Nothing happened to her.
“A dirty little thief,” Hennea said again, dusting her hands.
Rain began to fall from the clouds Rinnie had been gathering. As the cold drops hit his mother’s face, she opened her eyes. After a moment she sat up slowly. The Guardian started to touch her, but his attention was drawn back to the Shadowed as Willon suddenly staggered and fell.
For a moment Jes thought it was something Hennea had done, but then he saw a knife on the ground and realized Lehr had thrown it with such force it had knocked the Shadowed off his feet. The blade hadn’t penetrated, though, just cut the cloth of Willon’s tunic so the links of chainmail showed beneath.
Phoran sprinted forward, Toarsen a half step behind; but it was too late—Willon had recovered from his surprise.
Hennea shouted, a wordless sound, and Jes could feel her desire to protect the others, but Willon’s magic still sent all three men stumbling backwards. Hennea swayed and he knew the sharp pain that sliced through her at the backlash of the Shadowed’s imperfectly deflected spell.
Mother struggled to get up, and the Guardian helped her to her feet.
“Papa wants me to kill the Shadowed,” the Guardian told her urgently, as he steadied her. “But it will kill Jes or drive him mad. An empath can’t take another’s life—not a strong empath like Jes.”
She shivered as if she were cold, the mist of her breath a testimony to the Guardian’s distress. Unable to break through the Guardian’s protective concealment. “You underestimate Jes,” she said. “He is stronger than you believe.”
Yes, said Jes.
Papa, still singing, walked between Willon and the Emperor, setting himself in front of Willon. He walked with a limp, and Jes knew his left knee ached from the old injury. But the knee was as nothing to the torment of the Stalker’s music. He tucked the lute against his body to shield it from the rain as best he could.
Willon raised his hands again, and Rinnie ran between them, shouting, “No!”
It was too much for the Guardian. For Rinnie, for Papa, for his family, both he and Jes were willing to die.
Lightning struck Willon with a deafening crack. He staggered and sobbed, his flesh smoking in the chill of Rinnie’s storm. Lightning struck again, but Willon didn’t fall down. He ran at Rinnie.
But the Guardian was there first. There was no finesse in his attack, but none was needed. Willon didn’t see him until the Guardian hit him the first time. As his fists hit flesh, the fever of battle rose, and the wizard, half-stunned by Rinnie’s lightning, was not much of a challenge—not as long as Papa kept playing so Willon had no access to the Stalker’s power.
“Wait,” said Phoran’s Memory wrapping a hand around the Guardian’s wrist, stopping his strike.
As soon as he was still, the Memory released him. “Hold him for me,” it said.
At the sound of the Memory’s voice, the Shadowed took a step back. The Guardian stepped in and took him in a wrestling hold, pinning the struggling mage to the ground.
The Memory settled beside them and took Willon’s head in its hands. The wizard showed the whites of his eyes and a rising tide of fear poured off him. The Memory bent over him.
Willon screamed and Jes pulled the Guardian around him, letting the Guardian protect him from the worst of Willon’s experience. The firmly muscled body beneath the Guardian began to shrink, the softness of flesh replaced by something dry and hard. When at last the thing the Guardian held quit struggling, and the Memory pulled away, the Shadowed bore no resemblance to Willon, merchant of Redern.
Thick dark hair had been reduced to a few strands of white on his scalp. He looked as though something had sucked all the moisture from his body. His skin was color of oiled wood and had the texture of parfleche. His lips had shrunk with the rest of him, leaving his teeth exposed. He looked like a corpse left to dry in the sun, but Jes knew he was very much alive.
The Guardian released his grip before the Shadowed’s terror had a chance to damage Jes.
“I cannot kill him,” said the Memory. “That task is yours, Guardian.”
“I’ll do it,” said Lehr.
The Guardian smiled at his brother, then met Hennea’s gaze briefly.
“No,” he said. “Death is my gift.” And he snapped the brittle neck.
Jes screamed, ripped from the safe cocoon the Guardian had tried to envelope him in. The pain was far beyond anything he had ever undergone, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Something reached up from Willon at the moment of his death and grasped onto Jes, wrapping itself around him. When it touched him, it felt as if someone had torn away his skin and pressed him into the man Willon had been. No man should ever know another as Jes knew Willon at that moment. He couldn’t hide, couldn’t distinguish himself from the Shadowed.
Cold hands touched his face and he felt Willon draw away, as if Willon’s ghost had no wish to come in contact with those hands.
“His death belongs to me,” said the Memory. “Give it to me.”
“Yes,” agreed the Guardian and gave way to Jes.
Cold lips touched Jes’s and he opened his mouth even as he struggled against the Memory’s hold—not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t help himself. He had no words for the sensations he felt then as Willon was drawn from him like a sword from its sheath.
Only when he was empty, did the Memory release him. Jes stared at it, unable to look away. The Memory had become a darkness so solid, Jes could hardly bear to look upon it. Rain glistened on it like wet ink.
“I am avenged,” it said, and it was gone.
Papa quit singing midword. He walked over and put a hand on Jes’s shoulder. Raw as he was, even such a light contact hurt, but Jes needed the reassurance more than he needed freedom from pain, so he leaned against his father for a moment.
When he pulled away, Hennea was there, slipping a hand through the crock of his arm and resting her cheek against his shoulder. The cool grace of her presence washed over him, soothing the raw places Willon’s death had left. He sighed with relief.
Mother came and gave him a sharp once over. “You’ll do,” she said.
He smiled tiredly at her, or maybe it was the Guardian who smiled.
“And so,” Papa said, his voice hoarse and his face unreadable. “And just so died the Shadowed who was once Willon, merchant of Redern.”
Mother took Papa’s hand and brought it to her lips. “Well done, my love.”
CHAPTER 21
They brought their dead out of the city.
While Hennea and Seraph set about making a meal, Tier got a camp shovel and began digging. Lehr joined him a few minutes later with another shovel.
“Who are we burying?”
“Willon,” Tier answered.
“We won’t have to bury him too deeply,” Lehr said. “There’s nothing left that would attract carrion feeders.”
“There’s all sorts of carrion feeders,” said Phoran, coming over in time to hear Lehr’s last remark. “I think six feet might be deep enough. I’ll spell you when you get tired.”
When Jes wandered over, his eyes soft and happy, they had dug down about halfway and had to leave the digging to one man at a time because there was no room in the grave for two. Jes crouched so his head was level with Tier’s.
“Are we going to bury Rufort and Hinnum?” he asked.
Tier sighed at the thought of digging another grave through the hard soil. “Let’s wait and ask what their customs were. Hennea will know what to do with Hinnum. Phoran, do you know what Rufort’s people do?”
“No.” Phoran shook his head. “But Kissel will. He’s sleeping now, but I’ll ask him when he awakes.”
“Kissel’s up,” Jes said. “I can hear him complaining about his shoulder. It itches, and he can’t reach it under the bandages. Toarsen—”
“—is coming over to help,” said Toarsen. “Hop out of there, old man, and let me take a turn. I didn’t get to kill him, but I’ll have my part in the burial. I don’t want him crawling back out of his grave.”