The fuel for the flame was at the bottom of the stairs.

  He was the Heir of Marsan as the Lord Protector had been before him.

  “It’s just stairs . . .”

  GARRETT.THEN

  Garrett had been in good shape when he left Marsanport and traveling had whittled away any remaining softness, but after so many burning stairs, stairs that mage-craft extended three or maybe four times the height of the cliff face, his legs ached and his knees felt as though sand had gotten into the joints, grinding off another layer of bone with every step.

  And he still had the climb back to look forward to.

  Ahead was the lake, lapping against the lowest landing. Fog obscured the far shore and the wind off the water jabbed cold, ethereal fingers through every gap in his clothing, chilling the layer of sweat between skin and cloth.

  To his right, a closed door, the blue paint surprisingly unfaded.

  He tossed an empty waterskin at it. It slapped against the wood and bounced back, landing at his feet.

  No visible mage-crafted defenses.

  Or more accurately, no recognizable mage-crafted defenses.

  “Burn it.” Sword in one hand, he closed the other around the handle, paused to wonder what he was supposed to do if the door was locked, and pushed it open.

  The room beyond was a small rectangle. The wall ahead of him and the wall to his left, both looking out over the lake, were made of unbroken, multi-paned windows. To his right, the rock of the cliff face had been worked flat and smooth. Air that should have smelled stale after a hundred years smelled of nothing at all.

  It had probably been a pleasant room once. A divan piled high with pillows took up much of the space. Next to it was a small bookcase, a table with a tea set, and a brazier tipped on its side with a clear-edged boot print in the spilled ashes. Captain Marsan’s boot print? She’d brought the first piece of fuel out of the Broken Lands, so she’d been in this room. For a legendary leader, the captain had had surprisingly small feet.

  He could see the desiccated body of a dead animal, cat-sized although not cat-shaped, but saw nothing resembling the fuel he’d come so far for. Were there secret chambers? If there were, why weren’t they in the chronicle? Then he saw an embroidered silk throw covering a series of lumps on the floor behind the divan.

  Captain Marsan could have covered the fuel for safekeeping.

  One knee on the divan, he leaned over and lifted the throw, exposing the statue of a middle-aged woman with soft, plush curves.

  The stone was . . . not stone. It was gray, yes, but slick looking. Slick feeling, and gave slightly under pressure.

  Not a statue, then.

  A body. Eyes and mouth both wide open. He could see a gap where a tooth was missing halfway back on the right side of the jaw. He could see the bumps on her tongue. He could see the rage in her eyes. Knew she’d burn the world given half a chance.

  His throat clicked as he swallowed. This was the mage who’d built the tower.

  The silk slid from suddenly nerveless fingers.

  The Scholars of the Flame had said the fuel that kept the Black Flame burning had originally been the size of a small melon. Rounded, but not entirely round.

  The size of a knee?

  Her left knee was missing, the lower leg lying off to one side.

  They were burning a piece of the mage as a symbol of Marsanport’s might.

  He felt laughter rising and swallowed it back. It wasn’t funny.

  “It’s a little funny,” he allowed, then wished he hadn’t spoken as the silence absorbed his voice.

  She’d been a mage, and the mages had destroyed each other and the land and driven the Five Thousand from their home. If she now fed the flame that protected the descendants of the Five Thousand, that was only fitting.

  Besides, Captain Marsan had already dismembered the body. And Captain Marsan had known the mage in life. All he had to do was cut another piece off a stranger who’d been dead long enough now that she was an artifact, not a body. Cut off a bigger piece than his great-great-grandmother, so no one would have to do this again for years.

  All he had to do.

  Teeth clenched, he raised his sword. Neither the edge nor the point, when he jabbed it down to pry a piece free, left a mark on the silver-gray. Frustrated, he finally braced his sword hand against the divan, bent down, and grabbed the thigh above the missing knee. Silver gray something dimpled under his fingers. In the end, he needed to use both hands. When the piece of thigh broke free, he overbalanced and landed with his left forearm beside the head, their cheeks nearly touching in a parody of intimacy. This close, he could hear screaming, the sound distant as though the screamer raged from the bottom of a well.

  Or had been turned to . . .

  He leapt back, fell over the divan, and found himself sitting on the floor, holding what looked like a small silver-gray log. The ends were solid, no evidence of flesh or bone.

  It was heavier than it looked.

  He wanted to drop it, but doubted he’d be able pick it up again if he did, so he wrapped it quickly in the silk and shoved it into the leather sack that hung from his shoulder. The silk was the same color as the log. As the leg.

  The exact same color.

  What was it Arianna had said?

  “That sounds like worship to me.”

  He’d scoffed at her then. Now, holding the log . . . the leg . . . the piece of leg . . . the fuel . . . he wasn’t entirely certain she was wrong.

  Gateway existed, although the Captain’s Chronicle said it had been destroyed. The scholars said belief without substance was the first step on the return to mage-craft. But the scholars had given him the silk, and the sermon. He’d have to look into the scholars when . . .

  The door blew open.

  Water lapped against the threshold.

  Garrett wrapped the fuel, shoved it into the sack, and scrambled to his feet.

  The next wave rose higher.

  The next higher still, and out of it, the tip curling and reaching . . .

  RYAN.NOW

  Ryan left the blue door open behind him. Sidling into the room, his back against the wall, he raised his sword diagonally across his body, and took a deep breath. “Take a moment to assess the situation,” said the captain’s voice. He suspected assess in this instance did not mean his attention should jump from place to place like a bug on a griddle, and he forced himself to focus.

  No one, not Captain Yansav or the guardians or Keetin or Nonee or, flame forbid, Lyelee could come to his aid, and if he failed, the Black Flame would go out and Marsanport would fall.

  “Or Lyelee will follow you down the stairs.”

  “She’s a lot smarter than you’ll ever be, little brother.”

  “There’s a lot in the Court who’d rather she was heir.”

  His brothers weren’t wrong. Even he wasn’t politically unschooled enough to miss that his Aunt Hamaline and her brother had convinced a number of the Court that Lyelee would be the better choice. Lyelee would, of course, refuse, Trina would inherit, and Aunt Hamaline would stand as Regent.

  No one who wanted the job that badly should have it.

  Ryan squared his shoulders. He’d neither expected nor wanted to be Heir of Marsan, but it had happened, and it was his responsibility as heir to return with the fuel for the Black Flame.

  He just had to find it.

  The sunlight streaming through the windows should have raised the temperature to greenhouse levels, but the air inside the room remained comfortably cool. It had probably been a pleasant room once, before the contents had been smashed. Smashed during the Mage War or when the Lord Protector retrieved the last piece of fuel? He couldn’t know.

  “And he’d really like to know,” Ryan muttered, stepping cautiously forward. A piece of the scattered debris gave under his foot and he leapt back, staring down at an enormous dried sausage.

  “Welcome to the Broken Lands,” he muttered, chest heaving.

  The sausage was about as long as his forearm, half as big around, and had collapsed in on itself. Three, no, four similar pieces lay scattered between the door and a destroyed divan. The middle of the divan had been crushed as though something heavy had fallen on it, the wooden frame a shattered vee. He couldn’t see beyond it. As the broken shelves and the flattened brazier were clearly not the fuel he’d been sent for, he moved carefully across the room, sliding his feet against the floor, his body angled to keep the door in sight.

  Behind the divan, a silver-gray statue of a woman sprawled on the floor. It had broken when it fell, and the left leg was missing. One arm crossed the chest and clutched at a brocade vest; the other was folded up, palm facing outward. Narrow lips were drawn back off creepily realistic teeth and the eyes were half closed. When he shifted, her attention followed him.

  A portrait of Captain Marsan in his father’s study had watched him disapprovingly no matter where he stood.

  Except . . .

  The captain’s eyes had only seemed to move. The statue’s eyes were immobile, but it knew he was there.

  Not it. She.

  She was the color of the fuel and part of her was missing.

  Tanika Fleshrender. He knew it the way he knew he’d never be the Lord Protector his brother would have been.

  Tanika Fleshrender.

  That seemed like something the Heir’s Chronicle should have mentioned.

  Ryan shifted his sword to his left hand and wiped his right against his thigh, sweat leaving a damp smear against his trousers. His grip didn’t seem any more secure when he shifted it back. If he died because he dropped his sword . . .

  He could almost understand why the Lord Protector had broken a piece from the mage’s transformed body. He, like Ryan, had been sent to replenish the fuel that fed the Black Flame and kept Marsanport safe. But what had possessed Captain Marsan to take a piece with her as she led the Five Thousand to the Great Lake, and then to set that piece on fire?

  “She must have really hated you,” he said, shoving at the ruins of the divan with the flat of his blade. Or really not hated her and wanted a remembrance of what they’d shared? Wanted Tanika Fleshrender watching over the survivors in their new home? There’d been a few details left out of the Captain’s Chronicle as well.

  But who’d left them out?

  Ryan wet dry lips and stared down at the mage. Head tilted back, she scowled at nothing.. He shuffled a little further from her line of sight. All the hair on his body had lifted, new lines of sweat dribbled down his back and sides, and he felt like he imagined a mouse would feel in front of a snake.

  “Is widdle Ryan scared?”

  “Baby going to piss his pants?”

  Donal had the last word. “She’s dead, you flaming dipshit.”

  Waves slapped against the landing. Ryan spun around, suddenly aware he’d been standing with his back to the open door. Water dribbled over the threshold, but the landing was empty.

  “Okay, I’m just going to . . .” Trying to keep both the door and the mage in sight, he moved around to the sta . . . to the mage’s side, forced his left leg to bend, and sank to one knee. If he had to, he could push himself upright with his right.

  Taking a deep breath, he placed his sword on the tiles.

  If he touched her would he hear screaming?

  How long had Harris screamed before his voice had failed him?

  How much screaming had Nonee done inside the tank?

  “Was eternal torment another experiment, then?”

  No one answered. Ryan was actually pretty happy about that.

  The Captain’s Chronicle told how mage-craft had twisted the mages, that however wise they’d been in the beginning, they’d been worthy of nothing but hate and fear in the end. Some families, like Curtin’s, kept the hate and fear alive.

  At this moment, he wasn’t entirely certain that Curtin’s family was wrong. Curtin’s death would keep the hate and fear alive a little longer.

  Ryan stretched out his hand again.

  Had Captain Marsan expected Tanika Fleshrender to wake? Had the captain taken a piece of her leg to hobble her? Could a mage grow a new leg? Was he supposed to take a piece of the other leg?

  Was the flame a beacon so she could find them again?

  He jerked back at the slap of flesh against wood, suddenly aware he’d leaned in so close he could see freckles scattered over both cheeks in a slightly darker gray.

  Mages had freckles? Had her eyes mov . . .

  Another slap.

  He yanked his gaze off hers as a writhing mass of tentacles emerged from the lake.

  Six . . . no seven . . . tentacles dove straight for him.

  Ryan groped for his sword and slapped it sideways, shoving it out of reach under the broken divan. The tips of his fingers touched the hilt, but he’d have to take his eyes off the tentacles to reach it.

  No time!

  He shoved both hands under the mage’s body. Lifted it. Threw it.

  She was lighter than he’d expected. Or terror had lent him strength.

  The silver-gray body slammed into the tentacles and hung suspended for an instant as time stopped. She’d landed facing him. Had her expression changed? Then fleshy, green-brown cables wrapped around her and snapped back out of the room. By the time Ryan got to his feet, only ripples lapped against the landing.

  Then the ripples faded.

  He retrieved his sword, and when he lifted it, the tip trembled. He stood motionless, breathing heavily, until it stilled.

  Stood motionless a moment longer as he realized he’d thrown away the fuel he’d been sent for.

  “Stupid.”

  “Useless.”

  “Typical.”

  Marsanport would fall.

  “Because of you.”

  Marsanport would fall because of him. What would Donal do?

  “Not screw up so flaming badly in the first place.”

  He kicked at a broken shelf. It caught on a piece of fabric and lifted it as it tumbled, exposing a silver-gray lower leg. Calf. Ankle. Foot.

  It should have looked pitiful. It didn’t.

  Teeth clenched, he pulled the piece of silver-gray silk from the daypack and draped it over the . . . over the fuel. Bending, he put his foot on Tanika Fleshrender’s ankle. It would’ve helped had he been able to think of her as the mage, but he couldn’t. She had a name. He grabbed the upper edge of the calf through the silk and tried not to think of how his fingers sank into the transformed flesh. When it finally broke, he held what looked like a tapered log.

  Halfway to the door, he looked back at the ankle and foot.

  The embroidered blanket crumpled beside the divan made an awkward sling, but Ryan kicked the last piece of Tanika Fleshrender into the loop and whipped it out over the lake.

  It tumbled. Ankle. Foot. Ankle. Foot. Ankle . . .

  A single tentacle thrust out of the water and snatched it from the air.

  His breathing loud enough to mask all other sounds, Ryan ran for the stairs, leaving the blue door open behind him.

  Seventeen stairs up, he paused and looked out over the water.

  Had that been an attack or a rescue?

  LYELEE.NOW

  Lyelee ignored the discussion around the door. Either Ryan would return or he wouldn’t.

  Voices began to rise. Destros ducked Keetin’s waving arms.

  Then she caught sight of Gearing. The sound of his movements covered by the argument, he was heading for the door to the right of the hearth. Stepping in front of her mentor, forcing him to stop or push her aside, she leaned in and murmured, “You had the words for all six of the weapons.”

  “What if I did?” His nostrils flared. “Scholars have access to information novitiates do not.”

  Novitiates didn’t challenge Scholars, but the Broken Lands had changed the rules. “And if you’d been killed, leaving me with no way to control an approaching weapon?”

  “I wasn’t killed.” His right arm pressed down on his satchel. “Making your argument irrelevant.”

  What else did he have in that satchel? Lyelee wondered. What else had been kept from her? “There were six weapons,” she reminded him. “We’ve only accounted for two. And knowledge is always relevant. Isn’t that what you taught me?”

  “One doesn’t teach a child to handle fire.”

  She was so astounded at being called a child, she let him brush by. Didn’t stop him when he opened the door. She caught a brief glimpse of a set of stairs heading up as he pulled it closed behind him. He knew exactly where he was going. His satchel contained a floor plan of the tower.

  Only Nonee was watching as Lyelee walked to the door that led to the workroom, and Nonee didn’t try to stop her. The weapon was smarter than she looked.

  * * *

  Lyelee arrived in the long hall leading to the workroom with no difficulty, although twice she had to pause while halls rearranged themselves ahead of her into remembered configurations. She slowed at the point Ryan had begun to crawl and stopped two steps later when her perception of the available space remained the same. Had something as simple as a piece of cork actually disabled the mage-craft on the lock or was this new, unobstructed access part of an elaborate trap? Tanika Fleshrender liked elaborate traps.

  Had liked.

  How similar were the likes and dislikes of the other mages?

  How could they have allowed so much knowledge to be lost?

  One of the wall carvings chittered, so close to the edge of hearing she might have imagined it. If she had the time scholarship was entitled to, she’d stop and make a detailed observation, but she had to be back in the six-sided room when Ryan returned lest Captain Yansav convince him to leave her behind. He might not be easily convinced, but he’d always wanted the approval of those he saw as more powerful than himself. His brothers had so exploited that weakness, she was a little surprised he’d survived his childhood.