Hands Like Secrets, page 25
Nods all around.
My conviction wavers.
It will only take one of them to wonder why I am so determined to leave with this Cowl. They think Rafel’s request is a trick, a trap, and the only reason Matvey hasn’t ordered the attack yet — is fear.
They don’t understand Rafel’s honor, and I cannot make them understand without damning myself.
They also don’t understand the danger of him being here, with Grisen and his entire cell out there somewhere, able to ‘port in at their leisure once they work out where Rafel must have gone.
I raise my voice.
“Is Aschamon’s reputation more important than the people standing right here? What will you do when he’s dead and his cell comes to avenge him?”
I point at Rafel, whose chin lifts a fraction of an inch. I think he knows what I’m trying to do.
“Will we risk student lives,” I ask, “by bringing this war within Aschamon’s walls?”
“He killed Jeroen!” one student shouts. “He deserves to die!”
“But how many will fall like Jeroen before you can kill him?” I demand harshly. “Before you can kill all of them? Because believe me, that’s what it will take. This is not the time.”
I clench my fists. “I am willing to face this risk, to keep the war out of our school!”
Matvey shakes his head, though the eyes behind his glasses are troubled. The other adults look unmoved. But fully three-quarters of the group left behind are students. This wasn’t meant to be the ambush; this group hadn’t counted on facing any Cowls at all tonight, let alone Rafel himself.
Jeroen’s fate is likely heavy on everyone’s mind.
I shrug off Matvey’s hand and take a step forward, exhaling when no one stops me. Walking across that circle toward a waiting Cowl is the scariest thing I’ve ever done, even knowing that Rafel, for his part, will not hurt me.
Glancing back, I see Matvey’s thin face twist in indecision, but still, he doesn’t stop me. I feel every eye burning into my skin.
I dare not wonder what they are thinking.
Rafel’s pale eyes glint in the qi-light, and his lips move in the ghost of a smile.
“Valiant,” he murmurs when I’ve drawn close enough to hear him. For a moment, I allow myself to hope this whole encounter will end without any fighting at all...
“What in shayol is going on?” a new voice shouts.
Yan thrusts his way into the circle from the other side, followed by another dozen students. My heart drops into my stomach; they must have ‘ported in while we were distracted.
“What is this?” he demands, glaring around the circle. “What are you all waiting for?”
“Yan, wait!” I hold up my hands, but it’s too late. My skin prickles as every majahel who wasn’t already holding sattva qi draws it up.
Yan fixes his dark eyes on me and glowers, a look that twists my insides.
“I’ll kill him myself if that’s what it takes,” he spits.
Rafel’s expression remains calm, his arms still folded at majahel truce; he hasn’t even drawn his qi, as far as I can feel. But at Yan’s threat, the corner of his mouth lifts into a sneer.
And I see in an instant what should have been obvious.
Rafel’s calm is a ruse.
Thin, black, feminine hands slip across Yan’s shoulders.
“You may try,” Mauri rasps in his ear, loud enough for everyone to hear, as shadows detach from the darkness beyond the circle.
Yan jerks and spins as every light on the campus lawn simultaneously winks out. Darkness smothers my senses. A beat of horrified realization passes through the Mantle crowd. Iadnahn Vengeance has come for their ras, surrounding us while we were preoccupied with him.
Someone yells in defiance.
The impasse breaks; a dozen explosions of Spark and Root light the night. To my majahel sight, the initial attack looks like a dozen brightly glowing blankets being unfolded and flung out, weaves spiraling everywhere.
Figures dart against a backdrop of white flashes and fiery bursts. The muffled keening of qi patterns finding their targets mingle with swears, screams, and the occasional shriek of pain, creating a din of confusion.
It’s too much. Too much, too much, too much, and I can’t focus on anything except my failure in preventing this. Stupid, stupid, why did Yan have to show up when he did? A weave blasts past my leg and I am running, blindly, hands over my ears, until the curved facade of Acelynn Library blocks my way.
I have to do something. I must stop this!
A fireball streaks over my head and slams into the building, shaking the entire structure. Flames drip from the upper eave like spilled wine, spreading the fire so fast that in a breath, the whole roof is ablaze.
I stagger away, shielding my face against the heat and looking around wildly. No one else seems to have noticed Acelynn’s peril.
The library. I can at least save the library!
Having a goal clears my head enough for me to finally draw sattva qi, and the cool rush relaxes my shoulders and loosens my chest. Okay, think, Saeli. I wince as a library window shatters in the heat.
The closest water source is Isasar’s fountain, on the other side.
I lift my skirt—why, oh why had I let Fien talk me into wearing this ridiculous dress? —and sprint around the burning building, sandals digging into the grass and sending up clods of dirt. Once the fountain is in view, I slow and slip into a familiar form.
Circle-block. Heel drive, crescent kick, cross hands, seven-star wrists. Ribbon in the Air unfurls from my body; I add a hand-and-arm cast-off and send the energy slamming into the ground. The kickback propels me into the air and across the sidewalk, allowing me to land softly on Isasar’s broad, stone shoulders.
From here, I’ll have all the water I need.
I twist my arms into Water Flows Downhill, creating a pattern of Flow weaves to suck up the fountain’s water and direct it across the sidewalk and up to Acelynn’s roof. The fire sputters and smokes where the stream hits, but it isn’t enough.
I bite my lip; although the pattern’s warp is strong, I cannot seem to add enough strands to fill the gaps in the weft, and I’m losing more water on the trip across now than I’m conveying to the roof.
“Saeli!” A voice calls from below.
Yan stands at the fountain’s base, waving his arms.
“Help me!” I yell to him, pointing to the library. For a moment he looks like he’ll argue, but steps instead into Strum the Lute. Green Bind strands tangle with my existing pattern, stopping up the gaps and allowing me to draw up more water. The fire is halfway out now, but the remaining flames are viciously stubborn.
Spark-woven fire usually is.
Yan and I work in tandem for a few minutes, with me eventually having to incorporate a central Void strand to neutralize the last flames so the water can smother them. Once it’s out, I exhale, ground, and finally drop my arms.
“How in shayol did you even get up there?” Yan demands, his hands on his hips.
“Ribbon in the Air,” I answer.
He scoffs. “That is not what Ribbon is for.”
“Nobody knows what Ribbon is for. I made it work for me.” I shrug. “Will you weave something to get me down? I can’t do any forms up here that involve feet.”
He huffs but does, creating an updraft of Push that I’m able to step onto. Yan rhythmically moves his arms, carefully lowering me to the ground.
“Thanks.” I smile, and for a moment, it’s like we never fought...
Until he speaks.
“You ought to be hiding,” he says in a low voice. “What were you thinking, taking high ground like that, where that fiend could see you?”
“I couldn’t let Acelynn burn,” I protest.
His party clothes are smudged and grass-stained, though he looks no worse than I probably do. In the background, the battle against Rafel’s raiders rages on.
“I need to get out of here, Yan,” I say quietly. “He’ll pull back if I go with him—”
“Don’t!” Yan’s face contorts in disgust. “Don’t insult me by pretending this is all some elaborate ruse to save everyone, that you feel nothing for that monster.” He smiles, a fragile, bitter movement of lips. “I know you too well, Saeli. You willingly went to the Sari. This is personal.”
I fight back an inexplicable wave of tears.
You do know me, my friend. You always have.
I know then that our friendship is likely broken beyond repair. Yan might have been willing to overlook my getting caught up in a Cowl plot, blaming it on ignorance or naivety. But he will never, ever forgive me for falling for one.
His eyes grow dark as I approach him.
“Yan, please.” I hold out a hand. “Let me find him. Let me end this—”
“No!” he shouts, startling me, seizing my forearm. “I am taking you somewhere safe, right now!” And without even a by-your-leave, he drags me down the sidewalk in the general direction of the Temple.
I yelp in protest and aim a kick at his legs.
“Stop that!” Yan snaps in annoyance.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!”
I try to pull away, almost losing a sandal as I stumble. He still has my arm trapped.
“Well, it’s abundantly clear that neither do you—!” he starts, whirling to face me, but something slams into his back and sends us both sprawling into the grass.
Chapter 30
Yan’s weight crushes me into the ground so hard my teeth cut into my cheek. Again. He rolls away and to his feet; because of my dress, I am slower to follow.
Black boots crunch in the grass in front of my face.
“Get up,” Rafel says quietly.
He doesn’t offer to help, and I don’t think I would have accepted it if he had.
“You...” Yan stalks back toward us, his dark eyes locked on Rafel’s pale ones. “You are dead!”
“No, you are dead!” Rafel snarls with a vehemence that shocks me. He gestures at the fighting still going on around us. “You are all dead because none of you know when to yield or even when to mind your own damned business!”
Yan cringes like he’s been slapped, but his face is still a mask of defiance.
“You’ve started a war in your own backyard,” Rafel continues, “even though your girlfriend was willing to risk her life to prevent it!”
“What do you want with her?” Yan demands, his voice cracking.
I am close enough to physically feel the surge of rashas qi that rips through Rafel’s body. His blue eyes visibly blaze with it.
“That,” he growls, “is not your concern.”
Yan must have felt the power, too: he swears softly.
Rafel snaps his left hand against his right and flicks them together in a complex pattern. Tongues of fire whip through the air to form a dancing, burning circle around his feet.
Yan’s face pales, but he doesn’t move.
“I am not having a pleasant night, Mantle.” The shadows created by the flames give Rafel’s handsome face a predatory cast. “And you are starting to piss me off. Warning number two, of three.”
Yan, to his credit, still stands his ground. “You are not taking her anywhere, Cowl—”
Rafel thrusts his fists out to the side and his fire blazes up, blindingly bright. Tendrils of it swirl around his arms.
“No?” he says, deathly soft, and splays his fingers.
Even Yan takes an unconscious step back this time.
Rafel has enough qi in him now to level Acelynn Library; so much so that out on the lawn, Cowl and Mantle alike pause in their various battles to stare.
Rafel’s breath hitches in his lungs with each inhale, his hands trembling slightly. The air around him shimmers and his eyes do glow, just a little; I drop majahel sight for a moment to make sure I’m not imagining it.
I swallow hard. This much qi flow would burn out a normal majahel in minutes, and I’m not even sure he’s at full mox.
That notion scares the kark out of me.
I have to stop this, and I don’t know how.
It occurs to me that Rafel single-handedly possesses enough raw power to end this entire battle, but the collateral damage would be unthinkable. He and I both need to get away from this place, away from Yan; not get drawn into another fight.
But it’s too late.
Yan launches into Falling Stones, a basic but powerful Root form. Rafel shoves me down and blocks; their forearms meet in a crackle of opposing energies. I dance the quickest Void form I know, sucking up the residual fire and weaving it into a trap pattern.
Which I cradle in my palm, ready to fling into the fray.
Rafel allows Yan to advance, circling slowly, dodging everything Yan throws at him. Water Rushes Downhill. Snake Strike. Cross the Courtyard. Twist the Wind. Rafel continues to side-step, and circle, and weaves an occasional Void pattern to neutralize any wayward energy.
Yan fights with the skill of an Aschamon-trained red cord, and with a strong, centered grace that’s all his own. He isn’t as good as Rafel, but he is good in that same instinctual way: knowing how to move, where to strike, how to give and take ground. I find myself holding my breath.
Still, Rafel does not attack.
My stolen fire sizzles away in its Void weave trap, and I don’t know where to throw it.
I absolutely don’t want to hurt Yan, but I’m not sure I can bear to aim at Rafel, either. And honestly, Rafel still holds a ludicrous amount of qi in his body; he might not even feel a pathetic little trap weave like this. Yan dances a terrifyingly fast rendition of Three-Pronged Lightning; still, Rafel needs only to snap an arm, and the whole pattern is thrust to the side.
He doesn’t attack.
Yan is growing frustrated; I see it in the increasing jerkiness of his movements, the way his mouth twists in a snarl. He has yet to land a single hit on Rafel.
“This is pointless, Mantle.” Rafel flicks away an errant Spark weave. “You’re still on warning two. Don’t make me go to three.”
My heart drops, and fear slides into my bones. “First warning of three,” Rafel said to me in the Temple that night. “Three, and you’re dead.”
Yan answers with a yell, and Snake Strike again.
I have to stop this.
I go to throw my little trap, only to discover I’ve let it fizzle to nothing in my distraction. Panicked frustration claws at me, making it difficult to re-summon the qi I need to weave another. I close my eyes for a moment and breathe.
Sattva qi hums through my nodes.
My eyes fly back open when Yan gives a strangled yell. Rafel has abruptly gone on the offensive, dancing as he had in the Temple all those nights ago. Green Bind strands twine around his wrists and shoot out to encircle Yan’s ankles. Yan is yanked off his feet and abruptly pinned, head to toe, in a pattern I’ve never seen.
Rafel stalks to stand over him.
“Yield,” he says simply.
Yan sucks in his cheeks and spits. Rafel flicks away the offending liquid with a sigh and raises a hand.
“Don’t hurt him!”
I run over and seize Rafel’s arm. He whirls, probably to shake me off, but I level the fiercest look I can manage at him.
His eyes narrow.
“Let’s just go.” I dare to tug on his elbow. “You, you’ve got what you want. This has gone far enough. Call your raiders off.”
Rafel looks off into the night, and for one horrible moment, I am sure he will ignore me. But then he gestures, and the pattern holding Yan unravels and fades away.
Yan scrambles back, quickly regaining his feet.
And maybe...maybe I should have known from the beginning how this was going to end. I should have remembered that Yan is a Silver Mantle, and he would not see Rafel’s hesitation to kill him as mercy, or honor.
He would see a Crimson Cowl needing to be eliminated, by any means possible.
Just like Jeroen.
Yan is three steps and a knife-hand into a four-tier hex, River Cuts the Bank, before I even register the movement as an attack. I don’t see the impact, only Rafel’s teeth unsheathed behind his lips before I am thrown, hard, against Isasar’s fountain by an explosion of qi.
Rafel is mid-strike before I can regain my feet. His hand thrusts forward into Yan’s chest; a silent wave of rashas qi cuts through the night.
Yan crumples.
I scream.
And when Yan doesn’t move, I scream again. I don’t remember getting up, but suddenly I am at his side, clutching at his motionless body. Yan’s eyes are glazed and a tiny rivulet of blood drips from the corner of his mouth. And I know, I know he’s gone but I can’t seem to stop shaking him.
Rafel has backed away, an unreadable expression on his face, but holds his ground when I storm over to him.
“What did you do?” I yell, shoving him hard in the chest. He allows the first push but flings my hand away on the next.
“Fan in the Back shouldn’t have killed him.” Rafel’s voice reveals nothing of his feelings.
I scream wordlessly and clutch at my head.
“Saeli.” His voice is calm, so calm, and my mind is too numb with shock and grief and horrible growing guilt to process anything.
This is my fault. Yan would never have been involved if not for me. His body lies there; still, so still, too damned still. I did this.
My feet move without conscious volition.
“Saeli!” His voice follows, but I cover my ears and keep running.
The fighting has died down...or moved elsewhere; I’d long ago stopped paying attention. Someone has re-lit the campus sidewalk lights around the rec field, and I almost wish they hadn’t.
Trian Hall’s domed roof has a crack up the center, and the south wing looks like it got hit with an earthquake; a wayward Root pattern, probably. Burnt Spark trails and earthy ruts in the grass crisscross the lawn. Acelynn’s exterior is a crispy mess, but it stands, and I hope our earlier efforts saved the texts inside.
The most shocking discovery is the students, strewn here and there across the illuminated grass; burned, cut, party clothes and uniforms in ruin, some moaning in pain and struggling to move. A few teal cords wander from body to body, weaving Flow healing patterns, or simply staring with haunted expressions.
