Gail Martin - The Sworn

Tris lay back into the dry grass. Esme removed what was left of his chain mail. The dimonn ’s claws had sliced through the heavy metal rings as cleanly as a sword. Already, the wound was beginning to putrefy. Tris could smell it. He concentrated his own power on containing the poison. He could feel it beginning to flow through his blood, feel his arm and shoulder growing feverish. Drained from the battle, Tris marshaled his magic, drawing on his life force. If the dimonn ’s poison reached that blue-white thread as it had with Evan, there would be no summoner to save Tris’s life.

Tris felt the poison war with Esme’s magic. The cuts had been deep, and the poison was strong. While Tris had used his magic many times to help heal others, he had rarely turned the power inward. He didn’t need Esme to tell him that his life depended upon finding a way to do just that. Tris could feel his heart struggling to beat. It was getting harder to breathe.

Tris focused his magic on the putrefying wound. I have the power to breathe life into the dead, although it is forbidden. Perhaps dead flesh is just dead flesh. Tris called his summoning magic to him and concentrated on the flesh of his shoulder. He could feel the death spreading, and he met that death with magic, willing the necrotizing skin to live and forcing the blue-white light of his life thread into skin and tissue. He fought back a scream at the pain as his body warred against his spirit and his power. Esme was amplifying his magic, channeling it into the most damaged places.

“It’s working, Tris,” Esme urged. “But it’s not gone yet.”

With a cry of pain, Tris forced blood and spirit back into the blackening flesh. He felt death yield to him, and with its surrender, the sullied skin and muscle began to thrum once more with blood and life. In moments, the wound was cleansed. Four raw gashes still laid open the left side of his arm and chest nearly to the bone, but they were clean of rot and free of poison. Tris swallowed hard and sank back against the ground, barely conscious.

“I’ll take it from here,” Esme said, bending close to his ear. “You’re safe now.”

“I really don’t want to explain this to Kiara,” Soterius muttered, kneeling next to Tris on the other side. “I don’t think she’ll take it well.”

“She’s used to… this sort of thing,” Tris managed. He meant to say more, but Esme’s healing magic swept over him like a warm blanket, taking with it both pain and consciousness.

I fail to see how this is any of our concern.” Astasia leaned back in her chair, letting her long, chestnut-colored hair fall across her shoulders, spilling down over full breasts barely hidden by her revealing neckline. The vayash moru ’s pale skin was a sharp contrast to the deep burgundy of her gown. Astasia met Jonmarc’s eyes with a look that combined both seduction and malice.

“It’s your concern because you’re the Blood Council, dammit!” Jonmarc glared at Astasia. Once, being the only mortal in a room of vayash moru might have tempered his comments. Now, a year after he had come to Dark Haven as its lord, he had fought and bled for its residents, living and undead. The insurrection he’d quelled that winter had set him directly against two of the Blood Council’s members, Uri and Astasia, at peril of his life. He still had a scar from two puncture wounds at the base of his throat, where Malesh, one of Uri’s renegade vayash moru, had tried unsuccessfully to kill him. Surviving that attack had made Jonmarc a legend, as had returning alive from making Istra’s Bargain, a pledge to forfeit his soul in exchange for the death of his enemy. Having stared down both the goddess and Malesh, Jonmarc found his fear of the undead was considerably diminished.

“My brood has no quarrel with the Durim,” Astasia said blithely.

“Then you are a fool.” Riqua wheeled on Astasia. “The Dark Gift is no protection against their torches. They hunted me when I lived, and I hid from them when I was first brought across. No more. I will fight.” In life, Riqua had been the wife of a wealthy merchant, and that sensibility still served her. She was a handsome woman in her midfifties, with upswept, dark blonde hair. Her gown was of the most current fashion favored at court, and the expensive jewelry that glittered at her throat and on her wrists was a testimony that undeath had been favorable for building wealth.

“Of late, you seem ready to battle anyone,” Astasia purred.

Riqua’s scorn was evident on her face. “I’m not ashamed that my brood fought alongside Lord Gabriel’s to defeat Malesh. We preserved the Truce with mortals to protect ourselves. I paid a price for that; half my brood was destroyed in the fighting. You might not have dirtied your hands with battle, but I recognized many of your brood among those who fought for Malesh.”

“So?” Astasia pouted. “It’s the way of things. Uri’s fledge started the war. Mine just played along. Immortality without conflict is… boring.”

“You brought our kind to the edge of destruction because you were bored?” Riqua hissed. “You were a stupid, empty-headed whore in life and you haven’t learned anything in death to improve on that.”

Astasia started from her seat, and Jonmarc thought she might attack Riqua, but just then, Gabriel rose to his feet. He fixed Astasia with a cold glare, and she sat down. She’s afraid of him, Jonmarc thought, suppressing a smile. He knew just how formidable Gabriel could be. Astasia might be willful and utterly self-centered, but if she recognized Gabriel’s power, she wasn’t quite as stupid as Riqua supposed.

“One war is behind us,” Gabriel said. When he was certain Astasia was silenced, he turned his gaze toward the other members of the Blood Council, the ruling body whose word was law to the vayash moru in much of the Winter Kingdoms. “Now, another threat has risen. The question is: What will we do about it?”

Gabriel’s cold gaze went first to the Council’s chairman, Rafe. Though dead for centuries, Rafe still had the look of a priest or scholar. He had the ebony skin of an Eastmark noble and eyes that were almost black. Although he’d been in his early thirties when he’d been brought across, his hair had grayed to a sand color. “You’re certain the Durim are behind this?”

“Does being dead affect your hearing?” Jonmarc growled. “I just took a strike force of vayash moru and mortals into the caves to burn out a group of Durim. It took a mage and a hell of a fight to get out of there in one piece. They were draining vayash moru and slaughtering vyrkin. I’ve got a manor house full of vayash moru and vyrkin refugees. The war has already started.”

“You’re good at burning things, aren’t you?” Uri tented his fingers over his chest. He had the olive skin and dark features of a Trevath or Nargi native, and even centuries after his death, he still had the air of a card sharp and two- skrivven hustler.

Jonmarc met his eyes. “When I have to be, yes.”

Uri made a show of sighing, a completely artificial gesture since he no longer had to breathe. “As much as it pains me, I actually agree with you for once.” Uri toyed with the heavy gold rings on his fingers. “The Durim’s threat is real. Like Riqua, I also remember when the followers of Shanthadura drove us from our homes and then from our crypts. I have no desire to see their ilk return to power.” His expression darkened. “It was plague that brought them to the fore, long ago. Lady knows, I have no love for the Crone priests, but they are nothing compared to the Durim.” He leaned forward, looking past Astasia toward Rafe. “We must do something.”

Rafe frowned. “What would you have us do? We’ve only barely restored the Truce. The people of Dark Haven may suffer the Lord of Dark Haven to lead his guards against other mortals, but if we begin to strike the living, they’ll all turn against us.”