Slowly her eyes drooped, heavy with the cold of the undead. As Sorcha trembled on the edge of death itself, she accepted its vision.
Raed Syndar Rossin, Young Pretender to the throne, fugitive, and the man she had not stopped thinking of since she met him. Sorcha could see him, like looking through water: as if she was below, and he was above.
A girl who she couldn’t quite make out was screaming while men carried her away—then her face changed to a terrifying smirk. Raed was there trying to save her, yet dark hands reached out and took him. Lured into a trap under a circle of spinning stars, he and the Beast within were devoured by a creature of snapping, snarling gold and scarlet. It was awful, terrible, and as she watched, Sorcha was sure it had not yet happened. However, it would—this was Raed’s fate.
A sense of peace stole over her, and for an instant the voice of the spectyr was familiar: light, womanly, one that had given her life for them all. Nynnia, the creature from the Otherside, was whispering into the mind of the Deacon. The words were far off, but Sorcha caught “angel,” “son,” “trap” and “stars.”
The Deacon strained to hear the rest, but then Merrick was screaming her name more forcibly: standing on the top stair and shouting to her. Her concentration was broken, and Nynnia’s voice melted away into the still air.
Merrick’s yells were not without reason. Sorcha shook her head and looked up. The shrouded skull now loomed forward, and its eyes caught fire. A cloud of freezing air blasted into her face and knocked Sorcha back a step.
The burning skull under the hooded cloak snarled, its teeth snapping as its hand of bone reached for her. Sorcha spun away and summoned Yevah from her Gauntlet. The shield of fire leapt between them, giving her a moment to breathe.
Raising her Gauntlets, she next called the rune Tryrei. Opening up a tiny pinhole to the Otherside would draw away the power of the geist and send it back where it belonged.
Opening even a tiny crack to that place hurt. The sound of the hungry void was like a thousand screaming voices, calling for love, friends, life. It was a noise that would have driven a normal human insane, but a Deacon was trained and honed to not bend in the face of the undead. Sorcha stood before it, hands spread, directing the anger of the Otherside toward the spectyr.
Yet, it did not succumb but rather elongated. It came at her still, stretched and spinning, the white bones of its fingers reaching for her. However, the Otherside continued to exert its pull, and the vengeful geist had nothing to hold it eade human world. It scrambled, it fought, but then the terrible void took it.
Sorcha closed her fist on Tryrei, and the crack was sealed. Just as suddenly as it had come, the terrible noise and fury was gone. The two Deacons stood in the silent warehouse and stared at each other, not even panting.
“Nynnia was here.” Sorcha took a deep breath. “She used that last spectyr to send us a message.”
Her partner’s deep brown eyes studied her for a minute. The Bond between them was stronger than any normal Deacon pairing—she had no doubt Merrick had seen a portion of what she had.
Carefully Sorcha removed her Gauntlets, folded them up, and took out the remains of her cigar. The sole window in the warehouse attic looked over the mercantile quarter and toward the Imperial Palace.
Merrick stood beside her, by now used to her smoking and her silences. For a young man he was very good at being still. He was well aware of his partner’s feelings for the Young Pretender but also of the bind they were in. Even in the best of times no Deacon was a free agent. And these were not the best of times, for Arch Abbot Rictun had them under close observation. He would never let them leave Vermillion.
Sorcha inhaled the smoke, letting it sit heavy in her mouth for a moment before exhaling it toward the window. She was trying to logically assess the situation, but each time she did, she saw Raed’s dying gasp. “He’s not dead yet,” she said calmly, “or we would have felt it.” An attempt to control the Beast inside the Young Pretender had also ended up binding the two Deacons to the fugitive—a triple Bond.
“It could be a trap,” Merrick replied softly, pulling his cloak around him.
“Yes.” She blew a smoke ring. “It very well could be. Yet—”
“—apparently we have allies on the Otherside.” Her partner glanced up and then away. Nynnia had undoubtedly been more than human, but neither of them had expected to hear from her after death.
Sorcha examined the glowing tip of her cigar. “But we don’t know what her nature really is. Quite a bit to hang our future on, don’t you think?”
“Raed is our friend . . . more than that.” Merrick’s mind reached out, tugging on the Bond like a boy might pull on a fence wire to test its strength. The part between them sang, and there was a distant whisper of the one between them and the Young Pretender.
Sorcha had made the Bond in haste, but none of them had been able to cut it. Wordlessly, both Deacons reached out for the Young Pretender, searching for the connection they had spent the last three months denying. He was out there somewhere—they could tell that—but too far for them to sense very much else.
“I saw them kill him, Merrick.” Sorcha turned to her partner, her blue eyes gleaming in the half-light. “We can’t let that happen—even if it is a trap.”
He sighed, looked up at the ceiling as if searching for answers from some uncaring little god. But when he looked back, on his lips was a wry smile. “No—you’re right—we can’t. The trick of it though will be getting the Arch Abbot to agree to us leaving.”
Sorcha’s expression was amused as she knocked the end off her cigar to save for another occasion. “We’ve spent long enough playing by Rictun’s rules. There’s no fun in it anymore.”
Her partner’s reaction was a slightly nervous laugh—but he didn’t for one second try to stop her. Sorcha knew it was another reason she liked the boy.
THREE
The Bonds of Duty
The instant a drunk sailor grabbed the quartermaster’s behind and then pulled her into his lap, Raed knew there would be trouble. Laython was a kindly sort of woman, but she only liked to be manhandled by those she knew.
Her scarred hand grabbed up the nearest object, in this case a full mug of ale, and smashed it against the offending sailor’s head. The crew of the Dominion leapt from their chairs and rushed to the aid of their companion.
Raed, who had long been without a decent brawl, joined them. He might be the Young Pretender to the throne, with a royal lineage going back to before the Break, but he was not the sort to put himself above his crew.
The wharf-side bar was packed with more than three ships’ complements, and since night had fallen they’d all been waiting for a moment to get some trouble started. Before he knew it, Raed was in among the swinging, swearing mass of sailors, giving just as much he got. He was splashed with a goodly amount of ale but found he was grinning.
Looking almost haughty, his very tall first mate pulled a red-faced man off Raed. It had crossed the Young Pretender’s mind more than once that Aachon should have been born the Prince—not he.
“Is this not, perhaps, an inappropriate pastime for you, my—” The first mate paused and managed to stop himself before his said “Prince.” “My captain?”
Raed took the offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. “We’re in a rough, isolated little port town—what else is there to do?”
He caught a glimpse of Aachon’s dark eyebrows drawing together into a dire expression but then found himself whirled away by another opponent. Raed grappled with him, getting in a few good punches, before the larger man tossed him through the pub’s window.
Luckily, this particular establishment was not exclusive enough to afford glass, and Raed sailed through where it would have been, only catching his shoulder against the shutters. He landed on the ground, had the breath knocked out of him, and lay there for a second. Slightly dazed, he contemplated when he’d last felt this unfettered.