Spectyr (22 page)
Authors: Philippa Ballantine
“Many were killed, but others were driven underground. The Order of the Circle of Stars is still very much alive.”
Merrick clenched his jaw as fresh pain exploded through him. He was left gasping, reeling. Nynnia’s image swam before his eyes, while his breath came in short, hard gasps.
She held out her hand to him, as if she still did not quite understand that they could not touch. “They are trying to reach this place, Merrick—trying to harness what was never meant to be harnessed. To stop them this time you must go back.”
It was hard to concentrate on her words past the terrible slow pace of his heartbeat in his ears. Merrick didn’t need her to tell him he was dying. “Back?” the words came grating out of his struggling throat.
Nynnia’s voice by comparison was very light and very far away. “Time has little meaning to us here, Merrick. I will send you back to her. You must plant the seed.”
Her? What did she mean?
He was now beyond speech, and the Otherside before his eyes was tearing apart—but he couldn’t tell if it was his perception or reality—all he knew was that it hurt.
Nynnia. Despite the pain, he didn’t want to leave her, but Merrick didn’t have any way to hold on. He was falling, spinning like a leaf into a well of shadows. No air in his lungs meant he could not scream.
And then reality grabbed him hard, yanking back into the world he’d been born into. Now the pain was deep and real, in muscle and bone and sinew.
Merrick shook his head, finally realizing that he was lying on something hard and very much like stone. After a moment of contemplation, he was able to wrench his eyes open.
She had not left. Nynnia was leaning over him, but it was the real Nynnia. The smile on her face was confused rather than welcoming, but he didn’t care. The weight of her hand on his chest and the gleam of late evening sun on her hair all told him instantly she was a living, breathing woman.
It didn’t matter how it had been done. Merrick lurched upright against a wave of pain and clasped her to him. Her small form was as solid and warm as it had been cold and unmoving when last Merrick had felt it against him. “Oh love,” he laughed, “by the Bones—you’re here, you’re all right!”
The hand around his throat was abrupt, sobering and tight. The words he had been meaning to whisper in her ear died in his windpipe. She was a small woman, and yet she was holding him as lightly as a feather above her head. It felt as though a giant had him just under the jaw.
Nynnia’s eyes were as cold as steel. “Tell me who you are and why I should not break your neck for such impudence?”
Merrick’s vision wavered, and he had no way of crying out—something that this confused and martial Nynnia had obviously not taken into account. The young Deacon would have found the whole situation amusing, but the stern gaze of his beloved did not offer any humor.
He had just seen her—but she had no body. Now a very real, physical Nynnia appeared not to recognize him at all. Merrick had been tossed around like a rag doll—and now it appeared his love would kill him. If it was his love. His fingers locked around hers, desperate to break her hold, but he might as well have been trying to beand of a granite statue.
The world dimmed, colors drained away and shapes wavered. Whatever the reasoning for sending him here, Merrick was now sure this was not what his Nynnia meant to have happen.
It was the last thought in his head before blackness wrapped around him and sucked him down into another void—one in which no geists awaited.
SIXTEEN
Taking the Reins
Sorcha swallowed hard on the lump in her throat as the words of Rictun came back to her.
You really know how to go through those partners of yours.
At the time she’d thought it merely another attack by a man who had always despised her. Now, however, she was wondering if there wasn’t a grain of truth to it.
You really know how to go through those partners of yours.
At the time she’d thought it merely another attack by a man who had always despised her. Now, however, she was wondering if there wasn’t a grain of truth to it.
Slowly, Sorcha got to her feet. Raed was waiting in the shadows of the corridor, waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to tell him just how bad things were. And she knew the huge question weighing on his mind.
“Ask it.” Her voice was flat and distant, but she needed someone else to do it.
He rubbed his red gold beard, tilted his head and spoke under his breath. “Is Merrick dead?”
Unholy Bones, it hurt to hear it, though. Sorcha’s hands tightened into fists, but she had to revert to her training and not let emotions overrule her. Considering, she leaned back against the cool wall of the tunnel and stared down into the blackness where they’d last seen Merrick.
This was not the first instance where Sorcha had lost a partner, and that alone was the only reason she was able to stave off panic. Her recollection of those times had been nothing but pain, the disconcerting loss of Center and finally the weighty sensation of severance. It had, in short, felt as though a part of herself had been amputated.
Sorcha was almost afraid to try, but she closed her eyes and felt out along the Bond, like someone who had been burned in the past and feared being scorched again.
It took her a moment to reach the place where Merrick should have been. It was empty, but not in the aching void way that was caused by death. Her partner was not there, but the Bond remained as it had been.
“I don’t think he is dead,” Sorcha murmured, hesitant to appear as if she had only wishful thinking in mind, “but he is not in this world.”
“The Otherside? Surely he cannot survive there?” Raed reached out and took her hand.
The Young Pretender was definitely more aware of the nature of the Otherside than any other normal person in the Empire, but every child in the Empire knew that only spirits and geists could survive there. Flesh was not meant to exist in a place made of void and soul. Sorcha let out a long breath, fully tasting the bitter bile of helplessness.
She had to hold on to her belief in her partner. “You know Merrick as well as I do, Raed. He is a remarkable young man—and if anyone can survive—it is he.” In the back of her mind there were two little nuggets that she did not share with her lover. The first was, as insane as it sounded, they had some allies on the Otherside. The second was the existence of some kind of wild talent in Merrick.
“And we do still have a murderer out there and your sister to find—let’s concentrate on that. We can’t do anything to help Merrick right now.”
“You could open a doorway yourself . . . ” Raed ventured.
She shook her head slowly. “It is not something to be done lightly—and even if I went through, without Merrick I would be blind.”
Raed pressed his hand over his own eyes and rubbed them wearily.
“As you can imagine,” Sorcha whispered, “a blinded Deacon in a world of angry, vengeful geists would not be very sensible. We should focus on what we can do.” It sounded so very sensible—very orderly—and almost like she was at peace with the idea. It was very far from the truth.
“And what exactly can we do, Deacon Faris?” Raed looked at her so sternly that she was reminded of Merrick.
Sorcha tucked her Gauntlets back into her belt. “I am getting the feeling that the Prince of Chioma wanted Merrick and me to stay for some other reason than finding out about the Emperor. I suggest we ask him what that is.”
Raed’s eyebrow shot up. “Interrogate the highest royal in this kingdom? It’s that easy, is it?”
“For Deacons . . . yes, it is.” When Raed looked shocked, Sorcha smiled. “We are tasked with hunting out the unliving everywhere in the Empire—no exceptions.”
The Young Pretender kissed her; it was gentle, soft and not about passion. It was just what she needed.
Sorcha led the way back to the garden. None of the guards noticed there were only two people now—too busy trying to calm frightened women and keep them back from seeing the dreadful mess. She jerked her head at them. “We lost him in the tunnels.”
The innate authority of the Order worked in her favor again—no questions were asked, even in this distant principality. Drawing Raed over into the shadows, she pressed her hand lightly and briefly against his chest. The weak part of her wanted to fall into his arms, be kissed and looked after—but Sorcha had never been one of those sorts of women. “I don’t think we dare risk taking you back into women’s quarters. Meet me tomorrow morning in the audience chamber atrium.”
Back in her room, the dark was not friendly, lying warm and heavy over her like an unwelcome blanket. She could not stop thinking about Merrick when she knew she should have been thinking about Raed and keeping him alive. The vision from the spectyr still burned in her memory, but overlaid with it were imagined images of what might be happening to her partner.
She was struck with the terrible and sudden thought that by bringing her partner to Orinthal she might just have traded his life for that of the Young Pretender.
Carefully Sorcha closed her eyes and tried to find that calm Center that the Order had taught her so well. She had to trust in Merrick. The young man was strong, disciplined and intelligent enough to take care of himself.
He is not dead,
she repeated to herself.
I would feel it. I would.
He is not dead,
she repeated to herself.
I would feel it. I would.
Her sleep was full of tumbled and broken dreams, where all her past failings found her. Their gnawing gave her very little rest.
The next morning she felt so drained that it was an effort to get up. The Bond ached deeply like a sore tooth, reminding her that partners shared more than just a mental connection. Some of Merrick’s youthful energy usually leaked across to her and palliated the subtle twinges of her age. Without him there, they had come back full force. It was not that she was that ancient. The Order would have no plans to pull her from the field for many years, but the life of a Deacon was not an easy one. Old wounds ached, and broken bones remembered past outrages.
She sat up with a loud groan and found at the foot of her bed someone had laid out a beautifully embroidered turquoise silk robe—the design was birds of paradise and the symbol of Hatipai. Picking it up, Sorcha fingered the slippery fabric and considered what needed to be done. Without Merrick’s help it would be hard for her to get behind the Prince’s damned mask. She needed every weapon in her arsenal—and it was obvious that the Prince was partial to a pretty face.
Quickly Sorcha stripped and slipped into the robe. For a second she worried that she would have to leave her Gauntlets behind—something that she had never done since first earning them. Luckily, the robe contained pockets, so she was able to fold the thick leather over once and stuff them in there.
Feeling a little better knowing the seat of her power would remain close, she padded to the greatest luxury in all of Orinthal: cool, springwater showers. In a desert kingdom, water was more precious than gold or gems, so it was only fitting that the Prince provided his women with facilities that were the envy of all in Chioma.
The smell of running water, after so long in the arid heat, was enough to make Sorcha a little giddy and bring a smile to her unwilling lips. In Vermillion, a city that lived its life half on the turning tides of a lagoon, a place of bridges and canals, water was transportation—here it was life. The sound of it was by consequence magic.
The shower room was not huge—at most it could accommodate perhaps fifteen women—but it was spectacular. Thousands of lapis lazuli tiles coated the walls, while the water tumbled down from the ceiling and was guided into jets by gold spigots set just above head height. In the center was a dry raised area, where robes could be laid or women could sprawl—or both.
The mechanics alone of such a feat made Sorcha pause for breath. She was used to the austerity of the Order, where washing was considered a necessity—not something to be enjoyed. Dropping her robe in the center area, where she could keep an eagle eye on it, she stepped under the fall of water with something that distracted her mind for a few moments—anticipation.
She was not alone. Two groups of women were also taking advantage of the luxury of an early morning shower. The room’s undulating walls meant that they all had the illusion of privacy.
A pair of young women, one dark as night and the other with the olive skin of the north, watched her as covertly as possible with the eyes of deer observing a wolf. The darker beauty was being washed by the other, her skin covered in soap that smelled of lilies. It looked like she had been enjoying her friend’s ministrations right up until the moment she had seen the naked Deacon.
Sorcha wasn’t about to take that too personally. Even without her cloak or her Gauntlets, she was obviously recognized. Still, she gave them a little nod and moved on to the farthest stream of water. She kept her back to the wall and her own eyes on her robe as she shuffled out of the line of sight of the two washing women and into earshot of an intriguing conversation.
“ . . . Japhne—it is always Japhne.” The unseen female’s voice was laced with such bitterness that Sorcha pressed herself closer to the fountain head so that she was less likely to be seen around the curve of the wall.
“Well, she is pregnant with his child,” another, soter voice went on.
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