The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (69 page)

Iskra knew she should respond with greater warmth, but all she could manage was a nod. “Thank you, Mæva. I will be calling a meeting later this afternoon to discuss our future. I hope that you can join us.”

The witch smiled tiredly. “Here is where I should make a mocking comment about my surprise over having earned your confidence, but I am too tired. I will be there.”

Iskra returned her tired smile and walked to her daughter. Kethe’s face was drawn, the hollows under her eyes a dark purple, and her lips were bloodless. Her face was like a waxen death mask of its normal, vital self. Iskra’s breath caught in her throat. “Brocuff,” she said woodenly. “Please take my daughter to her bedroll.”

“Yes, my Lady,” said the constable gruffly. Had his voice caught in his throat? He picked up Kethe carefully, and then preceded Iskra into the great hall. She half expected to see Tiron standing to one side, glowering and alone, or Audsley hunched over the fire, spectacles reflecting the flames. Where were they? She felt a pang in her heart, loss and hope inextricably intertwined.

Brocuff laid her daughter down by the fire and pulled a blanket over her shoulders. “Will there be anything else, my Lady?”

Iskra forced a smile. “No, Constable. See to your duties, then rest. I will require your presence at this afternoon’s meeting.”

“Very well.” He turned to go, hesitated, then turned back. “If it’s not out of line for me to say—well done, my Lady. Well done. You saw us through the night.”

Iskra sat down alongside Kethe and gazed at her wan features. “Thank you, Constable. I can’t take too much credit, but I appreciate your words.”

As Brocuff walked away, Iskra brushed a lock of hair from Kethe’s face and felt a sob well up deep within her. She fought it down. What was happening to her darling girl? How much was she suffering? If she could take Kethe’s pain and exhaustion into herself, she would in a moment, but there was nothing she could do. Too much had happened for her to understand all the implications, but one thing was clear: her daughter’s trials were just beginning.

Iskra lay down beside her daughter and pulled her close. She smoothed down Kethe’s hair over and over again while humming a song she used to sing to her when she was little and couldn’t sleep.

She thought of Kitan looming over her, knife in hand, and Tiron as he had cut the knight down. How it had felt in that moment to step into his arms. She saw again the rippling black ink of the Gate fading away, claiming him and Audsley both for the next month, if not forever. Would she ever see them again?

Too many questions. She closed her eyes and let exhaustion steal her away.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Asho pulled open the secret door and stepped into the narrow passage, where the smell of blood and death hung thickly in the air. He held aloft his candle, but in truth he barely needed its light to make out the steps as they descended down to Audsley’s secret rooms. He walked slowly, one hand held out to trace the rough stone walls. He moved down and around, down and around, till he finally stepped out into the central chamber.

He stared down at Kitan’s fallen body. The knight lay on his side, his azure armor gleaming in the candlelight like a treasure spied in the depths of a well. His blood had already turned black, a broad puddle that overlapped the centuries-older stain.

Asho looked past the dead man to the now-dead Gate. Where had Audsley and Tiron gone? Would they return? What mysteries were they encountering now? They could have stepped out anywhere in the known world or beyond. Asho prayed that the Ascendant would grant that they not only return in thirty days’ time, but bring back a flicker of hope with them.

Had it only been a few hours ago that he’d stood here with Brocuff and the other guards, intent on defeating Kitan’s forces, their breathing echoing off the vaulted ceiling, their torches casting dancing, menacing shadows across the walls? Waiting and not yet knowing that Makaria himself was stalking toward the Hold, bringing with him the key to unlocking Asho’s own damnation?

Asho forced himself to swallow, and set the candle down on the floor. The sword was buckled at his hip. He hadn’t drawn or even touched it since sheathing it last night. Its weight had pulled at him. He’d fought desperately to keep himself distracted ever since he’d pulled himself to his feet on the causeway and gone to help Kethe rise. She’d been insensate and, cradling her to his chest, he’d staggered back to the Hold. He hadn’t dared to look closer at Makaria’s remains—the remains which had burned beneath the water, consuming what was left of the Virtue’s body with a terrible and dark hunger.

Exhaustion assailed him. He’d kept moving ever since. No matter that he was battered and wounded, no matter that his body craved oblivion. He hadn’t dared sleep for fear of his dreams, hadn’t dared stop for fear of his memories. But now, with the wounded seen to, the enemy knights released and the dead laid out and hauled onto the far shore, he could no longer avoid his fate.

Asho took a deep breath, closed his eyes and focused. Slowly the rushing roar of the world grew around him. It was as if he were standing in the center of a vortex, and all the magic in the world was gathering and draining down through the Hold. Whatever role this ancient castle had played in defying the Black Shriving, it was playing it still. Dimly, he could sense Kethe asleep above him in the great hall, a faint resonance that barely registered on the far edges of his mind. She was a flickering candle in the dark reaches of his mind. Could he reach out to her even while she slept? He didn’t dare try.

Instead, he lowered his hand to the hilt of the sword. He hesitated, then clasped it firmly and pulled it free. Just as when he had first drawn it during his demon hunt, the runes smoldered to life and the air around the blade began to shimmer as if it were being superheated. Asho brought the blade up and studied it carefully. It was jet black, but by turning it from to side, he could make out ripples in the blade. The runes were in no language he had ever seen before.

Asho took a deep breath, held it, and pushed
from deep within his soul, cracked open his soul and poured his essence into the blade. With a
whoomph
the length of the sword caught fire. Ebon tongues of flame poured up its length, shot through at their very core with the darkest veins of crimson.

It was the same fire he had seen the Agerastians wield on the battlefield. Hell fire. Flames from beyond the Black Gate. If ever there was a weapon of evil, if ever there was a tool of damnation, he was now holding it in his hand.

Asho’s skin was crawling. Makaria had fallen to this fire. He had killed a Virtue with the fires of perdition. He wanted to laugh, but could feel hysteria lurking just beneath his panicked mirth. He extended his arm. The flames wavered and dripped from the blade, vanishing as they fell. Turning, he drew the sword’s tip across the wall. Where the tip connected with the living rock, the metal whitened and he left a thin cut behind.

Heart pounding, he ceased feeding the flame with his will, and the flames flickered out of existence.

His exhaustion crashed down upon him, followed immediately by a crippling sense of nausea. Asho dropped the sword and fell to his knees, palms flat on the ground, to retch and gag as his stomach churned and rebelled. For long minutes he spat up nothing but bile, and finally fell over onto his side. He felt awful.

A memory came to him of the Agerastian Sin Casters keeling over, one by one, spitting up blood as their magic took its toll. Without Kethe, he realized, he would die. Without Kethe, his own magic would be as lethal to him as his enemies were.

He lay still and stared at the sword. Its blade was once again matte-black.

He recalled the fire pouring in a torrent from its blade to engulf Makaria mid-leap, a fire that had continued to burn even underwater. A fire that had destroyed the Virtue of Happiness.

Revulsion swarmed through him. He was a Sin Caster. He was damned to fall through the Black Gate upon his death. He was anathema to his own religious beliefs, and there was nothing he could do about it.

With a cry he sat up and seized the blade. His horror and fury welled into a crescendo, and the blade caught fire anew. Holding it reversed in both hands, Asho slammed it down into the stone floor. It sank down till only a hilt of flaming metal was left showing.

Gasping, he rose to his feet and snatched up the candle. A splitting headache assailed him. He had to get out.

He turned and staggered up the steps.

Behind him, the blade guttered and died. The chamber was plunged into darkness anew.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Kethe awoke reluctantly. For a long while she simply lay still, eyes closed, allowing the murmur of conversation in the great hall and the crackle of flames to wash over her. In the near distance she could hear the soft moans of the injured as they tried to sleep, and beyond that the cruel caws of the ravens. They had survived the night, but to what end? An arm was draped over her shoulder; for a moment she thought it might be Asho’s, and then she recognized her mother’s breathing.

She carefully extricated herself, stifling a groan as the pains in her body flared back to life, and rose to her feet. Wan sunlight was filtering in through the high cracks in the wall and ceiling. Early afternoon, she guessed. Several guards turned to nod in her direction. Kethe didn’t want company, needed to be alone. With a tight smile she picked up her cloak, swept it over her shoulders, and padded out of the room.

She climbed to the battlement and walked to the side opposite the lone guard. There she huddled down in the lee of the wall to sit with her knees beneath her chin, arms wrapped around her shins. She could see the massive mountain slopes that cupped the lake and the Hold just over the walls; their stark cliff faces and ice-bound peaks were walls that she could not escape. A sob formed deep in her chest and fought to escape her throat. Biting down, she lowered her face to her forearms and closed her eyes.

She was going to die
.
That thought beat at her like Elon’s hammer at the anvil, over and over. She was going to die, and badly.

Last night she had helped kill a Virtue. Again she saw him go down, wreathed in impossible black flame, Asho suspended high over the causeway, hair flaring and eyes blazing. She’d been connected to him, had enabled his final attack. How was she now to present herself to Aletheia and ask to be consecrated? That road was forever closed to her. There was no escaping her fate. Her powers would continue to manifest until they burned her out and left her a guttered ruin.

Tears brimmed and then spilled down her cheeks. Her soul wanted to cry out at the unfairness of it all, but she bit down that cry, refused to let it sound. The world was anything but fair. She wouldn’t shame herself further by mewling like a child.

Asho emerged from the far stairwell and turned to her, and she wiped the tears from her cheeks. Had she known he was coming? On some level she must have, just as he seemed to know where she was sitting. He approached slowly, trailing a hand over the battlements, his face guarded, his mouth a thin line. He looked battered and low.

She pushed herself to her feet. He was the last person she wanted to talk to, but she knew there was no denying the need for them to talk.

“Hello,” he said, his voice little more than a rasp.

“Asho.” She pushed her shoulders back. She was her mother’s daughter, even now.