“I—” I began, staring into Honor Ash’s face. She reached out and almost touched the staff, and she smiled.
The High Council once more erupted in screams and frantically pulled at their bindings as haunts flowed after the sprite’s shade, filling the room with ghostly fangs bared, claws unsheathed, horns lowered. Basel, flickering rapidly between man and stag, started towards Kareste. Still staring at the sprite Faena’s haunt, I put out my arm, and he stopped, his eyes red with rage.
“Necromancy,” one of the clerks said, warding against evil, others muttering, gesturing and hissing with him. “Ripping ghosts from their rest, moon season or no.”
“No, not necromancy,” Doyen Allwyn said from where he sat a little ways from me on the floor. “It’s a reckoning. These are the phantoms that the Magus had banished, and they have now returned. With a vengeance.”
I looked down at Honor’s hand in mine, truth rune to truth rune. My eyes widened as I saw—Honor shook her head, gently disengaging, and it faded into a memory of a dream that maybe I once had. But other things remained.
“You killed her!” I spun around, glaring at Kareste as he hung limp between the guards. “You bound her, took an axe and sodding cut her down! For her staff!” Laurel growled, showing his fangs again, his own claws unsheathed.
I walked towards the Magus, Basel and Honor on either side. “You killed honored Moraina’s son! For his bones and hoard!”
Moraina gave a muted roar.
The unicorn paced with me. “You killed her for her horn!” The leopard joined us as I leapt onto the dais. “You killed him for his claws!” The rest of the haunts crowded behind me as I raised my staff. “All done for power! All of this done for pox-rotted power!”
“Rabbit, stop.” Laurel caught up with me, stepping in front.
“Give him to me!” I howled, trying to get past the Faena. “I will cut his heart out and eat it with a spoon!”
Laurel cuffed me with his paw. “The Magus is forfeit to the Lady!”
As I glared at the Magus, dragging air into my lungs, he suddenly raised his head, staring back at me with iced eyes. Then he yanked his arms from the surprised guards and I was blown off the dais with the shrieking blast of an ice storm. He must’ve caught his breath. I slid along the floor, spinning, managing to stop and get back to my feet just in time to see folk thrown aside as the blizzard blew out of the audience hall.
“Kareste,” I belled, exploding out the remaining windows in the hall.
“Rabbit, wait—” I reached for the wind, and was gone.
Chapter Sixty-seven
I flowed down the steps, out into the castle courtyard, streaking past the inner gate, through the bailey and out the main gate, everything blurring as I chased the fast-moving ice storm. We flashed over the moat, the water freezing as the Magus passed, icicles dripping from the bridge. Full of winter, he streaked into the park, rime coating the trees’ needles and branches.
We sped along the hard-packed sand of the road, made crystalline by ice, Kareste always just out of reach. Then he veered off into the trees, dodging around their trunks, and I could hear the park denizens fighting to escape the killing storm. Some didn’t, and I flew by frozen birds’ nests, a hedgehog, a doe and her two fawns. We exploded into a large clearing, the pine needle ground cover turning brittle and the surrounding trees becoming tinted with frost. Kareste abruptly stopped, changing back into the man, facing me. I also stopped, allowing myself to form, ignoring the icy ground against my bare feet.
“Well, if it isn’t Lord Sweet Cheeks Puke.”
My head snapped around to see Slevoic, wearing the dragon skin hauberk, standing with the rebel troopers, lit cheroot in one hand, Pru Oak’s body in the other.
“Vicious,” I said. “You slither into the most amazing places.”
Slevoic glanced at Kareste, holding out Pru Oak’s body to him, then looked back at me. “I told you you should be careful who you let get behind you.”
Kareste plucked the death staff from Slevoic’s grasp and gave his wintry smile, speaking to me directly for the first time since I returned to the Border. “Apparently, the captain of the Valiant is a good friend of Lord Gherat and not averse to a little free trading.” He settled the tip of the staff into the ground, the dead sprite’s eyes black pits in her tortured face.
“Yeah,” Slevoic said. “It’s not the first time he’s slipped me into the Borderlands. This time right under sodding Suiden’s nose.” As he spoke, I caught the heavy smell of burnt wood and I looked beyond the horses and other obvious evidences of a camp to see that the trees ringing the clearing bore scorch marks.
Reading my expression, Slevoic shrugged. “I never understood the tree problem during the Border War, puke.” He took a drag on his cheroot and was briefly outlined in fire. “A little torching took care of any freakishness.” My gaze returned to Kareste just in time to see a thread shoot out from him to Slevoic, and I quickly lifted the truth rune, the ice on the trees catching its reflection. The rebels cried out as the blinding brightness filled the clearing, but Kareste just did his wintry smile once more, while Slevoic laughed.
“What’s that supposed to do?”
“Makes us see the truth about ourselves,” Kareste said. In the light I could see tendrils attaching themselves to the soldiers, the one between him and Slevoic swelling into a thick, pulsing cord. The Magus was feeding again.
“Oh, yeah. Groskin said something about that.” Slevoic drew on his cheroot again, his blue eyes and open face mild and inoffensive. “I already know the truth about me, puke. And I like it. I like it a lot.”
“Now if it were the Faena and he was using his rune to touch us,” Kareste said. His smile faded as his face became intent. “I want him alive, if possible. If not, keep his body whole.”
“Yes, Magus,” Slevoic said, licking his lips. He dropped his cheroot and fire whooshed up, engulfing him. Steam rose from where he stood as the flames met the frost on the ground and I could feel the terror of the park at the threat of a firefight.
“It’s not just the truth about yourself, Vicious,” I said, still holding the rune high. “But the truth.” I nodded at the cord, now as big as my forearm. “What do you think that is?” The burning man jerked his head around and down, staring. “What the poxy hell?”
“He’s feeding off you,” I said. “He likes them young and tender, seasoned with talent.” Slevoic hit at the cord; it grew larger. “No.” He reached out both hands and pulled. “Stop it!” He grabbed his sword, raising it, but Kareste flicked his fingers and Slevoic’s eyes rolled back as he collapsed, more steam billowing up as the ground hissed and popped under him. The soldiers cried out again, breaking and running. They reached the trees only to slump to the ground, drained.
Kareste turned to me. “Now you, apprentice.” His voice was the winter storms in the Upper Reaches.
I didn’t wait for him to finish, but leapt—and slammed into a wall of ice.
Kareste smiled as I bounced back. “No Faena or Enchanters. No swords, spheres or dragons. No rules, no ‘thou shalt not’s.”
I tried to go around, and met another wall on the side.
“I’ve underestimated you three—no, four times,” Kareste said, producing a dragon talon. He tossed it into the steam around Slevoic.
I stretched out a hand to the other side, and touched ice. The same behind, and beneath was frozen solid, cutting me off from the earth.
Kareste pushed the tip of the death staff farther into the ground, and Pru’s screaming mouth moved as he gouged power. “But I believe I now have your full measure.” The steam started to coalesce, freezing as it formed.