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Chapter 18

Morgana

T he cleavers’ leather tunics shine in the torchlight. Unlike the clerics’ dramatic crimson robes, their uniforms are tight-fitting and practical, dyed a deep maroon that’s probably well suited to hiding bloodstains.

There’s eight of them, but they move as one, marching with unnatural precision. It’s like they’re puppeteered by the same master, the effect made all the more chilling by their eyes: each of their irises is swollen and completely black.

“Lower your weapons and surrender,” calls one in the front row. “You have stolen from the Temple and the gods and must pay your penance.” His voice makes me shiver. It’s like it’s been flattened and drained of all emotion, all humanity.

He assumes we’re smugglers, but I can’t help thinking about how, according to the Temple’s doctrine, I’ve stolen directly from the gods and deserve the harshest of punishments. If the cleavers discover what I am, I don’t know exactly how death will come, but I’m sure it will be drawn out and painful—ensuring I’m “cleansed” before I’m sent to the eternal realm.

“How’s the earth?” Alastor murmurs to Leon, but he shakes his head.

“Too loose. I don’t want to risk collapsing this tunnel in on us.”

“We’ll do this the old-fashioned way then,” Alastor says, and the fae charge with their swords.

The cleavers strike with their terrial magic first, an incendi flaring the nearest torch on the wall. The searing heat billows toward us, so close I can feel it on my face. It should burn Alastor’s hair right off, but he ducks so quickly my eyes lose track of him, then Leon slices the torch down with his sword.

The flames continue to burn until Leon kicks the torch into the oncoming line of cleavers. With that, the fire vanishes instantly, likely smothered out by an aesteri. It’s clear these clerics are powerful, but it’s also clear that they’re limited in what they can do with all of us packed in this cramped, confined space.

Leon lunges forward, swiping low at a cleaver’s legs. The cleric blocks him with her own blade, but I soon realize Leon intended it as a distraction. Alastor pulls something from his pocket and hurls it toward our attackers. In the gloom, I can’t quite see what it is until it coalesces into a swirling cloud.

Sand. He had sand in his pockets and is using it now to blind the clerics, making them jerk their heads and try to cover their eyes as it flies at them. Their blades lash out wildly, and the fae take down two of them before the earth turns to liquid beneath their feet, and Leon and Alastor sink down to their knees, unable to take another step.

I watch, uselessly, knowing I’m no match for the cleavers. Even if I could summon my celestial magic at will, it would be too dangerous to reveal.

Even as they’re stuck, the fae parry blows from the front line of cleavers as Alastor calls to Leon.

“Surely you can do something ?”

“On it,” Leon grunts.

There’s a slight shaking in the earth—so subtle I barely notice it. Dust falls in a curtain from the ceiling, making me cough and splutter, but when I squint at the fae, I see the earth around their legs has broken apart, allowing them to pull themselves free.

Magic flies back and forth between the fae and the clerics, the fizz of it merging with the clash of metal. Leon and Alastor are still outnumbered three to one, and Alastor falls to his knees, clutching his throat. Someone’s suffocating him, I’m sure of it.

“Leon!” I shout. “Find the aesteri!”

Leon kicks out at the cleaver he’d locked blades with, forcing him to jump back, and turns toward Alastor, searching out the cleric conjuring on his friend.

But I don’t get to see what happens next, because a cleaver turns my way, her swollen, black irises staring straight at me. My shout drew her attention, and the Temple’s soldiers are done ignoring me.

She breaks free from the group, darting past Leon and heading right for me. I only have one choice. I turn and run.

I head in a different direction to the way we came, down one of the three passages the smuggler might have taken. Maybe I’ll stumble across his exit route, but my main goal is just to lose the cleaver in the tunnels and hide out until the fae come and find me.

Unless the cleavers win the fight. Or the fae decide to leave me behind.

I can’t consider those possibilities now. Not when I have to focus on staying alive. I can hear the beat of the cleaver’s boots behind me, still loud even as the noises of the battle fade into the distance, swallowed up by the mountain stone.

“Surrender, heretic,” she shouts after me. There’s not a trace of anger in her voice, just cold determination. My heart thuds in my throat as I sprint as fast as I can while still trying not to give away my location, but she’s still faster than me, and when I look back over my shoulder, I see her closing in.

She has a bottle in her hand, and she hurls the contents in my direction. I scramble backward, wondering what trick she’s playing as liquid arcs toward me. The water sizzles as it hits the ground, and I scream as a fat droplet lands on my boot and burns right through the leather. I stumble and nearly fall. She’s turned the water into acid, and now it’s eating through my skin, searing me.

I writhe against the tunnel wall, unable to take another step. The pain’s so bad I want to rip my foot right off, but I see her advancing, readying to douse me. I can’t let it hit me. Not if I want to make it out of here.

Though my foot feels like it’s on fire, I pull myself up using the wall, trying to find my speed again. I take a right turn, and another, unsure if I’ll ever be able to lose her. Then I hear the clash of metal and feel a spark of hope in my aching chest.

I must be near the main passageway again, which means Leon and Alastor are also nearby. I move toward the noise as best I can.

At last, gasping and limping, I stumble back out into the tunnel I’m looking for. But I’ve ended up on the other side of the fray, staring at the backs of the cleavers as they fight Leon and Alastor. Neither side has made much progress in the last few minutes.

Boots drum behind me, and I spin around in time to see the aquari cleaver, the flask still glinting in one of her hands, her sword in the other.

I lift the knife Leon gave me. It won’t be much use against a sword, but I have an idea.

Tira taught me to play darts in her family’s tavern. I took a shine to the game—pleased I didn’t automatically lose because I was slower or weaker than the other children—and I practiced enough that I got pretty good at it.

In fact, I have excellent aim.

I fling my knife toward the cleaver. The blade glances off her wrist, the handle striking the bottle hard. She barely reacts to the slice across her skin, but the flask flies out of her hand, skidding across the tunnel floor into the shadows.

I have no weapon now, but I’d never have won in close combat anyway. At least the acid is now out of direct reach. I enjoy two whole seconds of relief before she starts to advance.

I’m acutely aware of the cleavers behind me. I can’t move back. I can’t move forward. I have nowhere to go.

“Rowas,” she calls, and I glance over my shoulder to see another cleaver turn, his eyes falling on me. He’s holding one hand to a thick gash on his shoulder, blood bubbling through his fingers, but you’d never know it from his blank, passive face.

The female cleaver nods to him, and all the air is ripped from my throat.

It’s instant, the dreadful emptiness in my lungs as the aesteri suffocates me. I fall to my knees, unable to hold myself up as I fight to pull in oxygen. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t catch a breath.

I’ve been here before. Screaming for air. Darkness creeping into the edges of my vision.

And I’ve survived this before.

But this place is so cold and the eyes of the cleavers so black—how could I possibly conjure the heat in my veins now? I reach deep for any magic I can find. The golden light…just isn’t there. Instead, I find something else entirely.

The power throbs within me, deep and irresistible. I’m at the center of it—the source—but its pull reaches far beyond me. It’s rearranging the world around us—me and this unknown force—making us the point around which all the others turn.

The aesteri’s suffocating magic falters as his sword is wrenched from his hand. I’m barely aware of my relief as I finally pull in deep lungfuls of air. I’m mesmerized by the way the sword hangs in front of me, suspended in the air. Then it starts to turn in a wide circle, moving around me. Orbiting me.

The magic throbs harder, giving off an audible hum as the aquari cleaver’s sword leaves her hand too. My knife, lying on the ground where it landed after I threw it, joins hers, spinning around me with the other weapons. Shouts of alarm ring behind me, and more blades join until they’re revolving around me in a dance of sharp-edged metal, glinting as they flip and rotate faster and faster in the torchlight.

Just when the speeding metal becomes a blur, it stops. The swords spinning around me scatter, flying outward like a flock of birds. The aquari cleaver is impaled on her own sword, the blade driving through her chest with astonishing force, while my knife lands in the aesteri’s throat.

I hear wet gasps and thumps behind me as the other blades find soft, fleshy targets. I turn to see three more bodies lying on the tunnel floor.

I was right , I think light-headedly, the maroon of their tunics does hide the blood .

I lift my head, my vision still blurring. Only one cleaver is left standing in front of the fae, disarmed and alone. He straightens, speaking in his dead, toneless voice:

“All praise to Ethi?—”

Leon cuts his throat before he can finish.

* * *

LEON

I didn’t understand what was happening at first. I thought the aesteri’s magic had malfunctioned.

I saw the blades fly through the air, saw them pierce the fighters who had been holding them moments before. I watched them topple one by one, thanking their chosen god with their final breath.

It was only then that I saw her , rising from her knees, surrounded by bodies, looking like an avenging goddess. Magic throbbed around Ana like a magnificent halo, potent and intoxicating. Her eyes were bright with an ethereal fire, and even though I never imagined she held a power like this, I have no doubt it’s what flung the blades across the tunnel to impale our enemies.

One of the cleavers still stands, beginning to intone something righteous. I cut his throat, barely taking my eyes off Ana.

Witnessing any celestial power in person is rare enough, but I’d seen the bright golden light conjured by a solari before, the same pure burst of sunshine she produced in the forest, if not quite as strong. I’ve heard about other celestial abilities—recorded by scholars—but no one living’s seen them in action.

Orbital conjuring. That’s what she just did. She pulled those objects into her orbit like the stars and planets do, and then she released them with terrifying precision.

“Ana, are you alright?” I ask. She still doesn’t look quite of this world even as the last waves of power fade around her.

“I’ve never done that before,” she murmurs, and her eyes struggle to find mine.

She sways on her feet, and I leap forward across the dead cleavers to catch her before she falls. Panic flares as I examine her for visible injuries. Outwardly, she’s fine, but she’s drained , as if she used up not just her body’s current supply of magic but all her strength and energy as well. Ana’s eyelids flutter closed as her weight settles into my arms.

I look over to Alastor, trying to understand. “Using her magic seems to have exhausted her, but how can that be?”

“Maybe it’s because she’s so powerful,” he suggests. “If she’s a celestial twin-blessed, then overusing her magic must push her body beyond her limits.”

I look down at her, noting her pale skin and shallow breathing.

What if it’s pushed her too far? What if she doesn’t survive this?

The same determination that gripped me during her fever finds me now. The world seems as determined as ever to kill the people around me, but that doesn’t mean it gets to have them. I won’t allow it.

I weigh our options. We’re too far away from any city or town to find a healer, even a half-rate human one. But the folk remedy for replenishing magic is to park yourself near the natural source of your magic. Aquari find themselves restored by water, incendi by an open flame, and solari…

“Sunlight. She needs the sun,” I say to Alastor. “We’re too far from the sky down here.”

I straighten, cradling her in my arms as I consider the tunnels around us.

“There.” Alastor points to a marker on the wall, one our spy friends left all those decades ago. “Two rights and we’ll be back in the main passage.”

“I remember the way from there,” I say. “I’ll meet you with the unit.”

We’ll meet him with the unit. Because I’m not planning on coming back down this mountain without a living, breathing princess.

Each minute I’m stuck in the tunnels is excruciating. But I’m a stubborn bastard, and the dark, claustrophobic passageways of the mountain won’t get the best of me. At a sprint, the rest of the tunnel takes about twenty minutes to clear. Then I’m greeted by grass and daylight as I squeeze us between the rocks that hide the tunnel’s entrance on the southern side.

I breathe easier out in the open air, but I know better than to expect a change in Ana yet. The peaks cast long shadows at this level—the nearest patch of direct sunlight I can see is on a plateau about two miles up the mountain.

I start climbing.

Ana feels cool against my skin, blue veins visible in her limp neck. I pull her closer, hoping my body warmth will help, breathing in her jasmine scent and praying.

Her body might be struggling, but her spirit is strong, I know it.

I reach the plateau, laying her out on a flat, mossy stone where the sun’s light can reach her. The wind makes it chilly up here, so I kneel down beside the stone to shield her, gently lifting her head toward the sun’s rays. I think I see some color creep across her cheeks, but her breathing’s still shallow.

“I’ll be royally pissed off, princess, if I dragged you halfway across the country just for you to die on me now,” I grunt.

The sunlight illuminates her face, giving it a golden glow, catching the red in her chestnut hair.

I frown, looking closer.

The glow of her skin brightens until she’s practically ablaze with it. It’s not coming from the sun, at least, not directly—it emanates from within. It expands, enveloping her until she looks as she did in the forest: alight with power.

Her eyelids move, cracking open to squint against the glare.

“Finally,” I say, grinning down at her.

“You keep saying that like I should know what it means,” she groans.

I laugh, almost giddy she’s well enough to be annoyed.

She sits up, bringing her face level with mine, and I slowly untangle my hand from her hair. The golden light is dimming now, returning her to her normal color.

“The sunlight made me better?” she guesses, and I nod. She looks around, orienting herself for a moment, then frowns. “I need to stop passing out,” she sighs.

“You pushed yourself too hard,” I say. I leave out the fact that no amount of pushing should have been able to produce that much power—or to drain her so deeply. “But…” I admit, “I’d say the situation called for it.” I’m strangely compelled to reassure her, to erase all that self-doubt she carries around.

“Maybe, but I’d still rather get to decide when my body’s going to drop.” Her hazel eyes turn to me. “Thank you,” she says, offering me a small smile. It’s so sincere I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m not imagining it.

“Payback, for helping us get rid of the cleavers,” I reply.

She shakes her head, as if the idea is incomprehensible to her.

“Don’t give me too much credit. I only managed that by accident.”

“You managed to hit five of them and neither me nor Alastor. That feels intentional to me.”

It’s frustrating, how little she believes in herself, but I can’t fault her determination. She believes she can’t do something, yet she tries anyway. What was it she said in the forest? Because that’s the only choice I have. Even if it hardly rates as a choice at all.

The words have stuck with me, because I want her to have that—real choice—more than I can say.

Our faces are still very close together, the soft curve of her lips inches from mine. I want to kiss her. Want to take her body in my hands and show her how good—how strong and powerful—I can make her feel.

She doesn’t move, and I sense if I took my chance now, she’d let me.

Heat pools in my stomach, my mind offering up tantalizing images of her beneath me, sprawled out on this rock, finally shouting my name with something other than anger or fear.

Then the sun shifts behind the clouds, making a shadow fall across the plateau. I extinguish those dangerous images just as swiftly.

She’s a human. She’s a princess. She’s your hostage, for gods’ sake.

The reasons to deny my desire pile up in my mind, provided in Fairon’s disapproving tone. He’s always my voice of reason, whether he’s present or not. And he’s always right.

I stand, putting distance between us, and her gaze drops from my eyes. The moment is gone.

“It’s high time we headed down this mountain to meet the others. You’ve already made us late enough.”

And me worried enough , I don’t add.

“Your tunnels, your mess,” she says, quirking an eyebrow at me. “You said it yourself—I’m just the one who cleaned it up for you.”

Rolling my eyes at her teasing, I offer her my hand to help her up from the rock.

For once, she takes it.