Chapter Thirty-Nine
They were a party divided. Rae and Mahk sat with La between them, as though to protect her, even though his sister was the one cradling a pistol in her lap, with two more strapped across her chest in a bandolier. My sister keeps producing guns, like flowers on a particularly grim tree, thought Rae. Estev was to one side, a little closer to the fire, and the two justicars who stood on the other side of the flames. He was trying to negotiate with the justicars. Or, at least, keep them all from being arrested on the spot.
The frost-laced spiritblade lay on the ground next to the fire, directly in front of the lawbinder. Every few minutes she would squat down next to it and stare, as though afraid to touch it. Predi wouldn’t go near the thing.
“Is it the same blade I confiscated from you in the wilds?” she asked. Rae nodded reluctantly. The lawbinder sucked on her teeth. “You’ve had this since Hammerwall?”
Rae felt like he should answer, but it was Estev who spoke up.
“Since longer than that, apparently. Their father fled Hadroy’s service around the same time your comrades were storming the place,” he said. “Tren Kelthannis. Apparently one of Hadroy’s stormbinders. He took the sword with him.”
“And where did he get it? Did he even know what it was?” Predi asked. The long-limbed stonebinder was older than the rest of them by a good few years, and had apparently been part of the raid on Hadroy’s estate.
“Considering he spent the rest of his life hiding on the edge of the world, pretending to not be able to bind spirits, yes, I think it’s safe to say he knew what it was,” Estev answered. “He gave his life to hide it.”
“It should have been in Fulcrum,” Caeris said, standing up again and pacing violently at the edge of the clearing. “All this time, buried in some farmer’s cupboard—”
“It was in the root cellar,” Rae interrupted. Caeris whirled on him, the fire in her eyes very real, and very angry.
“Root cellar! When it should have been held by the justicar-regent of Order, and used to hunt this bastard down. Do you know how many lives that cost? Do you have any idea—”
“I think the boy is aware of the price,” Estev said gently. “Considering he has paid most of it himself. He and his family.”
Caeris’s mouth clapped shut. Predi eased past her.
“Why did he run, Mr. Cohn? She has a point. This sword should have been in the possession of Fulcrum and the justicars, where it could have been put to good use. How did this Tren Kelthannis person know to flee Hadroy House, just as the raid started? And worse, why did he hide from the justicars for nearly a decade?”
“Because it contains the soul of a justicar, bound to a demon,” Rae said quietly. All three mages turned to stare at him. Estev looked sad. The justicars looked like Rae had just struck them.
“What did you say?” Predi asked.
“There was a storm,” Rae said. “Dad was binding it. I went to watch.” Memories of that day filled his head. The smell of the rain, the slate shingles slick under his hand. Mother bustling about the yard, while night-black clouds rolled over the estate. “Father broke the storm, and then there was something else. Something . . . dark. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“That storm was seeded with Chaos,” Predi said. “It was in the reports. It’s how Rassek Brant powered his damned ritual. Your father was involved with that?”
“He came back to the house with that sword,” Rae said, ignoring Predi’s interruption. “Wrapped in burlap and spotted with blood. He wouldn’t say where he got it, only that the justicars would come for it, and he wasn’t going to be around when they did. Father told us to pack our things.” Rae paused. His hands were knotted together in his lap. He untangled them, then looked up at the justicars. “We reached the border of the estate just as the Eye formed.”
“You just ran? Ran from the justicars, the ordained servants of holy Order?” Caeris spat the words.
“Our father was not a criminal,” La whispered.
“No? He certainly acted like one,” Predi said. “Fleeing capture. Hiding a profane spiritblade. Concealing his identity from authorities. And then his children continue this legacy of malfeasance, going so far as to bring the cursed blade back to its place of origin.”
“Can I ask the obvious, stupid question?” Rae said. “What is this blade? And why does it matter so much?”
“That’s not your concern,” Caeris snapped. “It’s out of your hands.”
“It’s very much in his hands,” Estev said. “More importantly, it’s in his soul. I have no doubt that you could force him to help you in whatever your plan is, Ms. Caeris. You could soulslave him, eradicate his free will, leash him like a dog and use him to do your bidding. The Iron College has done that before.” The lifebinder stood up, stretching his legs and back, and as he did, the fae glimmered through his flesh, changing him. “But is that what you really want? To make enemies of your friends? To force compliance when we could work together? We have a common enemy, after all.”
“But not common ability,” Predi said. “We are better suited to this task. These are mere children: a feral mage, a girl with a pistol, and a bully. This is not for them to resolve. It’s justicar business now.”
“You should not underestimate them. Any of them. And besides”—Estev channeled, and grew, the fetid musk of his nature spirit, filling the clearing—“while you may be able to force them to do your will, I think you’ll find it more difficult to persuade me.”
There was a moment of tension. Rae could feel the two justicars drawing their bound spirits to action, angel and golem, the world tilting slightly askew as they entered the material plane. Rae reached for his wraith, but the spirit eluded him.
—patience. these are not our true enemy. let estev work.
The moment passed. Caeris gave a signal, and she and Predi dismissed their spirits. Estev held his for a second longer before also returning to his natural form. Rae wondered how much of that action Lalette was able to sense. His sister still held her pistol unwavering at Caeris’s chest, two fingers on the trigger.
“What is the sword’s nature, you ask?” Caeris said. “It is a simple enough thing, though devilishly difficult in the crafting. This”—she gestured at the spiritblade, apparently still afraid to touch it—“is basically a scrying of a soul. Like the one your friend Estev used on you, to repair your injuries. But instead of recording it on a piece of paper, or etching it in steel or stone, as is the common practice, your father burned it into a spiritblade.”
“His own, I have to assume,” Predi said. “It feels unlikely he would be able to forge a blade from an unwilling soul. Not without destroying the soul in question.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rae said. “We found his spiritblade, shattered, with his body.” Rae went to his satchel and dug through it. There, nearly forgotten in the bottom of the container, was the black shard he found by his father’s hand. He turned it over in his hand a few times, then tossed it to Caeris. The lawbinder examined the fragment, running one finger down the broken grain, then handed it to Predi.
“One more mystery to solve,” she said. “But not the heart of the matter. The soul scried into this blade is none other than Rassek Brant’s. We have known that such a scrying existed since the Hadroy Heresy, and the formation of the Eye, but we thought it lost”—Caeris cast a dark eye in Rae’s direction—“or hidden by one of his followers. When Rassek reappeared on the outskirts of Aervelling, we thought the blade might have something to do with it.”
“Might explain why he could trace me,” Rae said. Again, the justicars stared at him in open horror. “Right. I wasn’t supposed to say that. But in Aervelling, Rassek was able to form a link to the sword. Or maybe to the wraith. It was hard to tell. I was hiding nearby, and saw the lines form between us.”
“That’s troubling,” Caeris said. “I’m not sure how to explain that. But if he can track you through the wraith, then you aren’t safe here. None of us are.”
“Brilliant observation, lawbinder,” Estev said.
“Regardless, the fact remains that Rassek Brant was stalking the streets of Aervelling, when he should be dead,” Rae said. “How do you explain that?”
“We can’t. But it’s something to do with this sword,” Caeris answered.
“Of course, the justicar on the scene didn’t make the connection until after the three of you had made good your escape,” Predi said, talking as though Caeris wasn’t standing right next to him.
“So that’s why you chased us to Aervelling?” Rae said. “To retrieve the sword?”
“We didn’t know you were in Aervelling,” Predi answered. “We were tracking Brant. He fled the camp before reinforcements could arrive, ravaged a nearby farmhouse, then disappeared into the forests. We found a cell of diabolists near Aervelling, including a dead stonebinder who had been posing as an architect to the local lord. The only survivor was a dockworker from Aervelling who insisted that ‘the dreams sent him,’ whatever that means.”
“That was us,” Rae said. “The dead stonebinder. They tried to hijack our carriage.” He sniffed and raised his chin at the two justicars. “I took care of him.”
“And nearly lost your soul in the process,” Estev reminded him. “But the boy speaks true. We were heading to Aervelling in the hopes of catching a boat south, on our way here.”
“Here. The Heretic’s Eye?” Caeris said skeptically.
“Indeed,” Estev answered. “The boy had a vision.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me ‘the boy,’” Rae said. “And it wasn’t a vision. The wraith took me to the shadowlands, to my childhood home. It showed me the original plan for that scrying, the one you say captured an image of Rassek’s soul. I thought if we came here we could find out why my father made it, and maybe why so many people are willing to kill for it.”
“Everything inside the Eye was destroyed,” Caeris said simply.
“And yet here we are,” Rae countered. “Inside the Eye. I saw the manor house on the way down, and the tower. So not everything was destroyed.”
Caeris didn’t answer for a long time. Predi seemed even more uncomfortable.
“We left in a hurry, and the shell of Chaos that formed . . .” Predi paused, then finally shrugged. “We made some assumptions. Our focus was on preventing the spread of Chaos, not on saving whatever might still be inside.”
“Or whoever,” Lalette said. “I imagine there were plenty of innocent people on the grounds who didn’t benefit from your hasty evacuation. You just left them to die, didn’t you?”
“The threat of Chaos—” Caeris started. Estev cleared his throat, silencing the growing argument.
“The threat of Chaos cannot be taken lightly, I think we can all agree on that. After all, the three of you were in Hammerwall. That can’t have been a pleasant experience. And I do believe you would have died without the intervention of our friend the lawbinder here, yes?” Estev asked. La grimaced and refused to answer, but Rae nodded his head. “Yes,” Estev continued. “So let’s stop nipping at one another’s pride and try to figure out what we’re going to do next.”
“You’re going to turn this sword over to us, and we’re going to hand it to the Iron College,” Caeris said sharply.
“No. Our father had a reason to hide it from the justicars. If the two of you don’t know what that reason might be, then at least allow that your bosses might, or someone else at the Iron College,” Rae said. “And before you accuse my father of being one of the diabolists, remember that it was Rassek Brant who killed him, and Rassek Brant he was hiding from. We all have the same enemy.”
Caeris sniffed her disapproval, but Predi inclined his head. He pulled the younger justicar away from the fire and spoke into her ear, prompting a harshly whispered conversation. Eventually they returned.
“We will leave you free for now, and work together to apprehend the criminal Rassek Brant,” Predi said. Caeris seemed about to speak, but Predi kept going. “After this issue is resolved, we will determine the nature of Tren Kelthannis’s involvement in the Heresy, and your own culpability in fleeing from the rightful authority of the Iron College.”
“That hardly sounds reassuring,” La mumbled. Estev waved her down.
“Acceptable, as long as you take into account our actions in your assistance. We have already killed Rassek Brant once, after all.”
“And nearly burned down the slumside of Aervelling in the process,” Predi said. “Besides, I have been present for three of Rassek’s many deaths. He doesn’t seem to mind it that much.”
“He will, once I’m done with him,” Rae said.
“Brave lad,” Estev said with a smile. “Courageous lad. Surely that will count toward your good in the coming trials.”
“Ye gods, can we leave off the talking?” Mahk said, finally joining the conversation. “I want to get some sleep in sometime before dawn.”
“He’s right. Both he and Raelle need time to recover. If we are going to face whatever awaits us at Hadroy House, they must be rested,” Estev said. “And surely you’ve both had a long journey as well.”
“Yeah, how did you find us, anyhow?” La asked. “Awful convenient for you to just walk up to our campsite.”
“You left a trail in Haverleaf, when your windship landed to let off passengers. Tales of the mysterious lifebinder and his three apprentices, including a moody little prick who spent a lot of time staring into space and muttering about dead men,” Predi said with a tight smile. “We were flying to intercept Pearlescent when she encountered turbulence, apparently. Convenient for you, that she crashed inside the Eye.”
“Turbulence, my noggin,” Rae said. “Rassek possessed the captain, and most of the crew.” He related the story of the attack and its disastrous results, along with their escape. When he was done, Predi’s face was very still, but Caeris’s expressed open shock.
“Rassek has never done something like that,” she said. “He must be growing in power, somehow.”
“Or desperation,” Predi said. “Which also means he knows where we are.” He hefted his stony staff and turned his back on the fire. “I will take the first watch. Sleep lightly, friends. Who knows what is waiting in the shadows.”