CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

ierusal

Droplets of water clung to the trees in spite of the frigid breeze, and Rachael monitored the sparkling limbs with a worried gaze. More clouds were rolling through the sky this morning, and the smell of rain was in the air. The horses weren’t shod for ice, so if the temperature continued to drop, they could be in for a rough return trip. The muddy ground was still too warm to freeze, but the Wasteland’s weather patterns had never been predictable.

Like everything else here, she thought as she drew her coat up against the chill. She glanced back to check the spare mount; the chestnut gelding walked docilely behind Ignatius. The road sucked at the horses’ hooves as if to draw them down into Woerld’s musky womb.

The absence of wildlife added to the Wasteland’s desolation. No quail burst from the fields, no birdsong haunted the air; it was like moving through a tomb. Scattered farmhouses began to take the place of trees as she reached Ierusal’s outskirts.

The empty cottages were mute markers of the people who had occupied the thriving country of Norbeh before the war. Fields overgrown with weeds and shrubs littered what had once been farmland. The houses were set well away from the road, yet even from a distance, it was obvious the buildings were empty.

A door banged, and Rachael pulled Ignatius to a halt. The noise was too rhythmic to be anything other than the creak and thump created by a broken latch and the wind. She located the sound’s origin at a dilapidated cottage with ivy snaking through the blind windows. The front door swung in the wind and slammed against the frame. Near the house, a plow leaned against a barn wall, but the rest of the building was gone, perhaps blown away by some other savage Wasteland storm.

Ahead, the walls of Ierusal loomed behind the Rosa, which had grown substantially since she had last been here. She recalled her dream: Lucian standing before her in a city of death while her blood pooled at her feet.

I can’t make it stop.

Mouth dry, she took a sip from her flask, then nudged Ignatius back to his slow walk. The Wyrm had been silent for the last three days, not offering the slightest push against her consciousness. The demon’s lack of activity was unnerving. Twice in the last sixteen years the Wyrm had withdrawn, only to resurge with a fierce assault. Both of those times, she had resided at the Citadel and John had helped her put the demon down.

She would have no help in the Wasteland. Caleb simply wasn’t strong enough to be any assistance against the Wyrm. His lack of skill would do more to imperil her than save her. She was better off fighting alone.

The thump of hoofbeats caused her to turn, and she hated the way her neck ached in the cold. Caleb emerged from the forest and caught up to her, his mare tossing her head as she slowed.

“Everything all right?” Rachael inquired.

“Oh, yeah, I just like to look behind once in a while.” He took his gloves off and blew on his fingers. “You know, I’ve been thinking, Rae.”

She made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat and nudged Ignatius to a fast walk with Ierusal’s gates in sight.

“Don’t you think it would be better if I went in and brought Lucian out to you?”

The wind gusted and lifted her hair out of her face as she reined Ignatius to a stop again. Between the cold and damp, her joints ached with fierce pain. “Say again?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking.”

“Hmm?”

“About the Rosa and the Wyrm.”

She said nothing. John had taught her to wield silence with deadly skill.

“If the Wyrm is strong in you when you leave Ierusal, it’s possible the Rosa will strike against you. It’d be safer for you if I went in and got Lucian. I could bring him and the foundling out. Nobody would ever know you weren’t there for the initial arrest.”

“I would know.” She’d made her peace with death soon after she discovered the pain of living. If the Wyrm was so strong as to attract the Rosa’s wrath, then let the Rosa have her. Rachael had no intention of prolonging her demise.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Duly noted.” She kicked Ignatius to a trot, hoping to dissuade Caleb from sharing any more of his concerns. “Now do your job so I can do mine.”

His mare kept pace, and he was quiet, his expression grim. The odor of wood-smoke hung just under the scent of the Rosa; Lucian and the foundling were close.

The city’s southern gate was open. Rachael slowed again, distracted by the evanescence of a fractured Hell Gate somewhere nearby. The Gate strained to swing through the threads of time and space, seeking a way to open. Rachael slowed Ignatius until she was sure the ancient spells locking the ruptured Gate were secure.

“You feel it too?” Caleb asked as he reined his mare to match Ignatius’ pace.

“We’ll be fine.” She returned her attention to Ierusal and the Rosa. The leaves rustled like a murmur in the light breeze, obscuring the flowers hidden amongst the thorns. As they passed beneath the bower outlining the gate, Rachael felt the tingle of the Rosa’s magic caress her flesh.

The feeling faded as they passed beneath the portcullis. Although dim, the entrance tunnel was clear of debris, and they soon re-emerged in the pale morning light. The horses’ hooves echoed against the cobblestone road. Wind whistled through the buildings and alleys.

In the back of her mind, the Wyrm slithered before it quieted again. Rachael shuddered. Wagon frames jutted from the rubble of a collapsed building. Jagged piles of bones littered the street where people had died on top of one another in the assault. A horse’s skull lay several feet from the disaster, the empty sockets fixed on Rachael.

Across the street, a missing wall from another building revealed a table and broken chairs. A bundle of rags fluttered in one corner of the room. The only sound was the moaning wind.

She allowed Caleb to pass her and followed him onto a back street to avoid the carnage. They wound their way through Ierusal’s alleys, stopping every so often so he could listen. Rachael tensed each time he stopped. She wanted to be done with this whole mess.

The morning slipped away from them and the clouds grew heavy with rain. It was early afternoon before Caleb held up his hand. They dismounted and tied the horses to the post of a house. The signature of Lucian’s magic flowed over her, as familiar as his touch. She knew without a doubt Caleb had led her true. Lucian was close.

Caleb pointed to what she thought was a small house a block away. She examined the roofline and saw the steeple had been damaged. It was a church. 

Where you always knew to find me when I was troubled.

A thin stream of smoke filtered through the chimney; the fire was all but out. As they neared, she noticed two back entrances, one through a partially demolished picket fence and the other via a porch from the alley. Rachael glanced at the windows. No one moved inside.

They drew their swords. She motioned for Caleb to take the alley entrance as she stepped through a gap in the fence. She lost sight of him when she stepped onto the porch. Through a dirty window, she saw the kitchen. An empty scabbard was abandoned on the floor. A pot lay on its side in a puddle of liquid. The presence of Lucian’s magic was overwhelming, and she remembered his voice rumbling through her bones when he had opened the Gate.

Biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, she waited until she had her heart under control. She twisted the knob; the door was locked. She knelt before the keyhole and reached into her pocket to retrieve a thin piece of metal, which she used to pick the flimsy lock. The kitchen door opened. Rachael paused, listening.

She made a full count to ten before she eased into the room and with five steps she was at the sheath. The scabbard was old, but when she looked closely, she saw it bore the unmistakable Citadel emblem. Where had Lucian gotten a Citadel sword?

Lucian’s weapon was broken when he was exiled. John had presented the destroyed blade to her in a formal ceremony as a symbol of the Citadel’s retribution. She wrapped the pieces in a blanket and curled up in bed with the remnants of the shattered steel. For three days she had not moved until John lost his patience and forced her to accept the truth of Lucian’s betrayal.

Rachael blinked against something in her eye. If Lucian used the blade, then it was a gift, because a stolen Katharos’s sword would bring agony to a thief. But what Katharos would give a renegade something so precious?

She cocked her head and listened. Someone moved in the next room. How and why he’d come by the weapon were irrelevant. He was armed.

A shadow moved and when she looked up, he was there with his sword only a few feet from her chest. She reflexively brought her blade up as she stepped into a fighting stance. The kitchen was too narrow for either of them to swing their blades so it would be a fight of thrusts. He held the advantage with his longer reach. She needed to draw him into the open.

Lucian kept his right leg away from her and leaned heavily on his cane. Blood seeped into his beard from a wound on his cheek. Beneath his tan, his skin was sallow, the circles beneath his eyes black.

In his gaze, Rachael immediately recognized the agony no drug could heal. She knew that look well. She had broken all her mirrors so she wouldn’t have to see her own distraught stare day after day.

Now her pain looked back at her through obsidian eyes and for one blind moment, she wanted to run him through with her sword. Just to make their anguish stop. For once she wanted to let the rage she harbored in her heart give her license to kill.

But she didn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of becoming like the Fallen, like Catarina. Though it meant staring back at her grief, she forced herself to look at Lucian. Maybe this terrible misery wasn’t meant to end; maybe they were meant to bleed on one another forever.

The tip of his blade wavered. “Rachael?” His voice cracked halfway through her name. He knelt before her, crumbling slowly to the dirty floor. He reversed the sword to present it to her hilt first.

Her heart twisted, but she brought a hob-nailed boot down on her pity. “I have a directive from the Seraph that you are to surrender yourself to my authority.” Her voice didn’t belie the doubt gnawing her resolve. John would have been proud of her.

“I will.”

She accepted his sword and power surged from the weapon into her palm. He had recently summoned God’s authority through the blade. Rachael frowned and sheathed her weapon before she retrieved Lucian’s scabbard from the floor. As she rose, she noted the disarray in the room beyond the kitchen. Where was the foundling?

Caleb entered the other room and barely glanced at the scattered possessions. He carried his sword in one hand and manacles in his other. “The other door was blocked. I had to come through the chapel.” He stepped into the kitchen as she draped the strap of Lucian’s weapon over her shoulder. Caleb threw the manacles at Lucian, who caught the cuffs before they fell to his lap.

“Put them on. Then hand over the cane.” Caleb pushed the point of his blade against Lucian’s throat.

“Wait,” she said to Lucian and he froze. Even as an exile, Lucian’s status from his days as a Council Elder demanded a modicum of respect. “I have his sword. He’s surrendered to my authority. Why don’t you take care of the horses?”

Caleb’s blade pressed into Lucian’s flesh and a drop of blood wept across the steel. “As soon as he’s subdued.”

Lucian stared at the scarred cabinets, his head against the wall. It was evident to her that his subjugation had come long before this day. She bit down on her anger at Caleb and said, “Go get the horses.”

Caleb shook his head. “I’ll stay with him. Just so there’s no appearance of impropriety.”

Was he deliberately trying to undermine her authority with Lucian? Rachael’s eye narrowed at the constable. Caleb usually threw his weight around with prisoners, but he was never unnecessarily violent. Yet if Lucian made one wrong move, Caleb’s blade would open his jugular.

Rachael felt Lucian’s fear as clearly as if it were her own. Stunned by his willingness to open his thoughts to her, she looked down to find his eyes on her. Pleading. Something was very wrong.

Both men awaited her decision. To allow Caleb to stay while she retrieved the horses would make her weak in Lucian’s eyes. “Get the horses, Caleb.”

The constable wavered for another second then jammed his sword into its sheath. Lucian closed his eyes and sagged against the wall.

As Caleb brushed past her, he leaned close. “I need to talk to you.” He went to the porch.

Rachael reached down and grabbed the manacles out of Lucian’s hands. “Don’t move until I get back.”

He nodded and she met Caleb outside, leaving the door open so she could see Lucian. “Talk.”

Caleb whispered, “There’s a body in the alley. It’s been burned beyond recognition. The remains stink of Mastema’s spells.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve never seen the like. It reminds me of a golem. That one,” he whispered as he nodded toward Lucian, “probably created it for protection and it turned on him.”

“So he destroyed it?”

“Obviously.”

“With Mastema’s magic?”

“What else?”

A Citadel sword, perhaps? she thought as she fingered the strap on her shoulder. Caleb apparently hadn’t paid attention to Lucian’s blade. She made sure to keep the scabbard aligned with her body and out of his sight as she untangled the layers of magic surrounding the church.

She sensed an echo of Lucian’s magic and another reverberation from someone she didn’t know, possibly the foundling. The child’s spells were fragmented, prayers started and ceased without focus until her charms became wild with her panic. Yet there was nothing dark about these enchantments.

Something else had walked the streets, and Rachael sensed Mastema’s tainted resonance. Lucian and Mastema were in her blood and bones; Rachael would know either of them by the vibrations they left in the air. Beneath Mastema’s taint was a fourth layer of magic that carried a weak malevolence, barely remembered like a tickle at the back of her throat.

Caleb leaned forward, but before he could speak, she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “Good job.” When he started to move away, she seized his arm. “And Caleb,” she whispered so Lucian wouldn’t hear, “regardless of his crimes, past or present, he was once a Council member. I will not have him manhandled like a common thief. Am I clear?”

“You are.”

She released him. “Take care of the mounts. I’ll be fine until you get back.”

He nodded and stepped off the porch. “Mind your blind side.”

It wasn’t bad advice. She turned so he couldn’t see the sword and waited until he rounded the corner before she returned to Lucian. She wanted to say something to tear his heart from his chest, but every clever riposte fled her mind. All her words had been spent through the years, and though she had once yearned to see him debased before her, she found no joy in his degradation. Revenge was highly overrated. She placed the manacles on the counter and held out her hand.

“Rachael.” He took her hand but didn’t rise. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t even start.” She cut him off. His fingers stiffened around hers. “I’m not interested.”

Instead of a rebuttal, he knelt before her and offered no resistance. The relief and hope she had seen on his face when she’d first entered the kitchen was gone. His palm slid across hers to leave her hand empty. He had let her go again, this time at her request. The edge thinned around her anger. She offered once more to help him stand, but he rose unaided.

“Where’s the foundling?” she asked. The question rang hollow, a white noise to fill the empty space of his silence.

He gestured at the adjoining room with a casual wave along with a tilt of his head. It was a movement so uniquely his, Rachael felt a surge of nostalgia. “Lindsay was hurt last night when we were attacked,” he said as he limped into the room.

“Who attacked you?” She followed him, wincing at his pained steps. Caleb’s golem?

“One of my sister’s creations. It’s dead.” His contemptuous tone wasn’t lost on her as they reached the bed where a chair sat by the headboard.

Of course, that was the resonance she couldn’t place. Catarina. Now that he named it, Rachael didn’t see how she could have missed his twin’s spell. Yet she’d always been blind to Catarina’s magic. Lucian was a part of her, but his sister kept herself inviolate, cold as a winter queen, sharing herself with no one but Lucian.

Rachael redirected her attention to the foundling. Lucian had obviously been in the midst of bandaging the girl’s arm when Rachael entered the kitchen. Her wrist and forearm were still swollen and red, and a few deeper blisters festered in her flesh, but Rachael saw where Lucian had healed the worst of her injuries. The girl’s arm still glowed in the room’s half-light. To have healed her meant he called on the name of God, because the Fallen couldn’t heal. Never had Woerld known a Katharos who could walk between God and Hell’s Fallen with impunity. Rachael was pragmatic enough to know she wasn’t witnessing a new phenomenon. Lucian was not complicit; he couldn’t be and do what he’d done.

Lucian lifted the girl’s wrist and finished bandaging her arm. “Her name is Lindsay Richardson.”

She started. “What?”

“Lindsay. Her name is Lindsay Richardson.”

“Her brother’s name was Peter.” She resisted the urge to touch Peter’s wallet.

“Was?” Lucian tied off the bandage and turned to Rachael.

“I told you. Jackals took him while he was in the Veil.”

The girl murmured Lucian’s name, and he brushed his fingertips across her forehead. She quieted and fell back into peaceful sleep. “The Veil closed and broke the connection before I heard your answer. I didn’t know.”

Lindsay’s pale lashes were still against her dirty cheeks. Only people who had never known privation slept with such abandon. Like Lucian, she was obviously a child who had always been loved.

He limped to the chair and eased himself down, holding to the bedpost as he sat. “I’ll tell her when she wakes.”

“The sooner you start withdrawing your influence, the easier it’ll be on her. I’ll break the news to her.”

“That is up to you. As Judge.” The only sign of his agitation was his white-knuckled grip on his cane. He tilted his head against the wall and closed his eyes, his movements heavy with grief. “Just don’t let them say I corrupted her. I have not.”

“That’s out of my hands and you know it.” This was his foundling, his burden; he should have maintained an emotional distance from her. Don’t make this my responsibility. I can barely take care of myself, but she halted the words before they spewed from her lips and said, “John will judge her impartially as he’s judged every child before her. If he says she’s pure, they’ll accept her.”

“They will talk about her no matter what John does. You can teach her how to survive, Rachael.”

“All I know is how turn a heart to stone. Would you have me teach her that trick?” She realized from the look on his face it would have been kinder if she’d struck him. She rubbed the patch covering her eye as a headache whined through her brain.

He pressed his lips together and said nothing else. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the tense silence so she let it stand between them. She feared when the wall came down her defenses would be laid bare.

Lindsay’s eyelids fluttered; she would awaken soon. Lucian’s magic was losing its hold as her body finished healing. Rachael couldn’t take her rage out against this child. Peter had wanted his sister saved, and though he’d asked Rachael, it had been Lucian who had rescued her. In spite of all his failings, he had Lindsay’s best interests at heart. A person didn’t have to be a judge to see it.

Outside, she heard the jingle of tack as Caleb led the horses into the backyard and within minutes he appeared in the bedroom. “It’s starting to rain again.”

Rachael didn’t acknowledge him; she didn’t trust her voice.

“Gonna rain,” he said.

Gonna come a drowning rain, she thought as she swallowed past the knot in her throat. “Is there a place to stable the horses?”

“There’s a carriage shed out back that’ll give them some shelter.”

“Take care of it.”

He left them after a lingering look, which she didn’t acknowledge. When she was sure Caleb was gone, she went to squat beside Lucian. She lowered her voice and spoke as gently as she knew how. “I believe her Elder should tell her about her brother.” She reached in her pocket and, though it broke what was left of her splintered heart, she pressed Peter’s wallet into his palm. “Give it to her. It’s all I was able to save of him.”

He looked at her as if calculating her intent before he accepted the wallet. “Thank you.”

“We’ll wait out the storm and leave in the morning if we can.” She reached up and touched the gash on his cheek. “You can rest this afternoon. Then we’ll talk.”

He looked away from her and she followed his stare to the shadows hovering in the corners. She hid behind his stone silence and waited. Minutes passed before he spoke again. “I will tell you things,” he said.

Just that.

Nothing more.