“Can we talk?” I tried to ask, the speed at which we were zooming making it almost impossible to think, never mind move my tongue, the route echoing back at my senses in a disorienting fashion. “Without the link?”
Tanra slowed me, turned to face me. We’d only just emerged into the night air, it seemed; she’d used Nighteye’s tunnel-entrance to bring me out, rather than using her haste-effect to dig another hole – this was probably much easier for her. As such we weren’t that far from the heretic healers in whose entourage I’d come across Nighteye. They were all trapped in the stilling-effect, frozen mid-spellcast. One of them was only thirty feet away, his back to us; he was probably distracted by a dying colleague somewhere out there, but he was clearly heading towards us, towards the hole into which his fellow druid had fled to escape the wicked champion-sorcerer…
Beyond the dark druids, I could see the library – it was stuck in a moment that allowed me to estimate the numbers at play.
I easily spotted Stormsword, chasing a gang of fleeing wizards as they dove towards an infernal portal; on the corner of the roof nearest me I saw Fangmoon, holding the arms of a blade-armed demon-woman apart as she headbutted the fiend.
“It’s over,” the seeress said. “We won. Minimal damage. Few champions down, even fewer dead.”
“She said they found it, and they were going to retreat in seconds,” I replied, still surveying the scene.
“Found ‘it’?”
“A book. Something to do with the twins.” I turned to meet her eyes. “We can’t tell them – not about Nighteye.”
She drew a few breaths, evidently considering her next words carefully.
“Please – Tanra – if they know… then there’s no coming back for him. He’ll – they’ll have to…”
“I think,” she said at last, speaking very slowly, “we can’t tell them… about you, or me… either. Anything we…”
She collapsed into my arms and it was all I could do to turn down my wraith in time to catch her halfway to the ground – then everything around me burst into staggering noise and motion. The link, so long subdued by the chronomancy, erupted into a gibberish of voices.
“Ta- Killstop!” I struggled for a healing philtre from my demiskin, moved her mask aside slightly to pour it into her mouth. “Oh, not again, you stupid girl…”
As though it were her fault… It was me, again, demanding that she stretch her powers to the absolute limit. Me, whose ass she was saving.
I hoisted her up into the crook of my arm once more, marvelling at the satyr-strength, and directed myself into the air before the nearby heretic druid got his act together.
“Killstop’s expended herself again!” I yelled into the link as I sped towards the library.
The telepathic connection captured Timesnatcher’s sigh. “How?”
“Saving me… again…” I sighed back. “Can someone get here? Spirit, can you show them – never mind, Star’s here.”
Stormsword followed the diviner across the sky to me, and before I set Tanra down on the lawn for Starsight to tend, Spirit and Fang were on their way.
I looked up at Em as she descended.
“Where did you go?” she asked. “I needed you.”
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She touched ground, and I found myself looking at her lips, avoiding her eyes.
“Tough bit of arch-diviner, sorry. I don’t know if something happened to the link –“ my eyes crossed Spirit, and I imagined his frown “– or if I just missed you…”
“It’s gonna be one hell of a debrief at the Gatherin’,” the enchanter said sourly, using the link, presumably speaking to champions only.
“You’re not wrong,” Timesnatcher replied. He’d descended to help Star, and now both seers were moving their hands hurriedly over Tanra’s recumbent form. “I just wish I knew what this was all about. It didn’t appear to me that they sought to find the twins, or penetrate the Maginox defences.”
It was one of those moments, where I held my thoughts in check and let myself re-experience the death, the needless, endless-seeming bloodshed. I kept that horror in my mind like a screen, a wall – although I knew I could trust Bor not to go rooting around in my head, I didn’t want to do the psychic version of screaming my guilt aloud.
I knew what this was all about.
But they’d attacked a library. Irimar would figure out they wanted a book sooner or later. If it saved Nighteye from getting his head torn off – or me and Tanra from suffering the same fate – the omission would be well worth it.
Bor had joined the diviners on the ground, and was kneeling by Tanra, staring at her. I looked at Em and deliberately shaped my mouth into the same tired smile she was wearing. I didn’t actually share her apparent sense of satisfaction with today’s events.
“Want flying home?” I asked her.
She nodded, trembling, but looking exhilarated rather than shaken. She cast about, as though asking for permission.
“Don’t worry, Storm,” Spirit said. “We do all the hard work. They got people to put the place back together again.”
I glanced around. The last of the heretics were long gone, and the defenders were starting to disperse. Like the enchanter said, we’d carried out the hard part, and we’d managed to stop it from looking like an Incursion had hit the place. Sure, the building was exposed to the foundation on one side, there were a few magical fires still loose and a few uprooted trees… but it probably wouldn’t take the renovators and landscapers long to fix the place up. Twenty-four hours tops.
“If you’re sure?” she said, a bit hesitantly.
When no one replied, Em soared slowly to my side; I took her by the hand and looked at the others.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Nighteye shift at two,” Fang reminded me.
I looked over towards the druidess, nodded to her awkwardly.
Then Em and me took off together, heading to the south-west. As we coursed over the twinkling lights of Hightown, weaved between towers and shrines, she kneaded my hand in her own. It was rare for us to hold hands when we flew, but I could feel her boundless energy, her ongoing thrill… Maybe a druid had just rejuvenated her?
“Exciting day!” I said, trying to inject as much enthusiasm into my voice as I could.
“I almost got her,” she said in a wistful tone. “A few more seconds, she vould’ve been mine…”
She laughed heartily, and I was glad I wasn’t looking her in the face.
“Oh?” I mumbled. I wanted to change the subject but I didn’t have the passion for any of it.
She spoke, about how the fire had responded to her over and above Hierarch Thirteen – while the heretic had the mastery where earth was concerned. In wind and water they were matched. Once they went under the earth there had been a brutal fight of constant near-misses –
“So what you’re telling me is, you almost died again.”
She shrugged. “You almost died in Zadhal, did you not? And vent back into it a second time?”
I wasn’t in pursuit of someone I wanted to kill, Em.
“I suppose,” my lips supplied.
“And zen she brought ze vater out of ze air, tried to drown me viz it – vell, as you can imagine I vozn’t a big fan of zat idea, so I electrified it and…”
Her accent was only growing more and more pronounced as she told her tale.
It took me a few seconds to realise she was directing our course downwards, descending –
The estates of mid-Treetown were beneath us –
“Em!” I barked, perhaps a bit harshly, and I tugged on her hand, bringing us to a halt. “What are you doing?”
She looked across at me, and I could see the shock on her face.
“I thought – ve vere – vhen you said zat you vonted to fly me home…?”
She was taking us to our special place, our hidden bower.
I sighed. Being close to her right now was unlikely to bring me any comfort, and I doubted I’d make for good company.
“N-no – sorry, Em – Emrelet…”
I was having trouble breathing. I turned up my wraith to fight the sudden surge of giddiness.
My hand slipped through hers, and her eyes flashed. “Kas! Vot’s going on?”
“I… I can’t…”
I couldn’t tell her. I knew what she was like. It’d be dangerous for me and for her and for us.
I couldn’t tell her everything…
“Kastyr?” Her voice and eyes were soft again. She drew herself close to me and wouldn’t let me back away. “Kas, you’re vorrying me…”
“It’s… It’s Zel.”
* * *