by Karen MacRae
Anna’s mind had gotten stuck on the memory of being tempted to hurt Finn. She remembered the almost primal need to unleash her power on the man who had dared to try to control her. It had felt… intoxicating. Was this what it was to be Black? To be so powerful one could do whatever one wanted and not care about the consequences? Memories swept through her mind’s eye: her mother’s face; the sweet songs her mother used to sing as she cradled the daughter who sobbed at the cruelty of others; the nights when her mother collapsed in exhaustion at yet another failed attempt to Heal her birthmark; the agony her mother had died in because she had dedicated her life to saving all those women; her mother’s refusal to allow Anna to ease her end so her daughter’s Shaping could stay secret. The tears came afresh, but instead of misery, Anna felt shame. She acknowledged that some part of her was tempted by the Black, but she would never willingly turn. She would never dishonour her mother.
In the forest, a tall, blonde woman sat astride a huge silver gelding. She watched the girl and her horse trudge slowly along the path in the moonlight, neither aware of their weakened state from the bitter cold and rain. She saw the white aura and felt a rare burst of fear. It was not of the girl. She cared not one copper coin for her. She did, however, dread her master’s wrath when she advised him of the girl’s existence; he wasn’t exactly known for forgiving the bearer of bad news. She watched the white aura flicker with blues and reds, deepest pink and then flare a brilliant, blinding white. The girl’s mind wandered with a plethora of emotions, but she was a White, no question. Whether or not she was a Shaper remained to be seen, but perhaps Mystrim was correct: perhaps they should wait to tell Nystrieth. Perhaps they could report her death and not just her discovery and receive glory instead of only pain. She passed the tips of the fingers of her right hand across her throat. Her comrade saw her agreement: death, not capture.
Mystrim drew more heat from the air around the girl and her mare. They slowed to a near stop, slugs caught in his trap. He smiled as he compressed the heat between his hands. The smile widened into ecstasy as he lifted the fireball and let it fly at the girl’s back.
Anna saw nothing, but Blue’s scream pierced the icy fog that seemed to sap her strength then she heard Spider’s shout. “Get down, Anna! Get down! Lie flat!”
Hope dropped to her knees, Anna low over her crest. The fireball flew over their heads and exploded on the path in front of them. A wave of heat crashed over their almost frozen bodies but did little to warm them.
Blue, Estrell and Rojoch came thundering along the path, Blue coming straight to Anna and Hope to skid to a stop and hide them behind a barrier of solid horseflesh and its unwitting passenger. Spider and Sy made straight for the source of the fireball. A second flaming sphere sped towards them, singeing Sy’s arm and Rojoch’s side. A third hit Estrell full on the chest, but he kept on. A high-pitched war cry sounded from behind them. Sy shouted for Spider to carry on and turned to face the tall blonde who came charging at them on her silver horse, a long sword held above her head.
Anna’s hands were blocks of ice, her mind mired in fog and confusion. She fought desperately to open her fingers and take a grip on her staff. She couldn’t see the enemy; Blue was in the way. Her legs wouldn’t work. She couldn’t get off the still kneeling Hope. “Help me, Blue,” she cried weakly. He sidestepped to her and ducked his head down. She managed to get hold of his bridle and he pulled her up, swinging her around so she could see the fight.
Sy was desperately holding off the blonde warrior. Her sword swung with frightening strength and precision. Sy’s axe held the blade back, his strength a match for the blonde’s, but it was only a matter of time before Nystrieth’s fighter won through. She had Spider’s speed.
Anna looked for the woman’s aura, prepared to push it and send her unconscious. She stopped in shock. There was no aura. There was nothing to Shape.
Suddenly, two black geldings came crashing through the forest, Spider giving chase to Mystrim.
The weather mage yelled, “Pyteor! Now!” just as Spider’s thrown blade thudded into his back. He slumped in the saddle, but the big silver gelding had pivoted to join him and its rider reached over to stop the man fall. Within two strides they had vanished.
Sy and Spider jumped down and jammed a shivering Anna between them, wrapping their jackets around her. The horses surrounded Hope, sharing their body warmth. Spider eased Anna into the middle of the huddle while Sy got a fire going right next to them in the middle of the path. He stoked it up as high as it could go, ignoring the risk of them being discovered by bandits. Thawing Anna and Hope’s freeze took priority.
Anna stuttered into Spider’s shoulder. “She didn’t have an aura. How could she not have an aura?”
Spider hushed her. “Don’t worry about Elona for now. Just get warm.”
As her temperature began to recover, Anna’s brain engaged sufficiently to think about how she might help. She looked at Hope to see her pleasant green aura look almost as if it were glittering with icicles. Within moments, she had dissolved them, sending the freezing energy into her crystal. She felt it grow cold against her skin. She couldn’t see her own aura, but the icicles in Hope’s aura had been universal. She didn’t have to pinpoint a wound, she just had to heat the whole aura. She drew clean energy from her staff and sent it into the space around her, visualising white heat defrosting ice.
“Ow!” Spider barked, letting go of her abruptly. “You’re burning hot!”
“Light! Sorry,” she apologised. “You can let go now. We’re both fine.”
“You Healed yourself,” he accused.
“It’s amazing what necessity does for a girl,” she snapped.
Anna got busy Healing her rescuers’ burns. Finished, she stood in front of a still unconscious Finn. The gallop had left him battered black and blue.
“Are you tempted to leave him?” Spider asked.
“Yes, I am, but I won’t. I won’t be what those people want. I am my mother’s daughter.” It sounded almost an oath.
Anna asked Spider and Sy to take Finn down from Blue and lay him next to the fire. She drew every bit of blackness from his aura, sending it into the crystal around her neck, then she held her staff in front of her and channelled clean energy into his aura, repairing the weakness from his imprisonment and waking him up. He would feel better than he had in years.
She waited until his brain caught up with the change of surroundings then spoke directly to him with a look and voice far older than her eighteen years. “I will come with you to Alscombe, but because I choose to. If you ever try to use your gift on me again, I will destroy it.”
She stalked over to Hope and mounted, turning the mare so they faced away from Sienna, towards Alscombe. “Shall we?” she asked.
She rode in front, letting the men argue behind her. She didn’t bother to listen.
Finn found himself being harangued on two sides. He was sensible enough to get a full debrief before he allowed them the liberty of telling him off. As they railed at him, he considered what he had been told. The girl had thrown off his Friending and knocked him unconscious then used his gift to turn six bandits against the rest of their gang. When she realised they would kill each other, she had knocked them all unconscious. The attack had taken Spider and Sy by surprise. They’d only escaped injury because of her. Again. They were adamant that she couldn’t be Black. Half of what she did, she did instinctively and there was no way a Black Shaper could do what she did by instinct alone. She could also kill quicker and easier than she could Heal, but she chose not to. For perhaps only the second time in his life, Finn accepted he’d made a mistake.
Anna heard Blue trot forward to join her and Hope. Finn’s gorgeous voice coughed and then spoke quietly. “I apologise, Anna.” She turned to see his sea green aura: he was keeping his eyes on Blue. “Sincerely,” he continued, “I thought I was doing the right thing. I realise now that I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
He told the truth, but she remained
silent, making him continue without the relief of forgiveness. It would take something special to get her out of her huff with this man.
Finn filled the silence, trying to make peace with the young woman who he was all too aware could wipe him out without lifting a finger. Learning from his mistake, he decided to simply tell her the truth.
“Nystrieth is a Black Shaper who we first heard of when he turned up in Ruustra six years ago. He was an advisor to the Queen. It took him just six months to have her overthrown and another three to take power himself. Since then, he’s added every bordering kingdom and has been gradually eating up land towards the Oestriech Sea. Towards us. The bigger his army becomes, the easier it is for him to win. Unlike other commanders, he doesn’t care about losses and no one can even remotely match him for numbers. It’s got so he need only turn up at a city’s gates for the officials to surrender. Especially after Seask.” Finn swallowed hard, his aura bruised with outrage. “The Seask Consul refused to surrender. Nystrieth slaughtered every living creature within its walls. Even the babes…” His voice broke and he took several breaths before continuing, his normally smooth and sultry tone roughened with grief.
“Sy is from Seask,” he added in a whisper. “His wife and son were at home. He was here, on business.”
Anna forgot her own petty anguish in the space of a few heartbeats. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned to Finn. “They were killed?” she asked.
He nodded. “No one survived. Nystrieth had the wells poisoned and the buildings torched. Anyone who tried to escape was cut down by his army. No quarter. They surrounded the city and didn’t move for a full ten days, until every fire had burnt itself out and there was no one left.”
Tears fell from Anna’s eyes unnoticed. She could barely imagine the horror of such a thing. “How many?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“Four hundred thousand souls.”
Anna gasped. Straton was home to around a fifth of that number. The scale of the atrocity was mind-boggling to her. Her heart ached for Sy and for every occupant of that ill-fated city.
Finn continued. “Nystrieth makes no secret of his goal. He insists every gifted serve him or die. Anyone accused of shielding or protecting a gifted dies immediately without even a trial. Anna, we have more gifted in our small Kingdom than in his entire domain and he is coming for them.”
“Why have I never even heard of this man or Seask?” she asked.
“Because he still has to get through Mastra and Iliyeth to reach the Oestriech Sea. Because some in the Council believe he’ll stop there. Because there are too many fools and cowards in the world.” Finn’s voice was bitter. “The truth is that Nystrieth will absorb our nearest neighbours within two years, three at the most. He won’t stop. He’s already ordered every forest he’s taken to be harvested for shipbuilding. We’re doing everything we can to prevent it, but he is coming and we have to stop him. Somehow.”
Anna sat in silence, trying to process all that Finn had told her. She could hear Spider and Sy behind her. They were debating whether it would be better to be music gifted or language gifted. Sy muttered that a gift like Pyteor’s was downright cheating. Spider said that he wished they had such a cheat on their side. She recalled that Mystrim had called on a Pyteor before he and the blonde had disappeared. She agreed with Spider.
She turned to face Finn. “All right, I’m in. If the King will have me.”
CHAPTER 14
E lona cursed as Mystrim sagged against her, unconscious from loss of blood. She rode straight to the Healer when they made it to camp. “Fix him!” she yelled at the painfully thin woman. She let go of her wounded associate to dismount and Mystrim toppled off his black gelding, landing with a thump on stony ground. Elona’s enjoyment of the petty revenge she exacted for him being stupid enough to get injured was immediately ruined as the pathetic do-gooder reached for the tyrant who had beaten and abused her for weeks, her first impulse to Heal no matter the patient. Elona’s upper lip lifted in a sneer as she watched the woman’s pale grey-blue aura willingly pull the blackness from Mystrim’s into her own self and bury it deep within her Healer’s well. The near-death injury would take up a lot of space, but the creature would last a while longer. They’d need a new one soon though, she thought. Thankfully this country was full of the weaklings - it wouldn’t be hard.
“He’s hurt?” Pyteor asked from behind her.
She swung away from the disturbing image before her to look at the third of their group. “Knife in the back. Damned Spider. He’s too good with those blades. The cretin will Heal it, but we’ll have to rest here for a day or two before he’s fit to ride.”
Pyteor snarled. “In the back? He was running?”
Elona shrugged. “He’d exhausted his gift. You know he’s useless without it.”
“The girl? You Read her aura?”
The warrior Reader paused before answering. She didn’t want the wrong message to reach their master. “A white, old enough to have chosen, but weak and inexperienced. She rode straight into Mystrim’s trap and was no help to her companions when they came to rescue her. I’ll need to see more to know whether or not she’s a Shaper. I certainly saw nothing to suggest she’s significant. I need to know more before I bother our master with what might turn out to be a minor inconvenience.”
Pyteor grimaced at the thought of inconveniencing their master.
“Is there food? I’ve worked up an appetite.” Elona looked towards the fire seeing a pot bubbling on the hot stones.
“If you can call it that,” Pyteor grumbled.
“Move Mystrim over near the fire once the Healer is finished and get some food into him as soon as he wakes,” she ordered. “It’ll speed his recovery.”
The warrior stalked over towards the fire, her eyes scanning the camp. There was no danger of attack: Pyteor had frozen the scene without them in it. Onlookers would see nothing out of the ordinary and noises and smells without tangible sources were more than enough to send people running in the opposite direction.
She noticed the groom’s chains were impeding her care of their horses and smiled in anticipation – she’d enjoy punishing the hapless woman for not doing a good job. She looked ahead to see the cook cowering near the fire. “Get me a bowl of stew,” she called.
Her fist shot out to add another bruise to the useless woman’s collection when she took a spoonful of the runny, odourless and flavourless slop. She admitted to herself that she’d made a mistake in selecting a female. She’d been delayed by only two weeks, but it was long enough for Mystrim to ruin the cook’s nose and the Healer couldn’t fix permanent damage. Still, they’d be able to replace her as soon as they reached civilisation. This time, she’d get a man. Mystrim couldn’t be trusted.
Elona clicked her fingers at her pet as she sat to finish her unsatisfactory meal. The boy scuttled over and knelt by her side, his head bowed, waiting for instructions. She stroked his hair absentmindedly as she watched Pyteor carry Mystrim over to the fire. The Healer fluttered around them as they moved her patient, anxious that her work might have to be redone. Pyteor kicked her out of his way. Elona laughed, her hands pulling viciously at her boy’s locks. He knew better than to make a sound.
“Sifry,” she shouted. “Come over here.”
A pile of old clothes on the other side of the fire reformed itself into a hunched-over, elderly man. His forehead was crisscrossed with deep furrows which sank even further into his skull as he knelt before his mistress.
“Report,” she ordered.
“One hundred and thirty-seven gold, two bags of silver, ten bags of copper, three crested blades,” he began.
“Damn it!” she shrieked, stomping over to the still unconscious Mystrim. Pyteor stood by with a grin on his face as she repeatedly kicked the weather mage in time with her rant. “One hundred and sixty-three gold wasted on those incompetent villains?” Kick. Kick. Kick. “And two blades?” Kick. “Without a damn thing to show for it.” Kick. Kick. “You moron!
” Kick. A loud snap echoed around the camp as her boot powerfully connected with his right arm. “Incompetent ass!” Kick. Mystrim’s nose broke with a resounding crack and, with a flash, she calmed.
“Healer! Fix him!” the Reader shouted before making her way back to her spot by the fire. The boy awaited by her seat, his head still bowed. She ran her fingers over his head and the soft skin of his bare back as she considered Mystrim’s failure to achieve anything of use in the time he’d been on this grotty island. It would be better to hide the failure should they succeed in their mission, but he’d make a useful scapegoat should anything go wrong. She gave a small sigh of pleasure at the thought of what her master would do to him.
She turned to the still kneeling accountant. “Get out of my sight,” she told him tonelessly. He scurried away as fast as his bandy legs could carry him.
Pyteor giggled as he saw the bean counter trip and fall. Elona’s head snapped round to look at him and he quietened, unsure of her reaction. Her mercurial temper was notorious and she’d think nothing of opening his throat should he offend her.
She smiled at him and the two laughed loudly, enjoying the brief camaraderie of like-minded companions. But Elona’s laughter faded as quickly as it began. Pyteor was careful to follow suit.
The Healer straightened Mystrim’s broken bones and poured more of his poison into her well. She knew her end would come soon, but she could see no way out. These people lived on violence. She watched her son kneel by Elona’s side, treated like a dog, taught horrific tricks for her pleasure. His gift was music. Elona cared not one jot. He could sing like an angel, make hearts of stone laugh and cry, but he couldn’t melt even an inch of that woman. Nystrieth surrounded himself with these sadists, but she had to be one of the worst. Even Mystrim had boundaries. She seemed to have none.
The Healer stole another glance at her son before creeping back to her place near the horses. She prayed for a miracle. She prayed that this girl they talked about really was a White Shaper. She prayed for Nystrieth’s servants to die. She prayed she wasn’t there to save them.
