Lisa Shearin - Raine Benares 02 (7 page)

It
was solid, not mist.

It
was also cold and brittle beneath my fingers, like a sheet of translucent ice.
Fog could be penetrated, and ice could be broken. Breaking it could also let
the wraiths in— or let me out. There was only one way to know for sure.

I
grabbed one of the chairs and swung it with everything I had.

Nukpana’s
world shattered. The void engulfed Sarad Nukpana, the room, everything. I felt
myself being pulled backward. The goblin’s wordless scream came to me through
the racing mist, dim from distance, but raw with undiminished fury.

In an
instant, my feet went from plush fur to stone floor. Mychael was holding me
pressed tightly against him, his hands on either side of my head.

“She’s
back,” I heard him say to someone. He sounded out of breath. I didn’t know who
he was talking to; my eyes wouldn’t exactly focus.

The
room got lighter and the blurred images sharpened into Ronan Cayle and the
Guardians. I shuddered, a full head-to-toe event. Then the shuddering turned
into shaking and some shallow breathing. I couldn’t stop the shaking, and I
didn’t even try. Breathing, I made an effort to do. Mychael’s hands went from
my head to around my waist. They were strong and warm, and they were all that
was between me and a quick and unpleasant trip to the floor.

The
Guardian who the Saghred had attacked was on the floor, half-conscious, and
trying to sit up. He was determined and his brother Guardians had their hands
full trying to stop him. His first words blistered the air blue. I’d found if a
man could swear that expressively, the insides of his head couldn’t have been
too rattled. With only a little help from his brothers, he got to his feet.

I
steadied myself with my hands against Mychael’s chest. He was standing close
enough to kiss. I could feel his heart pounding beneath my palm.

I
took a panting breath, then tried a smile. “You tried to break into the
Saghred.”

“I
did.” His eyes reflected concern, relief, and rage all at the same time. “He
didn’t hurt you, did he?”

I
shook my head. “You breaking in gave me the idea to break out. It worked.”

Mychael’s
hands tightened briefly around my waist; then with a quick glance at his men,
he loosened his hold and stepped back, much to my disappointment.

To my
surprise, I stayed on my feet. “Did I vanish or something?”

“You
were here the whole time,” Ronan Cayle said. “All five seconds of it.”

I
blinked. “Seconds? That’s it?”

“It
felt like longer?” he asked.

“About
a half hour’s worth. I guess time’s different on the inside.” I’d heard that
from some of my formerly incarcerated family members. I never thought I’d have
my own experience to draw from. “What happened out here?”

Mychael’s
expression darkened, and I think it was aimed at me. “You went for the box’s
lid before I could stop you. Then you closed the lid and took a step back.” He
paused uncomfortably. “You stopped breathing; that was how I knew he’d taken
you inside.”

I
stared at him. “I stopped breathing?”

“It’s
the first sign of an out-of-body experience,” he told me. “And considering what
you’d just touched, I knew where you’d gone.”

I
felt the residual tingle of his hands pressed to the sides of my head. “You
used your hands to—”

A
muscle twitched in Mychael’s jaw. “Attempt to retrieve your soul.”

“My
soul was gone?” My voice sounded very small.

“It
was.”

I
didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. Though there was a good chance
that I’d scream later.

“What
happened in there?” Mychael asked quietly.

I
swallowed. “Nukpana tried to tell me that being bonded to the Saghred was a
gift, not a curse. It wasn’t a very convincing argument. It’s also a discussion
I’d rather not have with him again—in my body or out.” I looked from Mychael to
Ronan. “Are you two ready to do what we came for and get the hell out of here?”

“More
than ready,” Mychael said. He looked at Ronan. “Sir?”

In
response, the maestro tossed aside his outer, merely flamboyant robe, exposing
the inner, if at all possible, more outrageous robe. I guess it was the sort of
thing a legendary spellsinger wore to a legendary stone of power figurative ass
kicking. I didn’t know if Ronan Cayle was getting comfortable to sing, or
getting unburdened by all that silk should running become necessary. Either one
sounded like a good idea. But I didn’t want to be the one to tell the maestro
that if the Saghred decided to fight back, his little brocade-booted feet
weren’t going to do him any good.

“The
melody is more effective in a lower range,” Ronan told Mychael. “You start.
I’ll come in with the countermelody.”

“Is
everyone able to shield themselves?” Mychael addressed the question to his
Guardians and me.

I
nodded. The Guardians responded by speaking their personal shields into place.
I followed suit. We weren’t shielding ourselves against the Saghred; we were
protecting ourselves against what Mychael and Ronan were about to do. I had no
doubt that their sleepsong would be one of the most potent. We weren’t wayward
souls, but it was still a sleepsong sung by a pair of masters. If we didn’t
shield ourselves, we’d be on the floor snoring. With shields, we would still be
able to hear the song, but the spell wouldn’t affect us.

Mychael
began to hum, the softest, most soothing sound I’d ever heard. Even standing
across from him, I could feel the sound resonating from deep in his chest. I
could only imagine what it would feel like to be held there, listening to that
sound, feeling that music. The humming resolved into whispered words, the
syllables melding one into the next, the pitch low and constant and warm.

He
had a deep, molten, luscious baritone that made me think of melted chocolate.
Decadent and delicious, not to mention hypnotic. If that voice had been
persuading me to go to sleep—or do anything else—I don’t think I’d have been
able to resist. Hell, I don’t think I would have even tried.

I’d
only heard Mychael’s singing in snippets. But I knew enough about spellsinging
to know that his voice was doing some very intricate and impressive work. I
couldn’t tell yet if the Saghred was impressed enough to be sleepy, but it made
a fan for life out of me. The tune was simple and heartbreakingly beautiful,
but it was the words of the spellsong that would have tripped up a lesser
spellsinger.

Ronan’s
tenor seamlessly merged with Mychael’s baritone, flowing underneath in a strong
countermelody. Not surprisingly, I didn’t feel the same way about Ronan’s
voice, but I knew enough about spellsinging to tell that his pipes more than
matched his reputation.

Their
spellduet was essentially a lullaby for one, soft and soothing. Volume wasn’t
needed, just intensity.

I
just wanted to stand there and bask in the rolling waves of scrumptious sound,
but I had work to do. It was my job to see if Sarad Nukpana had stopped
listening because he couldn’t keep his eyes open. I felt the Saghred begin to
waver. The soft light illuminating the stone never changed, but what I sensed
from it definitely did. It was working.

Then
it wasn’t. Something or, more to the point, someone, was fighting back.

I’d
give Mychael and Ronan three guesses and the first two didn’t count.

I saw
Sarad Nukpana with others I had only seen through silver mist—his new friends,
his allies. Only now they were just as solid as Nukpana himself. There were
goblins and elves and humans, with a couple of creatures whose race or species
I didn’t recognize. The evil inside the Saghred didn’t restrict itself to Sarad
Nukpana. They were down, but they weren’t going out. I heard laughter, muffled
but still mocking.

I
didn’t want my voice to possibly disrupt what Mychael and Ronan were doing, but
I made sure my expression spoke volumes. They knew as well as I did what was
happening—and what was not happening. They were getting the message without my
help. Professionals that they were, their spellduet never faltered.

Suddenly,
a disembodied voice floated in the air around us, a voice of staggering
strength and power, a baritone like Mychael. It was deep, vibrant, and
impossible to ignore.

It
was Piaras.

Maintaining
one particularly glorious low note while Cayle’s tenor danced above it, Mychael
indicated a small square opening, almost hidden in shadow near the ceiling. Of
course, an air vent. I thought the containment rooms were sealed, but that was
ridiculous. If they’d been sealed, we wouldn’t have been able to breathe. I
assumed that like in most large buildings, the vent led to a network of tiny
tunnels running throughout the citadel. Piaras was practicing on the citadel’s
main floor in the music room. I recognized it as one of his sleepsongs. But
unlike Mychael and Ronan, Piaras wasn’t singing a lullaby for one. The kid was
trying to knock out a platoon. It was a sleepsong for use on a battlefield—and
if we could hear it down here, so could the rest of the citadel.

Oh
shit.

Magnified
by the ducts, his voice was as hypnotic as Mychael’s—and as sleep inducing. I
heard what sounded like a sigh of smug, sensual contentment from Sarad Nukpana.
If the Saghred had been a cat, it would have been purring. I didn’t want the
rock belligerent, but I didn’t want it happy, either. Piaras’s singing made it
just a little too happy.

Then
the Saghred simply drifted off to sleep. I felt like a lead weight had been
lifted from the center of my chest. All sense of the Saghred was gone. I hadn’t
felt this good in a long time.

Piaras’s
voice went silent with the end of the spellsong. I didn’t know how he’d done
it, but I couldn’t deny what he had done.

An
untrained teenage spellsinger had just put the Saghred to sleep.

We
ran up the stairs in what must have been record time. The
wards on the containment levels had protected the
Guardians there, but once the three of us reached the citadel’s main floor,
Piaras’s handiwork was sprawled all around us.

Dammit.

Piaras
knew to shield his voice when he practiced. More important, he knew how. I
didn’t know what had happened here, but it couldn’t have been Piaras’s fault.
I’d never seen Mychael that angry, and Ronan Cayle looked like he’d skipped
angry and gone straight to enraged.

Dammit
to hell.

We
saw three kinds of Guardians on the way to the music room: asleep, stunned, and
mostly awake. The asleep ones had been caught completely unawares. The stunned
ones had probably heard a couple of notes before they could get their shields
up. The mostly awake ones were the experienced Guardians who knew what they
heard and immediately protected themselves.

There
were way too few of those.

This
morning I’d thought I was in trouble. I knew Piaras was in trouble.

The
corridor in front of the music room looked like the aftermath of a bad bar
fight or a good night out—some of the Guardians were snoring; some were happily
curled on their sides; and one had slid down the closed music room doors. He
wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t quite with us, either.

Mychael
stepped over the Guardians on the floor, pushed the dazed one aside, and flung
open the doors. Piaras was there and, surprisingly, so was Phaelan.

Piaras
looked up from his music stand, his big brown eyes like a deer caught in
torchlight. He knew from the looks on our faces that something was deathly
wrong, and it was his fault. Then he saw the Guardians on the floor behind
Mychael, and every bit of color drained from his face.

Phaelan
was sprawled in a chair reading a book— completely conscious and utterly
clueless.

I
jerked the book out of his lap. He plucked the plugs out of his ears, and sat
up indignantly.

“What?”

I pointed
to the pile of Guardians outside the open door. One Guardian staggered by,
leaning on the wall for support.

Phaelan
whistled. “Damn, looks like my crew on shore leave. Did the kid do that?”

“Apparently.”

Phaelan
grinned at Piaras and gave him a thumbs up. “Good work, kid.” He stopped and
took in everyone’s expressions, including Piaras’s. The grin vanished, and the
thumb wilted. “Not good work?”

Mychael
pushed past Piaras and went to the air vent near the ceiling. Apparently that
was how Piaras’s voice had traveled throughout the citadel, so that’s where
Mychael aimed his. He took a deep breath and sang. The spellsong was loud; it
was discordant; and it commanded every sleeping Guardian to wake up. Now. When
he finished, he turned on Piaras, his eyes blazing.

“Did
you disable the shields on this room?” he demanded.

“No!”
Piaras was horrified. “The shields were down?”

"We
could hear you in the containment rooms, through the air vent.”

“I
checked the shields before I started,” Piaras protested. “They were up the
entire time.”