Chains stretched off from Thyran, overwhelming chords with faint screaming woven through most of them. One, the loudest, lacked that chorus of pain. In its place was frustrated, all-encompassing rage—and the hunger Olvir had sensed in Thyran’s storms.
He recognized the Traitor God’s touch at once. As Olvir alone, he’d have been terrified: Thyran was channeling more of any god than he had ever witnessed a mortal touching, far more than any human should have been able to endure. Only Olvir’s union with the fragment let him inspect that snarling flow of power, identify it, and then draw his consciousness back in an instant to see the larger picture.
That tie would be the hardest to break. The others were to mortals—whether Twisted minions or sacrifices, Olvir couldn’t tell. All of them together maintained the warped knot of power and hunger that Thyran had made of himself. All were, to Olvir’s new awareness, desperately wrong: they were to the normal bonds of friendship and worship and love as a mangled limb was to straight bone.
He reached out, as he’d reached for the wind when he’d been in the stonekin’s cave, grasped one of those bonds, and snapped it.
Part of the world fell back into place, no longer forced into distortion. Thyran, in the midst of his final, lethal spell, jerked as though struck by lightning.
The force that would have killed Vivian flew off into the distorted sky instead. Its wielder recovered his composure and spun toward Olvir. The Sentinel was on the ground, no longer a distraction from the real threat. Thyran began to charge.
Olvir broke another chain. It was easier than the first had been: with every person that he freed, the others became harder to restrain. A third followed, even while Thyran tore across the ground toward him, and each shock slowed the warlord’s advance. The others began to unravel themselves, just as the storm winds had done when he’d touched them from the cave.
That left the link between Thyran and Gizath. Not only the Traitor’s raw force gave it strength; both parties had forged that bond willingly. It didn’t want to shatter as the others had—it was vile, but the shape of it was true.
Still, as Olvir bent his will upon the link, he felt it begin to crumble.
The Traitor God roared at the contact, blasting Olvir’s mind not just with hatred but with affront too. In all the long aeons of his divine life, Gizath had never been subject to a mortal’s will, nor had he ever imagined the shard of his own being turning against him.
Thyran echoed his liege’s fury. He didn’t bother with a spell but sprang for Olvir’s neck—
And Vivian, rising in agony on the remains of her leg, hurled a dagger into his back.
It struck Thyran under his right shoulder, not a vital hit, but those few seconds of unexpected pain were all Olvir needed. The sorcerer’s connection to the Traitor, the source of both his power and his survival after Oakford, finally broke.
Thyran collapsed to the ground, all the gems that he wore and all that had grown into him shattering in that moment. He screamed. It wasn’t very loud: he didn’t have much of a throat left.
Kneeling in front of the knife, Olvir turned his awareness from the wreckage of Thyran. He sent it a few feet away instead, following the golden strands that ran between him and Vivian.
If Thyran’s chains had resembled mangled limbs, then there was a similarity Olvir could use. He focused on that, on the way bones should fit together and the way the ones in Vivian’s leg didn’t, and guided them back into their proper places. That was more effort than stopping Thyran had been and the limit of Olvir’s abilities. Healing had never been Gizath’s domain.
Anger followed that thought. It seemed natural for a moment that it was Olvir’s own. Who could gaze on Gizath’s works and those of his chief servant and not be angry?
But then the rage vanished. Confusion took its place. A very faint voice spoke in the back of Olvir’s head. It creaked with disuse, but once it had clearly been beautiful.
Not him. You are him and yet not him. How can this be so?
It came, Olvir realized, from the topaz in the knife’s hilt.
* * *
She was alive.
Vivian had braced for death. Its absence knocked the prop out from beneath her mind. Her thoughts stumbled to a halt.
Thyran was screaming, then gurgling. His body twitched on the ground, bits of it falling in, the ruin of his face crumpling in on itself.
Pain pierced her leg again, without movement on her part or warning on its. The sensation was different from the agony of Thyran’s attack, though. Vivian had gotten bones set on a few occasions in her life as a Sentinel. She knew the feeling of having them yanked back into place, the sudden reunion that strained flesh. Now there were no hands on her leg, and many bones snapped into their proper positions at once, but she recognized the feeling nonetheless.
Tears blinded her. She blinked them away. Thyran lay motionless in front of her. Past him, Olvir knelt by the knife.
The world yet remains,Ulamir said, his voice growing stronger,and healing bodes well.
It wasn’t a definite answer. Vivian didn’t need the sword to tell her that. Her leg, and Thyran’s undoing, could be victories in a war Olvir lost in the end or bribes for his good behavior. The vilest people had pets.
She didn’t know. She had a job to do.
Her leg was set but not really healed. She kept her weight off it as much as possible, bit back oaths of pain, and staggered forward, clutching Ulamir.
