Wrayth

conspirator’s weeks of work began to tangle around and trip him, because the Emperor was now horrified by any kind of Deacon power. Del Rue didn’t notice at all. He was lost in the mad delight of wielding power. His face was set in a mask of joy as he summoned Chityre to him. Lightning bloomed in the highest reaches of the Devotional, dancing from pillar to pillar and illuminating those powerless Deacons still fleeing the building. The whole building rang with the sound of thunder.

Tighon had the distressing thought, which filtered across the Bond as stones groaned, that all the Order’s work to repair this beautiful building was about to be undone. It was so hard for Merrick to keep a clear mind in Conclave with all these new chaotic thoughts darting about.

Deiyant! Sorcha’s voice was like a shout in his head, rising above the rumble of the yammering of the others. She called for the rune that wielded air, often called the push rune, but he didn’t have a moment to think. He acted. The Conclave raised its hands as one above their heads, and the amber glow of the rune flashed out around them. The pews around them flew up, wrenched from their places and thrown up, just barely above their heads.

This all happened in one long heartbeat, just as the lightning came down among them. The Devotional keened again, like a ship caught in a storm, and in fact did seem to list. Then one of the two front pillars of the asp cracked and toppled, bringing down a portion of the ceiling.

Like a mast, Merrick thought dimly to himself, as the Conclave buzzed in his head. Something impacted him in the chaos, but it really didn’t seem to matter. For a time, his world was entirely comprised of stone, dust and rubble.

Reflexively, Merrick held on to the Conclave. When finally he could make sense of the world, he found himself lying at the edge of a pile of stones, coughing up dust, with his ears ringing.

Sorcha was lying sprawled across him, but she was miraculously alive, though bleeding from a wound to her head. Staunching the blood with one hand, she yanked Merrick to his feet with the other.

His ears were still useless, but he heard along the Bond. Tighon is dead. She really didn’t need to tell him that—he could feel it in the Conclave. One had fallen away, and with him Natylda his Sensitive. Merrick glanced to his left and saw her screaming and trying to dig him out of the rubble, even though all in the Conclave could feel his loss. Thanks to Sorcha there were not as many Deacons buried beneath the stones than there would have been otherwise, but they could still all feel them; injured, broken, dying. Even as Merrick’s Center flooded him with information, he felt in that moment a man’s life go out.

The Devotional was now groaning and creaking, still shuddering with the terrible wounds it had taken. The sheer weight of bricks and stone could not hold forever.

Some distance off, Merrick spied del Rue pulling himself out of the dust. He was completely unharmed, but the young Deacon spotted his one chance. Del Rue was concentrating so hard on finding a way to destroy the Conclave, that for a moment his mind was vulnerable and unprotected. Merrick wrapped his mind around the rune Aiemm and cast it at him like a javelin.

The Rune of the Past consumed the young Deacon as he saw through del Rue’s eyes. No, not del Rue: Horris, Cristin, Melloir, Hjan. Hundreds of names, places and memories rolled over Merrick, until only one remained. Pulled back from the ocean of the past—Derodak. Merrick plunged down desperately after that name.

The world was new, and he was an Ehtia; a creator of magic and machines. Like Nynnia, he had fled with his people to the Otherside so that the world might not be destroyed by the geists that hunted the Ehtia after the Break. However, also like Merrick’s lost love, he had chosen to be born back into this world with many of his powers stripped away—but not for the fine and good reasons that had motivated Nynnia.

A world he felt had failed him. A world he now wanted to control. He had lived too long, been too many people: first Deacon, Emperor, saint, rebel and destroyer.

“Derodak,” Merrick whispered to himself. It literally meant “the first” in Ancient. The Conclave was forming around him again, seeing what he now saw, the real person behind the mask that was del Rue.

However, they were not alone. Kaleva and his remaining guards could now be seen through the clearing dust. The ceiling high above still held, and the stones had only wounded a few of them, yet the Emperor’s rage was reaching apoplectic proportions. The calm leader Merrick had been introduced to was long gone. His etheric presence was pulsing, indicating he’d passed the point where sanity had any hold on him. All the bonds that held him, his sister, his love of the Empire, his determination to be a good ruler, were blown away under the assault of so much chaos. Derodak had done his work well and had now pulled the trigger.

“Demons are trying to kill me!” he screamed. “Kill them all! Whatever it takes.” The Imperial Guard needed no urging to take action. They’d been witness to many unleashed powers this day, come close to death themselves, and were now ready to unleash some of their own.

Merrick, scrambling to hold all the straining powers of the Conclave together, saw their rifles come up, and called again for Aydien. The blue fire ran widdershins around the Conclave, dancing off flesh and lancing out. Bullets zinged around them, even as the power of the rune pushed back against the guards, sending them flying like chaff in all directions. Still some of their aim held true, and Leonteh and Quannik crashed to the ground, choking on their own blood. Horror and disbelief flooded the Bond, and the rest of the Conclave threads began to unravel between them. He only held Lujia and Sibuse with himself and Sorcha now. It was barely enough to be called a Conclave now.

The Imperial Guard kept firing, but underneath Merrick heard the sound that he had been fearing: the growl of the Rossin. In all of this, they had forgotten Raed. He had stood with them, but apart, and now whatever control the Young Pretender held over the beast disappeared. Merrick had known it would happen eventually. Perhaps, if he was honest, it was the reason they had brought him with them. The Rossin was always the wild card in the deck.

Raed shared a look with Merrick and Sorcha, his hazel eyes already turning to gold, but he had no time to remove his clothes or spare them a word.

The great cat leapt into existence, snarling, and ready to do what his nature dictated. He glanced once at Derodak, shook his head and then sprang among the guards. The sound of their screams was painful for Merrick to hear, but they had opened fire on the Order.

However once he had cleared the Devotional of soldiers firing at them, the Rossin did not turn back. A rear guard of soldiers tried to keep firing to cover their Emperor’s escape, but the Rossin pursued. The scattered remains of the Conclave could do nothing to stop him.

Keeping his head down, Merrick saw with great disappointment that Derodak was untouched. He rose from among the bullets and debris, still with that damnable smile on his lips, and held out his hand to the Grand Duchess, who took it. She looked no more than a piece of furniture, still Merrick felt relief wash over him.

Del Rue took no notice of her however, instead focusing on the Deacons. “How very unexpected of you, Faris and Chambers! Looks like you’ve managed to cobble together something akin to a Pattern—so you must have found him then?” His brow furrowed. “How did you do that though, I wonder?” His eyes drifted to Sorcha, piercing her through with Sight. “Something we did not count on then…” He did not appear afraid, but rather intrigued; as if Sorcha were merely a piece he had to fit into his game board.

Being examined so, did not improve Sorcha’s mood. Merrick felt her raise her hand, but even in the Conclave he could not hold her back; she was far too strong for that.

She plucked Pyet from the ether, screaming in rage and pouring fire down upon Derodak like some mythical dragon. The heat was so intense in the confined space that Merrick, Lujia and Sibuse staggered back, falling to their knees. Merrick thrust his face into the crook of his arm so that he might have a chance to breathe. It felt as though every hair on his head was going to catch fire. They were all going to die. Against the flame, all he could make out was the outline of Sorcha. Her skin was wreathed in blue flickering lights that wrote out the runes on her flesh. High above them, the stained glass succumbed to the heat, and then it was raining red-hot molten drops—blues, greens and reds—down on them all.

Merrick was going to have to use Ticat on her, the last-resort rune held by the Sensitives. By the Bones, he didn’t want to, but if she didn’t stop he would have to.

Sorcha! Come back!

It was a near thing, but somehow she pulled herself back. The flames died away under her command. What was left behind was a scarred and pitted Devotional that would never be the same again. The smell of burned wood and stone filled the survivors’ nostrils.

Sorcha herself was sobbing, shaking and staggering on her feet. Yet out of it all, emerged Derodak, only the