Page 68 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

HENRIK

With Old Man safe at their backs, and the night unfolding around them, Henrik, Arvid, and Einar passed by empty neighborhoods, abandoned houses, and scattered belongings.

A ghostly surrealism darkened each nook and corner.

When Henrik studied the sea hard enough, he thought he saw rowboats and smaller vessels.

He hoped so.

“Careful,” Arvid whispered, low. “Expect something arcane at any moment.”

As they rounded a corner that opened into the marketplace, Einar cursed under his breath.

Chaos flooded the area. Fire raced amongst trampled stalls.

Goods scattered the cobblestone. Two bodies sprawled across the ground.

Their glassy, open eyes stared at nothing, glossed with an oily rainbow. Their chests didn’t move.

Copper tinted the air, as well as guttural shouts and grunts. In the distance, the sea bashed, a faint echo. The endless expanse of black just beyond these buildings awaited.

A massacre.

“This is fresh,” Einar hissed. “The attack must have happened when we started evacuating.”

“Same arcane, too, I’d wager.” Arvid gestured toward a body on the right side of the road. A farrago of colors leached from the pale face. “Almost like . . . a cloak.”

“No,” Einar said. “It’s different.”

Arvid muttered, “It looks the same.”

“It’s similar, but not the same,” Einar countered. “See how the hues are darker? The other was lighter, the colors less robust. I think this is the same arcane source, but a different weapon. Something . . . worse. Can’t you feel it?” He shuddered. “If I’m right, it’s called a soullock.”

“A soullock,” Arvid repeated, deadpan.

“Pedr mentioned it, but I’m not sure if this is that . A soullock can only originate with the Arcanist of Souls.”

Henrik eyed him. “You two spoke a lot about the Arcanist of Souls.”

Einar ignored him.

“What is a soullock?” Arvid asked with less patience.

“Concentrated arcane, I guess? Pedr’s not all that clear, and he’s difficult to wrench details from. It’s nothing good, I can tell you that. Don’t touch the shimmering substance or the bodies. If you can avoid it, don’t get close.”

Arvid’s jaw flexed. “Got it. Avoid everything.”

“Who did this?” Henrik asked, scanning the area in confusion. Devastation of this level required instigators—sailors, most likely—but there were none in sight. A flash of color drew their attention to the left.

“His Glory, certainly,” Arvid muttered. “But the question is when and is it in retaliation against the rebels? Was he trying to prevent citizens from escaping?”

Henrik’s upper lip curled. “I can’t imagine what else this would be.”

“The bastid might have known all along,” Einar said.

“Norr help us if he did,” Arvid replied.

A flare of the strange light illuminated the ground, fanning in a single line that zipped as fast as wild pigs flee. It spread outward in an obnoxious spray, consuming whatever lay in its path. After the flare, it settled, burning into a smolder along the ground. Ash created in seconds.

“He knows,” Arvid said.

The seething hate rolling off Einar compared to the sun. “That bastid brought the arcane against Stenberg residents after a lifetime of claiming that the arcane didn’t work here?”

“So it would seem, but something else may be happening.” Arvid cut a sharp, sidelong glance to Einar.

“I need your brain, Einar. Not your ire. Get it together and do the job of a soldat, not a mourning lover. If you make assumptions, they’ll get you killed.

I need you here. The three of us are going to advance to the Compendium and end this. ”

“I’m not a mourning lover,” Einar snapped. “I’m a man who is avenging his future bride before he finds her again.”

If the strange statement confused Arvid, he gave no sign.

Reluctantly, and with greater humility, Einar said, “You have me, Captain.”

“The bloody bastid probably always had some arcane stored, just in case,” Henrik said, low. Disgust tainted his tone. He couldn’t fathom that he hadn’t sought this fight as much as Einar.

“Bastid,” Einar confirmed with venom.

“We split up.” Arvid motioned to the right with his chin. “Einar, take that side. I’ll go dead ahead. Henrik, split left. Converge across from the Archives, and stay outdoors. We need to know what arcane we’re advancing into before we enter any building.”

They moved in silence, dissolving into different night paths.

Muted colors flared with vague patches in the distance, but never near the cluster of buildings that contained the Compendium, which housed all the places where His Glory lived, worked, or gathered. The Archives, the Temple, servants quarters, and more. No signs of destruction lingered near them.

Henrik slid between two remaining market structures and into a tight alleyway. A lifeless woman sprawled on the ground, blocking the path. The glimmering remnants of arcane withdrew beneath her as he skirted by. Something like a sigh escaped her lips.

A soullock.

Awful.

A hushed cry preceded the clatter of falling boards. Henrik tensed as an older gentleman flailed by, eyes wild, sobbing under his breath. At his feet, the subtle remains of a familiar object lay in shreds. It looked exactly like the glowing fire orb the sailors used.

Henrik grabbed a stick, nudged the glowing circle. Fine, hair-like threads formed an ashy halo around the orb. A slash mark as long as Henrik’s arm had burned into the ground where the orb broke, as if someone lobbed it there. No smell issued from the rising tendrils.

He nudged aside the burning coals, which flared and clung to the stick.

Fire shot up it, racing hard. Henrik released it, jerked his hand away a second before the arcane touched him, and hissed through his teeth.

The stick melted into thready ash, instantly gone.

A larger pile lay off to the side, probably a body.

His stomach twisted at the careless death. Such a horrid use of something that Pedr had already proved could be wielded in less desultory ways. Of course His Glory would turn something like the arcane into a deadly and destructive force.

Henrik prodded a similar pile of ash. Whorls rose higher, similar in composition. A miscellany of colors swirled within.

Henrik slunk along the shadows, irritated by how little he found. The roaring ocean was an escort, the quiet stars his observer, as he skirted around an overturned stall and avoided the shattered glass of several wine bottles, their syrup sticky on the stones.

A vague glow illuminated the streets. Kaleidoscopic arcane bolted across the stone, seeking destruction.

It sprouted in thick lines, then hairy tendrils similar to burned spiderwebs on top of the cobblestone.

A dance existed in the pattern. Arcane shot in a line, then strands unfurled into fine hairs, seeking to destroy.

Whatever it touched would be consumed into rubble.

Like branching trees, it sprouted through the city.

His Glory would destroy all of Stenberg on his descent into hell.

Or was that the point?

Henrik kept a wary eye on the ground and called quietly under his breath. “Anyone here? There are boats to take you to safety in the harbor. They’re hidden near the north shore.”

His words, repeated quietly as he moved closer to the Compendium, generated no survivors. He passed piles of ash, ash, ash until he paused along the interior of the old marketplace, behind a fallen stall, and listened. These victims, forever silent. Never identified.

Only the sea sang to him. The arcane made no noise unless whatever it consumed toppled like sand castles and surf.

Henrik turned a corner and halted mid-step.

His breath caught. At the very top of the sealstone Temple was a burnished light, like a giant star hovering in the air.

An iridescent waterfall shone from the middle tower, brightening and darkening in pulses.

The rainbow light dropped down the Temple, flowing in arteries that spread left, right, ahead. All directions except up.

The source of the destructive arcane. It chugged out of the Temple in flows like a heartbeat, pulsing. Nothing moved in the Temple behind it. No sign of His Glory or protective soldats or sailors on watch.

Clenching his teeth, Henrik carefully picked his way around scattered possessions until he stood in front of the Archives, not far from the whipping post where Britt’s blood once painted the ground.

The thought heightened his rising irritation as he approached Einar, who stared at the Temple with his arms at his side and his jaw clenched.

“That bastid is planning to kill everyone.”

Henrik nodded, though he still couldn’t fathom why. What did His Glory stand to gain from slaying the entire island of Stenberg? That evacuations had been in progress for days was his only relief.

“We’re going to stop it,” Einar said.

“How do you stop arcane?”

“I don’t know, but Pedr said that arcane is single focused.”

“What does that mean?”

Einar sucked on his teeth. “I’m not sure yet. I’m thinking. Give me a minute. Did you find anyone alive?”

“Not really.”

“Me either.”

Henrik pivoted to glance behind him. “Whatever it is, it seems to have a short life. When it touches something, it stops spreading. The finer stuff, anyway. It originates from the Temple. Maybe we can stop it there.”

“True.”

“Can we block it with physical barriers?”

Einar shook his head. “Not sure. There’s not enough time for physical labor, and it seems to have an endless source.”

Einar hadn’t torn his gaze off the Temple, which lay in shadows.

The cascading lines plunged through already established routes.

Henrik kicked over a water bucket as a reaching arcane arm approached.

The stuff flared a bright prism of color, spread like a fan, and followed the water.

A discarded chair stood in its path, and arcane destroyed it to cinders in ten seconds.

“Doesn’t mind water,” Einar muttered.

“Unfortunate. Think the sea will stop it?”