A drop of fire spilled over the side of the pillar, then another. Throughout the throne room, fire began to drip from the torches and sconces. Little candle-flames, perhaps hundreds of them, skipped across the floor toward him. They slithered up his legs, so that he appeared to be on fire, and then danced down his arm toward the sword. The little flame elementals gathered along the blade and dug into spaces in the metal that Rezkin could not see but knew to be there through his connection with the fae creatures.
With the sword aflame, Rezkin stalked toward the dais. Privoth backed away in a feverish panic. When Rezkin reached the top of the steps, he realized the sounds and commotion had ceased behind him. He raised the sword over his head and thrust it into the seat of the throne. It sank a third of the way into the stone, and the flames enveloped the entire sword as he backed away. Rezkin turned to survey the room, all the while keeping track of Privoth. Everyone was in stasis, staring either at him or the sword—except for his small unit in the center that breathed heavily as they stood ready to defend themselves.
Rezkin looked back to Privoth and pointed to the flaming sword. “There is your prophecy, set in the stone of your own throne. If you want it, you must claim it.” He looked to the councilors and then the soldiers. “Cael is mine.” He turned his hard gaze back to the councilors. “A deal with Gendishen is a deal broken. Your kingdom is without honor and cannot be trusted.” He then descended the dais, gathered his people, and stalked out of the throne room.
Wesson stared at the evidence of his presence. All of the purifiers were dead, most having been crushed by fallen pieces of the ceiling and outer wall. He had not meant to kill them. He could not even be sure that he was responsible. Something had struck him, something strange that had blasted past his shields. In an instant, the purifiers’ attacks against him had been nullified. It was as if he had been splashed with cool water after spending the day sweltering in the desert. It was then that his power had gotten away from him. All the spells he had been preparing, all the attacks he had tried to cast and failed, escaped at once in a messy ball of power that had rocked the palace, blasting a hole through one corner and causing the ceiling and part of the wall to cave in on top of the purifiers.
He was not terribly upset about killing them, which did upset him. In a way, they too had been victims. Most of them had probably been stolen as children and trained to believe that the very power that made them special had turned them evil. Wesson was so busy stewing in his thoughts that he did not notice the man in the open passage outside the throne room. Something pricked his senses, and he turned to see Reader Kessa hurrying down a side corridor. She screamed, and he glanced in the direction of her wide-eyed gaze just in time to see a black, vaporous serpent shooting toward him. Mage Kessa threw herself in front of him, taking the brunt of the attack. A gut-wrenching shriek tore from her throat as her skin blackened and bubbled. Tiny tendrils of smoke lashed at Wesson’s sleeves, burning through them with ease.
Wesson looked to the source of the attack. At the other end of the open corridor was the leader of the purifiers. His appearance had somehow changed. He looked angrier, darker, and more foreboding. His gaze was consumed in blackness, and his twisted lips sneered with hateful glee as he lobbed another attack. Wesson thrust a simple shield toward the mass of black vines twisting through the air toward him. Some of the vines were destroyed, but others persisted. He quickly constructed a net of the whip-like tendrils he had learned from Xa but added his own touch using nocent power and fire. The net streamed forward, the black strands lined in flame. When the destructive spell collided with the demonic power, it produced a burst of nauseating energy. Wesson doubled over trying not to retch, while others around him were unsuccessful. When he glanced up, he was surprised to see that his net had not been consumed in the impact, but instead swept down the corridor to envelop the purifier. It burned a hashed pattern into his skin, shredding his clothes and tearing flesh from bone.
The possessed man did not stop, though. He raised a fist dripping with bloody flesh and pointed to Wesson. A half-dozen soldiers rushed forth from a vaporous cloud behind the purifier, fully armed and ready to attack. Their eyes were black voids, an effect not unlike that of Rezkin’s mask. Wesson thrust a stream of fire at the men, but their charred bodies continued. Suddenly, Yserria, Farson, and Malcius jumped into the fray, slicing and chopping at the soldiers, who did not succumb to their injuries until collapsing from loss of blood.
The purifier remained standing, preparing his next attack, and Wesson was worried the others might be struck. He formed a small orb in the air in front of him. The orb grew larger as he fed power into it. A bit of earth, a little water, a dash of fire, and a whole load of nocent—the orb appeared as a bubble of ink larger than his head. He mentally sucked in his power and then released it, blasting the orb forward. Too late, he realized that Rezkin had prepared his own attack. As Rezkin’s black blade swept around to take the purifier’s head, it collided with the orb. It looked as if the blade had sliced through water, somehow dragging the inky blackness with it. The green lightning within the black blade bled out and crackled within Wesson’s spell. As the blade cut through the purifier’s body, the lightning snapped through the air with a black cloud forming around both the purifier and Rezkin. When the cloud dissipated, the purifier had been vaporized, and Rezkin’s entire body was crackling with green lightning.
Wesson’s king and emperor raised his icy gaze toward him from the other end of the corridor, and it was as if he could see into Wesson’s very soul.
Wesson blurted, “Ah … sorry?”
Rezkin shook his head and walked away.
Chapter 21
Wesson knelt at Master Reader Kessa’s side. She gripped his sleeve as she sought his gaze. Her lips wagged, but no sound emerged through the pain.
He said, “Hold on. Rezkin will help you. He will know what to do.”
She reached up and gripped the pendant that hung from the thin, gold chain at her throat. With a tug, it came loose. She pressed the small, gold disk into his palm.
He shook his head. “No. No—”
“You must. You … can … defeat him.”
“I can defeat who?”
She never answered. In fact, she never drew another breath. As Wesson struggled to contain his sorrow, Malcius pulled him to his feet and guided him toward the cavalcade.
Malcius said, “You nearly killed our emperor.”
Wesson looked at him blankly.
Malcius said, “After all of this? That would have been a terrible ending to our story.”
Wesson laughed through his tears, and Malcius patted him on the back.
About an hour into their journey home, Wesson pulled his horse up beside Rezkin.
“How did you do it?”
Rezkin glanced at him. “Do what?”
“How did you put fire on the sword? It is impossible, yet you did it. I need to know how.”
Rezkin’s roaming gaze never stopped, and Wesson wondered how he never exhausted of being on constant alert. Rezkin said, “I recalled a conversation I once had with Malcius and Brandt about naming swords. Brandt mentioned that he had read about spirits becoming trapped in the metal of a blade.”
“Yes, I have heard of it, but no one has ever actually seen one.”
“I knew we could not put a spell on the blade, but I thought perhaps to imbue it with a spirit—one of fire.”
“An elemental?” Wesson felt a thrill. He had never seen an elemental. Few had. “You called to an elemental, and one came?”
Rezkin said, “You saw the little flames.”
Wesson’s heart thudded with excitement as he said, “Those were elementals? There were dozens of them.”
“There were exactly two-hundred and eighty-three,” said Rezkin. “It is the number required to maintain the flame on the sword. I am not sure how I know that, but I must eventually release them.”
“How did you call nearly three hundred elementals? How did you call any?” He shifted uncomfortably under Rezkin’s icy stare.
After a prolonged silence, Rezkin turned to Farson and said, “The journeyman and I will ride ahead.”
Farson said, “That would defeat the purpose of the escort.”