Legacy of Kings (61 page)

He wouldn’t be able to use sorcery on the room itself, he thought desperately. Nor could he use it directly on Nyuku without risking a fatal connection to the man’s ikati. No, he realized with a sinking heart, the only thing he could use his sorcery on in this room was his own body, and the only safe weapon he had was his own intelligence. But the latter was no small advantage. Nyuku was an ignorant barbarian at heart, who had been raised up to power by forces beyond his comprehension. He might have learned to play the part of a sophisticated nobleman, but he lacked even a peasant’s education to back it up. Whereas Colivar had been a witch and a healer long before ever meeting the ikati, and he understood how the human body functioned.

It was his only possible advantage.

It would have to be enough.

Slowly he looked up at Nyuku. It didn’t take sorcery to sense the energy tightly coiled inside the man, or to see the rage of his ikati shining through his eyes. He might have been successful in claiming leadership of the colony from Colivar years ago, but clearly he regarded the Magister’s survival as a personal affront. He would give no quarter.

“Do you remember that day?” Nyuku said. His voice was a mockery of seduction, crooning insults to Colivar’s pride in the tone one might use with a lover. “Because I do. I remember the taste of your consort’s blood. The sound of him screaming and thrashing as he died. The sight of you lying in the snow, helpless as a child.” Clearly it was his intent to goad the ikati portion of Colivar’s soul into such a rage that he would be forced to surrender to it. And he was succeeding.

Wrapping his arms around himself, Colivar tried to stay focused; he knew he might have only a few seconds of sanity left, and he had to make them count. Sorcery rushed through his body with unnatural speed, driven by desperation. Muscles expanded. Bone thickened. The chemistry of his blood transformed. Organ by organ, fluid by fluid, his body was transformed—not in rational order, as it would normally be done, but in a chaotic whirlwind of mutation that left each living cell in agony.

And Nyuku smiled. Arrogant egotist that he was, he assumed there was nothing more happening than Colivar suffering. He was pausing for a moment to enjoy his rival’s pain.

His mistake.

His last mistake.

Then the transformation was complete, and Colivar’s self-control crumbled. The beast came roaring up out of the depths of his soul, hungry for vengeance. And everything turned crimson.

Hands gripped Kamala, holding her steady. Sand shifted beneath her knees. Her head felt as if it were on fire.

“Are you all right?” Ramirus asked. “What happened?”

It took Kamala a moment to realize who was talking to her and to remember where she was. Her concentration had been so tightly focused on Colivar that she had lost all sense of the world surrounding her. And then the storm had come. Blinking, she looked up at Ramirus, not sure how to answer him. Salvator was beside him, she saw. Equally worried, though likely for different reasons.

“Is it time?” the High King asked.

Was it?

Using Colivar’s ring as an anchor, she had been able to pick up faint traces of his emotional state. She knew that when he arrived in Jezalya he had been calm but apprehensive. She had been able to taste the subtle shadows of fear that played about the edges of his mind after that as he analyzed the threats surrounding him in a rational, controlled manner. And then, in an instant, everything had changed. A storm of violent emotion seemed to fill the very air around her: fury and hatred and frustration and pain . . . and then it had all exploded. A crimson mist seemed to hang about Colivar’s ring now. Was that a metaphorical vision, or something real?

But the mere fact that Colivar’s soul was in turmoil said nothing about their mission. The combined armies of Jezalya might have descended upon him with swords drawn, and still that might have no immediate relevance to Siderea. Nothing mattered except the moment in which
she
turned her attention on him, so that she stopped paying attention to other things. How was Kamala supposed to know when that happened if she had nothing more than these unfocused signs to interpret? For all she knew, Colivar had run into Siderea already, and that’s what this storm of emotion was about. Or not. She couldn’t use her sorcery to get more information without running the risk that Siderea would detect her efforts. Nor could Colivar contact her directly, for the same reason. How on earth was she supposed to find out what was happening to him?

She was suddenly angry at Colivar, but the feeling had more to do with frustration and fear than actual rage. Gods
damn
him for putting her in this position! If he managed to come out the other end of this alive, she was going to wring his neck.

Is it time for the witches to move out?
Somewhere in the distance Salvator was asking her questions.
Is Siderea’s attention fixed on something else?

I don’t know, she wanted to say. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to figure it out.

But an army could not be led that way. It required certainty from its leadership . . . or at least the illusion of certainty.

“No,” she said quietly. Feeling her words resonate across the desert sands, “Not yet.”

Cursing Colivar under her breath—and fearing for him—she waited.

Nasaan was just buckling on his sword when a servant came running in. Clearly the prince hadn’t put on his armor a minute too soon.

“In the east wing, Sire.” The servant was breathing hard, though it seemed to be more from agitation than exhaustion. “There’s some kind of fight going on, Nyuku and a stranger—”

Cursing under his breath, Nasaan was in motion before the end of the sentence could be voiced.

Nyuku was one of the Lady Consort’s sycophants, and Nasaan’s least favorite. Left to his own devices, Nasaan wouldn’t trust the man to clean out a chamber pot. It was hard to say just why he felt that way, since Nyuku had never actually said or done anything offensive—that Nasaan knew about—and he generally respected all the proper protocols in dealing with the royal household. If anything, his obeisance sometimes bordered on excessive, almost as if the whole thing were a joke to him. But as soon as he walked into a room, Nasaan could feel all the hairs on his neck prick upright, and his muscles tensed in the way they did during battle. There was a sense of challenge about the man, all the more irritating for never being voiced openly, that stirred Nasaan’s blood in ways he did not fully understand.

The
djira’s
insistence that this unpleasant creature have free access to Nasaan’s palace was one of the few real points of contention between them. His witches had told him that Nyuku’s aura was not entirely human—whatever that meant—and as Nasaan had made a contract with only one supernatural creature, he was under no obligation to allow another one into his house. So Nyuku barely had permission to visit, and he certainly had no permission to be raising his hand against anyone within these walls. Nasaan found himself hoping that the man had finally transgressed in some major way, so that he would have an excuse to throw him out for good. And to hells with the Lady Consort if she did not like it.

By the time he got to the room where the altercation was taking place, several members of the palace guard had assembled outside, wary of entering without some kind of instruction from him. From inside came the kind of sounds one would expect from combat, though it didn’t sound as though metal weapons were being used. Nasaan wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad sign.

“The Lady Consort said we should remain outside—” a servant began.

He did not wait for the end of that sentence either, but drew his sword and pushed his way through the half-open door. The room had been stripped bare of all its normal decorations, he saw, and racks of weapons from the armory had been arranged against one wall. The sand shutters were tightly closed, reducing the early morning light to a bare minimum, and the few lamps that had been set up in the four corners of the room did little to dispel the shadows. There was indeed a fight going on, between Nyuku and a tall, black-haired man, and while no weapons had been drawn, it was clearly more than a simple wrestling match. Gouts of flame accompanied blows that were struck faster than a human limb should be able to move, and shadows and smoke swirled in the air between the two contestants, only to be quickly extinguished. Blood appeared, then became a cloud of crimson mist, then was gone. He could hear bones cracking under blows so forceful they seemed to make the whole room shake, but the one who had been struck would simply glance at his shattered limb and then reengage his opponent.

Thus do demons fight,
he thought darkly.

He saw Siderea in one corner of the room. Her eyes were bright and moist as they followed the fight, and her full lips were parted in an expression that was both sensual and disturbing. When she saw him enter, she waved him over to her, and she put her hand on his free arm as he drew close. “They can’t see or hear us,” she said quietly, and he saw no reason to think that she was lying. Her pulse was hard and rapid, like a woman in the throes of pleasure, and the scent that rose from her skin was something that belonged in a bedroom more than an armory. It made him more wary than the battle itself, and he pulled away from her, putting enough distance between them that the scent of her arousal was less intrusive.

“What is this all about?” he demanded.

“What it’s always about,” she answered. Nasaan watched as Nyuku grabbed hold of his opponent in what might have been a death-grip among normal men, but the black-haired stranger simply altered his form into a more flexible shape and slipped from his grasp. He left behind him a sheet of blue flame that clung to Nyuku everywhere the two had made contact, but that was quickly extinguished. The action was almost too fast for Nasaan to follow, but he had the impression there was much more going on than was visible to the human eye. “Power,” she continued. “Lust. Dominance.” She paused; her lips curled into a smile that was warm on the surface but utterly chilling in its essence. “Courtship.”

He remembered the last time he had seen that smile. He had been on a battlefield then, and she had stood within a circle of death, the blood of living men falling about her feet like rain. He had feared what she was capable of, even as he’d lusted for what she was offering him. That formula had never changed.

She had toyed with whole armies that night, for her pleasure. Tonight it was only two men, but the hunger driving her was clearly the same. And for the first time since he had known her, its nature was undisguised. Nasaan could read the truth in that cold, predatory smile. He could smell it on her skin. And as two men attempted to tear each other to pieces in front of her, he knew for the first time exactly what the name of that hunger was.

Or perhaps he had always known. Perhaps he had simply not wanted to acknowledge it.

Let them die for me,
her expression proclaimed.

Speed and strength. That was what mattered. Speed and strength enough that Nyuku would be forced to respond in kind. Nothing else offered hope.

Colivar clung to that thought, even while fear and despair pounded in his veins. Fighting with a sorcerer was futile. He knew that. He had been alive in the days when Magisters were still allowed to kill each other, and he knew how it had to be done. By surprise. By stealth. Nothing else worked. When you were dealing with a man who could heal any wound with a single thought, and who could protect himself from any attack he saw coming, the only way you could take him down was to give him no warning and allow no time for healing. And since a skilled Magister could detect hostile intent in an enemy, that meant you couldn’t even plan out your actions in advance. How often did all those elements come together?

But refusing to fight was not an option. The beast within him had risen to the surface, and its rage was not to be contained. Memories of past pain and humiliation welled up inside him, awakening a hunger for vengeance so powerful that all other thoughts were simply swept aside. All of his being was focused upon one thing and one thing only: taking down the man who had bested him so many years ago, driving him into the embrace of madness.