The Santoth flicked it away, just as they had the arrows. The spell skimmed across the air above them, transformed from something nearly invisible into writhing, wormlike shadows that splattered across portions of the crowd. Where it touched, people died. The liquid shadow cut through them like molten steel thrown against bare flesh. Barad was not sure if the others saw it as he did, but they certainly saw the ghastly result.
Panic rose again. People near the shattered doors started pushing and shoving, rushing out even as they craned their heads back to see what other horrors might come. Some in the upper tiers climbed over the back wall, even though there was nothing there but cliffs and rocks and the sea below.
“Your song is pure, Corinn, but you are not powerful,” Nualo said, ignoring the confusion below him. “We are powerful, but our song is not pure. Where is The Song of Elenet? Tell us. Give it to us.”
“If you do, we will make the world beautiful for you. All of it, for you,” Tenith said.
Nualo nodded as if he had just been about to broach that topic. He hooked his thumbs through the cord at his waist. “That is so. We owe you much, Corinn. The girl released us, but you taught us much of the Giver’s tongue again.”
“I did not,” Corinn said. This time her words were tentative. A trace of doubt trailed them.
“You sang it, did you not?” Abernis asked.
“That is my right as Tinhadin’s heir.”
Nualo brushed that away. “By singing it, you released it into the world again. We had only to listen to hear. And we did listen. You are foolish, Queen Corinn. Foolish for reaching into death. Foolish for spinning trinkets for your child. Foolish for taking creatures already warped by unpure magic and making them all the greater. Foolish for taking from one place and giving to another, with no understanding of balance. You have no control over any of the things you’ve done. You see? Your world needs us to correct your errors. Give us The Song and we will help you.”
“No.”
“Give us The Song,” another Santoth said. Several others said the same. Then they all spoke at once. A bombardment of entreating voices, all asking for The Song, all promising to serve her. Swearing to do only her bidding, trying to explain the torment they lived in. It was too much all at once.
Corinn stopped it by asking, “What would you do with it if you had it?”
“Whatever you wish.”
Hanish said, “I don’t trust that answer. Make them be more specific. Will they destroy the world in flaming retribution? Enslave us as punishment for-”
“Shut up!” Corinn snapped, turning to spit in the man’s face. “Be gone you fool! Let me think.”
Hanish blinked his dreamy gray eyes closed. “As you wish, my love.” He bent his head and disappeared.
Those around Corinn looked at her with troubled eyes. The charlatan, Delivegu, wrinkled his face in a manner that made him look momentarily absurd. It was so hard for Barad to remember that only he saw and heard Hanish.
To the Santoth, Corinn said, “Would you destroy the Auldek in our name?”
“Of course,” the sorcerers answered. “In your name, we would.”
No, don’t believe them, Barad thought.
“Would you defend Tinhadin’s line and protect me and accept my heir?”
“Yes,” came back all twenty-two voices.
“I don’t have it,” Corinn said.
“You have it!” Nualo’s voice boomed. Nothing about his gestures or expression changed, but in the moments he spoke it was as if there were no other sound in the world. His voice was everything. Inside Barad’s ears. Inside his head. When Nualo spoke, it felt as if the beat of his heart hitched itself to the rhythm of his words. “We know it. We can feel it singing around you. We knew when you read it. We know!”
“It is not here,” Corinn said, “but if you return to the south I will retrieve it.”
“Do not anger me,” Nualo said.
“Aliver and I will consider your request. As king and queen we will. Not with you here in violation of exile. Not with you demanding what you have no right to demand. We will treat with you fairly, but not like this.”
“You lie.”
“I am the queen of Acacia. If I say a thing, it’s the truth. You see? I cannot lie. Now go back to exile!”
Again, the words flew tethered to magical commands.
This time, Nualo raked them out of the air with his hands, screaming as he did so. He took the stuff that was her spell and blew foulness into it and sent it ripping across the crowd. A swath of people went down, beginning not far from the queen herself. Jason, the scholar Barad had often seen tutoring Aaden, was among them. The curse splashed out in a crimson curve. The color splattered over the crowd, starting wide and thinning as it went, whipping all the way around and snapping out high on the bleachers above the royal dais. The people touched by it writhed. They clutched at themselves and reached out for others, most of whom pulled back in horror. It took Barad a moment for his eyes to understand what had happened. They had not been covered in something. The color had been revealed because they had been stripped of their skin. Flayed alive. Hundreds of them.
Nualo glared at the royal siblings with narrowed eyes. “You did that. Not I. You did that! You make us defend ourselves. You see that, don’t you? We will defend ourselves. Every time. Give us The Song and stop this!”
Queen Corinn stared at the raw corpse that was Jason, and let her eyes follow the bloody path away from him, her face pale, her expression bleak and naked. She and those directly around her were the only ones standing still. The rest of the crowd became a shrieking, maddened mob, clawing to escape, ripping and tearing at one another.
The other Santoth moved to form a ring around Nualo. They began to sing. They built their garbled version of the song and let it loose in the air around them. Barad could not understand a word of it, but it was horrible. He hated it, and he pushed into it with his eyes. It was pain and suffering. It was hunger and rage and spite. It was venom and fire, the breath of monsters and the claws of demons, disease and rot. And there was something else. Something he could almost taste with his eyes. Something he could almost grasp. It was something in the disparity between what they claimed and what was in their sorcery. Their song was corrupted, yes. Even Barad could tell that. He did not need to understand the language to know how wrong it was, how warped and cancerous.
“If you send the song against us, we will throw it like seeds atop your people. Corrupted seeds. Are you such fools? We would give you the entire world, but you scorn us! You want us to return to exile? Why should we do that?” Nualo’s voice slowed. His words gnawed their way through the spell-thick air. “We only ever did what Tinhadin asked of us.”
No, Barad thought. He was certain the answer should be no. He wanted to shout it, but he had no language…
“We were only ever faithful. For that we were exiled? Not again! I say it one last time. After this we will not ask again.”
And then Barad had it. Language. That was what was different between Corinn’s song and the Santoth’s. They were not speaking the same language. Their sorcery was the night to Corinn’s day. It was not a corrupted version of the same. It was fundamentally different. They spoke a different sorcerers’ language, one that was by its very nature warped and horrible. They had power, yes, but nothing like what they would have if they studied the true Song.
“Will you give us The Song of Elenet?”
Another one of them said, “If you will not, we will ask the same question of your son. We will ask it of Aliver. Of Shen. We will ask until we get our answer.”
She is defeated, Barad thought.
“I can’t give it to you,” she whispered. “It’s not here.”
“Where is it?”
Don’t tell them! Barad shouted, but only inside himself. He could not move his tongue. Not open his mouth or push forward toward her. He desperately tried to make his body do this, but he could not.