Lady of Stone, page 26
Oh, it made sense now.
Two noble daughters, the powerless to inherit and go to court, the pyradisté to be hidden. Then opportunity had struck, and so had she. If that was true, this woman was brave, at least, a person who hadn’t let fear paralyze her into ignoring her gift.
And Sylph’s father had embraced her.
As petty as it was, Lady Lucia’s sister would have to pay for that. Sylph gripped her pyramid and set the floor to moving.
Chapter Twenty-one
Thana was torn between the desire to hug the members of the Order and punch them as they ceased trying to attack her and fired questions instead.
She slashed a hand through the air, silencing them. “Sylph and I were in the secret passages when she sensed someone bringing a new pyramid, Fiend magic, toward the capstone, and we have to stop whatever they’re doing before they awaken Yanchasa.” She took a deep breath and gestured to Lady Lucia’s still body. “Now you explain.”
“She came in while we were discussing Order business with the queen, so we hid until the queen could get rid of her,” Dina said. “When a few minutes had passed and we heard nothing, we checked, and the queen, Gunnar, and Lady Lucia had left.”
“We went down the hall,” Ivar said, “and found the guards gone, and the lady stuffed into a room outside the royal section. We brought her here, thinking we could help her, but she died soon after. We don’t know why.”
“Died?” Thana peered around him at the body. “I thought she was sleeping.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. She hadn’t known the lady well, but her death was as much a tragedy as any other.
“I’m thinking poison,” Illis said. “Something’s been up with the nobles for days. People have been dropping out of sight and back in, but they act changed. We thought to take the queen’s secret passage and find you, but you found us.”
Thana held up a hand, something else catching her in the torrent of information. “The queen’s secret passage?”
The brothers looked to one another. Dina seemed sheepish as she answered. “Yeah, they didn’t know either before I told them. I only knew about it from the one time the queen and I—”
“I don’t need those details,” Thana said, her anger rising. “Are you telling me the queen has a secret passage leading to these rooms, and she never told me?”
“She only uses it for assignations.”
“I got that part, thank you!” They waved and whispered to shush her, but she was livid. “What it is, however, is another way in and out, a path her enemies could exploit.” When Dina looked skeptical, Thana nearly kicked her. “There are pyramids at work here, and even the most ardent paramour can be hypnotized. Show me.”
Dina led her to the bedroom mirror, then toggled a switch, and the wall opened. Thana found what she’d expected inside. Trap pyramids dotted this passage, but every one had been canceled, no doubt slowly and carefully over time, letting someone with ill intent come close enough to this door to set off the trap pyramid in the queen’s sitting room even before Thana had first left the palace.
Had any enemies used it since? Or had they feared more pyramids in the queen’s apartment, a place they wouldn’t have unfettered access to in order to carefully disarm the traps? She imagined them lingering here, awaiting their moment. And after the explosion, Earnhilt hadn’t told Thana about this, still certain her secret was safe, that the traps of old would protect her, maybe even that Thana would insist the passage be sealed until the current pyradisté crisis ended.
But then the queen wouldn’t be able to sneak her lovers past the guard or the nosy nobles and courtiers. Spirits knew her trysts were too important to give up for a little while.
Out in the open, she breathed deep. “Where does this go?”
They took it together, the Order already armed. They arrived in a rarely used guest room outside the royal apartments and near the council chamber. When the floor shuddered, Thana knew they were out of time for figuring things out. That had to be Yanchasa stirring again. She needed to find Gunnar and the queen and stop the pyradistés below. And she needed to find Sylph, though the order of those goals changed every moment.
When someone cried out in the hall, at least the question of where they should head first settled itself.
* * *
In the council chamber, several people screamed at once as the floor shifted. Sylph’s father staggered and fell. With her stone magic, Sylph trapped the legs of several pyradistés, but others took cover behind the queen and prince. Sylph hesitated to bring the floor up around them, not wanting to encase the royals and the pyradistés together.
Or move enough bricks that everyone plummeted to the rooms below.
A pyramid sailed at her from across the room, and she dove for the floor, rolling under the table as a crack echoed through the room, and light exploded as if from a miniature sun. Sylph cried out with several others as pain speared across her forehead, and the vision in her right eye showed only a mass of bright blobs. One of the nobles collapsed while several pairs of legs ran in different directions.
Sylph scooted back and sent another ripple through the floor, wishing someone would use a cancelation pyramid so she could poach it, but no such luck. Someone screamed just before another horrible flash. Sylph slid out from underneath the table on the opposite side.
And met her father’s eyes where he’d also dropped to the floor.
He stared as if he didn’t know her. Well, he never really had. “If you don’t want to hang for treason,” she said, “I suggest you help me.” Several of his cronies were trying to fight the pyradistés but were thwarted by mind pyramids or those awful flash bombs.
When another pyradisté pulled a pyramid, Sylph focused on it, hid her face in her sleeve, and set it off in his hand. The light faded quickly, and she risked a look. The pyradisté had fallen over backward but so had one of the nobles, and neither of them moved, stunned. A trapped pyradisté fumbled with a satchel, and Sylph commanded the floor to creep up her body, cementing the bag shut.
And making the walls groan again. It would be so much easier if the room was near the exterior of the palace, with a handy outer wall to manipulate. Sylph scrambled up behind the pyradisté she’d just secured. The woman screamed, slapping at the stone. Sylph ignored her and looked past, seeking a path to the Umbriels.
Lady Lucia’s sister smashed a pyramid into a lord, and he collapsed with a scream. She scrambled for the queen just as someone hurtled through the door and leaped upon the table. Sylph recognized Dina as she careened into the lady, not even flinching when a pyramid smacked into her chest.
It shattered into harmless splinters, canceled.
Sylph nearly cried out when Thana stepped into the room, pyramid in hand. “Sylph, use this!”
“Yes.” She took hold of the pyramid with her mind as Illis and Ivar scrambled into the room, headed for the pyradistés. Everything faded to the dull gray of pyramid sight, and Sylph moved the power of the cancelation pyramid like a blanket, covering every enemy pyramid and snuffing their power. For a moment, the pyradistés continued to throw the useless crystal at the Order and the nobles, but Dina and the brothers succeeded in carrying the Umbriels from the room.
Lady Lucia’s sister was an unmoving heap, as were most of the pyradistés and some of the nobles. The standing pyradistés froze as if they didn’t know what to do.
“Sylph!”
She turned, saw the man coming at her, saw the knife, but he was already collapsing before she brought her power to bear. Her father stood behind him with a wine bottle held like a club. His expression was as confused as ever, and she wanted so badly to believe he cared.
But she couldn’t risk sentiment at the moment. “No one leaves,” she said, edging around him toward the exit. “We’ll wait for the queen to—”
Queen Earnhilt barreled back through the door, bellowing at full volume. Thana had obviously released her, and Sylph left her to cow everyone into obedience.
In the hall, Thana was speaking rapidly to the prince, something about mind pyramids. Sylph released the guards from their stone shackles, making everyone jump. “They need your help, too,” she said, thankful that Thana was adept at mind magic.
Thana squeezed her arm. “Are you all right? Is Calla one of the traitors in there?”
“Yes, and no. Do you still doubt her?”
“I don’t know.” She scowled as she released the guards and sent them in to help the queen. “Why isn’t she here if she stands with us?”
“I hope you’re not talking about me,” someone called from down the corridor. Calla led a contingent of palace guards, who saluted the prince. He led them into the council chamber to take possession of the captives.
Calla glared at Thana and Sylph. “What is it with you two and trust? I went for reinforcements quietly, unlike some. We don’t want to cause a panic.” She snorted. “Honestly, as if I’d betray my own family.”
If she’d lived her entire life among the nobility, she might not be so quick to say that. She marched past without another word.
Thana grabbed Sylph’s arm again. “I need your help protecting the capstone, but…with this new crystal nearby…”
“I’ll just have to face it. With you, my raven, I know I can.”
Thana beamed. “Well, me and this.” She held her cancelation pyramid aloft. It would be enough. Anything else was unthinkable.
* * *
Thana left all the arresting and questioning to Calla and the queen. Yes, she had suspected Calla, but she wasn’t ashamed of that. She was beginning to think she should be suspicious of everyone. Especially when the queen’s lover had a sister who no one seemed to have known about or had forgotten.
Or she’d been hidden away like Calla, and excuses for her disappearance had been made until her existence had faded past memory.
Who knew how many more of them were waiting in the shadows?
Gunnar led the way to the nearest secret passage, the Order and Sylph in tow. He’d given the queen a brief explanation, and then they were off with barely a moment for Thana to tell Sylph how proud she was.
“Lady Sylph?” Gunnar asked as they walked. “Can you tell if the pyradistés have broken into the capstone cavern below?”
Thana guided her as she focused. “I sense them,” Sylph said, her tone dreamy. “Crudely moving through the earth, chipping away. I dare not extend my senses close enough to find their exact location.”
“But if they’re still traveling, they haven’t gotten there yet,” Thana said, hopeful and worried at the same time. Her reasons for leaving Sylph behind the first time were still valid, but without her, they wouldn’t be able to reach the rogues. “Are you sure about this?” she asked, knowing Sylph would get her meaning.
Sylph squeezed her hand. “If it starts to pull me in, we can use your cancelation pyramid.”
“The new crystal resisted last time.” She bit her lip. “And I’m not sure what that would do to a Fiend pyramid.”
Sylph seemed almost serene as she smiled, contrasting with the darkness surrounding them, but scaring Thana all the same. She’d looked like that when she’d encased herself in stone. “We’ll have to wait and see. All I know is, I’m not leaving you right now.”
And Thana was supposed to be thinking about the future, but she focused on Sylph’s words instead. The future would have to be fine with not being the center of attention for a while.
Sylph held tightly to her hand the deeper they went. Every once in a while, Gunnar would stop and wait for Thana to scout ahead with her detector. The pyramids she sensed were still on the move, and she tracked the new Fiend pyramid, which drew her senses like a light in the dark.
At one touch near the capstone cavern, the enemy pyramid seemed to flare, and a smattering of dust came from the ceiling as the palace shuddered. With a gasp, Thana turned her attention to the capstone, but it was still dormant, locked, though she could practically feel it straining to be set free.
“Thana?” Gunnar’s gaze flicked between her and Sylph, who was breathing heavily but evenly and bore a sheen of sweat upon her forehead.
“Go,” she said, and they hurried into the capstone cavern at last.
Everyone sighed at finding it as empty as before, but that just meant they’d have to seek out their enemy.
“Can you cancel the enemy’s Fiend pyramid now?” Dina asked.
Sylph looked to Thana. “Should I?”
Thana shook her head. “Let me try.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on her cancelation pyramid. Again, the rogue pyramid pulled at her senses. It froze in motion as she touched it, almost as if this was what it had been waiting for.
She hesitated. Pyramids in general weren’t sentient, but there was something about this one, a definite anticipation. The capstone felt similar, but she’d always thought that had something to do with the actual creature it controlled. What if it was a peculiarity of Fiend magic instead?
She felt around it, and no other pyramid came to stop her, no dueling cancelation attempt. The way was wide open, even welcoming for her to touch that pyramid with her own.
She drew back, intuition clanging like a bell. The rogues had likely copied what they’d sensed from the capstone, but they couldn’t know what it did, and they were curious, and perhaps they expected that canceling it would do something besides the obvious.
She cursed, not used to being in the dark as far as pyramid knowledge was concerned. “I don’t want to touch it at all,” she said to the expectant faces around her. “I’m not sure what will happen. Even using a cancelation pyramid might set it off.”
Gunnar glanced at Sylph as if to get a second opinion, and Thana glared. “I might not have the power of some,” she said. “But I possess more knowledge than most.” Just not enough at the moment. But more than a novice.
He smiled crookedly and dipped his head. “Then we stop them the old-fashioned way. Lady Sylph, another staircase, if you please.”
Sylph couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the pyradistés, and Thana didn’t want her to try. She was barely speaking now, and sweat rolled down her face. When she made a new staircase, she sighed, and power rolled out from her with such force, the hair stood up on Thana’s neck.
No slow rumble accompanied her power now. The cavern groaned, and the rock flowed like water, like it had when Sylph had encased herself.
Thana gripped her hand, terrified of losing her, and was relieved to see her smile weakly. “Can we send her up now?” Thana asked. “Surely we can handle the rest of this.”
“I’d rather she stays,” Gunnar said as Sylph muttered, “I’m not going anywhere.” Good to know she could still talk and that she and Gunnar were getting along.
Thana sighed and gestured forward. The fighters of the Order led the way, and Sylph and Thana followed.
* * *
These tunnels had been reinforced like the others the Order had encountered, and they stretched in two directions, but Sylph knew which way to go, lured by the siren call of the Fiend pyramid.
Light shone from that same direction, leading the others, but she could have found her way blind. The desire to reach for the siren tingled through her as if her skin was on fire. She had the remedy to put it out, but she couldn’t touch this pyramid, not if even Thana didn’t know what it could do.
Nor could she twist the stone around, not with the Fiend’s prison somewhere in this direction and with the palace sitting above. She couldn’t afford to fracture either of those structures.
Movement came from ahead. A figure rose from a sitting position where the tunnel widened slightly. A light pyramid bloomed in its hand, revealing a dusty face with wide eyes. The mouth opened as if to shout.
A knife appeared in the pyradisté’s chest as if by magic, but when Ivar lowered his arm, Sylph realized he’d thrown it. The pyradisté staggered a few steps, staring down in astonishment before pulling the knife out and sliding to the ground. The light winked out.
“Al, you all right?” someone called softly. In the shadows of the tunnel, another figure stirred.
Illis fired an arrow into this one, dropping them. Both deaths took only seconds. Only the pull of the siren pyramid kept Sylph from feeling sick.
Thana made a noise of protest, but Gunnar whispered harshly, “They know about Fiend magic.”
She closed her mouth, but defiance still shone in her eyes.
Sounds of digging came from a large, well-lit room ahead, but it quieted all at once, and someone called, “Who is it? We know you’re there. We will defend ourselves.”
“Your treasonous brethren have been arrested,” Gunnar called as the Order halted. “Surrender, and the queen may be lenient.”
A hurried conversation echoed from ahead, angry, muffled words ending with, “Enough. What does the pyramid above us do? We’ve never felt its like, nor the like of the one we made. What powerful secrets is the crown keeping for themselves?”
“Give up, and I’ll explain,” Gunnar said.
Thana made an angry little growl. Sylph squeezed her hand, something else to hold on to as the siren call beat against her brain.
“This magic could change the face of Farraday, of the world,” the voice said, a dreamy quality to the words that Sylph well understood. “And you want to hoard it. But our time has come.”
Thana gasped and clutched her cancelation pyramid. Sylph reached for it, and Thana yelled, “No,” but Sylph’s mind was already there. She had to do something. Canceling the enemy pyramids wouldn’t smother her pain, but it was better than nothing.
And as she raced through the enemy pyramids, snuffing them, she came ever closer to the siren pyramid and the delights it promised if she touched it in any way, even to cancel.
A sharp sting rolled up her arm, shocking her. Thana was yelling, shaking her, kissing her, and as Sylph opened her eyes, another sting came from her elbow.
Thana was pinching her?
