Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) (20 page)

“Nae, I canna bear the shame of it. I canna live knowing that I let a sint die in me place. Tis nae the way the world should work.” Iulan lifted the dying bird in his cupped hands, as if offering it to the sky.

Odjin felt massive waves of anima magic pulsing from Iulan’s body, and he scrambled backward, dragging a semiconscious Sivutma and a completely limp Bas with him. “Iulan, what are you doing?”

The Tuathi didn’t answer. Darkness swirled around him, more slowly than the vortex, but blacker in hue, nearly obscuring him from sight. The bird in his hands twitched, then rolled to its feet and flapped its wings. It let out a great caw, louder than should have been possible within such a tiny body, and took wing, veering into the blackness swirling around Iulan. The bird dived in tight circles round and round, sometimes barely visible through the blackness.

Sivutma grabbed Odjin’s arm. “What am I seeing? Did we win, or is this still the fight?”

Odjin pressed his hand over hers. “We’re safe now, but Kah is dying, and Iulan is trying to save him.”

“
Kah
was here? I thought he was back on campus. Did he come with all those other birds?”

“Sivutma, Kah
is
all those other birds. He’s a sint living in a murder of crows.”

Sivutma stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she rolled her eyes. “One of us hit our head. I think it’s you.”

Griogair flew past Odjin’s shoulder. No—the bird was fuller in the breast and longer of wing, like Kah. Another bird flashed by. Then another, and another. Soon, the black whirling mass around Iulan was full of wings and beaks and tails. Joyous calling, robust and loud, filled the air. Kah shot straight up into the sky, followed by several dozen smaller hexbirds. They swirled and dived with the exuberance of playful kittens.

Baffled, Odjin dropped his eyes to the spot where Iulan had been. The man was gone. Nothing remained. He scrambled over on hands and knees, disbelieving, and found a pair of faint knee impressions where Iulan had knelt in the soft soil. Wonderingly, he brushed his fingers against them. The anima caster had given his entire being over to the sint, and Kah—
Sint Kah
—had created from Iulan’s body enough hexbirds to sustain himself.

Odjin’s head snapped up as the small mystery of hexbirds flew right over his head. Kah—Odjin was certain of the bird’s identity—affectionately dragged his claws through Odjin’s hair. Odjin turned and watched them fly, then looked at Sivutma, who stared back at him with wide eyes and raised brows. He stood and helped her up. Together, they stood beneath Kah and what used to be Iulan swirling around the sky, shrieking their avian joy.

Warm lips suddenly pressed against Odjin’s. Sivutma pulled back and smiled up at him. “Have you practiced that one yet? Me neither. Maybe we can work together on it sometime.”

Odjin’s eyebrows rose. If such a powerful and demanding elementalist wanted to work on bonding lust to her savantism with him, who was he to say no? “You know, my schedule is rather busy, with all the humiliating potioneering I have to do. But I will see if I can squeeze you in.”

She smirked and nodded, and he was pleased to see that she didn’t take things any more seriously than he did. “No one is going to believe this.”

Odjin raised his eyes and followed Kah’s mystery across the sky once more. “Which part?”

Sivutma gave a brief laugh. But her face sobered quickly, and she leaned against Odjin’s chest for a moment, going limp against him.

A part of Odjin went cold. Such needy, intimate contact wasn’t like her. He put an arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

Sivutma rocked her head gently against his chest. “I don’t want to be the one to tell Bayan.”

Odjin glanced around and realized what he hadn’t seen. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. “Tell him what?”

“Sabella is dead.”

Bayan began to wish the
cetechupes
’ lava-heated steel dome would end his agony. Were they intending to torture everyone before death as some kind of punishment for daring to rely on supposedly inferior magic? Somewhere deep within him—beneath his anger, beneath his Balanganese origins, beneath his disgust at being considered property—the very core of his soul was affronted. How dare the Corona judge his magic? Had he not taught himself anima magic and then learned, against all convention, to hex it with his elementalism? Why could he not learn the magic of the
cetechupes
as well? They were no better than he was.

We’re all just casters.

He’d been running from his insatiable curiosity about the history of his own empire’s magic: the secret techniques, the alternate methods, the shortcuts and tricks. For nearly two years, he had avoided any investigating that might have gotten him in trouble. But as he writhed beneath foreign magics, he regretted setting a piece of his own soul aside for the sake of blending in.

As always, Bayan’s rage surged first, a black tower of roiling smoke within him. An equally thick white mist swirled and blended with it, resulting in myriad shades of gray.
I refuse to die defending an empire that doesn’t defend me. I refuse to die in the palace of the man who exiled me for saving his life. I refuse to die at all.

Bayan wrenched his eyes open. Whirling fire twisted around him on all sides like miniature Firewhirl spells. The familiar sight encouraged him, and he raised a charred arm, emphasizing his will with an old-style sacred motion: the circle. A chill wind blasted down from high above the forum. The icy draft swirled down and dispersed the fiery storm surrounding Bayan, his Hexmates, the emperor, and his loyal subjects. Bayan created a half-dome of pure ice, holding the permanent fire spell and its lava at bay and encasing the injured in a chilly safety zone. Gasping with the freezing air, shivering with several layers of pain, he felt his body failing.
I might need a chanter.

His damaged eyes looked around the forum, with its smoky, cracked bricks and toppled columns. One figure struggled to crawl to another, and Bayan recognized Doc Theo by his irresistible urge to care for others.

A faint, distant fear of ceasing to exist sparked in Bayan’s chest. He remembered how the singers had created a healing spell for both him and Sabella at the Temple. Had that happened just that morning? But Doc was a chanter, not a singer, because he was so tone deaf he couldn’t carry a tune in a canoe.

But if he could sing, he could heal us all at once. Why can’t that be part of my reality?

The white mist surrounding his rage spun into a typhoon and spiraled out through his eyes, his fingers, his chest. He arched with the sudden demand that billowed from his soul and spilled into the world. It didn’t hurt, but its high-pitched intensity made him glad it wasn’t audible.

Doc lurched in surprise at the touch of Bayan’s white magic.

“Doc,” Bayan rasped with a throat scorched by flame. “Doc. Sing, Doc. Sing.”

A thousand moments passed as Bayan waited, waited for Doc to feel the change in the world. Then, with the slow wonderment of a child who has received a gift he thought impossible, Doc’s hand slipped into a deep pocket, and he pulled forth two of his three chanting crystals. The old man knelt in the center of the moaning, crying crowd, balanced his crystals on his fingertips, and took a deep breath.

Bayan felt his own chest rising as well, though he seemed to be inhaling strips of flesh from his own throat.
Sing
.

Doc opened his mouth, and the first note emerged, pure and strong. Then the next and the next. Bayan recognized the melody, and by the look on Doc’s face, so did he. His mouth stretched in a brief smile of amazement as he returned to his songwork. The spell built in the air around Doc, and Bayan felt it wash over him and through him, stripping away the pain, restoring lost tissue and bone. His back arched again, this time with ecstasy at the complete cessation of pain. His eyes momentarily crossed, and the world flipped upside down.

The next moment, the world came crashing back in. The battle, the
cetechupes
, the emperor. Bayan kipped to his feet, his body pulsing with fresh adrenaline. He scanned the crowd under the ice dome and spotted Aleida, Tarin, and Eward but saw neither Taban nor Kiwani. He rushed over to them, pausing only to hug Doc in relief and murmur his heartfelt thanks.

He gathered his former hexmates close, ignoring everyone else, even the emperor, wherever he was. “We must make sure there are no more casters. If any of them survived inside those stone coffins, they’re still a threat.”

Tarin nodded. “We should exit through the top of the dome, in case that lava spell is still going out there.”

The earth rumbled, and the faint glow of lava through the ice vanished.

Eward grinned. “Looks like Kiwani and Taban finally took care of the lava problem for us.”

Aleida rose on a wind disc toward the top of the ice dome and willed a section of it to rise away. “Battle awaits.”

As Bayan and the others followed Aleida out, he heard a chorus of querulous voices rising below him, wondering what in sints had just happened. One glance back showed him that Doc was being swarmed by grateful and curious survivors.

Kiwani and Taban had not been idle outside the dome. The ground beneath the lava spell had collapsed, causing the molten rock to sink into a deep chasm that ringed the ice dome’s island like a glowing moat. He nodded as he landed beside the pair at the heat-damaged edge of the forum flagstones. He could almost see the battle memorial that would undoubtedly be erected nearby.
I bet my name won’t be on it.

“Maybe the emperor can use that lava spell for some kind of heating system from now on.” His last few words were squeezed from his lungs by Taban’s exuberant hug, followed by a group embrace that left him breathless.

Bayan gritted his teeth to hold back sudden, unexpected tears. He had spent as much time separated from his friends as he had in their company, but he had constantly pushed aside how much he actually missed them until that moment. It meant far more to him than he could ever express that they still remembered him fondly, despite what he had done to their friendship, to their hex. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you.”

“Aye,” said Taban, “but you’re here now, and that’s all that matters. I wish Calder could be here to see you.”

“Well, not
all
that matters. Claiming this victory will certainly help.” Tarin grinned, her face smudged with ash.

Bayan looked at Taban and Kiwani. “Did you see anyone else while we were in the fire? Did anyone escape the coffins?”

Kiwani shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

A sudden twinge of worry touched Bayan’s mind, and he cast Lifeseeker out around them. Eight orange glows returned to him. All eight of the
cetechupes
had survived the stone coffins of Tegen’s Grave. “We need to—”

One of the stone coffins exploded, flinging chips in all directions. Aleida ripped flagstones up to form a large stone shield. As she hurled them toward the enemy caster, he gulped and spewed another spell, and the stone coffins around his allies dissolved in wisps of smoke.

As the
cetechupes
surrounded the Hexmates, Bayan noted dark streaks staining their clothing at their waists. “They’ve lost some of their spells. All we need to do is outlast them.”

Kiwani spoke. “And not get everyone else killed, you mean.”

Tarin’s hand sliced the air. “Listen, you great stupid prats. Whether we can admit it to the world or not, we are all hexmages—Hexmagic Duelists, worthy of the third and final seal of duelism. The empire separated us, scattered us across the map and beyond, but our magic is made to blend with each other’s. We all know the hexing spells. This Corona magic is too unfamiliar and powerful for us individually. We must hex together. Join me!”

Bayan could have kissed Tarin at that moment and seriously considered it. But with her eyes blazing and her chin high, she didn’t look like she needed any help focusing. The Mistress of Flame was itching for a fight. He held his arm out to her, and she clasped his wrist. Their hexing spells formed in the air between them, a flurry of blue swirls and red sparks, bonding and blending.

An awareness of Tarin and her magic potential grew in the corner of Bayan’s mind. She reached out to Taban, and he extended a hand toward Kiwani. Soon, both appeared in Bayan's mind next to Tarin’s potential. Eward and Aleida joined moments later.

The spells had taken mere moments to complete, but already, the
cetechupes
spewed dark sprays of deadly magic in their direction. Aleida whisked everyone straight off the paving stones with a wide wind disc, narrowly avoiding jagged bolts of lightning, showers of boulders, hail, and slivers of bamboo.

Surrounded by hexmagic, Bayan saw the attacks track his trajectory in slow motion. The nearest spell was a blaze of Shock magic. He borrowed Earth from the hex and cast an enormous metal spike that anchored in the flagstones and absorbed the spell. At the same instant, he felt Tarin borrow his Flame to melt and disperse a hailstorm and Eward borrow his Wind to redistribute the bamboo spikes.

The
cetechupes
scrambled, some jogging for better positions, some crying commands in Coronàl. All fumbled with their belts for their next mouthful of magic. As one, Bayan and his hexmates drove the ice dome deep into the earth and protected it with not only a hefty layer of stone but several trap spells as well, should one of the
cetechupes
decide to attack them again.

Aleida directed the wind disc out from between the two sets of casters, and the enemy gulped, spat, and flew into the air in pursuit. Tarin, Kiwani, and Eward deflected spells from behind, while Bayan helped Taban and Aleida search ahead for tactical advantages in the smoking landscape that had been the Kheerzaal campus. Bayan felt the serene confidence of his hexmates through their bond and matched it with his own.

The
cetechupes
began flinging gouts of flame onto the Kheerzaal buildings below, but the collective mind of the Hexmates did not deign to respond to the obvious tactic.

A blast of Wind again—

They will have prepared a—

Encasing in stone isn’t—

Then neither wood nor ice will—

Airless?

Spitting doesn’t require—

Shock, then.

No, Flame.

As if they had read the Hexmages’ collective mind, the
cetechupes
spread out across the Kheerzaal, forming a wide, lazy circle. Bayan and his hexmates rose higher and looked down on the Kheerzaal campus and its surrounding cityscape: markets, neighborhoods, boulevards, and parks.

Such a large spell will obliterate the Kheerzaal.

Such temporary civilization. It can be replaced.

It is acceptable.

Lifeseeker confirms acceptable losses.

They will target villagers soon. Attack now.

Now.

Bayan and the others gave all of their Flame energy to Tarin. She bound all their energy into a single, molten spell, then delicately wove it with a skill Bayan didn’t think he would ever possess and whirled it wide across the sky. Broad rivers of living flame in red, yellow, and even bluish purple unwound across the sky, targeting not only the
cetechupes
’ current position but every direction in which they might flee. Tarin’s hex-spell devoured the sky, turning cloud to heat haze and blue sky to deepest sunset.

The
cetechupes
dived for the Kheerzaal, seeking shelter, but Tarin’s flaming sky hunted each one of them down in mere heartbeats. Bayan created multiple wind lenses to track each enemy caster. One man launched himself into a pond, only to have the water turn to curling blue flame around him and hold him there as he screamed into ash. Others tried to shelter inside various buildings, but the structures blackened and burst into flame, becoming funeral pyres.

A new facet to Tarin’s spell activated when one of the casters tried to spew a mouthful he’d been holding in reserve: just as the
cetechupes
’ flames had held everyone in place beneath the steel dome, Tarin’s burned his lips shut within a fist of fire, bottling his frantic screams inside his tortured form.

Through the hexmagic link, Bayan sensed the casters’ bodies being consumed by flame and crumbling to ash, their magic and seeming immortality finally broken.

Still, Tarin held the spell, reveling in the power of her Flamecast. Her mantle of fire hovered over the entire Kheerzaal with eight flaming tendrils snaking their way down amongst the buildings, clutching the hot ashes of their enemies. For a brief moment, Bayan wondered if those on the ground perceived an octopus of flame in the sky. If there were any imperial duelists left alive, he hoped they did not try to attack the hexmages. Tarin, in her flaming glory, might not distinguish them from true foes.

He gently pressed his consciousness against her, assuring her that the danger had passed and the enemy was truly defeated. The others joined him, and eventually, Tarin sighed, replete in ecstasy, and released everyone’s Flame magic back to their own minds. “Such beauty. Such power. Can we go again?”