Eriloyn felt it wash over him and pass by. The mayor however was not left alone. To the boy’s ears it sounded as though something was being ripped free of him. The Enlightened seemed to straighten taller and, from his point of view, grow stronger as the light whipped around the square, turning back to them.
The mayor sagged, almost falling to the cobblestones that he was crawling on. Briefly, he managed to lever himself upright. His mouth worked on words that he would never say, because the other arm of the Harbinger came down, and this time the flame did not stay on her own flesh.
Eriloyn did not look away as the mayor and the undead creature within him was consumed by flame. He made sure to take in the sound of flesh and clothing burning and inhaled the odor. He wanted to remember this.
Around the Harbinger, the other Enlightened raised their hands into the air, and fire arched up into the sky. Some of the citizens looked away in fear, but many—if not most—watched the display of power above them.
It kindled hope in Eriloyn and a sort of grim determination that survivors all shared. It shall not happen here again.
Aloisa stood at his side, and her eyes were haunted but no longer empty. Long streaks of tears flowed from them, leaving paths in the dirt on her face.
As the Enlightened fanned out through the crowd, moving to help the injured, and comfort the grief stricken, Eriloyn found himself staring at a figure just behind the Harbinger herself.
The man’s eyes were locked with the boy’s, in a kind of shock. He was a tall man with dark curly hair and wide brown eyes. Something hung around his shoulders, a stain of power in the ether that might not have been as noticeable as around the Harbinger, but it still drew him.
The Harbinger was speaking to the crowd, but it was no longer she that was important—it was the man and those eyes that saw too much.
Then the world was spinning, and Eriloyn was wrenched away.
Merrick took a staggering step back and found he was staring at the boy with the haunted eyes; the one that he’d ridden in the head of. The runes that he had summoned had drawn him here, to this boy at the very edge of death. He’d been locked in the boy’s head for a week, so that they all might be drawn to the correct place and time. The rune Sielu had shown him this for a reason, brought him here for this moment. It was indeed the perfect place and time for Sorcha to reveal her plan.
Eriloyn had provided the information on the city the Deacons needed.
Such an experience was one he would never forget. Merrick had never before considered how the geists would look to everyday folk, or indeed how the Order would. Now he knew. They were hope and salvation.
He looked at his partner’s back, tall and straight before him, and knew she had done what she set out to. She was now the head of the Order that she’d given a new name: the Enlightened. The city of Waikein would be remembered for this moment—if any of them survived the coming destruction that was.
The future and his vision had melded and caught up with each other. He wondered what else lay ahead and what the Wrayth power Sorcha had just unleashed could mean. Even he could not see that. They could only go forward as bravely as the boy had.
FIFTEEN
Uncertain Partners
The people of the city were acting as if the fire that had cleansed the geists had also been lit beneath them. They surged into the town hall and set about reclaiming it with vigor that even the lay Brothers could not possibly contain. They grabbed up buckets and mops, began tossing ruined furniture into the streets, and pulled down the curtains to let light stream into the building.
As Merrick stood in the receiving hall with Sorcha at his side, he felt like a rock in the middle of a maelstrom of released human activity. Brooms were being shoved around with tremendous vigor, blood scrubbed from walls, and everyone was darting up to the newly announced Harbinger for a piece of advice or commentary.
Perhaps his own folded arms prevented them from involving him in this frenzy. Sorcha seemed calm, and even smiled when a lay Brother told her excitedly that another twenty former members of the Eye and the Fist had been found alive in the city. Apparently they would have their runes recarved as soon as the implements could be readied.
Sorcha turned and looked him in the eye with a grin. “See, we are already stronger, and once word spreads of what we have done here—”
Merrick could not let her get any further. Grabbing her arm unceremoniously, he dragged her into a side room and slammed the door shut behind them—thus forestalling at least a dozen more inquiries.
“What are you doing?” He felt along the Bond, but her thoughts and moods were slippery like eels in the darkest part of the river, and he could not get ahold of them. That scared him more than anything else. Her blue eyes were too bright, her smile too fixed for him to like it.
As Sorcha took in his stormy expression, the facade and the smile faded. She had finally taken a cloak, declaring that all could choose which color they would rather wear. Merrick found he preferred the thick fur one Raed had given him. Sorcha found a black one in the abandoned buildings of Waikein. Many of their colleagues had simply ripped the colors from their old cloaks and wore the reverse side of brown or black. It had been her first action as leader of the Enlightened, but he could hardly tell if it was a good one.
The collar of the dark cloak that Sorcha had taken up obscured her eyes from him as she turned away. Merrick could only see her in profile. “I am protecting the people of Arkaym as I was taught to since childhood— just like we were all taught in the Order.”
Merrick shook his head slowly. “But not
“But I did destroy them.” Sorcha’s reply was so distant that he had to strain his ears to catch it. “You were right—this was the place we needed to be.”
Another chill went up his spine. The curious double nature of the event, the way it had been twisted by the runes Masa and Sielu, set his teeth on edge. He disliked everything about it, and yet his partner seemed immune to his concerns.
Sorcha should have been able to sense how much time he had lost and the walking dream he’d been tangled in. Obviously, she had not.
The Bond that had carried them through so much was unraveling and could no longer be trusted. Merrick felt afloat in a dark sea, and he did the only thing he could: he reached out and took Sorcha’s hand. Maybe the physical connection would reignite the Bond.
Her fingers were chill, and she looked up at him with the kind of expression he had seen many times on the faces of those who had escaped possession by a geist: shock and distance. Sorcha was coming back to the world, but she was not the Deacon she had been. When she glanced down at his hand holding hers, it was with the detachment of someone who did not fully comprehend her own body.
Merrick squeezed her fingers, as if by that he could pull her back. “Yes, you destroyed them. Yes, you made the population believe—but at what cost to yourself?”
Sorcha swallowed, and her blue eyes, for the first time since her demonstration of power, met his. “They are inside me, Merrick. The Wrayth made me, and I was foolish to think that they would let me go so easily.” Her voice making this confession was that of a frightened child, and the flood of her memory ran along the Bond. For a moment he was swept away by it.
Sorcha stood at the gates to the Mother Abbey in Delmaire, the warmth of the summer sun on her back. Her hands were pressed against the ironbound wood, and they were the chubby, soft ones of a child who could be no more than two. To her eyes the cantrips and runes carved there were complex scribblings that meant nothing. However, there was someone whispering to her; a voice, faint and far off. The child could discern no words, but
