Lady of Stone, page 19
Thana resisted the urge to shake her, to say she could change. But Thana hadn’t exactly been willing to do the same. “Do you want a relationship with me or just a fling?” She put a hand on Sylph’s arm before she could look away. “Don’t look into the future. Tell me what your gut says.”
That got a little smile. “My abdominal organs don’t usually speak.”
“Well, summon some indigestion, and tell me what it says.”
“I have to think about the future.”
“Not right now.”
“Always.”
“Why?”
“Because!” Sylph leaped to her feet, facade cracking. “Property, peasantry, money, crops, connections, the future of a noble is always around us. If we don’t plan, people may starve, land can be lost, and laws can go unrevised. Each decision affects every other, don’t you see?” The pain in her eyes cut Thana to the quick, and she had to admit, she’d never considered most of what Sylph said.
She stood slowly. “And despite all that, when I asked you what you wanted us to be, you felt something inside here.” She tapped her own chest. “Some answer. You don’t need fancy speeches to tell me what it was.”
When Sylph breathed out, it was half sob, and Thana resisted the urge to embrace her. “The thought of being without you is like…a hole in my chest. That’s what I felt. A void. I would survive, but all that you’ve brought out in me, feelings I have never considered, would fall into the void and never be seen again. I won’t say I love you because I’m not sure what that is, but my…abdominal organs would miss you all of my days.”
Her gaze was earnest, even if some of her words were ridiculous, and Thana had to kiss her gently before she could point out their differences again. “Then I’ll make you a deal. You try harder to enjoy the time we have together now, and I’ll think about the ways in which we might have a future.” She raised a hand before Sylph could protest. “I’ll keep in mind that you will be a duchess and not a pyradisté, and I will be a pyradisté and not a noble.” She grabbed Sylph’s chin. “But I will think of something we can both be happy with.” And she wasn’t sure at all that she could keep such a promise, but she couldn’t leave it unsaid, not after demanding that Sylph bare her feelings.
Sylph had tears in her eyes, but she still smiled. “That will give us both something to do until the danger finds us again.”
Taking her hand, Thana sat. “Thank the spirits for that.” She couldn’t resist leaning in, giving Sylph the choice of how they were to enjoy their time together, even if retiring to a tent wasn’t an option.
Sylph brushed her lips softly before she opened her mouth, an invitation that Thana gladly accepted. When Sylph gasped, Thana put a hand on her back and pulled her closer, pausing only when Sylph made a sound of fear. She pulled back to see an expression of horror and had a moment to hope she wasn’t the cause.
“They’ve come,” Sylph whispered. “And they’ve brought a new pyramid.” Her face creased in pain, but it had a touch of wonder as her gaze went far away. “I’ve never felt…it’s like a hole in the world, a well of destruction.”
Only one kind of pyramid fit that bill, one that obliterated everything caught in its sphere-like blast: a disintegration pyramid. And by Sylph’s expression, they’d made it from the powerful new crystal. “Spirits help us all.”
* * *
Sylph curled her hands into fists as Thana implored her to breathe. She sensed her stone pyramid being pressed into her hand, and she was able to channel some of her desire into it, to fall there instead of into the well of darkness coming ever closer.
Thana’s voice was gone before it came back again. “Feel for a cancelation pyramid, Sylph. Get your focus off that new crystal and see what else they have.”
She tried, but she feared abandoning her link with the stone, and she could not split her focus three ways, nor could she fully ignore the crystal that yanked at her attention as forcefully as a chain. “I’m trying,” she said with a gasp.
Thana rubbed her back, kissed her cheek, murmured, “I’m with you,” over and over.
Sylph focused on her presence. The earth began to tremble while she leaned her power there and pulled some of herself away from the well of darkness. She felt the presence of many crystalline lights. They shone so brightly in her mind that it was hard to believe they didn’t also light the forest. Mostly destruction, none as powerful as the one she fought against. She sensed many she’d never encountered, thought they might be mind pyramids, and Thana needed one of those.
Pain rocketed through her temples, and her focus was wrenched from the earth. She cried out as pain arced across her palm, leaving her hand feeling empty. She opened her eyes, expecting to see her pyramid gone, but it was merely dark, its magic fled.
“They canceled it,” Thana said breathlessly. “The bastards.”
And without it, the pressure built again. They were bad people, coming to hurt her, Thana, maybe everyone. They deserved to have their disintegrator set off in their midst, ending their lives and gobbling their pyramids.
Perhaps taking this camp as well. Then it could all end.
“Don’t kill them, Sylph, there has to be a way to resist it.”
Now Thana felt merciful? Had there been a way before, at the manor house? The well of darkness was drawing her in with each breath, making her hate anyone who kept her from it.
Thana gave her another pyramid. “Here, try this light pyramid. Focus on it.” She kissed Sylph again, but it would not be enough.
Sylph snarled and gripped her dead pyramid, casting the light one aside. No, she would not bow. Her father would choose death first, and she would follow his example, but she would also spite him, tired of obeying. She would do as Thana suggested and live in the now.
And now, she would fight.
With a new cry, a sound of battle, she flung her power into the trees, searching out the pyramid that had attacked her own. She ignored the others and called to the feeling she remembered, the pyramid that felt like the lack of one. She found it quickly and began to snuff those around it, barely able to focus on destruction pyramids alone.
Someone in the woods cried out in surprise, no stealthy killers these, and she wondered what their plan had been. They couldn’t stop her in her quest to cancel all their destruction pyramids.
Then she came to the disintegrator.
It sucked her in, begging her to set it off rather than kill it, but there was more at stake than just lives. Thana needed a mind pyramid, so Sylph could not consider any future without it.
She would consider no future at all. There was only now.
The disintegrator resisted, no common crystal to be snuffed like a candle, no lesser power to be covered. It wanted her touch, craved her as she craved it, as inexorable as the tide or as her father’s orders or the queen’s whims.
She screamed. If it wanted her so badly, she’d take it. On her terms.
Her mind hammered at the dead thing in her hand, cursing it into remembering what it used to be. Her magic kept hold of the cancelation pyramid and vaguely felt the enemy pyradisté trying to use it along with her. She brushed him aside and pounced upon the special crystal, the dark well, but instead of trying to kill it, she commanded its power to be elsewhere, using the cancelation pyramid like a lever.
The power inside the disintegrator leaped from its home as if joyful to be free. All magic was really the same, she saw, raw power drawn into a pyramid that had been shaped for a specific purpose. She left the purpose of this one behind and drew the raw magic to her.
Her stone pyramid blazed back to life, all the power of the special crystal infusing it and leaving its former home naught but a shell.
“Sylph!”
She opened her eyes. People swarmed through the trees, some falling in pits, but others found their way through. Pyramids sailed through the air, but all their destructive powers had been wiped away, and they hit the ground to shatter harmlessly. Thana batted one out of the air, keeping it from crashing into Sylph.
“Enough,” Sylph said and fell into her pyramid.
And felt all the world.
Or near enough. She sensed it was a great sphere, too large to contemplate, and she could lose herself in all the textures from sand to diamond, but she pulled back to the now, guided by Thana’s cries. She opened the ground under every nearby pair of running feet, dropping them into pits of their own, and the noise of battle became cries of alarm as they all fell.
It felt so wonderful, she could see why most people embraced the training.
Thana’s look of awe was something she would never tire of, even as it seemed rather wistful at the moment. “Yes.” Thana squeezed her hand once, then pulled a pyramid from her pocket. “Now to find a mind pyramid.” She pointed at Sylph’s paragon of stone. “We’ll talk about that later.”
“All right. I’ll guard your back in the here and now.”
Chapter Sixteen
The entire forest was alive with complaints, voices raised in anger, condemnation, fear, and a host of other emotions. Thana didn’t bother to try calming any of them. She just used her detector to find what she was looking for, a mind pyramid.
Its owner glared from the bottom of a pit. She didn’t know how many pyradistés were gathered in the forest, but they would probably all be as reluctant to cooperate as this fellow seemed to be.
And Thana was too tired for persuasion. “Give me your pyramids, or my friend will fill in your grave.”
Before he had time for words, the earth churned around him, pebbles raining down. His eyes went wide in the candlelight, and he flung a satchel up. Thana barely suppressed a cry as she caught it. She hadn’t even had time to ready herself.
Among a slew of other pyramids, some canceled, she found what she needed in the satchel and marched back to the stone prison, gratified to feel Sylph with her.
Sylph, who now seemed as powerful as one of the ten spirits. But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts.
“Thana,” Gunnar called from his window. “What is going on? Is this what you were waiting for? I—”
She held the pyramid aloft, catching him easily and hypnotizing him. “Keep the others back, please, Sylph.”
“As you wish.”
The walls of the prison drew back like melting wax, giving Thana room to get to Gunnar while separating him from the others, who cried out in protest. Relieved that mind magic came easy for her, she pressed the pyramid to Gunnar’s forehead. She searched his memories, frowning.
And found nothing out of the ordinary.
She frowned harder. Tampering wouldn’t be easy to find, but it had to be there. She looked through his recent memories, events unfolding through his eyes. He’d gone hunting a pack of rogue pyradistés with the Order and his difficult cousin, someone he didn’t see very often, whose company he didn’t enjoy.
He’d missed Thana.
She bit her lip as he’d lamented that he must keep silent about Calla. She’d clearly resented the fact, too. Even if she hadn’t wanted to use her power, she still had to be kept a secret in case her abilities became apparent in some other way. The desire to keep the common people from knowing that nobles could be pyradistés was that great. It was all for the good of the kingdom.
And even though Thana knew why the Umbriels had to stay in power, she hated them in that moment. She’d been wrong about Calla, but there seemed to be plenty of wrongness to go around.
She let go of Gunnar slowly, and he slumped. He’d come around soon enough.
Sylph touched her arm. “Well?”
“Nothing,” she said. The weight of someone else’s emotions left her a little sick. Well, the weight and the guilt. “He wasn’t tampered with.”
“Oh.” The single word carried a lot behind it.
“Yeah.” Thana wiped the back of her mouth. “He’s not going to be happy.”
Luckily, she hadn’t been very deep in his memories, just enough to see that he’d known Calla a long time. Memory erasure worked in threads, so if someone wanted to erase Gunnar’s memories of someone, they’d have to take every incident closely connected with that person. That would leave gaps that another pyradisté would notice right away. Making new memories required an overlay of older memories and took a more skilled touch. There were still seams, though, and the memories would all be recent. To replace someone’s entire mind was unheard of.
Thana had seen no gaps, nothing amiss. There wasn’t a pyradisté alive who could rework a memory seamlessly.
She checked the rest of the Order, just to make sure, leaving Calla alone in the prison, cursing Thana’s name. Parts of the forest had gone quiet, but some of the captured pyradistés still yelled their heads off as the light of dawn began filtering through the trees.
Gunnar finally stirred from where he lay among the Order. Thana had tried to make them all as comfortable as she could. Her nerves were high, the bile bubbling in her stomach. When Gunnar blinked confusedly at her, she blurted, “I’m sorry, Gun. I had to make sure, and I’m so sorry. I wasn’t completely wrong. Look!” She pointed into the forest.
He continued to stare. “I take it from that babbling that you found nothing?”
She knew his tired tone wouldn’t last long. She had to turn this back around a bit, prove they were a little bit even. “Yes, I know you weren’t lying about Calla the way you’ve been lying about other things, like the existence of noble pyradistés.”
He sighed loudly as he sat up and stretched, rubbing his back. “Not hypnotized into lying, anyway.” He looked into the forest, to where the cries of the enemy had grown hoarse. “Yet the attack you envisioned happened all the same. Where did they come from? How many are there?”
“I didn’t want to count in the dark,” Thana said as Sylph said, “Seventeen.”
Thana glanced at her in surprise, but she only shrugged. To capture them all, she no doubt had to pinpoint them, but it was disturbing to think that the stone had told her where everyone was.
Gunnar stood, glanced at the Order before giving Thana a reproachful look, and stepped farther into the forest. “That’s more than the five we were chasing. If this is them, they found reinforcements.”
Thana hurried to catch up. “Don’t go among them alone, for spirits’ sake.” Her own anger wasn’t enough to overrule her sense of duty. She leaned close to his arm. “One of them might have another mind pyramid, and you are still susceptible.”
He gave her a steady look. “I suppose it was a good thing I was locked up when they arrived. Is that what you’re going to say next?”
So he wasn’t ready to forgive her just yet. Even though she’d been a little right. Sort of. Tangentially correct. But he wasn’t yelling. Maybe he felt a hint of shame for all the secrets and a soupçon of gratitude that this attack hadn’t caught them all sleeping.
He peered into a pit until a string of curses came from the occupant, and then he leaned back. “What in the spirits’ names are we going to do with them?” he muttered.
“Excuse me,” Illis called from the campsite. The others were up, and he pointed at the prison. “Can we let Calla out, too?”
A look of amusement flashed across Gunnar’s face before he raised an eyebrow at Thana. “Oops,” he said flatly.
She glared and looked to Sylph, who lifted her hands. “I was awaiting instructions.”
“Please let her out,” Thana said, trying to sound calm.
Calla lunged out of the prison as it collapsed. Dina caught her by the waist and held on as she shouted and raged, arms whirling as if she wanted to swim through the air. “Let me go. I will kill her. I will kill—”
Dina put a hand over her mouth and said something in her ear.
“Making friends wherever you go,” Gunnar mumbled as he strode back to camp. “Lady Sylph, if you wouldn’t mind, will you keep an eye on our prisoners until we decide what can be done?”
“My pleasure, Highness.” Her placid mask was back in place, and Thana envied her in that moment. She felt as if she was coming out of her skin with emotion.
Calla had quieted in Dina’s arms, but her shoulders heaved with every breath, and her pale face had turned nearly purple. She glared at Thana, but if her eyes strayed toward Sylph, they took on a sheen of fear.
Thana couldn’t blame her. Sylph’s stone pyramid shone like a star to her senses and put her even further on edge. “I’m sorry, all right?” Thana said. “I couldn’t take chances.”
No one seemed happy with that answer. Ivar cocked his head in the captives’ direction. “If they hadn’t come, how long would you have kept us in there?”
“Until just now,” she lied, gesturing around them. “Dawn. That was always the plan.” She consoled herself with an excuse Gunnar often used: they didn’t need to know any differently.
Illis scratched at his stubble and echoed Gunnar’s earlier words. “What are we going to do with them all?”
Thana frowned. She didn’t know now any more than she had known before, but she promised herself that she wasn’t going to let them be put to the sword. As far as she was concerned, these pyradistés had good reasons for some of their actions, reasons the crown and the nobility had to answer for, and anyone who committed murder or other crimes needed to have their time before a magistrate.
Gunnar was staring, and she met him look for look. He had to know she wouldn’t see a slaughter hidden away, nor would she be willing to ignore the existence of noble pyradistés. It wasn’t one of the problems the Order could erase from history. There were too many lives at stake, too many pyradistés already cold in the ground. And she would protect all she could, nobles or not.
He sighed as if reading her thoughts. “Some of us will take them to Marienne and lock them up. The others will track where these came from and see if we can figure out what they were up to.”
Thana let out a breath, happy he was still who she’d thought he was.
* * *
Sylph had never felt so capable in all her life. The pyramid in her hands felt ten times heavier than it was, fit to burst, never mind that the power wasn’t in its original cursed pyramid. And she felt swollen with power, too, capable of anything now that the world itself was her companion.
