Storm of the Seven Sins, page 13
“To the Sins with your plans,” I snarl, and rip my way free of him. Staying low to avoid the smoke, I belly-crawl in what I hope is the direction of the circle. I can hear Layla shrieking, and pray that Erdahl isn’t dead. But he has Layla and Riley to look out for him. Eva has me, and by the Virtues, I won’t fail her.
The smoke is heavy with anise, the scent Eva smelled so strongly in the clearing where the exiles and scouts lay. My limbs grow heavier the more I crawl, and I wonder whether it has sedative properties. The Mages are healers, after all. And Mei is clear evidence of the fact that they can knock people out when they choose.
Mei, who Eva was trying to kill right before everything went south.
I belly-crawl faster, calling for Eva again—out loud, this time. Concealing our location has dropped right off my list of priorities.
“Behind you,” a smoke-raw voice says. Ronan.
I turn my head with an effort, troubled by the way my hearing on the left side is still next to nil, and see him emerge through the smoke, belly-crawling like I am, his gun in his hand. “All right?” he says.
“Fine. Do you know what—”
He shakes his head. “Can you feel her?”
“No.” Fear makes my voice tight. “But surely they wouldn’t kill her. They need her.”
Ronan doesn’t reply.
Layla and Riley have stopped calling for Erdahl. Maybe they’ve shifted to wolf form and are using their superior sense of smell to track him. The alternative—that both of them are dead—is too grim to consider.
A black-furred form streaks past me, low to the ground. Sebastían’s panther, determined to retrieve his precious skúma mate. He can claim her all he wants if he can get her back. Because this yawning emptiness where she should be—
Pebbles scrape at my body, my nails ripping as I haul myself forward, fingers digging into the scraggly grass in an effort to anchor myself and stay conscious. The world feels like it’s tilting. Every inch feels like a mile. My brain is filled with fog as thick as the smoke.
Then I’m there, in the circle. The smoke is drifting in great clouds, but it dissipates enough for me to see the gray stones standing sentinel. They’re engraved with symbols: a loop that folds in upon itself, an eight-pointed star, a moon in all its phases.
The smoke descends again.
Standing up is an impossibility. Not only is the smoke thicker above, but when I try, my limbs won’t cooperate. I force myself to keep crawling, stopping only when I encounter a body.
I know right away that whoever it is isn’t alive. Their flesh is limp and cooling, with that finality that only death gives. I suck in air and choke as I run my hands over the body, praying with everything in me that it isn’t Eva. Or Erdahl.
The body is too big to be a child’s, and covered in dirt and grass. My hands tangle in their hair, searching for their face, but I can’t find it. I try again and again, each time more of an effort than the last, until I realize what the problem is: their head is on backward.
Mateo, then. I felt Eva’s satisfaction when she broke his neck.
With a snort of disgust, I move on, crawling along the perimeter to make sure I don’t backtrack. Halfway around, I hear a snuffling noise beside me: Sebastían, coming from the opposite direction. He pauses, and then I feel teeth grab my sleeve, tugging me.
Normally, I’d protest. But this is so far from normal, I don’t even have the vocabulary for it. So I let him pull me, until at last he lets go and sits down on his haunches with a chuffing sound.
He’s brought me to Karsten’s body. I see that much, before the smoke closes over the circle again. The two of us are alone here. Ronan has vanished. Eva, the Executor, and Erdahl are gone.
It’s getting harder to hold up my head. Straining, I grab hold of one of the stones and haul myself to my feet. And then I see Eva, on the other side of the circle, just yards away, in grabbing distance of the red-clad Mages, Mei right behind her. She’s on her hands and knees, her face covered with blood, crawling forward, trying to make it back to the stones.
Sebastían growls, a bone-rattling sound so threatening that the hair on the back of my neck rises. I let go of the stone and try to step out of the circle, toward Eva, just as he does the same. But it’s as if I’ve walked into an invisible wall. Both of us bounce off, and I scrape my palm on a stone, barely catching myself in a desperate effort to stay upright.
A fresh wave of smoke sweeps through the circle, and this close to the edge, I can tell it’s coming from the direction of the Mages’ compound. A compound we could’ve walked by a thousand times and never seen, because of their gift of concealment.
The smoke can pass through the circle. Eva’s blades could pass through, as well, even though the women were able to deflect them. So is it just living things that cannot?
Ronan and Kilían loom up beside me, their heads and shoulders emerging from the smoke. Kilían looks even worse off than I feel. His lips are pressed into a thin line, his jaw set. His good hand grips the top of the stone next to mine to support himself. “You—never listen—” he snaps at me, then dissolves into a fit of coughing.
I ignore him, turning toward Ronan, who’s weaving from side to side. It makes me dizzy, and I have to swallow back a wave of nausea. “Bullets,” I manage, gesturing at the red-clad women on the other side of the circle. “Shoot them.”
“We…” he manages, then doubles over, coughing. “We…could shoot…Eva. Could shoot…Erdahl…if he’s alive. If they…took him.”
“Worth,” I manage, gripping my stone with both hands to stay on my feet, “the risk.”
Ronan’s eyes slide to Kilían, who nods. To Sebastían, who’s growling steadily. To Mei, who stands behind Eva, watching us, a faint smile on her face.
“All right,” he says, and raises his gun.
Chapter 18
Eva
The air fills with a thick, cloying smoke as I’m blasted off my feet.
I fly through the air, crashing to the ground with a thud. There’s no way to tell where the explosion came from, who set it off. All I know is my ears are ringing, my eyes are stinging, and when I try to move, to get away, my limbs feel weighted with lead. I raise a hand to my cheek, and it comes away slick with blood.
“Eva!” Ari is screaming for me, terror clear in his mind-voice. I try to reach for him, but my mind is fuzzy, refusing to cooperate.
I breathe in again, and this time I taste a hint of the valerian and poppy mixture that Mei mixed with Adrien and Fade’s kaffi. Somehow, the Mages have laced whatever that explosive device was with a sedative. I can feel it creeping through my bloodstream, seeping into every cell, luring me into unconsciousness.
I have to find Ari and the rest before I pass out.
I crawl to the left, then to the right, then straight ahead, through the acrid smoke, trying to make my way out of the circle and into the woods. Every time I breathe, it feels like my lungs are on fire. My eyes burn as I fight to peer through the smoke, and tears run down my cheeks, making it even harder to see. But lifting my hand to wipe them away is a mistake: my hands are coated in grit and blood, and now my vision is compromised even further.
I can feel, though, and one thing I know for sure: Karsten’s body isn’t here. Neither is Mateo’s or Erdahl’s.
Of course, they could’ve been thrown out of the circle by the concussive force of the blast. But the stones would surely be here, even chipped or damaged. And I don’t feel them anywhere, no matter how far I crawl.
Which means only one thing.
I’m not in the circle anymore.
If that’s the case, then by the Sins, where am I? Back the way we came, in the direction of Vik? Or on the other side of the Circle, in the Mages’ territory?
I raise my head, straining to see. And then my eyes widen in horror.
To my left are the red-clad Mages, arms still outstretched, palms open. This close, I can hear them chanting under their breath, unaffected by the blast or the smoke. Maybe they placed themselves in a protective bubble; maybe they’ve swallowed an antidote. Either way, as I crawl forward on hands and knees, coughing so hard I feel like I might shake apart, they’re completely unaffected. As for Mei, I have no idea where she is. Nowhere good, that’s for sure.
I’d been harboring the hope that perhaps Ronan engineered the blast. That it was part of a plan he hadn’t confided, for fear that the Executor or the Mages would torture it out of me. After all, you can’t reveal what you don’t know. But at the sight of the Mages, unharmed and chanting, I know nothing could be further from the truth. They’ve done this, and now we’re at their mercy.
I cough and cough, struggling to breathe. Finally, the clouds of smoke clear for an instant and I see the stone circle, just a few feet in front of me. The smoke billows through it, too, confirming my worst fear: whatever this airborne weapon is, it’s not just targeting me. It’s intended for everyone in my party, the party the Mages assumed I would bring with me, no matter what I’d promised their virtueless raven.
Erdahl and the Executor are gone from the circle. In their place stands Ari, gripping one of the granite monoliths to keep himself upright. Next to him is Sebastían in panther form, nosing at the edge of the invisible barrier as if trying to make sense of it. I know the instant when both of them see me: Ari’s head comes up, Sebastían’s eyes widen, and then the two of them charge the barrier. But it’s no use. They ricochet off of it, and Ari nearly falls.
Seeing how weak he is redoubles my determination. Even if they can’t get in, maybe I can get out. But first I have to make it to the edge of the circle.
Behind me, the Mages’ chanting grows louder. It’s not a language I know, but the intensity in their voices is plain. Whatever’s happening is coming to its culmination. And I don’t want to be here when it does.
My breath rasps as I crawl forward, dragging myself through the grass. The smoke is so thick, I can barely see. But occasionally it clears, and the next time it does, Kilían and Ronan have joined Ari in the stone circle. I see Ari turn and say something to Ronan, see the leader of the Brotherhood’s guards pause, considering, before he raises his gun.
I throw myself flat on the ground as he fires. The bullet penetrates the barrier, whistling through the air overhead, and I wait for the scream of fury that will tell me one of the Mages has fallen.
But nothing comes. And a second later, the bullet thuds into the ground just inches from my face. It kicks up a spray of dirt that threatens to blind me.
The Mages have deflected it, just as they deflected the onslaught of my blades.
Sebastían roars, the sound muted, as if the invisible barrier between us is stuffed with cotton. On the heels of it, I hear Layla wail for Erdahl, sending a stab of fear through me. If he wasn’t dead when his head hit the stone, that explosion could have killed him. And what about the Executor? Did it injure him, even take his life? Or is he here, on this side of the circle, protected by the Mages?
Ari calls my name again, this time aloud. His voice sounds fractured, like his throat is full of shards of glass, and I force myself to crawl faster toward the invisible wall. Maybe if I’m close enough to him, we can work the same alchemy we did during the battle in the Great Hall. Maybe we will be enough to overpower the Mages and bring the barrier down.
On hands and knees, spitting out dirt, I finally make it to the edge of the stone circle. Struggling to my feet, I run my hands over the barrier, searching for a weakness, a way out. I find nothing. Ari throws his shoulder against the invisible wall that separates us again and again. Beside him, Sebastían does the same, clawing at the barrier. But it does no good.
Though it’s muffled, I can hear Kilían urging them to retreat, hear Ari cursing his name in language more colorful than any I’ve heard him use. He stabs at the barrier, hacks at it. But it does no good. And the more he tries, the less I can hear what he’s saying both inside my head and out, as if someone’s got hold of a volume knob for his voice and is turning it down bit by bit. It’s getting harder for me to focus. Harder for me to think, as if my brain as well as my limbs are filling with molasses.
In desperation, Ari presses his hands flat to the barrier, as if trying to reach through and touch me. On the other side, I do the same. Our palms mirror each other, separated by inches and impossibility. I can tell he’s trying to talk to me mind-to-mind, can feel an insistent pressure as he tries again and again. But his words are unintelligible, and when I do the same, his brows knit as he fights to make out what I’m trying to say.
A hand closes on my bicep. Mei.
I fight her, struggling to get away, but I can’t twist free. All of my gifts, my abilities, are useless against that insidious smoke. I can feel my strength draining away.
Go, I mouth to Ari. Save yourself. But he shakes his head, mouthing something back to me. I narrow my eyes, clinging to consciousness, and finally make it out: I’m not leaving you.
Dimly, I hear Mei say, “So romantic, Eva. And yet so hopeless.”
Then a needle sinks deep into my arm, Ari’s face fades into the murk, and I plunge into unrelenting darkness.
Chapter 19
Ari
I wake in the stone circle, my last memory of Mei plunging that sins-cursed needle into Eva’s arm. And me, helpless to aid her.
Kilían, Ronan, and Sebastían stir as I struggle to my knees, then to my feet. The smoke has dissipated, just the remnants of it riding the air, and the stone monoliths stand, unaffected by the explosion. Outside the circle, all is empty, quiet. The red-clad Mages have vanished. So has the Executor. And Eva.
Tentatively, I extend a hand between the stones. When the air offers no resistance, I stride through, shouting her name. She doesn’t answer me. I can’t feel her through the bond.
I’ve failed her.
Movement catches my eye, and my heart leaps. But it’s only Layla and Riley, emerging from between the trees in human form. Behind them come Zion and Noe, their familiars. I half-expect them to be carrying Erdahl’s corpse, but their arms are empty.
“They took him,” Layla says when she reaches me. “Alive or dead, I don’t know. I can’t pick up his scent. That smoke…it’s made all of us nose-blind. All I know is, he’s gone. That bottom-crawler of an Executor isn’t here, either.”
The agony in her tone is palpable. Riley puts his hands on her shoulders in support, but she slips from his grip. “Where is Eva?”
It takes everything in me not to scream that I told them this would happen. That I warned them this was a trap, and they were so determined to save their son that they’ve likely doomed him to his death. Now Eva’s missing, into the bargain. But that won’t help, so all I say instead is, “I don’t know.” It sounds as bleak as I feel.
Sebastían, Ilsa, Ronan, and Kilían join us beneath the trees, wearing matching grim expressions. Sebastían, thank the Virtues, has also somehow located his pants. Maybe Ilsa brought them to him, like the well-trained little familiar she is.
“Where the hell have they gone?” I say. “What are we going to do?”
Ronan gestures at the house-like structures in the trees. “First, we make sure those are empty. If they are, then we regroup and make a new plan.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?” My voice rises. “Those Mages were able to conceal the existence of this entire place from us, when we were standing right next to it. They trapped us in that cursed circle. Erdahl might be dead. Eva’s drugged and missing. The Executor’s still at large. And all you have to say is, we need to regroup and make a new plan?”
“Easy, Westergaard,” Kilían cautions, and I round on him, furious.
“Why? As you might recall, I was against this idiotic idea to begin with. But oh no, everyone insisted it was the right thing to do. And now they’ve taken Eva!”
“Can you feel her?” Sebastían says. “Through the bond?”
Miserable, I shake my head. “No. It doesn’t feel…broken. She’s just not at the other end of it, if that makes sense. It feels different from when she’s shut it down on purpose.” I try not to think of the last time she did this, when I heard Sebastían whisper Carina to her. Of what else might have happened between them. That won’t help me find her.
“It feels like…” I run a hand through my hair, trying to describe it, to put words to something I can only see with my mind’s eye. “Like the bond is a rope that connects us, and she’s dropped the other end. Or maybe like it’s a tunnel, and normally I can call and she’ll hear me, but now it’s just an empty echo chamber. Maybe both.”
“She’s not dead, then,” Ilsa says, speaking up for the first time. “You’d know. As a familiar, when your skúma dies…it’s a terrible thing. Believe me, you’d feel it.” Her gaze skitters toward Sebastían, as if she’s trying to reassure herself that he’s still there.
“What about you?” Ronan says to the Panther of the West. “Not to be indelicate, but…have you bonded with her?”
Sebastían’s cheeks redden, but he holds Ronan’s gaze, very carefully not looking at me. “Not in the way you mean, no. I named her beast, but…that’s all.”
Riley’s eyebrows rise. “Really. So then, you should be able to sense her panther, if she’s close by.”
I hate not understanding the protocols of this strange world in which I find myself, not knowing what it means that Sebastían named Eva’s panther. But in this instance, if it can help him find her, I’m all for it.
To my chagrin, though, he shakes his head. “I’ve tried. I’ve been calling for her since I woke up. But…nothing.”
“Damn it,” Ronan says. “This is the worst possible—”
Another thought occurs to me then. “Do you think they could be here, watching us, but invisible? That Eva’s still here, and we just can’t reach her?”
