Is there anything I can fetch for you, m’lady?”
Kiara, Queen of Margolan, looked up at the servant who waited anxiously in the doorway. “No, thank you. That will be all.”
The door closed, and Kiara’s attention returned to the baby in her arms. Cwynn looked so peaceful when he was sleeping, but Kiara had already learned how loudly the new prince could cry when he was hungry. Kiara’s auburn hair spilled down, unbound, to brush against Cwynn’s downy scalp. His skin was several shades lighter than Kiara’s tawny hue, a combination of Kiara’s Isencroft and Eastmark heritage and Tris’s Margolan blood.
Kiara stroked Cwynn’s dusky fingertips. “You carry the blood of three kingdoms, little one,” Kiara murmured. “Are you heir to your father’s magic? How can so many fates rest on one small child?”
She nestled him closer, rocking him gently, watching his chest rise and fall. In the shadows along the wall, she could see the dim glow of two of the palace’s ghosts. Ula was a long-dead nursemaid to the children of one of Margolan’s former kings. She had never left Shekerishet, even after her death, and she continued to look after generations of new princes and princesses. Tris had told her that he remembered Ula’s ghost standing over his bed when he was a boy, and the soft sound of her humming, something only he could hear.
Seanna had been handmaid to Margolan’s queens for over two hundred years. Seanna had welcomed Kiara and been a ghostly companion, making Kiara’s transition to a new home in a new kingdom less lonely. Kiara was glad for the company, and she found the ghost’s presence comforting.
The door opened, and this time, it was Tris who entered. “You finally got him to sleep?” Tris whispered.
Kiara nodded, and Tris came closer, careful to move without noise. He looked down at Cwynn, and then at Kiara.
“Can you put him down and get some sleep? Have one of the servants hold him. Lady knows, none of us have slept much these past nights!”
Kiara sighed. “I know. But I’ve just gotten him quiet.” She watched Tris and frowned. “There’s something on your mind.”
Tris withdrew a packet from his doublet and handed it to her, untying the ribbon that bound it so Kiara could read the letter inside. “This arrived by messenger today from your father.”
Kiara caught her breath, and then froze as Cwynn stretched in her arms at her sudden movement. “Is he all right?”
Tris shrugged. “I didn’t read it.”
Kiara’s gaze scanned the familiar handwriting. King Donelan of Isencroft wrote with a bold stroke, pressing firmly enough that his quill sometimes punctured the parchment.
Kiara, my dear-
By the time this reaches you, your young prince will have been born. I pray to the Lady that both you and he are in good health. Please, take care. My seer has read mixed omens, and I don’t know what to make of her portents. I asked her to read the runes for the child’s fortune, and the runes refused to speak. I know little of magic, but I have never had the bones be silent. I hope that Tris with his magic will be better able to discern these meanings.
Don’t dwell overmuch on the signs and omens. Celebrate the coming of your first child. I know you’ve had a difficult pregnancy during extraordinarily difficult times. Much the same was your mother’s fate, but she rejoiced in your birth and loved you from the first time she laid eyes on you, as did I. I trust that soon you’ll have one of the court artists make a sketch you can send to me, so that I can see the boy for myself.
Your letter asked me to give you news of Isencroft and not hold back on account of your condition. I know my daughter, and fear if I were to do otherwise, you might arrive on horseback despite the birth, so I’ll be candid.
I don’t remember a time so bleak as these days. This year’s harvest was only marginally better than the last. More people will be hungry, and with the hardship Margolan is enduring, I know Tris has no surplus grain to send this year. I had implored Staden in Principality and Kalcen in Eastmark to send grain if they had any to spare, but they may not send wagons until the plague in Margolan has run its course.
The Divisionists have scattered, but we haven’t completely broken them, and grumblings about food and plague make fertile ground for unrest. I received a vayash moru messenger from Dark Haven a few weeks ago from Cam. He is on his way back to Aberponte via Brunnfen. Cam intended to see to the lands now that they fall to him, and to find out more about Alvior’s treachery. If it is true that Alvior left in a great ship across the Northern Sea, I also fear that we have not seen the last of him. Whether it’s the regent magic or just an old man’s intuition, I believe we’ll see war ere long. My dreams are dark.
Tice and Allestyr are well, and I keep them busy handling my affairs and running the castle. I’m well-recovered from my sickness of last year, and the hunt was good this year. We hunted more than usual to cull the herd. One bright spot is that we won’t lack for venison.
I’m anxious for Cam to return to Isencroft. I value his counsel and rest easier knowing that he’s at my back. I console myself with the thought that Isencroft has endured dark days before, and that we are a resilient people. I hear of Margolan’s troubles, and I grieve that you and Tris have come to your throne in such turbulent times.
Plague has not yet taken hold in Isencroft, but such things are just a matter of time. We can’t possibly police the entire border, and refugees fleeing Margolan are sure to bring the sickness with them sooner or later. We’re preparing as best we can.
I trust that you’ve heard from Carina, so I won’t repeat her letter at length except to say that she’s well and quite ready for her twins to be born.
I pray for Chenne’s favor on your child, and know that he’ll make a fine king someday. Please give my greeting to Tris, and encourage him. The weight of the crown is great.
I miss you. Send word when you can, and remember Isencroft in your offerings to the Lady.
With love
Kiara sighed and set the letter aside.
“Bad news?” Tris asked, coming back to her side from the window.
“Nothing more than the usual, but that’s enough.” She stroked Cwynn’s wispy hair and the baby stirred contentedly at her touch. “Some things I knew from Carina’s last letter, about Cam being recovered enough to travel, and that she’s feeling well despite the twins. But Father was honest in his other news, and it’s not good.” She handed the letter to Tris and was silent as he read it.
“Your father is one of the shrewdest kings in the history of the Winter Kingdoms,” Tris said when he had finished the letter. “If anyone can guide Isencroft through stormy times, it’s Donelan.”
Kiara nodded. “Maybe I just have a better idea now what the crown really means. When Father was sick, I ruled from behind the throne for months, with Tice and Allestyr to help. That was hard enough, but now that I’m queen in fact as well as function, I understand even more why Father often seemed distracted, and why he took to the hunt so hardily when he was free from his duties.”
Tris leaned down to kiss her head. “These times will pass. You’ll see. They’ll be just a bad memory by the time it’s Cwynn’s time to rule.”
Kiara turned away. “If it ever is.” She paused, and looked down at the sleeping baby. “He looks so perfect, but there are times when he wakes in a terror, eyes wide and screaming, as if he’s seen horrors. He won’t be comforted when that happens, no matter who holds him or what we do. When the fit takes him, he screams for candlemarks. Thank goodness for the servants!”
“Perhaps it’s poor digestion. If the healers can’t give you an answer, ask the cooks and the serving girls. They’ve got babes of their own and they must have ways to quiet them.”
Kiara looked toward the empty fireplace as if she might see an answer in its depths. “Perhaps. But I think there’s more to it than his digestion. Ula and Seanna can quiet him when no one else can reach him. He watches Ula as if he can hear her, and I swear he can feel Seanna’s touch, although she isn’t solid enough to hold him. Could he have your power so early?”
Tris shrugged. “I don’t sense power in him at all. Not that I’d expect to-he’s far too young. But when I touch him with my magic, he feels different somehow. It’s not what I feel from people without magic, or what I sense in other mages. It’s as if he’s blank to me. And I’ve set wardings around these rooms. If any ghosts or dimonns tried to enter, I’d know. Perhaps you’re seeing more in his tempers than what’s there.”
“Perhaps.” She was silent for a moment, and then she worked up the nerve to say what had been on her mind all morning. “We need to think about having another one-”
Tris turned toward her, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious!”
“Completely.”
“No. Absolutely not. It’s too soon. You won’t have your strength back.”
“Aren’t I a better judge of that?”
“No. You’re far too likely to do the brave thing for the good of the throne.”
Kiara saw real concern in his eyes. “A second heir might ease the tension in Isencroft, if we had one son who could take the crown in Margolan and one who could become king in Isencroft. The idea of a joint throne fuels the Divisionists. And it’s been fodder for people like Curane, who don’t like sharing the Margolan throne with Isencroft.”
“Curane is dead. The plague’s the danger now, and it doesn’t care who’s king.”
Tris knelt beside her chair and met her eyes. “I nearly lost both of you the night you gave birth. I don’t ever want to come that close to losing you again. You had a hard time of it, almost from the time you got pregnant. I don’t want to risk it.”
Kiara smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I love you for that. But as you’ve said so often, kings don’t get the choices other men have. Especially if… if something isn’t right with Cwynn, then there needs to be a second heir, just to continue a joint throne.”
Tris touched her cheek reassuringly. “You’re borrowing trouble. Cwynn’s growing well, and I’ve heard you complain that he has a healthy appetite.” He sobered. “I know that what you’re saying is logical. My head agrees with you, but my heart doesn’t, not yet. Please. Let’s see what the next months bring. The choices may be clearer then, if we have any choices at all.”
A quiet rap on the door ended the conversation. Tris went to answer it, as Cwynn stretched and Kiara moved to quiet the sleeping baby. Ban Soterius stood in the doorway. Even when not dressed for battle, everything about Soterius marked him as a soldier, from his stance to his dark brown hair, short-cropped for a helm.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Tris, but we’ve got a problem.” Ban Soterius, now Margolan’s youngest general, had been Captain of the Guard the night King Bricen was murdered. Along with Harrtuck the guard and Carroway the bard, Soterius had helped Tris escape with his life from the coup that claimed the rest of his family. Soterius and Carroway had been childhood friends of Tris’s, and along with Harrtuck, they went willingly into exile to protect Tris. When Tris launched the campaign to take back Margolan’s throne from Jared the Usurper, Soterius had rallied an army from those who had fled Jared’s depredations or deserted Jared’s corrupt army. His courage had earned him the rank of general, and his friendship with Tris placed him among the king’s most trusted advisors.
Tris let himself out of the room quietly. “What’s wrong now?”
Soterius sighed. “We’ve just gotten word of an attack on a village a candlemark’s ride south of the city.”
Tris frowned. “Who?”
“A better question might be ‘what.’ ” Soterius’s face was grim. “The patrols discovered it when they found a boy stumbling down the road, covered in blood. I heard the account from the soldiers who saw the boy themselves. They were pretty shaken up about it. According to the boy, something came out of the old barrow near the village and went on a rampage.”
“Rogue vayash moru?”
Soterius shook his head. “Not likely. For one thing, the boy said it wasn’t solid. He said it was a shadow that changed shape, but it was real enough to flay flesh from bone and to rip heads from bodies.” He paused. “When it was daylight, the soldiers investigated. They found the village as the boy said. Everyone was dead.”
“And the boy?”
“After that night, he hasn’t said another word. The healers tried to treat him, but the wounds are festering. He’s going to die.”
“Where is he?”
Soterius gestured. “Come with me.”
Two of Tris’s bodyguards fell in behind them as they quickly descended the steps. They left the large, grand entranceway to the palace Shekerishet and crossed through the bailey to the guard tower. The sun was just setting. “We didn’t want to bring him into the palace for fear of contagion,” Soterius explained. Harrtuck, now Captain of the Guards in Soterius’s stead, met them at the tower door.
“I thought you’d want to see this,” Harrtuck said, but his raspy voice sounded shaken. “I pity the lad.”
Tris glanced over his shoulder toward Dugan, one of his bodyguards. “Find Mikhail. He’ll have risen by now. Bring him. I’d like him to see this. And send Esme to me.” Dugan took off toward the palace. Tris returned his attention to Soterius. “You’ve had Esme look at the boy?”
“Esme says it’s not something her magic can heal.”
Prepared for the worst, Tris followed Soterius into one of the rooms usually used as a guard’s bedchamber. He caught his breath at the sight of a still, small form on the bed. A young boy in his middling years lay pale against the sheets. His eyes were tightly closed, as if against nightmares only he could see. Esme had cleaned the boy’s wounds, but blood seeped through bandages that covered his arms and chest, and a nasty gash sliced across one cheek.
“You wished to see me?” Mikhail’s soundless approach made Tris startle, although he knew the vayash moru seneschal could move quickly and without noise. Mikhail was one of Lord Gabriel’s brood, on loan for as long as Tris required his service. Since the vayash moru were immortal, Tris guessed that meant his own mortal lifetime.
“What do you make of him?” Tris said with a nod toward the boy on the bed.
Mikhail moved forward silently and bent over the boy. Tris hoped that the vayash moru ’s heightened senses might pick up something mortals could not. Mikhail frowned and looked up. “This is bad.” He met Tris’s gaze. “You know that vayash moru did not do this.”
“How can you be certain?”
Mikhail looked back toward the boy. “For one thing, he has his blood. The marks are wrong-claws, for starters. But not vyrkin, either. And there’s a residue of dark magic.” He looked up. “Bogwaithe?”
Tris nodded. “Or dimonn.”
Tris moved around Soterius to sit beside the boy, who had still not opened his eyes. Tris stretched out a hand and lightly touched the boy’s shoulder.
“You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real,” the boy chanted under his breath in the heavy accent of the Margolan farm country.
Tris closed his eyes and called for his magic. He felt the power rise, filling him. Tris raised wards of protection around the room, reinforcing the safeguards he had already placed around the castle. When the room was warded, Tris turned his attention back to the boy.
He could feel the boy’s pain and terror. Just from his touch on the boy’s shoulder, images flared into Tris’s mind, carried by the magic. He could hear the screams of the villagers and smelled fresh blood, along with the stench of entrails. In the torchlight of the village night, men, women, and children ran for their lives from the black shape that rose from beneath the barrow. That dark presence changed from horror to horror as it moved. In one glance, it seemed to be the shadow of a shrouded skeleton, its face lost to the blackness of its cowl. In the next breath, it was the shape of a two-legged beast, and then the impossibly huge, long-armed outline of a featureless man, with hands that grasped and tore.
Tris’s magic thrummed with the boy’s fear as his Summoning power read from the child’s soul. He heard the running footsteps as villagers ran for their lives, and he felt an icy chill as the darkness passed by him. Tris winced as the boy’s memories supplied a vision of the dark thing lashing out at him, claws tearing down through skin and cloth. And then, abruptly, the thing left him, gliding off to run the rest of the villagers to ground. Tris pulled back from the contact, but he could hear the boy’s screams echoing in his head.
As clearly as Tris could feel the boy’s terror, he felt the poison the attacker left behind. Esme can’t heal this. It’s not just poison and not just magic. Dimonns leave their own mark. Tris reached out with his magic toward the thin, blue-white strand of light that was the boy’s soul. The dimonn ’s poison wasn’t just in the flesh or blood, but in the soul itself, like a growing rot. Tris brought his power to bear on the darkness that stained the strand of light, willing his magic to cast out the shadows. Even for a summoner of Tris’s power, such a working took a tremendous amount of energy. Gradually, the shadows faded and the blue-white strand glowed more brightly, unsullied by the dimonn ’s touch. Tris withdrew his magic gently and looked up to see Esme watching him closely.
“I would like very much to know how you did that,” the healer said, a smile touching the corner of her lips.
“If I could explain it in words, I’d tell you.” Tris could hear the tiredness that colored his voice. Power always came at a price, and although Tris had learned over the last two years to wield powerful magic, such workings took a toll.
The boy’s eyes snapped open. “Who are you?”
“He’s your king, lad,” Soterius said quietly. “You’re safe.”
The boy eyed Tris warily. “I must be fevered.”
Tris gently took the boy’s hand. “What’s your name?”
“Evan of Treganowan.”
“I’ve seen your memories, Evan,” Tris said quietly. “What attacked your village was a dimonn. Have you heard the term?”
Evan nodded, eyes wide. “It was something evil, that’s for sure.”
“I’m going to have to put it right, and I need your help,” Tris said.
“My help? For the king?”
Tris managed a smile. “Yes. I need you to remember, where did the dimonn rise?”
Evan’s eyes darkened. “From the foot of the barrows outside the village.”
“Are you certain?”
“Aye. Saw it when I went to gather firewood.”
Tris thought for a moment. “Has anything disturbed the barrow?”
Evan gave him a frightened look. “How did you know?” His sudden movement made a silver talisman slip into view beneath his ruined shirt. Tris reached down and lifted it into the light. It was the mark of the Lady, wrought in silver, and by the look of it, very old.
“Where did you find this?”
Evan slumped back into the bed. “I didn’t disturb the barrow, if that’s what you’re thinking. But two nights ago, when the moon was dark, something did. The next morning, when I went to gather wood, I saw that someone had dug into the barrow. I was curious, so I looked closer. There was a pile of rocks to one side, a lot of them carved with markings. What was left looked like a doorway into the barrow, with stone doorposts and more of those funny marks.”
“And the necklace?”
“It was in the pile of rocks. I meant to give it to my mum. She likes-liked shiny things.” His voice caught as he corrected himself.
“Did you go into the barrow?”
“I’m not crazy!” Evan suddenly remembered where he was. “M’lord,” he added hastily.
“Smart boy,” Tris said. “I have a feeling that necklace saved your life. It’s been touched by old magic, very old.” He looked up at Soterius and the others. “Whoever or whatever disturbed the barrow also weakened its protections. The runes Evan saw were part of those wardings, and so was the talisman, I’m betting. That dimonn didn’t get out by accident.”
“The black robes,” Evan murmured.
“What did you say?”
“The night the moon was dark, my brother said he saw two strangers on the road outside the village. That’s odd, because we don’t get many outsiders our way. Said they wore black robes. They didn’t stop and they didn’t speak to anyone, so I didn’t think of it again.”
“Did your brother say anything else about the men?” Tris asked.
Evan thought for a moment. “He said he didn’t like their look. He didn’t see them up close, but he thought one man wore a necklace made of bones.”
Tris and Soterius exchanged glances. “Shanthadura followers,” Soterius muttered.
“Sounds likely,” Tris replied. He stood and looked to Esme. “The poison is gone, but it will take a few days before he feels better. Since he can’t go home, let’s see about finding him a place here in the castle.” He didn’t say it aloud, but since the dimonn had marked the boy once, Tris preferred to keep him within the wardings, to prevent the dimonn from returning to finish what it had started.
“Call for Coalan,” Tris continued. His valet, Soterius’s sixteen-year-old nephew, would be the perfect person to help Evan. Like Evan, Coalan had also lost his family to violence, but in his case, it had been Jared’s soldiers and not dimonns who were responsible for the slaughter. “Have Coalan sit with him until Evan’s feeling better.” He met Esme’s eyes. “Get whatever you need to fix him up.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
Soterius and Harrtuck fell into step beside Tris as they left the guard tower. “That story about an amulet from a tomb remind you of anyone?” Soterius murmured.
Tris glanced at him. “Yeah. Jonmarc.” Long before he had become Dark Haven’s brigand lord, Jonmarc Vahanian had been a blacksmith’s apprentice in a poor Borderlands village, hired by a stranger to retrieve an amulet from one of the cliffside tombs. That night, magicked beasts overran the village, slaughtering everyone except Jonmarc, who was wearing the amulet during the battle. The scar that ran from Jonmarc’s ear down below his collar was a permanent reminder of that fight.
“Only it was a blood mage who wanted the amulet then. Foor Arontala,” Soterius replied.
Tris shrugged. “The way I see it, Arontala’s blood magic isn’t that different from what the Shanthadurists are doing. The question is… what do they want from the barrows?”
“I have this awful feeling you’re going to feel the need to ride out there and take a look for yourself,” Soterius said, resignation in his voice.
Tris gave a lopsided grin. “Of course.”
A small group of heavily armed soldiers rode out from Shekerishet with Tris and Soterius the next morning. Sister Fallon also rode with them, and Beyral the rune scryer, along with Esme, the king’s healer. Although the morning was bright, the group rode in silence, alert for signs of danger. After a candlemark’s ride, they arrived at the crossroads just beyond the village lane.
“Can you feel it?” Tris said to Fallon.
She nodded. “There’s power that shouldn’t be here. It feels wrong.”
Tris nodded. “Just as well it’s daylight.”
If they had doubted Evan’s word, the stench of rotting bodies quickly proved the truth of the boy’s tale. The villagers’ bodies, many of them torn to shreds, lay strewn across the village green. Nothing else appeared to be touched, verifying that the murders had not been the work of raiders.
Tris nudged his horse on, past the carnage and toward the path that led from the village into the forest. Soterius and two of the guards led the way, with Fallon and Tris in the middle, followed by three more soldiers. Tris appreciated Soterius’s attempt to protect him, but if the dimonn manifested, the soldiers were unlikely to be able to hold it off.
They had timed their arrival for just after the sun’s highest point, since the netherworld was at its closest at noon and midnight. Dimonns were among Tris’s least favorite supernatural foes, and he had the scars to justify his opinion. After a short ride, they reached the barrow.
The barrow was a mound covered with sod. If someone hadn’t looked closely, it might have passed as a hill, and many of the ancient barrows were assumed to be part of the natural landscape by those who lived in their shadow. Tris knew otherwise. Barrows like these dotted the landscape of the Winter Kingdoms. Some were just the resting place of long-dead warriors and warlords, men who lived and fought before the kingdoms had come into being. Other barrows held the remains of something else, and while Tris was not sure what that something was, the legends said it wasn’t human.
Those barrows had been thought to be so dangerous that the nomadic Sworn patrolled them, making their circuit from the Northern Sea on Margolan’s far border down across Dhasson to Nargi. Tris had not met the Sworn, but as he dismounted from his horse and approached the desecrated barrow, arranging a meeting with one of their warriors suddenly jumped to the top of his list of things to do.
Tris’s mage sense prickled a warning the closer he got to the barrow. He heard nothing unusual with his ears, but on another level, it seemed as if voices whispered just beyond hearing range. He did not need to recognize their words to sense the malevolence.
“I need you and the men to step back,” Tris said to Soterius. “Protect Esme.”
“We’re here to keep you in one piece,” Soterius said levelly, meeting Tris’s gaze.
“I appreciate that. But if a dimonn ’s what we’re really up against, it won’t care about swords. Magic’s the only thing that can turn it.”
“We’ve vowed our lives to keep you safe.”
“Then honor that vow by stepping back. If I’m distracted by worrying about protecting you, I’m that much more likely to make a fatal mistake.”
Soterius yielded, but his dislike for the order was clear in his face. “Fall back!”
When the soldiers had stepped back a dozen paces, Tris joined Fallon in walking a circle around the barrow, using his drawn sword as an athame as they raised wardings for protection. Or, more precisely, to protect the soldiers and anyone on the other side of the warding from what was inside it with him and the two mages. When they finished, Tris kept his sword in hand, although he knew it was unlikely to deter whatever dwelled within the barrow.
“Look here.” Fallon bent over a pile of rubble. Beyral knelt next to the stones, and Tris could see that her hands were working in the complex motions of a spell.
Beyral’s magic made the runes on the broken pieces of stone glow. “Someone set sigils of protection over the entrance to the barrow,” Fallon said quietly. “These are old-very old.”
“The Sworn?”
Fallon frowned. “I don’t think so. I’ve come across the barrows they patrol on occasion and their magic feels completely different. No, I don’t think this is one of theirs.”
“Can we seal it back up and put protections back into place?”
Fallon and Beyral exchanged glances. “If it were the two of us alone, I’d say no. Whoever did this the first time was a powerful mage. But your magic is stronger-and you’re a summoner. I really don’t want to think about anything you can’t bottle up.”
“Let’s get started,” Tris said, with an anxious eye toward the sky. Although late-summer afternoons seemed to last forever, Tris knew that strong magic required time, and he would prefer to finish the working long before the sun began to set.
Tris had just lifted the first of the sigil stones into his hands when he felt a rush of frigid air. A black shadow spread from the gaping hole in the barrow’s side, growing like a bloodstain.
Beyral began to chant, while Fallon and Tris stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the shadow’s way. Tris had given Evan’s talisman to Fallon, and its protection gave her more freedom to move.
“ Lethyrashem!” Fallon spoke the banishment spell as Tris gathered his power for the first salvo. The dimonn fell back momentarily, and then surged forward once more. Magic arced between Tris’s hands and a blinding flare of light streaked toward the growing shadow. The thing shrieked, and the odor of burned, rotted meat filled the air.
The dimonn twisted, evading the worst of the blast, and this time it was Beyral who sent a curtain of flame, cutting off the dimonn as it lunged for Fallon. Tris anticipated its next move, and his sword-athame drew an opalescent scrim between himself and the dimonn.
“We can’t contain it forever-any great ideas?” Tris shouted.
“If you can get it to back down, Beyral and I can seal the opening with runes,” Fallon replied.
What are you? Tris stretched out his magic toward the shadow.
I am hunger. The dimonn ’s voice sounded like a hundred screams in Tris’s mind.
Who loosed you?
Those who would be my master.
Why have you come?
To consume everything.
“Wrong answer,” Tris said between gritted teeth. To make the next magic work, he would have to drop his shielding. That would make it a contest to see whether he could be faster than the dimonn.
In one breath, Tris dropped the coruscating power that shielded him from the dimonn. It rushed toward him, and the dimonn slashed at him, and one clawed arm sliced through the chain mail that protected Tris’s arm and shoulder. He could feel the dimonn ’s hunger for blood, for life, for power. The fresh blood drove the dimonn into a frenzy. Tris fought vertigo as he ignored the pain, and he saw his opportunity. Tris met the dimonn with the full brunt of his power, drawing on the magic of the Flow, his own life force, and on the fire within that pumped the bright red blood from his wounds. Everything else seemed to dim as Tris poured his power into forcing the dimonn back into the darkness of the barrow. Distantly, he could hear Fallon’s spellcasting and Beyral’s chanting, and beyond the wardings, the shouts of his soldiers.
Tris shut it all out, everything except the screeching wail of the dimonn as his power forced it backward. He could feel the old magic of the barrow, the sundered charms, and the broken spells. The old power buoyed him, feeding back into his magic.
“Ready, Tris!” Fallon shouted.
Tris charged forward with a cry, and a wave of power roiled up around him, rising from the barrow itself. The dimonn clawed at the sod, its talons gouging into the dirt as the magic forced it back from the edge of daylight into the darkness of the tomb. Beyral and Fallon ran past Tris, each carrying part of the stone lintel that had once capped the barrow entrance. They pushed the broken stone into the hole that had been dug into the mound, and their chants raised the dark runes on the stonework into fiery lettering. The dimonn gave one last shriek from the depths of the mound, and Fallon and Beyral brought down the rest of the marked stones, burying the talisman Evan had found in the center of the stone sigils.
Warily, Tris let the power flow out of him and gasped as the pain of the gashes on his shoulder fully registered. He did not drop the outer warding until he had helped Beyral and Fallon completely seal the barrow entrance. Together, they stood and made one last working over the mound, incorporating magic to deter any who might think to repeat the desecration.
“You’re hurt.” Fallon looked at Tris with alarm, and her gaze followed the bloody trail from his shoulder to his ribs.
“I’ve felt better,” Tris said, shaking from the expenditure of power. Magic usually left him with a headache, and the severity of the pain depended on the difficulty of the working. A reaction headache was already beginning to pound behind his temples, but he guessed that the fever he felt had more to do with the dimonn ’s poison.
Tris eased himself to the ground. Esme ran to him and began to tend his shoulder as the guards formed a protective ring around them.
“Dammit, Tris! You should have let us in to help,” Soterius swore, giving the injury a worried glance.
“It went through the chain mail. The only reason it didn’t take my arm was because my magic was holding it back,” Tris said tiredly. “Your soldiers wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“Can you heal him?” Soterius said, looking to Esme.
Esme nodded. “Yes, but it’s going to hurt like hell.” She glanced at Fallon and Beyral. “I’ll help them once I get Tris patched up.”
Tris lay back into the dry grass. Esme removed what was left of his chain mail. The dimonn ’s claws had sliced through the heavy metal rings as cleanly as a sword. Already, the wound was beginning to putrefy. Tris could smell it. He concentrated his own power on containing the poison. He could feel it beginning to flow through his blood, feel his arm and shoulder growing feverish. Drained from the battle, Tris marshaled his magic, drawing on his life force. If the dimonn ’s poison reached that blue-white thread as it had with Evan, there would be no summoner to save Tris’s life.
Tris felt the poison war with Esme’s magic. The cuts had been deep, and the poison was strong. While Tris had used his magic many times to help heal others, he had rarely turned the power inward. He didn’t need Esme to tell him that his life depended upon finding a way to do just that. Tris could feel his heart struggling to beat. It was getting harder to breathe.
Tris focused his magic on the putrefying wound. I have the power to breathe life into the dead, although it is forbidden. Perhaps dead flesh is just dead flesh. Tris called his summoning magic to him and concentrated on the flesh of his shoulder. He could feel the death spreading, and he met that death with magic, willing the necrotizing skin to live and forcing the blue-white light of his life thread into skin and tissue. He fought back a scream at the pain as his body warred against his spirit and his power. Esme was amplifying his magic, channeling it into the most damaged places.
“It’s working, Tris,” Esme urged. “But it’s not gone yet.”
With a cry of pain, Tris forced blood and spirit back into the blackening flesh. He felt death yield to him, and with its surrender, the sullied skin and muscle began to thrum once more with blood and life. In moments, the wound was cleansed. Four raw gashes still laid open the left side of his arm and chest nearly to the bone, but they were clean of rot and free of poison. Tris swallowed hard and sank back against the ground, barely conscious.
“I’ll take it from here,” Esme said, bending close to his ear. “You’re safe now.”
“I really don’t want to explain this to Kiara,” Soterius muttered, kneeling next to Tris on the other side. “I don’t think she’ll take it well.”
“She’s used to… this sort of thing,” Tris managed. He meant to say more, but Esme’s healing magic swept over him like a warm blanket, taking with it both pain and consciousness.