The Inquisition (Summoner, #2)(28)

He sagged to the floor, feeling the liquid seethe within him, like acid in the blood. The pain gripped Fletcher then, as if the flesh within him was being cooked from the inside. His nerves screamed with agony, and his muscles seized and spasmed, leaving him kicking and twitching on the cold floor of the courtroom.

He could feel a blackness approaching and welcomed it with open arms. Anything would be better than this suffering. Even death.

As the blessed relief of unconsciousness took hold, he heard Didric cackling, as if from a great distance away.

‘Goodbye, Fletcher Wulf!’





13


The pain was almost gone, just a dull throb in the darkness. It would be so easy to let go. To be infinite and nothing, all at the same time. To be free.

But something called to him, in the endless black. Another soul, lost, as he was. Ignatius.

There was love there. It kept Fletcher from falling, though he leaned out over the abyss. Ignatius was calling to him. He felt their bond, unravelling, weakening. But Ignatius would not let go. The final thread held strong, and it pulled him back from the brink. Fletcher opened his eyes.

The walls and ceiling of the room were made of smooth, raw wood, patterned with the whorls of the grain beneath. There was no door to speak of, simply an opening that led into a dark corridor. Strangest of all, the room was lit by jars of tiny, glowing balls of yellow light that flew randomly within, like wyrdlights.

He was lying in a bed of sorts. Thick, deer furs swaddled him like a baby, cocooning him in a chrysalis of warmth.

‘You’re awake.’ A soft, lilting voice spoke.

A face sporting a pair of bright blue eyes appeared above him, and he discovered his head was resting in someone’s lap. Hair the colour of white gold tickled his chin, and he realised he was looking at Sylva, upside down.

‘Sylva!’ Fletcher blurted, then winced with pain as he sat up. His body ached, as if he had just woken from a fistfight he had lost. Badly lost.

‘Relax,’ Sylva said, pushing him back down with a gentle touch. ‘You took a full dose of Manticore venom. Let me do the talking.’

Fletcher lay back down, relaxing in the softness of her lap. He felt her fingers tease the unkempt locks away from his face, then a soft sponge wiping at his brow.

‘You’re lucky you were so close to our border. We used elven medicine to purge the venom from your body. Something that even the healing spell Hominum relies on so heavily could not fix.’

Fletcher smiled up at her and this time she allowed him to sit up gently and swing his legs from the side of the bed. He was on a strange shelf, which appeared to have grown out of the wall itself. A thick patch of soft, green moss served as a mattress on the top of it.

For a moment he reddened as he realised that he was wearing a simple blue doublet and trousers, with soft felt slippers on his feet. He wondered absently who had dressed him, hoping that it had not been Sylva.

‘It is good to see you,’ he said at last, throwing his arms around her. She hugged him back and they sat there for a while, revelling in their reunion.

Fletcher took in his old friend. Sylva wore a green velvet tunic, edged with fur and embroidered with leaping stags, the detailing as intricate as the finest of paintings.

Fletcher wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t seen a girl his age for more than a year, but Sylva seemed to him more beautiful than she had ever been, especially in her traditional elven garb. Avoiding his frank gaze, she jumped from the bed and gave a sharp whistle with her fingers.

Sariel bounded through the door. The golden-haired Canid was larger than when he had last seen her, and she sniffed at his feet excitedly. Fletcher avoided the temptation to stroke her, knowing the implications of caressing another person’s demon. Instead, he held out his hand for her to sniff, and she brushed his fingers affectionately with a wet nose.

The brief demonic contact reminded him to summon Ignatius, and the Salamander materialised with a joyful chirp. Fletcher gathered him into his arms and pressed the demon’s warm body against his chest.

‘So … your medicine saved me. I’m not a noble after all,’ Fletcher said, breaking the awkward silence.

He felt a twinge of disappointment. For a moment, he had thought he knew who his real parents were.

‘Not exactly. I know it’s a lot to process. King Harold is waiting for you, he’ll explain everything. Do you think you can walk?’ Sylva asked.

‘I can try.’

He swayed uneasily on his feet when he stood, so Sariel slipped her snout beneath his arm and nudged it on to her back, while Ignatius took his customary position around Fletcher’s neck. He leaned against Sylva and they hobbled out of the room.

Sylva led the way, taking one of the jars from the walls and shaking it. Within, tiny fireflies floated around, though a few of them sat at the bottom, feeding on a glutinous liquid.

‘Nectar,’ Sylva explained as she saw Fletcher peering at the jar. ‘We use it to trap them before dusk, then release them in the morning. No smoky torches for us.’

But Fletcher was barely listening, for they had stepped out into the light. He staggered again, but this time it was nothing to do with his fragile state. They were thousands of feet above the ground, on a thick branch as wide as the largest of tree trunks.

All around him, there was a network of similar structures, with broad, oaky leaves big enough to roof a house. He turned to see they had walked out of the inside of an enormous tree, the trunk thicker than the tallest building in Corcillum. All around, other trees, just as large as the one he stood upon, stretched into the sky. The entire scene was bathed in dusky orange light, for the sun was setting.