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Book 1 Chapter 31

OBSIDIAN 3.6: TIGRESS LIES

“Quoth the dragon: ‘What is this spiritual currency of which you speak? The sole currency of the Twelve Hells is blood, and that transfer is the true doorway. Not the blood itself. The act of violence that releases it.’

Quoth the Kestrel: ‘Oh, my friend. Where they come from the currency is kindness. It’s the only kind of wealth worth having.’”

– from ‘The Testimony of Prince Deathwyrm’

Zel hissed.

What is it?

“Eolastyr. Tw-twentieth rank. Kas… this won’t be pleasant.”

The eolastyr was a tall woman, naked; her limbs and torso right up to the neck were covered in black-striped fur like that of a tigress, except that her fur was purple. Her face was not just narrow and pale, but inhumanly triangular, inhumanly white. A circlet of dark, glossy material kept her raven hair from hiding her all-black eyes, sunken nose, dusky, smiling lips. The curved claws of her furred left hand were curled about the short handle of a gold-coloured whip, the tips of its many thongs knotted with chunks of flesh.

Other than the circlet and whip she had no accoutrement on her person whatsoever, no rings upon the small, claw-tipped fingers, no pendants or chains. Nothing else unusual – no wings, no horns…

The same could not be said for her pets, however. They weren’t anything like her, really, with their savage but recognisably-animal visages. There were a dozen or so of them, each differing in appearance – though they all seemed to have masculine builds, and none would be much taller than Neverwish if they were standing. They were clearly of lesser breeds; they were humanoid but they were bestial in their own ways – tails, talons, fangs; thick animal hair or overlapping scales covering their bodies… There was even one with a beetle-like carapace of brownish chitin, shining wings folded against his back.

Unlike their mistress, they were decked out in jewels, their appendages dripping with rings and anklets, bracelets and necklaces, hundreds of gems glittering away in an exuberant mosaic of colour.

They barely reacted to our presence, a few raising their heads from where they languished on the soft cushions – but those who did merely looked around blankly. The invisibility spell was clearly working, on them at least. Yet most didn’t even move their eyes, content to just lie there, relaxing.

Even if they knew what was happening, they were confident – supremely confident – that their eolastyr had this intrusion well in hand.

Other than the eolastyr and her pets, there were no demons lying in wait. Nothing else to fill the empty, golden expanse.

I moved my eyes back to the threat. She held the whip by the very end of the handle, using the curve of a single ‘thumb’ claw to trap it delicately in her palm, and the savage-looking thongs swung in a soft arc behind her.

The sound of it hit my sorcerer’s ear in a perplexing way, even through the shield – though given her rank I was hardly surprised it could pierce the wards. I knew it was no louder than the rustle of a champion’s robe, but at the same time each back-and-forth motion was deafening, like a tidal wave of sand cascading down, dashing itself into a trillion pieces on a coast of iron rocks.

She spoke again. Her Mundic was as flawless as that of any properly-schooled highborn. The voice was musical and airy, but the authoritative tenor made it clear she was used to having her orders obeyed:

“Come, I say. We’d welcome our guests properly, with open arms.”

She did indeed spread her arms wide, claws splayed in a gesture of openness, like a benevolent queen greeting esteemed foreign dignitaries.

The twelve of us – poor Starsight had got his wish in almost the worst possible way – were still floating there near the golden ceiling. Dustbringer and Redgate were at the fore, and our shields flickered around the group.

“Let’s see where this goes,” Timesnatcher said. “Don’t touch anything. For all we know this whole room is made from the same stone, just covered by illusion.”

“Could be,” Neverwish said.

“Demon illusions are difficult to pick apart,” Lovebright expounded. “I’m working on it, but there’s no way to be sure yet.”

Timesnatcher slowly descended at an angle, drifting towards the throne, and we followed.

I don’t trust zose fires,” Em said.

“Me neither,” I replied, frowning as I looked down at the twelve fireplaces, six on either face of the long sides of the room. They were clustered in the middle, leaving either end of the hall in relative shadow. There were no piles of wood, coals, any other fuel-like substances beneath the golden mantelpieces. Just perfectly pretty, ordinary fires: orange flames licking about, a hot bluish core near the base.

Far too ordinary to be just decoration.

The sound’s grating on me too,” I added.

“The sound?” Lovebright asked.

“Its whip,” Redgate whispered.

“I’ll work on it.”

“Thank you,” said Dustbringer.

“If it hurts, we can surely do something about that, hm…”

“It’s not painful, Nighteye,” I said, “just sickening. I don’t think you’ll be able to affect this.”

“Time’s flowing strangely too,” Killstop muttered. Too many avenues are dark for me to move properly.”

“I know. I feel it as well,” Timesnatcher answered her.

We halted a good fifty feet away, hovering twenty feet off the red carpets. We gradually fanned out in a semi-circle.

Voice booming, the arch-diviner called, “And we would welcome our guests, newcomers to our city, with gifts and blessings rather than blades’ edges and death, if they did not come bearing pain and destruction in their own hands.”

“But it is you who’ve come to me,” the eolastyr said gently, like a parent patiently teaching their child grammar, “to the Daughter of the Sinphalamax as she prophesied, as the scribes of Limbo gave it form. The Daughters of the Sinphalamax are never wrong.”

She rose to her feet, and her pets looked around listlessly. I got the impression the eolastyr’s sight went through our enchantments so easily that she didn’t even have to expend any effort to see us; perhaps she wouldn’t even realise her minions couldn’t see us.

Not that the pets looked anywhere close to being ready for combat.

As she and Timesnatcher exchanged cryptic phrases, Shadowcloud said, “No crossed lines of fire,” and I felt a soft surge of wind pushing me into a placement that obviously suited the wizard’s battle-plans, saw the same happening to the others – he was neatening our semi-circle, varying our heights.

“You won’t hit us,” Killstop said; “we’re not that slow.”

“If I summon my demons –” I began.

Can you summon?” Dustbringer asked.

I hadn’t even thought about it –

I waved a hand, and felt nothing.

There were no connections here. No other planes interacting with our surroundings.

No way to pull them through.

Red or green, no gates were available to me. Though I had no undead remaining after giving up the Body Brigade, I could assume they were being blocked-off in the same way.

Seriously.

“I told you this wouldn’t be pleasant.”

But you’ve not been thrown out of me.

“We’re not actually in Infernum, no matter what she says. It’s just magic. Powerful, eldritch magic. An absolute anchor.”

Fine…

“No, I can’t,” I answered my fellow arch-sorcerer’s question glumly.

“If you saw so much as you pretend you would know that this meeting ends in your death,” Timesnatcher was saying.

The smile never left the eolastyr’s violet-hued lips.

“Nay, my child. In this meeting is my birth, my death, my future and my past. Would you say to the long-shadowed man that his feet are the source of the shadow he casts? You live still in the moment, and cannot see the sun. Else why would you come here? You did not know this would mean the end of one of you?”

She looked across the semi-circle of champions. Her black-in-black eyes, emptinesses deeper than the darkness within the helm of a thinfinaran, flicked without contempt from one of us to the next.

“There are too few of you.” She seemed to sigh. “But which shall it be? This I already know, but I will not spoil it. I’ll let you find out for yourselves.”

“She couldn’t read Starsight’s fate?” Killstop asked.

“That’s her weakness – us,” Timesnatcher replied. “I –”

She raised her whip, and snapped the thongs out in a crack that made it feel like the world was splitting in half.

I teetered back and forth, left and right, swaying as I hung there. Weakness filled the marrows of my bones, paralysis gripping me, forcing every hair on my body to stand on end. And I wasn’t alone – we were all sent reeling through the air, fluttering uselessly for seconds.

Then the light changed.

It was suddenly as though the room was carved from crimson-tinted gold as the dozen fires shifted hue behind us. Now the tigress-demon was standing before a throne that seemed to have dark, gleaming blood swirling about its surfaces.

Her pets looked a thousand times as ferocious as they had done before, under this new illumination that made everything red. They still did not stir, but their smiles and eyes gleamed with hidden danger.

The fires behind us… red?

“Sorcerers, retreat! Block them the moment they come through!” Dustbringer hissed, and, the moment the paralysis ended, he hurtled back towards the scarlet flames in the hearths lining the hall.

Redgate followed him and I moved to –

“No!” Zel cried, and I halted. “It’s –“

“It’s a trick!” Timesnatcher yelled.

“Watch the animal-guys!” Killstop added.

But by then it was too late.

I should’ve known when the eolastyr had made reference to there being too few of us. There were thirteen demons here, to fight thirteen archmages.

To fight them. Not to sit and watch their mistress doing battle with a number of magic-users they couldn’t even see.

The hearths were an obvious danger. So obvious that the sorcerers would immediately fall back into a rearguard the very second they lit up in red light.

But summoning was blocked here, and she wasn’t going to let her anchors dissipate when it would give us the chance to summon our own creatures. No. She was just going to ensure all the shield-makers would be nowhere near her actual targets when she made her prowess plain to see.

She coiled her legs, as if to sit cross-legged on the floor, then sprang up into the air like a bolt from a war-machine.

Yet she hadn’t seen Zel. She hadn’t known the visions she’d seen had been foiled by a faerie queen telling me ‘No’ and me trusting her enough to obey.

I’d been careful to keep Shield Seven from touching her or her lackeys while we’d floated around, while Shadowcloud had shifted my position. I’d only covered a short distance before Zel stopped me in my tracks, and the range on my farthest-flung shields easily covered the arch-diviners –

Towards whom she hurtled.

Each shield she broke slowed her, each a blip on an otherwise-unerring attack. I gasped as she tore through them, and fought to rebuild them –

Her claws entered thin air, Timesnatcher ten feet away already.

If he was slower here, it was hard to tell; the flight-spell on him granted him enough speed that with his diviner-powers on top, whatever ‘weird time’ he was suffering from was imperceptible.

Killstop fled with him, moving almost as rapidly in spite of the fact this was her first ever flying experience.

They were the eolastyr’s weak-spots. She couldn’t read their futures properly. They could upset her plans.

We couldn’t lose them.

The tigress-demon had no access to flight, and started to drop back towards the ground –

Lightning. Fire. Ice.

Raw elements were the scenery through which she danced, descending.

Even while she fell she cracked the whip again, sending us staggering like hummingbirds as we hovered there –

And by the time I’d collected myself again she’d already struck off the ground in another mighty leap, pouncing at Timesnatcher once more.

This time, she wasn’t alone.

Her minions were with her, hurling themselves into the air towards us, each eyeing a different opponent.

Our wizards struck again. And they all danced on the air.

They couldn’t break the shields – not alone at least. But the eolastyr was still ripping them apart without any visible effort on her behalf and losing just a shred of her incredible velocity on the border of each barrier, a momentary delay that bought just a speck of time for her prey to dive aside, escape. And almost all of the fiends passed through the free space she carved, before I could get the shields back in-place.

Dustbringer and Redgate’s shields were there, but the blue spheres stretched no farther than a thirty-foot radius, and served to protect only a couple of the others. None of the sorcerers’ innermost defences had been touched yet, but I had a feeling that – no matter how I reinforced my circle – it wouldn’t be enough to stand up to the eolastyr.

A man with the distended teeth of a rat and a long, sinuous tail was about to crash into me, his beringed, clawed fingers poised to rip into my flesh.

I had a number of options.

I pinched a spike together on the outside of my shield and flung it at him.

And he barrel-rolled over the glimmering spear of force.

It was invisible, I was invisible, and he was barrel-rolling casually to evade my strikes.

What are these things, Zel? I thought as I evaded and rebuilt more shields.

“Obbolomin. Same as your dog-faced men, but a different clan, obviously. Crude things, first rank. She must’ve done something to augment them.”

The rat-man recoiled from my pentagon, and my hexagon caught him up in mid-air, thrusting him back even farther.

They can do that?

“Eolastyr can do things you can’t even imagine. This is… a game to her.”

I looked across at Em as an owl-man, his wings unfurled to display a magnificent brown plumage, pressed the attack upon her with his six-inch talons. I saw him slip past four great gouts of flame, getting no more than singed, and was about to fling my shields around her –

The owl-man was plucked up by a tornado spinning above him, sending him reeling towards the ceiling, and Em sped after him in pursuit, hurling lightning this time.

Striking him.

For an all-too-brief time, it looked like we were going to handle things.

“It’s time,” Zel said to me, and I knew she was right.

I pursued my rat-man as he fell, trapped him in a diamond, and slew him with a ring of inward-pointing spikes.

Shadowcloud’s enemy couldn’t avoid his lightning-bolt while trapped in a spray of Winterprince’s ice. Glimmermere and Nighteye let their opponents catch them in the air and fought with their bare hands, ignoring the pain of their quickly-resealing wounds as they leveraged their overpowering physiques to snap their foes’ limbs in two. Neverwish and Lovebright doubled and redoubled themselves until there were dozens of intangible enchanters in the air, the beast-men trying to spring upon them leaping unknowingly into stray blasts of elemental energy. Redgate used some kind of scream to blast his enemy aside, just before force-blades shredded it into pieces. Dustbringer’s sapphire sword bit through flesh and bone without even noticeably slowing.

And all the while, Timesnatcher and Killstop kept moving out of the eolastyr’s way, defended constantly by flurries of illusory champions, waves of white frost, shields of force…

As the last of the obbolomin perished, we all focussed our attention on the tigress.

The wizards went high to find angles that wouldn’t hit the rest of us as we struggled to resume our semi-circle around her – she was bouncing again and again from the red-lit gold floors, seeming to only move faster and faster –

My spikes couldn’t catch her, and I suspected that, if they did hit her, the forces I was capable of exerting from the outer shields wouldn’t compare with those from my reinforced circle. Would such distant blades carry the weight, the sharpness of will to slice her unfathomable flesh? Yet I couldn’t risk approaching her to try to do more damage, not when there was no guarantee even then that she would be hurt, or that she wouldn’t tear through my circle and its stars, tear me in half –

“You’re right – you can’t risk it. You’re not going to be the one she takes. Just… outlast this.”

How can you possibly know that?

“I don’t know it, not for certain. I’m just guessing. But I’m not going to be wrong.”

The powerful fiend was bounding at Timesnatcher’s face, and he was going to cut it close.

Dustbringer was nearby – protected by his blinding weave of shielding, he brought his vamelbabil blade up and swung it at her back –

She didn’t twist in the air to evade his strike, yet I had no doubt she knew his blow was in motion. For the first time, she turned to directly face an attack.

The sapphire weapon struck her in the centre of the brow and recoiled from the circlet about her head with an audible twang.

Her positioning – more than merely perfect.

It was as though its weight suddenly came back to the sword, and the gigantic, unwieldy blade toppled back at him.

Somehow, it was not ill-will. It was an accident. A twist of fate. A dreamer’s vision.

It ignored the last-remaining, closest shields about him.

The sword’s bitter inner edge plunged into Dustbringer’s collarbone and sheared through his torso, getting almost to his navel before it tipped and fell free of his body.

The demonic weapon vanished into the air as it left his nerveless hands. The spectral essences he maintained were plainly dispelled in the moment of his failure, his robe’s cloudiness ripped away to reveal the gushing dregs of the man beneath.

Aghast, I stared –

“Nighteye! Glimmer-”

Timesnatcher’s cry was cut off as a crack resounded through the room, dizzying me, sending us all fluttering off like pollen-drunk bees –

By the time I could focus my gaze again, she was sitting on her throne once more, Dustbringer’s body laid across her lap, his head and feet lolling off the arms of the chair.

Her hand was above Dustbringer’s chest, and it was pulsing with white light.

The corpse-face mask, a symbol of his prowess, was now turned into a mockery. He looked dead already.

“No!” I cried; the others were crying out too, lightning was rebounding from what I could now see as a red sheen in the air, an infernal barrier of force protecting her, surrounding the dais –

Can’t heal him!” Glimmermere gasped, then –

“Demons!” Zel shrilled.

“Demons!” I repeated her warning, turning back to look –

They were coming out of the fires now. More imps, more obbolomin, and summoners, too – I saw a nabburatiim, a black stick-man, taking shape in the crimson flames.

I worked my own red portals, and this time it went without the slightest bit of difficulty – they sprung up off the gold-brass floor, my ikistadreng, my epheldegrim, my hordes of imps flickering into being…

Redgate was following my lead. Dozens of intimidating demons answered his call. His pair of thinfinaran charged a pair of draumgerel, bursting them into gloopy messes with a single strike of their gauntlets.

By the time I looked around again, the desperation of my companions had increased – as had the intensity of the white light gathered in the eolastyr’s palm.

I blasted her defences with everything I had, hitting them with dozens of spikes. My force-blades evaporated on contact, not even making a ripple in her shielding.

It didn’t stop me trying, though.

“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she crooned, as though she were oblivious to the battle commencing in her throne-room, the dazzling missiles and rays exploding on her red wards. “In a moment we’ll be done, and say farewell for now. But it’s not goodbye – not for three of you at least.”

It couldn’t – it can’t be over…

The white light in her hand illuminating Dustbringer’s body began to change. It seemed at first that it was faltering, flickering off-and-on, but upon closer inspection it was just that the white light was turning red, matching the infernal illumination of the hall perfectly.

The wizards were being forced to join in the demon-battle with ever-increasing frequency as the foes began to break through, distracted by the eolastyr’s reinforcements instead of doubling-down on breaking her barriers. Our front-lines were being overwhelmed and we only had a moment until Dustbringer was… dust?

I went and thrust my circle and all its stars into her blood-red wards.

“Focus on stopping her!” Timesnatcher bellowed, hacking at the far curve of the shield, Killstop at his side.

I’d given my demons no direction, and on my last glance over my shoulder I’d seen Aunty Antlers engaged in a violent headbutting contest with an enemy ikistadreng, its antlers just as daunting as hers. Could I bring her across to help?

Before I could make a decision, Em, Shadowcloud and Winterprince all fused their powers, channelling energies into a fizzing, house-sized nimbus of light –

Unleashing a bolt of lightning that would’ve burned my whole apartment block to a crisp.

The shield absorbed it, spreading the electricity in tidal waves across the arc of the gleaming red surface; but the barrier wavered –

The white light burning in her palm was off permanently, emitting only the scarlet pulse now –

I hammered the shield…

But it was too late.

The black twists of material that were the last remnants of Dustbringer showered down about her feet.

The eolastyr offered us a mocking smile, the triangular face distorting… then an infernal blaze flared up out of nowhere and she was gone, the throne left empty.

All of the lights in the hall were instantaneously extinguished.

One or more of the wizards or enchanters responded within a split-second, suffusing the room with bright white light, and, looking down, we all stared at the golden throne – Timesnatcher swooped down, coming to hover before the scattered black ashes –

“Master!” I heard Aunty Antlers cry piteously.

My demons had never called for aid before, and certainly never in such a human-sounding voice.

Before I knew what I was doing I was turning away from the dais.

My ikistadreng had lost the red blurs that were her two forelegs; her face was on the ground, great antlers lowered; and the enemy ikistadreng was stamping on her spine with its hind-hoofs, cracking her in half. Other fiends were crawling on her, stabbing her with long talons so that she writhed.

I’d thought the druids had energised me earlier.

No. Watching Dustbringer just… vanish… and now this

Anger energised me. I felt myself flooding with power.

I didn’t care if this demon I owned was the most evil thing in existence, more evil even than the eolastyr. I didn’t care that she wasn’t a person. Aunty Antlers meant nothing to me.

But the enemy ikistadreng meant less.

And it was going to snap her in two, right in front of me?

Circle blazing, I flew right up alongside the face of her enemy. My hands moved, spikes hewing through the lesser demons, while I caught the ikistadreng’s eye.

Trapped its gaze.

Glared into that blurry floating pupil with all my pent-up fury.

“Tear yourself in half,” I spat in Infernal.

I let the newly-bound ikistadreng get started on its task for a few seconds before dismissing both it and Aunty Antlers. I couldn’t risk her dying here; from what I understood, that would only prolong her recoalescence. She could recuperate on her home plane, and quite possibly continue to watch the punishment of the very opponent who’d broken her.

“Feychilde…

I looked around, confirming as I did that the dark hearths were now empty; they’d stopped producing demons when the fires went out.

There were still hundreds left, though, a few summoners amongst them.

“Not now, Neverwish.”

Then I instinctively threw out shields to support my other minions, pushing their foes back.

Pushing them all back. Shield Twelve encompassed everyone.

But I didn’t stop there.

I placed one hand around my rotating circle, and I moved, flying at them, invisible spikes in my hands.

I felt like I was in two places at once, but it was working.

I was moving with my circle, leaving Shields Two to Twelve in place.

Zey vill kill you! K- Feychilde!”

She was wrong. The demons couldn’t kill me. I flew clear out of Shield Twelve, and my stars rotated as fiercely as ever.

“Then let’s kill them first.”

I’m already on my vay.”

Zel’s hearing helped me pick up Winterprince grinding out, “I don’t need telling twice.”

Several demons lashed at me with their limbs, their tridents, their bolts of dark energy. But the surface of my circle was a hedgehog, a pincushion, covered in needles of unstoppable force. I used them as quickly as I created them, and I created them quickly.

Whole droves of them fell, pierced through, not all of them fatally. Yet.

On my right side, a field of gleaming snow overtook the room – and then without warning a whole host of icy stalagmites speared up from the frosty surface, barbed tips penetrating the bodies of at least thirty demons in a single terrifying motion.

A thunderstorm sprang into existence on my left. Sheets of lightning rippled down, electrocuting ranks of enemies. Redgate’s infantry mopped them up, the sorcerer himself staying well-clear of the indiscriminate conflict.

Dozens upon dozens of robed figures soared into battle with spellbound blades burning brightly in their hands – and some of the figures were even real, the arch-diviners bringing slaughter to the slaughterers.

I saw a lesser fiend bite its beak down on Nighteye’s cowled head, razor-like teeth slicing through the hood. It was a scaly creature, its beak far longer and more hideous than that of the druid’s mask. Such was the force with which it closed its jaw, it snapped the end of its beak clean off on Nighteye’s magically-reinforced skull. His blood flowed, but I had little doubt he was doing fine, the way he was ripping through his enemies.

Arch-druids could do things I hadn’t imagined, weren’t in the stories.

There’d been nothing about arch-sorcerers wielding their shapes as weapons, either.

Demonic mounds of rotten leaves with bramble arms were lifted up on spirals of hot wind, waving in despair before they were drained of moisture and combusted. I trapped a bintaborax in my diamond and took it apart, one spiked chunk of armour at a time. A thinfinaran, one of Redgate’s, stood astride one of the big, eye-covered apes, smashing its skull against the floor repeatedly.

It was over. Too soon, it was over.

And when there was nothing left to kill, I remembered. Who I was. Who had died. Who I’d become.

I wouldn’t cry for Dustbringer. We hadn’t been close, barely knew each other. But this night had started with him telling me to be careful, and it’d ended with him stretched out in the embrace of an arch-demon. I’d watched it happen, and it had changed me. Right there, on the heels of what had happened to Morsus, after I’d told him to be careful.

Endren…

I hadn’t fully formulated any plans, but since his performance in front of Henthae I’d nonetheless come to think of him as a future ally. A possible friend. Maybe even the knowledgeable, trustworthy mentor that every budding young hero from the stories needed in order to improve their skills, reach their potential.

Now he was gone, and we were left in an empty structure, built by the demons who’d come here for the express purpose of taking him from us.

There was some discussion before we left, about what to do with it.

“Gold is gold, after all,” Redgate whispered. “Between them, the wizards should be able to find a way to strip it off the walls and bring it out before we break this place.”

“Should we now?” Winterprince grated.

“It’s going to take hours to smash the obsidian tower above us,” Shadowcloud said, matching Winterprince in talking aloud as if that could help mediate the discussion, “maybe days. We could consider it.” He looked back at the shining throne, where Dustbringer had been disintegrated. “Claim our weregild.”

“Yet we have no assurances it’s actually gold,” Lovebright reminded them.

“Gold makes men mad enough as it is,” I said.

Neverwish seemed to agree: “Whatever that obsidian stone really is, this stuff might be worse for all we know.” He started to soar up towards the opening in the ceiling Dustbringer had made for us. “I’m going to get Starsight, and I’m getting out of here. Who’s with me?”

You need a vizard,” Em said, following him and looking across at me. “I’m vith you.”

Me too,” I said, feeling like I needed my bed more than I ever had in my life, while knowing that such a thing had to still be hours off yet.

One by one we peeled away, floating up into the black tower above us, keeping well clear of the hazardous substance as we manoeuvred through the crack.

The last thing I saw before I went through was Redgate, the final one of us to leave – he was floating there amidst the destruction, arms at his side, his emotions impossible to read or even imagine.

He’d lost Dustbringer, too, and for him it had to be a thousand times worse.

* * *

We were on the rubble of Lord’s Knuckle once more, and I felt glad to touch the earth with my feet again. Lovebright communicated our success to the local magister-captain; Ciraya and Fe were gone, but I could see other magisters and watchmen being debriefed. It was still dark, and the city still reeked of fear and destruction, but it felt different now. The fires were out, I could hear no screaming, and –

Ah, yes. The Mourning Bells have stopped.

It’s finished!Zel said.

Woah. My inner ear was ringing. You don’t have to shout!

She continued, only slightly less-loudly: “I’m proud of you, you know? You didn’t put one foot wrong.”

Better than you expected?

“Pah! I’m a diviner. I knew exactly how good you were going to be when I – first met you.”

Then I caught Timesnatcher confirming her words: So it’s all over?” he was asking. “I can’t foresee any more events.”

No more reports have come in,” Leafcloak replied. “How long until Starsight’s here with me?”

“Not long – Neverwish has the best flight Shadowcloud could give him.”

“I’ll get prepared, then. By the sounds of things, you guys need to take a rest. Sleep, if you can.”

Timesnatcher looked around the group. “I won’t say well done. This wasn’t a good day to be a champion. But it wasn’t an unmitigated loss.” He looked down at the ground. “She would’ve come up. She would’ve slaughtered half of Sticktown. Dustbringer gave his life to prevent that from taking place and I’m sure that, even if he’d known in advance what was going to happen to him, he would’ve still gone ahead.”

“How well did you know him?” Winterprince asked suddenly.

“I know what you’re talking about,” the diviner replied, “and I stand by what I said. I’ll deal with the situation, trust me.”

“Whatever. I’m going home.” Winterprince raised himself up on the air, angled himself south-east as though to cross the Blackrush to Oldtown, and departed.

One by one, most of the others left, the same exhaustion and dejection in their voices as they bade us farewell. Lovebright promised me she’d see that the people in Oldtown got their minds back, where we’d fought our first thinfinaran. Then she, Nighteye, Shadowcloud and Redgate followed Winterprince; Glimmermere headed north-east, towards Hightown. At last it was just Em, Timesnatcher, Killstop and myself.

“You did well tonight, Stormchilde,” Timesnatcher said in a jesting tone. “I’ll be giving Keliko a glowing report, don’t worry.”

It only now occurred to me how strange it must’ve been for her, being the only one unmasked in the group of champions. When she met Timesnatcher’s gaze I could see the fatigue in her face for the first time. “Could you please leave out ze whole ‘Stormchilde’ business? She’s been on my case about ensuring I stay viz ze Magisterium for…” she looked at me, almost guiltily, “… vell, ze last veek at least.”

So she’s been considering it, I thought. An arch-enchantress is going to know it, and she’d be breaking a ton of laws by messing with her head – so Henthae’s been reduced to begging?

Good.

“If only we’d met you first,” Timesnatcher said in a musing tone. “Of course, Emrelet. My lips are sealed.” He looked at me. “And as for you… Feychilde.” He stared at me for a moment. “Incursions are rough on new arch-sorcerers, but we’re lucky you inherited your powers when you did. You realise that this is going to be twice as hard on us all next time, with Dustbringer gone?”

I nodded. I felt myself swelling with pride even at the vaguest morsel of praise from the lips of someone like Timesnatcher. “I’ll get Redgate to give me some pointers.” I didn’t even want to think about next time for a good couple of months.

“I don’t think you need any of the pointers that champion could supply,” the diviner said darkly. “Not that he’ll be a problem much longer.”

“That’s rather… enigmatic,” Killstop remarked.

He still addressed me: “We’ll have a chat about things soon enough. Let’s just hope we get some more new arch-sorcerers who choose to become champions soon. You’ll have something to teach them by then, eh?” Then he sighed, and turned away to face his fellow arch-diviner. “Come, Killstop. I’m going to have to have a chat with you now. If I say the right things, I might even get you to survive till the next Incursion.”

“Private chat…” she replied archly, “my dear Timesnatcher, whatever will the rumours say?”

“Put a sock in it,” he growled, taking her hand and lifting off slightly.

As she floated away with him, I heard her muttering, “A sock’s not nearly as much fun, though…”

And then finally we were alone.

“So.” I didn’t really know what to say.

“So.” Neither did she.

“Was it like this last time? When you helped?”

She shook her head. “Better. Vorse. I don’t know.”

“It’s okay – come on.” I started to lead her into the night sky. “I want to get you home and get you in bed – safely tucked up in bed, I mean – before I go home.”

She smiled a wan smile and followed me up, seemingly too tired to refuse, even as she protested weakly, “But Jhaid, and Jharoan -“

“They’ve already seen me tonight.” I briefly related what’d happened on Mud Lane, what Ciraya and Killstop had done to save everyone. “Your parents have no idea how you are,” I concluded. “You died.”

“I’m not a child,” she continued, still letting me tug her up through the air. We were soon above the smoke-clogged streets of Sticktown.

“No, but you did die –”

“I did not – do not tell zem zat!” she hissed.

I looked at her, offended. “Like I’m going to tell my girlfriend’s dad, who I literally just promised I’d keep her safe, that I let her get herself killed…”

“You didn’t let me get killed –” I felt the shudder that passed through her body “– and zere vere a few times, down zere, I vould’ve died again if not for your protections. Ze thinfinaran… I couldn’t touch it –”

“I can’t even imagine what we’d have done without you, and Shadowcloud and Winterprince. There were so many. You must be feeling more drained than ever?”

She didn’t reply, but drew closer to me, so that we were almost shoulder-to-shoulder as we coursed the sky.

Holding her hand, flying was easier. We swiftly passed out of Lord’s Knuckle, away from the destruction. I’d found it easy to forget in the midst of battle just how small the affected sites were when compared with the vastness of the districts themselves – it might’ve seemed bad when we were in the thick of things, but I doubted more than one percent of the city had been levelled. The wizardry-firms would get around to fixing most of Sticktown, eventually, once Hightown, Treetown and Oldtown were done. It was more important, after all, to rebuild the houses of the rich elite who’d been kicked out to spend a few weeks in their second-homes, than the tenements of the impoverished masses who’d be dying of disease in the mud for months. Priorities, of course. Even Rivertown would probably get support ahead of us, given the proximity of the fighting to the Spring Door…

Then I took a breath of smoke, and found myself hacking. The nausea of my vertigo was lingering, but it was far off, like a nightmare that’d receded into the background of my mind – only making its presence known when I deliberately thought about it.

I stopped thinking about it, stopped looking down – looked at her face instead, frozen in a grave seriousness, marble perfection.

Zel – leave us alone, will you?

“Of course. Goodnight… my champion.”

Then the fairy was gone.

I spoke, the words coming haltingly: “How… do I want to know how it happened?”

She shook her head, but started telling me anyway. “I vozn’t vatching my back. My elemental of air voz torn apart, and I didn’t notice. Ze imps… I couldn’t get zem off… If you hadn’t persuaded me to take ze potion…”

I couldn’t imagine the agony she must’ve endured as they clawed through her legs, and she didn’t try to describe it in detail, but I got enough of an impression that I had to shut my eyes, a futile, instinctive attempt to block out the visions…

“I didn’t keep – keep ze sc-scars zis time,” she said in a thick voice.

All of a sudden she was weeping, and I halted her, pulled her into my arms.

She clung to me like I was keeping her from falling.

“It’s okay,” I said softly, kissing her hair, stroking her back. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”

She pulled away a few inches, eyes glimmering like molten steel. “It’s never over, Kas. Not for me! Not for you! Not till ze day ve die forezzer!”

She sobbed yet more fiercely, and beat a single time on my chest with the base of her fist.

I had no words I could trust. I didn’t know how I felt. Maybe I felt the same way, but maybe I didn’t, and how could I just say that, now? It would be cold, too cold to admit that I didn’t really feel like I cared. What else would I want to be doing until the day I died? Monitoring potatoes?

I could do nothing but pull her back into my embrace, let her claw with her own fingers at my back. Could do nothing but hold her.

So I held her.

And prayed to Yune it would be enough.

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