Heroes at Odds (39 page)

So, possibly, there were other casters loyal to Kent, in this crowd, or hidden from view on Fiona’s land, or waiting on Kent’s land for some countermeasure from Fiona. And wasn’t this a catastrophe?

How had these casters come up with a spell like this, anyway? How had they known they would be effective? The vision of how they would have developed such spells, how they would have tested them, made my throat clog.

I watched Biden launch himself at the slim young man who’d been identified as Matt. They landed hard. That had to hurt.

I saw Taro yank Marcus back this time, and another black cloud appeared, capturing nothing but air.

Thatcher snuck up behind Olson and caught him by the throat, yanking him right off his feet and slamming him into the ground. Then he covered his mouth with his hand.

And was bitten for his trouble. He quickly pulled his hand away.

Not all of the tenants had run away. A whaler was standing firm, watching Thatcher and Olson. When Thatcher removed his hand, the whaler, expression resolute, thrust her harpoon right through Olson’s eye.

I put my hand over my mouth and averted my gaze as I gagged. I could have been happy spending my whole life without seeing anything like that.

And then I realized that the harpoon had not actually pierced any part of the caster’s person. The whaler had just thrust it into the ground beside the caster’s face. Thank god.

So far, everyone who’d been hit with a cloud had either died or was clearly close to it. There had to be a way to make the deaths quicker.

Or how about stopping their deaths altogether?

The Dowager had collapsed and was trembling on the ground as though suffering a seizure. Taro jumped to her side, kneeling, reaching out.

Marcus pulled him away. I couldn’t hear what either of them said, but they were clearly shouting, Taro struggling to reach his mother, Marcus holding him back. Marcus was taller and larger than Taro. The trader won.

The air before me warped and seemed to whine. I watched Browne remove a crystal from her sack, hold it out, and hum.

The black cloud and the gleam from the crystal didn’t react well to each other. They kind of exploded in my face. I felt no pain but I was blinded for a few moments.

When I could see, all the clouds were gone. The three Kent casters were on the ground. So were a dozen tenants, either twitching or, I assumed, dead. Browne knelt by the nearest, feeling the person’s wrist and leaning far over to put her face next to his. After a moment, she stood and moved on to the next victim.

Taro, finally released by Marcus, was crouching on the ground beside the Dowager, who had finally died. He wasn’t touching her, but he was holding his hand over her face. Not close enough to feel her breath, if she were breathing, or to do anything useful. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. I couldn’t read anything from his face.

She had been the last of his immediate family.

Fiona was going to need to hold another mass funeral. Too many in too short a time. Her run as titleholder had been plagued with disasters. I didn’t blame anyone for feeling the way they did. This was a mess.

Fiona rubbed her face. For a moment, she appeared beaten and weary. Then she firmed her jaw and squared her shoulders, looking around at who remained.

“Farmer Cox,” she called out, and this was the first of a string of names she listed. “Please carry the fallen to the ballroom. Find some people to help you. Cekina.” She looked at her housekeeper. “Make sure family members can see the victims. Bailey, arrange for the Kent casters to be taken to the court room. I’ll trust your judgment concerning their restraints. Dune, take Lady Daris and lock her”—she had to think about that for a moment—“in the small tack room. Lerana,” she said to the whaler. “Take your harpoon to the court room.”

Fiona remained while the others leapt to do as she ordered. She stood there while many of the tenants who had run away crept back. I guessed they hadn’t gone far.

Fiona crossed her arms. “Well?” she challenged them all.

None of the tenants seemed to know what to say. They glanced at each other and grumbled nearly inaudibly. But they tightened their grip on their tools and they didn’t leave.

“Source Karish, Shield Mallorough, Healer Browne, I would appreciate it if you would all come with me.” She strode into the manor.

I went to Taro, who was still kneeling beside the Dowager. I pushed back some of his hair from his temple. “Do you want help carrying her in?”

“No,” he said, his voice flat. “I don’t . . .” He seemed unable to continue.

“I’ll take her in,” Marcus offered.

Taro seemed to think about it for a few moments before nodding.

I patted his shoulder. “I’m going to go see what Fiona wants.”

“No, I’m coming.” He rose to his feet. “Fiona needs us for something. I don’t think she would ask me if it weren’t important.”

“I don’t think Fiona is in a position to consider the feelings of anyone else right now.”

“I have no reason to spend more time with the Dowager dead than I would alive. It’s just her body.”

I didn’t for a moment believe that was what he really felt, but it would be heartless to press him.

I exchanged a look with Marcus before he knelt down to pick up the Dowager’s body. He was gentle with her.

He was a good man.

Taro took my hand and wrapped it around the crook of his arm. I let him lead me back into the manor and through to the court room.

The three casters had been tied onto dining room chairs, backed against each other in a tight triangle. The whaler stood in front of one of them, staring at him as she leaned against her harpoon.

That caster seemed to find her intimidating. I didn’t blame him.

It wasn’t long before Fiona entered the room, heading straight for the Kent casters. She circled them for a few moments, just looking at them. The caster facing me watched her stoically. “Have you ever read the Titleholder List of Authorities?” she asked them. None of them responded. “They say I’m allowed to kill anyone who threatens the lives of my people.”

Ah, another piece of legislation that had outlasted its usefulness. In High Scape, people broke into the homes of the titled all the time, often armed, and when caught it was expected that they would be turned over to the Runners, not killed.

Sometimes it felt like Flown Raven and the surrounding estates hadn’t moved through time with the rest of the world.

But, then again, these people weren’t just trespassers. They had actually killed people. So that made things a little less clear to me. I was just so uncomfortable with the idea of Fiona killing people, intentionally, with a clear head.

“I’m sure you know,” Fiona continued, “that execution is the usual punishment for murder. But I am the magistrate in these parts. I can sentence you any way I wish. I could put you in the deepest hole I can have dug out. A hole too deep to climb out of. A hole too narrow to lie down in. Or even sit in. You would only be able to stand, no matter how exhausted you got. And I would never let you out. I would have food dropped in on you every other day or so and you would stand there and soil yourself and eventually go mad.”

The caster facing me looked terrified.

“Lord Kent will not allow you to do anything of the sort,” one of the others announced. His voice shook a little.

And there it was. Further proof that Kent was behind all of Fiona’s troubles.

Fiona chuckled. “You cannot be under the delusion that Kent cares about any of you. You know as well as I that no one matters to him unless they are of use to him. You’ve failed. You’re nothing to him.”

“We didn’t fail. We killed some of your people and terrified the rest. No one will support you now.”

Fiona squinted at him as though puzzled. “You really don’t know him, do you?” she asked. “He’s not quite balanced. The things he’s done in just the last couple of weeks, they prove he’s lost all understanding of what he’s permitted to do by law, all understanding of the logical consequences of his actions. He attacked the same tenants he was hoping to take responsibility for. He burnt down their homes and spoiled their produce. He beat a lord almost to death. Do you really think he cares about you? You’re just tools to him. He sent you here to attack my people right in front of me. And you were caught. Of course you were caught. And he knew you would be caught. He threw you away while he kept his more important casters back on his land.” She leaned close to the stoic one, her face a finger width away. “Because he does have other casters, doesn’t he? Casters I’ve never seen before.” She backed up a bit and resumed circling. “He tossed you at me, so I could do anything I wanted to you. The question is, what do I do with you?”

“Throw us in a hole if you want. We’ll get out of it. You can’t imagine what we can do.”

“Why aren’t you getting yourself out of this situation, then, if you’re so all-powerful?”

An excellent question.

And telling, I thought, that none of the casters would answer.

“You’re going to kill us. Get on with it.”

“Do you know what a Pair can do?” she asked.

What? Where had that come from? What did we have to do with anything?

“More than the Triple S would tell you. More than Pairs will tell you. But I’ve seen things. And, oh, the things they could do to a body, should they feel like it.”

Hell. Shut up, woman. Was that why she had asked us to come?

I couldn’t tell whether they actually believed Fiona or not. I didn’t care. I was furious. We didn’t need people adding to the ridiculous rumors about us that were already out there.

I tried to keep my expression bland. Whatever Fiona was doing, right then and there wasn’t the time to correct her, to suggest in any way that I didn’t support what she was doing.

“But you know,” Fiona said. “There are some things you just have to do yourself. And, of course, I don’t need to kill you, right now. I just need to make you wish you were dead. Until you tell me what I want to know. And if you tell me quickly enough, I’ll have Healer Browne take care of you. She’s quite good. So, Whaler Fenn, if I could have your harpoon.”

The whaler handed it to Fiona.

Fiona turned the harpoon in her hands, end over end. It was a fairly long and heavy instrument. She clearly wasn’t comfortable with it. Her husband would have been. He had gone whaling, occasionally.

“This is used on whales,” Fiona said. “But I wonder what it could do to a person. What if I shoved it through your eye?” Fiona had clearly been inspired by the whaler. “Think that would hurt?”

One of the casters gasped. He was the one Fiona chose to stand before. She placed the tip of the harpoon against the top of his cheek, right under his left eye. “Wouldn’t take much of a slip, would it?”

She couldn’t really shove a harpoon through a person’s eyes. Please, show me she couldn’t.

“I wonder if you could cast so well, missing one of your eyes.”

The caster swallowed loudly, but kept his mouth shut.

“How many casters does Kent have?”

None of the casters said anything.

Fiona shifted the harpoon just a little, bringing the tip infinitesimally closer to the caster’s eye. “How many?”

We waited. I looked at Fiona. I couldn’t believe she would actually do it. That would be torture. Torture was disgusting.

I wasn’t going to stand there and let her do that to him, to any of them. My interference would infuriate Fiona. It might endanger everyone. I didn’t care. This was not going to happen in front of me.

Had Lila felt pain when Taro sank her into the ground? I’d never thought about that possibility before. Taro had done that to a lot of people. Had that been torture?

I felt nauseous.

“Tell me what I want to know,” Fiona ordered.

We waited. I slid a footstep closer. The idea that I could actually stop Fiona should she decide to carry out her threat was unrealistic, but I couldn’t just stand there and watch, as though I approved.

The caster was flushed. He was breathing too quickly. I could see him swallowing again and again. But he didn’t speak.

I wondered why. Was he afraid of Kent, or was some part of him sure Fiona couldn’t go through with her threat?

After another long, silent moment, Fiona swore and stepped back. I let out a long breath. She couldn’t do it.

She went to the next caster and held the harpoon to his face. “What else is Kent planning?”

But everyone knew she couldn’t actually torture them. She had given herself away. She knew it, too, and it wasn’t long before she gave the harpoon back to the whaler with an expression of resignation. “Have them stripped down,” she ordered. “Then tie them back onto the chairs, the chairs a body’s length apart. And gag them. A handkerchief stuffed in the mouth, another tied around it. I’ll decide what to do with them later.”

Thank Zaire. I didn’t know what I would have done if Fiona had actually gone through with it. Just thinking about it made my chest burn.

“It’ll have to be something else,” Fiona growled, and she left the room.

Not knowing what else to do, I followed Browne back out of the manor to the inner garden, still lugging a sack of crystals about. There were many members of the circle waiting, but not all of them. That was annoying. How long were we supposed to wait?

“Where are Morgan and Vic?” Browne demanded. “And Eun?”

“They’re refusing to come,” Tye reported sullenly.

Browne scowled. “Does no one honor their oaths anymore?”

“Be reasonable, Nab. No one anticipated anything like this.”

“That’s irrelevant. No one can anticipate everything when they take an oath. They know at the time that they’re taking that risk.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked in a voice flattened to hide my impatience. We didn’t have time for recriminations.