Where Light Meets Shadow (22 page)

 
 
III

Raven never
loved life so much as the moment he held the blade to his wrist. The
hundred-year-old brandy that burned in his veins took the edge from his fear
and would kill the pain.

He sat in the
cool, dim light of a single globe, sat on the floor to spare the antique couch
from the blood that would otherwise soak through the dust cover and ruin the
velvet. Just who was he saving the furniture for? Best not go there. His blood
would do the imported Persian rug no favors, but that couldn’t be helped. He
refused to die on the cold kitchen tile like some rodent a cat dragged in.

The cottage was
silent. Centuries-old spells to insulate from the Mariner State cold kept out
even the sound of the rain that lashed against the windows. Outside there was
nothing for miles but the tall, proud trees, mostly spruce and redwood that had
been full-grown already when the Mariner had landed. Once this cottage had been
a haven he shared with Cassandra, alive with the scents of
hearthfire
and of the perfumed candles she loved, and of the incense they used when
working. It had stood empty since she left him, the air stale with the dust of
neglect and abandonment. The hearth was dark and held only cold ashes.

It was a
Ravenscroft property. Fitting that the last Ravenscroft should die here. More
importantly, he would not be disturbed until it was done.

He closed his
eyes and bid farewell to all that he was leaving behind. The ecstasy of magic.
The ecstasy of orgasm. The beauty of the moon silvering the lake just outside
the cottage door. The green, loamy scent of the forest on a summer’s night.

Another, darker
memory crowded in.

The window
nearest Daniel’s table was open just a few inches, just enough to let in the
fresh air blowing off the Pacific. Even on the coldest nights, Daniel would let
the ocean breeze in if he was working alone. Or if they were working together
and Raven indulged him.

Daniel lay
slumped over his work table. Not unusual— Raven often had to wake his
apprentice and send him off to bed, mumbling sleepy protests more appropriate
to a young child than a dark mage just turned twenty.

Any anger
remaining from their earlier argument vanished at the sight. Smiling, he put a
hand on Daniel’s shoulder to shake him awake.

His
apprentice’s body was cold under his hand, the muscles slack and lifeless.
Something fell from Daniel’s hand,
thunked
against
the floor, and rolled. He picked it up. A stone the size of an egg, with the
color and clarity of garnet, with the warm glow of a garnet set in a backing of
gold. No natural stone had the sense of life, the feel of great power that
thrummed against Raven’s mage senses at the touch.

Daniel had
completed the last step in the process, the one he’d balked at earlier, the one
they’d argued over. The Ravensblood was active. And Daniel was dead.

Raven had
accused Daniel of not being devoted to the magic or to him, when in reality his
dedication was far greater than Raven had deserved. If he’d not made that
accusation, if he’d not stormed out earlier that evening, slamming the door behind
him, Daniel would have surely waited for him. There might have been a chance to
save Daniel’s life, if not his powers.

Only Daniel
would have preferred death to a life without his magic. It was why he had come
to the dark and to
Raven
— to avoid restrictions on the
spells he could learn, the areas of research he could pursue. So very easy to
exploit that eagerness, that quick mind.

Raven had known
the risk— no, the likelihood— of this end. Daniel’s was not the first death
he’d caused for William’s sake. But he had owed to Daniel the duty of a master
to an apprentice, and he’d betrayed that, paid trust and loyalty with
manipulation and treachery.

Daniel’s death
had brought another to mind.

Raven was not
quite six years old. He came running to his mother’s room to show her the
interesting insect he’d just found.
          

His mother
lay on her back, one leg bent beneath her body at an awkward angle. He called
to her. She didn’t respond. He moved closer. Her skin was white, whiter than
human skin should be. Her eyes were open and staring. In the dim light, it took
a moment for him to identify the dark liquid pooling beneath her body. A few
more moments passed before his mind grasped the reality of the gaping wound at
her throat.

Young as he
was, he could feel the dark magic lingering in the room. He knew who had done
this.

It had been the
height of the Mage Wars, and Bredon Ravenscroft had been untouchable. The
little boy he had been had vowed to revenge his mother when he grew up, but
Guardians killed his father before he ever had the chance. He vowed, too, to
forsake the heritage of his name. To never repay love and loyalty with pain and
betrayal and death. To never become his father.

Another vow
broken. But then, dark mages were not known for keeping their vows.

William had
pushed for the
Ravensblood’s
completion. He would
want it for himself. The stone augmented the power of a mage in proportion to
the mage’s innate power. With it, William, already the most powerful mage of
their time, would be invincible.

William’s fear
of vulnerability, his need to be in absolute control of his circumstances, was
both his strength and his weakness. But if he could leave his sanctuary, his
unparalleled power inconceivably augmented, the Three Communities would have no
hope of opposing him.

William would
realize his dream of a return to the old ways. But William would not be some
beneficent True King from the fairy tales. He would reign in blood and terror
and darkest magic. Daniel’s death would be as a candle to that firestorm. When
that happened, Raven would not just become his father. He would far surpass
him.

For the sake of
those he once sought to serve, and for the tattered remains of his own soul,
Raven could not continue to serve William. He could not let William Blanchard
have the Ravensblood.

Taking his own
life was the most logical of a handful of bad options. He should have known
there was only one way to escape the fate his name and his blood laid on him,
but he hadn’t been ready to give up without one last try to atone with his life
instead of his death. Cassandra’s condemnation had set his sentence.

With the
substantial Ravenscroft holdings frozen, he had precious few resources of his
own to rely on if he tried to leave the country and disappear. If the Guardians
didn’t find him, William would. Even with money, he was not brave enough, not
stupid
enough, to leave William without the help of someone he trusted on
the other side. The deaths he’d witnessed were an abject lesson in why not to
try it.

He had thought
about challenging William directly. Thought about it a lot, sitting alone in
his workroom, staring at the desk that had been Daniel’s. But William’s magic
was unimaginably strong. Even with the Ravensblood, Raven wouldn’t be able to
take him down.

He wasn’t
entirely certain what help he had expected from Cassandra. But she was a
Guardian, and her aunt Ana was on Council. He had hoped
for.
. .something. Meaningful protection in exchange for information? A way to help
bring down William before there were any more Daniels? Maybe safe passage to
some obscure location when it was over.

He’d been a dark
mage all of his adult life, ever since his youthful dreams of becoming a
Guardian were crushed by a world that could not see past his family name. He
didn’t know how to be anything else. The only time he’d made an effort was
playacting for Cassandra. But she’d believed it, and there were times when he
was with her when he almost believed himself.

Now even
Cassandra could not see hope for him.

He’d cringed at
leaving a last message— it was nearly impossible to draft such a thing without
sounding maudlin and over-dramatic. He hadn’t wanted to send it, but if the book
and the Ravensblood fell into William’s hands, then his death would be
meaningless.

The fear of
death, that
he could handle. Worse was the fear that his
death would be a meaningless act of self-pity rather than a decisive act of
redemption, that he would be a failure in darkness and in light.

Cass would come
once he was dead. He was sure of it. She would come for the book and the stone.
Perhaps, these gifts to the light might redeem her in the eyes of the Three
Communities, might undo some of the damage he’d done her.

Most of those
he’d hurt were beyond such repayment.

He took another
swallow of brandy against the memories of betrayal and carnage and the
too-recent memory of finding Daniel slumped over the work table like a wind-up
toy with a worn-out spring.

They were both
sworn to William, but Raven knew whom Daniel truly followed. Whom he
worshipped. Whom he had died for.

He’d killed
Daniel, and for what? William’s overweening ego and boundless ambition. Oh,
William was all talk of the glory days before the Council, when the rule of the
New World, as in the Old, had belonged to the most powerful mage for the
betterment of the commonweal. Except that that idea had worked about as well in
the Old World as it had in the New, and that was why it had been done away with
on both continents generations ago.

And Raven knew,
far too late, that it wasn’t worth
it, that
pride and
promises and petty revenge weren’t worth the final destruction of the light.

Hidden in the
shadows of the mantel, the clock that had been his great-great-grandfather’s
chimed the quarter-hour. His message had promised Cassandra that he would be
dead when she arrived, and for once in their relationship he intended to keep
his word to her.

He couldn’t
blame her for not trusting him last night. Had she been a little less
strong-willed, she would have been the one dead in his workroom. Should he have
told her that the Ravensblood was finished, and had been activated? He shook
his head. She would have known instantly what that meant. For her the value of
the Ravensblood as a weapon would never outweigh the knowledge of its cost. A
fully active Ravensblood would not have been a bargaining chip but the last sin
that finally damned him.

She would have
the Ravensblood anyway, and the book, and he would have his escape from
William.

He drew a deep
breath, and with his shaking right hand he slashed the blade into his left arm,
wrist to elbow, quick and deep. It hurt, but he’d endured worse. He switched
the blade to his left hand already slick with blood and
—
now, before
you are too weak—
performed
the same deft slice on the right wrist.

He trembled, and
his stomach churned at the sight of his own blood running so freely
. Oh, for
gods’ sakes quit being such a bloody coward.
His lips quirked at the unintended
pun. Bloody, he certainly was. Coward? He hoped not, tried not to be.

It took all his
resolve in those first moments not to apply pressure, apply magic, save
himself. This was why he hadn’t tried suicide by magic. Too hard to focus the
will. The subconscious mind always wanted to live. Few mages ever tried it, and
those attempts ended in messy, lingering failures.

You promised
Cassandra, in your message. For once in your misbegotten life, do the right
thing.

Cassandra, his
beautiful, bright Cassandra. She’d loved him once. It wasn’t for her beauty
that he had come as close to loving her as he ever would any person in this
world. Rather, he had been struck by her brilliant mind, her ready smile, and
the open-hearted fairness that he had adored even as he ruthlessly exploited
it.

Still, Cassandra
was beautiful. Her coffee-and-cream complexion had been a gift from some
distant Eastern ancestor; her green eyes came from her red-haired, green-eyed
mother. Cassandra’s hair, long, soft corkscrew curls, shone nearly black,
except when certain hours and angles of sunlight struck a coppery highlight.

Yes, Cassandra
was beautiful, though she’d never believe it. What a modeling agent would have
termed ‘exotic’ some distant, cruel, jealous classmates of hers had labeled
‘freakish’. He knew that label had stuck in some tiny, denied corner of her
mind where her suitors’ sincere compliments could not penetrate.

Cassandra. He
had hated those distant classmates on her behalf, even as he had hurt her far
worse than they ever could. Too much to hope that his death would win her
forgiveness. Not even his death plus the means to defeat William would repay
that debt.

Perhaps William
would still triumph, would lay waste to the world in the name of ruling it. At
least Raven would no longer be party to the destruction.

Sentimental
fool
, his father would have said.
Weak, sentimental fool.

Perhaps. But not
a slave to the dark, no matter what history would name him.

Curse my
name, then, Father. You cannot touch me now. The Light will have the
Ravensblood, Mother will be avenged, and I’ll laugh in your face when I see you
in hell.

Defiance gave
way to a curious lassitude. The pain lessened, and he felt detached from the
blood now flowing more sluggishly from his wrists. He had read that bleeding to
death was a peaceful means of suicide, at least at the end. Research always
paid off.

Another voice
spoke in his memory, soft and gentle, praising his studiousness. Ana, it must
have been. She was the only of his teachers with a kind word for Bredon
Ravenscroft’s son.