Rachel Aaron - Spirit’s End

“It’s not your fault,” Banage said firmly. “Mellinor knew the risk and asked you to stand against the Empress with him anyway. Now she is defeated, in no small part by your efforts. Rather than mourning, you should be proud that you accomplished what he so wanted so badly.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Miranda cried. “It was Eli who stopped the Empress, and now he’s gone, too.” She rubbed her eyes with her hands. “I sent everybody to their deaths.”

Banage’s eyes narrowed. “That is talk unbecoming of a Spiritualist,” he said. “You did exactly what you should, your duty. You protected the spirit’s will from the human who would have crushed it. But our duty is never done, Miranda. The Empress is gone, but we have as much ahead of us as behind. If you let guilt over what you could not change cripple you, then Mellinor’s sacrifice will have been in vain.”

His hand shot forward, hanging in the air inches from Miranda’s face. “Get up, Spiritualist Lyonette.”

Still crying, Miranda took her master’s hand. Banage pulled her to her feet and turned her away from the sea. Gin trotted over to meet them, sliding his broad head under Miranda’s arm. She smiled a little then, tangling her fingers in his coarse, shifting fur as he helped her to the stairs from the beach.

But when they reached the broken walkway at the top of the storm wall, Banage stopped suddenly. He was staring up the hill, his face, pale and drawn from the night’s horrors, going paler still. Still on the stair, Miranda leaned on Gin to peer around her master to see what had stopped him. Given how still he’d gone, Miranda was braced for something horrible—a reactivated war spirit, or the fires bolting up again. What she saw was even worse: a squad of soldiers in the Whitefall family’s white and silver riding down the mountain with Sara at their head.

Her hand went for Banage’s sleeve at once, but the Rector just shook his head. “It was only a matter of time.”

Miranda refused to believe that. “They can’t mean to keep pressing the charge of treason,” she said. “You defied Whitefall’s initial order to fight the Empress for the Council, but you helped defeat her in the end. Surely that makes things even.”

“The end doesn’t matter,” Banage said.

“How does it not matter?” Miranda cried. “The Council got what it wanted. You fought! If they bring a charge of treason against you for this, it’ll break the Spirit Court between those who are loyal to you and those who want to join the Council. The Merchant Prince needs us, he needs the Court whole and functioning. Why would he keep forcing the issue now that everything has already worked itself out?”

“I might have fought the Empress at the end,” Banage said, reaching down to brush his rings as the riders closed in. “But I defied Whitefall’s command.”

“That’s worth wrecking his greatest wizard allies?” Miranda said.

“The Merchant Prince risks more than the Court by appearing weak on traitors,” Banage said calmly, raising his glowing rings.

Miranda cursed under her breath and reached for her rings as well. She didn’t know what good it would do. She had nothing left to give her spirits. Anything stronger than her moss might well knock her out for the day. Still, she intended to back her Rector no matter what. But, to her great surprise, Master Banage didn’t call any of his spirits. Instead, he pulled the ring from his left middle finger and reached out, pressing it into Miranda’s palm.

She looked down in amazement. It was the heavy gold band set with the perfect circle of the Court that all Spiritualists received the day they took their oaths. Banage’s ring was larger than her own, warm, and surprisingly heavy. Far heavier, in fact, than it should have been.

“It’s not gold,” Banage said, as though reading her thoughts. “Look inside.”

Miranda turned the ring in her hand, and her eyes widened. The gold ended there, worn off by years of use to reveal the white stone core beneath.

“That is the Rector’s Ring,” Banage said. “The direct link between the head of the Court and the spirit of the Tower.”

“But,” Miranda whispered, remembering the heavy gold collar set with the flashing gems, Banage’s mark of office, “I thought—”

“The collar is a tool,” Banage said. “It makes feeding power to the Tower easier, but it is not necessary. That ring is the link that forms the heart of the Rector’s power. It’s difficult to use, but I expect you to master it before you need it in earnest, which may well be very soon.”

“No,” Miranda said, thrusting the ring back at him. “Why are you giving it to me? You’re the Rector. If that ring is the connection to the Tower, then it belongs with you. I can’t—”

“Now is not the time to be willfully ignorant, Miranda,” Banage said, his voice dangerous. He glanced at the riders, now only a hundred feet away. “I defied the Council knowing very well how it would end, but I did what I did because I thought it the right thing to do, and I have no qualms about paying for it. But the world is changing quickly. Now more than ever, the Spirit Court must be united. We must make peace among ourselves and the Council if we are to uphold our duty in the days to come.” He met her eyes again. “Whatever you believe, the Council sees me as a traitor now. A traitor cannot make peace. But a young woman, a Spiritualist beloved by spirits great and small as well as a former agent for the Council, she could.”

“No, she couldn’t!” Miranda cried. “It’s you we need, Master Banage. You’re our Rector. I won’t leave you to Sara!”

Banage grabbed her hands, and Miranda stilled at once. She was so tired, so weak, she couldn’t fight him. She had no will to fight Banage anyway. He peeled her fingers apart, pulling off her own golden ring from her left ring finger before deftly sliding the Rector’s ring down in its place.

Banage’s ring hung below her knuckle. The masculine gold circle was far too large for her, but even as Miranda was wondering how she would ever keep it on, the ring began to change. The gold-covered stone slithered like a living thing, warm and fluttering against her skin as it cinched itself to a perfect fit. When it was settled, the ring lay still against her skin as though it had always been there. Miranda tensed, waiting to feel something, a brush of a spirit across her mind, a voice, but there was nothing. The moment the ring stopped moving, all proof that it was anything other than a simple gold ring vanished save only for the suspicious warmth and oppressive weight.

Banage nodded and released her hand. “It won’t fully open for you until you’re confirmed as Rector,” he said, turning to face the riders. “That may or may not happen, depending on the Tower Keeper’s vote, but it will do for now. You must call the Conclave as soon as possible.”

“Conclave?” Miranda whispered. The Conclave was the most sacred Spiritualist gathering, called only in dire emergency. Every Spiritualist had to attend or forfeit their oaths. “How could I call one? There hasn’t been a Conclave in nearly a hundred years.”

Banage smiled. “High time for one then, I’d say.” The Council troops were almost on top of them now, and Banage pulled himself straight. “Wipe your eyes. Sara preys on weakness.”

Startled, Miranda scrubbed her eyes as the riders circled them. Sara pulled her borrowed horse to a stop a few feet from Banage and dismounted stiffly. The man beside her, a middle-aged officer Miranda recognized as the one who’d helped Sara surround the Spirit Court Tower before the Court had left Zarin the day before, stayed in his saddle, watching with the bored detachment of a soldier doing his duty as Sara faced her husband.