Vengeance

CHAPTER 108

Tali remembered a detail of her mother’s murder that was not on Rix’s painting. ‘What if there’s another way?’

‘Magians have been looking for a solution ever since shifters were first created a hundred years ago,’ said the chancellor.

‘It’s not a spell,’ said Tali.

‘Really?’ His eyes picked at her, peeling the layers away, trying to prise open her head again. ‘Many people have been bitten by shifters since the war began — valuable people we can’t afford to put down. Tell me more.’

Could he know about her pearl? Was he just toying with her? Tobry was sweating — he was worried about it, too. A stench of burnt meat drifted her way, from the skewers forgotten on the fire, and Tali lost her train of thought. ‘What?’

‘ “What if there’s another way?” you said,’ said the chancellor.

‘Oh! Yes! After she killed my mother, Lady Ricinus collected a tin of her blood.’

‘She took blood? Why?’

Tali was working it out as she went along. ‘In Cython the Pale are half starved and worked like dogs, but hardly anyone ever gets ill.’

‘You asked me what a cold was,’ said Rix, momentarily forgetting that he was angry with her.

‘And in Hightspall, whole houses have died out from plague and pox, yet no one in Palace Ricinus has caught any disease in years. People in the palace are really healthy.’

‘I nearly died of fever when I was ten,’ Rix pointed out.

‘But you haven’t been sick since,’ said Tali. ‘And you keep having nightmares about someone rubbing blood into your wounds.’

‘I never understood why I kept having such an odd dream — ’ Rix stared at her. ‘Are you saying Lady Ricinus kept your mother’s blood to use on me?’

‘To give you our immunity to disease,’ said Tali. ‘Perhaps she put some in the palace water, too, to protect the household.’

‘Get to the point,’ growled the chancellor.

‘What if Pale blood can protect against shapeshifting?’

‘I wouldn’t call shifting a disease.’

‘But what if it is?’ Tali persisted. ‘What if Lyf created the first shifters that way?’

‘Such creations would be an utter debasement of his king-magery,’ said the chancellor thoughtfully. ‘And the oath each Cythian king swore to use magery only for healing.’

‘Perhaps he felt the end justified the means,’ she said pointedly.

‘Let’s see it, then.’

The gleam in his eye was alarming. But if she failed, Tobry would be butchered. Tali reopened her wrist artery, put her thumb over it and reached out to the largest gash on Tobry’s chest.

He backed away. ‘If my blood gets into that cut it’ll condemn you. Bleed into a cup.’

The attendant held out a drinking mug. Tali allowed her blood to spurt into it until the bottom was covered a fingernail deep, then pressed her thumb to the wrist puncture and murmured her healing charm. The flow stopped. Tobry held his hand out for the mug.

She felt a spasm of fear. What if she was wrong? How could her blood heal, anyway? She rubbed her slave mark, for luck, then tipped blood into her cupped hand. The deepest gash across Tobry’s chest had not scabbed over. It was a jagged, zigzagging wound, still raw.

The chancellor leaned forwards, his lips parted. He wanted her to succeed — but why? Tali’s throat had gone dry. What if she failed? What would happen if she succeeded? She fought the fear down, steadied her shaking hand and pushed her blood into the wound. Hoping to reinforce it, she murmured her strongest healing charm. Tobry must not die. She could not bear it.

‘More?’ she whispered.

All the little hairs on Tobry’s cheeks were standing up. ‘Yes, more.’

As Tali rubbed the blood inside the ragged edges of the gash, Tobry’s fingers hooked and the tendons of his neck stood out.

‘Is it — ?’

‘I’ve felt worse,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘But not much worse.’

Then, as she watched, her blood was drawn into his flesh until all trace of it was gone.

‘Wash your hands, very carefully,’ said Tobry.

The attendant brought water in a bucket and she scrubbed her hands, then Tali looked up and started. ‘But you’re bleeding! The wound’s bleeding.’ Tobry’s teeth were bared; he seemed in more pain than before. ‘I’ve made it worse.’

‘Bleeding and pain are good,’ gasped Tobry. ‘It might mean there’s not enough caitsthe in me to heal the wound.’

‘An impressive demonstration,’ said the chancellor smoothly. ‘Though the shifter side may restore itself the way a damaged liver can regrow. Lagger may always require the healing blood, and so may all those valuable people who will be bitten before this war ends.’

Tali stared at the chancellor, trying to work out what he meant. Each breath rasped in her throat. Had she made the most dreadful mistake of her life?

‘I can only take a handful of people into exile,’ he went on, ‘and if we’re to counterattack and win Caulderon back, I can’t lose any one of them.’

He paced across the room, then back, studying Tali all the while. ‘Saving those bitten will require much Pale blood, and there’s only one place we can get it.’ He looked down at Rannilt. ‘Two places, if the child survives.’

Tali reeled and the scar on her shoulder burnt. It had once been her slave mark, then the symbol of her nobility. And now enslavement again, by her own people? A far worse kind of slavery — to be milked of her blood like a beast of the stables? No, it could not be borne.

The chancellor gestured to the captain of his personal guard, who had moved in close without anyone noticing. ‘Bind the two Pale and bring them.’

Rix let out a great roar and sprang for his sword, but two guards brought him down from behind and pinned him to the floor. Tali darted for Rannilt, unable to leave her yet knowing that any attempt to rescue her was not only hopeless, it would doom them both.

The captain seized her around the chest. Tobry staggered towards her, trying to shift, but before he could do so another pair of guards disarmed him.

‘Chief Magian,’ said the chancellor, his eyes glittering like chunks of anthracite, ‘would you put Rixium’s blade to the test you found in the archives?’

‘What test?’ said Rix.

His captors allowed him to rise but held his arms behind him. Rix wasn’t struggling, though Tali felt sure he was planning to break free, and two ordinary men could hardly hold him. Could he save them? The chancellor had fifteen men here, and surely not even Rix could beat those odds.

The black writing Tali had seen from a distance at the Honouring appeared on the sword. Heroes must fight to preserve the race. The chief magian passed a copper-coloured elbrot above and below the blade and a green aura shimmered around it, which slowly turned blue, and then finally a deep purple.

‘It’s Maloch!’ said the chief magian, and the small amount of grey hair on his head stood up.

Rix tensed. ‘What the blazes is Maloch?’

‘The dire sword that Herovian swine Axil Grandys brought here.’ The chancellor’s smile twisted, his eyes burned. ‘A foul blade, enchanted to protect none but himself and his direct descendants.’

‘But I’m not his descendant. Mother had those documents forged …’ Rix faltered. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the chancellor softly. ‘ Her documents were fakes, but Maloch was well forged. It doesn’t lie.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Your father wasn’t descended from Axil Grandys,’ the chancellor said with gleeful malice. ‘The sword came to you down your mother’s line.’

Rix’s mouth opened and closed. Tali felt sick. If revenge was meat and drink to the chancellor, this was a royal banquet.

‘The sword protected you,’ said the chancellor. ‘Therefore, you were already of the First Circle. You’re descended directly from Grandys — via your mother.’

‘You utter bastard,’ spat Tobry. ‘You guessed that at the Honouring, yet you allowed Lady Ricinus to go on so you could publicly humiliate her.’

The chancellor did not bother to look his way. ‘Two days before the Honouring, Tali informed me that Lady and Lord Ricinus were plotting my assassination.’

Rix’s head shot around and she saw the shock in his eyes, the accusation, the feeling of betrayal. I thought we were friends. You should have told me.

‘How could I tell you?’ she said softly. ‘It would have put you in an impossible position.’

‘I was already in an impossible position. It was my right to know.’

‘If I told you, it would have endangered you too.’

‘Am I a child, that I need to be protected?’ Rix said, low and deadly.

She could not reply. He was lost to her now.

‘The treason had nothing to do with Rix,’ Tobry said hastily. ‘Besides, he told you …’ He trailed off.

‘The lord and lady stand for the house. Therefore House Ricinus plotted high treason and it had to pay.’ The chancellor turned to his captain. ‘Take Tali and the child away. Feed them well; we could be milking their blood for a long time. Leave the others.’

‘Rix is one of our greatest fighters, and an inspiring leader,’ murmured the captain.

‘And I wanted him by my side,’ said the chancellor, ‘but I could never trust a man who would betray his own mother, and I won’t have a Herovian at any price.’

‘I never knew I was,’ Rix said. ‘But since you’ve taken away everything else I had, and now name me Herovian, a Herovian I will be.’

In her head, Tali heard an irresistible ice sheet grinding against an immoveable glacier. What was Rix going to do — or become?

‘Your kind will be at the top of the enemy’s death list,’ said the chancellor, unperturbed. ‘I’ll leave you to them.’

Two guards began to drag Tali towards the door. ‘What about Tobry?’ she cried, struggling uselessly against the lashings. ‘What’s he going to do without my blood?’

The chancellor’s smile was terrifying. ‘He won’t need it. Heave him over the side.’

Two burly guardsmen swept Tobry up and began to drag him towards the wall. His eyes met Tali’s and she saw the same despairing look there as when she had told him she loved Rix.

‘ Shift!’ she screamed, kicking her guards and trying to reach him. ‘As a caitsthe, you can beat them.’

But Tobry did not shift. Had her healing blood doomed him? Or did he just want it to end?

‘Rix! Do something!’

Rix seemed to be in shock, for he simply stood there. Then in a blinding movement he wrenched free, flattened his captors with single blows and leapt towards Tobry. Another pair of guards, swords out, blocked him. Rix went into a crouch, swaying from side to side.

‘Tobry, why?’ he said quietly.

‘I’m making way,’ said Tobry. ‘You’re the better man.’

Rix let out a great groan. ‘You bloody fool! Tali lied to save me from myself. It’s you she wants.’

‘Me?’ Tobry’s head inched around towards Tali.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, realising what she should have known ages ago. ‘Ever since you took me to the ball.’

Tobry’s eyes blazed and he tried to tear free.

‘Get him over, quick,’ rapped the chancellor.

Three guards took hold of Tobry, dragged him to the wall and tried to heave him into the air. He punched one in the throat, jammed an elbow into the eye of another, then convulsed and Tali saw his nails lengthen, his back arch. He was trying to shift, but it was going too slowly. Tali’s breath thickened in her throat. Could he do it? Not with so many guards swarming after him.

Rix kicked one of his opponents in the knee, the other in the belly, snatched a falling sword out of the air and attacked. His first blow, with the side of the blade, hurled one of Tobry’s captors ten feet, into the wall. A bone-breaking left hook to the jaw took down the next man. Rix was thrusting at the third when the captain kicked his feet from under him, stretching him prone on the flagstones.

‘Take his right hand,’ said the chancellor. ‘With Maloch.’

Rix must have been dazed, for he did not move. This could not be happening. Tali brought her knee up into one guard’s groin and he doubled over. The other man, knowing she had to be protected at all cost, hesitated. She chopped him across the larynx with the side of her hand, evaded a third guard and ran at the captain.

But before she could reach him, the captain raised Maloch and, with a savage blow, severed Rix’s right hand at the wrist. His hand shot into the air, struck her on the knee then flopped onto her foot like a bloody spider. Tali jumped, instinctively flicked it aside, shuddered and had to look away.

Rix let out a roar and staggered to his feet, his wrist pouring blood. The captain struck him on the back of the head with the sword hilt and he collapsed.

Tali ran for Tobry, but before she could reach him, and before Tobry could shift, the guards raised him high and hurled him head-first from the top of the tower.

Rannilt woke, screaming and spraying golden light in all directions, and it took three soldiers to hold her while another wound layers of cloth across her mouth. Only on the fifth winding could they block out the dreadful sound.

Tali stared at the wall where Tobry had gone over. Could he survive such a fall — more than a hundred feet? Surely it would even kill a shifter, and Tobry had not fully shifted, had he? She did not see how he could have completed it in time. Her healing blood had doomed him.

She stumbled to the nearest wall and drove the top of her head into the stone, trying to smash the cursed pearl that had robbed her of every good thing in her life and brought her nothing but despair. But the pain, terrible though it was, could not mask the agony that would never end.

A guard stopped her. Others held her while her bloody head was bandaged and her wrists bound. Tali did not struggle. It felt as though her heart had been cut out. She stared at the wall until the soldiers led her away, then went with them, indifferent to her fate, weeping until her burning tear ducts ran dry.

She was alone again. Every friend she made, every bond she formed, ended in a disaster of her own making. She had failed them all when they most needed her. Iusia had been right, back at the beginning — but for the wrong reason.

You’ll never be hurt if you trust no one.