Born of Ashes

He sighed. His shoulders sagged. He wrapped his arms loosely around bent knees. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Nice coat, by the way. Gaultier?”

He looked up at her. He saw the amusement on her face, the quirk of her lips, and the odd compassion in her eyes. He had needed her fist to his face. He lacked control and to be challenging her? Mon Dieu, what the fuck had he been thinking?

Fiona just looked at him and shook her head, bewildered. He stared at the floor then pulled his cadroen from his hair. He turned the pastel green braided brocade in his hands, his own take on the cadroen, a memento of his years at court, a snub to the revolution that betrayed him.

“My apologies. I will not interfere.” For good measure, he remained sitting on the floor. He was afraid if he stood up, he would succumb yet again to the cursed breh-hedden’s claim on his soul. God help him.

Freedom has only one master,

Emerging power.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 5

Fiona frowned at Jean-Pierre. She hadn’t meant for Endelle to flatten him. At the same time, she really needed him to stop with the caveman stuff. She could manage her own battles, thank you very much.

But as she looked at Endelle, she sighed. She had to accept one single fact: No way in hell would she ever win this one, not by a long shot.

“I’m not bustin’ your balls, Fiona. I think we might be in big-ass fucking trouble here. I need to know what’s going on with you—or do you not understand how remarkable it was that you connected with this Marguerite woman?

“I don’t know of any other ascenders who could receive a telepathic communication like that, from out of the blue, from some unknown woman in another location. But it also sounds to me like she had foreknowledge of the battle, which also means she could have serious Seer ability.

“You’ve been here long enough to know that if she does, I can use her. She’ll have to go to the Superstitions, of course, but by God I won’t turn her over to Stannett without some conditions.” She looked away from Fiona, her gaze flitting around as though working out exactly how she was to manage the High Administrator of the Fortress. Her gaze stopped for a brief moment, settled on Thorne, then launched again. Fiona knew that the nearby Seers Fortress had become a nightmare for Endelle.

She heard a strange hissing sound behind her. Great. Now what was Jean-Pierre freaking out about?

She turned around and looked at him, but his gaze was fixed up and sideways toward Thorne. When she shifted to look at Thorne, she withheld a gasp. Thorne was doubled over and making the strangest sound, like the combination of a gasp and a grunt. He looked like he couldn’t breathe.

“Ah, Christ,” Endelle muttered. Then added, “Fuck. Thorne, you okay? You need a glass of water? More Ketel, maybe?”

He rose, his face red like he’d been choking. He drew in a long struggling breath and cleared his throat. “Ketel would be great. Thanks.”

Endelle held out her hand, let it sit in the air for a few seconds, perhaps kinetically pouring vodka into a glass in another room, then, voilà, a tumbler of clear liquid appeared.

Thorne pushed away from the wall, crossed the few feet, and took the glass. His hands shook but he drank it down.

Fiona glanced at Jean-Pierre, but he merely wagged his head back and forth a couple of times. He still sat on the floor, which was probably a good thing. He swept his hair back and secured the cadroen in place.

When the flush on Thorne’s face dimmed, Endelle once more focused her lined brown eyes on Fiona. “We’re wasting daylight, missy. Let me put my hands on your face and see what you’ve got.”

Fiona huffed a sigh. There was nothing for it.

She moved close to Endelle and closed her eyes. Not staring at all the braids and the ancient-looking eyes made it easier. She relaxed, and as Endelle’s cool fingers touched her cheeks she strove to lower her shields.

“Good,” Endelle said. “Stay as relaxed as you can.”

It wasn’t that the woman took a ride through her mind exactly, but it did feel like preternatural fingers poked at her. “Now show me the memory of your interaction with Marguerite.”

Fiona realized that no detail would be spared. The truth shall out. Shakespeare had said that. She hoped that Thorne could at least take some comfort in the fact that he’d been able to keep his affair with Marguerite a secret for a hundred years. That had to be some kind of record.

The fingers prodded and poked and scraped and dug, until the sensation became almost painful. She knew when Endelle reached the memory of the recent battle.

Lower your shields, ascender, Endelle sent into her mind. I already know the truth so stop worrying.

About Marguerite?

And Thorne. Yes. And can I just say your telepathy has a beautiful intonation, almost like music, very powerful? Shield?

Fiona hadn’t thought she’d kept a shield up, but then she’d been worried about Thorne so maybe that was all it took. She focused inward and let the last of her shields fall.

Endelle stayed within her mind for several minutes. She explored the memory, especially the entire scope of her interaction with Marguerite.

I’m right about one thing: This woman picked up a ribbon in the future streams, an iridescent green ribbon. Huh.

Can you see the future stream? Fiona was shocked that Endelle could determine so much. Even Fiona hadn’t been aware that Marguerite was engaged in reading something from the future streams. She had deduced it later, but at the time she hadn’t had a clue.

Not exactly, I can just feel the resonance of it, like an afterimage. Now I need you to be strong for me.

Uh-oh.

Why? Fiona asked.

You’ve got a layer here I’ve never seen before. I may have to punch through. Ready?

Shit. Fine. Just do it.

Endelle drove her mind down and down and the pain struck like a bolt of lightning. Fiona started screaming, at least within both their heads. She hoped it would give Endelle a clue to let up. Instead, the woman pushed harder, like solid punches within Fiona’s mind. She was certain her brain would either explode or implode. Had to be one or the other.

Then there was a flash of brilliant gold light everywhere, sparkling, iridescent. And underneath a swell of heat, but not the usual red-hot heat—something different, something dark, something powerful.

At the same moment, she could feel Endelle, all of her, and know her. She understood her voyeur powers, her kinetic ability, which was incredible, her telepathic capability between dimensions, the level of her hand-blast, her darkening capacity, that ability to move within nether-space. More arrived, a knowledge of the woman herself: that she had been unattached for millennia, that she hadn’t known real love in that long, that her duties as Supreme High Administrator had stripped her not just of a capacity to love but of desire as well. So that in the depth of the woman’s being, she did not feel loss so much as utter resignation.

The heat began to rise, like black incomprehensible flames, and she began to scream again.

Then nothing.

* * *

Jean-Pierre held his woman in his arms. She was limp, almost lifeless. He wanted Endelle to help, but she was tearing around the room, shouting something like a fierce triumphant call, a wild sound, an animal sound. She raised her fists to the ceilings, she leaped on her desk, she screamed until she was hoarse.

Thorne didn’t know what to do, either. He knelt beside Fiona but didn’t touch her. “Is she breathing?”

“Just barely. Please bring Horace here.”

“Yes. Yes,” Thorne murmured. “Alison, as well.” Yes, Alison. She was a healer of the mind.

Jean-Pierre clutched Fiona to his chest. He rocked her. He murmured softly in her ear, words in his birth language that soothed his mind but probably did little to help her. “I cannot lose you, Fiona. You must fight.”

Horace folded into the room a moment later. Thorne gave up his place to the healer. He asked what happened.

Jean-Pierre shook his head. “I am not certain. Madame Endelle was trying to read her powers, but she must have gone deep. Now you see the state Her Supremeness is in. I do not know if she is in some danger as well.”

Horace glanced behind him, in the direction of the desk, then he smiled. “Our leader is experiencing euphoria. That’s all. Exultation.”

“Exultation? What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Endelle jumped off her desk and crashed her hand on Thorne’s shoulder. Thorne buckled to the floor. “What the fuck?” he cried.

Jean-Pierre had never seen Endelle so wild-eyed. For a moment, even the striation in her brown eyes had blended to a smooth beautiful brown. She looked so young.

She shook her finger at Fiona. Her hand trembled, her arm, her body. “She … she is something I have never seen in my entire life. She was never supposed to exist. She has come and not just her, but two more. Oh, God, two more because the myth says they come in threes, a triad of power.”

She started tearing around the room again, jumping, levitating, squealing.

“You see?” Horace said. “Exultation.”

“Do you mean, she is happy?”

“And excited about possibilities.” Horace sat back on his heels and focused on Fiona. “You do not need to worry, Jean-Pierre. Physically, she is perfectly fine. If you had that much power in your head”—he jerked his thumb in Endelle’s direction—“you might need a few minutes to recover as well.”

Jean-Pierre released a quavering sigh. “Good. That is good. Thorne has called for Alison.”

Horace nodded. “She is what is needed here.”

Jean-Pierre met his gaze. “Thank you, my friend.” Horace served the Warriors of the Blood every night. He and his team healed their physical injuries in the field, sort of a preternatural medic.

Horace settled a hand on Jean-Pierre’s shoulder. “Be well.” He rose to his feet, exchanged a few words with Thorne, lifted his arm, and vanished.

A minute later Alison arrived. She stood frozen for a moment at the sight of Endelle, doing a happy dance on her enormous marble desk.