Ghost Wounds, Episode 20b

Lucan lunges at you, his ghostsilver sword a gleaming blur. But you’ve seen him fight before, and though he is the best swordsman you know, you remember his opening moves. You dodge past the thrust, spin, and snatch two of the clay flasks from his belt.

You squeeze your eyes shut and fling one of flasks to the floor.

Even with your eyes shut, you still feel the glare of white light through your eyelids. A chorus of pained groans rises from Croanna’s enslaved victims, and you hear Rycurgus bellowing enraged curses at the top of his lungs. You open your eyes, and see the mass of enslaved Imperial Guards, nobles, and magi shuffling around, blinking their eyes, and bumping into each other. Lucan stands a few feet away, sword raised in guard, eyes bloodshot and watering.

You leap past Lucan and run for Siona. The little girl remains motionless, her face blank, as you scoop her up into your arms.

Croanna shakes her head, and the soulsieve on her wrist flashes with green light. Then Siona’s own bracelet flashes, and she shudders, her hands flying to her eyes in sudden pain.

“Lucan Maraeus!” shouts Croanna, pointing at you. “Kill her! All of you! Anyone with a sword, kill her now!”

As one, hundreds of the Imperial Guards and the nobles move in your direction. Most of them were dazzled by the broken flask and can’t see you. But the flash didn’t reach the ones in the back, and they push towards you with deadly purpose. You turn towards the secret passage, but find it blocked by dozens of milling Imperial Guards. So are the doors to the courtyard.

With no other choice, you turn and run for the stairs at the other end of the great hall, the stairs that lead to the Tower of Corthios’s upper levels.

Croanna looks at you, the malicious glee gone from her eyes, replaced with a cold and deadly purpose. She pulls something that looks like a copper meat fork from her belt, albeit a meat fork carved with silver symbols, and points it at you. A blue spark flashes between the fork’s tines, growing brighter and brighter.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t look healthy

The spark at the end of the fork flares, and you fling yourself to the side just as a sheet of sizzling blue lightning erupts from the tines. It misses you, ripping into the wall, but a curling finger of lightning loops around your right leg. The shock knocks you into the stairwell, and you just barely keep your feet and your grip on Lucan’s daughter.

Then you spin and race up the spiral stairs as fast as you can.

Expect you can’t go very fast. Your right leg feels as if it was dipped in oil and set aflame, and it’s all you can do to keep your feet, much less run. You hear the clang of armor and swords in the stairwell as Lucan and the Guards pursue you, and you try to force yourself faster. There’s another secret passage on the Tower’s third level, one that connects to the Tower of Nicokator, and then to…

You stop.

An iron portcullis closes off the stairs to the Tower’s higher levels. It’s chained and locked shut, and if you had time, you could undo the lock, but…

The sounds of boots on the stairs grow closer.

There’s another door, one opening to the left, and with no other choice you flee through it.

You find yourself in a garden of bushes and low trees, perhaps three acres in size, jutting from the side of the Imperial Citadel. The Gardens of Corthios, you realize. It’s ringed by a low marble railing, with a thousand foot drop to the city of Malarae below.

And no other way out.

You’re trapped.

You manage to make it to a circle of low trees before your right leg folds up, and you fall to your knees with a gasp of pain, Siona besides you. With a cold certainty, you realize that your luck has run out at last. You’ve tricked and outwitted your enemies time and time again, but you have no more tricks left.

Perhaps you can find a way to conceal Siona before they kill you, to hide her, to keep Croanna from…

Siona is tugging at your shadow-cloak.

You look at the girl. Her face is a rictus of agony, as if she is struggling to speak. Instead she lifts her left arm, the soulsieve glittering upon her wrist. With her other hand she points at it, her fingers trembling.

The soulsieve.

Any injury done to Croanna is instead transferred to Siona. Could the connection be two-way? If you cut Siona’s throat or stabbed her in the heart, would the mortal wound be transferred to Croanna?

Was Croanna was stupid enough to leave herself open to such an attack? She certainly showed no hesitation about loosing lightning at you and Siona.

And assuming you could bring yourself to kill Lucan’s daughter. Though if you’re wrong, you probably won’t live long enough to curse yourself for it.

But as you stare at the soulsieve, another thought occurs to you, and your hand tightens around your ghostsilver dagger.

You could use the ghostsilver dagger to remove the soulsieve and put it upon your own wrist. And then you could cut your throat, or let Lucan cut you down. If Croanna built safeguards into the soulsieve, they might not work while the sorcerous device is upon the wrist of another…rendering Croanna vulnerable to her own soulsieve.

Or you could kill yourself for nothing.

You hear footsteps upon the stairs. Whatever you decide to do, you have to do it now.

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