The Dreaming Hunt Read online

  The White Heart was known for dabbling in politics, which suited her purposes, as well. And it had the added benefit of making her untouchable by those who would have co-opted her power for their own ends. The downside was that she nominally served the Kothite Empire, which she despised. It was an uncomfortable arrangement at best. But life was turning out to be fraught with arrangements that left her less than thrilled.

  “Get comfortable,” the high matriarch instructed her, Will, and Rosana. “This may take a while.”

  Will sat on a narrow stool a Royal Order of the Sun guardian brought forward. Rosana perched beside him on another. On a small table between her and the high matriarch, Raina carefully laid out the magical items whose energies would be drained to help fuel the ritual.

  “What’s all that?” Will demanded suspiciously.

  Raina answered, “Distilled essencia. Etherium manacles. Spinneret of a veilweaver, threads of an aethercloak. And of course you know this one: sap of an ancient bloodthorn.” She gestured at a small glass tube of liquid, so dark a red it looked nearly black.

  The high matriarch pulled Aurelius’s scroll tube out of her sleeve, carefully unrolled an age-stained parchment scroll upon the tiny table, and weighted down its corners with the small stones. Raina read the first few lines and was impressed. It described how to cast a nature circle from an extremely rare form of magic.

  Lenora glanced at her. “Shall we begin?”

  Raina was not clear on why the nature circle was necessary. She could see logic in using spirit and curse circles. Rosana could cast both types of magic, and as such, they would be intrinsic to her spirit. The time and glamour circles had more to do with powering the ritual than with specifically helping fix Rosana. But nature? Did it matter to the gypsy somehow? Or was that a nod to the Bloodroot spirit within Will?

  One by one, Lenora activated the circles, blending their energies into a dome of magic encompassing all four of them. It would serve to contain the otherwise wild and uncontrollable high magics.

  “Once I draw forth the magic from the items on the table, I will begin adding my own magical energies to it. That is when you will start adding your magic to the ritual, Raina.”

  “Yes, High Matriarch,” Raina murmured dutifully, privately amused. As if she didn’t know how this worked. She’d been casting high magic since she was a child. She might only be sixteen, but her home in Tyrel seemed a lifetime away. She missed them, her bossy older sister, her little brothers and father, even her domineering mother, who had ultimately driven her to run away from home.

  A prickle of energy passed over her skin as the spirit circle activated, adding its energies to the shell around them. Will glanced over at her, and she smiled reassuringly at him. He returned the smile, but the expression did not reach his eyes. She saw his fingers squeeze Rosana’s.

  She secretly envied them their young love. It had always been her fondest wish to marry and have a family, but joining the White Heart had pretty much made that impossible. Her childhood sweetheart was still in Tyrel, but she was expected to go wherever the Heart sent her, healing whenever and wherever her skill was needed. It would be hard to settle and have a family while roaming the width and breadth of a continent the size of Haelos.

  “Let the magic flow into you as it builds, Will,” Lenora murmured.

  He looked as if he sincerely tried to do so. But all of a sudden, the ritual magics were twisting and writhing wildly, whipping around all of them like the tails of angry cats. Not all the circles were activated yet! Would the existing circle magics be enough to contain whatever was going wrong inside them?

  Will clawed at the disk upon his chest with his fingernails, even though he knew full well that he could not pry it off his skin. “Bloodroot,” he gasped. “Stop this ritual.”

  “We risk a backlash if we stop it now,” Rosana replied nervously.

  “He doesn’t want the spirit shard removed. He’s fighting it,” Will panted, obviously in searing pain. “This isn’t right.”

  “Heal him,” Lenora ordered Raina, her concentration fully upon the magics she was trying and failing to corral and calm.

  It was too dangerous to use common magic inside a shell of ritual magic, so Raina made do with spreading a healing salve on Will’s chest just where the disk attached, its red scars streaking outward from the disk more angrily than usual.

  Understanding broke over her as rage flowed out of the disk and into her fingertips as bright and strong as the magics flailing around their heads. “Bloodroot does not wish for this ritual to continue. He wants the shard of Rosana’s spirit to stay where it is.”

  “I would have my healer whole,” Lenora snapped.

  She didn’t think Bloodroot gave a care for Rosana’s wholeness or for the high matriarch’s desires, which meant this ritual was doomed to failure before it barely got started. All that remained to be seen now was how bad the backlash would be.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Gregor Beltane, landsgrave of Lochnar, huddled on the hard bench in the prow of the rowboat as two of his most trusted men rowed him across the great lake to the island that marked the center of his land holdings. The oars dipped into the black water silently with only thin trickles of dripping water marking their rhythmic lifts from the water.

  A muted rumble of thunder in the west announced that more rain would be forthcoming momentarily.

  It had been a while since he’d made this secret journey. With Anton Constantine ousted and replaced by Lady Syreena Wingblade, he’d been forced to stay in Dupree for weeks to get a read on the new political environment of the colony.

  This was a good night to check on the hidden tower. The miserable weather assured that no one would be abroad and spot him sneaking off to the island where the White Tower was hidden. It had been painstakingly smuggled here stone by surreptitious stone hidden in the ballast loads of Black Ships from the continent of Koth far across the Abyssmal Sea and reassembled here on the island with utmost care. The tower had been magically camouflaged behind trees and foliage with just as painstaking care.

  He wondered sometimes who on Koth dared work against the Empire to send the tower here. Those nameless souls must have been very brave, indeed, to suborn the Emperor under his very nose.

  Gregor had never been inside the tower, but that was not his purpose as Keeper of the Tower, a secret position that had passed down through his gypsy family for generations. His duty was to safeguard it until its ancient magics were finally released. Sometimes, he dared to wish he knew when that day would be and what the magics would actually do. On other days, he wished himself well clear of anything that might be perceived as a threat to His Resplendent Majesty, Emperor Maximillian the Third, the ageless and immortal ruler of the Eternal Empire of Koth.

  The prow of the rowboat thudded against the dock jutting out into the lake. He stood, caught his balance, and jumped onto the dock. He snagged the rope one of his men tossed him and tied off the line efficiently as the first drops of rain began to splat against his face.

  The soldiers secured the oars and prepared to disembark while he strode ashore, his boots breaking through the crust of wet sand and sinking heavily into the beach. Gads, it was dark tonight. No hint of moon or starlight alleviated the impenetrable blanket of black overhead. He turned around to tell his men to bring torches and was just in time to glimpse a pair of dark forms rising silently out of the lake on either side of the dinghy. They grabbed his men from behind—covering their mouths in the process—and dragged them over the side of the rowboat and into the water. So quickly and silently was the attack executed that he barely heard a splash as his men slipped below the surface of the lake.

  Had he not been looking directly at the stealthy attack when it happened, he’d have had no idea where his men disappeared to. As it was, he lunged forward to the edge of the lake, drawing his sword as he went. A brief gout of bubbles was the only sign of his men’s passage.

  Frustrated, he pulled up a
t the edge of the lake. He was not skilled in underwater combat nor did he have a potion in his pouch for breathing underwater. Blind and unable to breathe, he would be less than useless at attempting a rescue of his men. Who had the ambushers been? And why had they taken his men?

  “Show yourselves, cowards!” he bellowed in futile fury.

  This time, four black shadows rose from the thigh-deep water. The texture of scaled skin caught his eye. Gills slanted on their necks. Burly bodies were silhouetted darkly. Merr. Gregor swore under his breath. What on Urth were the mostly water-dwelling humanoids doing attacking him and his men? There had never been any Merr in this lake. The local lizardman clan claimed this water, and the two races were bitter rivals.

  The first rule of combat against water dwellers was to force them onto dry land. He backed up the shore toward the thick wall of trees and shrubs that hid the tower. If the Merr planned to kill him, they would have to do it on his turf.

  He spotted two warriors with distinctive coral blades gleaming pale in the darkness. A third had the glowing hands of a caster, and the fourth was just stripping off a thin pair of gloves. A poisoner, then. Certain Merr developed skills in delivering alchemical poisons by touch, and he’d heard an entire school of dueling existed among Merr poisoners.

  The caster opened up with a curse spell intended to make him more vulnerable to weapons damage. These Merr must have mistaken him for human. Gypsies who served the Empire were rare but not entirely unheard of. He had no great love for Maximillian, but his position within the Empire allowed him to look out for his fellow gypsies.

  As the curse magic struck him, he called upon his gypsy blood to resist it. The flash of magic fizzled around him without ever touching him.

  “Gah,” the caster growled. He called out something to his cronies in gurgling syllables.

  Gregor turned and sprinted for the tower and its defenses. He leaped over a patch of warded ground and skidded to a halt on the far side facing his foes.

  The two warriors charged after him, and the first one hit the glyph. An explosion of heat slammed into Gregor, but the Merr warrior fell to the ground, burned into a blackened husk. Nasty business, incineration glyphs.

  The second Merr warrior roared a battle cry and charged past his fallen comrade, coral sword raised.

  Ever an efficient man, Gregor wasted no time with fancy footwork. He merely dodged the first swing of the deadly blade by ducking low. As soon as the sword whooshed overhead, he lunged in low and fast with his off hand, burying his dagger in the creature’s side. He’d expected the toughness of the scaled hide and put all his weight behind the blow. He threw up his sword and caught the coral blade on its downswing with his own steel, forcing both weapons high overhead as he twisted his dagger, gutting the Merr.

  The coral blade fell away, and he slammed his sword down onto the back of the creature’s neck. The scales there were as tough as armor, however, and his blade bounced ineffectually. He yanked his dagger free and jumped back. The Merr, staggering, brandished his sword chest high in an erratic weaving pattern.

  Using an underhanded swing that bypassed the wavering coral blade, Gregor’s sword gathered speed and force, culminating in a thrust to the throat with all his weight behind it. The tip of his sword sank through six inches of meat, stopping only when it fetched up hard against the creature’s spine.

  Magic crackled against Gregor’s back, but he recognized the vibration of curse magic and resisted it yet again.

  The impaled Merr went limp, abruptly reduced to dead meat upon his blade.

  Another blast of magic slammed into Gregor’s back, this time high-level curse magic designed to cause debilitating pain and render him unable to defend himself. He resisted the spell once more, but he could not resist the caster’s magic indefinitely. He turned and called magic of his own to hand. In quick blasts, he threw three silencing spells at the caster in case the creature had active shields of his own against magic.

  The caster appeared silenced for the moment, but Gregor suspected his foe would remedy that momentarily. The poisoner was moving off to one side, flanking Gregor. Perfect. Gregor slid left, forcing the poisoner even farther to the right. One more step.…

  Poof.

  A glyph exploded that would trap the poisoner’s foot in place, preventing him from further movement, which would give Gregor the breathing space he needed to deal with the blasted caster. He started to turn toward the magic user when, out of the corner of his eye, he spied the poisoner pulling out a small wooden box and withdrawing a vial. Gregor hesitated. Mayhap he should jump the poisoner first while the caster was silenced.

  The poisoner pulled some sort of spiny quill from his belt and dipped it in the vial. He took a step with his one free foot to throw the quill and sprang the second half of the trap. A wooden framework dropped down from its hiding place in the tree branches above, dozens of razor-sharp blades lashed to it. The weight of the frame and the razors would slice anyone beneath them into tiny strips, killing him or her instantly.

  Gregor gaped as the poisoner, in his last, desperate instant of life, launched the quill at him. It was an innocuous little thing, barely longer than his hand and not even a finger’s width in diameter. It grazed his neck, barely scratching it.

  But then the poison coating it struck with the force of a great hammer. He gasped at the power of it, even as he recognized the curse-based flavor of it. He threw everything he had into resisting the poison as he staggered backward, his equilibrium wrecked. The trees spun around him and the island tilted beneath his feet. He stumbled and fetched up hard against something cold. Stone.

  Dying. He was dying.

  Fight the poison.

  Slipping.

  The door beneath his cheek felt cool. Soothing. As if the White Tower stroked his skin gently.

  He exhaled with one last dying rattle of life expelled.

  In that suspended instant between life and death, the tower door gave way, opening of its own volition, and he tumbled forward. Into blackness. Into nothing.

  * * *

  Rosana watched fearfully as Lenora doggedly erected the fifth and final ritual circle, this one created of nature magics. For an instant, a separate dome of green magic formed just over the green rope on the floor, and then its energy flowed into the larger shell, blending with the whole.

  Rosana started to breathe a sigh of relief, but it turned into a gasp of pain as a spot over her left collarbone suddenly felt as if it had been stabbed. The ritual circle, now showing hints of green, stabilized overhead. But Lenora had no sooner mopped the sweat off her brow, and Raina had no sooner thrown a relieved glance in Will’s direction than faint streaks of dark red began to run through the magic, almost like … veins.

  She’d known this ritual was a bad idea, no matter how dangerous Anton might be and no matter how badly they needed Will and her at full strength before they headed out again on their quest.

  “What is it?” Will asked urgently, staring fearfully at the encroaching streaks. Not what but who, and whoever they were, her blood sang darkly in recognition of them.

  Lenora was staring at Rosana as if she had grown a second head.

  And that was when she noticed that the streaks of red in the circle’s magic were starting to align. And they formed a starburst pattern with every streak pointing directly at her gypsy heart.

  “No, no, no,” Lenora muttered. “More energy, Raina. Those … things … are eating the circle.”

  As Raina complied, the red streaks thickened and turned a brighter shade of red. If anything, adding magic to the ritual seemed to empower the invading veins of old magic even more.

  Aurelius jumped to his feet, his entire body glowing as if he prepared to perform some great magic.

  “No, Aurelius,” Lenora bit out. “Do not try to absorb it.”

  “What is it?” the solinari demanded.

  Lenora responded slowly, her voice questioning, “Rosana? Do you know?”

  She swore under
her breath. Recognition vibrated deep in her bones, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had never actually seen such a thing before. Why couldn’t her life go back to boring and conventional like it had been before she was attacked by orcs and rescued by Will Cobb on a dark road last spring? She’d never wanted anything to do with strange magics and tree lords and sleeping kings in the first place. For all she knew, Will and Raina had hallucinated their whole encounter with the Sleeping King, anyway.

  Waking the king was not her quest, and it should not be theirs, either. Let powerful people like Guildmaster Aurelius and High Matriarch Lenora chase after ancient hearth tales if they so choose. But she and Will had their entire lives in front of them. If he would but stop chasing the whole crazy idea of waking up some long-dead king, the two of them could settle down, handfast or even marry, and start a family.

  One of the streaks separated itself from the dome of magic and slashed at her. She threw up her forearm and felt a searing cut across her arm. “Magic,” she gasped. “That felt like magic.”

  “What kind of magic?” Lenora demanded urgently as more streaks began reaching down out of the arcing shell of the ritual circle toward her. Only her.

  Will tried to jump in front of her as one of the tendrils whipped across her face, leaving a thin, burning line of pain behind. Reluctantly, she pushed him back and faced the waving ropes of magic herself. Like it or not, no one else in the circle had what it took to tame this attack.

  She felt the power of the angry streaks pulsing through her veins like liquid fire. It was hot. Vibrant. Seductive. Without knowing why she did it, but unable to fight the compulsion, she fumbled at her belt for the small knife she used to trim herbs and cut lengths of bandage. Will lurched to stop her, but before he could grab her wrist, she slashed the inside of her forearm with the sharp little blade. She held her dripping arm over the red rope defining the curse circle on the floor and let her blood run onto the curse signs painted onto the circle. Her blood sizzled as it hit, evaporating instantly and unnaturally. If she was not mistaken, the streaks overhead retreated slightly.