Wedding Bells, Magic Spells (16 page)

“Your hand was fused to the Saghred the entire time,” he said.

Justinius really didn’t expect an answer. I needed to give him one, to say it out loud. Some things were less terrifying if you gave them voice.

“Yes.”

“When the Saghred was empty, it wasn’t red any longer, but your hand was still locked to it.”

“Yes.”

“Then you removed the Scythe of Nen, reversed it, bringing the pommel down on the Saghred and destroying it. But until that instant, you still couldn’t pull your hand away.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

Silence filled the hallway.

“But the souls that powered it were gone,” Tam said. “Kesyn said it was almost clear enough to see through.”

“Just because you can see through something doesn’t mean it’s empty,” Justinius said.

I didn’t like hearing that, or what it implied.

The Saghred hadn’t asked me what I wanted when it bonded itself to me. And it sure hadn’t asked me what I’d wanted when I’d been trying to destroy it.

“In those last seconds, it was afraid,” I heard myself say. “It was trying to save itself—any way it could. When I stabbed it with the Scythe, it was like driving that dagger into my own guts.”

Tam glanced behind me. Mychael was there. He’d been there long enough to have heard enough.

“You were standing next to her that night,” Tam said to him. “Did you see anything? Or sense?”

“Nothing.”

I could see my fiancé and our friends reflected in the glass in front of me. My eyes were directed at the spider, but I wasn’t seeing it. I was seeing myself, seeing what I now knew I was. When words made it out, they were quiet and even. “You’re saying that whatever gave the Saghred its power, its core, whatever made it what it was, is now inside of me.” It wasn’t a question. There was no use asking a question when you already
knew the answer. “Basically, I destroyed the Saghred’s body. I have what’s left of the Saghred’s soul. To save itself, the last soul the Saghred took through me was its own.”

“The Saghred was neither good nor evil,” Mychael said to reassure me. “It was power. It was the Khrynsani who used that power for evil. We’ve talked about this. You’re not evil and you never will be.”

“The Saghred has always needed to be fed,” I said.

“Feeling an urge to slurp souls?” Justinius asked.

I finally turned and looked at him, at all of them. “No, I don’t.”

“Then you’re not going to slurp souls.”

The old man was rational thought personified. I wished I could have been calm and rational about what was happening to me. I was treading new ground—historically, monumentally new ground.

“Yes, you are.” His hand reached down and took mine, his thin fingers closing around my fingers, surprisingly warm, and even more surprisingly comforting.

He smiled as I started finding air to breathe again.

“So the reason why my magic’s unreliable is that I have some unknown power in residence and it’s still getting settled into its new home.”

Vegard’s voice came from behind us all. He sounded proud, not afraid. “Ma’am, Piaras isn’t the only one who’s going to end up in the Guardian histories as a legend.”

*

In addition to his scrying bowl, Ben had brought a crystal ball
up from the communication room. Now we gathered around to watch what had been captured on the spy gem Tam had worn.

We were down the hall from the citadel mirror room. The goblin mirror had been closed, locked, and completely secured. Depending on what we saw in that crystal ball, those actions might be extended to every other mirror in the citadel—at the very least.

Having set up the crystal ball for us, Ben turned to leave.

Justinius stopped him with a raised hand. “Hold on a minute, Ben. If we end up shutting down mirror travel on this island or anywhere else, you and your boys are going to be busy. You have every right to see what we’re dealing with.”

Ben gave a solemn nod. “Whatever I see won’t leave this room until you tell me otherwise.”

“Good man.”

“I try, sir.”

Mychael set the spy gem next to the crystal ball and murmured a few words.

A nightmare unfolded before our eyes.

“I didn’t see any of this when I was in there,” Tam breathed in disbelief.

“That does it,” I said. “I’m never setting foot in a mirror again.”

I’d seen masses of cobwebs and spiders before. Those had been spiders you could crush under your boot heel.

I swallowed with an audible gulp. “Are all those the same size as Gargantua down in the containment room?”

“I don’t see why they wouldn’t be,” Tam replied. “All of the Rak’kari I’ve ever heard of being conjured have been the same size.”

The wall of the mirror tunnel Tam had been inside of was virtually translucent. It was as if the Rak’kari wanted to show off their building skills.

We could see out into the Void. I had no idea how far it extended, though I imagine it was called the Void for a reason. Regardless, as far as our eyes could see were webs and Rak’kari, scuttling back and forth into the distance on what we knew to be rope-sized strands of web like a highway.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem,” Justinius said.

“There must be hundreds,” Imala managed. “There aren’t that many mirrors on the island.”

“No, ma’am, there aren’t,” Cuinn replied.

We watched in the crystal ball as a mass of web shot toward Tam like a net, engulfing him, yanking him violently forward.

Toward a mass of glistening, sticky black web.

Almost immediately, Tam was pulled again, this time from behind. That would have been Mychael and his Guardians trying to get him out.

The Rak’kari wasn’t giving up its prize that easily.

Another round of tug-of-war followed, ending with the cable snapping and Tam falling out of the citadel mirror.

The spy gem continued playing what had happened when we’d gotten Tam back. It stopped when Tam’s chestplate had been ripped off and had landed on the floor.

The room filled with stunned silence.

Mychael stepped up to the crystal ball, murmured a few words, and the action went in reverse as Tam was being captured and pulled forward by a Rak’kari web. Mychael held the tips of his fingers close together, then slowly spread them out, zooming in on what was blocking the goblin mirror’s exit in Regor.

“Cuinn, is that…cocoon, for lack of a better word, being built where the mirrors are?”

The young elf stood utterly still. “Yes, sir.”

“They’re elementals,” I said. “Conjured from magic. Can they reproduce?”

“I’ve never heard of elementals reproducing, but…” Tam’s words trailed off as Mychael moved his index finger to the next cocoon, repeating the same motion to zoom in on it.

Cuinn made a strangled sound.

There was a foot and part of an arm sticking out of the cocoon. From the color of the skin, it was human or elf.

Mychael froze. “I think I know what happened to that Caesolian merchant.”

I spat my favorite four-letter word, the one I reserved for life-or-death situations I couldn’t do a thing to prevent.

Mychael zeroed in on three more cocoons. One was empty—at least of a dead body. The other two had a body each, and one of those bodies was goblin.

Mychael hadn’t wanted to cause a needless panic by telling the delegates what had happened to Markus until we had more facts.

What we’d just witnessed was about as factual as it got.

Now it was time to panic.

Every telepath in the citadel’s communication room was
working overtime. There was already a list of contacts and procedures in place for relaying vital messages during catastrophic emergencies.

What we had on our hands qualified on every level.

Justinius and Mychael composed a message to be sent out immediately to every ruler, government agency, merchant guild, and higher academic institution in the Seven Kingdoms. The message included the order to continue spreading it, via messenger on horseback, if necessary.

Stop all mirror travel immediately. Lock, cover, and secure all mirrors now.

The message included what was infesting the Void, the fact that it was indestructible, and what would happen to anyone attempting to travel through a mirror. It also promised that we were doing everything in our power to come up with a solution.

Somehow I didn’t think that was going to make anyone feel better. I knew it wasn’t doing much for me, considering that I was one of the people trying to find that solution.

Those familiar with dark magic elementals would be able to do the math and determine that the Khrynsani were responsible, but until we knew that for a fact, Justinius didn’t want to include it, at least not yet.

We all knew why.

The peace talks.

Or what would be left of them, once the delegates were told what had happened.

Justinius was making arrangements to tell them within the hour. In person. And once he did, the peace talks would go straight down the crapper before they had a chance to make any progress, and any hope we might have had of getting the delegates’ signatures on a nonaggression treaty would be gone. The goal of the talks wasn’t just peace, it was getting agreement that magical objects of power like the Saghred shouldn’t and wouldn’t be sought out and used against another kingdom. We’d known that the main objection would be self-defense and protection, whether they intended to use whatever they found for that reason or not.

But now, with swarms of indestructible Rak’kari infesting the Void, if I was a ruler, I’d want whatever I could get my hands on to protect my people, and damn the consequences.

The blame for those swarms would fall squarely on the goblins—any and all goblins. The delegates would claim that the goblins had declared war on the Seven Kingdoms by sending their monsters to shut down all mirror travel, thus paralyzing commerce and government, sending them back to the dark ages of traveling by horse.

The Mal’Salin family had a history of being linked to the Khrynsani, and no one would believe that any monarch with the last name Mal’Salin would have broken with tradition now. Chigaru had been on the goblin throne for less than a month. He was unknown and untried. Yes, he had ordered the Khrynsani disbanded, hunted down, and either arrested or killed if they resisted. Chigaru could claim that he despised everything they stood for until he was blue in the face. No one would believe a Mal’Salin wanted to live in peace.

But right here and right now, Tam and Imala would take the brunt of the blame. Considering Tam’s death-curse reputation, those accusations probably wouldn’t be said within his hearing, but the damage would be done regardless.

“Some people are going to step through a mirror anyway,” I said.

“Those are the people no one’s really going to miss,” Justinius said. “A little less stupid in the world right now would be nice. Cutting themselves from the herd would do the rest of us a favor.”

“If filling the Void with Rak’kari is the Khrynsani’s doing, what are they trying to accomplish?” I asked. “The attack on the elven delegation’s ship and Ambassador Eldor’s murder was timed close to the Rak’kari attack on Markus. Mal’Salin gold was used to pay the pirates. Now the Rak’kari are killing anything that steps through a mirror. What do the Khrynsani want, other than to stop the peace talks by essentially holding the Seven Kingdoms hostage? I mean, is there going to be a ransom note at some point? Or was it some kind of accident?”

“That’s a big accident,” Cuinn muttered.

“There were less than three hundred Khrynsani in the temple at any given time,” Imala said. “Perhaps that could have been increased by another hundred once Sarad Nukpana had the Saghred to protect. We arrested one hundred and forty-two.”

“That leaves a lot unaccounted for,” Mychael said.

“The sea dragons ate some,” I reminded them.

“True, but what could a hundred Khrynsani do?”

“Set a plan in motion that had been put in place when the Khrynsani were at full strength,” Tam said quietly.

Justinius sat up straighter. “You’ve got my attention.”

“Sarad was building that massive Gate outside of Regor to instantly deploy hundreds of troops at a time to anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms,” Tam said. “To simultaneously unleash a worldwide Rak’kari infestation and render every mirror unusable would be the most effective way to isolate the kingdoms from each other,
then
they could launch attacks through that Gate using the goblin army. Communication would be limited to telepaths—and then only the very best ones who could keep their emotions in check would be able to function. Even that wouldn’t do them any good if there wasn’t a telepath at the other end still alive to receive a message.” He indicated the frozen tableau shown in the crystal ball. “To set up sabotage on this scale would take the Khrynsani at their full power. To conjure even a single Rak’kari takes a level of skill that only Sarad Nukpana’s inner circle would have possessed. What we’re seeing here is the result of
years
of work.”

“Why haven’t we seen any until now?” I asked.

“A Rak’kari can easily survive without air. As I’ve said, when they’re created, they’re immediately contained. Their digestive systems don’t finish developing until they’ve fed for the first time, so they can be stored for a couple of years in containers and survive perfectly well.”

Justinius spoke. “The Khrynsani have been making and stockpiling those things until they needed them.”

“That appears to be the case, sir.”

“Sons of bitches.”

“Another true statement, especially when it comes to Sarad Nukpana and his inner circle. Sarad has never taken defeat well. He referred to it as a ‘temporary inconvenience.’ He always had a backup plan.”

“He’s in Hell,” I reminded Tam.

“That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a plan in place, just that he wouldn’t be there to execute it. There were survivors, highly placed and magically talented survivors—like Sandrina Ghalfari. Only half of his inner circle perished the night the Saghred was destroyed…” Tam winced. “Sorry, Raine.”