“It’ll have to be enough.” Caius glanced at the slip of paper, brows rising at the neat notes. Lacherra knew more of the dark arts than he’d expected from a lowly Nairubian assassin. He tore the sheet back and glanced over the fresh ingredients sent to him. “Lay them out.”
The first elf removed from the cart had been reduced to a lump of charred meat in a vaguely human shape, definitely the closest to Bane when he cast the spell. The second wasn’t any better, and the third was encased in a solid layer of ice that had only begun to thaw, preserving her features in a mask of terror.
Gods. While he’d expected more of trained assassins, Lacherra’s candid prediction had forewarned several of their targets would prove too dangerous to go down without a fight—if they went down at all. Xavier Bane was one of those wizards. Such was the risk when it came to going up against a master.
So much for cutting off the head of the snake. Or dragon, so to speak. Only one other prominent magician in the city had survived the attack, leaving Bane and Magistress Hetalia as the next likely culprits. Elora didn’t have the balls to attempt a feat such as commanding a gold dragon.
Caius sneered, thinking back to his days in the Mages Guild under Elora’s oppressive tutelage. He hadn’t truly learned the arts until he left the blasted tower behind and worked his way into the palace.
One of the servants licked his lips nervously, gaze darting to the door. “Will you need us for anything further, my lord? Or are we permitted to leave?” Gallo asked, the lazy bastard.
“I only need one of you.” He nodded to the door. “You’re dismissed, Rizzo.”
Rizzo bowed stiffly and left the room.
Gallo blinked and glanced at the door, trailing his peer’s movement beyond it. “How may I serve, my lord?”
“You’ll have to forgive me, Gallo, but I require one final component for this spell. One only you can give me.”
The man’s dark brows rose. “Of course, Lord Caius. What may I do to assist you?”
“Die for me.” Burying the knife in the unsuspecting servant’s gut took less time than drawing the appropriate runes on the floor in Gallo’s blood. He didn’t move after hitting the ground, paralyzed by the spell engraved in the ceremonial knife’s hilt.
Gallo remained very much alive, however. That was a necessary component of a dark magic spell Caius had yet to ever try. A forbidden art he’d longed to attempt but lacked the ingredients to execute. Namely, Elven spirit matter.
“W-w-why?” His loyal subject barely choked the word out.
“Why? Because you were here. Because you are disposable.”
Caius used his fingertips, preferring speed over accuracy and cleanliness. There wasn’t a second to lose as spirits had a tenuous connection to their corpses. Had it taken any longer to deliver them, they may have been too far gone.
“The job is not yet done,” he muttered over the trio of magically ravaged bodies. “Your work is unfinished, your task incomplete. Rise again, Lestalas. Seethe with fury, yearn for vengeance, smolder with hatred the way you burned in death. Rise again.”
Threads of magic rose from the scarlet glyphs on the stone floor, and a dark nimbus ensconced Gallo’s prone form as life spilled from him to infuse the dark spell. The vitality of youth faded, cheeks hollowing and wrinkling, as flesh sagged and gray crept into once black hair. The tendrils snaked over the floor until they reached the two corpses and spiraled around them, wrapping like glowing bandages of spiritual ether.
“Rise again, Taurellien. Let hatred consume you. Rise again, Helariel. Rise again, as bitter as winter’s breath, inexorable and undying frost. Let acrimony feed and harden your heart. Rise again.”
Still crouched above the bloody streaks, Caius dipped his fingers into Gallo’s still-warm blood and sketched a final marking, binding the third corpse.
The bonds of Gallo’s life shimmered and what remained of his soul bled into the enchantment, anchoring the bond and yanking the three souls into the mortal plane.
Two scorching wraiths burst into existence from what remained of their earthly shells, shrieking as they ignited. Caius grinned. Little more than a pile of grimy ashes remained where the two half-elven corpses belonged.
At the same time, the frozen assassin shattered into ice chips and frost. As she materialized in place of her body, Helariel’s frosty breath cooled the air. Of the three, Caius considered her the most beautiful of his creatures, a pale silver-blue silhouette of a female elf with cool mist shimmering around her.
“You are bound to this plane, dead but undying, and nothing born of this world can release you. As you failed me in life, you will now serve in undeath as specters of wrath.”
“The one who killed us,” Taurellien began, eyes burning bright, “what of him?”
“You will have the chance to finish what you began. Serve me, and revenge is yours. Fail once more, and you will relive your deaths for eternity, never finding peace. Now find the escaped thief girl.”
“But what of Bane?” Helariel asked, the howling wind of her voice filling the room.
“Vengeance only after you’ve completed my task. I want the thief girl dead. Find her, and then Bane is yours.”
25
Hunter Becomes Hunted
No one had ever hugged Rosalia the way Xavier did, putting his entire soul into it, squeezing her so tightly he crushed air from her lungs. His body warmed her ocean-chilled skin, so comforting she never wanted to leave his arms.
Then a couple thousand elves cheered, reminding her of their audience and that she was damn near naked on the shoreline with a very, very nude weredragon clinging to her like a life preserver.
Falina’s low chuckle drew her attention next. “If I’d known who you were mated to, Master Bane, I would have—wait, is that…?” The elf’s mouth fell open, eyes wide with shock and fixed on the shining jewel. “It couldn’t be. That vanished centuries ago.”
“It is, and yes, it did.”
“You must tell me everything—”
“I believe she needs rest,” Xavier grunted. “Another time, Falina. Speak nothing of this to anyone. The safety of many hinges on it.”
Rosalia glanced toward the crowd, realizing Xavier’s body obscured her and the Legacy. Even without him blocking their view, she doubted they would have recognized the significance of the stone in her hand or known it for what it was. The priests at the other temples had either fed her a load of lies, or actually believed the relics to be fictitious.
“You should put some clothes on,” Xavier said to her.
“You’re one to talk. Hundreds of women are staring at your bare ass, and you want me to put on clothes?”
Unwilling to drag silk over her wet skin, Rosalia ended up stuffing both his outfit and her dress into her leather satchel along with the gem. She thought Xavier would have had a thousand questions for her about meeting a goddess and acquiring the jewel. Instead, he said nothing, his silence louder than words during the flight home. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d hugged her. When he touched down beside the mountain, she slipped down and stepped in front of him.
“Xavier?”
“Hm?”
“I’m all right. You didn’t lose me.”
“I never said I did.”
“Your silence certainly says something,” she murmured, raising one palm to cup his scaled cheek. He tilted his face into her touch, and his eyes drifted shut. “I know I took an enormous risk tonight, but look at what it gave to us. I have so much to tell you, so very, very much to tell you once I figure out where to begin. It was…I met a goddess.”
“Your luck isn’t infinite, Rosalia. I worry. Your mother’s fortune didn’t last forever.”
“I know.”
After touching the tip of his snout to her cheek, he moved past her to the mountain and opened the way. “We both have tales to share. While you were meeting a goddess, I was held up by other…unfortunate matters. But I’d rather hear your story first. What was it like
? What was she like?” he asked, gesturing her ahead of him with a claw.
“I didn’t actually see her. She was too weak for that. I don’t even know where to begin.”
Once the entrance sealed behind them, Xavier transformed to walk alongside her as an elf. They entered the translocation chamber together and paused before the pane to the Enimuran hoard. In all the weeks since she’d first stepped into the dragon’s underground lair, she couldn’t decide which she liked most. The lair in Ilyria had a quaint, homey feeling, a lived-in sort of atmosphere nonexistent in Enimura. In Ilyria, she could almost picture little Xavier dashing down the halls, chased by his father, or perhaps playing Hide-and-Seek with his mother.
“Xavier?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think it’s wise to collect these stones? What if it would have been safer to leave them apart and hidden?”
“I doubt it would remain safe for long. We must assume our enemy knows as much as we do. After all, Lacherra was close friends with Dahlia.”
“I suppose.”
“We’ll keep it safe. Come on.”
Rosalia followed him through the glass into the other hoard, satchel feeling heavier with every step. The events of the day hadn’t yet caught up with her brain. She should have been screaming in jubilation, having met a goddess; instead, only exhaustion deadened her limbs. Nothing sounded better than crawling into bed with Xavier beside her and soaking up his warmth until morning. Cuddling was his second-best talent, surpassed only by clockwork craftsmanship. And maybe cooking. He wasn’t so bad there either.
“Where should I unload the gem?”
“Anywhere in the hoard ought to be safe,” he mused. “But let’s place it among the other jewels.”
“Should we disguise it?”
“Who do you expect to access my hoard to look for it, let alone recognize it?” When Rosalia stared at him, he chuckled. “You’re different. We’ve long since established you’re a djinn halfbreed, thus the rules don’t usually apply to you unless you push your luck.”
“Lacherra has a djinn-blessed coin. She’s carried it for as long as I can remember, always wearing it.”
“That does make things trickier when dealing with her,” Xavier agreed, “but she won’t be able to pull off miraculous feats the way you do.”
“What do you mean?”
Xavier cleared his throat then coughed into one hand, nose wrinkling. “A djinn-blessed coin isn’t better or even equal to being a djinn. It’s like…fool’s gold, in a sense. It looks like the real thing and feels like it, but it can never compare or hold the same value. It’s temporary.”
“That’s a pretty damned long temporary. She’s had it since I was a baby, at least twenty years.”
“That means nothing.” Xavier removed the Tear and dropped it into a desk drawer filled with jewels before ushering her from the room. “The power of the creature who blessed it determines the duration and potency of the blessing. If your mother gave it to her…well, it may last for several years more if it isn’t heavily used. Now, I suggest we ignore the divine weapon in my desk for a while. I have plenty to tell you about my day, and you’re dangling me over a cliff here. What happened? What did Nindar say?”
She laughed. “I am not dangling you over a cliff. There’s more to it, but I’m still…trying to process it. And once I do I’m probably not going to shut up about it.”
Captive gods, betrayal and deception. She shuddered, wondering if there’d ever be an end to her obligations to others and how the fate of the world seemed to fall on her shoulders.
“Fine.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and paused on the stone path overlooking the vault. He kissed her temple, then stood holding her against him, face buried in her hair. “Rest assured if I met Avarae, I’d react the same thing albeit less gracefully than you have so far. By the way, I have a gift for you on my worktable beside the additional sleeping darts for your wristbow.”
“You spoil me, sir dragon.”
His soft smile warmed her heart as much as his skin heated her body. “You make it easy to want to spoil you.”
“Come on. You sound and look as tired as I feel. I’ll tell you all about it in bed.”
“All right. Gods, I do feel awful.”
Not so awful he didn’t squeeze a handful of her ass when they reached the bedroom. Then he swayed and stumbled off balance.
“Xavier?”
“I…” He blinked a few times and wrinkled his nose at the same time a whiff of sweet incense reached Rosalia.
“Something smells strange here. What the fuck is that?”
“Smells like…” Xavier’s shoulders shook from the force of his cough, red flushing to his face and spreading over his upper chest. Staggering forward took him close enough to place one hand against a stone support pillar. His next breath made a terrifying whistling noise.
She hurried in front of him. “Xavier? Xavier, what’s wrong?”
“It’s…it smells of dragonsbane.”
“What? But how could there be dragonsbane in your home? We’re underground!”
His eyes went unfocused, then his legs went out from beneath him.
“Must be…vents. Air vents to city…bring fresh air.”
“Oh gods. I have to get you out of here. I have to—”
“No,” he rasped, voice thick and hoarse. “You can’t, Rosalia…danger. You have to go. Have to…destroy the panes. Destroy the translocation panes. Escape.”
“No.” Rosalia dropped to a knee beside him and urged him into a sitting position. “Come on, big guy. We need to get you somewhere safe.” He was far too heavy for her to carry quickly as far as the study, but she had a better idea.
He muttered more protests, most of them lost to the wheezing noises he made.
“Save your breath.”
Urgency and desperation found a font of strength Rosalia hadn’t known she possessed; lifting Xavier was no more difficult than the time she had to lift a marble bust from a nobleman’s house and somehow carried it out a window two stories down. Adrenaline was a powerful thing.
She took him him past the kitchen and into the enormous larder where he stored meat.
It wasn’t air-tight, but it would do, lacking ventilation to the rest of the sewers, the city, or the aquifer.
“Rosa, you have…have to go.”
“No. I won’t abandon you.”
“Hunters here. Too many hunters…tripping my wards. I can…I can sense—”
“Shhh.” She swept his dark hair away from his clammy, perspiring brow.
Then she shut the door behind her and sprinted to the control panel regulating the air vents. She threw each lever and sealed the hoard tight before more poison could flood into the underground lair.
Upon solving one problem, she raced to her bedroom, the floor vanishing beneath her feet midstride. One step, she’d been in the kitchen, passing the smaller cooling box. In the next, she stood in front of her leathers.
Rosalia stepped into her leggings and hauled them up before tugging on her padded leather shirt. A sense of calm enveloped her as she strapped both bracers onto her arms. Fleeing would be easy. Staying to fight for the man she’d come to love was another issue altogether. If he could resist a noxious cloud of poison to save her life, returning the favor was the least she could do.
I can do this, she told herself. Many days of wandering the sewers and learning every escape route, secret passage, and hiding place for the Rats would finally come in handy.
26
Merciless
While crouched on a ledge twenty feet above the hunting party exploring the underground aqueduct, Rosalia sensed their arrival before she saw them, their magical gear prickling across her mind and raising bumps on her arms. Only weeks ago, Xavier had taught her to use her grappling hook on the very same catwalk.
He’d warned there were too many hunters, and he was right. Awareness of them pinged across her senses like raindrops falling over a metal roof. It�
��d be suicide to take on the whole group at once, but her heart pounded so stridently she feared they’d be able to hear it. Time was no longer a luxury for her. She had to take them out and disable their smokebombs.
A woman led them, barking orders in the Linradeshi tongue to five men large enough to pass for half-giants. Though Rosalia couldn’t understand their language, something—a fine sense she’d experienced on rare occasions in the past—told her they were referring to Xavier’s wards and tripping them to test his awareness.
They were overjoyed that he hadn’t charged out of the hoard to greet them.
Their poison had worked.
No, it didn’t. At least, she hoped relocating him had been enough to allay the effect. It had to be. The alternative, that he’d succumbed to their poison, was a possibility too intolerable to bear.
Resting her index finger over the trigger that would eject her wristblade, Rosalia poised herself to attack.
Years had passed since Giashka last enjoyed a hunt so thoroughly. While determining the location of the wyrm had been a challenge, she most looked forward to breaking through the magical fortifications.
“He’ll have wards to forewarn him.”
“Are you seriously worried about him?” Varesh asked, cocking a brow at her.
She grinned back at her brother, “Not really. He’ll be weak as a kitten, with nowhere to go. I’m intentionally tripping them to goad him into confrontation.”
“We burned our entire supply,” said Kor, one of the big Nairubian gladiators. No one could plan out a battle strategy on the fly better than him. “Fortune will have favored him if he’s only weak from the amount of dragonsbane we used. The beast is probably choking on his own blood. He isn’t confronting anyone.”
“I know,” Giashka said, chuckling. “Didn’t hurt to check.”
“He’ll be half-dead,” Ja’Vruk said, shrugging overdeveloped shoulders sculpted by years of swinging a warhammer in the arena. “Easy pickings.”
Fool's Gold: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 2) Page 19
