by C. M. Hayden
Cecil spoke a single word. His voice was deep and raspy, and almost too quiet to hear. “Kill.”
Taro and the others broke into a run, or as much of a run as Taro could manage, almost snapping his walking stick in two. His leg burned like never before, and he stumbled a dozen times as they tried to outrun the encroaching darkness. Ahead was a tiny glimmer of light: the end of the cavern. The Sun King grabbed Taro by the arm and practically carried him as they ran for the exit.
When they got there, they found it blocked off with thick timber planks. The warders barreled into it shoulder-first in an attempt to break through, but they couldn’t even get it to rattle.
The Sun King shot a quick glance at Sullen. “Can you break it?”
Sullen retrieved his inscriber and quickly scribbled cutting runes along each of the beams. “I’ll need a minute.”
“I don’t think we have a minute,” Taro said, with his back to a cavern wall.
The void apparition barreled toward him, its teeth just missing Taro’s throat. Instead, it struck the rock nearby, shaking the entire mine shaft and sending dust sifting from the jagged rocks above. A shadow tendril jetted out from Praxis’ hand and wrapped around Magister Sullen, tossing him aside and sending his inscriber tumbling from his hand.
Praxis eyed Taro and the others with a dark expression and seemed ready to end it all. He raised his hand and the shadows crept toward them.
Thinking fast, Taro reached into his cloak and retrieved the Netherlight. He held it a few inches from the wall behind him and glared back at Praxis. “One more inch, and I’ll smash it.”
Every creeping shadow, every creature, and every person stopped moving. The crystal in Taro’s hand glowed and pulsed, and he clenched it so tight he felt like it might crack in his fingers.
“You’d destroy half the city,” Praxis said, a mote of fear in his voice.
Taro spoke with more confidence than he felt. “You think I give two shits about your city? Back away,” he commanded. It was a bluff, no doubt, but it was all he had left.
The Inquisitors relented, and their shadows receded to their immediate area. The Sun King helped Sullen to his feet; the magister was beaten, but no worse for the wear. Many of the warders, however, didn’t make it. The Sun King checked their pulses and stared at the Inquisitors with hard eyes.
Praxis took a few cautious steps away from the others and spoke directly to Taro. He straightened the lining on his white cloak, rubbed back a strand of hair from his forehead, and spoke almost magnanimously.
“Don’t do anything foolish, my boy,” he said.
Taro made a smashing motion with his hand, and Praxis stopped in his tracks.
“All I want is that crystal,” Praxis said, “and you and your friends can go back to Endra, no problem. There’s no reason we can’t be civil about all this.” He stretched out his hand, open palmed.
“Why should I believe anything you say,” Taro spat.
“You must have me confused for my bastard sister. You see, I always keep my word,” Praxis said with a smirk. He motioned toward the other Inquisitors. “And my siblings here will follow my lead.”
Taro looked to Magister Sullen. “Don’t just stand there, finish the runes.”
Sullen picked up his inscriber and continued his cutting runes. With the exception of the buzzsaw-like sound from his inscriber, the cavern was dead quiet. A few seconds later, Sullen pressed his hand into the wood and the beams fell to pieces. Sunlight broke through the exit and flooded the mineshaft like river water breaking through a dam. Taro and the others stumbled into the open air, but all around them appeared an oddly shaped shadow and plumes of sand being kicked up from the desert floor. Taro looked up and saw one of the Magisterium airships hovering overhead. It was the Midwinter.
They had exited at the base of a ravine beside the northern dunes. The incline wasn’t that steep, and they hurried up it as far from the mineshaft as their beaten bodies could take them. They waved and jumped to get the airship’s attention. Moments later, a rope ladder tumbled down. The Sun King climbed up it first, followed by Magister Sullen and the warders. When Taro put one foot on the bottom rung, he heard a whistle behind him. He turned and saw Nima standing in the sand. Behind her, holding a serrated knife against his sister’s throat, was Vexis.
Vexis had a wicked grin. She wiggled the tips of her outstretched hand. “Give that here, love.”
Taro clenched the Netherlight tighter, and Vexis pressed the steel blade harder against Nima’s throat.
“Don’t be stupid, Taro. It’s just a hunk of glass, and it’s useless to you. It’s not worth her life,” Vexis chided, setting her cheek against Nima’s in an exaggerated calming motion. “Come on, hand it here.”
Taro took his foot off the ladder. He stepped forward, the Netherlight out in front of him, and set it into Vexis’ hand. She reacted to the weight of it as if she’d just taken the first breath of air after a long bout of being underwater. She was so happy she was trembling. She released Nima and caressed the Netherlight lovingly.
“I told you it would work,” Nima said with a laugh. She was talking to Vexis.
Vexis chuckled. “When you’re right, you’re right. You know him better than I do. I figured he was stubborn enough to try something stupid.”
“Nima? What the hell is going on?” Taro said.
“I’m saving your life,” Nima said. “I figured you’d give it up if you thought I was in danger.” She nudged toward the airship. “You should go, big brother. There’s nothing else for you here.”
Taro fought to find the right words. “The Shahl is an evil man, Nima. Don’t let him control you.”
Nima gave an affronted look. “I know that. I’m not helping that old geezer. I’m helping her.” She pointed to Vexis.
“She’s as bad as he is,” Taro said.
Nima shook her head. “You just don’t understand. It’s okay though, you don’t need to. But if you could just see half the things I’ve seen…maybe one day.” She smiled, and for a moment looked so much like Vexis that it made Taro sick.
Taro grabbed her by the collar and shook. “This isn’t funny. You’re coming back to Endra with me. Maybe the magisters can fix whatever they did to you out here.”
Nima’s eyes darkened, and Taro felt every muscle in his body clench. Shadows lashed out from her and wrapped around his legs, arms, and neck. They slithered around him and tossed him into the hot sand.
At the same time, several more rope ladders lowered from the airship above, followed by warders and magisters hurrying down. Nima look up at them, then back to Taro. “Look who needs saving this time.”
Some of the warders jumped the last bit of the way down their ladders and charged at Vexis and Nima fearlessly. The girls blocked each of their swords effortlessly at first, but it seemed to grow increasingly difficult as more warders piled down. When one of the magisters went to strike Nima with his fist (so hard that it probably could broken a timber beam in two), she was barely able to block it with her shadow magic. The force of the hit threw her back into the sand and bloodied her nose.
Taro saw the same anger in her that he’d seen before in Vexis. The shadows coalesced around Nima again and this time, when they lashed out, they weren’t blocking anything, they were striking. She lashed the magister, striking him in the chest, sending blood splattering against the sand.
Nima was incredible. She moved like nothing Taro had ever seen, and he could hardly believe he was looking at the same girl he’d grown up with.
What happened next, happened within the span of a few seconds.
Taro saw it first, out of the corner of his eye. Had he not been paying attention, he might not have noticed the familiar armor of the warder who’d slid down the rope ladder a moment earlier. With his helmet on, he might’ve appeared as any other soldier. But Taro knew. He’d seen that breastplate hanging on the walls of his father’s bedroom a thousand times, stared at it, been lectured under it.
Duty, service, and honor.
That warder was his father, Talthis. He stepped onto the sand, regarded Nima with a quick glance, and shouted something across the ravine. Nima had several warders circling around her and was trying to hold them off. Talthis ran at her, perhaps trying to calm her down.
As he hurried toward his daughter, Talthis went to pull his helmet off, probably so she could see it was him. However, the helmet only came off in time for Taro to see the expression of horror on his face as Nima’s shadow magic pierced him through the chest.
Nima saw it at the same time he did and all of her magic fell to pieces at her feet.
Ignoring the burning pain in his leg, Taro sprinted toward his father. Talthis collapsed into the sand, bleeding out from his heart like a fountain. He shook hard, and his eyes glazed over. His lung had been punctured, and he didn’t seem able to speak. There were no last words, no loving looks. Talthis coughed up blood and water, while looking helplessly into his son’s eyes. And he was gone.
Nima fell to her knees and didn’t try to defend herself from the approaching warders, but Vexis interceded. She grabbed Nima by the arm and pulled her back into the mineshaft. Nima didn’t fight her; she didn’t even seem to be able to move. Her eyes were lifeless and empty; her face was blank, as though she was unable to think or feel.
There are points at which the body can no longer experience pain. Torture a man enough, and he’ll become immune to it. Burn a man’s skin, and eventually the nerves will be gone and he won’t feel it. When Taro looked at the body of his father, he couldn’t form thoughts or words. He pressed his hand against the wound on Talthis’ chest in a vain attempt to keep the blood inside him; but it was too little, too late.
Taro felt the hands of two warders grab him, wrapping their hands around his arms and pulling him up the side of the airship.
What passed next was a blur. He remembered being hauled onto the Midwinter. Someone was talking to him, someone he knew; but he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember who it was. Everything was too bright, or too loud, as though Taro’s senses had gone haywire. Suddenly, he was in a bed and tired. So tired.
And the world went black.
Chapter Forty-one
Taro’s Choice
Taro could hear Kyra’s voice on the other side of the cabin. She was talking to someone, perhaps a medic. “Will he be okay?”
Taro didn’t acknowledge either of them. He sat like a statue, staring out at the porthole on the wall, watching the clouds pass by. He was aboard the Midwinter, that much he’d gathered, but everything else seemed a blur. Someone was asking him a great deal of questions:
Could he hear them?
What happened?
Who was the hooded girl with Vexis?
And they congratulated him a great deal. They said he’d single-handedly rescued the Arangathras from the aculam. That he’d valiantly led the escape out of Helia. That he’d held back the Shahl’s Inquisitors singlehandedly. That he’d saved the Sun King.
Taro was too numb to respond to any of it. For hours, he sat. For hours, he listened to the sounds of the world. The rattling deck plate beneath his feet, the dripping pipes running along the wall. He realized that he was in the infirmary, deep below the main deck. There were others there that he hadn’t noticed, warders injured by Vexis and…and by Nima.
When he finally did speak, everyone seemed to quiet down. “Where are we going?” he rasped, his eyes still fixated on the sky outside.
A hand rested on his shoulder, and he turned to see that it belonged to Kyra. “We’re taking you home.”
Home. That didn’t mean anything to Taro, not anymore. How could he go back and face his mother and brothers? How could he tell them what had happened?
Some hours later, Taro sat on the top bunk of an otherwise empty bunkbed, staring at the girders on the ceiling. He listened to the hiss of steam and the rattling of pipes as the ship neared Endra Edûn. The cuts on his arms and cheeks disappeared as the Arclight drew closer, shining through the portholes. And though his body was healed, his mind felt like a shattered vase that had been glued back together.
As the ship prepared to land at the Skyport, the infirmary door opened and Magister Veldheim stepped him. He had a calm, overly pleasant demeanor that Taro found sickening, considering the circumstances. The little man was holding Taro’s prosthetic leg; it had been fully repaired with fresh, permanent magistry runes. The sides were completely smooth and the buckles had been fused back together. He set it on the bed beside Taro.
“I took the liberty of fixing this for you. I’m no engineer, but the runes were fairly simple,” Veldheim said. He dug into his pocket and fished out the vial of arkfire. “I couldn’t help but notice this.”
“Keep it,” Taro said dispassionately.
Veldheim tucked it into his uniform pocket. “If you ever get out of your little rut,” he said, “my offer of sponsorship stands.”
“Piss off.”
Veldheim raised one of his thin eyebrows. He didn’t seem offended, merely surprised. He turned to leave but stopped just short of the iron door closing. “I won’t placate you with soft words and easy answers. You’re in for a rough time, Mr. Taro. When you’re ready to keep on living life, you know where to find me.”
One might think Taro was terribly sad, and perhaps, somewhere deep down inside, he was. But sadness wasn’t what bubbled to the surface. Despair wasn’t what was on his mind. Long ago, when Rashkal had kidnapped Nima, he’d felt this way. He’d almost killed the man, and the only thing that stopped him was his sister. But this time, Nima wasn’t here. In that moment, he made up his mind. Vexis, the Shahl, the Inquisitors, the corrupt magisters, the whole damned country. Every single person who’d contributed to his plight had a target on their backs.
Taro knew that Kyra was looking for him, but he managed to slip off the Midwinter without her seeing him. He needed time alone and went to the only place he could think to go: the Conservatorium. There were no classes that day, and Magister Acker was nowhere in sight. Taro walked through the woodlands, passing all manner of shrubs and a large patch of wild strawberries, before he made it to Antherion’s grave.
He sat beside the empty grave amidst a vast array of flowers. And he sat. And sat. Some hours later, the trees behind him stirred.
“I thought I might find you in here,” Kyra said. Her voice was much softer toward him than it had been in a long time; but at that moment, Taro didn’t want to hear her. He stood and started walking again.
“Wait,” Kyra pleaded, grabbing his arm. “Let’s talk.”
“About what?” Taro said, with no particular inflection.
“My father…the dragonkin…they told me what you did. I was wrong.”
Taro sneered. “Not nearly as wrong as you think.”
“I know it hurts Taro, but you can’t shut everyone out.”
Taro kept walking. “I feel like we’ve been here before, somehow. Is this supposed to be the part where we confess our love to one another after you’ve been a complete bastard for a full year?”
Kyra stopped following him long enough for him to get several yards ahead. “I don’t expect you to run into my arms, Taro. I just want to know that we’re okay.” Her expression fell. “That’s all…just ‘okay.’ Give me that, at least.”
Taro turned and his hard eyes softened. “We’re okay. You didn’t do anything you can be blamed for.”
Kyra wiped some tears from her cheek with her sleeve. “Thank you for saving him.”
Several vicious responses passed Taro’s mind. He said none of them.
“If you’re up for it,” Kyra said hopefully. “There’s someone who wants to talk with you. He’s waiting by the entrance.”
Chapter Forty-two
True Fear
Vexis expected to feel anxious as she ascended the stairs to her father’s chambers. Some small bit of her expected that, even after all that happened between them, when she got to the top the Shahl would greet her as
he would his other children. Deep down, however, she knew it was nothing but folly. For that reason alone, the old sinner deserved to die.
His chambers were as she’d remembered them: bare, cold, with assortments of medicines and ointments hanging by rusty hooks along the walls.
The Shahl sat in his four-post bed, the blankets coming up past his waist; his iron body brace sat on the floor nearby. Without it, the old man could barely keep his head propped up.
When the Shahl saw Vexis, he gave her a significant look. “Well?” he said testily, coughing into his boney hand.
“They got away,” Vexis said, her eyes narrowing a nearly imperceptible amount.
The Shahl’s anger bubbled to the surface. “The Netherlight too, I expect?” On the nearby nightstand was a bag of his breathing medicine. His fingers clumsily grabbed it, and he took a deep huff, which seemed to calm him.
Vexis held the Netherlight up in her fingers. The chunk of black crystal pulsed and glowed. “Oh no, that I was able to get.”
The Shahl leaned forward with a relieved expression, looking almost hungry at the sight of the thing. “Beautiful,” he said. “For all your faults, I knew you could be loyal when set to purpose.”
“Did you?” Vexis said under her breath.
“Bring it here,” the Shahl said, wagging his fingers toward himself.
Vexis pocketed the Netherlight. She kept her expression carefully blank and sat next to her father. She ran a hand along his wrinkled face in an overly loving way.
“What is the meaning of this?” the Shahl said, his grizzly voice pitched with annoyance. “Hand it over.”
Vexis leaned in and gave her father a firm hug that seemed to hurt him. Then, her voice went as cold as a winter’s night. “For what?” she whispered into his ear. “So you can go on living the same pointless life for a few more miserable years?”
