Corvis swept up Talon from where it lay at their feet. He smiled, too, meeting Seilloah's eyes behind Khanda's. And then, both hands clenched upon the brutal Kholben Shiar, he struck.
The axe punched through half the demon's rib cage with a shower of bone and blood, embedding itself deeply in the stone wall beyond. Khanda-and it was Khanda, again-stared at him, then down at his mangled body. He raised his head, he opened his lips…
SHE WELCOMED THE PAIN OF THE BLADE, the swift fading of the body she wore. It meant that she'd won, that the far greater torment in which she'd lived for so long would soon fade, that she had not suffered it in vain, that…
Her limbs shuddered around her; a wave of fire and rot washed over her thoughts, sweeping them away. In the dark of the cellar, or perhaps in her own mind, a pair of eyes gleamed open, staring at her through four separate pupils.
And just before the world faded away, she heard that terrible voice, one last time, in her own soul.
/Not alone!/
"NOT…" KHANDA COUGHED, wet blood spraying his enemy's face. "Not alone…"
Then he was gone, just another corpse to fall at the feet of Corvis Rebaine.
Corvis turned toward the others, a smile stretching across his face, and took a single step…
The sky screamed, the whistling of the final spell Khanda would ever cast. Corvis heard it coming, tried to dodge aside, but the last of his strength was gone. His entire left side was numb, the floor around his feet a slick pond of blood. He fell back, slumping to the floor against the wall, sinking down to Khanda's side. He reached, grasping at Talon, trying to pull himself up once more, and the Kholben Shiar shifted, grinding even farther into the battered and broken stone of the cellar.
A resounding crack echoed as the demon's magic slammed into the splintered ceiling above. Dust choked the air, perhaps an unnatural mist rising to hide the next world from mortal view. Corvis fell prone beneath the weight of the invisible force, felt the first of the stones falling on his shoulders like hail, heard the rumble of shifting masonry, and allowed himself to drift away
NOTHING MOVED but a final handful of rocks, clattering off the heap of stone that now filled a quarter of the cellar. They bounced with hollow clacks and clicks, finally tumbling across the floor and fetching up against the corners. The clouds of grit began, oh so gradually, to sift down from the air, the echoes of the ceiling's collapse to fade from aching ears.
Mellorin attempted to stand and found she could not for the weight atop her. Only then did she remember where she was. "I…" She swallowed, trying to clear the dust from her mouth, her throat. "I'm all right, Uncle Jassion."
She felt the suspicion, the tension in his tentative shifting, but he moved. She rose, knees wobbly, abandoning her blood-encrusted dagger on the floor. Her steps hesitant, she staggered toward the heap of broken stone that had buried one man she had thought she'd loved, and another she'd thought she hated. She felt a dampness on her cheeks, but for the moment she wept no more. Her soul was distant, numb; she had no more tears to shed.
Without thought, she reached toward the stones, and blinked in dull confusion at the fingers that clamped around her wrist, halting her.
"Don't," Jassion told her. It took her a moment to recognize the foreign tone in his mangled voice as compassion. "We don't know how precarious that pile is. You could bring it down on you."
"I never… I never got to…"
"I know. I'm sorry, Mellorin." And damn if it didn't sound like he meant it, too.
She heard shuffling, watched from the corner of her eye as Irrial appeared beside her. Mellorin flinched as the older woman laid a hand upon her shoulder, but did not pull away.
"He loved you, Mellorin. Whatever else you hear about him-and there will be much you'll wish you hadn't-believe that he loved you."
"I think… I think I almost do."
With that she crossed back across the chamber, leaving the unsympathetic stone behind, crouching to retrieve the one piece of her father that remained. Again Sunder shifted in her hand, becoming the heavy dagger she already knew so well, already despised, already needed. She glanced about her, saw Jassion, Irrial, and Guildmistress Mavere all watching.
Still on her knees, she ran a finger across the tiny feathered body that lay nearby. It rocked beneath her touch, one wing falling open to reveal mottled patches of bare skin between clinging feathers.
"There's so much I don't understand, so many lies Kaleb-Khanda?-told me. You'll explain it to me?" It seemed directed to the room at large, rather than any one soul. "All of it?"
"We will," Jassion promised.
"Even the parts you don't think I want to hear," she insisted.
"Yes." Irrial, this time, her tone no less sincere.
"Thank you." Mellorin rained dust as she rose, but made no move to brush herself clean.
"For what it's worth," Mavere began, her voice weak from her injuries, "I'm sorry. If we'd known Khanda would try this, we'd never have called him." Her gaze flickered from one to the next, imploring. "But something had to be done, don't you see? For the good of Imphallion, we-"
She grunted once, less in pain than surprise, and slid, with a final rattling sigh, to the floor. Her expression blank, Mellorin shook the Guildmistress's blood from Sunder's edge.
Irrial grimaced, Jassion nodded. Neither spoke.
"We should go," the warlord's daughter told them.
Her uncle nodded again. "There's much to be done. We have to try to explain what's happened, and to mount a defense-a true defense-against Cephira."
Irrial quirked her lip. "That might've been easier if we had-"
"No." Jassion shook his head. "She'd never have admitted to any of it. It would've been our word against hers. As it is, we've precious little proof, but…" He shrugged.
"But we have to try." Irrial took one step, a second, and staggered. "I don't think I can ride. I certainly can't climb out of here. Go."
"My lady, we-"
"Take Mellorin back to Mecepheum. You can send someone back for me with a coach. And rope. Lots of rope."
The baron nodded reluctantly and began examining the broken ceiling overhead.
"Jassion? Send a squad of soldiers, too, would you? Just in case."
"Of course."
IT TOOK SOME DOING, especially since they refused to touch the stones that had become a makeshift cairn for Corvis and Khanda both, but eventually they stacked together sufficient rock and timber for Jassion to leap up and clasp the edge of the floor above. After a moment of scrabbling, while the others held their breath and prayed the stone would hold, he vanished over the rim. He reappeared a moment later, one arm reaching downward. It probably wasn't necessary-Mellorin could likely have made the jump herself-but he offered, and she accepted. A bit more scrabbling, Jassion called out once more to ensure Irrial would be all right for the duration, and then they were gone.
For several minutes the baroness waited, until all sounds had ceased above and she was certain the others were on their way. Then, leaning against the wall for support, she inched her way toward the unsteady heap of rock.
And again, for long minutes, made no move at all.
Who had he been, there, at the last? Who had slain Khanda, had risen in the face of a mortal wound and lashed out to save, if not the entire world, then his beloved daughter? Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East? Or Cerris of Rahariem, whom Irrial herself had once thought to love, and who-though that love was past-might have been a friend and companion worth having?
Irrial didn't know. But as sure as she was that nobody could have survived either that dreadful wound or the weight of the crushing stones-let alone both together-she knew that she must do all she could to be absolutely certain. No matter how futile the effort.
How many times, after all, had Corvis Rebaine already performed the impossible?