Edge of Pathos (The Conjurors Series Book 4) (14 page)

“Kanti is here to do
what’s best for your country, and that means removing Ani from power and taking
her position as the rightful leader,” Valerie said. “I suggest you both think
about how you can support her in doing what’s right for your people. It seems
like it’s been a while since you’ve thought about that.”

Pauline’s and
Isabella’s mouths hung open a little, as if they were dazed by what they’d
heard.

“Thank you for
stopping by, but Princess Kanti needs complete peace to prepare for the Test,”
Cyrus said, ushering Kanti’s family firmly out the door.

Once they were gone,
Valerie turned to her friend. The time for questioning her decision had passed.

“Let’s
get you a staff. You’re practicing as much as you can until you fight that
hag,” Valerie said, and Kanti grinned, which was what she’d intended.

By the end of the
week, all anyone in Elsinore was talking about was the upcoming Test of Power
between Princess Kanti and the Reigning Royal, Ani.

Kanti trained
relentlessly with Valerie, and Cyrus put some contingency plans in place to
help ensure the outcome they needed.

The morning of the
Test, Kanti’s father, George, came into her room. His demeanor, along with the
rest of the family’s, was almost deferential now.

“Henry is at the
main mirror again, Kanti dear,” he said. “I’ve begun to feel quite sorry for
the young man. And your mother says he is quite a powerful Conjuror.”

Kanti rolled her eyes
at his comment, but glanced down the hall.

“Say something to
him,” Valerie said.

Kanti straightened
her back and nodded. Valerie followed her down a long hall to an immense
mirror. Henry’s face filled the glass. His hair was disheveled, and there was a
wildness in his eyes. When he saw Kanti, he drank in the sight of her, and from
across the Globe Valerie felt his relief.

“You’re okay,” he
said. “Is it true that you’re challenging Ani to some kind of battle?”

“It’s a Test of
Power. Nothing to worry about,” Kanti lied.

Valerie knew
otherwise, but Kanti showed no outward sign of the risk she was taking.
Standing straight with her head high, Kanti was the embodiment of perfect
confidence.

“I won’t ask you not
to do it,” Henry said.

“Good, because I
wouldn’t change my mind, even for you. I’m doing the right thing,” Kanti said.
“You should try it. You’d be amazed how fearless you are when you’ve got right
on your side.”

Henry’s eyes were
unfocused as he answered, and Valerie’s mind was disconnected from his, which
scared her more than his grief and guilt.

“There’s no one who
could stop you, I know that. I’m sorry that I let you down. I love you,” he
said.

Kanti’s rigid
posture relaxed a little.

“Me, too,” she
replied, but Henry’s face had already disappeared from the screen.

“After this is over,
I’ll find Henry, and we’ll fix what’s broken between us,” Kanti said, her eyes
a little desperate as they searched Valerie’s.

“You
will. We’re going to make it all right,” Valerie said.

The challenge was
scheduled for the end of the day. Kanti, Valerie, and Cyrus rode in an enormous
silver ice carriage through the town. People crowded the streets the entire
way, waving and cheering. Some held flags stitched with white swans in the air,
chanting Kanti’s name. Ani’s Fractus supporters wore black and glared at the
carriage.

The horses stopped
in a town square that had an elevated platform made of solid ice. Etched into
the ice was the image of a crown.

Kanti was quiet now,
but her voice didn’t shake when she turned to Cyrus and Valerie.

“Don’t interfere. I
know I said Val would be backup if something goes wrong, but it won’t. You’ll
come in too soon, and you have to trust me that I can do this,” Kanti said.

“Please don’t ask me
to watch you die,” Valerie begged.

“I’m not. I’m asking
you to watch me win.”

Kanti exited the
carriage, and Cyrus and Valerie tried to melt into the crowd around the
platform. But they were swarmed by the tiny birds that were buzzing over
everyone’s heads.

“What does the
princess think her chances are?” one squeaked.

“How is she doing
today?” another chirped.

“Is it true that the
princess opposes the Fractus?”

After unsuccessfully
swatting them away, Valerie saw Cyrus release tiny beams of light into their
eyes. The birds were irritated, as much by their lack of response as by the
light, but they fluttered a little distance away.

The people of
Elsinore gave them a wide berth, which had the advantage of giving Cyrus and
Valerie a prime spot by the platform.

Kanti stood in the
center. The crowd split apart as Ani approached, a black sword strapped to her
side. When she stepped beside Kanti, a hum of magic vibrated from the platform.

“The Test has begun.
Now no one can approach until it’s complete,” one of the birds nearby said.

“What does that
mean?” Valerie asked. She tried to touch the platform, and it zapped her. “We
can’t help her!”

Cyrus cracked his
knuckles. “I’ve heard of this ritual before, so I suspected we might not be
able to help her. But when she made you promise not to interfere, I was sure.
She didn’t want you to stop her.”

“I wouldn’t. It’s
her choice,” Valerie said.

“I know,” Cyrus
said, and he gripped her hand. Valerie was grateful for the warmth of his
touch.

“You’re but a
child,” Ani said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I release you from this
Test now, with a promise that your life will be spared.”

“I reject your
offer,” Kanti said.

“Then prove your
magic,” Ani said.

Kanti nodded, and
from the center of the ice grew a rose. The crowd applauded politely as it grew
and grew, finally bursting into a bloom the size of a basketball.

Ani smiled
indulgently. “Very pretty.”

Ani threw back her
head and released a sound that clawed at Valerie’s mind. She fell to her knees,
and in some part of her brain, it registered that everyone in the crowd was on
their knees, as well. On stage, Kanti staggered.

Seeing her friend in
distress triggered Valerie’s locus, and she pushed Ani’s siren song from her
mind. Around her, everyone in the crowd had shut their eyes, in answer to Ani’s
magic and in awe of the beauty of her song, so they didn’t see Ani unsheathe
her sword to cut Kanti down.

Valerie and Cyrus
surged toward the platform, but its magic pushed them backward so hard, they
fell flat on their backs.

Kanti dropped to one
knee, still gripping her staff, white knuckled. Ani raised her sword, but
before it fell, Kanti raised her staff and smashed it into the platform once.
From where her blow landed, grooves shot through the ice, etching a complicated
pattern into its surface. The sound awoke the crowd from their trance, but
everyone was silent as they watched the battle progress.

Ani lunged forward
with her ink-dipped weapon. Kanti twisted away, deflecting the killing blow
that Ani aimed at her heart, but the blade sliced through Kanti’s side.

“No!” Valerie
shouted, and she heard the collective gasp of the people of Elsinore at the
sight of their princess being attacked.

It seemed to snap
them out of their stupor from Ani’s song.

“It’s against the rules
to draw blood!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Kanti’s blood poured
down her side onto the platform. It ran into the pattern of grooves that she’d
created with her staff, flowing fast and with purpose.

“Letting Ani cut her
wasn’t an accident,” Cyrus said, gripping Valerie’s hand even tighter.

The grooves Kanti
created with her staff were channeling her blood to the rose at the center of
the platform.

Valerie stared in
shock as Kanti’s blood reached its destination. The rose pulsed once and then
struck out at Ani, twisting its stem around her arm. The thorns pierced her
skin. The rose throbbed, as if it were pumping something into Ani through the
thorns, and Ani began to glow like she’d been given an injection of light.

The light raced through
her body, illuminating her, and shot out of her fingers, turning her black
sword to plain metal. Ani dropped it as if it were a snake. She opened her
mouth to scream, and more light poured out of her, bathing Kanti in its glow.
The wound on Kanti’s side stopped bleeding, and the cut faded to a scar. That’s
when Kanti struck Ani in the head with her staff, and Ani fell to the ground,
unconscious.

The magic humming
from the platform abruptly stopped, and the crowd burst into cheers so loud
that Valerie’s eardrums hurt. The commotion was intense as people began to rush
the platform. No one noticed the way the atmosphere darkened.

“The Fractus are
here,” Valerie said, drawing Pathos.

Around the edges of
the courtyard, creeping out of doorways and alleys were easily thirty Fractus.

“We knew this might
happen,” Cyrus said.

He made eye contact
with Kanti’s sister Peach, where she stood with her family on a nearby balcony.
Peach nodded and then burst into song.

Like her aunt, Peach
was a siren. Valerie, Cyrus, and Kanti stuffed their fingers in their ears so
her spell wouldn’t distract them, but the rest of the crowd was hypnotized. She
wove in a message to leave the square as quickly as they could.

The Fractus were
swarmed as the mob hurried to obey the siren song. Whatever they’d been
expecting, this wasn’t it. They couldn’t fight the sheer number of bodies
pressing them back, away from the platform.

Kanti ran to the
carriage, and Cyrus and Valerie leaped in after her. They raced away from the
scene.

Kanti was glowing,
high from her success, as Cyrus pumped light into her to drive out any residual
magic from Ani’s dark weapon.

“I did it. I know
there are Fractus among my people I’ll have to root out, but now I have a
chance. We have a chance,” Kanti said.

Cyrus leaned back,
grinning even though his glow had diminished from helping Kanti. “I think it’s
safe to say the ruling princess of Elsinore will live. Make sure the people
know who the real hero was today.”

“This
war had its first real victory in a long time today,” Valerie said.

When the chaos died
down, the square was filled with debris, but no one had been hurt. The only
loss was that Ani had escaped.

Valerie and Cyrus
couldn’t remain in Elsinore any longer, and they all cried a little when Kanti
sent them back in one of her carriages.

“It’s only been four
years since you first came to the Globe, Val, but we’ve all changed so much,”
Cyrus mused as they raced back to Arden. “You, most of all.”

“I’m sorry I hurt
you,” Valerie said, reaching for his hand. “Can we find our way back to being
best friends again?”

But unlike when
they’d watched Kanti fight Ani, Cyrus pulled away.

“I know we’re in the
middle of a war, and that makes everything else seem petty,” Cyrus said. “But I
can’t help that I’m still in love with you. I was, even before the first time
you were with Thai, but back then, I didn’t know what it was like to have you
love me back. Now I do, and watching you together, knowing what I’ve lost… It
could wreck me if I let it.”

Valerie didn’t let
herself release the little sob in her chest at his words.

“I’m not with Thai,”
she said.

What she didn’t say
was that she’d decided that she couldn’t be with anyone. With her mind falling
apart, there’d be nothing left for anyone by the time the war was over. Maybe it
was better that Cyrus blamed Thai. Whatever helped him get distance from her.

“But you will be!”
Cyrus said. “I need you to stay away from me. I can’t be your best friend right
now. Let me go, and promise me you’ll be okay if I’m not here for you right
now.”

“I promise,” Valerie
said, making her voice strong.

Thankfully, the
carriage reached Cyrus’s dorm, and he left. Only after she was sure that he
couldn’t hear her did she let out a sound of pain. Cyrus was gone.

It was good to be in
her own home again, even if it was an empty one. Without Dulcea stopping by to
deliver treats and general cheer, Cyrus to break the tension with his humor,
Gideon to keep her centered, or Kanti’s practical support, the atmosphere was
relentlessly grim.

Henry stayed in his
room, and from the occasional glimpses into his mind, Valerie knew that he was
battling his own demons. Thai spent long hours at the Healers’ Guild, as
wounded soldiers of the Fist poured in, starting with injured Grand Masters
who’d escaped Reaper’s attack at the Capitol.

Valerie split her
attention between organizing the forces on the Globe with Skye and battling the
Fractus on Earth.

After a long,
fruitless day chasing down clues about the charm binding magic on Earth,
Valerie stopped in Egypt to talk to Chisisi for her daily update.

Using a handful of
sand that she carried with her in a little bag, she projected to a patch of
land near the safe house where Chisisi was currently based. The safe house door
was ajar, as Chisisi usually left it at this time of day so she could enter.

She went inside and
spun the wheel on the door so that it locked tightly. Chisisi was eating dinner
and reading an old text at the same time, but he put both things down when he
saw her.

“I have news of an
alarming nature,” he said, and Valerie tensed up. “Your young friend Ming was
attacked today, but Dr. Freeman arrived with the police in time to save her.”

“Then it must not
have been Zunya who came for her, or she’d be gone,” Valerie said. “But next
time it will be.”

Chisisi nodded
grimly. “Reaper wants to possess something you hold dear.”

“Or destroy someone
I hold dear,” Valerie said. “He knows that I won’t turn to his side, so he
wants to cripple me with grief. I can’t lose anyone else.”

Her grief
overwhelmed her, hitting her in her chest. She yearned for her father the most
in that moment, and almost choked at the knowledge that she’d never see him
again.

Chisisi had never
hugged her before, but he did then. His own eyes were full of tears when he
pulled back.

“We will not let
them have her,” he said fiercely. “We will assign a bodyguard.”

Valerie pulled
herself together, stuffing her pain back in the box in her mind where she kept
it.

“Yes, a bodyguard.
Maybe we can use this to our advantage. If Reaper is determined to take Ming,
he’ll send Zunya next. We’ll be waiting for him. This will be our chance to
take out Reaper’s most powerful ally.”

Chisisi considered
her words. “We need someone who can be by her side at all times, but will not
alert the Fractus to his presence.”

“Chrome,” Valerie
said. “He won’t like the assignment, but he’ll do it when I tell him he’ll have
the chance to fight Zunya. He’ll detect Zunya’s vampyre magic in time to call
for reinforcements.”

“Young miss is wise.
But it would be best if you asked the wolf yourself. He grows ever wilder,”
Chisisi said.

“Where
can I find him?”

Chrome was rolling
around like a puppy in the soft green grass of a hill in Ireland, evoking the
first genuine smile Valerie had had in a long time. He was nothing like the
bloodthirsty picture Chisisi had painted.

The wolf trotted up
to her, and Valerie saw that he was leaner than when she’d seen him last, and
his coat had even more gray in it.

Chrome sent a reel
of images to her mind of the battles he’d fought with Sanguina over the past
weeks. Every drop of blood he’d drawn was remembered with relish, and Valerie
shivered. For the first time, Chrome’s sharp-toothed grin scared her.

A flash of red caught
Valerie’s attention, and she saw Sanguina approaching.

“I’ve been looking
for you all afternoon,” she huffed to Chrome, flashing Valerie a worried
glance. Valerie was relieved to see that Sanguina had fully recovered from her
encounter with Reaper. Even her hair was red again, thanks, she suspected, to
the Glamour Guild.

Valerie saw an image
of a wolf pup sneaking out of its cave while its mother slept. The image was
tinged red with Chrome’s irritation.

“No one’s saying you
need a babysitter,” Sanguina said, in a tone that made Valerie suspect it was
an argument they’d had many times before.

“Actually, I’m here
to ask you to watch over someone for me,” Valerie interrupted before Sanguina
and Chrome lost their tempers.

She explained the
situation, and Chrome scowled, flashing an image of himself in battle again.

“I know you want to
be at the heart of the fighting, but this is your chance to fight Zunya,”
Valerie said, and Chrome’s scowl vanished. He cocked an ear in her direction.

“Reaper failed to
capture Ming twice now—once last year and again today. He’ll send Zunya next,
and you’ll be waiting for him,” Valerie said.

“I cannot aid him in
this without giving away your plan. Zunya will bring an army with him if he
sees me near Ming,” Sanguina said. “But Chrome needs watching.”

Chrome growled low
in his throat.

“Ming’s a kid. You
can’t go around slaughtering anyone who looks at her the wrong way. You’ll scar
her for life,” Valerie said.

Chrome stopped
growling, but his scowl was back.

“I need you, Chrome.
Please trust me,” Valerie said, her voice softer. “You’ll know Zunya’s coming
from a mile away, and you can alert us so that we’ll all be waiting for him. If
we capture him, it could turn the tide of the war.”

“Reaper can’t be
everywhere at once,” Sanguina agreed. “Without Zunya, he will struggle to keep
the Fractus organized.”

Chrome bowed his
head, and Valerie saw an image of his murdered mate, Jet. Chrome howled his
pain, and the sound echoed the grief in her own heart.

“We will win this,
Chrome. We’ll destroy Reaper and the Fractus,” Valerie promised, and the wolf
rubbed his body against her leg.

He’d
help her.

Valerie and Chrome
found Ming on a swing in the tiny backyard of her apartment complex. Her eyes
were wide as she watched Valerie approach with the wolf at her side.

“Ming, meet Chrome,”
Valerie said, noticing a yellowing bruise on Ming’s cheek.

“He’s beautiful,”
Ming said. “Where’s his leash?”

Valerie tensed,
waiting for Chrome to growl or scowl, but instead, he rolled on his back,
exposing his tummy, which Ming obligingly scratched.

An image of Chrome
curled up by a warm fire flashed through Valerie’s mind, and Ming’s face lit
up.

“You’re magic, too.
You’re a person,” Ming said. “I always wished I could talk to an animal.”

Chrome grinned and
licked her cheek, making Ming giggle.

“How are you, Ming?”
Valerie asked.

Ming shrugged with
one shoulder. “The bad men pushed Mom, and she’s scared. Another one shoved me,
and I banged my head. Still, it wasn’t as scary as cancer.”

She touched the
bruise on her cheek with her little fingers, and Valerie clenched her hands
into fists reflexively. Chrome released a little growl for the Fractus who’d
done this to Ming.

“No one’s going to hurt
you ever again. Chrome is one of the best fighters I know, and he’s going to
watch over you.”

“You will?” Ming’s
smile was pure joy. “We’ll have so many adventures together!”

Chrome sent an image
of himself running by Ming’s side as they raced across an open plain. He was
open to all possibilities.

“Are you hungry?
Mom’s got a steak in the fridge I’ll steal for you,” Ming said.

Chrome
released a bark that sounded like a laugh, and Valerie almost sighed with
relief. Ming would be safe under Chrome’s protection.

Thai was waiting for
Valerie when she returned to her home on the Globe, patiently weeding a flower
bed. She watched him for a while before she knelt beside him in the soft earth.

“Long day?” she
asked him when he turned to face her. Two grooves had etched themselves between
his eyes, like he’d spent the day concentrating, or worrying, or both.

“Yeah,” he replied,
settling back on his heels.

They sat together in
the dirt, turning up their faces to absorb the last rays of light before the
day dimmed to twilight. When she opened her eyes, she saw that he was watching
her.

“I wish I only had
good news for you today,” he said, touching her cheek with a dirt-streaked
finger.

“That must mean you
have some good news, so let’s hear it,” she said, trying to hold on to her
peace for as long as she could.

Thai gave her a half
smile. “Willa managed to get water flowing into Silva. I think she had about
fifty people helping her on the project, and today the first drops trickled in.
That woman has almost as much determination as you do.”

“Something about her
does inspire confidence—and obedience,” Valerie said. “I hope it means that
people will settle down.”

“I think they will.
And maybe having suffered a little deprivation will give these Conjurors some
empathy for what humans endure all the time,” Thai said.

“What’s your bad
news?” Valerie asked.

“It’ll sound naive,
but I thought with magic, there’d be almost no one we couldn’t heal. But I was
wrong. These black weapons of Reaper’s are as bad as weapons on Earth—maybe
even worse. You can treat a gunshot wound, but the black weapons eat away at
your magic, and your life. And now that Henry’s given Reaper’s army the ability
to cast darkness, the black weapons are more effective than ever.”

Valerie gripped Thai’s
hand, watching him swallow once, then twice.

“I’ve seen people
die from their wounds. And today, Juniper came in with a deep cut on his hand,”
Thai began.

Valerie stood up. “I
have to go to him!”

Thai stood, as well.
“He’ll live. We stopped the flow of dark magic inside him. But he lost his
hand. No magic in the universe will be able to fix him.”

Valerie heard a
sharp intake of breath, and she whipped around to see Henry standing behind
them, one hand on his stomach and the other covering his mouth.

“This is all
happening because of me,” he said. “I’m the reason Juniper lost his hand.”

“No, you’re not,”
Valerie said firmly, pushing down her own horror so that Henry wouldn’t find it
in her mind. “It’s Reaper and the Fractus who are choosing to hurt people.”

“Reaper’s crazy, and
I might as well have given him a nuclear bomb,” Henry said. “I have to go. I
can’t listen to you defend me. I don’t deserve it.”

Henry left, and
Valerie knew she should follow him. But her heart was so heavy, so exhausted,
that instead, she leaned into Thai, resting her head on his chest. Gently, he
wove his fingers in her hair. She knew she should pull away, but her body
wouldn’t let her.

“Henry’ll find his
way back to us,” Thai said.

“I don’t know how to
help him,” Valerie said. “He’s slipping away from me, as surely as my dad
slipped away when he bled out in front of me. But I don’t know how to fix him.”

“Anyone
would crack under the amount of pressure Henry’s been under,” Thai said. “I know
how much you’ve got going on, and I’ll keep an eye on your brother. When he’s
ready for our help, we’ll be waiting.”

Valerie sat on the
edge of Juniper’s cot in the Healers’ Guild, waiting for him to wake up. He was
very pale, but his breathing was even. He moaned a little in his sleep, and
Valerie gripped his hand. His eyes cracked open.

“I’m so sorry,
Juniper,” Valerie said.

Juniper rubbed his
eye with his right hand, and Valerie saw him stare down at the stump of his
left hand, which ended at the wrist.

“It’s war,” he said.
“I knew what could happen when I joined the Fist. Look at the bright side. I’m
alive.”

“Does it hurt a
lot?” she asked.

Juniper nodded.
“Even the numbing potion Nightingale made only helps a little. But he said it
won’t be like this forever.”

Valerie sucked in a
deep breath. “Are you angry?”

“At you? No. At
Reaper and the Fractus who did this? Hell, yes. But I’m still going to fight.
Maybe not on the battlefield anymore, but I believe in what we’re doing. Seeing
this darkness the Fractus are wielding firsthand, I know we’ve got to end this
threat. The whole universe could go dark if they aren’t stopped.”

“If you still want
to be a part of this, I could really use someone to organize the training of
the Conjurors in the Fist who haven’t had a lot of fighting experience,”
Valerie said.

She’d always hated
being treated like she was made of glass when she’d been in the hospital, too
weak to be of use. And she suspected that Juniper felt the same. He smiled at
her words, and she saw that one of his teeth was chipped, as well.

“As soon as
Nightingale releases me, I’ll start,” he said.