Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (22 page)

Lady Milena
bowed her head and left. Another blast of arctic air howled into the parlor.
Pancras shivered and rubbed his arms. He crouched in front of the fire as Kale
joined him. The drak seemed redder than usual.

"Are
you sure you don't want Deli and I to go first? She has a fur-lined cloak now,
and I don't think it's that cold."

Pancras
reached over and touched the drak's arm. He felt warmth radiate off him.
"How are those lumps on your back?"

Kale
shrugged and craned his neck to look over his shoulder. "I've gotten used
to the ache, but they feel tight and are very sensitive. You know, like giant
blisters."

"I hope
whatever emerges isn't hostile."

Kale's eyes
widened, and he looked from one shoulder to the other. "You think
something is going to come out of them? Like a giant bug or something? A
worm?" He gasped. "Draklings?"

Pancras
laughed. "No, no! Nothing like that. It was a joke. A joke! If I were to
wager, I would say it might be something nasty, like pus or blood. Maybe you
should carry a towel with you."

"You
know"—Kale rubbed his chin and nodded—"that drak fortune teller,
Oren? He says one should always carry a towel. Everywhere."

Pancras knew
Oren but always thought he was more than a little unstable. He made wild
predictions about everyone's future, and to Pancras's knowledge, none ever
proved correct. He also had a weird obsession with the number forty-two. He cut
all his food into forty-two bites exactly. He purchased items only if he could
reasonably obtain them in lots of forty-two or manage the price to be forty-two
talons or pennies.

"I'll
be fine, Kale. Lady Milena says there's a clothier near the palace gates. The
prince doesn't like to go far for a fitting."

"He's
not very nice, is he? Sarvesh cares about all the draks and minotaurs in
Drak-Anor. Prince Gavril seems to think the people are a hassle."

Pancras
nodded. Gavril did indeed strike him as someone who would leave his people to
die if a catastrophe befell Almeria or if the city were under siege. He tried
to keep busy so he wouldn't focus on exactly what kind of deal he made to free
them from jail and away from the executioner's block.

* * *

With Pancras
gone and Kale working on his puzzle box, Delilah relished the quiet. She
caressed the cover of the grimoire before opening it. Over the last several
days, it seemed to attune itself to her, if such a thing were possible. The
letters and images did not dance around as much as they did when she first
began studying the tome, and they settled into recognizable patterns, even if
she was still unable to quite discern their meaning.

According to
Terrakaptis, the book was once the property of a powerful drak sorceress. She
found it odd that the language in the grimoire was not written in any form of
Drak she recognized. The grimoire was said to have come down from the Age of
Legends, so perhaps draks did not speak the same language then as they did now.

The symbols
on the page whirled around as Delilah concentrated on them. They formed the
image of a drak female. Delilah assumed it was the sorceress to whom the
grimoire once belonged, Gil-Li the Graven. The image was detailed enough that
Delilah noticed the tattoos covering her body. She appeared to speak but then
wagged her finger at Delilah and closed her mouth. She raised her arms, and
tendrils of magical energy swirled around them, arcing between her outstretched
hands. The tattoos on her body glowed as swirls of green, blue, red, and gold
surrounded her. Spikes of rock erupted from the earth, impaling her enemies.
Boulders tore themselves free from the ground and pelted men, their swords
drawn, who charged her.

What am I
watching? A vision from the past? Or something she's trying to teach me? Earth
magic?
Wizards who attended the Arcane University and who wanted to
learn elemental conjuration and control could specialize in a single element or
learn a modicum of each of the elements, but as Delilah was self-taught,
pyromancy was the only magic that came easily to her. What she knew of other
types of wizardry she learned from other practitioners in Drak-Anor or from
books and scrolls they seized from the invaders who used to attack them before
Lord Sarvesh established Drak-Anor.

Delilah
guessed the glowing tattoos were Gil-Li's focus. She remembered hearing
somewhere of sorcerers who inked themselves with arcane pigments and derived
their power from the designs they emblazoned into their skin. The process was
painful and time consuming, and Delilah could not imagine covering up her
beautiful ebony and crimson stripes. Wearing a cloak for warmth was bad enough.

The sequence
repeated. Delilah concluded the images conveyed a technique rather instructed
how to manipulate the earth element. Learning new types of magic required much
study and practice, starting with simple concepts. Techniques required only
knowledge of the sequence of steps, demonstrations, and then practice.

Delilah
concentrated on Gil-Li's movements, rather than on the specific effects she
created. The image shifted, focusing on the drak and clearing away the details
of her attackers. Her gestures, while conjuring each effect, were more
elaborate than Delilah tended to use, but she had learned that sort of thing
was usually a matter of personal style and preference. She shook her head. She
realized through the entirety of Gil-Li's gesticulations and stances, but one
detail remained static: Gil-Li never moved her lips.

She's not
talking… she's not saying the words!

Delilah
heard tales of wizards who worked magic without ever uttering a single word,
but the technique was thought to be lost. Practitioners of blood magic often
evoked without speaking the incantations, but the magic they drew from spilling
blood was extremely powerful and corrupting. Where arcanists like Delilah and
Pancras carefully wove and crafted the effects they desired, practitioners of
blood magic erupted in power, barely able to control its effects. It suited
them since they usually didn't care if allies were injured or killed; indeed,
they usually expended their allies to harness their power in the first place.

The grimoire
drew her in, and Delilah understood. The elaborate gesticulations were not just
an affectation of Gil-Li's. They were the words.

"Deli?
Deli?"

Delilah's
head snapped up. "What?"

Kale kneeled
alongside her chair. "Are you all right? You were face down in your book.
I thought you fell asleep."

"Don't
be ridiculous!" Delilah snapped the book shut and then winced as pain shot
through her neck and upper back.

"Pancras
just got back." Kale helped her out of the chair as she rubbed her neck.
"We can leave now, if you want."

"What?
Already? He's only been gone—"

"It's
been hours, Deli. It's mid-afternoon."

Delilah
stared the grimoire slack-jawed. She remembered every moment. It seemed like
only a few minutes had passed, but if it was mid-afternoon, she had been
engrossed for hours. The images she saw seared into her mind. She still saw
them if she closed her eyes. Delilah placed the book on the chair, stepping
away from it as if it might come alive.

"Yes,
let's go. I'm ready to get out of here for a while."

* * *

The guards
who volunteered to escort Kale and Delilah waited for them in the main hall.
They were a pair of young humans. At least, Kale assumed they were young
because they were fit and unwrinkled. Fur-lined cloaks covered their mail
armor, and they leaned on their spears as they chatted with each other. They
perked up when they saw the drak twins approach.

"You
must be the draks we're to take into town." The guard with a patchy black
beard bowed. "I'm Dusan. This is Mirek." He pointed at the other
guard, a gaunt man with sad, grey eyes. Wisps of blond hair peeked from beneath
his helmet.

Delilah
pointed at her brother. "He's Kale."

Kale pointed
at his sister. "She's Delilah."

"All
right, then." Mirek opened the door and led them out into the snowscape. A
field of solid white was interrupted only by a row of trees. A steep-sided path
led through the snow to the palace gates. The howling wind that cut across the
snow reminded Kale of the mountain wind that blew snow against the gates of
Drak-Anor and sealed shut the city for months at a time. Although Delilah drew
her fur-lined cloak around her, he saw her shivering in the cold. His woolen
cloak provided plenty of warmth for him, and as he followed behind the humans
and his sister, he noticed his feet melted distinct footprints in the snow
wherever he stepped.

Kale wanted
to show his sister how the snow melted around him but decided the humans might
react poorly, so he continued to walk behind everyone and kept quiet. He stayed
close enough to be able to hear what his sister said over the wind.

"I want
to get more winter clothes. Are there shops that have those for draks?"

Mirek
nodded. "There must be. Most of the draks are in the Foundry
District."

"There
are shops there, just on the other side of the main gate to the Commerce
District." Dusan saluted the guards at the palace gate as they passed. The
avenue that led into the city from the palace was sparkling white. The trees
were crusted with snow and frost, and children darted between them, throwing
snowballs at each other.

While
leading them to the Foundry District, the guards kept to the main roads and
avenues. Dusan was talkative, telling them anecdotes about life in Almeria and
how he grew up around draks while helping his parents run a farm and livery
just outside of the city. He seemed to have a story for every landmark, from
the drunken band of brawlers picking fights with everyone who came by the
fountain dedicated to Pacha, god of madness and wine, to the mad, old woman who
wandered town covered in pigeons which she threw at anyone who stepped into her
path.

Mirek was
quieter. He was the son of a blacksmith and grew up in the Foundry District but
lacked the desire to keep the smithy operating after his father died two
winters prior. His eyes scanned the buildings and people, looking for
troublemakers and threats. He pointed out important buildings to them as they
passed: the Hall of Justice; the Sky Temple dedicated to Tinian, king of the
gods; the Grand Duchess, the finest inn in all of Almeria and with which Kale
and Delilah were already familiar.

Kale noticed
the city was less busy than it was before the snow, but the people they
encountered seemed friendlier and less frantic. He thought at first it was
because they had an armed escort.

"Most
of the people who are too busy for other folks don't come out when there's this
much snow." Dusan stopped by a small fountain at the end of a plaza. The
fountain's carvings depicted a curly-haired bearded man drinking from a cup:
Dolios, god of commerce and gambling. The fountain was frozen over, sheets of
ice draped down from the spouts high on the wall, like giant white beards.
"Folks have to rely on each other more when it’s this cold and snowy, and
those busybodies are too selfish to get involved with that."

Mirek
pointed to a shop across the way. A tree protruded from the top of the
building, spreading its snow-covered canopy over the roof like a parasol.
"Several drak merchants are set up in that building. Clothes, tools,
handicrafts, that sort of thing. The Howling Siren Alehouse is right next door.
That's where we'll be."

"I know
we're supposed to keep our eyes on you the whole time, but we'll just be in the
way in those shops." Dusan knelt down as he spoke to the drak twins.
"When you're finished, come join us for an ale, and we'll head back to the
palace. You should be able to get anything you want in there. If not, we'll
take you somewhere else, all right?"

"Sounds
good to me." Kale grinned. If having an escort meant people left them
alone, while the guards sat in a tavern and he and his sister shopped for the
items they needed, he could live with it.

Delilah
seemed pleased, too. "Fine, fine. Just don't drink all the ale before we
get back!"

The shops
were arranged around a central parlor. Benches and chairs encircled the tree
trunk, and several humans mingled with the draks. Delilah's eyes lit up, and
she made a beeline for a corner shop selling jewelry. Kale followed her until
he saw a haberdasher.

Hats, hoods,
snoods, and bonnets of various fabrics and spanning the gamut of adornment from
plain to gaudy, the shop had it all. Kale looked around in wonder.

"Hats
for draks?" A drak with midnight-blue scales appeared from behind a rack,
a wide-brimmed hat sitting on his head at a rakish tilt. He winked at Kale.
"We don't need all the fancy pants and frocks and brass-buttoned coats and
smocks the humans do, but a fine covering for your noggin"—he rapped his
knuckles on Kale's head—"is what we sell for a bargain!"

Kale's mouth
dropped open as the dark drak danced around him and grinned. He slapped his
hands together and bowed, the feather stuck in his hat band dipped forward to
tickle Kale's nose. "So, what'll it be?"