The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(49)
A thought zipped by me, and I lunged, catching it by its tail and stacking it on the growing pile of minds I was imprisoning. Only one more remained. It was the smallest of all the daeva’s consciousnesses, more adept at avoiding my grasp. I was breathing hard, the load from the others already weighing on me, my exhaustion beginning to take its toll on my strength.
“Khalad!” I heard Likh scream this time. I opened my eyes to see the nanghait heading for the Heartforger. It pounced, sensing victory, but Likh arrived first, throwing his arms around the stunned heartforger as the Shield rune stretched above their heads.
“Enough!” my mouth and my mind roared at the same time. I threw everything I had at the final untethered mind by expanding my own, filling the space until it had nowhere to go but through me. I snatched it up and yoked the minds together. “DIE!” I screamed.
The nanghait’s minds wobbled under my control, seeming to melt and re-form again into one. At the same time, Kalen all but lifted the nanghait away with wind before it could strike Likh, almost from willpower alone. The nanghait fell, wailed, and died, all in one breath.
The Yadoshans had quieted, staring in awe at the hideous beast, and then at Kalen and Likh. Lord Besserly turned to me, somehow managing to look shaken while still grinning widely.
“Now that,” he said, “was a celebration.”
Lord Besserly roared with laughter when I finished reading. “Lady Tea was right. We were quite the idiots then. Didn’t get a lot of asha in our part of the world, you know. Kion and Arhen-Kosho had nearly a monopoly on the runemakers, and the ones we did have wound up moving to Ankyo anyway. I had several ancestors who’d encountered the nanghait and lost and were celebrated for it. Sure, Dark asha bring them down faster than a Steerfall monsoon chases off summer, but it’d dishonor the people who came before me if I didn’t do the same at least once or twice in my lifetime.” He shrugged. “Reminds us we didn’t always have it this easy, that we may not always have it so. Always been our way.”
Ankyon pale lager made the man talkative, boisterous; he’d been the complete opposite earlier, when Empress Alyx decided to have the armies wait until Lady Mykaela’s body had been safely returned to Ankyo. Already reports told of the first ships docking at the harbor, of Mistress Parmina and her soldiers landing ashore, intending to complete the journey back to the city at day’s end. Lord Besserly balked at that, protesting that this could delay much-needed support to King Kance should he choose to attack the Drychta within the Hollow Mountains.
“Then it would be best he waits for our arrival,” Princess Inessa shot back. “Surely he’s aware that reinforcements are on the way? Surely he’s wise enough to understand that mounting an assault now means he will be greatly outnumbered?”
“It’s not easy to know what Kance thinks nowadays,” Empress Alyx said wearily. “But spies inform me that he is keeping his distance from the Drychta, instead choosing to skirt the borders and build defensive fortresses along the mountain exits. It’s a sound strategy, and the Odalians should be safe from any counterattacks until we arrive—in two weeks.”
There was more to this plan than the empress was letting on. I knew there was more information she left us out of. That was not surprising, as I was a stranger by every definition, and Lord Besserly was a talker when in his cups. Still, I worried. That a new war brewed in the south made for disquieting contemplation.
Cheated of an early fight, Lord Besserly and several of his men had slouched off to the nearest tavern to drown their sorrows; I’d tagged along. Surprisingly—or perhaps not—Lord Fox joined them, buying the first three rounds much to their pleasure.
“None of us imagined that girl had so much firepower in her,” Lord Besserly continued. “We knew about the azi, of course. Everyone knows that. But she was quiet and polite, even though she could incinerate the whole lot of us without batting a beautiful lash. She’s a stunning woman—Lord Kalen was very smitten with her, gave us a good talking-to when he thought we teased her too much. Wasn’t till later that we realized how dangerous she truly was. She was—well, my mam would have called her a lodestone. She attracted people to her, but not always in a good way.” He paused. “Maybe we underestimated her because she could never hold her drink. My twelve-year-old niece took brew better than she did.”
“I can’t believe she did this to Kion,” Lord Knox said. “She didn’t stay long in Thanh, but she left on good terms with Stefan. But she made a lot of our best warriors nervous, and not because she was a good-looking woman.”
“Her and the other asha. Likh.” Lord Balfour was the quietest, almost sad, and currently the soberest Yadoshan of the lot. Lord Aden told me he’d been to see Lord Khalad, but said little of how their exchange had gone. “Prettiest I’ve ever seen.”
Lord Aden downed his ale and shifted uncomfortably. “Say, you don’t think Lady Tea would go back to Yadosha and set it ablaze too, do you?”
“She had a vendetta against Kion,” Lord Fox assured him, “not with Stefan. The chances aren’t very likely.”
“But why would she turn her back on this city? Last I heard, she was friends with your girl, Fox—beggin’ your pardon, Her Highness—and loyal to your empress. She left most of Ankyo alone, but she laid waste to the bulk of the Willows, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”