Hands Like Secrets, page 2
“You are welcome to pretend this isn’t a fight to the death.” Rafel’s voice hardens. “But don’t expect me to share that delusion.”
He pivot-steps into Ribbon in the Air, sending a concussive shockwave through the Temple. I duck instinctively but look up again in confusion. The blast sends oil lamps and prayer glasses smashing against walls, pews...and little else. Most of the lamps drown in their own fuel as they fall.
Ribbon is one of those forms my professors jokingly call a “light show”; a one-tier, all glim and little mox. Inefficient. Why waste the energy? If he’d hoped to start a proper fire, higher-tier forms existed for that. And if he’d simply wanted to darken the room, why light all the lamps in the first place?
Even the Priestess frowns, standing tense like she expects a follow-up attack.
An oil-spattered tapestry, unbalanced by the wave, breaks free and falls with a muffled thump. The resulting gust flares the little leftover fires and draws the Priestess’ eye for a critical moment.
Faster than even my enhanced gaze can follow, Rafel leaps forward and spins into a new dance. Blue and orange flames ignite the air around him, blasting my face with heat, and the Priestess only barely dodges away. The move brings the Cowl parallel with my hiding place.
Ribbon was a feint and a distraction, I realize. And I think I know why he chose Isasar’s sanctuary for this showdown; he knows she cares what happens to it.
Hot fury flickers in the Priestess’ eyes, dangerous for a Mantle.
Our professors drill this principle into us time and again: emotion and sattva qi, a Silver Mantle’s power, cannot work together. Sattva requires a cool, collected mind to flow.
With a chill, I wonder if this Cowl assassin knows about sattva’s weakness. Is killing a student and vandalizing the Temple merely theater to keep the Priestess off-balance? Or is it part of an overall plot to make her too angry to fight?
Our High Priestess is not so easily manipulated, however. She breathes in and lifts her hands, settling into high guard. Rafel’s mouth twitches as though he’d smile, but the Priestess strikes with such speed that the smile never manifests. I identify Snake Strike, a Bind-strand hex designed to lock an opponent’s limbs together.
Caught flat-footed, with no time to dodge, he flings arms in front of his chest and catches the hex with unrefined Push energy and an audible grunt. The Priestess rotates her wrists; in doing so, she tightens the warp and, therefore, the pressure of the form.
I hold my breath.
Snake will paralyze his body if it engulfs him, and then she can further incapacitate him at her leisure—or execute him on the spot, I suppose. This raider is strong, incredibly so, but surely even he can’t stand against such a direct onslaught for long.
His arms begin to bend toward his contorted face.
“You cannot win this, Cowl.” The Priestess’ cold face is as emotionless as the power arcing from her hands. “Surrender while you still have your life.”
Rafel bares his teeth.
“Watch me win,” he growls.
He throws his body backward. The weave, deprived of a direct target, untwists in a messy spiral and dissipates. He turns his momentum into a back handspring, settling lightly on his feet before the energy has fully dispersed. My heart skips at the agile ease of his movements.
“I admit that was a new one for me.” He stalks forward, grinning defiance. “But what if you added a little...edge?”
My eyebrows climb as he dances his own flawless version of Snake Strike, like he’d known the steps all along. Orange Spark and blue Flow twine around his hands, melding to white as the pattern settles. But he flares and curls his fingers instead of snapping his wrists at the end, which sends a red Root twist wefting along the form’s central warp.
The High Priestess reverse-turns, evading instead of blocking as he had, but she underestimates the addition. She cries out as razor-edged energy barbs shred her robe sleeves, and the skin underneath.
I gape in disbelief.
Not only did he perfectly mimic a strange form; he also changed it. Re-weaving an existing form to do something else is nearly impossible! For the first time, I seriously consider the possibility of the Priestess losing this fight.
I should get Lars and bring him here, no matter what she said about facing this alone.
But right now, both the Priestess and the Cowl have a clear view of every exit. One of them would surely spot me through my flimsy, one-tier glamour, and with both on high mental alert, I don’t dare draw the qi I’d need to weave a stronger one.
Sick with anxiety, I hunker down to await an escape opportunity and pray it doesn’t come too late.
The Priestess falls back into a crouch, flexing her arms. They do not shake, but in the short time it takes the Heal ward to re-knit her skin, her ragged sleeves turn an alarming shade of crimson.
“That was un-chivalrous even for you, gila,” she says.
He raises an eyebrow and gestures at his Cowl, as if to say, “What did you expect?”
The High Priestess rakes him with an imperious gaze, but he only lifts his hands again.
“Not to put the pressure on, your Ladyship.” His dark sunshine voice practically drips with amusement or contempt...it’s difficult to tell. “But if you want to finish me before your precious Temple burns down, you need to step it up.”
The Priestess bares her teeth.
What follows makes the first trading of blows seem almost cordial.
Spark, Flow, Push, Bind, even a few Root and Void weaves crackle between Mantle and Cowl as they dance form after form. River Cuts the Bank meets Striper Rushes Down the Mountain. Hands Like Clouds meets a Spark and Void counter from Rafel I don’t recognize. The Priestess’ Courtier Taps His Fan almost overwhelms his Sun and Moon, forcing him into another tumbling back handspring.
The little lamp fires light the Temple with an ever-growing lurid orange glow; the carpet on the main aisle is shredded and blackened beyond recognition; pew cushions lay scattered every which way.
I watch, enraptured, careful to keep my head down.
I suppose most Mantle mothers tell their children morality tales; mine told me war stories. Mythic qi battles between good and evil, battles that scorched the sky and blackened the earth. This feels like watching those stories unfold before my eyes, but with key details left out.
Like the earsplitting cracks that force me to cover my ears. Like the sickening stench of smoke and burnt varnish. Like the fear of being hit, at any moment, by a wayward form.
The combatants dance step-to-step now, chasing each other’s arc light, trying to unravel the other’s weaves before they can even manifest. The air around them glows with residual energy streaks, and even with majahel sight, I am starting to have a hard time distinguishing one form from another.
My gaze keeps returning to Rafel.
He dances with a fierce, effortless fluidity that honestly makes some of Trian Hall’s professors seem like clumsy amateurs in comparison. The deadly contest suits him; his cheeks are flushed, and he still wears that awful, wicked grin. Sweat has made his dark tunic cling to his lithe, muscular body, accentuating his graceful movements.
Even though he’s the enemy I am supposed to hate, there is a certain guilty pleasure to be had in watching his level of competence in action. Sharp, sudden pain in my mouth draws my attention, and I realize I’ve been biting my lip for the past several minutes.
They fight and fight, and I know I should be trying to sneak out, but I just can’t look away.
Rafel and the Priestess are matched in terms of raw power, but as the battle wears on, I see this become less and less of an advantage for him. The High Priestess has decades of combat experience under her Mantle, as it were, and wards nearly always tip any fight in the bearer’s favor.
He can hold off her attacks— for now—but he can’t gain an edge.
The Priestess’ Heal ward is a particular nuisance to him, mitigating any injury he deals. I note the way his expression sharpens when he figures this out. Then stare in amazement as he isolates the Heal threads with a series of clever hand twists and rips the ward to shreds before she can save it.
Did he really just...?
Pulling down an enemy ward usually takes more time and energy than a combatant can spare in a one-on-one fight, but this Cowl had done it in seconds. And worse, now that he knows her secret, he tears down another of the HP’s wards, and then another.
Isasar save us, he’s regaining the upper hand. Are all Cowls this good?
I doubt it.
We wouldn’t be winning this war if they were.
But he must mistake the fireflash for something else because he triggers it, causing an explosion of yellow fire to throw him back at last. I hold my breath as he tumbles against a pew and slumps to his knees, coughing.
The Priestess seizes the opportunity; she dances a form, but he dodges, recovering enough to lift his hands. Instead of pressing him, like I assume she would, the High Priestess drops to one knee to place both hands on the floor.
The gesture, and what it signifies, makes my heart stop.
“No!” Rafel yells, weaving a hasty Three-Pronged Lightning and sending white energy crackling toward the woman’s bent head.
The Priestess’ lips are already moving in fervent prayer, a ring of blinding radiance shimmering around her body. The Cowl’s lightning hits the wall of brilliance and rebounds, the backlash flinging him bodily into the air.
He twists, catching the edge of the pew with one hand and twisting again, heel-driving off the seat of another pew and launching himself further up. My jaw drops as he pulls his body into Slanting Flying, an airborne, six-tier combination form no one currently at Aschamon has the agility to pull off.
He might be an enemy, but this young man, this Cowl...he’s also clearly a prodigy. And I am, entirely despite my morals, impressed.
Light crackles around him, growing brighter as he spins. With a cry of effort, he hits the ground in Mountain stance and brings both clenched fists to the floor. Knotted Root and Push energy blasts from beneath his feet, ripping outward to shake the foundations of the building.
Crouching as I’d been on my toes, I lose my balance and topple to my knees with a jarring thud.
Despite all this, the Priestess’s prayers never falter, and now a cluster of glimmering pinpricks spiral around her. She raises her hands and lifts her face, ecstasy painting her features.
Rafel climbs to his feet, swearing softly, eyes fixed on those pinpricks.
He surely recognizes materializing anhela, as I do, and must know he’s in real trouble now. The power to access the seventh strand, and summon anhela into battle, is why even a fighter of Rafel’s caliber can never be a real match for a trained Anjahel.
Winged keruim and spinning ofanim ripple into existence within the Priestess’ ring of light; creatures of radiance and sinew, raging like singular infernos, eyes remote as starlight. I’d studied anhela, of course; every student here does. The reality puts those dry textbook explanations to shame. Their cries of fury chill my blood as they break out of the Priestess’s summoning ring and roar across the space between Mantle and Cowl.
With a pang, I realize I’m probably about to watch the legendary Rafel meet his end.
Rafel throws up a fast, weak ward as the shrieking creatures surround him; one kerui manages to sink a flaming spear between the weaves and into his shoulder. He cries out, the blow dropping him to one knee while the other anhela hammer on his makeshift defense.
Incredibly, it holds. It holds, even as he grapples the kerui, finally wresting the spear away and ripping it from his flesh. I shake my head in amazement.
That the Priestess had needed to summon anhela at all speaks volumes.
Tragic that a brilliant fighter must fall like this. I frown at my thoughts and shake my head. No. He is the enemy, Saeli. He knew better than to come here. He brought this on himself.
I am not meant to care what happens to him.
Rafel resumes his muttering, his voice finally rising high enough for me to hear. I narrow my eyes, watching his face. He isn’t swearing, as I had assumed; he’s chanting something over and over again...in Zhav, I suppose, as I don’t recognize the words.
Maybe he’s praying to Iuril, the Cowl goddess?
He grasps his wounded shoulder with one hand, drops his head, and seems to gather himself for some last, desperate form. The rest of the Priestess’ anhela horde close in.
A hair-raising, clicking warble rises from the shadows behind the stricken Cowl.
At first, I assume it’s a trick of the smoky firelight, but then the shadows start moving, and a dozen black shapes detach from the underside of a pew before launching at the circled anhela. I gasp aloud. The shadows’ skeletal wings and pallid eyes glittering from shrunken black faces are identical to the drawings in my textbook on dark anhela.
Vrock.
Creatures only the gifted can summon.
The triumphant smirk on Rafel’s face makes my blood run cold.
“He’s Anjahel, too,” I whisper. Had the Priestess known? Did she summon anhela because her wards failed...or in fear that he’d summon his own?
The High Priestess shrieks a command in the anhelan tongue as more hideous creatures crawl from the shadows; several of her keruim abandon Rafel to flank her.
She points at him.
He points back.
Two sets of anhela focus on each other, and what had been a duel transforms into a pitched battle.
The summoned creatures’ shrieks and screams shake the walls as I cower, ears covered, terrified one of those awful things will spot me. The noise is overwhelming, and for a few long seconds, all I can do is crouch, breathe, and force myself to block out the cries.
When I’m able to look again, Rafel has broken through a forest of flaming spears and pushed his way toward the HP, weaving as he goes. Now they both must dodge ethereal spears and claws as well as each other’s forms.
The whole school will hear this!
It occurs to me to wonder why nobody has come to investigate already; the duel up to this point hadn’t exactly been quiet. Nevertheless, surely someone will respond to an anhela battle on school grounds!
Two screaming vrock take down an ofani between them and throw themselves at the High Priestess. Caught off guard, she repels one and cries out as the other seizes her hair in its claws, wrenching her body back. She catches herself on a pew and flings the beast aside, where it is promptly speared by a kerui.
And at that moment, she turns her head toward me.
I’d long ago let my glamour unravel, and in my fascination with the battle, I’d let my head and shoulders stick up above the pews. Her face pales, and I realize she can see me.
She can see me.
I freeze.
Of course, the damned Cowl notices her distraction and seizes the moment. Lightning shoots from his hands, but the form that would have killed is absorbed by that same kerui hurling itself in front of its summoner. The anhelas shrieks as its nebulous form explodes in a blue-white flash of light.
My Priestess is flung to the ground by the blast.
The keruim and ofanim, without an Anjahel to direct them, vanish in ripples of light, leaving the vrock to flap around in confusion.
For one terrible moment, I am convinced our High Priestess is dead.
But no, her chest moves; the blow only knocked her unconscious. The Cowl barks a command, sending the vrock back to the shadows around his shaking body. He then sinks to the floor himself, gasping for breath.
Silence descends, far more fragile and fraught than the one after Jeroen’s death.
Only the muffled crackle of flames breaks the stillness as I watch from my hiding place. My hand creeps over my mouth as it finally sinks in, what has just happened. What this means.
He’s won.
The Priestess might not be dead, but with her knocked out, the battle is as good as over.
What am I supposed to do now? I should have gone to Lars when I had the chance! This is all my fault; I distracted her! I grip the underside of my pew, paralyzed with indecision.
If I move, he’ll see me, and with the Priestess unconscious, he’ll surely kill me. But I can’t just do nothing.
My panicked gaze alights on the entrance to the sorarc tower. I nearly kick myself for not thinking of that before. If I could get up there, I could use the sorarc and call for help, before he recovers...
But at that moment, Rafel pushes to his feet. He sways for a moment, brushing a handful of sweat-damp hair out of his face, before approaching the place where the Priestess lays helpless.
I bite my lip as he kneels beside her, tucking a strand of gray hair behind her ear.
“It’s been a long time,” he says, still panting between words, “since I’ve fought an ankarka who challenged me.”
My nose wrinkles at his vulgar word choice.
“Not that you’d care, but you’ve earned my respect.” He stands up and settles into long guard. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid you still must die.”
Chapter 3
Rafel brings his fingertips to his palm. For a heartbeat, I crouch, frozen, and something inside snaps. I don’t think. With a yell, I charge from my hiding place and fling myself over the unconscious Priestess.
He steps back in clear surprise.
“Get away from her,” I snarl in a voice I didn’t know I possessed.
“Gods, another one?” he snarks. “How many students does she have hidden in this kark nest of a Temple?”
Those pale eyes are hypnotizing in their intensity up close, and this is the first time they’ve been fixed on me. I can’t bear to meet them, and yet I feel their pull in my tightening chest, in my very bones.
“I said, get AWAY!” I stand up and plant myself between him and the Priestess.
Jeroen’s body lies a few dozen hands away, crumpled and still; a stark reminder that this Cowl is already a murderer tonight. I lift my trembling hands as Jeroen had done.
It’s my fault she got distracted. I won’t watch him kill her. Facing this Cowl alone is suicide, but there’s no time to get help.
