Zal

I lost track of time as I sat in the dark, shivering, my back against the unforgiving metal door, my arms around my legs, and my head on my knees.

Loriah. The Trine. Torian.

Meeting Torian had made me question many things about my world that I’d always taken as given. But this?

The Trine’s impartiality, their commitment to justice, to the welfare and prosperity of all our people—that was at the very foundation of the Sun mage’s creed, instilled nearly as deeply as our belief in choice, in hospitality, in the very Sun itself.

My breath shuddered as I fought down a sob.

If the Trine wasn’t to be trusted what did that say about me, about the way I’d followed their orders without question, about what I’d done to a woman who’d been not only a colleague but a friend for most of my life?

If it weren’t for Torian, I’d submit to judgment willingly, although not for the reasons Obeila was no doubt announcing even now from the steps of the College, where her voice would carry to every corner of the Square.

Mayhap the harsher punishment was living with the shame and guilt that I’d never suspected, never questioned, never even imagined the Trine might be as corruptible as anybody else. They’d made me complicit, damn them.

Missing one eye didn’t give me an excuse not to look.

My breath hitched and tears leaked down my cheeks from my eye as well as from the empty socket, my heart drumming so hard that my whole body juddered.

How dare they? How dare they? It wasn’t only grief that burned in my middle. It was rage, too. Rage at the Trine, rage at myself, rage at…

Then I realized it wasn’t me, but the door that was vibrating. Clearly somebody was pounding on it, but the cell was silent except for my own labored breathing and the blood pounding in my ears. Evidently the noise suppression spells worked on both sides of the threshold.

The slot above my head slid open with a screech.

“Oy! Mage! Get away from the door if you want supper. Your arse is blocking the food slot.”

Even though my belly was so empty it was cleaving to my spine, I didn’t move. I didn’t deserve to eat. Not now. Not when the very Earth had collapsed under me. Not when Torian was at the Trine’s mercy.

Not when I couldn’t get my hands around their throats.

“I said— urgh.”

The guard’s voice ended in a gasp and a gurgle, followed by a heavy weight hitting the ground outside.

A soft voice whispered, “Zal?”

My head shot up. Torian. A faint golden glow bloomed through the open slot above me, illuminating the miserable cell. When I scrambled to my feet, the glow bled through the lower slot too, gilding the scuff marks on my boot toes.

I flung myself against the door, dry lips nearly splitting with my relieved grin. But when I pressed my forehead to the cold iron and my eye to the peephole, my grin faltered.

The gray eyes that met mine were Torian’s, the face was Torian’s, as was the tracery of the golden threads gleaming under their skin.

That skin, though… The skin was nearly as dark as Netta’s, the hair captured in a snood like Barkon’s.

“Torian? Is it you then?”

“Who else would it be? Hold on. This key is a motherfucker.”

I couldn’t help it. Despite our situation, laughter burbled at the back of my throat. Another Torian word. It sounded like an extremely useful one, too, especially in these circumstances.

A moment later, the key grated in the lock and the door swung open to reveal Torian in clerk’s livery. I surged through and wrapped them in a hug.

They returned the embrace. “Are you all right?”

“Now that you’re here, I’m okay.”

Their body trembled with their chuckle. “Good. Because we have to move fast.”

They pulled away, stepping gingerly over the leg of the guard, who was sprawled on the floor amid a scatter of bread and beans.

I recalled Edric and the effect of his death on Torian as I peered down at the guard’s body. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“No.” They laughed a little wildly. “I sort of panicked when he saw me and I tried this thing from an ancient entertainment out of reflex.” They made a motion as though gripping a phantom neck. “I mean, I know where the nerve bundles are, and my hands are stronger with my skeletal mods, but I didn’t think it would actually work!” They wrinkled their nose. “Although I suppose the jolt of electricity helped. Like a taser.”

I didn’t bother to ask what a taser might be. I gestured to their face and hair. “What happened to you?”

“Never mind that. We have to move fast, before he comes around.”

With the glow emanating from Torian’s skin, the corridor was easy to navigate. We ran forward and were halfway up the stairs when above us, a guard stepped into view.

He looked as startled as we did, but fumbled his night stick off his belt. “Halt!”

“Zal.” Torian gripped my forearm. “I can’t do anything without touching him. You need to throw him back, like you did with Farren and the others that night.”

The guard began to descend toward us, both hands gripping his stick.

“I had my Stone then. I don’t have it anymore, not even the shards. I can’t.”

Torian hissed through their teeth. “Don’t you get it?” They let go of my arm and grabbed my hand in both of theirs. “You don’t need your Stone. You’ve got me.” They jerked their head at the advancing guard. “Now get him.”

And I felt it then.

The surge of energy through my veins, pooling at my core, ready for me to shape to my will. Familiar, yet different.

More.

I’d been a Sun mage for more than half my life. I’d learned finesse and restraint and self-mastery through endless drills before I was ever posted to my circuit. But what Torian sent singing through our joined hands wasn’t anything as tame and contained as what my Stone delivered at full charge. With my Stone, I could always feel its limits, sense the bottom, how far I could go.

But this? The bottom was so far away I couldn’t touch it, because this power had no limit, like a dragon barely tamed to harness, a storm rolling in from the sea, an avalanche roaring down a mountain. Yet it was distinctly Torian, too. Sweet and awkward, knowing yet naïve.

And far, far too trusting.

I tried to free my hand. “No. I won’t. You nearly died with Edric.”

“It’s okay. There are failsafes. Trust me. I’ll throttle it down if it’s too much.” They glared at me. “I’m choosing to share it with you. Now just do it!”

So I did.

At first, I was afraid the power welling in me would be more than I could handle. That I’d lose control and incinerate the guard where he stood. But then I focused on Torian’s touch, Torian’s solid presence beside me.

Torian would never allow that to happen, not intentionally, not now, not after Edric.

So in the end, I simply extended a finger and nudged the guard, a stroke of power, no more than if I were brushing past him in the street. Even that small burst sent him flying back up the stairs to land on his back on the floor above.

Well, I wasn’t a fool. I knocked him out, too. After all, we still had to get out of here, and now that I knew what the Trine thought of Torian—and what they might do to Torian if they knew what true magic lay coiled inside them—escape was even more vital.

“Will you be able to share that with me again when we encounter the next guards?”

“We won’t,” Torian said as they raced up the stairs behind me. “The place is deserted. The Trine is hearing petitions.”

I stumbled as my bloody conscience weakened my knees.

Nobody had spoken for Loriah. Nobody had begged for mercy for her. Even if I’d known it was warranted, I couldn’t have done it myself because I was half delirious, still under the healers’ care. And since they’d already cut out her tongue, she couldn’t plead her own case either.

Torian gripped my elbow. “You okay?”

I nodded and managed to croak, “Fine,” before leading the way past the unconscious guard.

As Torian had claimed, when we reached the lighted corridors outside Gerd’s office, there was nobody about. Even so, there were more obstacles ahead.

“I don’t like to ask, seeing as how you’ve managed to get us this far, but how are we to leave the city? The guards at the gate—”

“We’re not going that way. I’ve got a token that’ll let us leave by the… the… Fuck, I don’t know what it’s called. The equivalent of sewage treatment. Where the barrows of shit get carted.”

My brows rose. “The night dirt postern? They’ll not let us out without a barrow.”

“They will. I’ve got a token. All we need to do is—”

“Zal.”

I froze at that implacable voice echoing down the stairs. I pushed Torian behind me and stared defiantly up at Gerd.

He stared back, his legs braced wide, his staff planted next to his booted feet, his Stone lighting the grim set of his mouth and casting his deep-set eyes into shadow.

“You’ve got it all wrong about the Moon-born,” I said, chin raised defiantly. “They don’t bespell people with their voices.”

Gerd didn’t move. “They tell you that, did they?”

“Wait. What?” Torian said, bewildered. “I can’t bespell anybody.”

I turned, Gerd be damned, because Torian was the important one. “I know, love. It’s all a misunderstanding, I think. Brylun took a word at the wrong meaning in some old records.”

“Brylun.” Torian gripped my arm and lowered their voice. “I have to tell you. Brylun and Obeila, they’ve been in contact with the Infomancers. With Edric.”

My belly dropped down to the cells below. “What? How do you—”

“Zal.” Gerd’s tone held unmistakable impatience. “What have you done?”

I glared up at him. “I haven’t broken my vows, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I know that.”

I blinked, my brows lifting of their own accord. “You do?”

“If you had, the bond with your stone would have broken, yet it is still intact.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing chucking me in gaol?” I shouted.

“Zal,” Torian said admiringly, “excellent work embracing new profanity.”

Gerd shifted his staff to one side, out of immediate attack position. “It was necessary. I was coming to tell you so, but it appears I am behind the fair. Tell me. Did you kill my guards?”

“No. They’re only unconscious.”

He nodded curtly. “Good. If you had, I couldn’t in good conscience have let you go.”

“Y-you’re letting us go?” Torian asked. “Both of us?”

“Aye.” He held up his staff, and I tensed, but then he very deliberately propped it against the wall, a sign that he meant us no harm. “Although you were both fools if you imagined you could get through the streets without being stopped. The place is bristling with guard patrols.”

“But isn’t that your doing?” I asked.

He snorted. “It has more to do with the Houses of Mages and Seigneurs wanting to outdo each other. Every time a new mage patrol gets posted, the seigneurs match it.” He shook his head. “I’ve no notion where they’re finding the personnel.”

“Conscription,” Torian murmured.

Gerd’s gaze sharpened. “Conscription violates choice. It’s in direct opposition to our most sacred values.”

Torian met Gerd’s gaze levelly. “Then why did Brylun try a compulsion spell on me?”

“Shite,” Gerd muttered, running a hand over his braids. “I knew it.” He turned and leaned down, and when he stood back up, he had my pack in his hands. “Here.” He tossed it down to me and I caught it reflexively. “Now we really do have to move, before the tribunal starts wondering where I’ve got to. This way.”

He grabbed his staff and barreled down the stairs, passing us without a glance as he strode down the corridor. When he reached his office door, he turned and gestured for us to follow him.

Torian and I exchanged a look, then both of us shrugged and hurried down after him.

I halfway expected him to take us back to the cells, but instead, he tapped his Stone against the solid wall at the head of the stairs that led down to them. And the wall… opened, rumbling inward and to the side to reveal another set of stairs, darker, narrower, and twice as steep.

“What the…” I muttered.

“Tunnel under the curtain wall. Walk now. Questions later.”

Gerd plunged down the stairs, his staff held high so his Stone could light the way. I gestured for Torian to precede me, and I noted that their grid wasn’t glowing any longer. Fear cramped my empty belly. I hoped Torian had damped it down out of choice and discretion, and not because I’d depleted them when I’d downed the guard.

We followed Gerd for what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than thirty minutes before I noted the burn in my calf muscles that meant we’d been toiling up an incline so gradual that I’d missed it.

Gerd’s staff suddenly illuminated another wall. As he’d done before, he opened it with a touch of his Stone. I took a moment to wonder if any mage could open the doors—assuming they knew they existed—or if they were keyed to Gerd alone.

Even with the wall gaping, the tunnel was only slightly less dim. But when Gerd extended his staff and pushed aside a screen of brambles, the late afternoon sun spilled in and burnished Torian’s tight braids with gold.

Braids.

Who had braided their hair? Where had they gotten the snood? And their skin… I had thought that perhaps its color had been a trick of the chancy light in the gaol, but no. They could be taken for an Earth-born now by anyone on the street.

Gerd ducked through the brambles and held them aside so we could follow. We stepped into the light, blinking, onto the hillside overlooking the city in nearly the same spot Torian and I had stopped before we’d entered the gates that morning.

Gerd let the brambles fall and faced me. “I have been… uneasy since I resumed my place as Scale last year. I suspected that all was not right with the others in the Trine, that ill doings were afoot, yet I could find no proof. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I swear by my Stone, by the Earth, by Sun, Moon, and Stars, that I want nothing but the best for all our people.”

His Stone flared brightly, making us all squint, a sign he spoke the truth.

“Very well,” I said. “I believe you.”

“They’re trying to take over,” Torian blurted. “Brylun and Obeila. They were conspiring with the Star-born to tip the balance of power in their favor.”

“So.” Gerd’s hand flexed around his staff and he glanced down at the city. “It is as I feared. The danger is real, yet I’m not certain how to prevent them from—”

“You don’t have to,” Torian said. “Their contact is no longer… available. After the explosion, the Star-born all abandoned the planet. They’ve returned to the stars.”

“So there’s no danger from that quarter?” Gerd asked sharply.

I spotted the way Torian’s jaw tightened, but they shook their head. “No.”

Gerd stared down at his feet, swearing under his breath, and it almost sounded as though he said, “Fuck.” Then he looked up, meeting our gazes again. “Then at least we’ll be on an even footing. An ordinary coup I can handle, although I don’t know who all I can trust.”

“Don’t discount the ordinary people in the city,” Torian said, “or in the villages either. This world is theirs too. I suspect they’ll help if you approach them properly.”

His austere face softened in something that could almost be a smile. “A point well taken. Thank you.” Then he looked back at me. “If you don’t want guards dogging your trail, I’ll have to tell the others I killed you as you were fleeing the city.” Something that could almost be pity flickered across his face. “You know what that means.”

My belly heaved and I would certainly have spewed on the sparse grass if my stomach hadn’t been so empty. “You’ll need proof.”

Gerd nodded, reached into his belt pouch. When he withdrew his hand, sunlight winked in a Sun Stone nugget on the hilt of a twelve-inch dagger.