Ghost Wounds – a third terminal episode / Episode 21c

“Hold still,” you tell Siona, and press the ghostsilver dagger into the soulsieve. The dagger grows hot beneath your fingers, the soulsieve writhes like an insect, and it falls from Siona’s wrist.

And then you notice on Siona’s wrist an intricate, spiraling tattoo, once hidden by the platinum bracelet. The tattoo is a sigil of sorcerous warding and nullification, similar to the one tattooed on Moresti’s face. It would have indeed made Croanna’s connection with Siona one-way only.

But you have no such tattoo.

You take a deep breath, pick up soulsieve, and press it against your left wrist.

The thing feels warm and unclean against your skin, and wraps itself around your wrist like a giant metal worm. You grit your teeth in pain as you feel its claws sink into your flesh. At once your head begins to throb with pain, and you feel hot, feverish, as if the soulsieve is pumping poison into your veins. Your skin crawls and tingles in reaction to the potent sorcerous power gathered in the bracelet.

Siona stares at you, gray eyes full of fear.

“If you live through this,” you say, “tell your father I love him.”

You get to your feet, limp away from the trees, and head into the open area of the Gardens of Corthios. Hundreds of Imperial Guards line the wall and the railing, their eyes blank. The Emperor, his high magistrates, and perhaps fifty of the most powerful lords in the Empire watch you with the same blank expression. Croanna stands before them, that lightning rod in her hand, Lucan at her side.

You keep your left arm pressed to your side, hidden beneath your shadow-cloak.

“Is that it, Countess?” says Croanna. “No more running? No more games?”

You say nothing, shivering as the fever worsens.

“Such a powerful audience for this little drama of mine,” says Croanna, gesturing at the Emperor and the nobles, her smile returning. “This isn’t quite as good as making you kill Lucan’s daughter in front of him…but, ah, it is appropriate nonetheless. Lucan Maraeus.” Her smile widens. “Kill her now.”

Lucan glides forward, ghostsilver sword coming up.

“I’m sorry,” you hear yourself say, “that I made you do this.”

Lucan moves in a blur, and his sword plunges through your leather armor and buries itself in your chest.

You’ve stabbed quite a few people in the heart yourself, and you’ve always wondered what it would feel like.

Not pleasant, as it turns out.

Lucan kicks you off his sword and you fall backwards, Croanna’s mocking laughter filling your ears.

The last thing you see before darkness swallows you is the anguish in Lucan’s face.

###

You are standing before floor-to-ceiling windows with a grand view of a rippling blue sea. You turn, see heavy shelves laden with books and scrolls. The air smells of paper and dust, and you hear the crash of the waves against the shore.

Your father’s library.

He stands by his desk. Sebastian Amalas has been dead eighteen years now, but he looks just as you remember – the same rumpled clothes, the same slightly distracted expression.

He smiles at you.

“My clever daughter,” he says. “Not quite yet.”

You hear a tearing sound, and suddenly the world dissolves in green fire.

###

Breath explodes into your lungs, pain filling your chest as your heart starts beating again. Your eyes swim into focus, and you see the night sky overhead, lightening with the approaching dawn. You feel terrible, but your heart is beating, breath is filling your lungs, and you feel the blood thundering in your temples.

Lucan stabbed you through the heart…but you’re still alive.

You sit up, stand. There’s a ragged hole in the front and back of your armor, but the skin beneath it is smooth and unmarked.

Lucan is standing over you, face blank, but his eyes widen in astonishment.

“Now, my dear Emperor Alexius,” says Croanna, her back to you. “You will write additional messages, summoning the nobles to you one by one, and they’ll join our…”

She turns, frowning, and sees you.

Her green eyes grow enormous, and you see confusion on her face, and a hint of fear.

“What?” she says. “That’s impossible. That’s utterly impossible. I saw you die. I saw…”

Her eyes shift to your left wrist, and the sudden horrified realization floods her face.

Croanna claws at the soulsieve on her arm, but it’s too late. She stiffens with a scream of pain, the front of her leather vest darkening with blood. She claws at the air, staggers, and falls upon her back.

You limp towards her, prying the soulsieve off your wrist. Croanna stares up at you, breathing hard, face going gray.

“You were wrong about me, you know,” you say. “I was too clever for your own good.”

Then you bury the ghostsilver dagger to its hilt in her throat.

And as Croanna dies, her rings and bracelets start to…melt, bursting into harsh green and blue flames. You jump back, your skin crawling as the arcane power in her jewelry releases in burst of sparks and flame. A sudden sigh goes through the assembled Guards and nobles, and you realize that whatever piece of jewelry controlled the mindreavers just melted. Though the Guards and nobles remain motionless – you’ll probably have to cut the mindreavers off their wrists, one by one.

Siona walks over, staring at Croanna’s smoldering corpse.

Lucan first, you decide. His ghostsilver sword can also cut off the mindreavers. And you so very, very badly want to tell him that…

Siona’s eyes get wide.

“No!” she screams.

You turn, just in time to see Rycurgus materialize behind you.

You just manage to avoid the thrust that would have taken your throat, yanking a throwing knife from your belt. Then Rycurgus goes on the attack, his sword and dagger leading, and you can barely hold him off. He’s stronger than you, and you are exhausted and in pain and he is not. He drives you back until your hips slam into the marble railing at the edge of the Gardens. His sword and dagger close in an X around your throat, and he pushes you back, until you’re certain you will lose your balance and tumble over the edge.

He smirks.

“Well, Countess,” he says, his voice a purr of satisfaction. “Impressed with me yet?”

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