Eve of Destruction (46 page)

And then Aram was on top of them. He appeared out of the shadows, his body still glowing with magical energy, and with a hard, clean sweep of his leg, he sent Zach flipping over backwards. Eve’s gasped as Aram turned to face her, now only a heartbeat away, his eyes flashing angrily as he summoned a spell to finish her once and for all.

The Fane exploded to life around her. A spell formed in her mind and erupted from her fingertips. It wasn’t anything so dramatic as what she’d done on the train. There was no fire, no clouds of ash—only a quick flash of light that sent Aram stumbling backwards. He glanced down at himself in disbelief as his armor of spells vanished. He was no longer glowing like an all-powerful mage—he was simply one man standing alone in the darkness.

Eve saw the fear in his eyes, but just as quickly she saw the fanaticism crush it back down. He believed she was the Avenshal; he believed that she had to die. And so he roared like a wild animal as he threw himself on top of her—

And another dark shape collided with him and pinned him to the ground. Aram screeched in protest, but it was too late. Eve caught a single glimpse of an auburn mane glistening in the moonlight, and then nearly wretched at the sickening crunch that followed only seconds later. She turned away and dropped to a knee.

Zach took a staggered breath as he pulled himself up next to her, his gun pointed straight at the Vakari. His hand quivered so much she thought he might drop the weapon, and for a long, aching moment, nothing happened.

Finally Danev made his way over to them, leaning more on his cane than usual. He was almost panting, and he clutched at his arm as if it were on fire. His eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his neck looked like they might rupture at any moment.

“We can’t stay here,” he rasped. “More will come, and soon.”

“What about her?” Zach asked.

Shaedra’s eyes rolled back in her head as she sat straddling the corpse, and Eve couldn’t immediately tell if the other woman was being wracked by pain or pleasure. Eventually she seemed to return to her senses and tilted her head back towards them.

“We go to Cadotheia,” she said softly. “And we wait for Maltus.”

Zach grunted. “And why should we trust you? You tried to kill us.”

“I am…sated, for the time being. Eve undid the spell he placed upon me.”

Danev raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you know he could do that? I figured you’d be keen on all the Enclave tricks.”

“The magisters don’t tend to share that type of power with just anyone, and certainly not a mere Eclipsean,” Shaedra replied. “Apparently he was special.”

Eve slowly brought herself to her feet. Her limbs had started to ache now, too. Perhaps they had been this entire time, but she’d been able to block it out. But Flensing or not, Danev was right. They couldn’t stay here.

“We should get moving,” Eve said softly.

Zach raised an eyebrow at her. “Just like that? Don’t you want to finish her off?”

She glanced to the Vakari. “She just saved my life.”

“You saved your own life,” Shaedra said, standing. Most of her clothing had been burned away, and she reached down to pull off Aram’s vest. “I just hope now you’re willing to listen to me.”

Eve swallowed heavily. Maybe the other woman had been right all along. Maybe she did need to learn to control this.

“Perhaps I am,” she whispered.

“What?” Zach stammered.

“We can debate this later,” Danev interrupted. “We should get what we need from camp and head out. The Enclave might have more assassins nearby.”

Zach stared at Eve, his blue eyes wide, then finally sighed in resignation.

“Fine,” he muttered, glaring at Shaedra one last time. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“That’s the best I can do for now,” Jack Polard said as he finished weaving the last of his healing spells. “You’ll be sore for the next week, but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. You were lucky.”

Amaya grunted and leaned upwards. Her shoulder still ached, but that was a step up from throbbing like it had just been smashed by a hammer. In the end, her pride had suffered the biggest blow. Requiring the healing skills of a mage was bad enough, but having to rely on this weasel just made her skin crawl.

Still, she probably should have considered herself fortunate that Polard wasn’t so petty as to try and harm her after how badly she’d humiliated him a few days ago. She mostly attributed that to a healthy fear of his employer rather than any sense of good will, though.

“Good work, Jack,” Chaval told him with a smile, his hands clasped behind his back. “I’m glad to see your skills are as sharp as ever.”

“Your men give me plenty of practice these days,” Polard murmured.

“Leave us alone for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

Polard glanced once to Amaya before curling his lip and shuffling out of the room. She glared at him all the way until the door closed shut behind him.

“It’s never wise to anger your doctor,” Chaval said, a touch of amusement in his voice.

Amaya grunted and hopped off the table. They were in the out-of-the-way makeshift infirmary Polard used to mend the crippled workers the factories so regularly dumped on him. It wasn’t much to look at, but the unassuming décor was intentional. Chaval didn’t want the public at-large to know about all the accidents, and he similarly felt it best if the wounded themselves couldn’t distinguish exactly where it was they’d been treated. It was just another thread in the grand illusionary tapestry that bound the Industrialists together.

“You look pleased, so I assume you received good news from the men on the train,” she said, stretching both her arms experimentally. She probably had two-thirds of her movement back already, which was all the more impressive considering a mere hour ago she’d had somewhere around zero. Polard was good at what he did, she would give him that.

“Yes and no,” Chaval said. “The mercenaries we hired are all dead or sitting in prison cells.”

“You sound traumatized.”

He smiled faintly. “They served their purpose. The heist made the evening paper yesterday, and today the local media has been abuzz with speculation. Plenty of witnesses saw our magi friends nearly destroy the train.”

“I assume the reports have conveniently left out the fact that it was in self-defense?”

“Details are such fickle things,” he said flippantly. “The official story is that during an attempted heist, a group of concealed magi nearly destroyed the train and indiscriminately killed its passengers. The local constable has put out a warrant for their arrest.”

She pursed her lips and wondered idly if the warlords back in Talam had ever had as much control over the spread of information as Chaval did here. Probably, she guessed, but she’d been too young and naïve to notice it. Now, after serving under Chaval for only a few months, she had an entirely new perspective on the nature of power…

“So DeShane did escape?” she asked. “What about the others?”

“All of them survived, as far as we know. Reports are mixed, but most of them suggest they were wounded. Either way, it’s largely immaterial. They’ll make their way back here soon enough.”

“You really think they’ll just turn around and hike back? I would think they’d bury themselves somewhere in the wilderness.”

He shook his head. “To what end? They’ll have to surface eventually, and Danev will know that my eyes will be watching the roads and major settlements. Vaschberg is too far a hike on foot, and he’ll have trouble reaching any of his people to call for help.”

“I just find it hard to believe that they would walk right back into your hands.”

“They don’t have a choice,” he said. “After DeShane’s rather public performance, word of what happened will reach the Enclave soon if it hasn’t already. They know all about the prophecy, just as we do. They won’t wait to get involved.”

“So Danev might figure they’ll be safer here,” she reasoned.

“Exactly. They are trapped between me and the Enclave, and knowing Gregori and his distaste for the latter, he’ll choose the evil he thinks he can reason with.”

“All right, so what do we do?”

“Right now we don’t have to do anything,” Chaval told her. “They will come to us, and while they travel, young Evelyn’s mind is no doubt trying to cope with what she has done. She has tasted power, and perhaps even more importantly, she has taken lives. Nothing quite changes someone as much as when they kill for the first time.”

Amaya nodded in silent understanding. She occasionally still had nightmares about her first kill, though admittedly less and less as the years went by. She had only been fourteen at the time, and the clan elders had sent her on a “training” mission into a rival village. She had shown up in tattered rags claiming to be separated from her parents, and her eventual mark had been an old widower who had lost his own children to famine. He had kindly taken her in with the unique and special warmth of another wounded soul, and she had betrayed him. At times she could still feel her knife sliding through his flesh and his choked off whispers as he gasped for breath…

She shook her head and buried the memories. As usual, they didn’t go willingly.

“Soon enough Eve will embrace what she is, and then we need only wait for her to unleash it. Just in time, too—I fully expect the Enclave to make a move within the next few days.”

“That soon? There’s still over a week before the election.”

“They have no reason to wait. Besides, my sources inform me that they’ve already embedded some of their people in the city, and more will be arriving shortly. It might be their biggest operation since…well, possibly ever, at least since the founding of our great nation.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Have you contacted General Hovien or any of the others? They could alert the army—”

Chaval laughed. “No, that won’t be necessary. My own forces in the city will be sufficient for the time being.”

She blinked vacantly but said nothing. Steamworks Industries had a substantial personal army, at least compared to other companies, but a thousand modestly trained soldiers were not going to be a match for whatever the Enclave decided to throw their way. No one really knew what type of force they could muster.

  “There’s no need to worry,” he soothed, tapping her on the arm and leading her towards the winding set of stairs at the back of the room. “I don’t intend to fight them…at least not directly.”

“I take it this is based on things you read in that journal?”

“Yes, and I’m glad to say it has proven itself many times over already.”

Amaya paused mid-step. “Did you know what would happen on the train?”

He smiled. “More or less.”

“I think you’re putting too much faith in a few scribbled words.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” he said. “You never met Tara—you didn’t know her like I did.”

They stepped out into the cool night breeze, and she wrinkled her nose at the industrial fumes from the cadre of factories only blocks to the south. She’d forgotten how powerful it was after only a few days away.

“So you know an attack is coming, and you’re certain we’re going to win?” she asked.

His smile returned and he escorted her to the edge of the street. “No, we’re going to lose. In spectacular fashion, I might add.”

Amaya shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“As I said, I don’t require you to understand,” he said, the faintest touch of menace in his voice, “only to obey.”