Obsidian Flame

Thorne shook his head. “You kept repeating that stupid Spanish phrase you’d had him teach you about the goat fucking the pig until midnight. You kept repeating it every time you felt his spirit fade, and I’d say that was a good hour. Every time you said it, something in Santiago’s spirit lit up. You kept saying, ‘Don’t leave us, Warrior.’ You kissed him on the side of his head several times.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You kissed him. You kept him going while Horace healed him. And the whole time, though he couldn’t see you, tears streamed down your face. And the whole time, you kept sending to me, I hate this fucking war. But you never said it to him, just that stupid phrase in Spanish. He would have died without you there, keeping his spark alive until Horace could get the job done.

“Endelle, I have a thousand stories just like that one. The latest? When Fiona was doing her recitation in front of Rith’s cage and you knelt beside her for two hours while she spoke the name of every blood slave who had died in Burma. You are that person. And I would die for that person.”

“You would die for me?” Shit, her voice sounded small.

“Of course I would.”

“Aw, holy hell.”

She wasn’t certain where the impulse came from, but she didn’t care. She stepped into him and slung her arms around his neck. He was a big man and though she was tall, when his arms folded around her, it was like she almost disappeared.

She heard earthmoving equipment in her chest and felt big dump trucks backing up, with those stupid alarm-beeps sounding as they unloaded all that earth back into the pit of her heart.

I couldn’t bear it, Thorne, if you hated me.

He rubbed her back. I could never hate you. I’ve wanted to kill you on occasion, but I could never hate you. You shouldn’t have been abandoned to fight this bloody war alone. I’ve never understood what the Upper Dimensions were thinking. This was never fair to you.

She drew back and nodded. Like hell she was going to shed a tear, not in front of the Supreme High Commander of the Allied Ascender Fucking Forces. “All right, fine. So we’re agreed, we don’t hate each other. What now? How the hell is this supposed to work?”

“What exactly did you think was going to change?”

“Well, you’re taking over, aren’t you?”

His brows lifted. “No. I’m putting together an army, which we’ve needed for a goddamn long time, to face Greaves when the time comes.”

“It sounded … no, it felt like more to me. A helluva lot more.” She frowned and a light seemed to surround Thorne, the one she’d seen before. She knew this was much more than just the directive to create an army.

“Well,” Thorne said, “maybe it is, but right now it doesn’t matter, does it? We all know where this whole thing is headed and we have to prepare. Jean-Pierre’s in deep with the Militia Warriors now. Shit, he’s almost got both Gideon and Duncan up to Warrior of the Blood speed, plus half a dozen more.”

“We have a long way to go.”

“Yes, we do, but I’m hopeful, Endelle. I know what needs to be done and I’m going to do it.”

She met his gaze and nodded.

So be it.

But there was one thing she wanted to say to him. “I like your woman, by the way. She has great spirit. I’m thinking of giving her the rank of Supreme High Seer of Second Earth. That she decided to take on COPASS tells me she has some balls.”

He chuckled. “That she does.”

“Much good it will do, I mean taking her complaints to COPASS.”

Thorne sighed. “She understands the point of bringing the issues before the committee. She knows it’s just the beginning of a very long road, since Seers have never had rights before.”

“Is there any chance she, or the other Seers out of the Superstition Fortress, will be willing to offer their services to me?”

“She needs light hands, Endelle. They all do after what they’ve been through. But yeah, I think it’s a real possibility, especially if you let Marguerite design a proper working model for the environment Seers really need in order to do what they do best.”

She nodded. “Well, as Supreme High Seer I think she could write the handbook. It might be a good place to begin.”

“Marguerite would eat that up.”

“Well, good. We’ll do that then.”

She saw movement in the garden. Two kids, about ten, had stripped off their shirts and were mounting their wings. They’d just launched into some low-level flying, starting a chase, when a voice came over the loudspeaker, “No mounting of wings in the garden. Cease at once, or you’ll be taken to the security office.”

But the boys were apparently really game. They turned and headed in the direction of Endelle and Thorne.

“Let’s get ’em,” Endelle said.

Thorne laughed. And it was a good sound.

The boys were smiling, their eyes wild with excitement.

Just as they breached the first row of protective railings, one of a series of three and just twenty feet away, Endelle dropped her mist.

By that time the boys were at full speed and rocketed right into them. Thorne caught his prey easily by the hand and, with a whirling motion to keep from damaging the wings, swung him in a circle going slower and slower until he could set the boy on his feet.

Endelle did the same.

“Warrior Thorne,” the shorter of the two cried. He didn’t seem in the least afraid but stared up at Thorne wide-eyed, mouth agape.

“Yep, that’s me. What the hell were the two of you thinking?”

The other kid pushed away from Endelle but not to escape. He was clearly determined to join his buddy and engage in a some much-deserved hero-worship. Both boys looked at each other and with incredible speed retracted their wings.

“We want to be Warriors of the Blood,” the taller boy all but shouted.

“Really?” Thorne shifted his gaze to Endelle and winked. “Well, then the first thing you’ll need to learn is to be very respectful of authority.”

They both almost fell over themselves apologizing to him. “I wasn’t referring to myself,” he said. He jerked his head in Endelle’s direction. “I believe you owe an apology to the Supreme High Administrator, Madame Endelle.”

Both boys turned, shock-eyed, and backed up against Thorne as if for protection. More apologies then silence as they stared at her. Thorne put a hand on each shoulder, and a strange look came over his face. Endelle understood. Shit, as soon as these men found the right woman suddenly they wanted kids.

Goddammit.

Oh, whatever.

“So you boys want to be warriors?” she asked.

But they’d grown very silent and they were both eyeing the octopus tentacles that covered her boobs. “Can we touch those?”

She laughed.

Well, they had the brass of warriors.

She opened her mouth to say something unholy because she couldn’t resist but Thorne called out sharply, “She’when’endel’livelle,” clicks and everything. Thorne was the only ascender capable of pronouncing her birth name.

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. To the boys, she said, “The two of you had better get out of here before I call security, or better yet, your parents. Now git.”

They took off running.

What is the measure of a man,

But to wield his sword with power,

Yet to hold his family,

Like the greatest treasure,

In the palm of his hand.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 25

Grace lay in bed with Casimir. She had been his lover now for a little over a week. She touched his face, memorizing the line of his nose, the indentation above his lip, his chin.

Though his eyes were closed, he smiled. He whispered, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’ve made me happy, more than I had ever believed possible.”

He was a difficult man, very difficult. He had a thousand techniques for shunting any serious subject aside. And he had little belief in himself. In his power, yes, but not in himself, not in what lay deep within his soul.

He satisfied her in bed. How could he not, when his mulled wine scent filled her with desire and when he treated her so gently. When he made love to her, it was as though he intended to find every means possible by which to bring her to a place of ecstasy.

But of all the paths she had ever walked, this one was the hardest. What she hadn’t told anyone was that she had seen his death. It was that seeing that kept her touching his face, his lips, his nose, and reaching down even now to kiss him.

In a week, she had grown to love the man, because in one swift brilliant moment well into the future, he would become all that the Creator had meant him to be, and for that reason she had given herself to him, body and soul.

But her heart was already breaking.

* * *

Two weeks after she had completed the breh-hedden with Thorne, and officially become the breh to the Supreme High Commander of the Allied Ascender Forces, Marguerite stood on a wooden platform in Prague, addressing COPASS.

She addressed each of her points: the need for better evaluation of all Seers Fortresses around the world, for Seers rights, and for a document to outline such rights. But what good was it doing?

The committee was very quiet, perhaps because Madame Endelle had introduced her by her new designation as Supreme High Seer of Second Earth.

So no matter how enthusiastic or strident she became, the committee members looked almost bored.

She had practiced her speech a hundred times and had asked Thorne to look it over and offer suggestions. She had taken his ideas and worked up several variations. Both Fiona and Havily had offered further concepts, which she had incorporated as well.

But as she stared out at the way the committee rustled papers, shifted in seats, and actually yawned, she realized she was talking to a group of men and women who already belonged to Greaves.

Besides that, she was sweating and really felt nauseated, like she would throw up any minute now.