Then, as more and more scales fell from my back, I gave control of my body over to Teeth while I focused entirely on overcoming the searing pain.
My inner dragon guided our flight perfectly, and even managed to work out an Earth spell that would let us stand and run along the glossy black walls like it was normal ground. We landed awkwardly, but we were running the next moment along the walls, dodging the remainder of the purple bolts as they blasted into the stone behind us. The giant, carapaced lizard behind me let out another roar.
“YOU WILL NOT DISTRACT ME ANY LONGER! I DO NOT NEED TO FIGHT YOU AT ALL! JUST STAY HERE FOREVER! YOU WILL FALL ASLEEP OR STARVE, AND THEN YOU WILL DIE, AND THEN I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT TO MY LITTLE STELL!”
I turned to fire an omnibolt at the sorry excuse for a giant dung beetle, but Cavus had already dove back into the solid stone, claws and pincers somehow tearing an opening that vanished as soon as his disgusting bulk was back inside it.
Then I felt the energy in me sputter. The intensity of the Ideals in my body began to fade moment by moment, even as the rest of the scales coating my armor and body fell away in large clumps.
My battle and dragon forms would be spent any moment, while Cavus would only heal as time passed.
Meanwhile, my own wounds wouldn’t repair unless I spent mana to fix them.
Mana that I was currently using to avoid falling down what looked to be a bottomless distance.
Other than that, these were perfectly ideal circumstances, I realized after a moment.
I didn’t need to kill Cavus.
I couldn’t kill Cavus.
That was never my job.
Never anything more than a therapeutic fantasy; one that I could already satisfy by killing the other assholes running around, or reinventing violent video games.
Meanwhile, Anahita had all the time in the world she needed to find whatever secret strength she had hidden in her.
I reactivated my Gale Cloak and flew toward her and Breena.
Both women flew to meet me, eyes widening as they took in the smoke still rising from my back.
“He’s hurt!” Anahita hissed with concern.
“I’m on it!” Breena darted over to me, glowing with Water and Wood magic. As the pain of my wounds vanished, I realized that her armored scales had fallen away as well.
Which was a shame, because she had managed to look really badass.
“Breena says you can do something that will empower me,” Anahita continued, looking more relaxed as my injuries vanish. “That you changed the other parts of myself, and then we were able to turn the tide.”
“I’m not sure I’m changing you guys,” I hedged, “the most I seem to do is help activate powers that were in you all along.”
“Fine,” the tan woman said as she waved away my explanation, “the important thing is that, once you do something, I will be somehow able to help us survive. If that is still true, then I think I am ready.” The lithe Satellite took in a deep, nervous breath. “Apologies. That was a lie. I am not ready. This is the most terrifying moment in my entire existence. But I remember believing just once that hope can be wiser than reason, and so I am choosing to believe once more. So please hurry, because while I am still unready, believing such things are very hard.”
“Say no more,” I said, and reached into myself.
Please tell me I can do this now, I whispered silently to the one figure I hated, agreed with, and worked with perhaps the very most.
Crown her, the mad king said in my mind, affirming the silver fire that sparked into being somewhere inside my soul. I rage.
But write love on her arms, the mad king added, putting special emphasis on His last words.
I began to ignite the Soulcurrent, to enhance, heal, or restore Anahita just as I had done so for Breena, Merada, and Via. The familiar words of the spell, as well as the authority I wished to acknowledge and convey on her, formed at the edge of my tongue…
And the spell began to fizzle apart.
No, the Mad King said in my mind. That will not work.
This one’s needs are different, the quiet voice continued.
Write love on her arms.
Understanding somehow found its way into my skull.
I had affirmed Via and Merada’s authority over their worlds, but I realized that Anahita hadn’t questioned her own authority. She had battled impossible odds well, and realized it—for which she was due every bit of respect she had received, and more.
That did not make Merada, or Via, or anyone else weaker than her, though.
It just meant that Anahita’s strengths and needs were different.
Write love on her arms, Invictus demanded again, and somehow I understood how to wield the power I had.
Sparks flashed across my knuckles. The tan woman’s eyes widened, even as Breena spoke reassurances.
“Let the lightning beget fire and light,” I intoned with practice, “and let the fire beget more light.”
The very first part of the invocation remained the same.
It was the rest that was about to change.
“Let the light reveal the beauty, and excellence that rests in the shadows, so that it may take its due of glory.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, UGLY STUPID BOY?” the Umbra’s voice echoed about the cavern. “YOU CANNOT REACH ME WITH THE SILVE FIRE NOW. I AM BEYOND YOU.”
“For Beauty and Excellence are not merely valuable things needed among the living,” I continued, as the lightning flashed between my hands and the fire ignited over my knuckles, “but they are the living’s tools against the Evil and the Dark.”
“HE’S WRONG, LITTLE STELL,” Cavus continued, as Teeth told him to fuck right off in my mind, “YOUR PRETTY FORM AND YOUR SILLY LITTLE HOBBIES DON’T HELP ANYONE. THEY JUST MAKE ME WANT YOU. THEY JUST MAKE ME TEAR THROUGH THOSE THAT GET IN THE WAY THAT MUCH MORE.”
“Let the light reveal that everything the Evil and the Dark want can be used against it,” I continued, letting more of the rage filter through my voice. “Because Beauty and Excellence, when given their proper acceptance, nurturing, and support, will always demolish strongholds. They will always heal minds. They will always destroy the lies of oppression and self-harm.”
“HE IS WRONG, MY LITTLE STELL!” the monster shouted again from the safety of his hidden tunnels. “YOU KNOW THAT! THAT IS WHY EVERY PART OF YOU TRIES TO HIDE! EVERY PART OF YOU TRIES TO STAY SMALL!”
“And let the light reveal that Beauty and Excellence are good in and of themselves,” I declared, my voice echoing with its old dragon strength, despite being in my normal form. “It is good for what is beautiful to find delight in its own beauty! It is good for what is excellent to delight in its own excellence!”
“WRONG AND FALSE!” Cavus roared from the darkness. “WRONG AND FALSE!”
But everyone ignored him, distracted by whatever was melting off of my knuckles.
“Now, by my command…” I yelled, as the silver heat dancing between my hands sent shadows dancing across the cavern. “By my own excellence, by my own power, by my own beauty, let the lightning reveal that which my beloved needs to thrive and rejoice in the hundred different powers and joys that are her birthright! And let Glory Answer Glory!”
And with that, I hurled the Soulcurrent.
But I did not hurl it into Anahita.
I did not hurl it into Breena, or even Cavus.
I hurled the lightning directly above our heads, and brought forth what my soul knew it needed to create.
It exploded a few dozen feet away from us, as if it were a giant silver firework.
But as the plumes of flame fell downward, they arrested their descent.
Several of them hovered a few feet away from Anahita. But other than flickering and constantly changing color, they did nothing.
Or so I thought.
Anahita drifted next to the closest flame, looking at it with sparkling dark eyes.
“Do you…” she began, with wonder and curiosity in
her voice, and glancing in my direction. “Do you hear it?”
I listened, but couldn’t hear anything. Cavus chuckled from the safety of wherever his hidden couch fort was.
“HE DID IT,” the Umbra gloated, “HE WASTED THE SILVER LIGHT THAT HURTS! HE WASTED A PART OF HIMSELF! THE UGLY, STUPID BOY MELTED, AND ALL FOR NOTHING!”
“You can’t hear it, then,” Anahita said softly, eyes widening in realization. “None of you can. Not yet.”
The beautiful woman’s dark hair fluttered as she whipped back toward the floating flame.
“He didn’t waste it,” Stell’s Satellite said as she cupped the fire with both hands. “He just allowed me to reveal what I have to give.”
She passed her fingers over the top of the flame.
A drumbeat echoed out through the void, as if in response.
The almond-skinned woman nodded confidently, clearly expecting the sound, and glanced toward the next closest flame. She drifted toward that one, passed her fingers through it, and a stringed instrument began to play. Anahita nodded again.
Then she turned yet again, facing no one, not me, not Breena, not even the direction where Cavus had last spoken.
She snapped her fingers, and the air just beneath her feet shimmered.
She began to walk on it, with slow, graceful steps.
“I am Anahita Stell Starsown,” she announced boldly to an invisible audience. I felt as if she was speaking to us, herself, and the Expanse in all its entirety.
“I am the Steward of Avalon’s worlds, and the Golden Sands specifically, and it is good,” she announced.
The drum beat. The strings thrummed.
And Anahita took another graceful step forward, with another fearless, confident roll of her hips, as the air glowed iridescent under her feet.
“I am the Sable Veil, the name I gave myself as a young Satellite, to reflect the sort of hero I wished to become. It is an awkward name that sounds foolish to me now, but it is still good.”
The music played once more, and Anahita stepped to its beat.
“I am the slayer of over a hundred lives, through blade, stealth, and poison. Men and monster fear me, and fear to harm the weak and precious on my world because of me, and it is good.”
She reached another flame and passed her hand through it. More music sounded throughout the empty depths. This time it was a flute or some wind instrument, playing much softer than the strings and drumbeats.
“I am many other things, and they are good,” the slight and slender woman announced, twirling on the invisible ground. “But before my first combat, before my first act as Steward, before I even asked myself which sort of person, hero, and warrior I wished to be, I was a young girl who loved to dance. And it is still good.”
The beat of music shifted ever so slightly, and Anahita shifted her posture with it, cocking a leg out.
“Now,” she announced, in her soft, mesmerizing voice, “let this prison-realm of shame and fear break, shatter, and burn under the passion, beauty, and excellence it sought to contain and consume.”
She took another step on the translucent, glowing ground, and suddenly she was only a few feet away from me.
“Challenger Malcolm,” Lalla Anahita asked in her smooth voice, “may I have this dance?”
CHAPTER 41: SHOW HER OFF
Huh?
What?
Dance?
Me?
Shit.
I hadn’t danced a single time since before my accident.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever danced at all except once or twice at middle school.
And I wasn’t sure that would even count to a woman who was currently commanding rhythm and grace out of thin air.
But I took her hand immediately anyway.
Because Stell was my woman, and I was her man, and Dad had drilled into me that when your woman asks you to dance with her, and you want to keep her, you dance with her whenever you can.
So with nothing more than two nights of experience and a dead man’s near-decade-old advice, and with a hateful and unholy abomination lurking somewhere nearby—and a little fairy to provide backup if needed—I took the hand of the gorgeous and powerful woman determined to craft a dance so powerfully enchanted that it would break our prison apart.
I should have gotten in her way immediately, as I stepped onto iridescent ground I couldn’t even see before my feet touched it.
But Dad had taught me one more thing about dancing with a woman; the one trick that mattered more than anything else.
“You don’t need to be as good as she is, son,” he said to me, “because they’re all going to be watching her anyway.
“You just need to be good enough to show her off.”
Armed with that knowledge, and with a body dozens of times more coordinated than the one I had possessed on Earth, and with a mental link to the woman so that we could understand and anticipate each other’s actions, I proceeded to give my lover the support she asked for.
Which was the whole reason I had jumped into this nightmare realm anyway.
Anahita grinned wide as I stepped next to her, still gripping her hand. I could feel her calculating the difference between our heights—the top of her head barely came up to my shoulder—and I could feel her relish in confronting that challenge.
“WHAT?” the asshole in the peanut gallery demanded as I stepped in the direction Anahita wanted me to lead her, grateful that she was keeping the mindlink open. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT UGLY, STUPID BOY?”
The beautiful woman did not answer the creep, except to toss her hair disdainfully in his likely direction.
Then she turned back to me and hit me with the full force of her dazzling smile, and then I moved in the direction her mind requested.
Step. Step. Pivot. Step.
Raise my hand so that she could twirl around.
Step.
Pass through another silver flame to create more music.
Then step, step, stop, pivot, twirl.
And it all had a purpose, she had shown me in her mind.
Because though Dance magic was not qualified as one of the Saga magics, its oldest and nearly forgotten spells had some of the mightiest magic ever known.
They were poorly understood, and so Adepts and Masters were far more rare than among the Ideal or Saga mages.
But they were there nonetheless.
And they were one of the first things that Stell’s primary body had been fascinated by.
One of the first things she had learned, before she had even entered adolescence.
While she had still been grieving the loss of her family, planet, and species.
She had learned every spell that she could, to where her primary body would be classified as an Adept or even a Master in the magic—though she lacked the mana pool to put the most powerful spells into use, and had been even more careful when she assumed the role of Steward and began diplomacy with the rulers and Icons of seven worlds.
Beyond even that, in the most hidden corners of her mind, she had feared that her old hunter might somehow find her again, if she had ever shone too brightly.
And so, without even realizing it, when the time had come to make Anahita, the Starsown had accidentally filed away the knowledge of every Dance spell she had never even dared to cast.
But here, in this hidden nightmare world of stone and shadow, with her nightmare would-be abuser lurking nearby, and the one she had chosen to be her lover taking her hand, this part of Stell dared to dance.
This part of Stell dared to shine.
We continued to move, pivot, twirl through the flames that gave us sound. Breena flew wide loops around us, leaving sparkling trails of pink, orange, and red as decoration.
I felt a pull on my mana, and realized I was contributing to whatever massive working Anahita had planned.
Step. Step. Pivot.
Lift her up, so that she could do some complicated twirl and loop around me, then lower
her back to the floor, and step, step, pivot, and begin again.
One of the stone walls in the distance burst apart, and then a screaming, massive monster pulled itself onto the wall, bunched its row of lizard legs, then hurled its segmented body through the air toward us, giant mandibles gnashing violently.
Knives in the Night Page 61
