“We can’t go outthere,” Karima protested, her voice pitched high from fear and disbelief. “They’re bombing the city walls, and now we’ve revenants in our home!”
Joelle flexed her fingers, glancing down at her wrinkled, arthritic hands, which had an ability that hadn’t shown up in her daughter or granddaughter. It’d shown up in Raiah, though Joelle bitterly wondered how much was from her bloodline as opposed to Vanya’s. “The attack on the walls must be a distraction.”
Not by Vanya. He’d never send revenants into a city, not after what he’d survived in Calhames. But Eimarille? The Daijal queen had commissioned death-defying machines and bade theKlovodcreaterionetkas. Eimarille had no respect for the living.
Joelle should have remembered that.
The click of a lock sliding into place made Joelle stiffen. She turned on shaky feet, every instinct that had kept her alive through all the games the Houses played crawling through her bones and ringing a warning louder than the sirens going off over the city. She called forth a spark of starfire, something she’d rarely cast except when making a point in the name of her House. She didn’t have the strength or depth the House of Sa’Liandel carried in their bloodline, but it was still bright enough to blind if one looked directly at where it burned against her palm.
“Mother?” Karima asked, voice cracking.
The guard who had so thoughtfully carried Joelle through the halls of the estate turned to face them, expression bland, but the coldness in his gaze reminded Joelle of a fanatic. “Queen Eimarille sends her regards.”
For all that Joelle could cast starfire, she’d never been trained to use it in defense of her life. It’d been like a parlor trick over the years, proof that her House, for all that it hadn’t sat on the Imperial throne for centuries, still could. But it couldn’t save her or Karima or the dreams she had for the future of the House of Kimathi.
Starfire had always burned bright, but the bullet that slammed its way into her gut was what snuffed it out.
Through the brutal agony that swallowed up everything, Joelle could just make out the sound of Karima screaming and the cracking sounds of a pistol going off. Everything moved like liquid around her, a blackness clawing at the edges of her vision. A metallic taste flooded her mouth, dribbling out between her lips. Her hold on consciousness, on her body, was a tenuous line that kept fraying there at the end until it broke, cut by a Blade.
Five
SOREN
Even where Soren was hidden below in that small, dark room, he could hear the warning sirens. Pushing himself to his feet, he peered up at the ceiling, seeing nothing in the darkness but more than able to imagine what was going on above.
The House of Kimathi’s ancestral estate, and perhaps Bellingham itself, was under attack.
He looked at the door to his prison, the outline limned faintly with light from beyond. He knew where the lock was, knew even with the spells to dampen magic surrounding him that he could melt it off if it wasn’t Lore’s life keeping him imprisoned. Still, an attack on the city could mean Vanya’s forces had finally reached the walls. It could mean rescue was at hand, if Vanya even knew where to look for him.
Soren couldn’t count on that. Vesper had been incredibly adept at getting them out of Calhames without anyone noticing, all her lies and the veil she’d worn weaving an illusion of travel for members of the Star Order.
And here he was, trapped once again beneath a Star Temple, in a room that reminded him much of the iron coffin he’d once been welded shut inside. If Bellingham was being attacked, Soren didn’t want to be trapped in a corner and killed like a wild beast. But if he tried to leave and was found out, then he risked Lore dying because of him.
Soren crossed the scant space to the door, pressing his ear to the cool metal and listening hard for any sound on the other side. He heard nothing, but that didn’t mean no one wasn’t out there. A guard had always been present in the basement outside his cell the few times Joelle had deigned to let him out to see Lore in that room above. Lore had never been awake during those visits, always pale and sleeping from drugs, poison a mere hairsbreadth from her veins.
He shifted, pressing his forehead against the metal, and closed his eyes. It’d been hours since his last meal, and he hadn’t drunk as much of the drugged water this time, tired and disoriented from being shut away in the dark. Soren couldn’t guarantee Lore would still be up there if he got out. He didn’t know if Joelle kept Lore elsewhere in between those times he’d been allowed to see her. If he escaped and she wasn’t there, she’d die for his efforts before he ever even found her.
Another distant, keening note from the warning sirens filtered down to his ear. Soren frowned, pulling back to stare at the door and weighing his options. Break out and hope to find Lore alive or break out and be responsible for her death. If it was truly the Legion trying to tear down Bellingham’s walls, Soren knew he couldn’t stay there in the dark and wait to be rescued.
Choice made, he moved his hand and reached for the aether through the thick miasma of spells wrapped around the room. If he’d been a typical magician, wand or no wand, he wouldn’t be able to summon anything in the face of the precautions Joelle had set upon him. But starfire was a different beast of power altogether, and Soren clawed it forth from the aether with a determination that left him sweating.
Starfire sparked in his hand, the tiny curl of flame molten bright, forcing him to turn his head aside and blink watering eyes. His vision wasn’t used to such brightness, and it hurt, but Soren worked through the pain. He kept his ear pressed to the door, straining to hear anything beyond it as he used starfire to melt the lock clean off the door, his efforts warping the handle as well. He didn’t hear anyone move or call out in the basement beyond, making him think the warning sirens had drawn his guards to the surface.
He hoped so.
Soren let the starfire die away except for a spark, the light it gave off enough for him to see the knob. He balanced on one leg, raising his other to use his boot to shove at the door next to the knob. Damaged and warped as it was from the heat in that area, the door opened easily enough on hinges that didn’t squeak. He tensed, but none of the spells meant to dampen magic barred his way. Soren let his starfire die and quickly moved to the side of the doorframe, nudging the door open wider with his foot.
When he spared a quick glance around the doorframe, he saw the basement beyond was empty. A lone gas lamp in a sconce burned, but most of the light he could see came from the open entryway above the stairs that led to the star temple.
Soren stepped out of the cell, knowing he had little time to make it to Lore before he was found out. He didn’t know what was happening in the estate, but staying put wasn’t an option any longer.
He crept toward the stairs, wishing for his pistols or even his poison short sword. But those had been abandoned in Calhames, and all he had was starfire, a type of magic he’d spent most of his life denying.
There in a star temple, in enemy territory, he no longer denied what he’d been born to.
Soren crept up the stairs, starfire curling around the fingers of both hands as he focused on the star temple above. He couldn’t hear any voices, but that didn’t mean the prayer space would be empty.
The warning sirens hadn’t been switched off, and they rang in his ears as he crouched near the top of the entrance. Soren hid the glow of starfire in his fist as he peered over the edge of the underground entrance, getting eyes on the interior of the star temple. He saw no one in the immediate vicinity, nor could he hear any voices over the warning sirens that echoed through the air. The soldiers tasked with guarding him must have been summoned away, and the only reason Soren could see that happening was an attack on the House of Kimathi’s estate.
