NO, GODSDAMMIT!” LEVIA CRIED AS THE TWO WOMEN vanished, dodging her storm of blades. “No!”
What if she had used the ring? Could she have got to them in time? But no, the platform had been so slow. Perhaps if she had brought a potion of flight … Gods!
Levia slipped on the treacherous shingles and nearly slid off the roof herself. She was panicking, and panic made one stupid. She shimmied down and glanced over the edge, wincing.
Kalen hung about a pace down, clinging to a gargoyle.
“Help?”
Levia blinked down in disbelief. Then such relief swept through her that she laughed.
“I’m glad you’re amused,” Kalen said. “Help.”
She caught his arm and pulled. Muscles straining, she helped him up, and he collapsed half atop her on the roof. They lay together in the moonlight, half supporting one another.
“Levia?” Kalen asked. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” His fingers brushed her face, and she realized her cheeks were wet with tears, despite her relief. “I think so. I—Kalen, your hand!”
His left hand was red and blistered as though he’d plunged it into fire. Magical fire, perhaps, or—or Ilira’s spellscar. The one that hadn’t burned him when Ilira kissed him.
Immediately, all of Levia’s warm relief fled, replaced by cold, murderous focus. Other folk might grow hot and foolish when angered, but Gedrin had long ago taught Levia the self-defeating nature of rage. Instead, she imagined her hands around Ilira’s throat—those gold eyes huge and protruding out of her damnably beautiful face. Her mind went over the steps to make that fantasy a reality.
“We’ll find them,” she said, her voice cold.
Ilira may have received Kalen’s oath of justice this night, but she had earned Levia’s eternal enmity. Levia swore her own vow to her god that Ilira would suffer when they met again.
It would be a mercy if Kalen’s strike had killed her already.
Some ways away, the revelry in the common room of the Purple Lady festhall waned as the night progressed, and many of the patrons retired for more personal amusements elsewhere. There were still two-score folk lounging around the place, smiling blissfully and flirting over their drinks. The previous night’s battle had rattled them, but they had let the excitement go.
Abruptly, a cold wind flowed through the common room, stirring clothes and loose hair. Plates rattled and quivering tankards sent mead and ale foaming onto the tables. Folk looked for the source of the icy breeze: a door of shadow that opened among the tables. Through that door, they saw a desolate landscape of ruined buildings—a bleary, nightmare reflection of Westgate.
Myrin and Ilira stumbled from the door. The nearly unconscious elf clutched her middle with a blood-drenched handful of cloak. The wizard’s hands were slaked with blood, though the mess seemed not to touch her gown through the enchantments woven upon it.
Myrin guided Ilira to collapse on a nearby table. The Helm sigil burned into her shoulder sizzled, and she cried out anew. Black blood ran like spittle from her mouth.
“Don’t just stare,” Myrin cried. “Help us!”
The patrons of the Purple Lady did no such thing, being frozen in awe and terror.
“Allow me to rephrase.” Myrin raised her orb and sent a bolt of magic lancing into a pillar right next to one of the slack-jawed patrons. It reduced a purple tapestry to tatters. “Someone help me, or I aim better.”
“My lady!” The door slammed open, and Brace rushed into the tavern. The gnome looked harried, but little the worse for wear. His eyes widened when he saw Ilira bleeding out on the table and Myrin holding her bloody cloak pressed to her midsection. “Gods!”
“Praise Mystra,” Myrin said. “You can heal her.”
Brace shook his head. “Her wounds are beyond my magic.”
“A healer, then,” Myrin said. “Find a priest!”
The gnome exercised his harsh words to drive back curious onlookers, and a curse sent one of them rushing for the nearest temple. As a group they did nothing, but when offered direct instructions, they jumped to obey. One of them—an elderly man with a medallion of Ilmater, god of healing—came forward, but Ilira slapped away his seeking hands.
“Priest …” she murmured. “Burn …”
The gnome’s face went pale as that of a corpse, and Myrin understood why. A healer would have to touch Ilira, and her ravenous spellscar burned with renewed fury in her skin.
“I’ll take your scar again,” Myrin said. “Then a healer can—”
“Not again.” Ilira’s gloved hand trailed down Myrin’s rune-covered arm. “Don’t make my … last act … killing you.” Her body heaved and she vomited blood onto the table.
Myrin and Brace exchanged a look. Ilira was dying, and there was nothing they could do.
In his borrowed office, Lilten’s hand lingered over the black reaver. He had not seen the piece in check before, and yet the white knight had swept into the space and slain it.
“Fascinating,” Lilten said aloud.
His guest remained unseen, despite Lilten’s sharp senses and unique heritage.
“My compliments,” Lilten said. “I had not expected such a gambit so early.”
The shadows stirred, and a pair of ruby red eyes appeared in the gloom. After a moment, Lilten’s opponent was sitting in the chair across the desk from him. “Surprise wins battles.”
“I see you’ve decided to play the game after all, my old friend.”
“Hardly. I simply kill those who stand in my way.” Kirenkirsalai reached out and very firmly tipped the reaver over. “Your woman is dead, or soon will be. You have lost.”
“It is a mark of your impatient youthfulness that you think you have won before a piece is taken—or even all the pieces declared.”
He reached out to right the reaver piece, but Kire clapped his hand over his. They struggled, matching strength—Kire’s unholy, Lilten’s ancient.
“I see no way your fox can survive this, unless”—Kire’s eyes widened—“No. She won’t do it. She can’t. Taking the elf’s scar will kill her.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Lilten held the reaver firmly. “How does that make you feel?”
Finally, Kire let go of the piece and stood, anger on his dark face. “Would you sacrifice the prize of our game to save your little pet? Are you that mad?”
“Just as you underestimate me, so have you underestimated that woman for the last century and a half. I see no reason to assume you’d change your ways.” Lilten indicated the rest of the board. “I wonder if all the pieces you think are yours are indeed yours.”
Kire stared past him, at a glass case in the corner of the chamber. He’d been in this chamber before, but the way he gazed at the case, he’d never noticed it before. The hand Lilten had thought hovered over his rapier hilt was, in truth, touching an object in his pocket.
“Fascinating,” Lilten murmured. “Do you see something appealing?”
Kire scowled at him. “How’s your daughter?” Then he vanished into the dark.
For a long time, Lilten stared into the empty seat. His hand lingered on the reaver.
“Erevan,” he prayed. “Hear your lapsed servant. Be with her.”
Ilira cried out, her voice burbling with blood and bile. She kicked and scrabbled and would have torn at her wound had two of the larger patrons not restrained her. Myrin made sure they did not touch her skin. Others watched from a distance, terrified of the wizard and her angry gnome companion.
Blood spattered Myrin’s blue gown and slid down like water on glass. The magic kept her perfectly clean, but it could do nothing for Ilira. Myrin conjured a magic hand to hold pressure on the wound, while her own hands were busy.
“Godsdamn it, isn’t there anything we can do?” Myrin’s voice cracked.
“Despair serves no one, Lady Darkdance,” a man said. “Fortunately, I can help her.”
Hessar stepped out from behind a pillar. Instantly, Myrin raised one bloody hand to throw a bolt of golden force at the monk. His shadow magic deflected it to blast a crater in the wall.
“Wait,” Ilira croaked. “He’s … a friend.”
“A friend?” Brace—who had reclaimed his rapier from Ilira—drew both swords into his hands. Hessar looked bemused. “This is one of those Eye of Justice lunatics—”
“Not the Eye …” Ilira coughed blood. “Shade … he’s …” A coughing fit wrenched her up off the table. “He’s a Netherese spy.”
“Netherese!” Brace gaped. “But that’s—that’s so much worse!”
“Stay back.” Myrin raised her orb. “I warn you this once.”
“And I warn you.” Hessar looked calm. “Take your mage’s hand from that wound at her peril. She is bleeding to death while you stand in indecision.”
Ilira struggled against the hands holding her. She curled into a pained ball, making her leather jerkin ride up and revealing the luster of gold: a tattoo of a starburst with many points.
“Very well.” Myrin raised her scarred right hand to Hessar’s face.
“Is this necessary?” the monk asked.
“You’ll give me the spell from your mind,” Myrin said. “Unless you’re here to kill her.”
“If you take the spell, will you not have to touch her?” He gestured to her untouched left hand. “And wouldn’t a second scar be a perfect mate to the first?”
Myrin hesitated.
“Trust me to aid her or no, but decide quickly,” he said. “Else you’ll have to hope you can steal knowledge of how to raise the dead.”
Could Myrin trust Hessar? She remembered the way the monk had restrained himself from striking her during the battle. Hessar had stood over her in the darkness and winked at her. He’d known about Ilira’s spellscar—he’d even told her to use it against Levia. Perhaps …
Ilira moaned. Bloody veins shot through her gold eyes and she convulsed, gasping for air.
“Very well,” Myrin said. “Heal her. But if you harm her—”
“Rest assured, lady—I serve my own interests in this, and those do not entail her death just yet.” Hessar stepped to her side and pulled up his sleeves to bare gray-tinted arms. “Put your hand on my skin—I’ll need your strength. Yours, too, gnome.”
Brace sneered at him. “Never, shade—” He stopped when Myrin shot him a pleading look. Grudgingly, he put his hand on Hessar’s arm.
The shade put his hand over Ilira’s face. He uttered dark and powerful words in an ancient dialect that Myrin found she understood, although she could not say how. He was chanting a healing ritual, one designed to take life from their bodies and put it into Ilira. Myrin felt cold as his magic drained some of her life through her hand. Brace, too, paled slightly. If Myrin was right, though, Hessar would have to touch Ilira to complete the spell.
“She’ll burn your hand off. She—”
She drew in a sharp breath when Hessar laid his bare fingers on Ilira’s forehead, but there was no burning. He simply touched her, and healing radiance fell into her body.
“You can touch her,” Myrin said. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I know more about her than you do.” As Myrin watched, the rent in Ilira’s belly closed. The elf stopped shaking and her breathing eased. “Satisfied?”
Myrin nodded. Before she let go of his arm, however, blue runes lit on her arm and something cold seeped into her. Hessar shivered, but if he sensed her theft, he gave no sign.
“What of that?” Myrin gestured to the brand of Helm on her shoulder.
Hessar shrugged. “Only he who put that mark on her can take it off once more. Until then, it will allow Kalen Dren to find her wherever she goes, and harm her when she tries to flee him. My magic suppresses the harmful effect, but the beacon will still be there.”
“Shar’s Slavering Spit.” Brace glowered. “Hiding is moot if the Eye can track her.”
“Not so long as she wears this.” Hessar indicated Ilira’s star-sapphire bracelet, the only bit of color she wore. “This magic conceals her from any scrying attempt. Although—” He smiled. “No doubt they are tracking both of you instead. I would go, and quickly.”
The monk drew away and vanished into the shadows.
Brace hopped up on the bench and felt at Ilira’s leather-wrapped chest. “She’s breathing normally—I think she’ll be well. Although we should move, ’ere your lad finds us again.”
“In a moment.” Myrin slumped down on the bench. In the mess of everything, she’d forgotten something important, and her heart raced. “Brace, what happened to Rujia? Elevar?”
“The dwarf is well. He immediately set to cleaning up the mess.” The gnome shrugged. “As for Rujia, we got separated. They might have taken her.”
Somehow, Myrin doubted that. It was a relief to hear Elevar was well, at least.
Then she remembered something about Rujia and felt at her deep-pocketed belt pouch. She drew out the fabric-wrapped package the deva had given her only a few hours before, although it felt like years ago. She unwrapped it and found a book, one whose binding seemed vaguely familiar. It reminded her of other books she had seen in the manor. In fact, she realized, this was the very book that was missing out of her family histories.
Her fingers shook as she unwound the leather strip. The first dates in the tome were from two hundred years ago. She skimmed through to the end. The last entries were written in a delicate feminine hand and discussed the last male heir of the family—Neveren Darkdance—and his wife, Shalis. And their daughter …
Maerlyn Darkdance.
Myrin read on, her eyes widening.