Ward Against Death (32 page)

Carlyle collapsed to his knees, his hands pressed against the wound as if he could stem the flow of his life onto the ground. He swayed and toppled over. Blood seeped across the white stone, staining it black.

Celia stood still, frozen, but Ward couldn’t tell if she was shocked or patient, waiting for the right moment to escape.

Karysa turned to her and without a word her zombie, Solartti, shambled down the steps, bringing Celia with him. As they crossed into the octagon, the obsidian flashed a bright burst of red light. The pale after-image danced across Ward’s vision. He rubbed his eyes, but the image remained, twisting and turning, making it more difficult to contain the contents of his churning stomach. The pounding in his head increased to jagged spikes shooting from temple to temple.

“Out of blood, death shall be reborn.” Karysa knelt, ran her hand through the growing pool of Carlyle’s blood, and lifted it, palm up, toward Celia. “You will be like the Dark Son, reaping life. Unstoppable.”

“You’ll be the first I kill,” Celia said.

Karysa laughed and stood. She ran a finger along Celia’s cheek, leaving a dark streak. “I’m sure you’ll try, but you’ll soon discover that I am the master and you the servant. Like your predecessor, you’ll be a plague upon this world.”

Celia twisted in Solartti’s grasp and tried to pry his fingers loose with her free hand. He shoved her to her knees, drawing a yelp. Karysa grasped Celia’s chin with her bloody hand.

“Drink of the Nectar of Veknormai and seize your destiny.”

Ward gripped the edge of the top step then shrunk back. He hadn’t realized how far he’d crept forward. And yet something needed to be done. He couldn’t allow Karysa to turn Celia into the shadow walker. He couldn’t allow it to happen to anyone, ever. The flower still pulsed a luminescent blue, and a pool of the translucent liquid had formed at its heart. It reflected the blue glowing from the petals and shimmered with the flickering lantern light.

“Come and drink.” Karysa ran a hand through Celia’s hair. “Be perfect. Immortal.”

Ward’s heart pounded, every nerve burned with withdrawal, while his mind screamed,
Now. Do something, now!

“You’ll have to kill me first,” Celia said.

Karysa turned to the flower and ran her bloody hands over the ivy. “My dear, I already have.” She ripped off a leaf the size of her palm and dipped it into the liquid.

Now. Go now.

Ward scrambled to his feet. A wave of heat washed over him, and his vision wavered. His crusted sleeve pulled painfully at his broken stitches. Blood. He had blood, caked on his arm and cheek. He could try a spell. Like a reverse wake, but he hadn’t been able to cast it the last time he’d tried.

Solartti clamped a hand on Celia’s jaw and forced her mouth open. She squirmed and clawed but couldn’t break free. Karysa turned back to Celia, the leaf cupped in her hands.

No. He had to try something.

Ward leapt down the first step. His knees buckled and he staggered down the next one. His muscles were on fire. He forced the pain from his mind and sucked into a steadyinto a sing breath. He needed to concentrate if he was going to cast anything.

He ran down the last step, imagining magic pulled from the storm above and the graves below gathering around his hands. If this was his last act, he would face it like a hero.

Everyone before him froze, all eyes turned to him in a gruesome frieze. Karysa with the dripping leaf in her hands, and Solartti clutching Celia’s face with gray, meaty fingers.

Lightning flashed. Ward imagined his hands glowing with power. He could almost see it, a building inferno, ready to burst apart like the Heart of Veknormai and reveal its true strength.

Karysa’s eyes widened. She looked... afraid.

But that was just his imagination, too. The most terrifying Innecroestri in all the Union wouldn’t fear him. Some things just never happened. He was a nobody necromancer who could barely cast spells.

The imagined light within him extinguished, the power torn apart like clouds in a strong wind. His muscles trembled and cold sweat slicked his body. The cuca had finally worn off.

Karysa’s lips curled back in a sneer, and she turned away from him, dismissing him like everyone else had.

He was a failure as a necromancer.

She raised her cupped hands above her head. “Drink and seize your destiny.”

A drop of the nectar splattered against Celia’s cheek.

Except, he didn’t want to be a necromancer. He wanted to be a doctor and Karysa was trying to kill his patient.

He grabbed the pole beside him and swung at Karysa. “Seize this!”

The lantern burst against her chest, spraying oil and flame. She stumbled back against the pedestal. Fire raced through the summer-dried ivy, climbing up the pedestal towapedestalrd the Heart of Veknormai. She glared at Ward. The flames danced around her legs and the light gleamed in her eyes and on the rings of Habil hanging in her ear. Without a word she pointed a bloody finger and cold raced through him.

He gasped. His flesh grew too heavy for his soul, but he couldn’t separate from it. He wouldn’t. If he left, fleeing to the eternal embrace of the Goddess, then Karysa would win. He had to guarantee the Nectar of Veknormai was destroyed.

Cold wracked him, sending violent shivers through his body, and he fell to his hands and knees. The marble beneath him was hot and smooth and solid. He had to hold on. Had to do something. The cold kept pushing him away from himself. Away from Celia.

Celia. Celia could stop this, and he had the means for her to do it.

Some days he really hated Seers.

Another shiver shook him. He pressed his forehead to the marble. Just a moment. It was all he needed. One little action and Celia could end it.

He reached for the dagger at the small of his back. The cold numbed his fingers and he couldn’t make them work. His body screamed for him to lie down and die. Darkness threatened to consume him.

Just one last little thing. That was all. He curled his fingers around the hilt, his flesh numb, his spirit farther and farther from his body. He yanked the dagger from its sheath. In a final burst of strength, he threw it along the ground to where he’d last seen Celia.

Another shiver raced over him and he collapsed. He had done all he could, and some things he hadn’t thought possible, and yet the cold and pain and nausea remained. Surely the Goddess would consider his Oath to Celia fulfilled. There was nothing left for him to sacrifice. Not even his life.

The Goddess didn’t come to collect.

Instead, his heart pumped hot blood through his veins, burning away the cold.

A breeze brushed through his hair at his temple. His ribs hurt. Both arms hurt. In fact, all of him hurt. But the cold was gone.

“Ward.” The breeze brushed through his hair again. “Ward.”

No. It wasn’t a breeze. It was someone’s fingers.

He opened his eyes. Celia leaned over him, her face framed by wisps of dark curls. Beyond, Solartti lay in a heap, the puppet with his strings cut. A few feet away, Karysa slumped against the pedestal, the Seer’s dagger protruding from her right eye. Flames licked at her body, scorching her skin. The blue petals of the Heart of Veknormai curled, sending thick smoke into the night sky. Then the flower ignited and a part of the Ancients’ mystery was gone forever.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Afterward, he’d tried to sleep, but couldn’t, so he’d sat by the window and watched the sky lighten, ignoring the pain in his body and trying not to think. Except he couldn’t stop seeing the look on Karysa’s face when he’d imagined all that magic gathering around him. She really had seemed afraid, just for a moment, before the cuca finally wore off.

Or had it been before he doubted himself?

He pricked his finger, drew a drop of blood, and tried drawing magical energy from the things around him, but nothing happened. The image he’d seen last night, the starburst waiting to explode, didn’t reappear, proving he still wasn’t much of a necromancer. At least he’d proven that when someone needed him—really needed him—he could be counted on, regardless of the danger. And that, he decided, counted for a lot.

A knock on the door broke his reverie. Before he could respond, the hinges squeaked. He jumped, reaching for the dagger on his belt that wasn’t there.

Celia stood in the doorway. “Can’t sleep?”

He shook his head.

“Neither could I.” She stepped into the room, closed the door, and leaned against it with her arms crossed and head back.

A seagull cried and Ward turned away, gazing out the window. The bird was a dark speck against the golden sunrise, gliding on the wind. Another joined it, flying alongside it for a moment before it swooped down, out of sight, and the first seagull was once again alone.

“So,” she said.

“So.”

It was all over. He was still alive. She was still dead.

And Brawenal was yet another principality he’d have to leave.

The seagull dipped out of sight and his gaze fell to his hands. He supposed there were worse things that could have happened.

“Ward...”

He fought the urge to look at her. He knew what she wanted to ask and he had no answers for her. He’d thought about her death and his spell many times before and nothing had changed. It astounded him the Jam de’U had lasted as long as it had. Maybe it had something to do with the herbs her father had given her. He wished they could, if only for a little while, pretend he wasn’t who he was and she wasn’t who she was.

“Ward...”

Her footsteps drew closer, but he still refused to look at her. If he did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to answer her question. He couldn’t face her and remind her, or himself for that matter, of how little time she had left.

She stopped so close he could feel the heat radiating from her body. To all of his senses—except his common one, which apparently had left him a long time ago—she seemed alive. Her soul was alive and she wasn’t the walking dead like Solartti had been. Maybe his Jam de’U had brought her back for a time. She didn’t fit the definition of dead, and yet she had died. Maybe he’d done a variation on the Innecroestris’ false resurrection, one that didn’t require her to drink blood. He wished he knew what he’d done to her.

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“Thank you.”

He jerked his gaze up. That wasn’t what he’d expected. She stared out the window, a narrow line formed between her brows, her lips pursed. He tried to think of something to say, something significant, meaningful, but nothing seemed right.

“What will you do now?” she asked.

The image of the Master of the Assassins’ Guild cloaked in a Seer’s yellow mantle flashed through his mind’s eye. There was only one thing he could do.

“I think I’ll travel.”

“Where?” She continued to stare at the bay.

“Gyja... maybe.”

“The Divine City?”

He nodded. “There’s a monastery there for the Brothers of Light.”

“You’re going to be a monk?”

“Not if you come with me.” Maybe the Brothers of Light would be able to say what Celia was, since he couldn’t say she was dead anymore.

She turned her icy gaze back to him, but it wasn’t cold. He’d never thought eyes so pale could project such warmth. He certainly never thought Celia would look at him like that, with kindness, fondness, even affection. Maybe there was more than friendship between them. His heart skipped a beat at the possibility.

“Come with me,” he repeated.

“But I’m dead.”

Maybe. Maybe not. And in truth, it didn’t really matter anymore. He knew how he felt about her. “And I could be run over by a carriage tomorrow.” It was more likely the Master would decidr would e to kill him, but that didn’t really matter either. “Come with me. Whatever time you or I have left... spend it with me.”

“What if—”

“We’ll worry about the what-ifs tomorrow.”

A slight smile brightened her eyes, and Ward was reminded of her wild expression in the records room, then she nodded.

“Together.”