The Living God, page 20
“I believe she wants to know if you’re pregnant. I don’t know why she’d ask me. I thought it improper.” Rowe curled his fingers around her hand.
Saran laughed again, shaking her head. “No, that’s not possible. Whenever Keleir and I are together, I use mag—” The words fell off her lips. She blinked her gaze away and drew her hand from him, shaking her head firmly. “I’m very worried or I’ve eaten something spoiled, that’s all.”
Rowe sat nearer and draped his arm across her shoulders. He drew her hand into his and held it tightly. “You are, aren’t you?”
Saran shook her head again. But even as she did, she felt her chest tighten. They were careful, and she always used magic to control the timing around her body’s fertility. But since the Bind … she hadn’t even thought about it, not with all that happened to them since returning to Andrian. Everything involving the task was so automatic …
Rowe’s arms tightened around her. “This is a happy thing, Saran. Keleir will …”
Saran shook her head, quietly crying. “Keleir isn’t coming back.”
The Lightning Mage pressed his lips to her hair. “You can go to him.”
Saran brushed the tears from her cheek. An odd comment from a man who last said that if Keleir didn’t become the Vel d’Ekaru, she would die. “What about all this prophecy mess?”
Rowe held her hand tight and thought quietly for a while. “Maybe I’m wrong. Keleir would never abandon you, so if he chose to stay in Mavahan, it is because it truly is helping him. Perhaps staying there would nullify the prophecy or stagnate it. Maybe it will freeze the progress of the Oruke permanently, allowing you both to be safe. Maybe the Prophetess can’t see him there, can’t account for him.”
There was a time, long ago, when Saran believed that Rowe saw this woman and that she spoke to him of the future. But Saran prayed to the Prophetess for guidance on more than one occasion and had never seen or heard her, not once.
Saran knew that sometimes humans found patterns in places that didn’t exist. There were many people over the years who had been born cursed with Orukes. Why did that make Keleir’s destiny any different from theirs? Or her any more special than the millions who were born before her?
Patterns where they didn’t exist.
Saran smoothed her hand across her flat stomach. “If it is true, and we don’t know for certain it is … if my father finds out about this, he’ll use it to bring Keleir home.”
Rowe shook his head. “We’re getting out of here. Tonight. I won’t have you spending another moment in this place. I leave for Salara in the morning, I’ll get you to our border with Mavahan before the attack on the capital.”
“That’s not possible,” Saran muttered. “That’s a two-week journey by foot, and I can’t Port with this stupid Bind. Not to mention, if anyone runs Father through, I’m dead too.”
Rowe stiffened. “I’ll find a way to get the Bind off.”
“You’ve read every book there is to read, Rowe! The Bind isn’t coming off until Father gives us the key, and he isn’t going to do that.” Saran stared at Rowe’s hand around hers. The Bind gleamed blinding bright in her blurring vision. If Keleir did return and she still had this thing … Saran couldn’t take another moment of it being around her wrist. She needed it off once and for all.
“Move,” she whispered, pushing him gently at first. Rowe’s brow furrowed with confusion as her shoving grew manic. “I need this off. I need my element back!”
Saran shoved him harder than he anticipated. He slipped off the bed and landed on the floor. She brushed past him, heading to the fireplace opposite the bed.
“Saran, you shouldn’t be—”
Saran ignored him and ran her hands along the hearth until she found what she sought, drawing the hatchet from a space between the fireplace and the stack of wood waiting to be burned. She whirled and slammed her hand flat against the small tabletop next to her sitting chair. Her eyes gleamed in the firelight as she lifted the hatchet and brought it down.
Rowe nearly lost a hand catching her wrist and drawing it back into the air. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting rid of this awful thing!” she screamed at him, tugging on her arm. “Let me go.”
Rowe shook his head violently. “I’m not letting you chop your hand off!”
Saran struggled against his harsh grip. His hand dug her skin against the bone. “I have to do this! I need my magic back. I need to make all of this right. If I don’t, then I’m going to lose him. We are going to lose him, and everything will end because of me.”
“Saran …”
Her eyes welled with tears. “He might already be lost. Rowe, I don’t think I can do it twice.”
The Lightning Mage frowned, appraising her thoughtfully. He did not let go of her wrist. “You’ve always said you didn’t know what you did to him, Saran.”
The look on her face said otherwise. Tears fell freely down her cheeks, the pain of what she’d done written on her face. It had never occurred to Rowe that she would have lied to them.
“What did you do to him?” he asked evenly.
She shook her head.
“Saran … what did you do to my brother?”
A mournful expression stole her face and she sobbed, shaking her head. Her knees grew weak and she leaned heavily on the table. “Something unforgivable,” she choked out. Her grip tightened around the hatchet’s handle. “I just want to be free of it all. I don’t want to be the Princess of Adrid or the Equitas. Please let me do this. I only have you and Keleir. I’m alone, Rowe. If I lose you, if I can’t stop what is coming—I don’t care about my hand.”
Rowe slowly pried the hatchet out of her grasp. “I care,” he said. Saran gave a shuddering sob as he tossed it into the fire. He dropped to his knees and pulled her tight until she could barely breathe. “The Bind will come off this night,” he swore. “I will find the key.”
THIRTY
LIGHTNING FLASHED ACROSS a black sky. Pale white light exploded through the dark hall just outside Yarin’s bedchamber. The hall, long and narrow and lined on one side with windows, had ten guards standing every six feet. Most of them relaxed heavily against the stone. They were bored or half-asleep.
The King of Adrid had a right to his paranoia. Soldiers guarded his chamber door day and night, even if the king wasn’t there, to ensure no one slipped through to wait for his return. Secrets beyond Rowe’s dreams hid behind that door, and only the maids and Saran had ever seen them.
Thunder shook the hall, startling a few of the sleeping guards awake. An angry storm brewed outside, an elemental representation of his feelings toward the infamous king. Rowe appraised the guards from where he stood opposite Yarin’s door. His fingers flexed at his sides, glints of electricity crackling off the tips with a quiet static charge.
This would be easier if Rowe could Port into Yarin’s room and question him. But Yarin was so worried about assassins that he had the whole castle warded so no Mage could Port into it. One could Port to any place outside the walls, like the roof or a balcony, but nowhere inside.
Rowe thought a quiet apology to the men lining the hall and let a burst of electric current rattle across the floor, traveling up through their metal armor and stunning them unconscious. They fell, one by one, to lie like logs across the floor.
The door to Yarin’s chamber was unlocked. The room beyond had no light, not even a small candle flame, and the curtains were drawn closed. Rowe held up his hand. Static electricity crackled in his palm, growing out and warping into a small spherical ball of energy. It cast a pale blue glow against the walls as he used it to find his way through the large sitting room and to the king’s bed.
A long time ago, Rowe would have feared sneaking up on a Mage like Yarin, who had been one of the most feared in all of the First. It was said that he once turned a whole army into deranged hundred-year-old men. Many, a long time ago, had suspected he was the Vel d’Ekaru. Looking upon the aged and slackened face of the king, Rowe felt little more than hatred.
Yarin took children from poor homes as payment for taxes that no one could afford. That was how Rowe came to be in his service. Yarin trained them, brainwashed them, and forced them to slaughter their own in order to keep what little control he had. He enslaved his own daughter and used her as a pawn in his twisted religion. He tormented Keleir by denying him the one thing that kept him sane. Rowe could end it all by driving a dagger through the old man’s heart. If not for Saran’s Bind, he would have.
War would be avoided.
Saran would be free.
Keleir would be safe from whatever twisted plan Yarin had for him.
He need only to find the key and set the princess free.
“Have you lost your way?” Yarin muttered through dry, thin lips. He cracked his eyes open and blinked at the harsh glow of Rowe’s light. “Or has it finally come to pass? Has the soldier from the Eastern Mountains awoken?”
Rowe hesitated at Yarin’s bedside, watching as the old man drew himself to sit. He lifted his hands to his face and shielded his eyes from the light. “I wondered who it would be … Out of all the children we dragged from that village, I did not think it would be the brother of the Vel d’Ekaru.”
The Lightning Mage shook his head. “I need to release Saran from the Bind, and you’re going to give me the key. No more games. No more riddles. I know there isn’t any saving Keleir; I know he will be your Living God. So let me take Saran away from here. I promise we will not get in your way.”
Yarin cocked his head to the side, a flicker of a smile stretching his aged face. “Does Saran know you’re conspiring against her husband?”
“No,” Rowe replied, lowering the light so that it no longer blinded the king. “I told her I was taking her to Keleir. However, I am going to keep her as far away from him as possible, by any means necessary. We both have our prophets, Yarin. Mine was wrong about Saran. It did not account for her love for him. She will never be the Equitas, and if she tries, she will die. You’ve won, do you understand that? So give me the key.”
Yarin struggled with the blankets, shoving them off and slipping his gnarled feet to the cold stone floor. He hobbled to his desk and around it to the bookshelf near the window. “This is what happens when brothers love the same woman. How will Keleir handle your betrayal?”
Rowe frowned. “When Keleir returns to Adrid, he will no longer be my brother.”
Yarin chuckled as he rummaged through the books. “No doubt, and if he does return the one you know, I daresay your betrayal will be just the push needed to send him over the edge. This works as much in my favor as it does in yours.” Yarin stumbled on his feet, grabbing hold of the gold cord dangling by the curtains. He rested his cheek against the books. “Unfortunately.” He sighed, “I don’t need your help turning Keleir into the Vel d’Ekaru, and Saran can’t leave. I will not let the Equitas free, nor will I allow the soldier from the Eastern Mountains to live.”
Hate lit Rowe’s eyes with blue sizzling light. The orb of electric current in his hand grew and bolts arched off to lick at the ceiling and the floor.
“Hurt me, and you hurt her,” Yarin warned. The Lightning Mage’s magic snuffed out, leaving them in the dark. “I’ve been at this game a very long time, Rowe. I know what is coming. I know every threat. No matter what you do, where you run, you can’t win. You never win. You always lose. That is your fate and hers. Over and over, until the end of all time.”
The wooden door to the sitting room broke open, and light exploded in from the hall. Rowe’s eyes went to the cord that the king clung to, knowing that he’d been tricked.
Arrows whizzed past, and lightning arched off Rowe’s hands, turning them to ashes around him. He threw a bolt against the floor, and it traveled to their feet, fizzling into nothing.
These were no ordinary soldiers. They were Saharsiad, the Mage hunters. They brandished their left arms, which bore spelled gauntlets warded to protect them from magic.
The Saharsiad circled into the room, flanked by regular militia. Each one had a dark cotton cloth drawn over their face so not to be identified. Rowe never understood that reasoning, for even if a Mage escaped when cornered, they would hardly seek out a Saharsiad willingly.
Magic crackled in a thick current around Rowe. He could not Port away, not from inside the room, and it had only one door. Getting through that door meant going through the wall of faceless mercenaries before him. His hand went to his hip and to the cold metal hilt of his sword.
“If you fight them, they will kill you,” Yarin warned. “Surrender and live to see your brother become what was destined for him. Perhaps you will have your own transformation.”
“I’d rather take my chances with the Saharsiad,” Rowe muttered.
The Lightning Mage brandished the sword and lunged toward the door, into the fray. Even as a trained soldier, it was impossible to fight twenty men and win. Rowe used what magic he could on the line of soldiers standing behind the impervious Mage hunters. For the Saharsiad, he introduced them to the cold steel of his sword and the leather of his boot. Even so, avoiding all of them at once was impossible. Rowe, accustomed to pain, ignored the slicing rip of a blade through his back and leg. He kept pushing forward toward the open door and hall. If he could get there, he could Port away.
But the Saharsiad knew this and would not let him pass.
Rowe struggled to the door, feeling slice after slice cut through his leather armor and into his skin. He swung his heavy sword at them, kicked those who stumbled low and close. Their small numbers swarmed him. He dove for the door, crashing against the wood with a harsh thud before springing to his feet and throwing himself out the window. He called his magic to him as he fell, and a pool of blue crackling light exploded under him. He tumbled into its welcoming embrace.
Rowe reappeared, kneeling in a mushy combination of mud and horse shit, just outside the stables. He curled his hands in the soft wet earth, letting the solidity of it register.
“Rowe!”
Saran knelt near him and wrapped her hands around his arm, hoisting him from the mud. She drew her hands away to find them red with blood. “Prophetess!” The princess frantically examined the gaps in his leather until Rowe waved her away, looking sick.
“The horses?”
Saran released him and went back to the pale mare waiting by the stable door. She led the horse to him. “I only managed the one before you arrived. Did you get the key?”
Rowe pushed past her and mounted Saran’s horse, smearing blood across the saddle. He grabbed her hand and tugged her up behind him, turning for the castle gate.
Lightning flashed across a smoldering black sky and rain fell in large cold drops, sparse at first, and then thick and heavy, soaking through their clothing in seconds. The castle bells tolled, their harsh ring echoing his failure off the brittle tower walls.
“Yah!” He kicked the horse forward through the castle gate and down a cobblestone street leading toward the outer wall of the city. Very little light illuminated the road. As the city sat mostly abandoned by its residents, no one took the time to light the streetlamps.
He blinked the water from his vision and glared at the closed city gate ahead. Electric current crackled bright and blue in his eyes as he raised his hand from the reins and threw a coiled ball of lightning through the rain. It crashed against the iron bars and traveled over the metal surface, wrapping like tentacles around the joints and melting them. The gate fell away, a broken puzzle of mangled, white-hot iron that quickly cooled black in the rain.
They bounded for the gate as the gatemen scrambled out of the stone bastion to see what had happened. He sent another ripple of electric energy across the wet earth and into their feet, dropping them to the mud with the gate. Saran’s arms tightened around his waist, and he pressed forward through the passage until her grip tugged him backward, nearly off the horse, before her hold snapped free.
The warmth against his back disappeared, and Saran landed in the mud and metal behind the horse. He drew short and turned back for her. She struggled to catch her breath, wincing as she dragged herself from the rubbled gate and up to her feet.
Rowe slipped from the horse and went to her. “What happened?”
Her green eyes looked the archway over, but before she could give him an answer he began pulling her back to the horse. “They’re coming.” He jerked Saran abruptly into an invisible wall, the Bound wrist stuck in the grip of magic. He pulled harder until the metal bracelet cut into her skin, and she cried out and snatched away.
“I can’t,” she huffed. “The key. Give me the key, and I’ll take it off.”
The Lightning Mage froze, the glow of magic in his eyes faded. “I …”
Behind her, the Saharsiad gained ground on them.
“I didn’t find it,” he whispered to her.
Saran’s jaw tightened. Her green eyes searched his horrified face, knowing that he couldn’t stay.
They’d kill him.
But they wouldn’t kill her.
“Go,” she pleaded, pushing against his chest. “Go now!”
Rowe growled, grasping her hand and pulling her forward. “I’m not leaving you!”
“I can’t go!” Saran jerked away and pushed at his shoulder. “Get out of here. They’ll kill you. Go.”
“No! I’m not leaving you here with him, Saran.”
The princess took his face in her hands with a sad smile. “You have no choice. Sometimes we do what we hate to do what is right.”
She brushed her fingers against his wet skin, feeling hot tears mingle with the cold rain on her cheeks. He shook his head, but she held him firmer. “Finish what we started. Find Darshan and finish this. He can’t kill me, Rowe. He needs me. But he doesn’t need you. Please go. Please!”
Rowe opened his mouth to argue, but the yelling of the Saharsiad behind her startled him out of it. He frowned at them, hate in his eyes. He brushed her cheek with a bleeding hand, as if his touch sought to memorize the curve of her face. He kissed her then, as he would have had she loved him, and she met it without coldness, but with warmth and longing and sorrow.
