Storm and Steel (46 page)

Lord Xantu lifted a hand toward Horace as if to touch his face. Flames moved along the lord's fingers, hopping from one digit to the next.

With a grunt, Horace struck back. Just as Lord Astaptah had taught him, he drew more power through his
qa
directly from the Shinar dominion in its raw state and sent it at Xantu. The eruption was like a release. The bodyguard doubled over as if he'd been shot in the chest with a crossbow bolt. Then he dropped to his knees.

Horace formed the Shinar into a sword and sliced through the thread connecting him to Lady Anshara. The knot cutting off his breath evaporated. A kernel of pain blossomed in his chest as he sucked down a gulp of fresh air.
Shaking it off, Horace called upon the Girru dominion to surround himself in a wreath of fire. He split the flow of
zoana
to create a large bubble of solid air around the entire box so no one else could interfere. Then he split it again and made that strand as thin and sharp as a stiletto's blade. He put the tip of that invisible blade against the shield protecting the queen and pushed.

You dare to toy with people's lives as if they existed solely for your amusement. I'm going to show you what that feels like, Your Excellence
.

Byleth stood up, a sharp frown creasing her features. “That's enough, Horace. Release your connection to the
zoana
or I shall be forced to—”

He shoved harder, and the shield burst in an explosion of twisting winds that battered everyone inside the box. Before Horace could take advantage, Lady Anshara stepped between them with both hands extended. Knife-like fans of ice flew at Horace, one after another. He batted the first few aside with puffs of hardened wind, but the icy blades spun faster and faster. A couple slipped past his guard to encounter the fiery nimbus he had formed around himself. They melted on contact, but with each touch he felt his defenses weaken. The pain was growing inside him like acid eating through his innards.

Thunder reverberated throughout the arena. The stands were emptying as the crowd fled. The wind howled and brought down a deluge of rain that sluiced between the rows of seats and spattered against the shield he had erected.

The dark presence in his head stirred a heartbeat before invisible bands clamped around his wrists and ankles. Byleth gestured, and the bindings yanked Horace's arms and legs in four directions. At the same time, Lady Anshara had stopped her ice knives attack to gather a ball of spinning white frost between her hands. She breathed into the sphere, and with every breath it grew in size. Horace started to reach out with his
zoana
to sever the bonds holding him when the sphere shot from the lady's hands. A wintry gust blasted his face, shredding his aura of heat and numbing him from head to waist.

Horace strained against the pain to free himself, but the
zoana
was bundled inside him, refusing to obey. The presence thrashed with frustration inside his head.

A streak of green lightning blinded him as a crash like shattering stone rocked the royal box.

Consciousness flickered. He felt himself fall, the bindings suddenly gone from his arms and legs, but he couldn't control his limbs. The sour reek of blood and burning flesh clogged the air.

After a few seconds, feeling returned to his body. Horace lifted his head. The royal box looked like a typhoon had passed through it. The roof was ripped away. Rain drenched the scorched carpet. The queen's throne was destroyed, charred to burnt sticks and ashes.

Byleth lay beside the wreckage, her gown torn and water-stained, her beautiful coiffure unraveling. Lady Anshara sprawled beside the queen. Horace thought the women might still be alive, but Lord Xantu was clearly dead. Most of the skin on his left side had peeled away in blackened strips, exposing layers of seared muscle and tissue. His face was melted like candle wax around two bloody holes where his eyes had ruptured.

Horace pushed himself upright. His legs were shaky, but the
zoana
still coursed inside him. The presence nestled close, opening all his senses. He could feel the storm overhead and the winds as they cut through the city. Through all of it ran a common thread of unpredictability, of lovely chaos. The entire universe rotated on a wobbling axis, spinning through the limitless darkness of the void.

He looked down at Byleth. Her chest rose and fell in a jagged rhythm. He had only to reach out with his power and end the threat she represented forever.
Strike. Strike her down. Do it now. You will never be free as long as she lives. You know this is true
.

Was it the truth? The queen was powerful and sometimes difficult. She had sought to use him, even seduce him, but she had never compelled him against his will. Until Sekhatun. His anger returned in force. She had forced him to choose between his loyalty and his conscience, and people had died because of it. Now he could add Jirom's name to the list of friends who had been lost. Their blood stained his soul. The
zoana
grew inside him, seeking a target. He focused on the queen, defenseless at his feet.

With a sigh, he let go of the power, forcing it back through his
qa
into the great beyond from whence it came. At once, the rage drained out of him and took the dark presence with it. A tidal wave of pain rushed in to fill the void of their leaving, tearing through his chest and dropping him back to his
knees. A horrible stench like dead things moldering in the dark filled his head and made him want to retch.

He reached out his hand but stumbled sideways as a massive surge of wind collided with him. His shielding collapsed as thunder crashed again, directly above him. The power closed around his chest and squeezed, forcing the air from his lungs. With a rasping wheeze, he fell senseless to the floor.

The tunnel stretched out before her, a long passage of darkness with no end. A red glow wavered on the ceiling, its malevolent face watching as she floated beneath it. She had the sense of being carried—feeling the hands under her legs, hips, and shoulders as distant things, devoid of warmth or tenderness. Tall shapes hovered over her, their outlines amorphous in the darkness. There was something familiar about her whereabouts, but her thoughts were slow to form.

She was alive. Somehow. She recalled a battle. Horace's face, distorted with a rage like she had never seen before. Had he truly tried to kill her? She couldn't believe it. Of all her court, he was the one she'd least suspected of betrayal.
I pushed him too far
.

She was drained and battered. It was no exaggeration to say she'd never experienced such a defeat before. Even during the most vigorous periods of her early training, when her instructors pushed her the hardest, she'd never been the victim of violence, physical or otherwise. All her life she'd been assured of her own potency. Had it all been a convenient lie, meant to pacify her? Or was Horace truly that strong? It was a question for another day. Right now she was going to return to the palace and gather her court. Before daybreak, she intended to have him in chains. And this time she would never be so foolish as to let him out of her grasp.
Perhaps it would be better if he didn't survive capture. The lords of the stars know I felt something for him, but he's too dangerous to let live
.

A faint moan came from beside her. With great effort Byleth managed to turn her head. Through the spaces between her bearers she saw Lady Anshara, likewise being carried. The lady's eyes were closed, and her face was marred by purple bruising.

As her vision sharpened, Byleth saw the rough walls of the tunnel, the piercing red runes spaced along the ceiling. The catacombs under the palace. A sigh escaped her lips. She was almost home. She looked around for Lord Xantu, thinking he must be the one who had saved her, but the robed figures carrying her wore cowls over their heads, so long she wondered how they could see where they were going. She was about to command them to stop and put her down when a sepulchral voice reached from the darkness.

“Good evening, Majesty.”

A chill ran down Byleth's spine as Lord Astaptah appeared, impossibly tall in the ambient light. “Astaptah,” she said. “You saved me?”

The vizier stepped closer. His robes swished softly across the stone floor. “I suppose that is the case, although not by intention. I assumed you would be dead when I sent my underlings to collect you and the lady.”

“Collect us?” Byleth tried to sit up, but she didn't have the strength. Gasping, she collapsed back into the grasp of her gray-shrouded bearers. “Take us up to the palace at once. The First…Horace must be apprehended.”

Her vision began to spin. She could barely make out Lord Astaptah as he reached down and placed his hand over her face. Harsh words filled the tunnel, piercing her skull like red-hot irons. Byleth thrashed, her stomach arching toward the ceiling until she thought her spine would snap. She tried to fight back, but the
zoana
remained out of reach.

“This gives me no pleasure,” Lord Astaptah said close to her ear. Softly, almost like a lover's whisper. “Yet it was always inevitable. A pity I cannot add you to my test subjects. However you are more valuable to me as a martyr.”

Byleth shivered within the cocoon of agony encasing her as something sliced through her bowels, up through her stomach, burrowing toward her heart. “But the machine is…destroyed! I saw it…”

“I must apologize for that deception, Byleth. The storm engine remains functional, as I shall soon prove. Farewell.”

Lord Astaptah turned to leave, and Byleth struggled to call after him. A curse formed on her lips, but only a strangled groan emerged, rising into a scream. She feared it would never end, even as the veil of darkness fell over her.

Voices drifted down from the black sky, calling to him in deafening rumbles. Ancient beings born in the hearts of stars and flung across the endless gulfs of space and void. Destroyers of a thousand worlds, cast down eons ago by their upstart children. But the forces that had bound them for eons were eroding, and now their baleful eyes were turned once more to this realm
.

The old gods were returning…
.

Horace's eyes shot open. He lay in darkness, a darkness so quiet he thought he had awoken inside a tomb. His tomb, for he had died. Hadn't he?

But this place was stifling hot. He was lying on a hard surface, probably a stone floor. His shoulder ached like a spike had been driven through the joint. He tried to sit up and was stopped by bindings. They were unyielding, holding down his ankles, wrists, waist, and around his neck. He swallowed against the metal pressed there.

Fighting to keep calm, he focused for a moment to create a light. The
zoana
slipped through his mental grasp. He tried again, this time concentrating harder. He felt the power coursing beyond the gateway of his
qa
, but it refused to come at his command. Then an awful suspicion twisted inside his mind like a rusty blade. The bindings might be made of
zoahadin
. If that was the case, then he was well and truly fucked.

A door opened beyond his feet, and light poured in. Fierce and ruddy, carrying with it a gust of hot air. The walls and ceiling of a small stone room surrounded him. He appeared to be on a table, not the floor. Some kind of metallic apparatus with handles and silver hoses dangled above his head.

Horace tensed as a familiar figure entered the room. “What am I doing here?”

Lord Astaptah walked to the head of the table. “Forgive me not being present when you awoke. Other matters were pressing. This…” He gestured around the cell. “Is the first part of my grand design. You're here because the queen is dead. The people of Erugash mourn her passing. Were you to walk
onto the streets above, you would find the air filled with their lamentations. Byleth the Blessed, struck down by the foreign devil she had protected.”

Horace couldn't believe it. “I didn't…the lightning, the storm…I didn't do it. I mean, I was just trying to make her understand. I didn't mean to hurt anyone.”

“I know, Horace. That was my doing.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. At first he thought it was just a mirage, but as his vision cleared he saw it, a field of energy surrounding the vizier. The power radiated from him in crackling, black waves. Horace tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. “You're a sorcerer.”

“Of course. We share a connection, you and I. Akeshia hasn't known a master of the void dominion in centuries. Now there are two. Quite the coincidence, no? Unfortunately, that is one too many.”

A sinking feeling filled Horace's chest, as if all his internal organs were collapsing in dismay. Of course Astaptah had blamed him for the queen's death. A thousand witnesses had seen him battling her at the stadium. “So now you kill me and get rid of the last obstacle, you fucking bastard.”

“There is no need for such vulgarity, Horace. After all, we've become quite close of late, haven't we? Yes, I believe I've come to know you as well as you know yourself.”

Lord Astaptah reached up to the apparatus on the ceiling and pulled a handle downward. One of the silver hoses was attached to the top, but on the bottom end—the end coming much closer to Horace's face than he was comfortable—jutted three sharp prongs like tiny claws. The round end of the handle was serrated. The vizier leaned over him and peered into each eye. “Perhaps better.”

“You don't know me at all, and you sure as Hell aren't the man I thought you were. Mulcibar was right about you.”

“
Ai
, it's unfortunate that he warned you. It forced me to move sooner than I intended.”

“You…you killed him.” Horace looked at the handle swinging over his forehead and knew why it had looked so familiar. He'd seen the wounds on Mulcibar's body and didn't want the thing anywhere near him. “You killed him here with this contraption.”

Lord Astaptah held the handle with both hands. “In this very cell. This device drains the subject of the vital essence that feeds our bodies, our brains, and especially our power. It is, in essence, a pump. Your energy will fuel my ascension. I wish I had time to show you the engine. I think you, above all others, might appreciate its elegance.”

“Then you don't know me at all! I'm nothing like you. I don't care about—”

“Power? Don't be foolish. Of course you do. Ever since you had your first taste of the
zoana
in the desert, you've craved more of it. Power is freedom, and everything must submit to its inexorable tides. Pain is the key. I tried to teach you that, but you stubbornly refused to learn the lesson.” He leaned down closer and placed a hand on Horace's head. “Pain is what sustains us and drives us to excel. You must embrace it or perish.”

Astaptah pulled the metal handle lower.

Horace turned his face as far away as possible as the pronged end descended toward him. “The other kings will never let you keep the throne! You're just as much an outsider as I am!”

“Perhaps. However, I told you these Akeshians revere only one thing. Strength. And with my device operating at peak capacity—thanks to your contribution—I now control the strongest power in the empire.”

Astaptah grabbed his chin and held him tight. The sharp claws bit into his forehead. Horace fought against his bindings, even knowing it was futile. The ache in his shoulder redoubled, but he continued to struggle. The handle had latched on tight.

The vizier reached out to the wall. “I wish events could have been different, Horace.”

He flipped a switch, and a high-pitched whine started within the handle. Horace braced himself, but nothing could have prepared him for the bolt of electric agony that shot through his body. It centered around the spot where the device was attached to his brow, waves of pain like he'd never known washing over him in a river of torment that wiped his brain free of all other concerns. He could feel the warmth of his body being pulled out, and with it his life, like grains of sand falling through an hourglass. He gritted his teeth,
fervently intending not to give his torturer the satisfaction, but his resolve vanished in a matter of heartbeats, and a ragged, guttural shout was ripped from his throat.

The vizier started to leave. Horace wanted to beg him to turn off the device, though he knew it would be in vain. Yet he couldn't form the words. His teeth rattled with the violence of the pain surging through him.

Astaptah paused at the door. He looked back, his face expressionless. “Prince Zazil held out for three days before he succumbed to the engine's hunger. Lord Mulcibar lasted four. I have high hopes you will prove more durable than either of them. Good-bye, First Sword.”

He closed the door behind him, leaving Horace alone in the dark with his pain.

Jirom awoke on a bed. A real bed with a mattress. Too soft to be straw, it had to be stuffed with feathers. The coverlet underneath him was cool linen. A pillow cradled his head. He tried to sit up, and a sharp pain pierced his forehead.

Three Moons leaned over him. “Easy there, Sarge. Take it slow.”

Jirom grimaced as he touched his head, which ached like it had been cracked open with a sledge. “Did I get demoted again?”

The sorcerer shrugged. “Sorry. Old habits die hard. And, to be honest, I never really saw you as officer material.”

“You and me both, brother.”

A familiar voice chuckled on the other side of the bed. Emanon placed a hand on his shoulder. “Well, you did lead our army into the mother of all ambushes, get us both captured and sent to the Grand Arena where we had to fight to our deaths.”

Jirom mustered the strength to smile. He was in a fairly large room, better appointed than anything he'd seen in years. The walls were painted burnt ocher with a border of red scrollwork along the top. “True. How are we not dead?”

Emanon nodded to Three Moons with a wolfish grin. “Your friend here is full of surprises.”

“You're not telling me anything I don't already know. How did you escape capture at Sekhatun?”

Three Moons winked. “A little sleight of hand in the midst of the confusion. The Akeshians were so busy rounding up you hard-chargers they didn't have time to worry about us cockroaches.”

“That'll teach me to lead from the front. So where's Longar?”

The sorcerer's mouth twitched as if an invisible line were tugging on his lower lip. “He didn't make it. You know Longar, always trying to be the hero. He insisted on covering our retreat, but he got caught up in the fracas. It was a good death.”

In his mind, Jirom saw the faces of all the men who had died at his side, adding Longar to the list.
A good death. Is there such a thing?

Alyra came over from a doorway on the far side of the room. She was carrying a bag, which clinked as she set it down beside the bed. “How is he?”

“I'm f—” Jirom started to answer.

“He took a lot more venom than I originally thought,” Three Moons interrupted. “So it took two treatments to bring him around. Sorry, old friend, but your head is probably going to hurt for a while.”

Jirom looked to Alyra. “I saw you in the tunnel under the arena.”

“I was able to cash in a few favors,” she replied. “The Nemedian network got you and Emanon and the rest of your surviving fighters out of the pits. We brought you to a safehouse in the city.”

Jirom tried to sit up again and was rewarded with a new slice of agony shooting down from his right temple. He clamped his jaws shut and spoke through gritted teeth. “You managed to just spirit us away without anyone noticing? That must've been some trick.”

“Everyone was distracted by the big mojo flying around,” Three Moons muttered.

“Big mojo?” Jirom asked. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Alyra and Emanon exchanged glances, and then she said, “After you fell, Horace attacked the queen.”

“He did what?” Fierce throbbing erupted over Jirom's temple, but he ignored it.

“The queen was killed,” Emanon said, sounding as if he was irritated he hadn't gotten the pleasuring of doing the deed himself.

“It's all my fault,” Alyra said. “Three nights ago I was sent to kill the queen while she slept. But I couldn't do it. If I had, your men would be alive today and Horace would be free.”

Jirom shook his head. “Don't blame yourself. Killing in battle is one thing, but a knife in the dark is no way to fight.”

Emanon raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but Jirom ignored him. “What happened to Horace?”

“He was captured by Lord Astaptah.” Alyra's mouth tightened into a frown. “After the queen's demise, Astaptah took control of the court. I would have thought some of the other
zoanii
might challenge his right to rule; however, it seems he has cowed them all.”

“Where did he take Horace?” Jirom asked.

“By every fucking god and demon in this festering land!” Emanon winced as he put a hand to his forehead. “Jirom, I know you're concerned about this friend, but haven't you been listening? The queen is dead. The city's hierarchy is in disarray. This is the chance we've been waiting for. We can finally deal a decisive blow.”

Jirom was about to launch into a tirade about how Emanon had been promising him the chance to rescue Horace for months now and never once tried to make it happen, but Alyra spoke before he could get it out. “I'm not sure about that, Emanon,” she said. “We can't afford to underestimate Lord Astaptah. He obviously bided his time for this opportunity. If the
zoanii
get behind him—”

“But we don't know if they're supporting him,” Emanon argued. “They may be waiting to see how this new regime shakes out before they pick a side.”

“Even if the major houses are waiting in the background, he still commands the palace and the ruling apparatus—”