Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (33 page)

Delilah
nodded. The power faded, leaving her numb. Her legs felt like leaden weights.

"I'm
going with them, Deli."

Kale's voice
penetrated the fog of Delilah's head. She scrunched up her face and looked at
him, trying to parse his words.

"I have
to know she's going to be okay. Tell Pancras I'm fine. I'll catch up with you
as soon as I can."

Delilah
opened her mouth to respond, but words wouldn't come. She found herself
nodding, then turning, and leaving her brother with the other two draks. She
shuffled through the undercroft, her tail dragging on the floor, a single
thought running through her head over and over.

I shouldn't
have done that.

* * *

Pancras
slept soundly for the first time in days. When the door to the parlor slammed
shut, he awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bed. He ran out into
the parlor, leaving his robes behind, only realizing he was nude when his eyes
met Delilah's shell-shocked expression.

"Where's
Kale?"

"Hey,
why are you naked?"

Pancras
noticed Delilah's speech was slurred and her glassy eyed expression wasn't
focused on him. It appeared as though she was in some form of shock. He knelt
before her. In addition to being coated in a thick, gooey substance, dried
blood crusted her legs below the knees, and she appeared to be about to faint.
A thick rod protruded from one of her belt pouches.

"Delilah,
where's Kale. What happened?"

She put her
hand on his shoulder, swaying from the effort. "I shouldn't have done it.
Wait, no. Kale. Told me… something. He's fine. Yeah. That other drak got hurt.
He's with her. He's fine. I sleep now."

Delilah's
eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell backward. Pancras lurched forward and
caught her before she hit the floor. He lifted her up and carried her into the
bedroom. From a cursory examination of her legs, he didn't think she was
severely wounded; the blood appeared to be from skinned knees. He peeled back
her eyelids with his thumb and saw only the whites of her eyes.

It wasn't
the first time he'd seen a mage collapse from exhaustion after taxing herself.
He cleansed the blood off her legs and bandaged her knees with some of the
supplies they brought from Drak-Anor and then covered her up and let her sleep.

Pancras
noticed realized how late he slept by the amount of sunlight that streamed into
the room. The absence of the draks, the absence of Kale's early-morning
activities in particular, explained why he slept so late.

After eating,
he checked on Delilah. The drak sorceress was fast asleep and seemed not to be
in distress, so he shut her door and returned to his experiments. The Codex of
Passion gave him enough information to get started; however, he wanted to
confirm a few suspicions with the priests of Cybele before he began in earnest.

It was
nearly dusk by the time Delilah awoke and emerged from her bed to find
nourishment. So engrossed in his experiments he was, Pancras did not notice he
worked the day away. In a way, it reminded him of the busy times in Drak-Anor,
before helping Sarvesh manage the city became a regular part of his schedule.

Delilah,
wearing that same distant expression he saw when she returned that morning,
slumped in her chair at the end of the table as she chewed on a piece of
day-old bread.

Drumming his
fingers on the tabletop, he waited for her to notice him or become annoyed.
When he could wait no longer, he broke the silence. "Would you care to
tell me what you got into last night? I cannot believe your injuries came about
from just exploring this palace."

"I
used… blood magic, Pancras." Delilah's voice quivered, and even from
across the table, he noticed tears welling in her eyes. She flung her piece of
bread across the room. "Blood magic!"

Pancras rubbed
his horn as he stared at her. Of all the things she could have said to him,
that was one he had not expected.
We fought a bunch of nasty spiders in the
undercroft.
Or
we found more zombies in the catacombs.
Or
we
snuck out and got into a bar fight.
Anything but '
I used blood magic,
Pancras
.' In all his years practicing necromancy, he never succumbed to the
temptation to use blood magic. He did not want to judge her too harshly,
however. He never knew Delilah to be wantonly cruel or destructive. Something
terrible must have happened.

"What
happened that made that seem like a good idea?"

"We
went through the catacombs with Kali to free the slaves—"

Pancras held
up his hands. "Whoa, whoa. Slaves? What slaves?"

"The
drak slaves in the salt mine. They had almost the entire Firescale clan
enslaved. It was terrible. There was a fiendling in charge and these crystal
golems…"

Pancras
covered his face with his hands and rested his elbows on the table. Delilah
continued rambling, and he caught snippets of ghouls, Kali's father,
slaughtered humans. The story flowed from her like water from a burst dam. He
rapped his knuckles on the table to get her attention. Nothing made sense, at
least, not the way she told the story.

"Look,
I'm going to try to not worry about any of what you just told me as long as the
prince or anyone else here in the Palace doesn't come looking for your heads,
okay? Just tell me about the blood magic." Whatever that other drak got
them into sounded like it was a lot of trouble. If they helped her with her
problem and no one came to complain to the prince about it, Pancras figured he
would be happier and safer not knowing about it himself.

"There
was a ghost or something in the catacombs." Delilah put both her hands on
the table and looked down her snout at him, as if she were explaining to a
child. "We killed all the ghouls, but nothing we did hurt this thing. It
chased us through walls and everything. When it stabbed Kali, I was already so
tired from all the fighting in the mines, I didn't know what to do." She
sat back in her chair, slumping down so far only her head remained above the
table. "It just happened. I was desperate. So tired. I just wanted it to
go away.

"So I
exploded it."

Chapter 17

Delilah
wanted to crawl in a hole and die. To the lay person, in the story she related
to Pancras she saved their lives. She knew, however, tapping into blood magic
was the first step down a dark path from which there was no redemption, only
madness and death.

She leaned
forward on the table and buried her face in her arms. "I don't want to go
crazy and die in a rampage!" She felt stupid for wailing and crying.
And
I let my brother go off with two strange draks, and now I'll never see him
again, and I'll be dead after you have to kill me because I'm going to go
crazy—

Delilah felt
Pancras put his arm around her. He held her while she cried. When there were no
more tears, she sat up and wiped her nose. She nodded her thanks and reached
for another piece of bread to calm her turbulent stomach.

"I'm
not an expert on the matter, Delilah." He reached over her for a pitcher,
poured wine into a glass, and handed it to her. "If it was in the heat of
the moment, a reflex to save those you cared about, and something you did not
choose to do consciously in an effort increase your own power or destroy
innocent lives, I don't think you've crossed the point of no return yet."

"You're
just saying that." Delilah was convinced megalomania was the next step.
She contemplated it as she chewed the tough crust of bread. Despite being
leftover from the morning, she found it tasted delicious.
I wonder if
megalomaniacal overlords employ skilled bakers?

"No,
I'm not. You're not cruel. You're not ambitious. I've never know you to be so."
He squeezed her shoulder. "It was an act of desperation, right?"

"You
got that right."

Pancras
lifted her head so she looked directly at him. He smiled at her. "I don't
think you have anything to worry about as long as you don't use it ever
again."

"It was
so easy. I felt so much power. It was like… it was like it wanted me to use
it." She knew how that sounded. Magic was an elemental force of the world.
It didn't have wants and desires.

"I've
heard that is how it is."

She finished
her piece of bread and drained the goblet of wine. It burned as it descended
her throat but warmed her belly. "I was unprepared for what we encountered
down there. At home, fire solved almost everything. I didn't have anything
useful against ghosts or the crystal golems they used in the mines."

Pancras
helped himself to some wine. He swished it around in his mouth before he
swallowed. "You're sure it was a ghost you exploded?"

"It was
some dead human knight. He was greenish, and we could see through him. If that
wasn't a ghost, I don't know what was."

"There
are several different types of incorporeal undead. Ghosts, specters, wraiths.
All terrible in their own ways, but what they do and how they do it
varies." He sat back and covered his mouth with his hand. "You say it
was in the catacombs and was accompanied by ghouls?"

It sparked a
memory in her. She nodded and jumped up from the table. "Wait here!"
She ran into the bedroom and retrieved the rod she took from Volos. She
returned to the table and placed it in front of Pancras.

"I just
remembered: you need to figure out how to attune yourself to a new focus, one
you don’t wear while sleeping."

"What?"
Pancras poked at the rod and then looked at Delilah, his brows furrowed in
confusion.

"Every
time you've fallen asleep with those gold tips on your horns"—she pointed
at his focus—"you have had bad dreams, and undead showed up. Three bad
dreams with them on; three times undead have attacked."

Pancras
reached up and touched the gold on the tips of his horns. "I've gotten
used to being hands-free—"

"The
fiendling in the mines used this rod to control his golems. I used it to shut
them down. Maybe you can attune yourself to it and use it as a focus, or maybe
I can help you make something new. We have time. I need to make Kale one of
those light gems anyway."

Pancras
picked up the rod and examined it. "Perhaps you're right. We need to
dawdle away the winter. I can't do what this prince wants me to do. It isn't
right."

Delilah
still didn't know exactly what kind of deal Pancras made to get them out of
jail. He wasn't one to go back on his promises, so if he didn't want to go
through with it now, it must be pretty bad. "Is there something I can do
to help?"

He put the
rod back on the table. Scratching his chin, Pancras shook his head. "No, I
don't think so. Not at the moment. I can't do anything until we can go out into
the city. There are many reagents I need to locate and purchase. Perhaps you
can help with that." He reached up and removed the gilded tips from his
horns. "In the meantime, I'm going to work on attuning myself to a new
focus."

For a moment
Delilah thought Pancras intended to work through dinner. The bell on the food
lift rang, and he perked up. "Oh, food!" He laughed. "I almost
forgot."

Delilah
helped him bring out the trays and set them on the table. The aromas and sights
of fresh, hot stew that smelled of herbs and pepper, and fresh, crusty bread
set her stomach rumbling again. When their bellies were full, Delilah and
Pancras retired to the armchairs in front of the fire.

"It's
been a long time since I've done this." Pancras sipped from a goblet of
wine as he examined the rod.

"You
and me both." Delilah attuned herself to her staff almost as soon as she learned
she was a sorceress. It wasn't the staff, per se, but rather the lizard skull
on top of it. For years after she and Kale were cast out of their clan, that
skull was her constant companion, a source of comfort for a young drakling
scared of the world and everything in it. Now, it helped her fight back against
that world and all the things in it that wanted to kill her and her companions.

Pancras set
the wine goblet on the floor and held the rod in the palms of his hands.
"Let's get to work!"

* * *

Kale's arms
trembled and burned as he stood holding Kali while Paz worked to open the door.
The basement of the safe house to which they took her opened directly to the
catacombs. It was a once-influential family's old house, according to Paz. Even
though they no longer participated in affairs of court, their property still
accessed the catacombs, and they were sympathetic to the plights of non-humans
in the city.

Paz jumped
back as the door opened. A bent old human with one eye held a lantern and
peered out. "I thought I heard someone scratching at this door! What's all
this fuss, little draks?"

"She's
wounded. She needs a healer."

"Oh
bugger." The old man stepped aside and held the door as Kale and Paz
brought Kali in. "Put her there on that cot." The stone walls and
floor of the cellar were not unlike those in the catacombs, except that they
were cleaner and well maintained. The two draks laid Kali on the cot in the
corner as she groaned and writhed in pain.

"Tinian's
ever-watchful eye, boy! You've got wings!"

Kale
chuckled and looked over his shoulder and flapped his wings. "I sure
do."

"Wings
and stripes. Truly he is a Child of Destiny, touched by the gods." Paz
fell to his knees and prostrated himself before Kale. "We would never have
escaped the mines without his aid."

Kale took a
step back. He rubbed his arms and coughed, turning his head to look at Kali.
"Yeah, please don't do that."

The old man
held his lantern over Kali and examined the wound. "Hm. This is an odd
wound, what caused this?"

Kale reached
down and pulled Paz to his feet and then joined the old man by Kali. "It
was a ghost or something. It stabbed her with its spear."

"Hm.
Undead. A ghost? Are you certain?" He touched the flesh around the wound,
eliciting a new round of whimpers from Kali. "Ghosts usually don't harm
people like this."

"Well,
he was translucent, floated, and was in a very bad mood."

The old man
lowered his lantern. He took Kale by the arm and led him over to the stairs
that went up. "I guess some ghosts could be angry enough to hurt
folk." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. My wife will know how
to treat it. Come upstairs, I'll get you some mulled wine. We have warm beds
for you and your friend."

Paz followed
the old man up the stairs. Kale looked back again at Kali. He was reluctant to
leave her behind, even though they were in the same building. He waved to the
two on the stairs. "I'll be along shortly."

The old man
shrugged and disappeared with Paz. "Dalenka! Up, woman, we have
guests!"

Kale sat on
the edge of Kali's cot and took her hand. He stroked the back of it and noted
how supple her scales were. She turned her head and moaned, shifting in
discomfort. Her eyes opened, and although they were glassy, she looked at him
and smiled.

"Hey,
you stuck around."

"Yeah.
I told Delilah to let Pancras know what was going on. He's probably going to be
mad, but I just…" Kale looked down and gave her hand a squeeze. He
shrugged and shook his head. "I just couldn't leave you. I had to know you
were going to be okay."

"Aw,
you do care." Her smile turned into a grimace, and she cried out,
clutching her shoulder. Kale heard someone stomping down the stairs. A portly,
silver-haired woman dressed a sleeping gown, holding an oil lamp, and muttering
to herself entered the cellar.

"Oh by
Apellon's lyre… Ludo wasn't making things up." She placed her lamp on a
shelf near the head of the bed and knelt at Kali's side. She placed her hand on
the drak's forehead. "How are you feeling, dear. Sir? I'm sorry, it's hard
to tell in the dim light."

Kali raised
her arm, gesturing at Kale. "He's a he. I'm a she. My shoulder feels like
something is eating it from the inside out. My whole arm is numb." She
looked over at Kale. "Sorry, I know you're holding my hand, but I can't
feel it."

Dalenka pushed
Kale away. "Go upstairs. You'll be in the way down here, drak. I'll take
care of her."

Kale
hesitated, glancing at Kali. She nodded her assent. He shuffled toward the
stairs, intent on overhearing as much as possible, but the old woman hummed to
herself and muttered as she worked. Kale resigned himself to remaining
ignorant.

Kale found
Ludo and Paz seated at a table. The light from the lantern flickered, causing
dancing shadows to play across their faces. Kale felt the cold from the wall of
white covering the windows, blocking all light. A small fire crackled in the
hearth.

"How
deep is the snow?" Kale looked up at the top of the window, but didn't see
a gap that might indicate the top of the snow.

Ludo sipped
from his mug. "Oh, you can't go by that. It's been crusted over with ice
and snow for weeks now. It's only about as high as you out there. I'll have a
path carved out to the street by mid-day. I worked on it all day
yesterday."

Paz drained
his mug and licked his lips. "Oh, so good. I haven't had anything stronger
than dirty water since I was sent to that damn mine."

Ludo slammed
his mug on the table. "I've been trying to tell the prince about that
accursed place for years. He doesn't care. Just because you're short and have
scales, everyone thinks they can push you around. Well, my family still
remembers the draks have been part of this world longer than we have. It just
isn't right!"

"We
have?" Kale heard stories about how the world was created, but the stories
included little about how the various races all came to be. He pulled out a
chair and climbed up to sit with Ludo and Paz. Ludo poured steaming wine into a
mug and handed it to Kale.

The mulled
wine warmed Kale's throat as he drank. The spiced tingled in his nose and
mouth. "Well, I think we shut the mine down. That fiendling guy is dead
and so are all the guards."

Paz bowed
his head. "We lost many, but all the Firescales are free now."

"Volos?
You killed Volos?" Ludo chuckled and raised his mug. "Burn at the end
of Maris's bloody spear, you son-of-a-bitch!"

Paz raised
his mug. "I'll drink to that!"

"He'll
roast on a spit in hell. That one will." Ludo filled everyone's mugs and
raised his own again, nodding at Kale. "To the slayer of Volos! May he
ride Tinian's steed to everlasting glory!"

Kale felt
his face become hot. "I think my sister killed him, or maybe all the
miners that hacked him to bits with their picks. I didn't fight him at
all."

"To
your sister then!" Ludo and Paz drained their mugs. Ludo laughed and
refilled them.

The warmed
wine made Kale's head swim. Unaware of the time, he figured it must be nearing
morning. His eyelids became heavy, and his belly felt warm with the wine he
poured into it.

After
finishing off the jug of wine, Ludo showed Kale and Paz to their beds. They
were made for humans, and without his sister to share his, Kale felt as if the
huge expanse of mattress would swallow him up. His trepidation evaporated when
his head hit the pillow, and he drifted off to sleep, the image of Kali smiling
at him as she held his hand and guided him to his dreams.