Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(52)

“Nis, stop it!” Hal grabbed his sister from behind, but she tore her arm easily out of his grip. His height advantage was no match for the strength she’d honed over years of working as an assassin.

“There will be time for friendship after this battle is over. Family comes first,” Nismae said. She moved toward me again.

The only nonliving magical thing close enough to draw power from was the chandelier just on the other side of the wooden door. In desperation, I twined my own magic together with that of the light fixture and pulled, hard. Glass shattered in the adjacent room. I flung the stolen magic out in front of me like a shield.

“You didn’t,” she said coldly. She lunged, only to be repelled. “What the—”

I stood up, feeling stronger, but even as I pulled the magic closer and tried to weave it together more tightly, I knew it wouldn’t hold forever. There wasn’t any more energy to draw on in this prison of stone.

Instead of attacking me again, Nismae stepped back and swept Hal’s feet out from under him without so much as an apology. She snatched the blade he held—one of the enchanted ones her craftsmen had forged. In one fluid motion, she whirled around and thrust the knife toward me.

The blade cracked my shield of magic in half, and as her enchanted cuffs passed through the fissure, the whole thing disintegrated. Threads of power recoiled on me like the smack of a hundred bent branches, making stars dance in front of my eyes.

Before my vision cleared, one of Nismae’s hands closed around my throat.

“This would have been less painful if you’d told the truth right away,” she said, and plunged her knife through my forearm into the door.

I choked on my own breath as pain shot up my arm. The agony of it obliterated my ability to string together a single thought. Blood trickled from the wound and dripped off my fingertips. Where it hit the floor, fissures formed in the stone, red cracks scattering in lightning patterns like broken ice.

“Stop moving,” Nismae said, so close I felt her breath on my cheek and the brush of her braids on one of my legs. My heart pounded, echoing in my ears.

“Hal.” My voice came out a weak cry. I could barely see him over Nismae’s shoulder, registering the horror of what she’d done and starting to move toward me. Behind him, Ina’s face remained in an impassive mask. She raised her hand and Hal’s cloak ignited.

Fear for him lanced through my pain.

He tore off the burning garment, but then she set his shirt ablaze, forcing him to drop and roll to put out the flames. Nismae craned her head around to see the cause of the commotion. As he stumbled to his knees, Ina gestured to him in warning.

“Don’t hurt my brother,” Nismae said.

“Oh, I won’t. As long as he doesn’t make a nuisance of himself,” Ina said, raising her hand and lighting another ball of fire in her palm. She hurled it in his general direction, forcing him to scramble out of the way. She scattered sparks to herd him toward the open window. “Can you fly like the other birds?” she asked, her voice dripping with venom.

I couldn’t believe this was the girl I had once loved. What had the dragon done to her? Or was she always this way and I’d been too blinded by love to see?

“Nis!” Hal pulled a hidden knife from his boot, but Ina used her fire magic to make it blaze with heat. He dropped the red-hot metal with a cry.

Nismae’s grip on me didn’t waver.

“Let Asra go. I’m begging you,” he said, clutching his burned hand. “We can talk about this.”

“Stand down, both of you,” Nismae said to them.

Ina shrugged and lowered her hands. Hal obeyed, staring at me, shifting his weight, a muscle in his jaw clenching. How could he let this happen? Was he just going to back down from his sister? And then the truth dawned on me . . . family came first for him just as it did for Nismae. Despair swallowed me whole.

Nismae whistled sharply, and two birds flew in through the window, a tiny sparrow and a red-tailed hawk. One transformed back into a large warrior, and the other was Poe, the mousy scholar girl I remembered talking to about some of my healing potions. The girl trembled when she saw Ina.

Ina grinned and snapped her teeth at her, and the girl shrank away.

“Take him somewhere quiet. I’ll talk sense into him later,” Nismae said, pointing to Hal. The warrior grunted something inaudible, then pulled a pinch of powder out of a bag on his belt and blew it into Hal’s face.

“Hal!” I said. It came out like the yelp of a trapped animal, high and pathetic.

Hal’s eyes glazed over and Ina took several steps back. They must have dosed him with peaceroot—an herb that silenced a magic user’s ability to wield any power. If I had been able to think through the pain, I might have jerked my arm free of the door and hoped to bleed out. Peaceroot was rare in Zumorda but grew abundantly in the kingdom of Mynaria to the west—if Nismae’s reach in work and trade extended that far, there was no telling what other horrors she had on her side.

“Damn it, I didn’t mean you needed to do that!” Nismae said to the warrior.

“I’m not taking any chances after the last time he caught me unaware,” the warrior grumbled. “Ended up having to fetch my weapons from the bottom of a latrine.”

Nismae let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Poe, get over here and help me with this.”