L glyph [https://i.imgur.com/2vwU4yB.png]
Smoke stung Lorie’s eyes. Smoke from the smouldering bookshelves, varnish bubbling in the heat. Precious books flamed. Scraps of charred paper fluttered about her father — Dad, his face battered and swollen, blood trickling down his neck to stain his collar.
He reached out to her. ‘Lorie…’
She lurched back. Pain gripped her chest and crowded her throat with the taste of acid. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ Her voice shook. ‘You must get away from me.’
She had killed people. Many people. The guards on the gate—she had incinerated them, and known exactly what she was doing, and felt nothing. Nothing at all. And when she walked into the study and saw her father, her only thought had been that he was in her way.
When she left Sam it had seemed her own idea, her own conscious decision to go to House Oryche, to help her father. But somewhere along the way she had forgotten him, forgotten everything but the insistent pull toward her goal.
And that goal—the man, the man with the thing she needed—had fled the room when she arrived. She must find him. Her body swayed with the force of the compulsion.
‘I’m not leaving you,’ he said.
‘You must.’ The fire was growing hotter. She concentrated and snuffed out the flames, reducing embers to ash.
Her father sagged in the chair. ‘We can’t outrun this. It will destroy everything. Me, Nana, Sam, we’ll die along with everyone else.’
For now, all the Power wanted was the man, the man who’d fled. Why, or what would happen once it had what it wanted, she didn’t know. She doubted it would be good.
‘I found Sam,’ she said. ‘He’s safe. He carried the Power for a while.’ Not long enough for serious damage: that’s what the Power had said. ‘He passed it to me. He’s free of it now and he’ll be all right. I’ve carried it for longer. Since Sark, I think.’
A knife lay on the blood-stained rug. With sudden clarity, she saw the double-edged blade and knew what must be done. She picked it up. The steel was cool and solid in her palm. Everything was very clear and strangely peaceful.
She handed the knife to her father. ‘The Power can be destroyed by killing the vessel.’
He recoiled. ‘I can’t do that. I won’t.’
She knelt on the rug. ‘You must, Dad. Better I die than thousands of others. Do it quickly. I won’t feel any pain.’
‘There must be another way. How did you free Sam?’
‘He passed the Power to me.’ Irritation flickered through the calm. The Power still seethed: her muscles trembled with its insistent need. Her death was the best solution, the only solution. But of course, he had to be stubborn and make it harder for them both.
‘Then you can give the Power to me,’ he said.
‘It’s no good, Dad. You won’t be able to control it any better than I can.’
‘I know what I’m doing, Lorie. Trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ A laugh tore her throat. ‘Why should I trust you? All this is your fault. You brought us here. You ripped us away from all we knew. You dragged us to Athanor across snow and ice and almost killed us. Your idea, your decision. You never gave us a choice.’
‘Everything I’ve done has been for you, always.’
‘Really? When mother died, where were you? You didn’t talk to us. You barely spoke for days. I had to pretend, for Sam and you and Nana. I had to pretend to be strong and brave, because you were weak. Because you’d given up.’ The shock in his face brought a savage pleasure. ‘And now you’re too weak to do what must be done. You’ll try to sacrifice yourself instead, and you’ll fail. The Power is too strong, Dad. This is the only way.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve let you all down, many times. Perhaps I don’t deserve your trust. But I can’t… Please, Lorie. Give me the Power. Even if we all die and the world burns, you don’t have to be the one to do it.’
Tears welled in her eyes. The knife lay loose in his left hand and he wasn’t going to use it, he never would — because he loved her. And she wasn’t strong enough to do it herself, and not strong enough to control the Power either.
She took his hand, the right hand with the missing fingers, and pressed it to her cheek. ‘We’re all weak, Dad. We’re human. We make mistakes, and we’re sorry, and we lean on each other to get by. That’s how it should be.’
The Power was still in her. She felt the strong inner tug, directed down, the urgent need to pursue, yet she was herself, free to feel and think and talk, free enough to plan her own death.
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Once she’d thought she could control it by mastering her emotions, that fear and anger allowed the Power to take charge. But when she’d burnt the guards at the gates, there had been no fear, no anger, no feeling at all. The Power had simply reacted to a threat and removed it.
Only here in the study, when her father had spoken to her, emotion had rushed back. Complex, painful, human emotions — and she knew, suddenly, why she was free to think for herself.
‘It doesn’t understand us,’ she said. ‘It’s not human, do you see?’ He frowned, puzzled, but she had to hope he’d listen, that he could use what she’d learned. ‘I’m going to pass the Power to you.’
Perhaps it wasn’t the right decision. She didn’t know. She only knew she couldn’t do what must be done by herself. Perhaps he couldn’t either. Maybe no human could.
If she believed in Nana’s god, she might have prayed to him then. She’d tried, for a while, having faith in the Light that Talia and her father spoke of, but that hadn’t done her much good either. So in the absence of any angels or gods, she’d put her faith in her father — weak and fallible and human as he was. Light help him. Light help us all.
A glyph [https://i.imgur.com/ZLENX3y.png]
Strike and dodge, slash and spin away from the blade. The urgent pain in her side, and moving, always, for to stop was to die.
The pace slowed, and now they circled each other, Andra and the other woman, both panting. Sweat dripped from over-heated bodies and mingled with blood, and still the bitter length of the sword divided them.
The woman was quick, much quicker than a human should be. Not quite as fast as Andra; bleeding claw-marks on her arms attested to that. She was strong though, and skilful, and the sword doubled her reach.
Andra’s arm and side stung where the sword had bitten. The woman had tricked her, dropping her guard in apparent carelessness, then attacking as Andra attacked — but she knew that trick now. She wouldn’t be fooled again.
Their feet shushed over the smooth floor, leaving a trail of ash on the pale stone. Behind the woman a shadow followed, soft-footed and silent. Their ragged breathing was the loudest noise.
Nose-tickling ash and dust hung in the air. Andra snorted. The smell of fresh blood excited her, but her limbs were heavy.
‘You fight well,’ she said. ‘For a man.’
‘Woman,’ the human snarled. ‘Like you, bitch.’
They were alike. Andra had known it from the first — this one was predator, not prey. And like her, she tired, she hurt. The woman’s heart raced, her breathing was a harsh sound. Tiredness led to error. One of them would slip soon, and die.
Andra growled. Tired as she was, her claws ached to rip flesh, her teeth hungered for the sweet warmth of fresh blood. That was the lasker way: what you fought, you killed, and you ate. Ice had no mercy for the weak or the hungry.
But the city was not the ice. In the city, one learned new ways. And she was tired, her bones ached with it, so very tired of fighting and of death.
She lowered her claws and stepped aside. ‘Go.’ There was a clear path to the shattered doors. ‘You do not need to die today.’
The woman glanced at the doorway. She hesitated. Perhaps she feared a trick, as she had tricked Andra before.
Her expression hardened. ‘I don’t run from animals.’
She charged, the sword slashing for Andra’s body. Andra danced away from the blade.
The soft-footed shadow closed in from behind. Intent on Andra, the woman heard nothing, sensed nothing, before Cara’s knife struck her back. She span to face the new threat.
Andra clawed her sword arm to the bone.
The woman screamed and tried to turn, to lift and swing the sword. Torn muscles failed her. The blade dipped. She dropped the sword and seized Andra by the throat.
Andra grabbed the injured arm and twisted. The woman hissed in pain, yet her other hand still squeezed harder, fingers like iron. Unable to breathe, Andra stared into the human eyes only inches away, the pale skull-face snarling in effort and pain. She drove her claws into the woman’s neck, and ripped.
Hot blood rushed over her hand. The grip on her throat loosened. The woman sagged and Andra caught her as she fell and lowered her to the floor.
She crouched over her, watching the last desperate light fade from the mad eyes. ‘Rest,’ she said. The words sounded wrong in human speech, but she said them anyway, for a worthy foe. ‘You fought well. Your kin will honour you.’
The woman’s last agonised gasp for breath sounded like laughter, and then she died.
Cara joined Andra beside her kill. Andra licked the woman’s blood and flesh from her claws. It tasted good, yet somehow unsatisfying. Why had the woman chosen to fight, instead of leaving? She could have lived.
She shrugged. Humans were mad: one could not fathom their reasons.
Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]
Simon blinked. He sat in the chair in Eranon’s study. The last thing he remembered was the Power slamming into him like a hammer, crushing all thought and will.
He felt the pull then, irresistible as the tide, tugging him downward. Eranon. Eranon has what I need. It’s below me. Compulsion urged him to his feet. His legs trembled, then steadied. He remembered pain, before, but now — it had receded to a distance from himself, present but easily ignored.
Lorie lay on the rug. Her chest rose and fell. She breathed — she lived — and he breathed too. The knife lay beside her. A sharp blade, good Athanor steel, and the quickest way to end this. He reached for it—
You don’t really mean to harm yourself, do you?
I can’t allow that, I’m afraid. We have something important to do.
His hand spasmed. The knife slipped from his fingers even as visions gripped him, filling his mind: himself burning, tearing through the floor, descending in a pillar of flame, or force, or stone. Eranon was down. Down was where he must go.
— NO. Desperately, he focused inward, fighting for control of his own thoughts. Lorie had tried to explain, before the transfer; she’d told him a great many things, but it all slipped from him now as the knife had slipped from his clutching fingers. There’s no need. I know where Eranon will go. I’ll take you there.
He crossed to the corner of the study where Eranon had disappeared. He ran his hands along the shelves, seeking the mechanism to open the hidden door, finding nothing.
Destroy it.
The bookcase was timber. His affinity was best with metal, stone a close second. Yet now he felt something from the shelves. At a glance the structure revealed itself in layer after layer of detail. Steel hinges, screws, and nails pinged against his awareness, sharp and clear.
Glyphs lined up in his mind’s eye. He focused — and the shelves, books and all, collapsed in a cascade of sawdust.
A hole gaped in the exposed wall. Coughing, Simon peered at the narrow stairway leading downward into darkness.
Down.