Page 23 of Light Up the Night

Chapter Eight

Channel This

Chalice

The leakers were set. The soldiers sprinkled them as far down the path as they dared last night. Today, through the spy glass, I now sat watching the troops beyond the bend. They were camped on the mountain side. Tented, some slumped near trees. It was hard to really gauge the damage, but it seemed to have stalled things for now.

I passed the tool to Fish and smoothed my hair. The wind wasn’t too bad up here, but behind us, it was tossing the sea around.

“Do not look so downtrodden, my Queen,” Fish beseeched. “All but three buffalo returned. The meat will be tough, but edible. It will sustain for a time.”

“For a time,” I clipped, much harsher than I intended to. I rubbed the back of his blond head and gave an apologetic smile before starting off for the Great Hall. Before I could even open the door, Ender burst out. A long thin scroll was shoved a hair away from my nose. I backed up like I’d walked into a spider web, sending the scroll to the wind as I did so. He caught it with a back-handed grab and openly scowled at me.

I couldn’t help it, I giggled. Everything was neck high with stress and here we were assaulting each other with a piece of hemp paper.

“What in the name of the Fated Few…” I finally managed, only to have the bunched-up scroll offered back toward me.

“Chalice!” Keifer called in a tone that reeked of panic. It chilled me to the bone and silenced Ender and I both. “You need to get in here. I… You just have to hear this.”

He made a low strangled, throaty sound and gestured back inside. We followed him down the hallway, watching on as he compulsively rubbed the same patch of hair.

“You’re going to be bald before we make it there! What’s the meaning of this?” I pressed.

He led us to the office, swinging the door wide so we could see the gentlemen within. King Ryver was secured to the chair and Bard squatted nearby. He turned and stared at us like we had interrupted, so I bid the men to file in and quietly closed the door behind us.

“Are you finished?” King Ryver asked. He threw his head back, clearing his face of the long golden hair. His blue eyes flashed with amusement and settled directly on me.

“Finished? I didn’t know we had started. My people have still seen neither hide nor hair of your Savage woman,” I lied.

“She’s here,” he confidently assured. “That’s why your people are starving. It gives you a chance to be reasonable before she washes you away like ants on the side of a well.”

“I’m not a stain. No one can wash me away. I’ve weathered more than your Queen could ever belly to dream of. Don’t talk to me about washed away.” I shook my head and stared at the smiling prisoner, baffled somewhat by his arrogance. He would have been tortured and killed already by my predecessor.

“The weather is what I’m talking about. She is a channeless. You stand no chance against her magic,” he confidently crowed.

“Magic!” I blurted in a burst of laughter. “Fuck me. I know -all about magic.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head again, settling it only so that I could stare at the wall.

I knew about magic. I knew about illusions. I knew about men like him.

The laughter trickled from me. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t even human. The sound belonged to the darkness. It crawled from the deranged little piece of my inner playground that I had reserved for Atticus’ fuckery alone. A place I thought I had contained and smothered, but here it was, rearing its head and reminding me that it had been there all along.

“Fucking magic.” I started toward him, and Ender reached for me. I saw the gesture from my peripheral, along with Keif’s quick effort to still it. Each breath I tried to claim and calm myself with burned my nose and seemed to cement in my chest.

His throat was soft. Warm. It pulsed beneath my fingers while images of me playing with Ender’s life flashed before me.

“Magik made me bathe in a murdered man’s blood,” I recalled, while Ender’s fingers bid against the back of my arm. I jerked free from the sensation and the memory of me being restrained beneath that thick crimson pool. “In the name of magik… I fed snake venom to a man that I loved more than myself at the time.”

The fog of memory cleared until it was only Ryver’s chiseled jaw and the bewilderment in his baby blue eyes that peered back at me. “The sea is upset. The fog is a shame… and that is the illusion your Queen will couple with a tale of her power. Do not be disillusioned, sweet boy.”

Something behind those pale orbs shattered. It startled me. I hadn’t said anything crippling. I didn’t understand it, until I reflected on what I had said.

“You knew an Atticus, too…” I mused.

“Here,” Ender snapped, thrusting the scroll into my hands. His jaw was set, and he was doing his damnedest to keep his eyes gentle, but they kept tightening around the corners. He jerked his head away and started for the door. Fuck! Why hadn’t I just let him be.

“Ender,” I called, when he opened the door.

---