White Heart of Justice (19 page)

My body and my magic acted simultaneously. I flexed my arm out, punching the base of the scales with the heel of my hand. At the same time I sent a bolt of waning magic toward the feather, singeing it midair. The feather was instantly incinerated but I watched in horror as a few ashes fell into the bowl just before my shove sent the scales crashing to the floor.
Were those ashes enough to trigger the scales' magic?

After that, everything seemed to happen at once.

Copper weights scattered, drops of blood splattered, and ashes rained down over it all. It was the magic of the scales, I knew, but it was still a sight to behold when the blood, metal, and ashes started to multiply and magnify before our eyes. Outside, Telesto and Brisaya started howling. I'd never heard barghests howl before and the sound of it sent shivers racing up my spine. At the same time, I felt something I knew I'd feel on this trip—I'd just hoped it would be later—
rogare
demons.

Chapter 17

I
nside, things looked as desperate as they sounded outside. The smashed bits of copper from the Sanguine Scales, Rafe's silver bracelet and blood, and the ashes from the incinerated hawk's feather each expanded like a balloon and then combined into one big magic meld, which grew still more and then morphed into a colossal metal monster right before our eyes. I'd been afraid the magic of the scales would work immediately. That Rafe would instantly be turned into one of the
mortem animae
by the unnatural perennial magic curse contained within the Sanguine Scales. But either the scales didn't work like that or I'd severely messed things up by shoving the scales onto the floor and smashing them. I might have saved Rafe's life, but it appeared as if my pardon would grant him (and anyone standing near him) minutes only.

The
monstrum metallum
(I could think of no better term for such an unnatural alloy of magic and metal) crouched before us. Its bulk was so big that it couldn't stand upright in the bailey gaol. Instead of a face, it had a copper helm with a hawkish beak; instead of skin, it had copper armor streaked with silver. In its hand was a sword that looked vaguely like the one Justica had held in the statue I'd destroyed last semester, but this sword was longer than my leg and thicker than Rafe's chest. The
monstrum
let out a mighty battle cry, sounding like the North-South Express screeching to a violent and unscheduled stop. Its shrill squealing sent the barghests into a frenzy. A moment later, Telesto and Brisaya burst through the door.

Telesto wasted no time in engaging the
monstrum
head-on. The impact of their collision sent a piece of its shoulder flying off. I ducked to avoid decapitation and fired up a war hammer. Instantly, the arrow tip in my chest pulsed and then steadied into a searing ache. Rafe murmured a series of rapidly spoken spells under his breath and I felt a few slip in place. Likely Impenetrable (for me), Damage Cascade (for my magic in general), and possibly Amplify (for my war hammer in particular). Taking only enough time to ensure that my hammer would hit the
monstrum
's head and not Telesto's, I threw it with as much force and speed as I could muster. I watched as it sailed through the air, flipping end over end, its fire flickering and spitting until it made contact—dead center—right between the
monstrum
's eyes. The war hammer exploded in a shower of fiery red sparks just as two blue bolts of Angel light pierced the
monstrum
's helm.

Telesto retreated and the
monstrum
staggered back, shaking its massive head, the grating, scraping sound of it giving me brief hope that our magic missiles might have knocked head from body . . . but no. An instant later the
monstrum
regained its balance and raised itself to full height, smashing a hole right through the bailey gaol's ceiling with the back of its armored head, neck, and shoulders. It ground out another wrenching shriek while pivoting its upper body, swinging its metal fists, and battering huge swaths of the building.

Blocks of stone and sand descended upon us as ice-laced wind blew through the newly created hole in the ceiling. It lashed my cheeks and stung my eyes, temporarily blinding me. I threw up a waning magic shield and raised my arm to cover my face. By the time I lowered it, the hearth fire had spread to the shelves of tattered books, shredded paper, and dust. Needless to say, the ancient tinder ignited so quickly we barely had time to leap back from the billowing flames.

“Is your magic having any effect?” I yelled to Rafe. He was covered in soot and ash. He shook his head, never taking his eyes off the
monstrum metallum
, which seemed to be gaining sentience and mobility at an alarming rate.

The screeching, banging, and clanking sounds that had been emanating from it lessened, but somehow that only made it more frightening. The
monstrum
's gaze locked on Rafe and I knew that somehow the magic of the scales had retained its original purpose. Worse though, was that our magic didn't seem capable of denting or destroying it. Worse
still
was the fact that the
rogare
signatures I'd sensed earlier were zeroing in on us.

“Outside!” I screamed. Together, by throwing untold amounts of waning magic and bolts of Angel light at it, we managed to avoid immediate pulverization, barely escaping from the bailey gaol.

Once outside, the blizzard's full effects hit us immediately. The wind now felt as if it were spiked with shaved bits of metal. Each and every one of them seemed to take aim at my face. I raised my hand to my forehead, to try to gain some cover for my eyes. Telesto and Brisaya circled us, snarling, clearly unsure of which direction the next threat might come from, only sensing that it would. Before I could form any more of a plan beyond
run
, the
monstrum metallum
rose up out of the now demolished bailey gaol and stepped toward us. There was no time to dig out the sledge or load up the supplies. We grabbed our packs and ran for the first available cover, a small outcropping of rocks about seventy yards from the bailey gaol. The
monstrum
may have been sentient, but it wasn't very smart, and we easily lost it in the near-whiteout conditions. We huddled together behind the rocks, too afraid to light our weapons for fear of being seen.

If we didn't find shelter soon, the cold would kill us as surely as that blasted metal beast. I
already
felt as if I were freezing to death. My cloak, hat, and mittens were buried under the now destroyed bailey gaol. I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth and allowed my waning magic to settle around me like a blanket, but my efforts to keep it controlled but unlit made the arrow tip in my chest feel like a hot coal embedded in my heart. I didn't know which would be worse . . . freezing to death from the outside or being burned alive from the inside.

The approaching waning magic signatures were unfamiliar to me, but Rafe had already risked a glance around the rocks to see what other, possibly greater dangers were coming.

“Winged ice basilisks,” he shouted. “A whole swarm of them.”

They appeared to be following the Old Trail, which seemed odd.
Why would winged demons follow an old road?

I turned to Rafe, so that we could attempt to form some sort of coordinated battle strategy. We'd been in fights like this before—facing impending doom from one threat while awaiting attack by a pack of
rogare
demons hoping to take advantage of our weakened position. Unfortunately, I remembered all too clearly exactly how our last big
rogare
battle had ended.

I tried to remember the geography around Corterra.

Wasn't Briery Vale near here? Maybe we could lure the
monstrum metallum
toward it and somehow maneuver it over the cliff wall?

Before I could share my plan with Rafe though, he told me his.

“You need to make a run for it. No!—better yet,
ride
. Telesto is less likely to try to buck you off and he's stronger. Climb up on his back, use your magic to control him, and GO!” He roared that last bit and then tried to push me away from him.

As if! Last year I might have listened—maybe—but this year, uh-uh. No way.

I just laughed, although there was no real humor in it.

“It wants me, Noon,” Rafe said, attempting to reason with me. He leaned close to my ear, his tone low and urgent. “Not you. I'm sorry. I never meant for
this
”—he swept his arm toward the
monstrum
, who had finally figured out that following our footprints in the snow was its best chance of catching us—“to happen. I didn't think the magic of the scales would work this way.”

I grunted my agreement. “I don't think that metal monster was what Metatron had in mind when he ensorcelled the scales,” I said. “I think
I
brought it to life when I knocked the scales over.”

We only had a half second or so before we were hopelessly trapped between the
monstrum
and the basilisk swarm and I wanted to make sure Rafe didn't do anything wildly stupid when my back was turned.

The
monstrum
was only a few steps from the outcropping.

“You're more honorable than anyone I know,” I said, placing my hands on Rafe's shoulders.

It was true. I thought of all the times last semester that Rafe had acted selflessly. And I recalled the much more recent revelation that, even as a six-year-old, Rafe had tried to save his demon half brother from their Angel mother's murderous intent. That fact alone proved Rafe's heart was beyond reproach. But I also knew it would take more than a simple sentence to convince him. For starters, it would take telling him the truth about what really happened to Bhereg, but doing so properly would take more time than we had and would certainly require a far less dangerous setting. So I settled on reminding him of his Guardian's oath.

“I'm holding you to your oath, Raphael Sinclair,” I shouted into the wind. “I don't care how guilty you feel about what you confessed to earlier. If you ever try to invoke the judgment of a divination tool again, I will declare you an oath breaker. And if you try to shirk your duties toward me by surrendering yourself to that metal monster,
I will declare you an oath breaker
. Understood?”

His only answer was to throw his arms around me and shove me to the ground. I might have made the mistake of thinking it was romantic roughhousing but for the fact that shortly thereafter I heard a grinding shriek of metal, the explosive sound of rocks being smashed into dust, and the light patter of small bits of crushed stone raining down on Rafe's back. The
monstrum
had found the outcropping we'd been hiding behind and was doing its best to destroy it. Immediately, I wriggled out from under Rafe, making a mental note to tell him later that I only expected him to shield me with his spells, not his body, and fired up another war hammer. This time, the pain in my chest was nearly as bad as when I'd first felt the arrow pierce my chest. My war hammer flickered and dimmed. Since my previously thrown hammer had had little effect on the
monstrum
, I doubted this weaker weapon would work any better. Which meant, if I didn't come up with a plan soon, Rafe would be in bloodier pieces than the
monstrum
.

Briery Vale was out. It was too far. We'd never be able to outrun both the
monstrum
and the basilisk swarm. In fact, the basilisk swarm was actually the worse threat because those demons were smart, there were tons more of them, and they wanted to kill all of us, not just one of us.

A feeling of hopelessness descended on me as if it were more debris from the
monstrum
's unstoppable metal sword and fist. A memory suddenly came to me. One I remembered I wanted to save for times just like this. Dark times. Hopeless times. It was a single moving image in my mind: my mother, standing amongst the pristine beauty of Demeter's winter spring, stripping the white blossoms off a pear branch into her palm, and then blowing them onto the pond's glassy surface. And then a new plan came to me. One that probably wouldn't work, but was worth a chance because doing
something
was better than doing
nothing
.

I grabbed Rafe's hand and together we ran from behind the outcropping. “The white feather,” I screamed. My lungs burned from running, my throat from yelling, my chest from the red-hot arrow tip. “We need to find the white dove's feather from the scale.”

Rafe stopped abruptly in the middle of the Old Trail and, because I was still holding his hand, reverse momentum sent me crashing back into him. He held me upright. The look in his eyes told me he thought I was absolutely insane, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

“A feather?” he said, laughing. “Amidst all that?” He gestured to the pile of ruined debris that had once been Corterra's bailey gaol. “Only you, Onyx.
Only you
,” he repeated, shaking his head.

“Come on!” I yelled. At least he hadn't actually said
needle in a haystack
.

After that everything happened so fast, I couldn't help but think that Luck was on our side. Sure, during those first few seconds while we were searching for the feather, it felt as if death would surely be the only outcome. So, in a way, each of those seconds felt like an hour. But luckily, I spotted the feather almost immediately in a pile of dust and rubble. It didn't look very white anymore; it was more of a dove gray. But nothing, in that moment, could have looked more beautiful to me.

The
monstrum
let out another mighty screech and raised its sword high in the sky above us. In the next moment, it would come down on our heads and I didn't think even the spell Impenetrable could save us then. But this feather might.

I knew, based on my own past experience, as well as my mother's and Fara's, that small unensorcelled objects could sometimes cause the most profound effects. A match. A book. A knife. And now, hopefully, a feather. My mother had said she thought perennial magic worked like a switch.
You turn it on; you turn it off . . .