Mikaen hissed and came at him again.

  Plainly, his brother had found that time.

  Distracted by these thoughts, Kanthe missed a feint. The edge of Mikaen’s sword sliced along his ribs, down to bone. He fell back with a gasp.

  Mikaen retreated rather than going for a killing blow. But it wasn’t a hesitancy against a mortal strike. His brother wanted to relish first blood.

  “You’ve vastly improved,” Mikaen commended him.

  “I’ve had good teachers.” Kanthe leaned a hand on a knee, resting his sword tip on the planks. He pictured sparring with Jace, being taught balance and technique from Darant and Graylin. “It’s a shame our father refused to let me train with the legion.”

  “Our father made many mistakes,” Mikaen answered, his voice tightening with anger—but not toward Kanthe. “I will not make the same mistakes with my son.”

  Kanthe straightened, paining his wound. “You have a son?” He had not heard. “With Lady Myella?”

  Mikaen glanced sidelong; clearly few others had known about this. Kanthe had no difficulty doing some swift calculations and realized why no one knew. To be born this early meant they were conceived before marriage. Mikaen looked ready to refute this, but his face strained to hold the secret. In the end, he couldn’t deny them.

  “And a daughter,” Mikaen hissed low, so only his immediate guardsmen could hear—who likely already knew.

  “Twins?” Kanthe dropped his voice accordingly, both to avoid goading Mikaen and to protect those children from the scandal that such a revelation would cause. The twins—his niece and nephew—were innocent of all this strife. He would not sully their births.

  Mikaen nodded, his face breaking with pride, a flash of the sun through clouds. “Both of them—Othan and Olia—beautiful and healthy.”

  Kanthe offered a tired smile. “I’m happy for you. I truly am.”

  Mikaen winced warily at his words.

  Kanthe left his sword tip on the boards and leaned out his other hand. “Congratulations, my brother. No matter the future, I hope they live long and happy lives.”

  Mikaen acknowledged this with a nod. He took a step forward to meet him and clasped his hand. “Thank you, brother.”

  Kanthe squeezed, trying to remember the last time he had grasped his brother in any measure of true warmth.

  Mikaen stared at their clasped hands, too. Then his grip tightened, spasming hard. “What is this?” he gasped out.

  Kanthe looked down as Mikaen turned their hands, further exposing the gold ring on Kanthe’s finger. The crimson garnet caught the sunlight, revealing the winged stallion engraved on it, a match to the ship’s draft-iron figurehead.

  “One of Mother’s signet rings,” Mikaen said, calculating in his own head. Like Kanthe, his brother had lived with the same rumors and whispers of a twin birth. Mikaen glared at him. “That’s why you sided with the Klashe! To challenge our bloodline!”

  “No, I never—”

  His voice swelled into a murderous roar. “To challenge the birthright of my son, my daughter!” He lifted his sword high, clamping hard to Kanthe’s hand. “Never!”

  The blade fell with the fury of a father protecting his children. The sword cleaved through Kanthe’s arm, severing it below the elbow.

  Kanthe fell back in disbelief, dropping his sword.

  Mikaen stumbled the other way, still clasping Kanthe’s hand—and the remains of his arm. He finally threw them aside, along with the ring on a finger.

  Kanthe collapsed to his knees. Blood poured and pumped across the planks. Mikaen shouted to Thoryn, but Kanthe’s ears rang with shock. Then the pain doubled him over. He swooned and fell to his side, his blood pouring over him now.

  The world narrowed.

  Shadows swam in and out.

  Then he felt his body clasped, the stump of his arm raised.

  Mikaen leaned his face close, his voice acid. “You’re not escaping that easily, brother.”

  The agony in his arm flared—with the sizzle and smoke of searing flesh.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE ROOT OF ALL PAIN

  Agoni kenn be the grettest teacher & payne the very fonte of wisdoum. But ferst yoeu must survive. No lessons are learn’d bi the ded.

  —From The Rue of the Penitent by Anagorac hy Damoa

  90

  NYX AND THE others gathered around the chrysalis. Emerald fire raged across the inside of the dome. Nyx hummed under her breath and cast forth a few glowing strands, testing the energy, searching for a way through the flames to reach Shiya.

  Overhead, the raash’ke screamed and battered the air with their wings, terrified, skimming away from the coruscations and waves of the emerald fire that had enslaved them. Daal swept among them, doing his best to calm and reassure them. He was slowly having some success, relying on his own innate ability to commune with others, to sympathize and soothe.

  Nyx had her own challenge before her.

  She waited for one of the waves of fire to pass, then darted her thread to the cocoon’s glass. She managed to touch it for less than a heartbeat. A glimpse of Shiya reached her. Not an image seen with the eye. Shiya was a golden corona of bridle-song, whipped and lashed by malignant fire. It was like with Bashaliia back at the Mouth. The spider fought to break her, to bridle her with his false, corrupted song. Nyx could sense not only the enemy’s fury, but also its terror of Shiya.

  Nyx urged the bronze woman to hold out. While Shiya was far stronger than Bashaliia, the spider was wielding the full power of this entire dome against her.

  Shiya will break.

  Then a snap of fire cracked into Nyx’s strand. The recoil struck her hard enough to knock her back a few steps. The strength was unnerving, formidable. She rubbed the fiery sting in the middle of her chest.

  “What do we do?” Rhaif pleaded. “We can’t leave her in there.”

  “She’s strong,” Graylin said.

  Nyx shook her head, firm about what she had sensed. “Not strong enough.”

  “What about Daal?” Rhaif pleaded. “Maybe with his added power you could break through.”

  Nyx stared up. Daal continued to sweep arcs through the raash’ke. She also noted her mount, Metyl, who remained on the floor. He was at the edge of panic, too, ducking his head low whenever a tide of green fire swept overhead, keening his distress.

  “No,” she answered Rhaif. “The raash’ke need Daal. If we lose those wings, we’ll never leave here. And even with Daal’s strength added to mine, I don’t think it would help, not against the full power of this dome.”

  “What about brute force, then?” Jace asked, hefting his Guld’guhlian ax.

  Darant and his men nodded at the wisdom of such a course.

  Vikas looked skeptical, and rightly so.

  Nyx stared at the chrysalis, catching glimpses of Shiya convulsing within. “Not yet. That cocoon is the lock, and Shiya the key to whatever it is we’re supposed to do here. Damage either and we’ve lost already.”

  Krysh spoke off to the side, where he had been studying the giant crystal sphere hanging over the bottomless hole. “Something’s happening here.”

  They all turned.

  Up until now, the sphere had seemed unaffected by the fiery storm around the dome. It remained latched and suspended in bronze, resting silently in its cradle, a crystal eye staring back at them with a pupil of pulsing gold.

  But now the crystal shook. It was just a small vibration, but in an object that massive, it was disconcerting enough. The golden sea inside sloshed, lashed by an unseen tempest. The bronze cradle groaned. The rigged archways that suspended it creaked with the strain of holding that trembling sphere.

  “What’s causing it?” Jace asked.

  Nyx looked back at the chrysalis. She pictured the bronze woman quaking in her prison. “It’s Shiya. The sphere is responding to her assault.”

  “Then we must break her loose,” Jace warned. “Take the chance.”

  All eyes turned to Nyx—but the answer came from elsewhere.

  “It is too late,” a voice called over in a sibilant, grating voice, as if it were the speaker’s first attempt to communicate aloud. There was no amusement, no satisfaction, just a cold statement of fact. “It is done and cannot be reversed.”

  They all swung to a curve of the dome a short way off. A bronze figure stepped out from the depths of one of the massive sinuous extensions. It was the spider, come out of hiding.

  He rounded past the giant cable that dove under the floor and continued toward the sphere. As with the quality of his speech, there was no hostility or threat in the spider’s approach, more a vague indifference, maybe a touch of curiosity.

  She had glimpsed his monstrous form back in the Mouth, but that view had been for less than a breath. Revealed now, his form churned the stomach. His bronze had melted into slag and had only the barest resemblance to a man. He walked on two legs, had two arms, and a head. But that was the only similarity. His mouth was a straight slit and looked newly formed. The metal lips appeared smoother and newer, as if freshly smelted and only formed to speak to these trespassers.

  His eyes, though—a glassy blue—matched Shiya’s.

  It was in those eyes that the creature showed any reaction to their trespass. Fire shone behind the glass, but it was the burn of frost. The glow was cold and cunning, nearly as inimical as his form. It was as if the spider sought to strip away any residual humanity—both in form and spirit.

  As the creature drew nearer, the others backed warily with weapons raised. They all knew Shiya’s strength and speed.

  Nyx stood her ground.

  As the spider noted her stance, his animosity flared brighter, showing enough humanity to hate. Even his bronze warmed with the restrained fury. “You are the one who broke my hold over the raash’ke, who carried an Axis to my territory.”

  Nyx absorbed his words, hearing again that strange term. “Axis? What is that? What did I bring?”

  He glanced to Shiya. “As a Root, I held out little hope to capture and imprison a ta’wyn as powerful as her.” A trickle of emotion seeped into him, one of cold satisfaction. “It is a worthy reward for ending the world.”

  Nyx stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  He motioned to the sphere. Its cradle quaked more violently now, shaking the ground underfoot. His next words were terrifyingly matter-of-fact, spoken with unshakable certainty. “The turubya will tear the world in half.”

  The spider tried to smile with its slit of a mouth, as if a rock had discovered amusement. “The irony is that an Axis will do it. I don’t even have to break her to my will. I just needed her.”

  Nyx stared over to Shiya in the chrysalis. “You needed a key.”

  He considered her words, then nodded. “I could never have accomplished it on my own. Not as a Root. I needed an Axis. And you brought her to me.”

  Nyx resisted the guilt that tried to rise, refusing to let it numb her.

  “It must be done,” he intoned gravely. “The turubya is anathema to anyone but the Rab’almat. No one else can wield it. Not you, not your Axis. It is done.”

  A measure of exhalation had entered his voice, a glorious terror.

  Nyx watched his bronze flow and churn across his body. His mouth dissolved and re-formed, only to fade again. Nostrils drilled into a skull and swept away. She backed from the horror of it all.

  “Can this sphere truly break the world?” Graylin whispered to her.

  Krysh answered, “We came here to seek a way to set the world to turning. If such power exists in the Wastes and is now corrupted, I would believe him.”

  “Then how do we stop him?” Jace said. “Back at the Crèche, Shiya mentioned that her form could be melted in the molten seas. Could we get one of the raash’ke to carry this monster out the dome and drop him into one of those fiery canyons outside? Maybe if he’s destroyed, it’ll release Shiya.”

  Krysh nodded. “It’s worth trying.”

  Unfortunately, the plan was heard, and a mouth re-formed. “Such a destruction would result in the immediate and catastrophic failure of the turubya.”

  Again, this statement was spoken with an icy certitude, with no sense of dissemblance or lie.

  Rhaif grimaced. “We probably don’t want that to happen.”

  Nyx turned to the spider—or the Root, as he called himself. “When?” she pressed him. “Without interference, when will the turubya trigger this cataclysm?”

  The Root melted his bronze enough to turn his face toward the rise of the sphere. His gaze ticked to the arc of the trembling crystal, to the vibration of the bronze suspensions, to the rocking of the thick cradle. His legs absorbed the floor’s tremoring, which rippled up through his bronze. He turned his eyes on her, cold with certainty.

  “In less than a quarter day,” he said.

  Nyx went cold.

  We don’t have even until morning.

  She moved closer to him, seeking words to dissuade him.

  “It is done,” the Root declared with finality. “No force can alter this course. Only an Axis has the knowledge to deactivate me and stop the inevitable, but that threat has been eliminated.”

  Nyx glanced to Shiya.

  And we let her walk straight into that trap.

  Despairing, Nyx turned again to the Root. His eyes remained fixed on the crystal orb of the turubya, no longer evaluating, simply waiting. This sense was firmed as the ends of his legs spread tendrils of bronze across the copper, as if becoming his namesake, rooting himself in place until the world’s end.

  She backed away, and Jace drew alongside her.

  “If the end is inevitable,” Jace said, “then maybe you should wield your bridle-song against him. You thwarted him before, back in the Mouth. Maybe you’ll discover … I don’t know, something.”

  All eyes turned to her.

  She glanced at the shaking sphere, felt the trembling underfoot.

  Jace is right.

  She swallowed down her trepidation and nodded. She backed from the group and signaled for Daal to come down. By now, he had somewhat calmed the raash’ke—though they kept a wary distance from the molten spider, circling near the edge of the dome.

  Daal acknowledged her signal and swept in a low arc. She followed his trajectory. He was going to land Nyfka near Metyl. He likely wanted to keep the two raash’ke close, to support each other during this storm.

  She crossed to meet him.

  As she did, she glanced back to the molten bronze of the Root. She was nagged by one detail. The creature could have stayed hidden. He did not have to reveal himself. His actions made no sense.

  Did he come out to gloat? To exact revenge? To watch us struggle at the end?

  She frowned, knowing she had sensed no such pettiness.

  She glanced over to Shiya, who—while often cold and distant—had shown moments of tenderness, compassion, even humor.

  If this Root was of the same ilk, then somewhere down deep, no matter how much he tried to melt it, a core of humanity must still exist. She had witnessed inklings of it when they spoke—not that those traces were enough to sway him away from his exalted plan.

  He’s too far gone for that.

  Still, this insight might explain why he had come out of hiding. She looked across at their group, bonded to a cause, supportive of one another. She stared at the sweep of wings overhead. She remembered what she had shared with the horde-mind. She had shown them what they had lost, that nearly indescribable, wordless sense of connection, of a wholeness that could only be found in another heart, that commonality that went beyond love to something even deeper and more meaningful.

  We all seek that, she thought. From those around us, from the bonds we form, from the lives we share. It’s the core of our humanity.

  She returned to looking at the Root.

  You can’t melt that away completely.

  Perhaps it was this need that drove the Root—alone for millennia—to maintain his stubborn enslavement of the raash’ke. It wasn’t just for the protection of his lair. Deep down, he must have desired some measure of connection to another, corrupted though it may be.

  She stared back at him with narrowed eyes. After she had severed his connection to the raash’ke, he had been left isolated again. And now, knowing the finality of death was coming, maybe he didn’t want to be alone, not at the end.

  She felt a flare of sorrow for this lonely sentinel, abandoned for ages to guard this spot. Still, such pity would not stop her from seeking a way to stop him.

  Ahead, Daal landed with a sweep of wings. She hurried to him, knowing she would need his font of power. The two of them dared not hold back.

  For any chance of success, it was all or nothing.

  * * *

  DAAL CROSSED ALONGSIDE Nyx toward the melted figure of a bronze man. The glassy eyes remained eerily open, unblinking, yet shining with awareness. Nyx had briefly told him what had happened and the doom that threatened.

  “This Root,” he whispered as they reached the bronze figure, fearful it was listening even though it had no ears. “He says only Shiya can stop him. Even with bridle-song, how will we get him to obey us? He’s surely too strong to bend to your bridling, even with my power.”

  “I don’t know. But the Root must have expended considerable energy in preparing and executing this trap. It had to tax him.”

  Daal glanced to the others, who all gathered behind them, their faces tense. Ahead, the Root was a statue fastened to the copper. Beyond the creature’s shoulder, Shiya remained locked in a cocoon of crystal and fire. She quaked inside, somehow transferring that violence to the turubya’s orb in the dome’s center.

  Nyx stepped next to him.

  “What do you want me to do?” he whispered.

  She held out her hand. “What you’ve always done. You be my flashburn, I’ll be your forge.”