Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) (35 page)

Three more walls sprang up around her to form a confining
box of stone, the top of the walls rising out of reach. Tyrissa found her feet
once again and jumped, kicking off one wall to grasp the rim of the opposite. She
hung on and noticed that this wall’s growth began to lag behind the other
three. Currents of air surged across her skin as she absorbed and transmuted
the earth magicks fueling her would-be stone prison. The rim of the wall began
to crumble beneath her grip and her feet struggled for purchase against the
smooth stone. She was now many feet above the ground, the bottom of the shaft
shrouded in shadow.

She flirted with the idea of yielding. Eidar
outclassed her, that much was clear, and she had no idea what to do with all
this air coiling around her limps. She pushed the air magick out below her feet,
creating a focused gale that carried her upwards and launched her over the rim
of the growing stone column.

For a split second, she hung high above the
dueling circle, feather-light and buoyed by currents of wind that obeyed only
her whim. Far below, Eidar took a few steps backward, mouth agape and head
tracking her through the air. Settan walked along the edge of the dueling
circle, still officiating the duel. Both of their movements appeared to be slowed
by a fraction of a second, just long enough to allow an extra thought.

The moment of weightlessness ended and Tyrissa
tumbled back to the earth. With a shriek she tried pushing the air towards the
ground in a panicked attempt to put anything, even incorporeal magick, between
her and the waiting stone of the plateau. The air rushing around her
intensified and she slowed to a stop a foot above the ground, then fell the
rest of the way. Tyrissa managed to turn aside and take the kiss of the earth
in her shoulder. She lay still on her side, trying to calm her pounding heart.
Flying was overrated and terrifying.

“Down,” Settan bellowed out across the plateau,
calling the duel over. Tyrissa sighed in relief and mild disappointment. A fair
amount of air magick still clung to her skin, pleading to be used. She held on
to them for the moment, examining the sensation. Even while lying on the ground
she felt as if she were half her usual weight. She waved a hand in front of her
face. Odd. Her own motions didn’t seem slowed at all.

“Eidar! Stand down!”

Tyrissa snapped her head up to see Eidar stalking
toward her, his steps still moving at a slightly slowed tempo and his face
fixed in a deadly scowl. Tyrissa sat up and released another wild blast of air
that connected with the Shaper and sent him stumbling to one side. The loss of
balance was only temporary. He caught himself with one hand and a narrow pillar
of stone rose from his touch to set him back upright. Eidar tore away the top
of the pillar, Shaped it into a short spear, and resumed his charge.

All of this happened at a slowed pace. Tyrissa
was able to get back on her feet and assume a sideways stance, ready for the attack.
Her leashed air magicks were diminished, but she figured she had enough for one
last gust. Settan began to sprint over towards them, yelling once more for
Eidar to stop, but he would be too late to intervene. Bad memories of another
charging opponent and another spear flickered in the back of her mind, nearly
distracting her.

Get it right this time.

Just as Eidar came into striking distance with
his spear Tyrissa unleashed the rest of the leashed air magick in a wide blast
that unbalanced his attack. She dodged aside the spear’s jagged point and
stepped in close. The faint sense of being one moment ahead faded right as she
grabbed the spear and tried to wrench it away, but Eidar’s grip held. In an
instant they each had both hands on the stone weapon, though Eidar’s face
softened (such as it could) and the intensity waned from the fight. They
exchanged a mutual glare over the clenched knuckles of their hands, neither
wishing to be the first to let go.

Eidar tilted his head to one side as if studying
a new sight. Tyrissa felt another small surge of earth magicks transmuting into
air as short spines sprouted along the spear and stabbed into her palms. Her
grip became slick with blood, but she clenched her jaw and refused to yield.

“What are you?” Eidar whispered, his voice tinged
with fear.

Tyrissa defiantly held his gaze and funneled the
air magicks into the spear. First the spines disappeared, followed by the spear
itself disintegrating under her grip. Eidar stepped away from her and let the
spear’s three pieces fall to the ground. Tyrissa opened her hands and let two
fistfuls of bloody dust drift away on the riftwinds.

“I wish I knew,” she said, flexing her hands. The
bleeding had stopped and an echo of the initial pain flashed up her arms as the
wounds began to close.

Settan now stood between them, though he said
nothing, seeing that the situation had calmed down.

Eidar kept his gaze on Tyrissa, watching for
another surprise, and said, “Settan, the Circle must know of this… woman.”

“If I agree to appear before the Circle, will you
let me do the telling?” Settan offered with a grimace.

That gave the younger man pause. “Y-Yes. Of
course. But we need to talk again before you do. The situation is more
complicated than a close election.”

“Meet me at the
Miner’s Pick
in Under
Forge tomorrow, noon. We’ll speak at length. I will explain. Now leave.”

Eidar regarded her once more with eyes that
smoldered like clouds of volcanic ash. He returned to the Rift wall and placed both
hands upon the rock. Handholds emerged and began to ascend, carrying the
younger Shaper with them.

“Forgive Eidar,” Settan said as Eidar became a
rapidly ascending blur above them. “He’s like all youth. Impulsive.
Reactionary.”

“I can relate.”

“I think that is more than enough training for
today.”

“Definitely much more intense,” Tyrissa said.
And
many times more valuable, in its own way.

“Take some time to recover. We’ll head back up.
I’ll run slower through the tunnels this time. But only this time.”

The interior of Kexal and Garth’s ‘hide-out’ sounded
empty but Tyrissa knocked anyway while burning away the small core of earthen
magick built up from walking through the streets of Under Bridge. With her
service to the Cadre ended she had too much time on her hands. She hungered for
updates on the search for Vralin and any chance to further contribute.

Wolef answered the door. Not what she expected,
but a welcome opportunity.

“Tyrissa. Good morning.”

“Are they already out?” He stepped aside and let
her into the completely dark house, the high windows letting in none of the weak
light from the street. Wolef glided through the darkened room and sparked
alight one of the elchemical lanterns atop the table.

“Apologies for the darkness in here,” he said,
though he narrowed the slots on the lantern to only let out a very dim level of
light. Tyrissa took a seat at the table, now that she could see. “Kexal and
Garth got an early start today. They’re following up on leads on who’s
supplying Vralin with elchemical materials. I believe Kexal called it ‘bonus
work’, since it has only tangential value to our goal.”

“How goes your search in the depths?”

“It is still a challenge. Vralin has experience
with Shades and knows how to make my life difficult. The actual exchange of
materials for product is well-lit and well-guarded. I can’t slip past them
before the exchange is over and Vralin has disappeared into the tunnels. While
I’m not blind in the darkness, the numerous forking tunnels are very similar and
make it hard to explore. All the same, I’ve narrowed down the area where he
might be and his little Fireweaver pet has moved on. I assume I have you to
thank for that?”

“Yeah,” she answered quietly.

“Excellent. What did you do?”

“I… She’ll no longer be a problem,” Tyrissa said.
She was no closer to understanding what she did to save Ash, and thinking about
it only led in circles.

“Since I have you here… are you willing to help
me with an experiment?” Tyrissa asked, wanted to change the subject.

“Of what sort?”

“I’m trying to expand my experience with
different elements.” Her sessions with Settan were going well, the usage of earth
magick becoming easier every day, and any interaction with elemental magick was
a useful learning experience. The fight with Eidar had been
most
enlightening.

“Prudent,” Wolef said.

“Can you, say, project shadows? Like an attack or
some other external influence?” Throughout the entire night they watched and
tailed those Thieves, Tyrissa felt no absorption of Wolef’s shadow magicks,
only the alluring sensation of their presence.

“No, unfortunately. That is a skill for the Nightstitchers,
a different sort of the Shadefather’s blessed soldiers.” That was the first
time she heard Wolef refer to the ‘Shadefather’, but she assumed it was a
personification of Elemental Shadow, the equivalent of that vast, burning
presence behind Ash’s Pact.

“Have any ideas on what you might be able to do
with me?”

Wolef thought on this, quiet as he lifted an arm
and pushed out and checked one of his filtering rods. It was white and faintly
luminous. He nodded in approval before sliding it back in. Tyrissa felt her
skin crawl, though she’d seen it done a few times now. Every Pactbound she’d
seen so far had some kind of physical change, or integration of a filter
against the magick that flowed through them. She still felt no adverse effects
of her Pact and no dependency. If anything, she’d never felt healthier. She was
different, and doubly so.

“I think I know of a way. It is possible to shadow
Slide with a passenger, though it is taxing on the Shade. We can try that.”

“Let’s do it,” Tyrissa said, standing. Perhaps
physical contact was required for absorbing shadow magick. Or maybe it was a
result of Wolef’s sort of magick being wholly internal.

“All right. What do you expect will happen?” Wolef
reduced the lantern’s openings to an even smaller sliver of light.

“Shadow into Light,” Tyrissa said. “You should
only do a flicker, keep it weak. You won’t have any problems, right?” The
elemental wheel came to mind, Light and Shadow at the zenith and nadir in
opposition. She kept the secondary goal and its resultant visions unsaid.

“No. I should be fine. Only a flicker.” The Shade
moved close to her. “Hold out your forearms, like this,” Wolef said, turning
his palms upward, elbows pressed to his sides. Tyrissa did so, and he stepped
in close, placing his arms atop hers, grasping tight below the elbow. Tyrissa
did the same, feeling the corded muscle under his smooth skin, the heat of his
body. Her heartbeat quickened. Out of anticipation, of course.

“I can already sense an oddness in the shadows
around you,” Wolef said, “An unfamiliarity, as if I were still in training. A
few warnings. If we manage to Slide
it will only be a short distance. It
will be… disorienting, like you’re made of nothing but smoke and thought. Try
not to panic.”

“Right.”

“Oh, and your clothes won’t come with you, being
of normal fabrics.”

“I can think of worse things,” she said quietly
while thanking the Ten that the room was dark enough to hide the fierce blush
crossing her face.

Wolef cleared his throat.

“Indeed. Let’s try it. The Sliding, that is.”

Wolef’s form blurred and became a tenuous
outline, a living shadow. She could feel his grip on her arms, the one part of
him that was still solid. Wisps of shadow began to crawl along her skin, coils
that tried to pull her towards him, a creeping growth of weightlessness beneath
a film of darkness. The sensation inched up to her shoulders but then suddenly
stopped as her skin flushed with pinpricks of heat. It was draining into
her
now, worming down into her core and changing into a feeling of purity.

Now her heart raced for another reason. It was
incredible, a powerful, pleasurable warmth, a pure white glow from within.
Tyrissa knew it was unadulterated elemental Light, as if the sun itself shone
from her heart. She closed her eyes and savored it, entirely willing to drift
away on its currents forever.

“Ty,” Wolef said, “Release me.”

The pain in his voice brought her back and she
realized that she held Wolef in a vice grip. She opened her eyes and saw that
he was solid again, face illuminated by a brilliant white glow. Her glow. He
was terrified, and turned away from her gaze. Tyrissa let him go and he
stumbled back, retreating from her as far as possible. She looked down at her
hands. The light seeped from her skin, and dripped from her fingertips like viscous,
luminous sweat to pool at her feet. No, not like sweat. Blood.

Tyrissa bled light and it was ecstasy.

She recognized this fullness of power now and she
was unafraid. She felt the same after the firekin attacked the caravan, and
again after chasing Vralin to the mills. A vast supply of magick, of untapped
potential. Trigged by… what? This wasn’t simple exposure and proportional
response to whatever amount of magick Wolef had used. This was like a dam
breaking, a flood from the first significant experience with an elemental pair.

Wolef was whispering in his native tongue. It sounded
like either a prayer or a curse. Perhaps both. She looked over at him. His eyes
were shut tight and he had one arm raised to block the overpowering light, the
shadow across his face feeble and useless.

Tyrissa went to her knees, mentally and
physically numb from the unreal pleasure of the magick within her. Concentrating,
she willed the Light to obey her. It was utterly dissimilar from Earth and all
of her practice with Settan was useless here. She tried to stop it bleeding
out, to shape it into something, anything. It didn’t obey, continuing to drain
out of her and turn the floor into an expanding pane of white brilliance that
somehow wasn’t blinding. All this light and yet she fumbled in the darkness,
ignorant.

Am I hurting him? Why can’t I control it?

She had to stop. Reaching down deep within to the
center of the light, the center of her being, Tyrissa seized the core of the
light, that burning white star. She rejected it, pushed it
out.
A
single, all-consuming flash of radiance erupted around her, a momentary nova of
life.

Tyrissa collapsed as that crushing fatigue returned
for a third time. She felt her cheek hit the wooden floorboards and a blissful,
welcomed darkness washed over her.

She ran on invisible legs and a forest blurred
around her. Tyrissa thought it a normal dream at first, just another dream of
the Morgwood, of memories, of home. Soon the clarity of it all confirmed her
success of blending one experiment directly into another. Any sense of
familiarity vanished as she saw that the trees were too broad and too gnarled,
their branches hung with strands of coiled moss that reached to the lush forest
floor. Dense mists obscured distant trees and a sheen of moisture clung to
every surface.

Tyrissa followed alongside a tall woman clad all
in black save for the bright silver emblems pinned to her shoulders. She needed
only a glance to see the winged shield proclaiming this woman as her third counterpart.
The symbol was expected and quite familiar to Tyrissa by now, no longer a
mysterious comfort but not yet a piece of her identity. Not quite yet. The
woman’s face was resolute but unhurried as she weaved through the forest, an
ornately shaped bow held in one hand.

She followed a trivial trail of withered foliage,
a line through the forest that looked long-dead. Her every footfall caused
dying plants to spring back to life and her free hand placed a curative touch
upon any passing scarred tree. Color blossomed in her wake as she spun death
into life with an effortless mastery. Her quarry ran not far ahead, visible in
fleeting glimpses through the dense terrain and leaving a trail of death. At
times her free hand would snap up to the quiver across her back and caress an
arrow, but patience won out.

Her opportunity arrived soon enough as the forest
thinned into a low-lying meadow crisscrossed by fallen, blackened tree trunks.
Her hand whipped back and drew out an arrow. A pulse of silver light burst from
her fingertips and ran up the shaft, focusing at the tip into a beacon of
purity. She drew and held the shot, shouting at her quarry in a language that
Tyrissa could almost understand, a dialect just beyond her grasp.

The prey was a pale man in ragged clothes. He
stopped, seeing that he had nowhere to run, the meadow too clear of cover. A
growing skirt of dying grasses spread from his feet as he turned to face his
killer. He was as frayed as his clothing, skeletal in figure with countless
bone charms pierced through his arms and face. Any sinister appearance was held
well in check by the fear in his eyes. A Death Pactbound that feared his own
death, but embraced it all the same.

The Huntress said another string of barely
foreign words, a question or demand judging from the cadence. He shook head in
response. A feral grin appeared on the Huntress’s face as she loosed her shot.
The arrow flew true, piercing his heart with a flash of silver light and a
spray of crimson blood.

Tyrissa awoke, once again staring up at the bare
ceiling beams of Kexal and Garth’s house. The image of her counterpart’s face
relishing the joy of a kill was stuck in her mind. She shuddered, knowing that
she had avoided thinking about that aspect of her Pact. So much power focused
on inverting and countering elemental energies would have to have a grim side.
Not every instance would be resolved peacefully like Ash. She would have to
kill, perhaps more often than not. And yet in the dream, she had felt the heady
thrill of the hunt and the Huntress’s exultation in the kill.

If it were me killing Vralin, would I smile?

She sat up, trying to shake the thought away and
realized she wasn’t alone.

“Tyrissa, we were in this exact position not long
ago,” Hali said, “Is this a common occurrence?”

Tyrissa looked over to see the Hithan woman watching
her with passive, intellectual interest. She hadn’t seen much of her for weeks,
but to Hali a few weeks would be an inconsequential blink.

“This should be the last time. How long have I
been asleep?” Giroon had theorized that there would be four of them, and that
was the fourth.

“It’s midafternoon,” Hali said. Only a matter of
many hours then. Tyrissa felt less ragged or groggy than the last two times
this happened, a sign of progress and familiarity with pact magick energy.
“Wolef left as soon as I got here, saying he was going back into the depths to
continue the search. And to find a ‘suitably dark place’. What did you two do?”

Tyrissa looked over to the spot where they did
their experiment. The shadows cast by the lanterns were paler than normal and
the room looked as if there was a skylight above.

“We toyed with Shadow and Light,” Tyrissa answered.
“And I may have burned him.” She saw a primal fear in his eyes, the same that
she saw in Ash and Eidar.

“Well that explains the lighting in here. Are you
well enough to do something useful with the rest of the day?”

Tyrissa answered by swinging her legs out of the
narrow bed. It was then that she noticed something different about Hali.

“Why are you dressed like that?” The Hithian wore
a flowing, layered dress built of sky blue sashes that wrapped around her in
such a way as to defy questions of how it stayed together. The bright cloth and
exotic cut made it a far sight from the simple brown robes she usually wore.

Hali rose from her chair and did a pair of half-spins
on her heels, her feet still booted in poorly matching black leather. The
sashes billowed out, dancing quickly in the air like interwoven pennants and
bestowing glimpses of flesh underneath that may only be illusions.