Nemesis (13 page)

“You wonder why I just told you that?”

“Anyone would,” I said. “If this is a political manoeuvre, it’s a poor one. Earth may be low-magic but there are people who would pay for that kind of information.” Because while Aglaia was a member of the Alliance, there was no requirement that they forfeit all their secrets. One of the drawbacks of allying the worlds was the inevitable secret-exchanging and mind-games that happened behind the scenes. I wanted absolutely no part in it.

He’d just handed me a live bomb.

“Yes. Perhaps you’re right.”

I narrowed my eyes. “
Did
someone pay for that information?”

A pause. I’d got him.

“I did not come here to talk politics, Kay Walker. I merely wanted to give you some context. Information can be traded, fabricated. Magic is a force all on its own. To those of us it affects, it is both blessing and curse.”

I said nothing. Aglaia was swimming in secrets, all right. And I was less inclined than ever to dive in.

“Try to do what I did, and control the magic. It might prove a valuable skill. I had best return to the council. We are discussing the possibility of extending our role in the Alliance–perhaps, for some of us, moving offworld. That is, in part, why I wished to know more of Earth. But the circumstances do not allow for friendly visits, as I am sure you can imagine.”

That could just be an excuse, of course. I certainly didn’t intend to take what he’d said at face value. I hadn’t left
all
that remained of my common sense on Earth.

Still. I watched, to make sure he’d started climbing down the sloping path, before I held my own hand, palm-down, over the ground. It felt ridiculous. Yet I’d seen the evidence with my own eyes, and now I concentrated on the magic rather than pushing it away, the static charge responded to whatever magic lived in my skin, swirling around my outstretched hand. Controlled, not wild, but I couldn’t help thinking of the third level lightning had flared out, striking Ellen, Skyla, dead, in a heartbeat.

Maybe I was deluding myself. But I didn’t believe magic was simply a force of destruction. As the mage had shown, it wasn’t even really a weapon, not in its natural state. Everyone had the tools to kill. It didn’t mean they
had
to be used that way. Aglaia’s mages had built an entire civilisation on magic. If a million mages could control it, then so could I.

I pulled magic into my hand, and my skin tingled instantly. I held onto it, held my hand steady though it tugged at me, an unseen force. I directed it downwards, like the mage had.

A small crack appeared in the ground. Far from the uncontrolled storm of sparks the same action would bring in the Passages.

Wait. Magic was a force, true, but I’d only ever used it in the Passages, where it was unstable at the best of times, and on Valeria and Earth when the Balance had been knocked off. That made it wild, inconsistent, barely controllable even to wielders. But in worlds like this, where it was calm, it
could
be channelled. If I worked
with
it, not against it, I’d be able to do more than strike people down and cause destruction.

I concentrated, not on the magic swirling around my hand but on the restrained presence in the atmosphere itself. And then I moved my hand, just a fraction. A nearby pebble clattered off the cliff, and the backlash wasn’t even visible.

I glanced behind me and realised I’d come dangerously close to the cliff edge. My pulse kicked up, and I gave myself a mental shake. I’d spent enough time here. A steep stone path led down to the small island that hosted the between-territory council meeting building. No one was outside, though people moved on the other side of the windows. The rest of the Alliance’s council had returned to the mainland via the walkway. I walked fast, alert for any danger. Hell, everything I’d just done was far from advisable. Not illegal, but reckless at best. I had the Alliance’s protection, of course, but ‘accidents’ were easy to arrange.

I knew that all too well.

I picked up the pace, reaching the other side of the walkway. When a dark shape appeared from behind a tree, I struck first, without stopping to think.

“Damn, Kay.” Raj staggered back, almost tripping over a tree root.

“Sorry.”

Raj rubbed the side of his jaw where I’d hit him. “It’s all right. I don’t blame you being jumpy. Why in the name of all gods did you wander off alone?”

Good question. “The mage had something he only wanted to speak to a magic-wielder about.” That much was true. And he didn’t need to ask for specifics. Raj might be a magic-wielder, but he didn’t need to be burdened with potentially dangerous information. He had no interest in politics and hadn’t even commented on my name when we’d met.

Raj shook his head. “You’re mental.”

“Yeah, people have said that.” I looked over my shoulder at the island we’d left behind. As though the mage was watching me. He might not have given any indication that he was up to no good, but blindly trusting magic-wielders was about as advisable as taking a solo mission into Cethrax’s swamp.

“We have to go back, anyway,” said Raj. “The council’s probably done arguing with the centaurs by now.”

“What’s the issue this time?”

“The heir’s cousins had a little disagreement. One of them thinks Markos should leave Aglaia and never come back. The other says it’s his duty to take the throne. And the other’s still insisting the king was murdered.”

“Nothing new, then.”

“One of them threw a chair.”

I raised an eyebrow. “There’s no hope left for the centaur race.”

And right now, I wanted nothing more to do with this world. Should I should risk passing on what I’d learned to the council? I hadn’t lied when I said people would pay for that information. But
which
people depended on who had political advantage at the moment, and right now, nobody knew who did. What had happened at Central had changed the playing field, brought Earth to the centre of offworld attention, and the Campbell family’s imprisonment knocked the balance even further out. If anything, we were in a transitional phase. Which meant a hell of a lot of trouble for Earth.

Markos waited, but the other centaurs had gone.

“Thought you’d got lost,” he said. “Is now really the time to explore Aglaia?”

I shrugged. “I was talking to someone from the council. I heard something about a chair?”

“Eidora wants the Alliance to leave us alone. My cousins want–well, at least Tryfon wants justice, while Petro just wants me gone. And Leonid is throwing the word “duty” around so much it’s lost all meaning.”

“Perfect harmony,” I said. “Thought you wanted Eidora to take the throne.”

“Yes, my uncle’s in support of that. But he doesn’t like me. And he believes Tryfon, he thinks the king’s death wasn’t an accident. Of course, there’s the slight snag that only Alliance technology would be able to confirm what killed him. It goes without saying that
no
technology is allowed near royal ground. By the gods, it’s like house-training a wyvern.”

“And just as likely to be fatal, if this keeps up,” I said, with an eye-roll. “Are you coming back to Central?”

“No. My family is probably looking for me right now, but I wanted to make sure one of the few humans I can stand didn’t get himself trampled by a herd.”

“Is that likely?” I asked.

“At the moment? I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance of an attack on the Alliance. If someone doesn’t find a solution soon, we might well be in open warfare by the end of the week. You two had better get out of here.”

“Good advice.” Raj glanced uneasily behind us. “I don’t want to stay in this place another second, to be honest.”

“Right. I’ll see you later, then,” I said over my shoulder to Markos, as we re-entered the Passages. “Watch your back.”

All was silent, the others far ahead. We walked quickly even though we weren’t offworld anymore. Leaving the dark corridors of the first level’s furthest reach took us past the half concealed staircase to the forbidden second level. Only higher guards were trusted to patrol there. The worlds on the other side of
those
doors were at best unfriendly, at worst suicide, and Alliance interference simply wasn’t feasible. I might have been an Ambassador only a few days, but I wasn’t naïve enough to assume the Alliance could solve every issue. For one thing, my mother had been killed, along with her entire team, on a failed Ambassador mission on a particularly contentious world thirteen years ago, and she was far from the first. And Earth itself was enough proof there was no such thing as a conflict-free world.

I knew that… but we could do
some
things. I’d checked up on Simon and the arrangements to help the Enzarian refugees again over the weekend, to make sure it was still running smoothly. Didn’t look like the Campbells’ absence had hurt it. I’d been right in assuming they only pretended to help the refugees to front their other illegal activities, like smuggling bloodrock. And when the Alliance had restricted offworld trade, they’d decided to play their hand. Sure, everyone connected with their family had been jailed, but it was too late for the teenagers they’d captured to use as weapons. Nobody had made a monument to
their
deaths.

A shout tore through my thoughts, from a corridor somewhere ahead.
Crap–there’s trouble.
Raj nodded at me, and we moved into guard stance as the clamour of fighting reached us.

Shit.
I had no weapon. Except magic, and I wouldn’t use that here.

It was too late to turn back now. Raj shot me a grim look, and we turned the corner.

On the right, a door lay open. In the corridor, guards were grouped together, daggers swiping at empty air. No–something invisible. More than one of them. The formation broke, revealing other guards further behind–including one familiar redheaded figure.

Ada. Oh, shit.

The shadows moved. Raj swore, hitting out at a dark shadow that had crept up alongside us. Not invisible. Dreyverns–half-shadow goblins from Cethrax–had sneaked up from somewhere. Five feet high, armed with sharp knives, and sporting wicked grins. Three of them, and judging by the shadows moving behind, they weren’t alone. A knife flew from the shadows and narrowly missed the guards.

They were aiming to kill.

Screw it.
I made for the closest target and took out the dreyvern with a strike to the throat, bone breaking beneath the side of my palm. With my other hand I took its weapon, but it had already crumpled. Before it hit the ground, I put it out of its misery with a slash across the neck, then threw myself at the second. A third had driven Raj against the wall. I kicked it in the back of the leg, wrenched the weapon from its hand, breaking a couple of its fingers in the process, and handed him the dagger. He took it with a grateful nod, and I made for the others. And Ada, facing something invisible. She held a stunner, but as sparks flew from the tip, her eyes widened, and she dropped it.

She’d drawn the dreyverns’ attention as a target, and before I broke through the clamour of guards fighting their invisible enemies, seven or more dreyverns surrounded her.

I ran through the thick of the fighting, stabbing at a shadow that tried to trail me. Another guard grappled with an invisible enemy, and the flash of a stunner’s light revealed a small, hunched figure with wicked-sharp claws. Great. The ravegens, or invisible goblins, were back. And these ones wouldn’t get any mercy.

The dreyverns were the most threatening right now, because they were armed. But Ada was, too, and several other guards had joined her. As I reached them, one spun around to intercept me, but too late. One strike, and it dropped its weapon. I slid the knife under its armour. Blood dripped down the short, ugly blade and glinted in the sparks from a blast of magic.

The air rippled and everyone ducked to avoid getting caught in the blast. I took advantage of the opportunity to knock down another dreyvern. As the magic rebounded, my knife found its neck.

“Aric, what did I tell you?” Carl’s voice yelled from ahead. Damned idiot had fired his stunner into the air again, I guessed. No one else would be that thick-headed. Swearing, I trod on the arm of a dreyvern trying to claw its way over to me.
Get to Ada.

She slashed with her dagger, but fear flickered behind her eyes, and she hadn’t picked up her stunner again. I kicked at another goblin in the act of sneaking up on the guards from behind, and it crumpled. Ada, meanwhile, drove the blade of her dagger into her opponent’s throat. She swayed a little as it fell, but stood her ground. I glanced behind, and it looked like most of the dreyverns were dead. Guards were standing up, checking injuries, moving the dreyverns’ crumpled bodies.

“Ada. You okay?”

She took a step back, blinking in surprise. “Kay,” she said. “I–yeah, I’m fine.” She moved away from the dead dreyverns, biting her lip. Even spattered with blood, she was sexy as hell–that uniform left almost nothing to the imagination.

“This is yours.” I picked up her stunner from where it had fallen on the floor.

She took it without looking at me. “Thanks. I shouldn’t have dropped it.”