Capric twisted slightly, and Demir’s sword buried itself in the meat of the other man’s shoulder. Demir pulled back once more in frustration, twisting his sword as he did, while Capric stumbled to the cobbles.
“He is injured,” Sibrial barked, “too injured to continue the fight. You will have to take your satisfaction at a later date!”
Demir shook his head and took a step forward. This was a fight to the death, and respectability meant little. If he allowed it to end, Father Vorcien would never permit another duel to follow. It was either administer justice now, or Demir would watch the whole Vorcien guild-family constrict around Capric, protecting him from personal or legal recourse. “I’ll give you ten seconds to get up,” he told Capric.
He regretted the promise a moment later, for angry shouts suddenly broke the silence, and the crowd split as brightly clad Cinders converged upon them from all sides. It took Demir only a slight push with his sorcery to feel that the Cinders had multiple glassdancers with them. Within moments he found himself staring down the pink razorglass blade of a Cinder halberd. He let his shoulders fall and dropped his sword to hang from the guard on his forefinger. Every sense crashed upon him as if released from a box where he’d stored them all while he focused.
A Cinder snatched his sword from him, and he sensed his glassdancer egg taken from his pocket by sorcerous force. One of the Cinders – an officer with massive, flowing purple epaulets – pushed his way through his companions and spat at the ground between Demir and Capric. “By the authority of the Inner Assembly, you are both under arrest!”
“That man there is a Vorcien!” Sibrial declared.
“I don’t give a shit what he is,” the Cinder snapped back. “Both are under arrest.”
Demir felt a strong hand grab him by the back of the neck. He was turned away, heavy irons clasped over his wrists. He watched as the driver of his carriage abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot, sprinting back to the Hyacinth to tell Breenen and Montego what had happened. All the feelings that Demir had tried to feel before the duel seemed now to press on the inside of his chest – anger, regret, indignity. He’d come back to Ossa to declare his victory, and now he would have to do so from a cell beneath the Maerhorn.
He was a fool. A damned fool.
43
Every child in the region could talk at length about the Forge. It had a long and storied tradition as a spiritual place – perhaps haunted, perhaps a shelter for ancient gods, perhaps just preternaturally unlucky. It was said to rain almost every other day at the Forge, violent lightning storms causing the thunder that gave it its name happening on a weekly basis. It might be clear and sunny around the entire region, but clouds would cling to the cliffs like otter pups to their mother. Legend spoke of a succession of noblemen who’d tried to build estates, forts, and even a lighthouse on its rocky heights, only for every single project to get destroyed by lightning.
Despite hearing that distant thunder for almost half of her life, Thessa had never actually been to the Forge. She’d sailed past it once on a journey with Master Kastora, noting its towering heights from a long way off, but that view had been nothing compared to actually walking up onto the damned thing.
Standing on its summit, the wind whipping at her hair, Thessa could see from a scattering of old ruins that the stories were at least partially true. People had tried to build up here. The only completed building – though it had since been partially destroyed – was the lighthouse. The top floor, including the flame and mirrors, was all but gone, while the main living area was still fully intact, if rotted.
The rest of the stories, of course, were hogwash. The Forge was nothing more than a natural formation, jutting out into the ocean and towering hundreds of feet above the surrounding countryside. Scientists had written about it at length over the last couple of decades, describing a phenomenon much like that Professor Volos spoke of in her book – the shape and massive height of the Forge caused warm air to rise off the ocean and mix with cold air from the nearby Halifax Mountains.
And just like that: lightning storms.
Thessa paced the crown of the Forge, looking in the craggy little nooks among the rock formations and examining the blackened scars across the stone that gave testament to the frequent lightning. She climbed to the highest rocks, trying to remember every detail from Professor Volos’s book. Pari and Tirana waited just below, shivering in the frigid wind, still catching their breath from the long, perilous hike up to the heights. Down below – far down below – their carriage waited, loaded down with the crates that contained the lightning rod.
Being this high up, the sun shining in her face, made the darker events of the last couple of weeks feel like a dream. Thessa could barely picture the poor young porter, face down on the book he’d been reading, nor Filur Magna’s charred corpse inside his own illegal furnace. They were distant memories. This high place was the future. It was, she decided, where history would be made and change the world forever.
She wondered if Ekhi would like it up here, or if the savage winds would harm his ability to fly. No sense in even trying to bring him here until his wing had healed.
“This will do nicely!” she shouted to Pari and Tirana. Both of them shook their heads, and Thessa was forced to climb back down to where they waited on the trailhead. “This will do,” she said again, still having to shout to be heard above the wind. “Come on, this way.” She led them up to the very crest of the Forge – a flat piece of rock perhaps twenty yards across. At one end was the foundation of an old ruin, no more than a couple of feet tall and probably hundreds of years old. Sticking right out above the ocean, perched on a perilous drop, were the half remains of the lighthouse.
She turned to her little audience. “According to Professor Volos, lightning strikes are never guaranteed, but they often occur at the highest point in the region. We can either use that rock formation there, or the lighthouse.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Let’s use the lighthouse. Put a tarp over the partially destroyed roof and we’ll have someplace out of the wind to work – and the lightning rod will protect us from actual strikes.”
Pari looked around them, clearly nonplussed, but nodded. “I’ll get started.”
“Are you comfortable setting everything up from my drawings?”
“I am.”
“Good. I’ll leave you and two enforcers here to get things going. I should have the project itself finished within a couple of days and will return.” Thessa paced around the lighthouse one last time before nodding at her own decision. “It’s important to remember,” she said, more for her own benefit than for Pari’s, “that this is just a test. It might not work. We might have to start over. But we won’t know until we try.”
“All due respect, Lady Foleer,” Tirana shouted above the wind, “but this is absolute madness.”
“Would you rather I attach the lightning rod to the hotel? Because that’s my backup plan.”
“I’m not objecting, ma’am. Just stating. I’ve only been with the Grappo for a few years but I know enough about them to understand that mad ideas have a long and glorious tradition. You’re fitting right in.”
Thessa felt the corner of her mouth tug upward, and she thought about the kiss she and Demir had shared several nights ago. It was a childish fancy, but an eminently practical one as well. Could there be a matriarchy in her future? “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”