Spectyr

“I am the only one with any hope of stopping my mother.”

All three of them paused, ragged and torn.

“Then I will make it my mission to find my mother,” Merrick said, his hand resting on his own sword hilt. “I will follow those tunnels, and I will find her. You must both go after Raed and stop Hatipai.”

“But—” the Prince made to disagree.

“No, Your Highness,” Merrick snapped. “This is how it has to be.”

For a long moment the two men stood toe-to-toe, and Sorcha merely watched. For once she would let her partner tell her what to do. She owed him that.

Onika laughed shortly. “It has all come down to mothers, then—because if I do not stop Hatipai, then she will make a graveyard of Chioma. Starting with the Rossin.”

Sorcha flinched. “Raed?”

It was Merrick who answered, “No, the Beast. Remember, there is no hungrier creature than a geistlord. They dine on one another.”

“And my mother has a terrible hatred for the Rossin—since his family helped me restrain her.” Onika strode to the window and pointed east. “I closed her primary Temple—the one in the desert. That is where she will go to make herself a new body and devour the Beast.”

Sorcha clenched her teeth, her throat tight, for a moment stopping any words. The Bond, which had been their greatest strength, was now stretching her in opposite directions. Raed was her lover, possibly even more, and Merrick was her partner. She didn’t want to have to choose.

Merrick took her arm, pulling her out of the circles her mind was running in. “I need you to go with Onika and help him. Hatipai is far more powerful than any bunch of kidnappers.”

“I can’t.” Sorcha paused, shook her head. “I can’t just leave you—” He was her Sensitive, and she’d only just gotten him back. He was her responsibility. Everything that she had ever learned in the Order told her not to leave his side—least of all when the world was exploding around them. Her mind flashed to Kolya and when he had been attacked right in front of her.

“Sorcha.” Merrick squeezed her arm hard. Sometimes she still forgot his strength—too used to thinking of Sensitives as weak. Her partner, she had learned quickly, was anything but that. “I’ll take some palace guards, and we will be fine. You have to stop Hatipai and save Raed. I will be with you—our Bond is strong.”

Sorcha felt his strength surge around her. It was funny how she had never truly appreciated it as much as she did in this moment. Their Bond, which she had forged so carelessly, was now an essential part of her life—as much as her affection for Raed.

I am inside you. My Sight is yours, no matter where I am. Such a thing was impossible—at least as she had been taught—but she and Merrick had already broken so many rules. She looked into his steady brown eyes, and she believed him. He had never lied to her. For once in her life, she believed. While this spread through the Bond, she nodded slowly.

And with a final squeeze of her hand, Merrick turned on his heel and strode out the door. Like every Active, Sorcha had always assumed that she was the dominant in their partnership. If they survived this, she realized, she would have to reassess.

I will find you soon, were the final words he shot across the Bond before sealing it shut, cutting off communication though not the strength. Sorcha was not one to weep and wail over a man, even if that man was bound to her as tightly as Merrick.

Onika called the remaining members of his guard, told them to follow after the Deacon, and treat him as they would their Prince. They were all well trained and obeyed without question.

The doors were shut, and without turning, she listened to Onika’s footsteps walking on the polished stone toward her. She was not without allies, even if she still didn’t have the full measure of them.

Sorcha contemplated the Prince of Chioma, hidden behind his swaying mask. “So, how difficult is it going to be getting into this Temple?”

“I think you have seen I am not without my own resources.” His voice was hard, distant and worthy of a god. “It was how I stopped the mob getting into the throne room, after all. The trouble will be getting to the desert Temple in time. Unfortunately, I do not have wings.”

It was hard to tell if he was attempting some kind of joke—certainly Sorcha was not about to ask him to remove the mask, and besides she did have an idea.

“Tell me, Your Highness—have you ever traveled by Imperial Dirigible? It is quite the way to fly.”

His low chuckle was the most cheery noise Deacon Sorcha Faris has heard in many, many hours.

TWENTY-SEVEN A Son’s Love

Walking away from Sorcha was hard, and Merrick was afraid to do it. Everything that he had ever been taught told him to stay with her—but a child’s love for his mother went deeper even than that. It was certainly not a situation he had ever envisaged, but if they found Japhne quickly enough, then he should be able to get back to his partner before she faced the goddess.

The palace was not making Merrick feel confident about his goals, though. He kept his Center open, but all he captured was the feeling of panic and terror.

“Sir.” One of the guards, by his insignia a sergeant, glanced around the corner of the corridor. “If you don’t mind me saying, don’t you Deacons always travel in pairs?”

Merrick could smell the fear coming off the man; these guards were trained to deal with assassins, rabble- rousers, and maybe a catfight between the Prince’s women. “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Dael.” His eyes flickered uncertainly to Merrick.

“Well, Dael”—Merrick led them around the corridor brusquely, communicating certainty he didn’t feel—“while members of my Order do indeed customarily travel together—we are also trained to look after ourselves.” He left out the bit about the strange Bond and the power it gave him and Sorcha over and above a normal Deacon.

They reached the harem to find the doors swinging open and a dead eunuch in the garden, but it was another direction that interested Merrick. There in the disturbed gravel of the once immaculate path he found what he was looking for—a single tiny drop of blood.

He bent and held his open hand over it. It was hers, and Merrick would not permit himself to think about the circumstances in which it might have landed there; the thing that mattered was it was just one tiny drop. This was no murder scene. Aiemm, the Second Rune of Sight, flared in his mind, and he looked back in time to his mother’s terror.

Running, she was running, and someone pursued her. The cut in her hand was tiny, one slip of the knife she’d used to defend herself. She held it tightly, the pain inconsequential in her panic. Her pursuers were cloaked, even in the heat of the garden, and her stride was awkward this late in her pregnancy.

Merrick opened his eyes. She hadn’t seen; they weren’t just chasing her—they were herding her.

“Quickly.” He stood up. “There is still time.”

It was down into the tunnels once again—that was where they had harried his mother to, like so many sheepdogs. Except he suspected these dogs would bite.

Merrick’s mind raced, and not just with the unnaturalness of this situation; he was thinking of a time when he had lost another parent.

The taste of remembered fear filled his mouth, and suddenly he was that little boy hiding behind a tapestry and watching his father being ripped apart by something from the Otherside. He hadn’t cried, hadn’t uttered a word, but he recalled the anguish. His mother’s sobs had seemed to have no end, all through his childhood. And finally he summoned up the image of Japhne of a few nights before, sitting on the end of the bed, smiling with genuine happiness. He had never thought to see that look on her face again. He had thought she would never see his face again.

He swallowed hard on the knot of fear in his throat. Remaining calm was the only course now—if not, his