Chapter 2- The Spellwhisper

  The spellwhisper’s hands, unprotected and unmarked, made to wave almost dismissively in our direction. The fire around us reached forward, eager to follow its master’s whim, before it hesitated. With a more focused wave the fire receded several paces, the smoke wisping around us clearing visibly with a few splayed fingers. The building he had emerged from went from a burning wreckage to a blackened ruin in an instant, the fire winking out as easily as a clenched fist. Glorious air came rushing back to take its place.

  In a few short seconds my screaming lungs welcomed the reprieve, and we could all see each other all the more clearly. His gaze was only on one member of our band.

  I could hear men yelling out orders, and I could hear debris being shoved aside and wood being chopped as soldiers struggled to break through. While the spellwhisper’s gaze never left Sam’s position, his eyes raked greedily over her form. He responded to a yelled question from the other side of the blockage with what I could only assume was a taunt about us from the laughter that followed.

  The foreign lord smiled, and while the gesture itself could have been construed as kind, the flames that beckoned with that simple flash of teeth were far from welcoming. His eyes were amber and sharp and hungry, and every sliver of focus in them was directed at the woman I found myself stepping in front of.

  For the first time since we had seen him, the spellwhisper looked to me, and I saw something like dismissal in his stare. His head tilted, and though we didn’t speak each others language, I could sense a ‘really?’ behind the action.

  His mouth opened, and when he spoke I could make out the words against the flames and the carnage as easily as if they had been spoken directly into my ear in perfect silence. The jagged, yearning tone of his words left me awash with fresh terror.

  “Anash telo veleknor.”

  It was the demand of someone who often called into oblivion and asked for the impossible, only to be rewarded for it time and time again with whatever they wanted. Certainty and expectation backed by malice and magic in equal measure. His hand beckoned at Sam, and the shadows around us lengthened. As one we all bristled at the change in the air.

  “Tor-velenok Ga-”

  The words that followed the initial chant were just as vile and sickly as the rest, but they were interrupted by two things. The first was a hastily thrown rock that had swiftly left Delry’s hand, the makeshift projectile meeting our assailants lips just as they formed to purse out whatever the rest of the spell was with a meaty smack. The second was a stream of foreign curses I found much more palatable to the ears than whatever else was being said in the demon tongue.

  For a moment we weren’t looking at a monster who had crossed the Sea of Blood to slave and kill as he pleased. We saw a man that was bleeding, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t the only one who felt some satisfaction at seeing him reduced to just another person.

  Of course that didn’t last very long.

  The “Run!” That echoed through the alley we had been cornered in quickly brought me out of that moment of petty satisfaction and back to the familiarity of fear. A half burned door shattered as Delry kicked it down, and we were through it only moments before something between an indignant yell and a choked gasp came from behind us. The furious scream that followed had my legs pumping even faster. Even with the initiative and the headstart I was ahead of Delry in seconds, and just paces behind Sam as we exited into a street that was decidedly not an alley or side path.

  We ran like hell itself was on our heels, and with the way fire suddenly rose up to chase us it might as well have. I could feel the flame stealing air from behind us, roiling and seething like it was an extension the soul of the man we had managed to anger.

  People were fighting, people were dying, and this time it wasn’t a series of events we were trying not to see as we passed it by, but a deluge of violence we were trying not pulled into.

  Our attempt at escape took us into a wall of shields and screaming men. I could see beetles painted on shields in a splash of green and white. More than one spear pulled back from aborted stabs in our direction.

  “What are you doing!?-”Screamed a man with a tabard over mail. A commander of the guard. His eyes flickered over us, green orbs alight with fear and fury. In the flickering shadow and licking flames they were the only thing I could make out about him. “-Get out of here!”

  Just as the man belted out his command, I heard a yell, and as I looked behind us I could make out a hastily put together barricade of carts, crates and whatever debris could be found. Atop it stood a man in white bodypaint, his arms covered in blackened brands of circles linked together like chains. A slave of a different sort, or a different owner.

  In his hands he loosely held a wickedly gleaming battleaxe already partially soaked in blood. He held a fist into the sky as more men pulled themselves over the barrier. More brands and more warpaint decorating muscular forms. Slave or not he didn’t look to have kindness or mercy in mind for the people he was attacking. With a vile grin and another yell they were charging across the already short distance between us.

  “Callak-hal!” He roared, and his warband followed. I flinched as a gauntleted hand shoved me into action, the guardsmen wanting us out of the way just as much as we wanted not to be a part of it.

  “Go!” The commander yelled, voice hoarse and ragged. We were running as he turned back to his men, stabbing a spear into the sky. “For Dorsland!” He called, and people responded in kind. They didn’t see the fire rearing from where we had just passed them by, and by the time I had looked back to them, the spellwhisper we were running from had emerged from a building just in time to hurl a ball of flame into their midst.

  I choked on a warning as the formation they held shattered in an instant. The men who took the brunt of the flame collapsed into writhing homunculi, not even managing to scream as they were reduced to little more than flesh boiling on the cobbled road. I could feel the spellwhisper’s eyes on me, the intensity of the gaze drew a heat of its own on the back of my neck.

  The rest of the guards could do little more than brace their shields against an onslaught of attackers they were now far from prepared to repel. I heard them dying when I finally crossed a corner and broke from view.

  While I ran the heat at the back of my neck never faded, and in my very soul I could feel that he was still after us. I gritted my teeth, if nothing else than to stop them from chattering at the fear and renewed vigor in my veins. As I rejoined pace with Sam and Delry I couldn’t help but note we were no longer running as people, but more like a pack of frightened dogs. Desperate and frothing.

  Delry was at the lead, and with subtlety and stealth out of the window he was in his element. Doors were battered down with horse-like kick of the leg, armed men cut off from their fellows were shoved to the ground with a rammed shoulder, and no one and nothing seemed to bar his path for long.

  “DAMNATION!” He roared. “OUTTA MY WAY!” He kicked and spat, and one occasion his advance sent a marauder careening into the side of a burning building, the invading foreigner managed to release a meek “eep!” at the sudden blow before his head struck a corner and he fell unconscious.

  Yet all the while we ran I could still feel the heat on my neck. An entirely unnatural unease that I couldn’t put words to. Like a man walking over my grave.Our pursuer wasn’t done with us, not by a long shot. My mind raced for a way out, a path that would see us all safe and away from here. What did I know about the people who bargained their souls for power?

  Hiding was a fool's choice. Who knew what magic a spellwhisper could use to find us? Was using to find us? Fighting was even worse, there was no way he would allow us even a moment to move in his direction after what we had done. That left us with very little.

  Running, at least bought us time. It- I stopped, catching myself on a wall and choking out a “wait!” to my friends. “-WAIT!” Sam stumbled, slowing as my words reached her. Her dress was worn and tattered now. Covered in dust and soot or worse. Her eyes were as wide and fearful as my own. Delry actually fell over, twitching upward with an agility I hadn’t seen from him before.

  “What?” Sam asked, Delrey looking around worriedly behind her. I felt guilt and relief in equal measure to know they still trusted me.

  “I think I know what to do.”

  We ran for another few minutes, putting as much distance as we could between us and the immediate and painful death that was coming our way. Eventually we were able to cross from the west quarter of the city and into it’s center, where the keep lay and people gathered for whatever safety they could try and beg for. We might be among them.

  The fighting and the fire raged on, but there were more of our own people here. Every battle we saw was harder fought and in many places the guard had the advantage of numbers. Shimmer Keep was the smart choice, all the important fighting would be there. It’d be too dangerous even for a spellwhisper to focus on a group of peasants for a grudge of all things.

  Knights of Dorsland would never suffer a foreign caster in their midst.

  The first signs the spellwhisper was still chasing us began to show not long afterward. Fire gleaming unnaturally, leaning towards us like they would reach out and grab us at any moment. Whenever I looked away I could almost see figures dancing closer to me, Evil, inhuman things pacing from and with the flame instead of something so formless as fire.

  Eventually even the people we often ran across, from guards to invaders to peasants, they all cleared as the fire grew stronger. No doubt seeking out what safety they could find.

  “The Shimmer Keep is close!” I yelled. “Not much longer now!” My friends didn’t look back to me, but the pace quickened nonetheless, and the fire howled once more, as if to claim that hope was worthless to us. As if it was listening to us.

  We were taking the direct path as much as we could now, no more twisting into alleyways or ducking into homes, and though that made the danger all the worse, it also allowed us to cover more ground. Soon the towering blue keep that dominated our homeland was no longer just visible, but almost seemed close. Almost enough to convince me we could reach safety in time.

  Yet the fire followed.

  We pushed forward, our footfalls echoing against the cobblestone. Our breath ragged and strained. The fire was leaping out at us now, reaching from open windows and burning carts whenever we passed them, forcing us to keep to the center of the street or risk catching aflame ourselves.

  We were forced to take a left, avoiding a barricade already half ablaze and a burning home for a street empty of all but bodies and a broken dream of safety. We turned a corner, and found our end waiting for us there.

  Four men with heavy spears and thorn-like imagery tattooed and branded around their necks. Warriors we had seen before. Slaves bound to a figure I was fairly certain I knew of already. Our new friend, the spellwhisper.

  At the head of the band was a man with a simple iron helmet, more a bucket than anything else. It covered most of his head, leaving only a heavily scarred jawline visible to us. His spear hung lazily in his hands, but the casual ease with which he held it sent alarm through my mind.

  “The gu-irl.” He commanded, voice thick with a growl and a heavy accent. “Give to us.” The Spellwhisper was waiting, just behind them, armor just as clean and gleaming as it was when I first saw him. He warmed his hands at a makeshift bonfire of the twisted dead.

  I glanced at Sam, the fear clear in her eyes.

  Beauty still clung to her like a leech, even dirty and in distress she was a spectacle to everyone around her. Sweat and exertion gave her skin a glow only time in the fields and in the sun should have granted her. Her dress clung to her form better than some of the women I had seen perching outside of brothels and pleasure houses.

  Here and now it was a curse I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Delry looked at me past a curtain of blond hair. His face a mixture of fear, and trust. I hated that he trusted me even now, that both of them did.

  The heat dancing along the back of my neck was painful enough to distract now, but curiously the flame that had been chasing us every step of the way receded from walls and windows, returning to something almost mundane in nature.

  I remember once being told at a sermon that those a spellwhisper could mark couldn’t so much as whisper without being overheard. Had he been listening to me? Had he overheard our hopes at safety?

  “You want her? I asked. It was a question as much as a taunt. I wished in that moment that I was someone else, someone stronger. Someone who could stand in front of them with a blade in hand and the song of a hero in their heart. I’d have stuck a sword through his throat for the grin he gave me in response.

  “We let you go, if you give.” I didn’t have much hope. There was no telling if the offer was a lie, but then again wouldn’t a grisly death be easy enough to dole out to us otherwise? The mage didn’t have to pretend at mercy to get what he wanted. He had something much better than that at his disposal.

  My eyes never left the figure staring away from us. He lifted a probing hand to the jagged cut that crossed his lips. That would almost certainly leave a scar, I watched his fingers flinch back slightly at the barest touch. The lower half of his face was covered in blood. The spellwhisper tilted his otherwise handsome head in our direction, his eyes meeting mine as they waited for an answer. I grimaced.

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  Of course this was all somehow up to me. I studied him for a moment longer, looking for the cruelty I had already seen once before in his eyes. It was still present now, simmering just below the surface of the lazy glance he threw my way before he looked back at Sam.

  He was distracted enough. Maybe he would even honor that kind of deal.

  I hate them. Not looking at my friends I take a step forward, gesturing towards him. I wait just a moment for them to turn their eyes to the woman I would claim to have loved not long ago, might still claim to love now. I wait long enough that I think I can feel my friends begin to doubt, before the open palm in my hand twists into the one gesture every society touched by the Bleeding Seas could recognize.

  I smirked as the sailor’s finger rose mightily into the air. An insult in every culture, and before they could react, broke into a run directly away from them. I was unfamiliar with the tongue of the Ferric-nar, I have little talent for language, but I needed none to make out the stream of curses that followed my every step away from them. I smiled at the grin Delry sent my way over his shoulder, at the relief I saw in Sam’s back even as we ran for life itself.

  I hate that, for the briefest of moments, I actually considered it.

  I felt air brushing past me as we fled. A spear impaling itself to the cobble road just paces ahead, the alarming accuracy of the projectile leaving me more than a little afraid. Still, I smiled, and I smiled even more when I heard harsh foreign commands cut through the dark. They couldn’t have her, but them wanting her alive was something I could use if it prevented them from risking a throw of another spear. I sped up, taking a place just behind her to ruin any aspirations for an easy way to kill me.

  The fire roared back to life in mere moments, and I heard its master promise a thousand painful fates to me and mine in his foreign tongue. Maybe it was inevitable. There had to be thousands of them in the city by now, and who knew how many of them had magic at their command? We had been blocked off, led astray and herded right where they had wanted us. We had even almost delivered Sam right to them.

  Now, as we found ourselves running away once again, four dangerous but mortal men chased us, and they were accompanied by someone that even a knight would address with caution and perhaps even fear.

  With nowhere else to run our only direction in mind would be away from here. We would be sealed off again, found, or even just cut down by the rest of the invaders. By rights and size alone Delry should have led the charge again, but soon I was giving everything I had to overtake him. How couldn’t I? If we died now it would be my fault.

  “Follow me!” I wheezed, throwing myself forward and ahead. We were retracing our steps now, following a path backward that hopefully would take us along a different route entirely if we moved far enough. I could hear something sizzling, like meat on a pan, and pain blossomed shortly thereafter. I heard Delry grunt for what I could only assume was the same reason, the man swatting at the back of neck like it would relieve him of his pain.

  I knew this part of the city better than any other. My mother had grown here, lived as a seamstress before sickness took her. She loved to go on walks through every street, and I was there with her every step of the way. It was residential, what few shops littered the streets were based out of carts and stalls. I took us past homes for fishermen, for carpenters and stone carvers.

  The sound of yelling men behind us only grew louder. The invaders were no more eager to be on the receiving end of their master’s fury than we were. More than once we were forced to change direction, avoiding battles, debris and burning barricades for safer paths, paths that seemed to take us farther and farther away from the potential for escape. I could hear the chanting again.

  My vision swam, and soon the figures dancing in the flames that reached out to take us when we got too close began to resemble the very man we were trying to avoid. Every second that passed stole just a bit of hope from each of us. I only ran harder. It had dawned on me well before I had taken the lead that magic was not something we could beat. It felt like my heart would soon explode in my chest.

  Through the smoke flowing into the sky I could see a steeple poking out from behind a wall of now destroyed houses surrounded on all sides by bodies. There was little battle here, but much death. In Dorsland the church of the Stone Martyr was the center of worship. It housed orphans, honored our ancestor’s, and through our worship the lady of stone protected our souls as they passed on. She watched over our kingdom in spirit, her name as a mortal lost to time.

  “To the church!” I screamed. “GET TO THE CHURCH!”

  I whispered a prayer to her. To be kind to my soul if my body died today, because I was relying on something else to save my body. For the first time it was a real one.

  Soon we were stepping through and over the bodies, many of them unrecognizable, those that were, resembled our attackers. It had been a city square once. A favorite of my mothers. Popular to travelers because it was one of the few places in the Knightly Kingdoms that worshipped another deity altogether.

  I chanced a look behind me, knowing I shouldn’t. Whatever I saw wouldn’t give me any satisfaction. Yet I could still feel my flesh burning, could still hear warriors braying for the opportunity to take our lives, could still imagine a demon from my childhood nightmares chasing me on rams hooves.

  “Just a man!” I cried, trying to swallow my fear. My arms were swinging into the air. I only looked back a fraction of an instant. It was all I needed.

  They had been a few dozen paces behind when the chase began, the four painted savages with thorns branded and tattooed alike over their forms. They were far closer now, their master not far behind. He was muttering, chanting under his breath, and every word seemed to agitate the fire around us. It was in his hands now, and from the way the fire almost flexed I could tell he was imagining wrapping them around someone's throat.

  “Just a man!” I snarled. The church was visible now. A far cry from the cathedral I had spent the past few years in, just a slip of a building made of stone with shining red windows. I could scream in joy at the sight of it still intact. A small statue of an armored figure kneeling in its direction waited for us just ahead.

  My foot hit a particularly slick pool of blood, and I only barely caught myself, stumbling with a yelp as my ankle twisted in a direction I knew it wasn’t supposed to go. As she passed I saw Sam turn at the sound, eyes widening at the half limp, half lunge I managed to make in the direction of the church. Delry joined her in looking back as I felt something catch against my tunic, tearing the fabric and slowing me another half step. They were both ahead of me now, but they would make it even if I didn’t now.

  “Keep running!” I yelled, the anger I felt stealing the fear from my voice, leaving it nothing but a command I was glad to see my friends follow. I didn’t need their concern, I needed just a few more steps.

  Every one of them sent a lance of pain up my ankle and through my leg, but somehow I just barely managed to keep ahead of the painted men. I could hear the Spellwhisper chanting again, whatever safety Sam’s presence provided gone with her as she passed through the threshold of the church. The twin oak doors protecting it opened just enough to let her pass, Delry only half a step behind her.

  It was a miracle someone didn’t swing a blade into my back as I followed. I didn’t so much as step through the threshold into the church as throw myself into it, flopping inside like a fish that had wriggled from a stall. The painted men and their master were right behind me, cursing and spitting threats in equal measure as they burst inside.

  On the ground and at their mercy I should have been buried in a hail of sharp and pointy weaponry. Shock stilled their hands, fear and hesitation saving my life.

  What waited for us, and for them on the other side of the doors was not an empty church or a wizened priest, not a nun or a singer. Our two groups bore witness to a wall of spears, with an armored man at its lead. An armored man whose very presence left our attackers frozen in their tracks. I would sigh in relief if I had any breath left in my lungs.

  A knight. One of Dorsland’s great defenders. Our only chance at survival.

  Lord Fergus Arton. I hadn’t chosen to see him in years, but as any knight he was immediately recognizable.

  Many men wore armor, many carried weapons to defend their homes and families or to steal and kill in the name of others or for themselves. None in any of the knightly kingdoms wore segmented metal unless they were themselves, a knight. The man at the head of this band was clad in what I knew was rigid, magical plate forged into something more than steel. In his hands he loosely held a broadsword and a blue painted kite shield with a dragon's head emblazoned at its center.

  The scarf draped over his gorget bore a blackened dragon on a blue field, the material shining with heraldry of his faith. The reason I had known he would be here.

  The church of the Forgotten Knight had few followers among Dorsland, but it did have rules that were followed just as zealously as any other faith. In my city, children, travelers, and foreigners alike all came to see the knight charged with its defence. It was the only sure way to see a noble who had surpassed mortal men. They didn’t often appreciate visitors or onlookers.

  Here though? In this one place of safety?

  The faith decreed he never stray far from his charge, that he defend the holy grounds of the forgotten one to the death.

  The spellwhisper, the foreigner who had come to our city with twisted magic on his lips and cruelty in his heart, took a step back. The color draining from his expression as the magnitude of the danger he was in settled firmly in his mind. I could only imagine what he was thinking.

  He was almost alone, he had been overconfident and distracted in chasing us and now he stood before a knight and his retinue without anyone to defend him. Almost no slaves or monsters to put between himself and one of the defenders of Dorsland. Every rumor and every legend about the Ferric-narr told me this is not how they fight.

  I hacked between a cough and a laugh. I had learned once that those marked by a spellwhisper could be overheard as if every word was whispered into their ear. It was a superstition, a rumor people traded to scare each other. I never thought it’d be true until today.

  I never thought I’d be able to use it either.

  The knight in question never looked away from him, cold blue gaze locked firmly on his target past the ensorceled steel of his helmet. In spite of the heat his breath came out in mist.

  “You’d best run along now, peasants. Find what safety you can.” The words were meant to be reassuring, but they only reminded me that there was no real safe haven for people like us. This place would not last long once the Ferric-narr heard of it. Its lifespan, possibly like our own, could be measured in hours.

  It would still do for now.

  A rough pair of hands fell upon my shoulders, and in moments I was being dragged away, Sam joining Delry in pulling me out of danger just moments later. No one made to stop us, the painted men and their master sensing the balance of power now distinctly out of their favor. Any wrong move would start a battle they knew they couldn’t win.

  The barrier of armed and angry men parted before our retreat. Once we were past the spears and shields the people behind looked a lot less menacing. Some of them shot us sympathetic looks, one even whispering “go along now.” as two very dangerous men looked each other over, gauging their chances in a fight.

  Whatever the knight found in his opponent, it was lacking. I heard his greaves clink along the stone floor as he walked a half circle around the foreigners, his blade pointed at their leader. My eyes never left the scene. I couldn’t look away If I wanted to.

  I heard the spellwhisper speak something other than a chant in a devils tongue for the first time, addressing the knight as casually as he could manage. “Perhaps there could be a civil way to handle this? I am lord Connig dras Hierta. My… capture could go a long way towards making this siege easier for you to survive, lord…” The mage-noble paused, allowing his opponent to fill the silence.

  “Arton. I’m afraid your people have made it more than clear you have no intention of negotiating for long. Lady O’Cleary still hadn’t received her husbands body. Or her sons.” The knight’s words were patronizing, but his words were as cold as steel.

  I didn’t recognize the names, but I knew the sound of righteous anger when I heard it. So did the foreigner.

  “That business was unfortunate. I will not deny our own part in it, but you can’t believe your people still hold advantage here.” With a twitch of the spellwhisper’s fingers his warriors moved, fanning outward in a defensive formation. It wouldn’t matter. I’ve seen demonstrations, tournaments. Experienced knights were faster, stronger than natural growth and experience could ever give you.

  The knight hummed. “I don’t.” Before the spellwhisper could respond lord Arton took a step forward, his blade flickering across one of the painted men’s neck in an instant. As his victim stumbled back, choking on blood and words I couldn’t understand, he continued. “I suspect I’m going to die today, but I made peace with that possibility many years ago.”

  Another painted man charged, sword raised into the air and a battle-cry on his lips. The blade was swatted out of his hand before it ever had the chance to come down, and the back of a plated fist met his open mouth. The foreigner gagged, hurling blood and teeth into the ground. Another swing of the blade saw his head parted from his body.

  “Have you?”

  “Srack!” The spellwhisper cursed, flame sparking between his finger tips. His two remaining servants quickly moved to attack, the fire clear on their expressions. Their heads leaned back as if they were trying to pull themselves away and flee, yet their bodies didn’t seem to be of the same opinion. The knight’s own servants seemed content to remain where they were.

  A painted man crashed forward, screaming and spitting insults. Whatever force that was propelling him led him to impale himself on the blade of the knight, fists battering uselessly on his armor. The other ran was close behind, and a shield crushed into his nose for the trouble, sending him stumbling.

  The spellwhisper was panicking now. He was throwing the fire gathering in his palms as quickly as he could swing an arm, each blazing orb uselessly splashing into his servants back. The slave didn’t even have the energy to scream by the time the third orb had struck him, and by the fifth he was just a grim ornament on a knight's blade.

  With a grunt lord Fergus shifted, and the macabre remains were sent careening towards the spellwhisper, who barely threw himself out of the way. A gasp from Sam finally let me tear my attention away from the duel, the spite and vitriol fueling me flooding away as I remembered why we were here. That we weren’t just running from one man or even just one spellwhisper.

  “We have to leave.” I declared, testing my leg and grimacing at the pain dancing throughout. I wouldn’t be walking well without help, and I certainly wouldn’t be running anywhere anytime soon.

  Delry leaned down, green eyes meeting my own. I could see the sad smile on his face, and the tears in Sam’s eyes told me all I needed to know. They recognized I couldn’t do it just as well as I did.

  “No.” Delry said, before he laughed, a broken, shallow thing. “We can’t.” He had sounded so much stronger while we were running. I had almost forgotten that they were just as desperate as I was. They were losing just as much. Sam even moreso.

  “Where would we even go?” She wept, clinging to Delry’s side like it was the only thing that could keep her standing. “-The whole city feels like it’s on fire.” I winced at the words, and the lack of argument either of us could provide. I didn’t like seeing my friends giving up.

  “You can still head for the Shimmerkeep. It’ll give you time to think of something.” It was better than nothing, and it would take hours for the invaders to set up for a proper assault.

  It was Delry’s turn to argue now. “And leave without you? We never would have made it if you hadn’t gotten us here!” I couldn’t bring myself to remind him that we wouldn’t have had to if it wasn’t for me.

  “I’m better off like this. I can’t run anymore, and it’ll be easier to hide alone.” My hand reached upward, squeezing Delry’s shoulder. “I’ll manage over here for a time. Once I catch my breath I’ll think of something.” I grinned, hopefully showing more courage than I felt. I was going to let them try and convince me before I cringed at the sound of a yell, glancing at the spellwhisper, Connig or whatever the fuck his name was. He drew a blade of flames, swinging it in an arc towards Lord Arton. The weapon was met with ensorcelled steel, drawing forth sparks and an otherworldly hiss that made my ears ache and my burn fizzle. It was almost over.

  The sight of it helped me find the strength to continue.

  “Besides, you have more to look out for than me.” I might have meant the words more for Delry, but I stared at Sam just as hard. It was only right that they took care of each other. I was almost convinced they would find another reason to stay, proclaim loyalty and lead me in circles until the enemy came knocking. Instead I was met with a bearhug from both of them. I felt lips on my cheek as they drew, Sam smiling weakly at me.

  “Find us in Corrisland.” It felt like a promise. Only I knew it wasn’t an easy one to fulfill. I nodded, and smiled when they finally turned around. When they were far enough away I let my shoulders drop, before I finally leaned back into my pew, laying fully down for what felt like the first time in days.

  I might have expected that honest hope wasn’t a privilege the gods would allow me to have. I felt it before I understood what was happening, the mark burned into my neck suddenly coming to life with agonizing intensity.

  I was screaming so loudly I thought I might spit blood, but I could still hear the final words of the spellwhisper. Some spiteful curse in the infernal tongue.

  “Nagosh dromach volantyr!”

  And my world became flame and fire.