The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2) (4 page)

He'd never felt so alive. The more he drank from the world, the fiercer his power. He inhaled deeply again, sucking in greater breaths of magic, and the courtyard wavered in his vision as if he were suddenly underwater.

Kethe rocked back on her heels as if checked by the upsurge that flew along their connection into their souls.

"You all right?" Asho's voice sounded strange in his own ears, hollow and distant.

"Yes." She took a deep breath as if mastering herself. Her eyes flashed and her grin was feral, almost manic. "Oh, yes. Looks like you dropped your sword."

"Yes." He walked toward her. Was there a limit to how much magic he could draw? "Still, I don't think I'll miss it."

"Oh?" Kethe slashed at the air. "You're the cockiest Bythian I've ever met."

Asho didn't answer. He strode right up to her, and when she swung, he simply swayed around her blade.

Everything seemed to slow. Her backhand sailed over his head as he leaned back, and a mad thought seized him, the sense that he could catch her blade with his bare hand. He almost attempted to do so, but some elementary caution held him back. Instead he danced with Kethe, weaving and bobbing as she hacked and cut at him as futilely as if he were a shadow.

"How are you doing that?" She fell back with a gasp.

"Doing what? Embarrassing you?"

Her brow furrowed in anger. "No. Moving like that. It's not fair."

"It's a cruel world, Kethe." He stepped in close again. "You should know that by now."

She launched herself at him with a cry, spearing her sword straight at his head. It was easy to side-step. He let Kethe's momentum carry her past him, then slid his arm around her neck and pulled her tight against his chest in a choke hold. She cried out and dropped her sword, grabbing at his forearm with both hands. He didn't squeeze, but rather held her tight.

"How's this, then, for a trick?"

The white fire that burned off her skin swirled as if a gust of wind had blown into the heart of an inferno. Her grip on his forearm grew as strong as iron, and with a cry of anger she bent at the waist and hurled him over her shoulder. He flew through the air and crashed down to the ground, sliding over the broken stones until he fetched up beside his blade.

Eyes wide, Asho stared at Kethe. She was heaving for breath, hands balled into fists, eyes slitted. But it was the white fire that held his attention. The flames were curling and snapping at the air as if they were alive.

"Kethe?"

"Never." She took a shuddering step toward him. "Touch me like that. Again."

She was tearing the magic from him, inhaling it faster than he could pull. A pink tone covered her brow, then it turned red.

She was sweating blood.

Alarmed, Asho stood and ceased drawing on the magic currents. The roar in his ears was immediately replaced by the sound of his pounding pulse. Kethe let out a small cry and sank to one knee, head lowering, shoulders still heaving for breath. But without his magic pouring into her, the white flames that danced across her body shrank to barely a flicker.

Asho hurried to her side, crouched, and reached out to touch her shoulder before pulling his hand away. "Kethe?"

"I'm fine." Her voice was little more than a gasp. She stood abruptly, swayed, and turned away. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" That fierce joy had completely evaporated. A wave of exhaustion passed through him, and without meaning to he rocked back and sat heavily on the stone. "You're sweating blood."

She passed her hand over her brow, stared at her bloody palm, then wiped it on the seat of her breeches. "It's nothing," she said again.

"We took in too much," he said. He wanted to hang his head between his knees and just focus on breathing. "We shouldn't - we can't - take in that much power. That's what happened. We went too far."

Kethe stood still, head lowered, hands knotted into fists. Finally she sighed and relaxed. "Maybe." Then she turned and stabbed at him with an extended finger. "But if you ever grab me like that again, I swear by the White Gate that I'll -"

"All right, all right." Asho held up his hands. "I'll not touch you." But he couldn't keep the corners of his lips from quirking up. "I'll stick to hacking at you with a sword from now on."

Kethe couldn't maintain her glare, so she dropped her hand. "Hacking futilely at me, you mean. You never landed a blow."

The reminder caused him to wince. Asho looked down at his side, where a thin line of blood had seeped into his tunic, then tongued the side of his mouth where her pommel had cracked across his jaw. "Fair enough. We're going to have to be careful with this... ability of ours. What we just did was reckless."

"Perhaps," said Kethe. Her expression turned bleak. "But this power is a death sentence regardless. What will caution gain us? We're damned and might as well learn what we can do."

In his mind's eye Asho saw the Virtue he'd killed collapsing in black flame. Felt his own breath catch.
Damned.
For Kethe that might mean being reborn as a Zoeian. For him? The Black Gate. He didn't know what to say. "You're not damned." His fear turned to anger. "You're connected to the White Gate. You might become a Virtue.

Kethe wiped her brow again with her other hand. "You couldn't have killed Makaria without my help. I'm damned. They'll never Consecrate me and let me become one of them. You know it. I know it. So why pretend?"

Asho forced himself to his feet. "No. You don't know that."

Kethe slid her blade into her scabbard. "Poor Asho. Do you really think that?" She stepped right up to him. The look in her eyes chilled him. Scorn. Pity. The deepest flickerings of anger. "We're damned, Asho. You and me both. This power. This ability we have. It will kill us if we're not hunted down and killed first. Understood?"

Asho didn't know what to say. A great and blank denial arose within his chest. "No. I don't believe that."

She patted his cheek and he flinched back. "That's all right. Go on pretending. But you'll have to do so alone. I've never been good at lying to myself." She gave him a bitter, condescending smile and walked away, into the great hall.

Asho stared straight ahead. He felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. Was he being naive? His old anger came flooding back, an anger he'd harbored since Lord Kyferin had first started abusing him and his sister, fury at a world that was unjust and cruel and which mocked his every effort. He'd not asked for this power. He'd not asked to be attacked by a Virtue.

Asho closed his eyes and lowered his head. His breath hissed through his teeth. He'd not felt this dark and terrible anger in some time. His old friend. It warmed him, gave him strength. But then Ser Wyland's words came back to him, words he'd oft repeated to himself:

"You, Bythian, are blessed. As unnatural as it is, your ascension to knighthood affords you the greatest chance to suffer. Your suffering elevates you. If you are to serve Lady Kyferin truly, you will disdain excuses. You will ignore insults. You will let nobody drag you down. You will fight with all your heart, and when your death comes, as it surely will, you will die at peace with your life and your deeds, knowing that you have brought more light into the world than dark, that your suffering had purpose, and that you have served the Ascendant with all your soul."

Asho took a deep, shuddering breath and forced his hands open. His suffering had purpose. It redeemed him in the eyes of the Ascendant, purified his soul even as he darkened it with his magic and violence.

"I am a Black Wolf," he whispered. "A knight. I will not despair. I won't break." He took another deep breath, then a third. Waited till his pulse began to slow, till his anger started to subside, then opened his eyes and looked down at his blade. Its length was badly notched. How hard had he been striking at Kethe if he'd damaged a castle-forged sword in such a manner?

A murmur of voices filtered out of the great hall. People were up and about. Gethis the undercook would be preparing breakfast for another day in the ruined Hold.

Let Kethe embrace misery. He'd not break. He'd not despair. He would hold onto hope until his very last breath, hope that their suffering had a purpose, hope that Kethe might yet redeem herself, even if the fate of his own soul lay in doubt.

Asho slid his blade home into its scabbard and followed her into the hall.

CHAPTER THREE

Tiron was adrift in an ocean of pain and desire. Sitting with his back against the alien black wall, with a battlescape of slaughtered ancients and kragh extending beyond him beneath a slumbering layer of mist, he felt tormented and feverish. With his eyes closed, he could still see her: pale, beautiful, terrified and outraged, Iskra Kyferin, stepping into his arms, where she rested her head on his shoulder and trembled.

The thought was sweet torture. He could almost hear Sarah's cries of outrage. Iskra's husband had slaughtered Tiron's wife, killed their son, and thrown him into a dungeon to rot forevermore. He'd sworn to avenge them, and yet there he had stood, doltish and calf-eyed, holding their oppressor's wife as if she were a delicate bird that he had liberated from a cruelly barbed net.

And yet. And yet. That one moment had extended in duration out toward infinity. He had held her, and everything had stilled. The pain of his wounds had grown distant, along with the jagged spike of bloodlust from killing Kitan. He'd wrapped his arms around her slender frame, and for a moment a vision of a different future had blossomed before his eyes, one in which he might release his pain and find joy once more with a woman by his side who thrilled and fulfilled him. A future painted in bold colors instead of the black and green and gray that he'd imagined previously.

Tiron shivered. Was he a fool? Would she have stepped into the arms of any man who had been present at that point, overcome as she had been with emotion and anger?

Tiron cracked open an eye and glanced over at where Temyl was standing, searching the curvatures of his ear for dirt as he scowled down at a corpse. No, she'd not have embraced just any man. But had she only reached for him in a moment of weakness? Would she do the same after she had been restored to Kyferin Castle, with all the honors and power that came with being a ruling lady?

Oh Sarah
, he thought.
I am weak. Forgive me.
Tiron leaned his head back against the cold wall and tried to master his thoughts. There was no profit in pointless speculation. He should be focusing his energies on their current situation, not wondering about Iskra's intentions like a lovelorn fool. But she had felt so good in his arms. So right.

"Tiron, I just discovered something."

The note of shaky fear in the magister's voice brought him back to the present with a snap. Tiron looked over at where Audsley was standing, pale and quivering like a newborn bullock.

"I think I know where we are," Audsley said.

Gritting his teeth, Tiron pushed himself back up onto his feet. If the news was bad, he'd hear it standing. The pain lanced through his side, but he smothered a grimace. He'd not show weakness now, as the other three guards crowded in close, ragged loops of improvised rope in their hands.

"It's about time," he said. "I was starting to doubt your abilities."

"Ha ha," said Audsley weakly. He rubbed his hands together like a washerwoman. "I, ah, it's but a theorem, but it's entirely possible, given the age of the bodies and the symbol I found around that corpse's neck that we're, well, I feel -"

"Out with it." Tiron used the same tone he employed with fractious squires who thought they could get away with horseplay under his watch. "Where are we?"

"Starkadr," whispered Audsley, his eyes going wide.

Tiron pursed his lips.
Starkadr
. The name meant nothing to him. The other three men seemed equally nonplussed. But Audsley was watching him expectantly, as if that name should have thrown him into hysterics. "All right. What's that?"

Audsley threw up his hands. "Oh, for the love of the White Gate and the seven holy Virtues. Don't you Ennoians learn anything about history?"

Fierce, flinty anger flickered in Tiron's breast. "No. We spend our time learning how to kill the men and women who would bother you Noussians in your libraries. So, talk."