forbade the use of Cenzi’s Gift for healing.
It had been Ancel who had taken command of the defense of the Old Temple as Nico and Liana tended to the wounded and prayed for the dead. The war-teni who had responded to Nico’s call now retaliated, sending out their war-spells toward the onrushing gardai. Their low chants filled the nave, and they gestured angrily as they sent volley after volley out into the storm. Nico could hear the screams and cries of the heretics outside; he could see the fires beginning to consume the buildings around the plaza.
The destruction was terrible to see. It made Nico want to weep. “This is what You wanted of me, Cenzi,” he prayed. “Let me continue to do Your will…” He hugged Liana. “I have to go,” he told her. “I have to help. Take care of those who are hurt. And be careful.”
“Nico…” He could see the fear in her soot-streaked face, and he embraced her quickly, kissing her. She clung to him and he let himself sink into her for just that moment, trying to sear it into his mind and keep it forever. He wondered at the impulse. Then he pushed away and kissed her again. “Be safe in Cenzi’s love, and mine,” he told her.
“I love you, Nico,” she answered. “Be careful.”
He smiled. “I have Cenzi’s protection,” he told her. “They can’t harm me..”
And with that, he left her.
He pushed his way through the wreckage, toward where Ancel was standing. He peered out from the ruins of the main doors toward the plaza. “Where are they?” he asked, but then he saw them. A line of gardai rushed out of the pelting rain, with swords raised, their mouths open as they shouted, all jumbled together so he couldn’t hear what they said, if there were words at all. Nico raised his own arms as the chanting of the war-teni intensified. He felt the coldness of the Ilmodo envelop him, wrapping all about him, and he gathered that power with the language of Cenzi and his gestures, and he threw it away from him. He didn’t know the spell he created; it came to him unbidden and complete-a gift as natural as breathing.
A wave pulsed outward from him, visible in the broken doors and pillars of the temple it sent flying outward, as it threw the rain backward as if storm-wind were blowing it, as it slammed hard into the gardai and sent them tumbling and crashing backward, the power ripping and tearing at them. When it passed, they were gone, the plaza before the doors was swept clean as the rain returned. “Absolute…” Ancel breathed. “I have never seen the like…” The war-teni had stopped their chanting as well, staring at him with awe on their faces.
But there were sounds of battle now behind him, in the temple itself; Ancel and Nico turned as one to see gardai pouring in from the aisles of the side-chapels as well as from behind the quire. There was hand-to-hand fighting among the pews, with scattered spells being cast by the Morellis who were also teni. Nico could feel other spells being cast, far too quickly to be done by teni-so the Numetodo were here as well. However, the war-teni’s spells-meant for mass destruction in open battle-were useless here in a confined space; they would kill Morellis as well as gardai and Numetodo. The war-teni, trained also as swordsmen, drew their weapons instead.
The battle was raging all around, and under the great dome itself, Nico could see Liana, her face pale, chanting and gesturing as she readied a spell. Varina was there also, entering into the temple from the same door she’d left not long before, and she, too, was casting spells.
Cenzi, I need You now. Please help me… The prayer rose up in Nico, and he felt the coldness rise again around him. He started to gather it, but one of the Numetodo-was that Talbot, the Kraljica’s aide?-had seen him, and with a gesture and a word, the man sent fire hurtling toward Nico. Nico had to use the Ilmodo to cast the spell aside. “There’s Morel!” he heard Talbot cry as he pointed toward Nico, and he could feel the Ilmodo being twisted and warped all about him as the Numetodo turned their attention to him. They gave him no respite. As fast as he gathered the Ilmodo, he had to use it to fend off their attacks, and now he was tiring, the exhaustion of using the Ilmodo so strongly and often making his mind and limbs heavy. Once, there was a moment, and he sent Varina, Talbot, and another of the heretics hurtling backward into the walls of the Old Temple, but there were so many of them, and the gardai were closing in around them also…
Cenzi, I need You…
He ignored his weariness. He closed his eyes, pulling in the power and encasing himself in it so that their spells reflected from him like the sun from a mirror. He could barely see the temple through the swirling haze around him. I will take them all, Cenzi. I will destroy them as You want me to…
The war-teni were quickly preparing smaller spells. He could see them readying to cast them at the Numetodo and gardai spilling into the Old Temple. The Numetodo were wielding devices like those Varina had carried, and they pointed them at the war-teni. There were loud reports, and puffs of smoke, and the war-teni cried out in the middle of their chants and collapsed to the ground. There was blood soaking their green robes. This was a magic he’d never seen before, a terrible magic.
Cenzi, please…
He saw Liana readying her own spell, saw Talbot staggering up with his head bloodied. The man pulled out a strange mechanism much like the one Varina had, and-still on his knees-pointed it toward Liana. Sparks glittered, and there was a loud bang, and smoke curled from the long end of it.
And Liana… Liana staggered backward, clutching at herself, and there was a growing dark stain on her tashta between her breasts.
“No!” Nico roared, but his voice was lost in the chaos swirling around him. “No!” He released the Ilmodo wildly, the energy spilling outward without control, sending gardai and Morellis and Numetodo alike tumbling. A wind rushed through the Old Temple, extinguishing the guttering fires and bringing down more of the walls. There were screams and wails, but none were as loud as that which issued from his own throat. “No!”
He was running toward Liana, who had crumpled to the ground, but there were gardai everywhere and hands clutching at him, and they were bearing him down, taking him to the ground even as he fought and kicked and scratched at them. Something hard collided with his head, and the room spun once wildly around him and he could no longer see Liana and the world descended into darkness…
Brie ca’Ostheim
The carriage lurched and jounced and shivered. The ride from Stag Fall to Brezno Palais was nearly as uncomfortable a ride as any Brie had experienced, and the rain and two unhappy children made it no better. Elissa and Kriege were with her; Caelor and Eria were in the following carriage with the nursemaids. A carriage before them carried Paulus and her domestiques de chambre; those following held the rest of the staff. Gardai from the Garde Brezno rode on the horses flanking the train, miserable in the weather.
“Matarh, are we there yet?” Elissa grumbled. She stuck her head out from the nearest window but pulled it back in quickly, water beading her hair and face. Thunder grumbled at the intrusion. “I want to be there.”
“So do I, dear one,” Brie told her wearily. “Why don’t you rest, if you can? Look, your brother’s asleep. See if you can sleep like him; that’s what a good soldier does-you sleep whenever there’s a chance, because you never know how long you’ll need to stay awake.”
Elissa glanced over at the sleeping Kriege, and Brie knew she was tempted-as Elissa always was when she thought she was in competition with her brother. But she scowled. “I’m not sleepy. I just want to be home. When is Vatarh coming back? Why can’t I go with him the way Great-Matarh Allesandra went with Great-Great-Vatarh Jan?”
“Because your vatarh would send you back, and I was here to make certain you didn’t hide in the supply train like your great-matarh did, that’s why. Here, I brought a deck of cards; we can play Landsknecht; I’ll be dealer, and we can play for pins…”
They played for a time, and despite the lurching of the carriage, Brie saw Elissa’s eyelids growing heavier, until finally her cards dropped from her fingers and spilled over her lap. Brie picked them up and stored the deck in its box, setting it under the seat. She leaned her own head back against the cushions and closed her eyes.
She fell asleep faster than she thought possible, but it was a sleep haunted by dreams.
Jan stood in moonlight, arms crossed over his chest. He was in Nessantico, or at least she believed with dream-certainty that the city with its strange architecture was Nessantico. Behind Jan was the facade of a huge palais, stained glass windows cracked and broken, its walls blackened by smoke. The dream shifted, and Brie realized that there was a woman with Jan. For a moment she thought it must be Allesandra, but the hair was dark
