing about Ward’s inabilities.
“I’ve heard there’s a spell, a powerful spell, that can capture a rith.” He stared at Jotham, afraid if he even glanced at Celia she’d know he was lying. “But my calling as an Inquisitor interrupted my studies as a necromancer, and I’m not quite sure of the details.”
“And you think the library in Dulthyne will have books on necromancy?” Nazarius asked.
“When the Prince of Brawenal decided to resettle Dulthyne, the Necromancer Council of Elders was asked to do an inquest to see if the city was safe to live in.” That had been three generations ago, but Ward had been told the books and journals remained in Dulthyne’s library.
“But that was an inquest into Diestro’s curse, and it was determined that it had indeed been destroyed, if it ever existed at all, and that the city was safe,” Celia said.
“But the about-to-be Duke of Dulthyne at the time had been highly invested in the inquest and, rumor had it, he’d never completely eliminated his fear that the curse was truly gone from the city. He purchased his own collection of necromantic texts, along with those books and journals of the inquest members.”
“And you know this how?” Jotham asked.
“I had a relative on the inquest.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. Grandfather had been a journeyman necromancer and a part of the inquest when he was about Ward’s age.
Jotham pursed his lips. The damned Seer was going to refuse him and say something stupid about things he didn’t know or understand, like a typical Seer.
“The rith is powerful enough to possess a person. We all saw that. Do I need to tell you how dangerous that is?”
“Ward—” Nazarius said, his voice dark, warning about the dangers of disrespecting a Seer.
Ward struggled with the anger still burning through him. “It can only possess one person at a time, and only someone sympathetic to its cause—I suspect that’s the foreman’s hatred of Talbot—but the duke doesn’t seem to be making any friends lately. The rith could control anyone at any time. It needs to be banished.”
“Fine, but you” —Jotham glared at Nazarius— “you still need to arrest the core members of the cult. Your apprentice said it himself, banishing the rith won’t stop all of this mess. I can’t trust Talbot’s men to do their jobs, which means I need you two to do your Quayestri duty while that one reads his books.” He jerked his thumb at Ward. “Then you can get back to your field training.”
Thank the Goddess, something had finally gone his way.
Eleven
Celia wanted to grab Ward and demand to know what he meant by a more powerful spell, but Jotham hadn’t given
her the opportunity. The decision had been made, and now they were headed to the library within the bowels of the citadel, winding down staircase after ever-narrowing staircase. By the time they reached the heavy, engraved iron door to the library, the passages had become narrow and dark, with only a few threads of witch-stone running through the walls to light the way.
Beyond the heavy iron door was a semicircle denoted by a goddess-eye set into the granite floor in dark marble and four passages marked with large witch-stone globes on pedestals towering overhead. Jotham picked up a witch-stone pebble from a bowl on a shelf just inside the door. It flared to life from the heat of his palm, and he headed toward the passage on the right. Nazarius did the same and followed. Ward picked up two pebbles, pocketed one and held the other open in his palm. He was learning, preparing for the possibility that he might lose his first light source.
That was one of the things that made Ward so extraordinary—his ability to pick things up quickly, to glance at a situation and understand it. She just never expected him to be so forthright, she’d never expected him to chase a potentially dangerous man possessed by a rith, and she certainly hadn’t expected to see such rage in his eyes when he lost that man.
She could still see a hint of that fury now, a hint of darkness edging his expression illuminated in the blue-white, witch-stone glow.
Too much had been demanded of him, and he’d been forced to abandon too many values to survive. That was her doing. Ward was changing, and she feared this change, feared it would destroy the very thing she loved about him, his gentleness, his sincerity…his goodness.
Jotham led them along a narrow, twisting path between floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books and scrolls. They headed down more stairs, deeper into the mountain, still surrounded by written knowledge. The odors of musty leather, parchment, dust, and wax permeated the air. They pressed around her, heavy and stifling, the stillness making her twitch with the need to defy the immovability of such weight with action.
This was Ward’s domain. A world of knowledge and contemplation. But when she turned her attention to him, she didn’t see the expected satisfaction of his being where he belonged or any slowing of his steps to read the spines of the texts surrounding him. Determination hardened his noble features.
