Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (2 page)

Ari Carmine and I stood elbow to elbow in Timothy’s Square, waiting for the awful thing to begin. Beside me, Ari squeezed my hand. He likely meant the gesture to be reassuring, but it made me feel trapped and I pulled my hand free. I glanced up at him, quirking my mouth in a half smile meant as an apology. He looked down at me, expressionless, but I could feel his signature, that wispy magical aurora that allowed uncloaked waning magic users to sense one another’s presence. Ari’s signature was warm, as always, but today it was laced with blistery bits, as if the glowing embers of a dying fire had been kicked at me. It made standing next to him uncomfortable.

Around us, the crowd of Hyrkes—humans with no magic—continued to build as students from both St. Lucifer’s and the Joshua School gathered. The heat from the unrelenting overhead sun was oppressive. Since there were no trees in Timothy’s Square, there was no shade. There was no cover. Nowhere to hide from what was to come.

Peering over my shoulder to check for possible unobserved routes of escape, I made the mistake of catching Sasha de Rocca’s gaze. Sasha was a distant cousin of mine, but that didn’t mean we were close.

He sneered openly at me.

“Dressed for a funeral, Noon? Do you really think mourning is appropriate for a
Carne Vale
?”

Automatically, I glanced down at my indigo sheath. In Halja, midnight blue—the color of the sky when Lucifer was struck with the lance that killed him over two millennia ago—was the color of mourning.

“The thing deserves to die,” Sasha said, his low voice burbling up out of his thick barrel chest. Suddenly his cold, crinkly eyes and dirty blond beard seemed far too close. I stepped back.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of Sasha. My power was far greater than his. But, unlike Sasha, I hated using mine, and he knew it. I hadn’t thrown magic since last semester when my demon client had almost killed me. The St. Lucifer’s faculty had given me leave to table my magic use over the semester break, but now that classes were back on, my “recovery” was officially over. I was expected to come out of my self-imposed dormancy today, and I was expected to come out of it so that I could participate in the one thing I abhorred.

Killing.

Sasha, Ari, and I were Maegesters-in-Training here at St. Lucifer’s, which meant we were being taught to become demon peacekeepers. When we graduated we would be expected to serve the demons that ruled Halja—as counselors, judges, even executioners. Since I was a pacifist at heart, it was a line of work I’d come to reluctantly. In fact, it was fair to say I was still having a great deal of difficulty accepting some parts of my future job description.

My resentment at being forced to participate in today’s
Carne Vale
ignited and I leaned toward Sasha. “If you feel so strongly that the demon deserves to die, why don’t you go up there and do it yourself?”

Sasha had been needling me, with bitter barbs of both words and magic, for a week. I’d ignored him. Until now.

“I can’t,” he said finally, shrugging.

“Can’t or won’t?” I snapped.

Sasha stared back at me, his ice blue eyes unaffected by the withering heat. But beneath his long, scraggly beard and his limp, lackluster hair, Sasha was sweating. If he said
can’t
again, he’d be admitting how weak he was. That he didn’t have enough power to bring down a demon on his own. Of course, I didn’t think that was anything to be ashamed of. And it certainly wasn’t uncommon. Most Maegesters-in-Training couldn’t bring down a demon alone. But someone like Sasha would be loath to admit it.

If he said
won’t
, though, he’d be admitting he was a coward.
Won’t
meant that, even if he could, he wouldn’t take on the moral obligation of killing a demon in cold blood. That he wouldn’t walk right up there, look the demon in the eye, and execute it. I suspected that’s why
Carne Vales
were designed the way they were. Not because it took a village to put down a demon, but because it took a village to hide the guilt when we did so.

Our argument drew the attention of an Angel from the Joshua School. Once, Angels had been our enemy. During the Apocalypse, the Savior and his Angels had fought against Lucifer and his Host. But that war was now ancient history. In modern-day Halja, descendants of both armies worked together all the time. Angels often assisted Maegesters with their cases, acting as scribes, interpreters, and field assistants.

This Angel was dressed as if he were going to a bovine roast, which I found particularly distasteful under the circumstances. His tanned legs poked out of a baggy linen kilt and his dark gray, short-sleeved tunic was barely even laced. Luckily he had another shirt underneath. Still, his whole look was so casual and inappropriate for a
Carne Vale
, that I took an instant dislike to him.

“I take it you’d rather get this over with,” he said to me. “Do it right. Put the guy—and his woman—out of their misery without all this pomp and . . . circumvention.”

Ari tensed. The Angel’s comment, and his directness, momentarily stunned me. I stared at him, the Angel’s taupe-eyed gaze meeting mine.

“That’s what you’re telling him, right?” the Angel said, gesturing toward Sasha, “that he ought to put his magic where his mouth is. So, what about you?” he said, looking back at me. “Would you do it?
Could
you do it?”

No! Never!
I wanted to shout, but suddenly all eyes were on me. What had been a discussion between a few Maegesters-in-Training and an Angel now became a preexecution spectacle for anyone who happened to be standing nearby. I was Noon Onyx, the only female Maegester-in-Training in all of Halja. My father, Karanos Onyx, was head of the Demon Council. I was
Primoris
—the top-ranked waning magic user in my class.
Everyone
wanted to know what I was capable of.

Except me.

“What woman?” I said, diverting attention to another question. “There aren’t going to be two executions, are there?” I glanced at Ari.

“No, the accused has a . . .” He paused, considering.

“Wife? Paramour? Accomplice?” The Angel mused. He slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, as if he were trying to decide between vinegar or mustard in a condiment line. “What do you think, Ari? Was Ynocencia actually a victim?”

Ari stared at the Angel, his eyes dark. The Angel stopped rocking, but kept his hands in his pockets and his stance relaxed. He wore an expectant expression as he met Ari’s stare.

“I think Ynocencia has lived her whole life between the demon and the deep,” Ari said slowly.

“Yes, but who’s the real demon, hmm?” The Angel waggled his brows and Ari scowled.

Forget about that,
I thought. “Who’s Ynocencia?” I asked, completely lost. Sasha rolled his eyes.

“Weren’t you paying attention in class today? Ynocencia is Jezebeth’s lover. Jezebeth?” he repeated after seeing the blank look on my face. It galled me that Sasha knew more about the
Carne Vale
case than I did, but I guess that’s what I got for keeping my head out of the books since I’d been back. “The Demon of Falsehoods and Lies?” Sasha prodded.

I shook my head. I had a vague suspicion Jezebeth was the demon we were supposed to execute today. I shifted nervously on my feet and risked another glance through the crowd, calculating my chances of ducking out unnoticed. By then, Sasha had turned his attention to the Hyrkes around us and was doing a hack’s job of explaining the case to them.

By all accounts, Ynocencia had been a dutiful wife to an abusive husband. Then, seven years ago, Ynocencia’s husband sailed down the Lethe to seek greater fortune. Ynocencia would have been happy had that been the last of him, but he returned last fall a changed man—stronger, smarter, kinder. Unfortunately for Ynocencia, she’d forgotten (or willingly chose to ignore) that, in Halja, perception and truth are not always the same.

Six months later, Ynocencia’s real husband returned—as weak, stupid, and mean as he had been before he left. He challenged Jezebeth’s identity and declared him a fraud. He claimed Jezebeth was a drakon who had used his human form to sleep with his wife and steal his farm. At first, Ynocencia’s neighbors rallied around her, swearing that Jezebeth was Ynocencia’s loving husband. The town began formal proceedings to oust the “newcomer” but things got ugly, provoking the drakon to shift into his true form. When Jezebeth realized he might lose his human lover, he went mad and terrorized the town. One woman and three children were killed. The neighbors withdrew their support and Jezebeth was put on trial for adultery, fornication, duplicitous conduct, theft—

Wait! Jezebeth was a drakon? I didn’t think they existed . . .

To the east of the square, I heard scraping and clanking. The crowd rippled and swelled back as if a giant had stepped into its edge. “But drakons are a myth,” I said quickly, turning toward the sounds. They were mythological creatures, winged demons supposedly born to human mothers.

“As much of a myth as a female member of the Host with waning magic,” Sasha snorted. I blocked him out. I was trying to block it all out.

I don’t want to be here,
I thought.
I can’t do this. I won’t do this.

I was the girl who went out of her way not to step on ants. I put house spiders in cups and took them out to the curb rather than squashing them under my boot heel. And I was expected to help kill someone I’d never met just because someone else said they deserved to die? Even if I had paid more attention in class, someone else’s case notes wouldn’t have been enough to convince me to end another’s life. Frankly, I didn’t know if I was capable of executing a demon in cold blood. But what I did know was that if I was going to be asked to take on the moral responsibility of ending another’s life, I was damn well going to be deciding for myself whether they deserved it or not and I wasn’t going to be participating in an execution purposefully designed to be cruel.

At the edge of the crowd, my father was ascending the wooden steps of a hastily erected platform. Waldron Seknecus, St. Lucifer’s dean of demon affairs, and Quintus Rochester, one of our professors, stood near the platform with several upper-year Maegesters-in-Training. My father walked to the center of the platform and held his hands up. The crowd immediately fell silent. He gestured to his left and a young man was led up the stairs.

Rail thin and filthy, the man stared defiantly out at the crowd. But when a woman’s cry pierced the silence, his defiant look turned to one of terror.
He hadn’t known she would be here,
I thought. I could feel it in his signature. The anguish, the anger, the remorse. Suddenly I heard a thump and the crowd shifted again in response to something happening. Jezebeth strained against his captors, twisting his body from side to side, trying to break free. But more than mere muscles held him in place.

Had his human lover thrown herself against the base of the platform?

Was that the thump I’d heard? The thought of her desperation suddenly made me sick. Why was she being forced to watch?

The crowd swelled. I felt the waning magic around me intensify. Beside me, Ari’s waning magic flared and I suddenly felt like I’d emerged from a dark house into blinding sun. Instinctively, I shielded myself from him. He glanced down at me with a small, stiff smile. In the midmorning sunlight, his eyes were the color of caramel.

“Ari . . .”

I didn’t have to finish my thought. Waning magic users couldn’t read minds, but some of us—the more powerful ones—could feel one another’s feelings. My redlining signature told Ari everything he needed to know. I was ready to bolt.

“Don’t. Everyone will see you leave,” he said in a low voice, leaning close to my ear. “You’re standing right next to me so no one will know if you don’t participate. My magic is strong enough for both of us.” He stared at me, waiting for me to respond. I shook my head and clenched my fists, keeping my head down. I didn’t want Ari throwing my stones for me. Or seeing me cry when I did so. Up front, the drakon’s lover continued her pitiful sobbing as she begged my father to set him free.

“Unveil him,” my father commanded, motioning toward Jezebeth. The Archangels on the platform cast a spell and suddenly Jezebeth—the real Jezebeth—was before us.

Fyrhto,
I thought. My mouth went dry and my throat seized up so that swallowing was impossible. If that wasn’t this creature’s name, it should be. Waves of fear and fury pulsed from it. Whatever human shape the thing had possessed fled, leaving a massively horned, thickly tailed and scaled greenish black demon facing the crowd. But this thing’s horns weren’t only on its head. A good half dozen long, ridged spirals splayed out from the top of its shoulder blades, each one ending in a tip as sharp as a lance. The thing crouched and suddenly the horn tips that had been harmlessly pointing skyward leveled at the crowd. They
were
lances, I thought breathlessly, wondering what it would be like to have bones that were built for battle. Behind it, the creature’s wings unfurled like leathery sails rigged with bones and sinew.

Enraged, Jezebeth clawed deep gashes into the wooden floor of the platform, snapping his jaws and snuffling, the wet sounds in his throat at war with the dry clacking of his teeth. He tossed his head back and roared, some awful combination of hyena laugh and wild boar grunt that caused the crowd to step back even farther from the platform. A few Hyrkes turned and ran. I wanted to do the same.