The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe (44 page)

She hurried a little quicker and called out, “It’s me, Des. I’ve got the majicars.”

Suddenly a dozen delats materialized out of the dust and darkness. The middle one was tall with gray hair and he carried one of the lances. He looked at Keros and Ellyn, his attention fixing almost instantly on their eyes. “What’s wrong with their eyes?”

“Says what the Jutras did to ’em turned ’em white.” Des paused and when he made no move to get out of the way, she spoke again. “Red—the princess and Weverton said we could trust them. She needs a healer. There’s no choice.”

He hesitated another long moment and then sucked his teeth and stepped back. “I hope to the black depths you can save her,” he said to Keros and Ellyn, and motioned with his head for them to follow.

They went into the courtyard of what appeared to be an inn. Or it had been. Lights illuminated the inside of what was left of it, revealing that half the building had crumbled into rubble. The other half still stood, though the exterior was dented and scarred and the second-story roof had been mostly torn away. The doors had been ripped from their hinges and then rehung drunkenly from the splintered jamb. More delats guarded the entrance, these carrying swords made of the same green material.

Keros eyed them narrowly. He’d never seen a delat carrying a belt knife before, much less weapons for battle. But these men and women held their weapons like they knew very well what to do with them. He smiled inwardly. Majicars and Pilots weren’t the only ones hiding what they truly were. But why were they guarding the tavern? Why weren’t they protecting the Maida?

Red handed his lance off to another delat and led them inside. Food was cooking in the kitchen and Keros’s mouth watered. A pile of plaster and rubble had been swept into a corner and tables had been squeezed into every leftover bit of space. Each one was crowded with people. Most were filthy and all bore cuts and other, more serious wounds. As one person finished, he was replaced by another from the line that began in a gap in the far wall. Unarmed delats circulated, serving the hungry people and tending to their wounds.

A hush fell as Ellyn and Keros entered. All around was a scrape of chairs as people lurched to their feet; some stumbled back fearfully toward the gap in the wall. Palpable tension filled the room. Majicars were no longer trusted. Keros’s jaw hardened and followed after Red.

He stopped at a door just beyond the dining room. He knocked softly and then pushed it open without waiting for an answer. He stepped aside to allow the two majicars to enter ahead of him.

Nicholas was sitting beside a heavy trestle table where Margaret lay beneath a quilt. He held one of her hands, his lips bent close against her ear. His head jerked up as Keros and Ellyn entered. His face was a bruised mess, his eyes nearly swollen shut.

“Thank the gods,” he rasped. “Hurry. I don’t think she’s got much time.”

Keros could see that. Margaret’s lights had faded to dull sparks and they barely moved. The tendrils from Nicholas had anchored firmly on her and seemed to be feeding her, which Keros hadn’t thought even possible. But even as he watched, he saw her lights near the tendrils brighten and speed up. Then he noticed something else. He cocked his head, squinting. It looked like a thin layer of golden gauze lay over her—like a shroud. “Do you see it?” he asked Ellyn.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Majick, but what kind and what it does—I don’t know.”

“What are you talking about?” Nicholas demanded. He was covered in the same gauzy gold layer. “You’ve got to hurry. She’s paralyzed and she fainted glasses ago. I haven’t been able to wake her. Help her—please!”

Keros looked at Ellyn. “You’re a better healer than I am, I think.”

She nodded, chin firm as she raised it. “I’d like some food. And something to drink,” she said to Red, and then moved forward, not waiting for the delat’s response. “Quick as you can.” He hesitated, then obeyed.

She stepped to Margaret’s side and put her hand on the prone woman’s forehead and another on her stomach. Her brow furrowed and her head sank down until her chin rested against her chest. The hand on Margaret’s chest balled into a fist. Ellyn gasped low and she pushed herself away, breathing hard like she’d been running.

Keros caught her and she leaned against him for only a moment, then straightened. She wiped the back of her arm over her forehead. “Nicholas is right. We can’t wait. She’s barely hanging on. But it’s going to require blood. And pain. And a lot of both.”

“What?” Nicholas demanded. “What are you babbling on about?”

Keros looked at Nicholas. “It’s Jutras majick. She can heal with it—I’ve experienced it myself. But it feeds on blood and pain.” He turned back to Ellyn. “I’ll give whatever you need to save her.”

“No,” Nicholas said. “Crosspointe needs majicars more than they need me. I’ll do it. Besides, you can heal me later.”

“If you survive,” Ellyn said. “You may not.”

“Then use me. And there are others as well,” said Red from the doorway.

Keros swung around. Red was holding a trencher with a thick slab of bread covered in a bean stew and three tankards of ale in the other. Behind him came another delat with two more trenchers. “You heard what we need and why? That the Jutras have infected us with their majick?” he asked, frowning at the ease of their offer of help.

“And you can save her life with it,” Red said, his gaze unflinching, his expression taut. “So we’ll do what we have to.”

“Chayos might frown on that,” Keros said.

“If she objects, she will strike us down and refuse us a place on her altar. We do not believe she will oppose us.”

“Why? Why is the princess so important to you that you’d participate in a blood majick ritual? Why aren’t you trying to kill us right now, knowing we’ve become blood majicars?”

Red’s mouth tightened into something that might have been a smile. “We believe she will be the next queen of Crosspointe. That would be enough, but we watched her stand between us and slavering, soul-destroying death with nothing but a lance. He did too.” Red pointed at Weverton. “If they’re willing to die for us, we’re willing to bleed for them. And
she
said we could trust you.”

The last was both a challenge and declaration of loyalty.
Prove yourself
, he was telling Keros
. Heal her and show us that blood majick hasn’t turned you Jutras.

Keros finally understood the guards around the tavern. They believed the future of Crosspointe was in this room and it was worth dying for; it was worth
hurting
for. He nodded, his mouth setting in a hard line. “Come in. We don’t have much time.”

“We could use the power from the city,” Ellyn murmured to him. “With so much death and destruction, there’s plenty there to be harvested.”

He was shaking his head before she finished. “No. That’s tainted with fear and suffering and betrayal. Margaret deserves better. Besides, if we must make use of Jutras majick, then let’s do it our way whenever we can. This will be clean and unpolluted. There’s also a chance that voluntary sacrifice will make a more powerful majick than forced. It is the better choice and we have willing volunteers. Now,” he said, turning to Red and the delats crowding in behind him, “who wants to be first?”

Margaret dreams.

 

No time left.

 

Margaret dreams.

 

 

Margaret dreams.

Nicholas watched Keros and Ellyn make their preparations, all the while clinging to Margaret’s hand. Her breathing was slow and uneven. Every time she let out a breath, he tensed and held himself still until she took another, sagging in momentary relief until she let it go again—then he began the terrible wait all over again.

“How long has she been unconscious?”

It took Nicholas several grains to surface from the mire of his fear to realize Keros was speaking to him. He looked up. “What? I don’t know. She woke up for a quarter of a glass after we brought her here, maybe a little longer. We talked. Then she fainted.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know how long it’s been exactly. Maybe three glasses.”

“It was twenty-two,” Red corrected.

Nicholas stared, disbelieving. Twenty-two glasses? How was that possible?

“Why did you bring her here instead of the Maida?” Keros asked Red as he stripped off his cloak. “Where are the Naladei and Kalimei? Surely they could have healed her.” He reached for a tankard of ale and drained it before forking stew and bread into his mouth. He looked gaunt. As much as Margaret was. And his eyes—they were white. He wasn’t disguising them. Neither of the majicars were.

Nicholas squinted at Keros. For a moment he could have sworn he saw a gossamer spiderweb of gold light spreading across the other man’s skin. He blinked and shook his head. He hadn’t slept since—

He didn’t even know how long it had been. His head was muzzy and he could feel Margaret slipping deeper into the shadows of endless night. Not for the first time did he wonder how he could possibly feel so much for her in so short a time. Losing her would be a mortal wound.

“The priestesses of Chayos have sealed the Maida. No one may enter until—”

“
Until . . . ?
” prompted the lean majicar.

The delat’s lined face was pained. “Until Chayos sees fit to open it up to us again.”

Keros stared.

“What does it matter?” Ellyn said impatiently. She’d drunk most of her ale and had gulped down half the bean stew and bread. “Right now we have Margaret to worry about and we have precious little time.”

She went to stand over the unconscious princess again, studying her.

“What do you want me to do?” Nicholas asked.

“Keep her from dying until I can heal her,” she said shortly. “Exactly what you’ve been doing.”

What he’d been doing? Nothing. Less than nothing. It was her own stubborn strength and determination that had kept her clinging to life. It had nothing to do with him. Still his hand tightened on hers and he went back to listening to her breathe.

Vaguely he heard the shuffle of feet and the rustle of clothing as Keros directed people where he wanted them. The smell of so many unwashed bodies in the small room was smothering. Nicholas felt someone brush up behind him and he looked up.

Ellyn stood across from him with her hands hovering over Margaret. Red had a hand on her shoulder and the delat next to him had a hand on his. And so it went around the room, the last delat gripping Ellyn’s left shoulder. Each of the volunteers had a set, determined expression. The men had removed their shirts and the women had rolled up their sleeves as far as they could; several had unlaced their collars to expose their shoulders and the swell of their breasts.

Keros stood behind Red. He held a dagger in his hand. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said to Ellyn.

She nodded, drew a deep breath, and let it out. She took another and closed her eyes. Her hands dropped, splaying across Margaret’s forehead and stomach. Nicholas’s fingers tightened and he prayed with all his soul.

“Remember,” Keros murmured to Red, “this is
supposed
to hurt. And bleed.” And with that, he began to cut.

The delat’s jaw knotted and his lips clamped tight. His fingers curled tight on Ellyn’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice. A gossamer tracery of gold light rose on her skin. Nicholas stared. He
had
seen it on Keros also. Then he could hardly think of anything because Margaret convulsed, her body jerking and flailing.

“Keep her still,” Ellyn said in a calm, detached voice. “I need her still or I might kill her.”

How?
But he didn’t waste time asking. It didn’t matter. She was
moving
. It was a sign that she would heal and he had to do all he could to help that happen. He leaned in between Ellyn’s hands and lay across Margaret. He held her head between the palms of his hands and whispered in her ear. Words spilled out and he hardly knew what he said. He told her to be still, he told her what they were trying to do, he told her she had to fight. . . . Slowly she settled, but the tension didn’t leave her body.

Ellyn was muttering beneath her breath. He couldn’t hear the words. He vaguely heard Keros repeating that the cuts were supposed to hurt and bleed again and again. Time slowed. The coppery smell of blood mixed with the stench of fear, sweat, and grimy bodies.