We reached the other end of the alley, dodging the stampede of people who were hurrying to get away from something.
The ember burned.
The pain clenched.
The crowd melted away behind us as the Aetheric practitioner strode toward us, his golden mask gleaming in torchlight, his stride long and confident. Behind him, half a dozen human assassins.
Beside him, four humans—a woman and three men—eyes green and shining with Aether, and swords in hand.
Twenty-seven
“Catalaya and Jonas are already too much for one night. Why does he always have to ruin my drunk?”
“He shows up at night when people are vulnerable.”
“Because he’s a gods-damned coward.Luna,” I said again.
Unfortunately, no silvery girl or fluttering moth appeared in the darkness.
“Strongholders!” the practitioner called out to the market, holding up his arms. “I am the Luminae—the first in Carethia in years to carry that title. To own that power. I will challenge the evildoers who have controlled our country for far too long and bring prosperity. I will take down the Lys’Careths, and riches will be shared among the people.”
People stared at the man, the mask, the army he’d begun to build. A few people moved closer, despite the horror of the possessed, drawn by the promises of something better. Something more than just bare survival.
And the practitioner saw it. “Aetheric power will be spread, as well. All who join me will have power of their own.”
“He’s lying,” I called out, and stepped forward. “He isn’tgoing to give you Aetheric power. He’s going to control you using the Aetheric. He forces possessions, just like he did with Innis. Just like he tried to do with Tommen and Jonas. He is your enemy.”
There were gasps in the crowd now. Word would have spread of Tommen’s and Jonas’s deaths, but few would have seen the practitioner in the flesh.
“Release the humans,” I said.
“No.” The practitioner’s smile was thin. He moved forward, his army around him. “I have plans, and you won’t interrupt them.”
I couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but I could see the glimmer of befouled Aetheric green. That still bothered me—the color of his magic. And why would it show in his eyes?
“I was hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you,” he said. “But I didn’t think it would be as soon as this. You opened a doorway into the Aetheric.”
Not a discussion I wanted to have in public. “Of course I didn’t. I’m no practitioner.”
“But you have skills all the same. Are you using Anima to do it?”
“Using Anima?” I didn’t understand the question. “No. Let the humans go,” I repeated. “You have no right to control them.”
“No,” he said forcefully. “The fact that Icancontrol them gives me the right. I was gifted with the power, so of course I may use it as I will.”
That sounded like something the Emperor Eternal might say. But no Lys’Careth would hide his face behind a mask.
“Is that why you killed Jonas? Because you could?”
“He didn’t take to unification. But I still think you might matter, and I want to see. If you won’t come to me willingly,you’ll be taken.” His eyes flashed, and with that apparently silent order, his possessed men moved forward to grab me.
Wren pulled her windblade from her cloak, wrapped her hands around its handle, and kissed the tip of the blade for luck.
I pulled her smaller blade out of my cloak, although I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Dodge, I imagined, until something Aetheric occurred to me.
They reached us. Wren immediately engaged one of the possessed humans on the left. The possessed woman on the right swung her sword at me. I dropped, dug Wren’s blade into the side of her calf, then jumped to my feet again. Her scream was hard and jagged—like rocks being dragged across each other. It wasn’t a sound that belonged in this realm, and it had the intended effect. She dropped, and the Anima flew up and away.
“One down,” I said, and scrambled away, then nearly ran into a human assassin.
