Page 119 of Minor Works of Meda

“Please, Veiled One,” I mouthed.

The shield pulled from me, draining me. As more magic poured in it solidified, the finger-holds firming until I realized I couldn’t drop it. My hands were buried too deep in the devouring pattern. My chill was staved off by the outland power, which flooded into me from behind. Flooded straight through me, and into the shield, which kept growing, like I was a funnel guiding magic into it. Unlike the Ward the excess magic didn’t gather and wait to be devoured. It simply knotted in on itself, the shield expanding.

The palace was blisteringly hot, but it wouldn’t last forever. The magic would reach an end. Then the shield would eat me, too. The Sorrowing Lord tossed another lazy spell at me, trying to rip the shield apart. When his spell vanished he leaned forward with a frown, then rose from his throne.

Kalcedon pointed an attack spell at me, his fingers curving. It wasn’t going to work, but what if he charged at me? He’d die.

A hand at the back of my neck, fingers digging into my skin. I lurched forward with a gasp and spun, expecting an attacker.

“Hold still,” Oraik said, and dragged at my amulet. The twine circle jerked over my head. It caught on my chin for an awkward moment before he got it free.

The hall was emptying. The courtiers must have felt the sick draw of the magic, like being near the Ward. Kalcedon threw the spell at me, to no effect. He began to draw another.

I turned the shield towards the Sorrowing Lord as Oraik charged Kalcedon.

The prince got the amulet over Kalcedon’s neck just as Kalcedon released his next attack spell. Oraik collapsed, coughing blood and shuddering. Kalcedon heaved once more and came back to himself with a sob. Oraik was flat on the ground.

“Run!” I yelled soundlessly to Kalcedon. “Far as you can!” In the dense panic of the fight, my brain kept forgetting my speech was lost.

I kept trying to end the spell, to find a way out of it. The sigils I added weren’t doing anything.

The Sorrowing Lord speared another beam of light towards the amulet around Kalcedon’s neck. With a lurch I slid between them, stumbling to my knees. His spell collided with my shield and disintegrated.

“This is a disgrace. You have truly vexed me, human.” The fae lord’s voice snapped like a broken branch. Mist swirled around him. When it vanished, there was a silver sword in his taloned grip, wreathed in pale flame.

I couldn’t tell whether Oraik was still alive. Kalcedon was looking around in horror; I wondered if he even understood where he was or what had happened to him. The magic was draining from him even though I wasn’t letting the shield touch him. He fell to his knees, gray skin paling, eyebrows furrowed.

Another strand of power ripped through me, pulled out of the palace and fed into the shield. The walls around us shifted, groaning, as the magical supports waned.

The lord tossed a sigil at my shield and swept his sword in an arc across it. I guess he didn’t realize just what my spell could do. His sword caught on the shield and drained, leaving nothing more than an oak branch in his hand. His face twisted in confusion for a moment.

“What have you done?” he asked. And then, growling: “you utter fool. You will destroy…”

I didn’t care what else he had to say.

With a feral, silent cry, I slammed my cannibal shield right through him.

Chapter 54

I suppose it was a fitting way to die. The Ward had been built to keep the Sorrowing Lord from taking Tarelay’s love. Now he could die by the same method, for taking mine.

The only problem was, I was going to die too. The shield wasn’t anchored in anything. If I died, would it crumble with me? Or would it go on devouring and kill Kalcedon too?

The Sorrowing Lord, the nightmare whose tales I’d been raised on, convulsed as he went cold, eyes rolling back into his head. Then he was dead.

With him went his enchantments. A cool pressure settled back into my throat.

The great silver tree in the middle of the room creaked, branches splitting. A brick fell from the distant ceiling, crashing two feet away from me and cracking the marble floor. The birdcage disintegrated. The blue rock-thrush spread its wings as it tumbled down, feathers shedding away.

Gracelessly, a tall, thin faerie slammed to the earth. His skin was pale green, his eyes solid black.

“Recursive limit,” he rasped to me. “Yorroh and Leferin.”

“Yorroh?” My teeth chattered, but sound escaped my lips. I felt like I was being drained again and again, going cold and then hot. Lights flashed in my eyes.

“Like this. Quickly!” He sketched a sigil in the air. It was one of the ones I couldn’t translate from the Ward. Shivering, ice pricking through my fingers and weighing my eyes, I forced my hands—still buried in the sigils of the shield—to do what he told me.

The pull of the shield stopped as the new sigil wove into it, but the air was still cold.

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