Sixteen The Other Brother

SIXTEEN

The Other Brother

MARY

T he mages were kept upstairs, along echoing corridors and through what might once have been some lord's feasting hall. Now the tables were rough, the benches too narrow, and the colors of the tall stained-glass windows barely illuminated by the lights atop the curtain walls.

I opened yet another door, and another, Tane preceding me whenever her light had least chance of betraying us. She mapped the way ahead and slipped images into my mind as if her eyes were my own, and occasionally swept into control when we needed to duck through a door or wall in haste.

The fear that someone would happen across us—at any moment, from any shadow—harried me, and my stomach was a cramping mess. But the fluidity with which Tane and I worked was a balm. My steps were steady, and my hands did not quake.

I sensed the door to the mage cells before I saw it. It was wood and banded iron, and I could hear the voices of the guards beyond.

There's a ghisting , Tane told me.

The creature manifested before I could even contemplate hiding.

Spectral light flooded the passageway and coalesced into the shape of a man—a soldier—in a conical helm and antique armor, with a breastplate similar to the ones I'd seen in the armory. His eyes were sea-glass and devoid of life.

A chill skittered down my spine. Tane slipped forward, partially manifesting between the specter and me.

Child . Tane's silent voice twisted through the air. Do not betray me .

Mother , the ghisten soldier's voice was distant, half-awake, but deeply deferential. I live to serve. What do you seek?

We seek one of the prisoners. Go back to your rest, child.

The ghisten man tilted his head to one side and surveyed me through Tane. For an instant, I was sure his eyes would fill with malice and he would raise the alarm.

Of course , Mother of mine , he said and faded back into the wood.

Well that was convenient , I murmured to Tane. Thank you.

Indeed , she replied, sounding pleased with herself.

We crept forward, and, carefully, I laid one hand on the wooden door. The ghisting within allowed Tane to peer through, and I glimpsed a guard chamber with four guards, one reading while three played dice.

I took a breath to calm myself. I had known tonight would test the extent of my abilities, but there was one I had truly hoped not to use. Quelling.

I recalled quiet afternoons with my mother on the coast of Usti, in a croft punctuated by tiny beams of light, in view of a crashing sea. Over and over, I had driven the air from the little house until dead, smothered mice and insects had fallen from the thatch, and I had refused to continue.

But I knew how to do it now. How to turn closed rooms into coffins and coax the air from an enemy's lungs. To force others into unconsciousness. Or kill.

Tane brushed across my mind, a quiet consolation, a reminder of why I was here, and I rallied. I began to sing lightly and softly, funneling my intention into the space beneath the door and the slim crack around the frame, where light seeped out.

At first, all I heard was my own voice. The ghisting in the wood shifted, and Tane soothed him in words I did not register. In the guard room, I heard a brief swell of conversation, followed by the clatter of a chair. The candlelight dimmed and went out. I heard a scramble then a series of thumps.

I counted a few seconds of perfect quiet, save for the barrage of blood in my skull. I only needed the guards unconscious. Too long, and they would die. Too short, and I would find myself in a well of trouble.

I waited one more breath. When the quiet was so complete that my ears rang and I could bear the tension no longer, I eased the door open. Immediately my song wavered. Lack of air would not kill me, not with Tane in my bones, but I needed it to sing.

Air rushed back into the chamber from the hall, cool and sweet and smelling faintly of cheap tallow candles and smoking wicks.

Two of the guards had fallen over. Another had slumped onto the table, skewing their game of cards and dice, and appeared to be slipping slowly to the ground. The last guard was curled up on the stone like a child, a limp hand on her chest.

All were still breathing. Relieved, I focused on the other side of the room, where another door lay. This one was wholly iron and marked with runes, and the frame was rounded in a way that reminded me of the coin talismans in my pocket. It also had the same feeling as them—magic. Other.

My eyes fell to the lock, massive and intimidating, and I turned back to the guards. "Keys. Keys. Pardon me, sir."

I began to pat the guards down. Sure enough, I found two sets of keys, both nearly identical. The pressure of magic, and the size and intricacy of the key, told me which one I was looking for.

I slipped it into the lock of the round iron door. The feel of power shifted, and I sensed the ghisting from the hallway door manifest, watching the procedure with glassy-eyed indifference.

Boots planted, I put all my weight into hauling the door open. As soon as it parted from the wall a fresh sense hit me—one of power and brooding anger, and the impulse to run. But that impulse did not come from me.

Magni power.

I stepped into a circular chamber. A huge brazier burned in the center, chasing back the cold just enough to make it livable, and ten cells spread like the petals of a flower. Several were empty. The others contained one prisoner, each in various stages of waking or staring or ignoring me with eerie detachment.

The exception was the cell to the left of the door. This one contained two women.

One lingered against the bars, fingers wrapped around cool iron. I saw with horror that her eyes were little more than pits of scarred tissue. A Stormsinger's gag restrained her jaw and mouth, and the nails of her fingers were torn to the quick. She couldn't speak. Couldn't see. But one finger tapped against the bars—a familiar, Aeadine rhythm. A children's song.

The fox is in the bushes , my memory whispered. The wolf is in the wood .

Behind her, the other woman began to hum along from beneath her own muffling mask, swaying back and forth. She too had been blinded. The air in the cell began to eddy, just a fraction. Enough to make the flames in the brazier flutter and my skin prickle with gooseflesh.

The deer is in the meadow, but John is in the well.

Blinded eyes. That was a hallmark of the Black Tide, the same cult that had tortured Benedict into madness and shattered Samuel's connection to the human world. This fruitless cruelty— was this what would have happened to me, if the cult had caught wind of me? If my parents hadn't protected me so thoroughly?

Compassion welled, so painful and raw that I forgot to breathe. What horror it must have been, for Sam to be a child, to be handed over to such monsters by his own mother. For Benedict.

John is in the well, Mama, John is in the well. The hen is in her roost, Mama, but John is in the well.

The urge to silence the Stormsingers rose up in me and then was overcome by a desperate need to cross the room.

Another impulse came, then another and another—from every direction. I stood transfixed, feeling like I were being pulled apart at the seams. More faces appeared at the bars of the cells and figures moved, hidden in the darkness. Hollow, hungry eyes came into focus. Desperate eyes. Emotionless, glassy eyes.

Eyes of deep, earthen brown, staring at me from a pale, bearded face. My instincts immediately recognized him as Samuel, but my mind—and Tane—knew otherwise.

Benedict.

I advanced on his cell, moving with a slow, inexorable pace. He watched me come, at first in disbelief, then with intense scrutiny. All the threads of power besetting me cut away, save one. Benedict's magic overrode them all. It felt like freedom, so I did not fight back.

The last time I'd seen Benedict he had been impeccable in his lieutenant's uniform, clean-shaven, clear-eyed and hateful. Now his beard grew wild and his skin was sallow, his powerful frame reduced by hunger. But his eyes were the same. Sharp. Arresting.

"Benedict," I greeted.

His hand shot out. I flinched back too late and was hauled forward, right into the bars. Cold iron pressed into my chest as he held me close, his fingers gouging through my heavy clothing and into my skin.

"How are you here?" he rasped, his eyes darting around my face, over my shoulder, to the door and back. " Are you here? Did they catch you? Where is my brother?"

"Let go of me," I hissed. "I'm here to rescue you."

"You?" He barked a laugh, so close I smelled the foulness of his breath and felt a splatter of spittle. He seemed scattered, nearly manic. "How?"

"Yes, me," I bit back, pulling the keys from my pocket and holding them up for him to see. "Which key is it?"

He immediately let me go. "That one." He pointed to a medium-sized iron key with a long stem. "Where is my brother?"

"Pretending to be you and staging a false breakout at the southern gate," I replied, rubbing at my collar where he'd grabbed me. The lock tumbled and the door whined open.

"Woman!" another prisoner whined. "Take me with you!"

"My apologies, gentlefolk." Benedict vanished into the dark and returned with a worn cocked hat, which he popped onto his head as he stepped through the opening. Without permission, he reached for one of my weapons belts and unfastened it with quick fingers. I bit back a protest—he was already done. He relaced it around his own hips and checked the sidesword in its sheath.

Evidently satisfied, he went on, "This is a personal rescue only, I'm afraid."

Protests exploded and a wave of impulses assaulted me— come, keys , the urge to claw my own face to the bone. Even prepared as I was, the magnitude of the onslaught staggered me. Compassion and pity and rage and terror battered at my defenses, piercing me like shrapnel.

Benedict grabbed my wrist, his skin clammy with cold sweat and rough with dirt. Every other voice silenced, again leaving only his influence—a low thrum, a distant quiver in my guts. One magic restraining another.

I swallowed my bile and took a ragged breath. "Should we release them?" I managed, low enough that I hoped only Benedict would hear.

"No," he said firmly, releasing my wrist but maintaining his sheltering power. He breathed, low and deep, his focus on those around us. Their voices died one by one, and I heard a muffled, straining sob.

"Most of them are imprisoned for an actual reason, rather than just being foreigners," he explained. "Feel no pity for them. Where do we go now? What is your plan?"

I wasn't sure I believed him, but chose to regardless. "This way."

Only one face made me look back as we slipped out into the room of unconscious guards and Benedict pulled the door closed. The Stormsinger at the bars, still tracking me over her mask with scars for eyes. Still tapping, though more slowly now.

The fox is in the bushes. The wolf is in the wood.

I soved the door closed as Benedict began to strip one of the guards of his coat and weapons belt. As he donned them, I crossed to the main door, looking through Tane's eyes at the hallway beyond.

Somewhere distant, I heard an alarm bell begin to clang. Benedict looked up, his new guard's coat at odds with his soiled, battered, cocked hat. He set to priming one of my stolen pistols.

"That bell is probably for Sam," I reassured him. "It's part of the plan. He'll lead the chase into the town and west into the hills, then meet up with us."

"I see." The Magni joined me in the doorway and adjusted his commandeered weapons belt, now heavy with additional provisions. "I assume we are going the other way, then?"

"Yes. With me." I started off down the stair, following Tane's guidance. We slunk and darted, ran and paused our way through the maze of the prison, avoiding the great hall and slipping past the doors to the common cells.

"Illya will be waiting with a boat at the prison docks," I murmured as we paused in a shadowed alcove, Tane rejoining my frame at the same time. Her light extinguished, and shadows swept over us.

A guard sprinted past, oblivious. Benedict's eyes were distant, and I suspected the guard's distraction was not entirely natural.

My companion's focus sharped on me once the guard was out of sight. "Illya Uknara?"

I nodded and stuck my head back out into the passageway—right into the sight of six guards and an armed, raging gentleman.

"Stop!" a voice roared.

I jerked back into the alcove.

Ben cocked his pistol. "That's the Provost. I take a shot, you run." He'd barely finished speaking before he stepped out into the hallway. "Run!"

His pistol cracked. Gunsmoke plumed. And we ran.