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Chapter Forty-Four

With a scream, Rae jerked away from the hovering sword. Streamers of blood trailed from his palm to the hilt. Slowly, the blade disassembled itself, the jigsaw shards breaking loose and floating away, to disappear in the swirling mists of the shadowlands. The sword was gone, and with it the memory of Yveth’s death. Of the wraith’s birth.

Of the lifebinder’s betrayal.

Of Estev Cohn.

Of course Yveth had not known his name at the time, and Rae, helpless behind the justicar’s eyes as the memory unfolded, could only scream in his heart as Estev argued with the deathbinder, then gone to speak with Rassek. Could only seethe as Estev stepped from behind the curtains in Rassek’s bunker and trapped Yveth in his chair. Could only pound against the silent walls of his prison inside Yveth’s head as Estev turned away, and left the justicar at Rassek’s mercy.

“You knew! You knew it was Estev who betrayed you, and you said nothing!”

—no, i...The wraith hung in Rae’s soul like a shriveled fruit, dead on the vine. the memory was taken from me. rassek, hadroy...they must have all escaped!

“I’ll explain later,” Rae snapped. He turned toward the door and started to dismiss the wraith, plunging toward the material plane. “First we have to get out there, and—”

A sharp hook jerked Rae up onto his toes. The wraith screamed, its spectral form yanking free from Rae’s body. They hung there, dangling, a dozen silver threads of soulstuff joining them together in painful tension.

“What is happening?” Rae shouted through gritted teeth. It was taking all his nerve to hold on to the wraith. His soul stretched taut, humming like a bowstring, pulled to its limit. The wraith reached toward him with phantasmal fingers, clawing at the open air.

—he’s coming. he sees! he is almost here! he has me!

“Who is coming? Who has you?” Rae took a ponderous step toward the door, then another. When he looked back at the wraith, he saw long black skeins of shimmering power trailing from the wraith’s form, disappearing through the tower wall. They were going north.

—my ’binder. i remember now. they killed me, then bound my soul before...argh!

The black lines pulled tight, dragging both the wraith and Rae backward. His mind raced. How could the wraith already be bound? What control did the other mage have? More importantly, how was he going to be free of it?

Rae stopped fighting the pull and let it drag him deeper into the shadowlands. The tower faded, along with the memories of the six trapped spiritbinders, the stained floor . . . everything. He floated over the churning sea of Oblivion. The black tether drifted slack into the depths of the realm of the dead.

With a flick of his soul, Rae summoned the wraithblade. Here in its native realm, the sword gleamed with silver light, its ghostly blade fully manifest, the mist and broken shard replaced by smooth, narrow steel. Still riding the downward pull of the tether, Rae caught up with the wraith, merging with the dead man’s spirit.

—what are you doing?

“Saving you,” Rae said. “This might hurt.”

Taking the tangled skeins of the black tether in hand, Rae wrapped the line around the silvered edge of the wraithblade. The wraith saw what Rae meant to do, and poured itself into the ghostly blade. The spirit had fought him for so long, but now it bound itself fully to that ’blade, committing to the binding, fulfilling it. The wraithblade shivered with power. Rae put the razor-sharp edge against the black tether and braced himself.

“You’re ready?”

—yes.

A quick cut, and shuddering pain. He nearly dropped the blade, even before it severed the tether. When he sliced through the other ’binder’s connection, Rae cut the wraith as well as his own soul. He had never felt agony like it. But if it was painful for Rae, it was murder for the wraith.

The spirit whipped through the anchor of his soul like a kite in a tornado. It screamed, it howled, it clawed at the air and the tether and the blade, mercifully sparing Rae the attention of its bony talons. But as the thick black cord frayed, its severed end blossoming into a mushroom of tiny threads, each one squirming to maintain some connection to the wraith, the spirit settled back into Rae’s soul. The tether fell, disappearing into the roiling surface of Oblivion.

With a snap, Rae and the wraith were back in the shadowlands. The six former masters, all who remained of Rassek’s cabal, hung in silent chorus around them. The stain still blotted out the floor, but of the jigsaw sword and its droning shards, there was no sign.

—we have to go. they are coming for you.

“What we have to do is warn Lalette, and stop whatever the hell Estev is doing,” Rae said, his anger at the lifebinder’s betrayal coursing through his blood.

Cold wind brushed against his shoulder. Rae glanced in that direction just in time to see the dessicated remains of the stormbinder, the thin splinter of their soul shot through with sickly lightning, reach for him. He startled aside. Rae backed away from the former diabolist. Another of the remnants hung just behind him. Rae still had the wraithblade in his hands, and lashed out at the spirit, but his arm froze mid-swing.

A pair of fingers took form around Rae’s wrist like frost on a window. The mist continued, sketching a graceful arm, a shoulder, a face. For a heart-stopping second, Rae could see the woman’s face, cracked asunder, like a bolt of lightning that ran from chin to brow. Her hands and shoulders were sketched in lines of fog, while the rest of her swirled at the edge of perception. She watched Rae with hungry eyes.

“A brave one. So young.” Her voice echoed through the interior of the tower. “Too young to be sniffing around these grounds.”

Rae tried to jerk back, but the spirit held firm. With her other arm, she gestured toward Rae’s chest. Pain gripped his heart. The wraith in his soul screamed.

“But you have brought him back to us. It is good that you have done this, child. Good that we may rest now.” Another gesture, and Rae felt his chest open up, like the blossoming of an origami trick. Lines of purple light glowed through his clothes. His own soul. She started reeling it out, untangling the threads, unraveling his essence.

Dark fingers fell on the woman’s misty shoulder. Her arm evaporated, releasing Rae from her grip. She screamed and whirled around. Another remnant, this one laced through with the knotted skeins of Chaos.

“He is not your toy, Elspeth. We all have a place at this table.” The two spirits rounded on each other, swelling like thunderheads. “We are meant to hold him. Nothing more!”

“He will drain this one and leave us behind!” the wraithbinder, Elspeth, screeched. “I mean to leave this place! I mean to die!”

Rae left them to their argument, fleeing toward the door. The walls of the tower stretched away from him, disappearing into the shadows. He tried to move faster, but it was like running in deep water. Dark water.

A wave enveloped him. It was like a dream of drowning. Rae’s ears crushed into silence, and the air wavered, the little light refracting. He opened his mouth to scream, but swollen air pushed down his throat, strangling his lungs.

“While you are bickering, the soul is getting away.” Another of the remnant masters descended from above the door. He seemed more composed than the others, his bound spirit under control. Wavebinder, Rae thought. Can you drown in the shadowlands?

“Let him run,” Elspeth said. “They are waiting outside.”

Outside? Who’s waiting? Rae glanced toward the door. La! What has Estev done?

—i tried to warn you. i told you they were coming.

“If you try to take him apart before Rassek arrives, he will peel you apart and use your bones for floss,” the stormbinder said. “Both of you, step back. The boy is here. We have him.”

“I will not be left behind,” Elspeth snapped. Her face was a broken puzzle, sharper and sharper at the edges, the void behind her fractured visage howling like Oblivion itself. “Give him to me!”

“Listen, dead girl,” the wavebinder warned. “I will not answer to Lord Rassek for your impatience. We have waited this long. We can wait a millennium more for the death of Fulcrum.”

“You wait!” She rushed forward, one clawed hand apparating from the shadows, the hooked talons of her fingers as long and sharp as scythes.

The wavebinder jerked Rae’s captured form back, but Elspeth’s claws sliced into the ghostly remnant of his shoulder, cutting through the bubble of shadow water that held him in place. The undine burst, dropping Rae to the ground. The two remnants roared at each other, crashing together in fury and fear.

Rae cast the wraith aside the second he was released from the undine, reappearing in the material plane with a clap of thunder and a wave of freezing mist. He was still in midair. Rae fell in a tangled heap of arms and legs, slamming against the paved ruin of the tower with a meaty thump. He rolled over, grabbing at his wrist. Where the spirit named Elspeth had seized him, a black ring of frostbite bubbled out of his skin. Where the barbed hilt of the black blade had torn his palm, a scrimshaw of dark scars crawled across his flesh.

But he was alive, and Estev was waiting outside.

Caeris lounged casually against a curved stone that must have been the capstone of the tower’s entrance arch before the collapse, talking to Predi. Mahk stood at the border of the tower, staring grimly at the interior, with La at his side.

Estev was nowhere to be seen.

“That was fast, little man,” Caeris said. “You get scared or something?”

“Where is he? Where is Estev?” Rae shouted.

“Gone for a stroll,” Caeris said. Her eyes grew troubled as she saw the haunted look in his eyes. “What happened to you?”

“We have to get him! He was one of them, one of Rassek’s cabal!” Rae stumbled out of the ruined tower, but his legs failed him. He collapsed, but Mahk was there to catch him. The big man sat him on one of the tumbled stones. Cold sweat broke out across Rae’s forehead. “You never found the lifebinder, did you?”

Caeris and Predi snapped to attention, their bound spirits drawn, spiritblades in hand. Caeris gave an order, and Predi jogged into the thick bramble of the surrounding forest.

“How do you know this?” Caeris said. “You have traveled with him for weeks. Why would he linger in your company, if this was his doing?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that he betrayed some justicar named Yveth and left him to be butchered by Rassek Brant. And the flamebinder, a fool named Drust, was in on it, too. They knew!”

“You’re mad,” Caeris said quietly, though there was no conviction in her voice. “Yveth Maelys was the justicar who led the operation against Hadroy. He is now High Justicar, in Fulcrum, the head of the Iron College. He’s the one who signed my orders to hunt Rassek Brant down and see him brought to justice.”

“More than justice, girl,” Predi said quietly. “We were told to kill him, rather than bring him back to the Iron College to be tried. I knew there was something strange about this task.”

“All I know is what I’ve seen,” Rae spat.

“And how have you seen this?” Predi asked.

Rather than answer, Rae summoned the wraith in all its glory. Having given itself to the wraithblade, the spirit was more substantial. It floated free of Rae’s shoulders, cloak of mist, chains of ice, the bony skull and elongated jaws hiding its identity. But when it spoke, it was with an old man’s voice.

“I do not know you, Justicar, nor do I have memory of the events of which you speak. My last memory is the blade, and Rassek’s betrayal. But I swear to you, I am Yveth Maelys, humble servant of Fulcrum, dead by the fiendbinder’s hand and bound to this spiritblade before his plan could be foiled.”


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Framed