Weight of the Crown Page 13

He hardened his will and he charged.

  Heat, then cold, then crackling static energy battered against his body. The hairs on his arms and head smoldered from the flame cast off by the mages. He squinted and ran through the fire, forcing the heat from his skin but unable to keep his clothes from starting to crackle. His sword burned scorching hot and he dropped it involuntarily, his injured fingers refusing to maintain their grip on the scalding hilt of the weapon.

  Ignoring the pain, he kept his will hardened and raced closer, flinging his body at Lady Avril. He slammed into her with a grunt. Arms held wide, his shoulder drove into her side, and he wrapped around her, both of them flying off their feet.

  He landed on the former Veil hard, blasting the air out of her lungs with the weight of his body. Around them, sharp blades of wind clashed against their hardened will. Directed by the Veil and her stooges, they were not letting up their attack just because Ben was in the way.

  Ben felt his back flayed, the wind peeled off from the powerful storm by the mages and formed into thin, dense whips that sliced his skin as easily as a knife.

  Eyes filled with fire, Avril looked up at him and tried to push him off. Scrambling, Ben held her down, using the weight of his body to pin her against the wet marble tiles.

  Her dagger plunged into his side. The repository, not just a store of energy, but blade of sharp steel, slid into his flesh. Lancing pain tore through his gut. She smiled at him.

  Gritting his teeth, Ben swung his head down, the crown of his skull connecting solidly with the former Veil’s nose. Surprised by the move, she didn’t even try to dodge the blow. Ben felt bone crunch and heard a startled yelp. He rolled away, gripping the crossbar of the knife in his fist and ripping it from Avril’s hands.

  He felt the sharp steel turn and gouge his flesh, hot blood pouring over his hands, but she lost control of the blood-slick handle and he tore free. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he kept going, rolling over and over, hunching his back to avoid the weapon dragging against the tile. He had to get distance between himself and the former Veil. He had to stop her from reclaiming her dagger.

  The cuts on his flayed back stung, and the knife in his gut pulsed pain through his core. Then, thumb-sized hail pounded against him. Flung by the storm with the speed of a pebble out of a sling, the small chunks of ice whistled into his flesh, leaving immediate welts everywhere they struck.

  He looked back, dazed and in agony. A dozen paces away, Lady Avril was rising, bent under the assault of the hailstorm, but turning to glare at Ben. She stood straight, ignoring the barrage of ice against her flesh. Her eyes were lit with unnatural fury. Her clothing dripped with blood.

  Mostly his blood, he realized belatedly. He staggered to his feet, slipping and sliding on the ice and the blood that poured from him.

  Avril raised a hand, a finger pointing through the falling ice directly at Ben. He tensed, his mind swirling and confused, unable to gather sufficient concentration to harden his will.

  A fist of ball-lightning smashed into Avril from the side and the former Veil was blown off her feet and sent tumbling across the veranda toward the stone balustrade that stood between it and the city below.

  Lightning from above crackled, and Ben saw the top of the Citadel hammered by the storm, a burst of stone and mortar exploding from where the bolt struck.

  “Oh my,” muttered a voice, barely audible over the raging wind.

  Ben turned to see Amelie, hanging suspended a pace above the stone.

  Power swirled around her, roiling energy, manifesting physically. It was like looking at her through a stream of rushing water. She was calm though distant. The whipping wind and flying hail evaporated as it passed into the cloud of pure energy floating around her. Her head was still tilted up, and Amelie’s palms were raised toward the sky.

  “Release it!” shouted Towaal. “Release it before it consumes us all!”

  As the mage spoke, the stone balcony groaned, and Ben felt it tilt alarmingly.

  “She’ll bring this entire structure down,” growled Lady Coatney, shoving her minions out of the way and running toward Amelie. “She’s not strong enough to retain that kind of energy. Not even I have the will to handle that much power. When it consumes her…”

  Ben struggled to remain standing, desperate to put himself between his lover and the Veil, but he didn’t have the strength. He was fading rapidly.

  The Veil, spots of blood marring her face where the hail had battered her, stormed closer. She raised a hand.

  Ben knew she meant to act, to stop Amelie, to throw their fates to the fury of the storm.

  Then, Avril stumbled into the group of Sanctuary mages, her hands wrapping around one woman’s throat and tearing it out, her fingers transformed into sharps claws by a sickening dark power that swirled down her arms.

  The other Sanctuary mages swarmed around Avril, trying to keep her from the Veil, but the woman’s hands raked across their flesh, rending it and tearing the women to shreds. None of them had the strength to stop her, and they were flung away by the fury of her strikes.

  Coatney spun and released a ball of light that flew a dozen paces and shattered on Lady Avril’s face. The former Veil staggered back, spitting blood, but she did not fall.

  “You didn’t think I only brought one repository, did you?” she snarled, drawing a palm-sized copper disc from her belt. Raising her first, she crowed, “This isn’t enough to stop the storm, but it’s enough to stop you.”

  “You’ll let all of these people die?” shouted the Veil, her hands raised, but her shoulders slumped in exhaustion.

  “I’ll do anything as long as you die,” cackled Avril, murderous intent clear in her gaze.

  “No,” said Amelie. “You won’t.”

  Ben blinked, suddenly realizing the hail had stopped, the wind had slowed, and lightning no longer pounded the heights of the Citadel. The rain still fell heavily, obscuring everything within a score of paces around them. It left the mages and himself isolated on the veranda in a world of falling water.

  Amelie’s feet touched lightly to the tiles.

  Avril sneered at Amelie. “The Veil and a dozen of her most powerful mages cannot harm me. You think you have strength to challenge me, girl?”

  “I do not, but your storm does.”

  The air twisted like the fabric of the world itself was shifting.

  Ben’s vision swirled with a stomach-churning lurch, and a punch of pure power erupted from Amelie and slammed into Lady Avril.

  A shocked scream burst from the former Veil as she was flung back, flying over the balustrade like a missile from a catapult. The woman’s body soared into the curtain of rain, disappearing hundreds of paces above the city of Whitehall. A shriek, the only evidence of her passage, faded quickly into the distance.

  Amelie stumbled, the pouring rain suddenly shoving her down. Wet hair stuck to the side of her face, and her clothes hung heavily on a wobbling frame. She looked around and, seeing Ben, offered a weak smile. He tried to smile back, but his vision wavered, and black encroached around the edges. His hand dropped to the dagger in his stomach. He felt the warm blood going cold as it soaked around his fingers.

  “I—”

  He didn’t get to finish. His body fall face first onto the tiles, splashing in a puddle of melting ice, rain water, and his own blood.

  6

  Aftermath

  “Are you awake?”

  He was, barely. Ben shifted, confused, like he was arousing from a deep, engrossing dream. The voice floated through his conscious like a leaf on a swirling stream.

  “I can see you moving,” chided the speaker. “I don’t have time to sit here all day.”

  Ben blinked, bright light in the room blinding him momentarily. He opened his mouth but only got out a cough instead of words. His throat was bone-dry.

  “There is water on the table.”

  He blinked again, the light slowly resolving into shapes. Beside him was a silhouette that could hav
e been a pitcher, against the wall a shape which he guessed was the speaker. He struggled to sit up, reaching for a cup he noticed beside the pitcher, and then stopped cold.

  The movement of his arm caused a dry rattle of metal links moving over metal links. Chain. A band of iron encircled his wrist, and attached to it was a string of the links. He had room to move, but he was locked in chains. He was a prisoner.

  “Sorry about that,” said the voice. “We’ll take no chances until I am gone.”

  “Who…” he started then paused, trying to work some spit into his throat. Rasping and barely audible, he asked, “Who are you?”

  “Lady Coatney, the Veil, of course,” answered the voice. She shifted, and he heard her chair scrape as the figure moved closer, scooting into the light that spilled from the lone window in the room to reveal red hair, green dress, and the same simple silver jewelry he’d seen on her before. “Who else do you think would have you locked up in chains?”

  She paused, as if expecting a response, but before he could voice one, she continued, “You know what? Don’t answer that. I’ve learned a great deal about you, Benjamin Ashwood. You’ve led an exciting life in such a short time. There are some periods I was unable to learn about, but I know enough to guess that there are a lot of people who might want to lock you up. This time, it is by me.”

  “Why?” he croaked.

  “You oppose me, do you not?” answered the woman in a measured tone.

  “I—”

  “Do not be foolish,” chided the woman. “I was merely being polite when we met on the road. Do not think it was ignorance. Your plan is to unseat me, though, I’m not clear on who you believe will be raised in my place, or why they would be any more amendable to your goals. I’m aware that you absconded with our initiate, Amelie. I know you were recently in the City and stole the Staff of Wyvern from us. I know that you torched a tower in your escape from the City, killing several of my friends. I know you killed my son.”

  Ben flopped back down on the bed, regretting his question.

  “Yes, that’s right,” murmured Lady Coatney, leaning closer to him. “When you stop to think about it, you shouldn’t be surprised that I have you in chains, should you?”

  “I guess not,” he admitted before falling into a coughing fit.

  “Your voice will come back as you use it,” advised the Veil, settling in her chair. “Drink some water. That will help too.”

  Ben shifted again, pushing himself higher on the bed until he was half-sitting, and reached for the cup on the table. It was already filled with water, and he saw he barely had slack in the chain to reach it. For a brief moment, he worried the water could be laced with some potion or poison, but the woman sitting next to him would have already killed him if that was her intention. He sipped the water and watched her over the rim of the cup.

  “I will not execute you, even though your crimes have earned you a swift death,” assured the woman, meeting his eyes. “Personally, I would enjoy watching you die after a long period of torture.”

  Ben sat his cup down and didn’t respond. He kept his eyes on the blankets which covered his body, knowing there was nothing he could say.

  “I will not execute you because I believe you will be of use to me,” continued the Veil.

  “I will not help you,” muttered Ben, risking a glance at the woman’s face.

  “Why not?” asked the Veil calmly.

  “Whatever you seek to have me do…”

  “You think I will trick you? That somehow you will betray whatever your mission is?” asked the Veil, a laugh on her voice. “No, it’s not so complicated as that. Let me explain what I plan for you, and then you can decide if there is a betrayal lurking behind it. To be honest, though, it doesn’t matter what you think. You’ll do as I want, regardless.”

  “Why should I trust anything you say?” snapped Ben, raising his arm and shaking the chain attached to it.

  “Do you remember what condition you were in right before you collapsed? You were moments away from death, heartbeats away from expelling the last of your lifeblood onto the Citadel’s veranda. You had deep, terrible cuts on your back. That woman had stabbed this knife into your stomach, piercing your entrails.” The Veil’s hand drifted to a jeweled dagger at her belt. The repository, realized Ben. “Thank you for recovering it, by the way. It had been missing for over a century. Believe it or not, this is one of the most powerful devices the Sanctuary has ever obtained. It is not the Staff of Wyvern, but certainly something I was glad to recover. You have a talent for stealing our powerful artifacts, and I’m glad you did not destroy this one.”

  Ben grunted.

  “You would have died,” continued the Veil. “Your friend Karina was too exhausted to heal you, and the initiate was in no better shape. If it wasn’t for my mages, we wouldn’t be speaking now. So, while I do not expect your trust, I ask you to hear me out. Maybe you will find our goals align for a time. You see, I’m going to let you go, Benjamin. After that, if we meet again, I will enjoy putting my hands around your neck and strangling the life out of you. You can believe that is true, can’t you?”

  Ben glared at her and his mind swirled. Someone had certainly healed him, and he didn’t doubt she wanted to kill him. If she was lying about letting him go, he’d find out soon enough. He decided she was telling the truth, particularly the part about using him. Somehow, his freedom would help her. Somehow, she expected that yet again, his actions would inadvertently support her goals.

  “Where are they?” he demanded.

  The Veil tsked. “We will get to that. First, I will ask you to be released shortly after I’ve left Whitehall. You will be stuck here for a time while General Brinn searches for any assassins who escaped the fight. The mountain pass is barred due to that search, and the ships in the harbor are all commandeered by King Saala. I know you have some loyalty to General Brinn, but he will not help you. I’ve made sure he understands his own health is dependent on keeping you here. You are a resourceful boy, though, aren’t you? Eventually, you will find a way to sneak out of Whitehall. That is, if Avril does not kill you first.”

  Ben blinked. “She-She is alive?”

  “Confounding, isn’t it?” responded Lady Coatney, not bothering to hide her clenching fists and the frustration in her voice. “We searched for her, but there is no sign of a body. We found a trail of corpses, though, that could have only been her doing. If it wasn’t for her, I would kill you now, but, as much as I hate you, Benjamin, I hate her more. I will do anything to oppose that woman, including letting you go.”

  Ben scratched at the scar on his arm, the rustle of the chains filling the room and sending a shiver down his spine.

  “I suspect that if there is anyone who the woman wants dead more than me,” continued the Veil, “it is you and the initiate. When she sees you are free, she will assume you were working with me this entire time, and then she will come after you. It’s the way she’s been for hundreds of years, striking at those close to me. You’ll be a tempting target, especially when I spread rumors about how you and the initiate were my agents and that I’ve rewarded Amelie with a repository to thank her for her services.”

  “You plan to use us as bait!” accused Ben.

  Lady Coatney chuckled. “That is not a bad idea, but no. I do not have time for that, and Avril is not stupid enough to walk into some simple trap.”

  Ben frowned at her.

  Smiling, the Veil continued, “I merely intend for you to be a distraction, to draw her attention while I finish what I have been working on. For decades, I have been preparing, and I cannot brook any further interference from you or her. All I ask is that you do not die quickly. Draw her interest long enough for me to finish.”

  “She hasn’t managed to kill me yet,” growled Ben.

  The Veil shrugged. “If you kill her instead, that will suit me even better. If you desire to fight her, then I recommend you set a trap. Find some situation you can turn to your advantage. I do n
ot think you will be successful, but you are welcome to try. All I need is time.”

  “Time?” asked Ben. “For what?”

  “Time for my plans to come to fruition.”

  “The Alliance and the Coalition,” guessed Ben. “You need time for the war to begin.”

  “Yes,” responded the Veil, clapping softly. “You see, Benjamin, mankind is naturally inclined toward conflict. It is part of who we are, and it has always been. Since we first learned the use of tools, we have been making sticks into spears and using them to make war on each other. Conflict, fighting, war, it is a natural part of our existence. It is like fire in a forest. There is nothing we can do to prevent it from starting. It is just a matter of time and circumstance. Any effort we make to stop it will only make the next fire, or war, worse.”

  Open-mouthed, Ben stared at the woman.

  “Did you know that about fires?” she asked. “Long ago, mages would stop forest fires. Practitioners skilled in manipulation would suck the heat from the flames and direct it elsewhere or pull moisture from the clouds and cause a torrential rain. It was thought that stopping the fires would save nearby settlements. The mages thought they were saving lives. It only made it worse, though. By stalling the fires, fuel built on the forest floor. Fallen branches, leaves, logs... You are from the mountains, yes, in a forest? You know that if the debris of branches and trees is not allowed to burn, then one hot, dry summer, it will ignite into a blaze that consumes all. It will burn fast, and no one will be able to stop it or escape. By trying to prevent forest fires and limiting them, you only make them worse. War is the same. It is our fire.”

  “You’re letting the world burn.”

  The Veil shrugged. “Yes, I suppose I am. Only a little, and only to prevent something worse. The Alliance and the Coalition will clash, and one of them will win. I predict it won’t be a satisfying victory once they tally what they’ve lost in the conquest, but their aggression will be expelled, their resources depleted, and the horror of war made evident. Some of the survivors will rule new foreign lands, but most will return to where they came from. They’ll have stories to tell about the terrible things they witnessed, stories that will be passed down from generation to generation, convincing those yet to be born that there is nothing to be gained from war. It will be a century or longer before the nations recover and anyone considers war on this scale again. During that time, Alcott will be at peace. Peace for a hundred years, Benjamin. Can you imagine it? I care nothing for who wins or who loses. I only care that Alcott learns its lesson.”