For a dazed instant, the voice and strong hands that pressed into her shoulders were Tier’s. Then, as the effects of the priest’s attack faded, she realized it was Hennea behind her, offering her support and power.
She needed a shield like the one Volis had set to encase them when they had entered the room, but she didn’t have time to throw a shield around everyone. Instead, she created a shield and set it around Volis. For a moment the whole area around Volis lit up, but then the shield fell apart, a victim of its hasty construction.
He laughed. “Try this,” he said and sketched a sigil in the air.
She blocked most of it, but the straining of her magic past her reserves almost blinded her with pain, and the remnants of his sorcery sent both Seraph and Hennea tumbling to the ground.
She wouldn’t be able to hold out against a second such blast.
“Hennea,” she whispered. “When I tell you, jump away, then get the others out of here.” If she could distract Volis long enough, maybe her children could escape.
“No,” said Hennea.
A breeze blew a stray lock of hair into Seraph’s eyes.
Wrath lighting his face, Volis drew back his hand in the manner of a man throwing a rock. Hennea took control of the remnants of Seraph’s shields and refined them as Volis’s hand released whatever it was he’d formed and the spell bounced off harmlessly.
Wind cooled the sweat on Seraph’s forehead—she had just enough time to realize that there shouldn’t be a wind when a sudden gust of it knocked her to her knees.
The wind picked up even more speed, turning Seraph’s hair into a vicious whip that stung her eyes and cheeks as her left knee made painful contact with the floor. The table Volis had been working on skidded across the floor, hit the wall, then flung itself at the priest’s head.
Temporarily occupied defending himself from his furnishings, Volis quit concentrating on Seraph; but any magic would draw his attention.
Seraph drew her knife and staggered to her feet, bracing herself against the wind.
“Hennea,” she said, her voice low. “Is there a cure for the shadowing that you know and I do not?”
Seraph thought for a moment that Hennea had fallen too far away to hear her, but then Hennea said, “No. There is no cure but death.”
Seraph crouched and used the motion of the wind and a feathering of magic to creep up behind Volis. When she was close enough she rushed forward, and stepped on the back of his knee, collapsing the joint so the wizard staggered backward, off balance. She threw her left arm around his chin to hold him steady and jerked her knife into his neck as Tier had once taught her. The sharp knife cut through Volis’s throat, severing skin and artery.
Seraph stumbled back, fighting the wind for her balance. Victory came so quickly, brought to her by the sharp blade of her knife. Her first kill. She wondered if she’d used magic to kill him, if it would seem more real to her.
The young man’s body fought for a while, but pain blocked his own magic and the extremity of his emotions kept Raven magic from coming to his aid—rings or no. Seraph watched because it seemed an act of cowardice to turn away from a death she had summoned.
When he was dead, Seraph turned away to survey the room. Lehr, bless him, had remembered what she told him. He had Bandor pinned face against the wall in some sort of wrestling hold. Hennea had gotten to her hands and knees and crawled against the wind toward Volis’s body. Jes, looking exhausted, sat on the floor near—
Ah, Seraph thought ruefully, that’s where the wind came from.
Rinnie’s hair spread out in pale flames as she stood motionless, arms spread with palms out like some ancient statue, her skirts absolutely still though the wind still tore furiously through the room. Jes must have cut her loose because there were no ropes on her, though lines on either side of her mouth showed where they had been. Her eyes glowed with an eerie gold light that obscured her pupils.
Words of warning, long forgotten, came back to Seraph. To be a weather witch was always to long for the energies that coursed and strew themselves in tempestuous weather, always to be in danger of being so caught up that there was no way back.
“Rinnie,” she said firmly. “We are safe, call back the winds and let them sleep.”
Her daughter stared blankly at her with incandescent eyes and the winds swirled and played. An inkwell flipped out of nowhere and caught Seraph painfully on the elbow.
“Rinnie!” barked Seraph in the same tone she used to break up sibling squabbles. “Enough.”
Rinnie blinked, and the wind died down to gentle gusts and then nothing. Small items dropped to the ground with clattering noises. Rinnie fell to her hands and knees, and Seraph hurried across the room and crouched beside her.
“How is it with you? Are you well?”
Rinnie nodded. “Sorry, Mother. I’m just a bit dizzy.” Then she gave a ghost of her usual grin to Jes. “That was better than changing into an animal.”
“Mother,” said Lehr, “What do you need to do with Uncle Bandor? I can’t hold him here forever.”
Bandor was shadowed. Her hand tightened on her knife—but before she could do more than rise back to her feet, Hennea said, “No, Seraph. I lied. The shadow can be cleansed.”
Seraph stilled. “What?”
Hennea sat on the floor beside the dead priest, her cheeks painted with his blood. “I lied. I swore that this one would die. It is fitting that he should die in his sins. But I can cleanse the baker with your help.”
“Seraph? Bandor?” Alinath’s voice rang down the corridor.
If she and Hennea were going to help Bandor, Seraph didn’t have time to be angry with her now.
“Jes? Can you keep Alinath at bay without hurting her or yourself?” asked Seraph. “If we are working more magic tonight, we can’t have her interrupting us.”
“Yes,” said Jes, using the wall to get to his feet. He took a couple of half-drunken steps and came to the doorway. Alinath got there first, but stopped just short of Jes.
“We need to get this done,” said Seraph. “I think I could just possibly light a magelight. Do you have the magic, and can you concentrate well enough to use it?”
Hennea rose painfully to her feet, using her good arm for leverage. “I think I’m too numb to hurt and I am not as spent as you are. It’ll be all right.”
She limped over to Lehr and Bandor and spoke a word. Glowing lines circled Bandor’s wrists and ankles.
“Release him, please,” she said, and Lehr stepped away from him.
With the silvery threads of magic, Hennea forced Bandor around so that he stood with his back flat against the wall.
He spat at her. “Shadowspawn Witch. You should burn in the fires of good rowan and oak.”
Ignoring him, Hennea reached for his head and forced him to look at her. Seraph stood as near as she dared.
Hennea took a firm grip on Bandor’s hair and then set another glowing line about his forehead to hold his head where she wanted it.
“You can’t allow them to distract you,” she explained to Seraph in Traveler’s speech. “If you have to start again it’s twice as hard to grasp it.”
Once she had him unable to move she reached up to place a hand on his forehead. He struggled then, fighting the restraints like a madman—but Hennea had done a good job, and his head never moved.
“It’s hard to find—the shadowing. It’ll help if I’m more familiar with him. Tell me something of him—how the shadow caught him.”
“His name is Bandor,” said Seraph. “He is married to my husband’s sister. He has always been a man of even temperament, a fair man if a bit greedy.” But only a bit. The low price he’d given her for Jes’s honey had been out of character, she realized. With family, he’d always been inclined to be generous. “His parents were not Rederni and he was never really accepted until he married Alinath, my husband’s sister.”