Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2) (22 page)

The tome in Ezrah’s hands was old, but not nearly as old as the others. He almost set it aside, but hesitated. He had heard faint rumors of dark things stirring in the Kingdom of Yronia. Perhaps…

He peeled back its heavy cover and read. Time passed, and he grew engrossed in the pages with their ancient objects of magic: A long and plain rod of silver that could divine the truth in words when both bearers touched it; an intricate statue of a woman holding a baby that could make
something
grow faster—what it grew exactly Ezrah couldn’t decipher; a cone-shaped object made of purple metal that could alter one’s voice—or simply amplify or nullify all sound in a room. Nearly all were objects of great magic, and all were lost to the sands of time. Each had been created long ago when Reavers were at their most powerful. Ezrah felt his blood stir. He wished he’d been alive to question those ancient Reavers and their vast knowledge. Of course, one man
had
been alive since the Lieon. The Patriarch, ruler of the Citadel, still lived.

Ezrah turned the page.

A flush of blue light emanated from the pages where a brilliant illustration of an azure orb was drawn. Faint lines of dark blue and white were etched into its surface like cracks. Ezrah realized his heart was thundering as he read, fingers following the lines of text.

‘At last, after dark months of endless trial and error, it is done. It is an object not of creation, but of utter destruction. As anticipated, the stone consumes, eating like a ravenous beast. We had intended it to be a weapon against the dark Ronin—the ones we now call Kage—to drain them. But even the wisest among us did not foresee the fatal flaw. All life contains the spark.

Upon its creation, it fed upon those nearest, killing them all. The greater the power, the greater the devastation. Realizing our fault only too late, we attempted to destroy it. To date, all efforts have been futile. Now, after nearly a hundred deaths of our brothers and sisters at the hands of this instrument of death, The Order has ruled unanimously: we will lock it away in the deepest, darkest vault we know. This journal is the only testament of its existence. Of those that still live, all have been sworn to secrecy. We now bury it never to be opened again, beneath steel and stone, locked away with powerful magic within the Great Hold. May none ever have to gaze upon its deathly glow again, and may light send this object to the depths of hell.’

Beneath the entry, in huge, dark, bold text, were the words:

THE VOIDSTONE MUST NEVER BE USED.

He hesitated, fingers pausing. Ezrah looked up from the page, feeling sweat bead upon his brow. What had they done? He thought. What was the voidstone? He knew sacrifices had been made during the Lieon, great sacrifices, and he’d heard of objects of war created to battle the overwhelming forces of evil, but
this
? It had sounded like they had created an object to end all life.
Desperation makes a smart man become a fool,
he quoted the Patriarch, knowing it all too well himself. He looked at the nearby shadows and flickering flames upon the walls.

It was too quiet.

Ezrah’s jaw tightened. He lifted the white flame out of its glass container. It floated forward, and he let it bloom, growing and illuminating the ancient library. The shadows receded, showing seemingly endless rows of shelves, stacked with books upon books. The walls were lined all the way to the high ceilings. The musty scent of worn pages hung in the air, but, otherwise, there was nothing.

No,
Ezrah thought.
Something doesn’t feel right.

He twisted, looking to the only door in the room, a huge arched entrance made of Silveroot. It was reinforced with a heavy metal bar and a ward of magic. Silence. He closed his eyes and sifted his senses, feeling the stone beneath his feet. He slid the sensation outward and beneath the door. He felt the pressure of feet on stone. Someone was there, and they were coming. Immediately, his power flooded through him, filling him with life as it always did. Yet something staggered in his mind as he reached to touch the spark. Pulling upon his experience, he held on.

As he did, his mind railed.
How is it possible?
He’d set up countless wards along the hall.
Not to mention, I should have felt another wielder of the spark and…
In the corner of his vision, the page glowed blue.

The door burst, splinters flying.

Something flew through the air. A dagger. The steel froze right before his throat, and he quickly twisted threads of steel to send it flying back. Ezrah heard a dying grunt, but he didn’t hesitate. He began threading other elements. Fire mixed with stone flew from his hand forming globes of angry, molten stone, racing towards the now vacant door that exploded upon impact. He felt heat on his face as his robes were singed, but he didn’t flinch. The fire receded and shadows stepped through the doorway. Ezrah faltered, but only for a split-second. With threads of Leaf he hefted huge bookshelves into the air, then hurled them like arrows. As they hit the shadows, he ignited them in a roar of flames. More figures appeared in a black mist. He felt the stone beneath.

Still, nearly a dozen.

You cannot fight this,
his mind yelled.

With that thought, Ezrah ran. Without looking behind him, he threaded the stone in the ceiling and brought it down on his assailants, but more still came. He weaved between tall bookracks, extracting threads of water from the air behind him and setting them aflame, creating a steam that made it hard to see with the naked eye. He heard the cries and shouts of his attackers, and he stopped momentarily to touch the ground beneath him and sense their numbers when, suddenly, his power stuttered, falling short. In nearly five hundred years of life, he’d never felt anything like it.
What am I fighting?
And despite all his power and strength, he felt weak. He pushed it aside. Vaulting past rows and rows of books, he headed deeper into the ancient library.

With his heart pounding, he pulled for his power again as he ran. Luckily, it came. He removed brackets of metal from nearby bookshelves and, with a quick plying of threads, he fashioned them into spikes and laid them upon the ground.

I’ve only to wait until Devari or other Reavers are alerted.

Passing small windows, he saw more fireworks explode in the sky and he remembered. The grassy grounds of the Citadel were empty. No guards, Devari, or Reavers would be roaming these high quarters, and those who had
remained would not hear a thing over the explosion of fireworks and festivities.

He was alone.

Ezrah reached a sudden wall. He looked around. Only shadows.
Have my traps worked?
His breathing was too loud, and he used a trick he’d learned as a Neophyte, twisting threads of flesh and expanding his throat to soften his heavy breathing.

He put a hand to the stone wall. A corridor lay beyond. He would need more of the spark, and he pulled upon the silken pool in his mind. It was placid normally, but now it was tumultuous as a tidal wave that threatened to crash. As he had done a thousand times, he summoned a roar of power. It flushed through his limbs. Pressing a hand to the wall, he dissolved stone. Suddenly, a chunk of the wall before him disappeared, as if the doorway had been there all along. He stepped through to the lit corridor. Then he looked back and filled in the hole. The wall was seamless once more. He let out a breath of relief, glad to be out of that dark room when…

Ezrah gasped. Something came over him. His pool of power rattled, growing hotter, burning and searing his mind. He fell to one knee and looked up just as a hunched figure rounded the corner at the far end of the hall, his mottled red and white robes whisking. His staggered gait halted and, despite the distance, he
felt
a smile crease the crooked man’s features when a dozen shadowy figures materialized at his side wearing strange black armor that was molded to their skin. Ezrah’s heart darkened.
Nameless—
Reavers who were twisted to the dark in the great war. Gritting his teeth, he rose. It felt as if a mountain of stone sat upon his shoulders, weighing him down.

A soft clap resounded through the lit hall.

“Well done,” the man said with a greasy smile as he walked forward. That’s when Ezrah saw it. From the folds of his sullied white robes, the man extracted a palm-sized orb of feverish blue, holding it aloft. It pulsated, filling the hall with azure light. Even from this distance, Ezrah saw silver and dark blue cracks along its surface. It seemed to crackle with power, as if
feeding
.

The voidstone.

As the man approached, Ezrah drew upon his power. All the while, he kept his face smooth, feigning defeat. The spark wavered, but it came. He closed his eyes.
Give me everything,
he requested. Drawing a long breath, he dredged deep, pulling his power into him. It came in a rush and filled him, but he asked for more. It seeped into every pore, flowed into every crevice, permeating him with translucent light. He felt as though, if he opened his eyes, he would see himself glowing. He asked for more. He reached into his very soul, soaking in every last drop. At last he opened his eyes, and prepared threads the size of mountains that would level everything in their path—that would bring the massive Citadel to the ground. For he knew that object of power could not be taken, and must not be used.

Life itself hung in the balance.

The man was almost to him, unaware of what brewed inside him. Ezrah kept his face calm despite the torrent of power that thundered through him, waiting until he was nearly a dozen feet away. And then, he struck. Accepting his death, Ezrah let his power explode. He gasped as it charged out in a surge of light and darkness. His body filled with agony, and the spark in his mind burned like a conflagration. Then, there was darkness.

At last, he
felt
something.
Strange.
He should feel nothing. All he saw was darkness, but through it Ezrah felt… Pain. It was sharp and excruciating, like daggers
pressed into his flesh. He opened his eyes despite the stabbing pain and saw the bloodstained hem of robes dusting along the stone. He was still alive; the Citadel was still here. Ezrah tried to speak. “I…” his voice was hoarse, barely audible.

A hand grabbed his hair, pulling him up, and he looked into soulless brown eyes. The Nameless at his side didn’t even seem as empty as this man. “That was… impressive,” the man said.

The man’s black hair dangled about his pale face. His expression—nose wrinkled and eyes sharp like beads of dark glass—reminded Ezrah of a rat. Along with his hunched posture, Ezrah half-expected a tail to squirm from behind the man. He nodded slightly, and two of the Nameless standing beside him disappeared into mist and reappeared again behind him, dragging him to his feet. At the man’s hip, his hand rested casually on the wire-wrapped handle of a long sword. His boots were oiled and black as night, as were his leather pants. Worst of all were his robes, making Ezrah’s body coil in rage and disgust. They might have been white at one time, but now reminded him of a butcher’s apron soaked in blood—some of those dark red splotches still appeared wet as if recent and not given time to dry. The man surveyed Ezrah with those empty eyes. “I am Sithel,” he announced, a false smile adorning his thin lips. He cocked his head to one side. “You haven’t noticed yet, have you?”

Then it hit him. Ezrah reached for the spark but… “My power…”

“It’s still there, but it’s fleeing,” Sithel stated. “Perhaps you can catch it.”

Sithel was right. The spark was receding, racing away.
A trap?
His mind shouted.
It doesn’t matter. Without the spark…
The thought was too terrifying, and he shot after it. Ezrah reached out mentally, but the spark raced away. He pushed harder, deeper, digging into the dark recesses of his mind. He almost had it, almost felt it, life and warmth flickered, but it slipped, brushing past his fingers. Deeper he pressed, into the bottomless pit of his mind, but it was too fast. In the moment before it collapsed, he sent out a message, jumbled, but strong. He shot it towards a knot in his mind, a portion of himself that he had been unable to reach until recently.

At last, dwindling to a tiny dot, his power was gone. Despair hit Ezrah like a building collapsing upon him.
I am an Arbiter,
he thought forcefully.
I will not fall here.
But without the spark what was he really? He tried to maintain his calm, but it shattered.

“Is it gone?” Sithel asked.

Ezrah merely stared at him, pure hatred and despair battling inside of him.

Sithel shrugged. “I suppose that’s confirmation enough. You should be glad you’re not dead. One as powerful as you should have died instantly being this close to the voidstone.” He hefted the terrible, dark blue orb. It sucked at the light of the room
.
He felt it eating away at him, as if devouring his life force
.
“A pity too. I was told that if you died it would be
unfortunate
, but only that. Now that you live? Well, now I must keep you alive—if you behave.”