The fading dream

CHAPTER SEVEN

Seaside, the Mournland B arrakas 23, 999 YK

Once upon a time, the streets of Seaside had been filled with life and laughter. It had been a resort before the Last War, and even during the war, it was a favored destination for Cyran sailors seeking to forget the terrors of battle. The people of Cyre had always been proud of their unbreakable spirits, their ability to sing and laugh even in the darkest times.

No one was laughing in Seaside that day.

Thorn had heard of places in the Mournland where the dead wouldn’t rot, where you could find soldiers whose bodies were perfectly preserved, still bearing the wounds from a battle fought five years past. Not so in Seaside. They’d crushed bones on the beach, but there were no bones to be seen in the city, only clothes. A dress was spread across the cobblestones in front of Thorn, its bright blue and yellow pattern muted in the dim light. A colorful parasol lay a few feet away, the handle wedged between two stones. Even as she was evaluating the threat, Thorn realized that there were clothes spread all around the street, gowns, uniforms, even the gleaming mound of an abandoned chain mail shirt. There were boots and gloves. It was as though the people had vanished completely, leaving only their clothes behind.

Cazalan Dal stood in the center of the empty street. A silk scarf was caught beneath his boot, crimson folds fluttering in the faint breeze. The soldier was dressed in the same black uniform he’d worn in Wroat. He held his dark sword in his right hand, and a wand in the left, leveled at Thorn and her companions.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Thorn said, keeping her tone light. It wasn’t entirely. Ever since Zane had told her that the bodies hadn’t been recovered in Wroat, she’d had an uneasy feeling about the Covenant of the Gray Mist. Right then she needed to keep him talking. She traced a cross on Steel’s hilt as she spoke. “Are you saying that you tracked us through the mists?”

“Your boy is good,” the man said. “But this is our calling. Spend enough time in the shadow, and your eyes adjust to the dark.”

Gray hair, gray eyes, Thorn thought. The color of the mists.

“You talk a good game; I’ll give you that,” she said. “But surely you don’t expect us to fall for ‘I’ve got friends hiding in the mists.’ What’s next? A dragon behind the building?”

“No dragon. And I didn’t say they were my friends. But they are here, nonetheless.” He raised his sword, and two arrows emerged from the mists and whistled down the street to either side of him. “Only a few can see so well as to shoot in the mists, but I assure you, they aren’t alone.”

He’s using the same equipment as before, Steel reported. Shifting blade. Shiftweave clothing. Evocation in the wand and charged for use-the blast of fire, unless I miss my guess. I don’t know about his friends in the mists; I still can’t penetrate it. Beyond that, there’s something about him I can’t put my point on. A faint aura that surrounds him and infuses him, not unlike that of the mists themselves.

The wand’s the problem, Thorn thought. If it was the same as the one he’d carried in Wroat, a single blast could engulf all three of them. And while fire might not hurt her, she didn’t have any sort of special immunity to arrows in the back of the head.

“Covenant Dal.” Essyn Cadrel hadn’t spoken since they entered the mists. He took a step forward, a slight smile on his face. If the passage through the mists had left him on edge, he didn’t show it; he seemed perfectly at ease. If anything, his voice was stern, almost reprimanding. “You swore an oath to our king, soldier. You swore to lay down your life for our nation. Explain to me what could bring you to break that vow. What could possess you to threaten the last heir to Mishann’s throne?”

“I swore an oath to our nation,” Dal said. Thorn’s eyes were fixed on the wand, but Dal’s attention never wavered. “And I spent my years here. This is our nation. Look at it! I have seen it. It’s touched my heart. I know our land better than you, old man. And I will give our people what they need.”

“And what is that?” Thorn said. She shifted her grip on Steel, watching and waiting.

“I’m afraid you’ll never know,” Dal said. “This ends-”

Thorn was still holding the locket Drix had given her. She threw it straight up in the air. The motion was all that mattered. For an instant Cazalan Dal followed it with his eyes, and the point of his wand wavered slightly, drifting up and out of line-exactly where Thorn needed it to be. She threw Steel, his blackened blade nearly invisible in the shadows. It was a perfect throw, striking the wand directly. The impact knocked the wand from Dal’s hand, catching it in Steel’s quillons, and drawing it back as the blade flew back to her hand.

Thorn wasn’t waiting for the blade to return. She was already charging forward. “Go!” she cried, pointing at the storefront to her right. She didn’t have time to see if Cadrel and Drix understood. She caught Steel and threw herself fully into Cazalan Dal, summoning every ounce of strength she could find. The soldier staggered backward, trying to bring his weapon to bear, but Thorn was too close; he couldn’t get the angle. She kept the pressure up, pushing him back through the half-open door of the darkened shop. He tripped and fell over, striking the floor hard. Thorn dropped down and pressed her arm against his throat, silencing any cries. She studied his face as she whispered the words of a spell, feeling the familiar tingle spread across her skin as she stole his appearance. It lasted for only a few minutes, not long enough for deep infiltration, but it was the perfect thing to distract him.

It took only a moment. Thorn smashed Steel’s pommel into the man’s temple, ending his struggles. “Hold him,” she told Drix and Cadrel. Then she snatched the wand from the floor and leaped out the door.

Thorn had mastered only a few spells during her arcane training at the Citadel, but those tricks had saved her life on many occasions. Equally important, she’d learned how to activate the most common magical tools and weapons, such as the standard-issue offensive wand.

The first soldier was emerging from the mists when she unleashed the fireball. Thorn saw only his blade and his arm, more than enough to target the spell. She let her anger flow into the wand, envisioning the energy as a flame spilling out of her, expanding into white heat as it burst through the wand. The result was spectacular. A bolt of flame leaped from the rod, striking the soldier in the chest, and he disappeared from view as the bolt exploded outward in a mighty sheet of flame. If the man screamed, the sound was swallowed by the mists; when the flames died down later, he was nowhere to be seen.

It was too much to hope that the blast had caught all of the soldiers, and sure enough, two more emerged a moment later. An archer and a swordsman, both wielding weapons formed of solid shadow, scanned the street for any signs of the enemy.

“Quickly! Form on me!” Thorn called. The two ran up to her.

“What happened?” the swordsman said. He was bald, his head covered with sores and boils, and his eyes were as gray as Dal’s. “Where did they go?”

No one else had emerged from the mist. Let’s hope this is all of them, she thought. She pointed the wand at the ground and activated it again.

The world disappeared in flame. The light was blinding, but it lasted only an instant. When her vision cleared, she found herself standing at the center of a circle of scorched stone. The soldiers were on the ground around her, twisted and still. Once again, she was untouched, she’d barely even felt the heat. Turning away, she ran back into the shop.

Drix took a step back when she walked into the store, and she let the glamour fall.

“Wake him up,” she said. “We need to find out where their camp is, how many more there are. Sovereigns and Six, were they expecting us?”

“I’m afraid you won’t get those answers from Cazalan Dal.” Cadrel was kneeling next to the fallen soldier. “He’s dead.”

“Impossible,” Thorn said. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

Cadrel looked up at her, a strange expression on his face. “Perhaps you don’t know your own strength. You fractured his skull with that final blow.”

She noticed the blood spreading across the floor. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t even noticed the surge of draconic strength, for all that she’d banked on her immunity to fire to save her life when she set off the wand. “There’s no time to waste. Cadrel, search the body. Drix, do you know where we are?”

“Yes,” he said. “The Street of Crowns. We need to get to the eastern gate.”

“Then lead the way. Quicker is better.”

“Nothing,” Cadrel reported, standing up. “Nothing at all. No coins in his pouch. No traveling papers. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Strange,” Thorn said. “It probably means they have a base nearby… and that means we’d better leave before they come looking.”

Drix had already stepped outside. When Thorn and Cadrel followed, they found him rummaging around on the ground. Standing up, he turned and tossed something to Thorn, a tarnished, silver disk that glittered in the light of the ever-burning torch. It was the battered locket, the chain snapped off, the rim of the lid bent and jammed. If there had ever been a picture inside, it had been burned away.

“You never know when it might be needed again,” he said. Then he started jogging down the street. “Come on, then!”

“There’s something strange about that boy,” Cadrel said.

“I can’t argue that,” Thorn said. “But I just might like it.”

She ran after him, Cadrel close on her heels.