Retribution, p.53
Retribution, page 53
Behind him, the other figures, four in all, also lowered their hoods. To Ector’s right, a nervous looking Kellen of Highblood Umburter was making a show of examining his fingernails, while to the left, Sulla of Named Blood Drusus, head of the Ascenders Association in Cargidan and an old friend of mine, was looking on with a raised brow. Then there was a surprise, a girl with golden hair trimmed short, the brightness of it highlighting the dark freckles across her face: Lady Enola of Highblood Frost, unless I was very much mistaken.
The final member of this strange group was one of my people, who had shifted to the side slightly, putting room between her and the others.
“And now,” Ector continued, his face growing slightly red, “Seris has asked us to directly expose ourselves in a way that will almost certainly destroy us. Does she even have a plan, or is it simply one desperate action after the next?”
I waited a moment, letting the highblood vent his frustration. Internally, I agreed with him. As eager as I was to strike at the Vritra in any way I could, it seemed to me that our efforts were far too small to do any lasting damage or pose a threat to the High Sovereign’s absolute control over our continent.
Still, I had nothing to lose. But for men like Ector, this rebellion was a constant balancing act between fighting for a life without Vritra control and consigning his entire blood to a painful and long-lasting execution.
Not that I have any sympathy for these preening highbloods, I reminded myself.
“I’ve only just been informed of this new course of action myself,” I admitted, unsure what this highblood expected me to do or say about it. “It’s a risk, I’ll admit, but not outside of your highblood abilities.”
As Ector ground his teeth, my young spy, an unblooded mage named Sabria, cleared her throat. “Highlord Ainsworth, excuse me sir. Alaric, the two water-attribute emblem-bearers we hired were able to retrieve several of the crates lost from the last shipment from Itri, including the interference artifacts.”
I slapped the desk and grinned at Ector. “See? That’ll help. And so will these,” I added, pulling a wad of fabric out of a basket behind the desk.
After catching it as I tossed it over to him, Ector let the fabric unroll, revealing a set of robes in the purple and black coloring of Stormcove Academy with their cloud and lightning emblem emblazoned across the chest. “What in Vritra’s name am I supposed to do with this?”
“Put it on,” I said, tossing a set to Kellen, Enola, and Sulla as well. “In about thirty minutes, a large group of Stormcove Academy supporters will be marching past this bar on their way to an exhibition tournament between Stormcove and Rivenlight Academies. A handful of our people will be in the crowd. You’ll leave with them, blending in until you can each safely make your way to a tempus warp.”
“Enough with both the complaints and the unnecessary espionage stuff,” Lady Frost said, stepping forward to be on a level with Ector, who she was almost as tall as.
Ector’s jaw clenched as he bit back whatever response had jumped to mind. Personally, between the two of them, I found Enola more intimidating, despite how young she was. And even though, as highlord, Ector outranked her, Highblood Frost was more powerful than Highblood Ainsworth.
“Promises were made. Half of the reason my blood agreed to join this insane venture is because I convinced them that Professor Grey—sorry, Ascender Grey was worth it. Lady Caera of the Denoir Highblood assured us he was involved in this, but we haven’t seen or heard from him since the Victoriad.”
“Well, there was that attack in Vechor,” Kellen said with an irritating shrug.
I eyed the girl curiously. Since saying goodbye and sending him through that Relictombs portal, I’d learned much about what Grey—Arthur Leywin, Lance of the Tri-Union forces of Dicathen, I reminded myself—had done at Central Academy and the Victoriad, as well as what he’d accomplished in the war before ending up on our shores. Would she be as eager to follow his leadership if she knew who he really was? I wondered.
But that wasn’t for me to decide. Scythe Seris Vritra would determine when the people got to know that little detail, or perhaps she would wait for Arthur himself to make it known.
Regardless, much of our support hinged on the high and named bloods’ interest in him.
“He’s the most wanted damned person in Alacrya, isn’t he? You’re not likely to find him strolling about in broad daylight where any old Scythe or Sovereign can catch sight of him,” I grumbled.
“But he is out there?” she asked, a note of desperation creeping into her otherwise steady timbre. “Rumors are beginning to spread. Rumors that he has been captured. Some people—even those who were there—insist that he never escaped the Victoriad at all.”
Kellen let out a little laugh. “Of course they’d say that. It’s rather difficult to maintain the illusion of absolute control if someone is actively evading said control, isn’t it?”
Enola turned to glare at him, wiping the smug smile off his face.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose between my callused fingers, already feeling the need for another drink. Vritra help me that I got saddled with these highbloods. “He’s out there.”
Sulla, in the dangerous position of being a named blood among highbloods, had carefully avoided interrupting the conversation so far, but he seemed to see his opportunity. “The Ascenders Association has been carefully maneuvering resources in preparation for a call to action. Grey is well-liked and respected among us, although, of course, bringing in new ascenders is still slow and dangerous work—the wrong word in the wrong ear could lead to the entire association being disbanded—but we have a sizable force prepared, along with a significant investment of resources—weapons, artifacts, and the like. All of whom have rallied to his banner.”
I couldn’t help but shake my head, curious what Arthur would think about becoming the rallying cry of this Alacryan rebellion against the Vritra.
Uncomfortable, I’d wager, I thought, amused. But not as uncomfortable as I am.
“Just like in Vechor, Grey will make his presence known when it suits him,” I said, fully aware that I was talking out my ass. “For now, we all take our marching orders from Scythe Seris Vritra. Highlord Ainsworth, I can’t speak to the purpose behind her request of your highblood, but I have been instructed to put my entire network of informants and operators at your service. Orchestrating the necessary acquisitions, manipulating the systems in place, and even absorbing the fallout, should there be any.”
Ector looked at me as if I’d just suggested I’d be his concubine for the evening. “While I’m sure your resources are sufficient for what they are, I don’t see how you can assist me, given that this is my highblood’s direct responsibility.”
I shrugged off the insult. A thousand worries hung like knives over my head, and this highlord’s respect—or lack thereof—hardly even rated.
Sabria, though, was having none of it. “Oh, I’m sorry Highlord Ainsworth, is there something about this whole rebelling-against-the-gods-themselves thing that isn’t living up to your expectations? What exactly has your blood sacrificed to be here right now? Because I’ve lost three fucking friends this week alone to loyalist soldiers.”
Ector looked disdainfully down his nose at the girl. “Perhaps you and your friends should be better at your jobs, then.”
“How dare you—”
“Enough!” I snapped, staring Sabria down. “You forget yourself. This bickering serves no purpose except to waste time and reduce our readiness. If we’re done seeing who can piss the farthest and least accurately, let’s continue on with the true purpose of this meeting.”
The others—three highblood nobles, a named blood ascender, and an unblooded orphan—went silent, and all attention turned to me. Life is a bitterly unfunny joke, I thought to myself. One that drags on and on, so that by the end of it, you’ve forgotten where it started and what the punchline was supposed to be. I took a drag from my hip flask, heedless of the looks this received, especially from the highbloods, and launched into the details of the instructions I had been given.
It took the better part of twenty minutes for Ector and me to get on the same page. Highblood Umburter’s assistance wasn’t strictly necessary but would make several aspects of the plan a hell of a lot easier. I wasn’t entirely sure why Seris had invited the Frosts, except perhaps to keep Ainsworth in line, and maybe force Highlord Frost’s hand. He’d been reluctant to take any real risk so far, but I would say putting his great-granddaughter—the shining star of his highblood—right in the thick of things showed he was ready to be involved.
That or he was a sadistically cold-hearted bastard.
As for Sulla, my network and the Ascenders Association tied Seris’s whole operation together, and we nearly always had a higher-ranking official involved in these clandestine meetings. I suspected Sulla had come himself for the same reason Ector and young Lady Frost had: they were getting nervous.
“Better get those uniforms on,” I said, nodding to the bundles of cloth each of them still held. “Only a few minutes now until the procession arrives, and then you’ll need to be quick.”
There was a moment of silence as they each pulled on their disguising robes.
“Alaric?” Sabria asked, cocking her head and looking askance at the door.
“Hm?”
“Does it seem quiet to you?”
I focused through the low-grade hum in my ears, listening for the normal clinking of glasses on the bar top or scraping of stools over the much-abused floorboards. But Sabria was right, the bar below was utterly silent.
“Shit, time to—”
The door ripped inward, exploding in a storm of shrapnel that dissipated against a shield rapidly conjured by Kellen.
The doorframe opened onto a pitch-black void.
Leaping over the desk, I shoved Highlord Ainsworth to the side and activated the second phase of my crest, Myopic Decay. Mana vibrated through the air in the room, targeting its inhabitants eyes and buzzing violently to disrupt the focus of their cornea, resulting in heavily blurred vision.
At the same time, I sent a pulse of mana into the floor, activating the mana-cutters I’d installed as a precaution the moment I got back to Aramoor.
But fast as I had moved, our enemy was faster.
An indistinct female form—as much smoke as flesh, except for the bright white of her short hair—drifted out of the void, seeming to float over the ground on a cloud of black mist. Tendrils of steel-hard shadow rose up about her like dark flames, and as my power ignited the first of the mana-cutters, one of those tendrils thrust out like a spear, shattering Kellen’s shield and shearing through his collarbone.
The floor ripped itself to shreds, sending us plummeting down into the barroom below. My desk—and all three bottles of booze hidden inside it—crashed straight through the shelves of liquor behind the dirty bar. I hit the bar itself and leaned forward to tuck into a roll, jarring my hip against the floor but ending up on my feet.
Enola landed on a stool, which shattered beneath her weight and downward force, but her mana flared, and she caught herself without a stumble. Ector was less lucky. Off balance from my shove, he landed hard, his head barely missing the bar as he crashed into the floor with enough force to break the planks. Sulla had vanished behind the bar, out of sight.
My focus caught on Kellen, dangling fifteen feet above us. Untethered from gravity, our attacker hadn’t fallen with us. As I watched, the shadowy tendril split in two, one ripping up through Kellen’s shoulder, the other cutting down and out his hip. The two halves of him spiraled off in opposite directions, painting the floor and walls crimson.
Then I noticed Sabria. The very edge of the floor above hadn’t collapsed, and the foolish girl had put her back against the wall and was standing with just her heel on all that remained of the floor. The shadow woman—the retainer, Mawar, called “the Black Rose of Etril”—had her back to Sabria. The girl’s only hope was to stay still and let the retainer come after me.
Sabria leapt up, put both her feet against the wall, and shoved outward, a curved blade appearing in her hand. Her body glowed with a dim orange radiance as she activated a fiery aura, and the blade sliced through the air toward the back of the retainer’s neck.
With the nonchalance of one swatting away an insect, Mawar flicked out with her tendrils and caught Sabria in the side. The girl’s momentum reversed, and she flew away from the retainer and through the wall with a sickening crash.
Then the woman’s feline-yellow eyes settled on me, and I felt my insides shrivel up.
Don’t piss yourself, I thought, clenching my nethers.
The Frost girl was already moving, darting toward the back door, away from me and Hector. I was still channeling mana into Myopic Decay, so to everyone but me, she would just be a hazy blur. Hopefully it was enough to keep the retainer from identifying the others. It wouldn’t matter in the slightest, though, if they were all caught here.
With one hand, I grabbed the back of Ector’s silky tunic and heaved him to his feet and toward the front door, forcing the retainer to split her attention.
More smokey tendrils curled up in front of the door, so I changed direction and headed for the closest window. “Shield yourself if you can,” I grunted, pushing mana into my arms as I lifted Ector off his feet and hurled him toward the window.
I could already feel the retainer’s mana shifting with her focus as she attempted to catch Ector in her shadowy clutches. A pulse of mana into one of my marks, Aural Disruption, sent out a shock of sound-attribute mana that disrupted channeled abilities by interrupting the casting mage’s focus and drawing their attention to me. It wasn’t nearly powerful enough to stun someone as strong as a retainer, but I felt a spark of satisfaction as the grasping tentacles writhed in place for the blink of an eye, just long enough for Ector to fly past them and smash through the window.
Behind me, Enola screamed.
Mawar’s disconcerting gaze was still entirely focused on me as she drifted down from the room above, moving slowly on her black mist, but her tendrils had wrapped themselves around the Frost girl and had her pinned.
I ground my teeth. Of all of us, she was the last person I would want to be caught.
Sensing the attack, I lunged to my right as tendrils tried to snake around my legs and torso, feeling them brush against my back. I went into a roll and came up under one of the tables, lifting it and hurling it toward the retainer. With line of sight broken, I pushed more mana into the Myopic Decay, activating the third level of the crest.
The table shattered, and tendrils lashed at me like whips from every side. My body was a hazy blur now, one of several that surrounded me. I ducked a tendril, but most sliced through the false images. Breaking out into a sweat from the effort it took, I sent the blurry forms racing away in every direction while I beelined toward Enola.
The tendrils churned like thresher blades, sending splinters of wood flying like confetti through the air as the retainer ripped the bar apart.
A board broke beneath my feet, and I stumbled. She was on me instantly.
Only a second burst of my Aural Disruption rune saved me as I fell flat on my ass to avoid the grasping tendrils, which shivered and froze for that all-too-necessary instant. But they were everywhere, all around me. The retainer showed no signs of hurry as she drifted toward me, probably suspecting that I was penned in and couldn’t run.
I could see her inhuman eyes squinting as she tried to peer through the blur of Myopic Decay. I didn’t expect that it would take her too long to imbue enough mana into her eyes to overpower my spell, and if she did, both my identity and Enola’s would be revealed.
The light had taken on an uneven, jumping quality, and I realized that coals had been knocked out of the fireplace, lighting little fires in a dozen places.
My hold on the crest weakened as I pushed all the mana I could spare into my emblem. The little fires explode outward into roaring blazes, engulfing the bar between one second and the next. The light these bonfires gave off, though, was a brilliant silver color, so bright it was impossible to look at, and suddenly the destroyed barroom was bright as the surface of the sun.
The retainer hissed and raised a hand to cover her face, as I’d hoped.
Darting between the squirming tendrils, I sprinted for all I was worth toward Enola. From the inside pocket of my jacket, I pulled another mana-cutter, fired a half-second burst of mana into it, and tossed it into the air toward the retainer. It went off with a subaudible wump that made my ears ring, sending out a pulse of destabilizing force that could break down walls, shatter floors, or, in a pinch, act as a kind of concussive weapon.
The retainer reeled back from the explosion, undamaged but knocked off kilter. She was already struggling to get her bearings in the blinding brightness and seemed to have lost track of me entirely.
As I struggled to come up with a plan to release Enola, a golden aura surrounded her, pushing away the retainer's hostile magic. An emblem, I realized, shocked that a mage so young could have such a strong rune.
The tendrils couldn’t find purchase against the golden aura, and the retainer must have sensed it, because the tendrils melted together into three spear-sharp shadow-tentacles. One crashed into Enola’s shoulder, lifting her off her feet and driving her into a wall. A second stabbed toward her chest but skated off to punch through the drywall instead. The third cut like a sword across her throat, and the golden aura cracked and broke, and the girl collapsed to the floor.
For a moment, I feared the worst, but there was no blood. The spell from her emblem had absorbed most of the attack, but her movements were sluggish, and her eyes were unfocused. She was hurt, maybe concussed, or at least nearing backlash from trying to resist such powerful attacks.
Reaching out with my own emblem, I sent a shockwave of mana running through the flames devouring every surface around me, closing my eyes against the results. Even through my lids, I could see the flare as the silver flames grew bright enough to blind. But I didn’t have the strength to hold both crest and emblem any longer, and so I let go of my focus on the Sun Flare spell.
