Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

Blessed Tanit! He wasn’t going to answer! But then he did.

“He is my tormenter.” An ember of sympathy lit in his face, brief and not bright. “And soon, Tara Bell’s child, he will be yours as well.”

“Answer her!” cried Bee.

“My lips are bound. Of what passes on the other side, I cannot speak—” Then he was gone. Features as rigid as if carved from stone faced us in petrified silence.

“Oh!” said Bee. “What happened?”

The headmaster murmured, “So. That explains her.”

An overwhelming compulsion to get out of the chamber took hold of me.

“My apologies, Maester,” I said as I forced down the latch and pushed open the door. “My heart is so disturbed. I’ll just go pace out the labyrinth. They say it calms people down.”

“Take Beatrice with you,” said the headmaster kindly. “You really mustn’t go alone.”

“That explains her what?” said Bee to him, and turned. “Cat, where are you going?”

“I have to go to the labyrinth. I don’t want to. But I just can’t stop.” I was amazed by how calm my voice sounded as I stepped into the hallway even though I did not want to.

Hoofbeats rumbled on the street. Three shrill whistles pierced the peace of the academy halls. Orders were shouted in a ringing tenor: Lord Marius had arrived. “In here!”

Bee grabbed our coats. I dashed to the stairs and ran down to the glass-roofed central courtyard, Bee behind me. “Cat! Stop!”

“I can’t! It’s like I’m being dragged by the throat.” I wasn’t frightened, just numb. Something horrible was about to happen, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

In the courtyard, benches ringed the outermost paving stones of the labyrinth walk. Four fountains anchored the four compass points, each surmounted by one of the beasts who symbolized the four quarters of the year: the bull, the saber-toothed cat, the horse, and the serpent.

“There she is!” Lord Marius’s battle-honed tenor filled the space as he and his soldiers appeared in the arch that led to the entry hall. “Catherine Barahal! Beatrice Barahal! Surrender yourselves. You are under arrest at the order of the prince of Tarrant and the senate of Rome.”

I sprinted for the nearest bench as soldiers ran after us, some circling wide in order to cut off all roads of escape. Patches of snow like lichen mottled the roof. The sky was dark with fresh storm clouds, flaking a lazy trickle of snow.

Lord Marius shouted, “We won’t harm you. I give you my word. It’s for your own good.”

“So reassuring!” yelled Bee from behind me.

A crow landed on the glass roof, and beside it five and then ten more. The din they made caused men to look up. A crack shattered the roof. Shards sprayed; men ducked and retreated. I leaped a stone bench and found my feet on the beginning stone of the labyrinth walk: This was not a maze but a winding walkway built to hone meditation and to help minds focus. When my cane touched the stone, the path blazed with the breath of the ice. My cane flowered into cold steel.

“Halt!” A soldier overtook me.

I thrust. Surprised, he parried, but it was clear he was hesitant to press for fear of hurting me. I drove him back ruthlessly. He slammed into the bench, tripped, and hit his head. Lay still. I whispered a prayer to Blessed Tanit: Let me not have killed him.

More converged on me, too many to fight off. I raced inward on the labyrinth walk, my boots crackling on broken glass from the roof. The soldiers followed like wolves in pursuit, both they and I forced to stay on the path now that a glamour pulsed through it.

A crow flew past so close I ducked. Black wings filled the air. Their caws deafened me. The roof cracked again, more glass showering down. On the blast of frigid air, yet more crows poured through the shattered roof to mob the soldiers. The courtyard became a smear of darkness, men flailing with swords and cursing, crows tearing with beaks and swiping with talons. Many voices clamored as the mobbing crows drove the soldiers back, but only one word had hooked me: Now.

“Cat!”

“Bee! Don’t follow me!” Slipping on shards, I cursed, trying to turn to go back, but my body lunged forward.

“Never! I’ll never abandon you!”

As the path spiraled in toward the grated well, my sword grew so bright and cold I thought its touch would sear my palm. If I let go, I might break free, but I could not uncurl my fingers.

“You can’t escape!” Lord Marius’s voice sounded as far away as the distant explosion of musket fire. Or were those the cracks of illegal rifles?

“The war begin.” So the Amazon had said. Had Camjiata’s agents set the prison hulk on fire? Had he coordinated his arrival in Adurnam with the Northgate poet’s hunger strike? Who had smuggled rifles into the city? Was it all just a coincidence?