Patricia Briggs - Raven's Shadow

He was taking too long, thought Seraph, watching Telleridge struggle against the Bardic touch. Tier couldn’t possibly maintain his hold on the whole room for very long, not in the condition he was in.

She stepped away from the wall and began making her way down toward the auditorium. If she could get to him, she could help.

“They are intelligent men, and well-trained to their office. If they chose to rule justly, they could surely do so. But they rule instead for personal gain. Some of you were encouraged to work a little mischief in the street of the weavers last year. Did you know that the council leader’s riches increased by half after that incident because the weavers now pay him for the right to sell their goods in their own craft stalls? Gorrish is one of the Raptors who sent you out to attack the weavers—did any of you gain from that?”

Phoran took a deep breath, and Seraph felt the crowd stir as the Bardic touch faded momentarily and then strengthened again. With the shifting of the crowd, her only path to the stage closed up.

“Those Raptors among you will know that almost half the Passerines who are here will die mysteriously shortly after they graduate to being Raptors. Some of you know that it is not so mysterious, because you aided in those men’s deaths. Why kill so many? Because some of you are already outgrowing the trappings of childhood. Some of you realize that it is not necessary to prove who you are by how much destruction you can cause—you are the first ones they will kill. Like this young man beside me who was targeted only because he loves old instruments more than he loves tormenting the younger Passerines.”

“I haven’t been much of an emperor,” Phoran said. “I’ve disappointed people who cared about me all of my life—just as you have. Mostly, my failures have been passive failures—things not done rather than great and terrible acts. Just as yours have been, until today. If you harm men whose only crime is to fall afoul of a power-mad politician, then you take a step that cannot be undone.”

Tier crooked his neck and peered out of his one good eye to see how Phoran was holding up. Something, he thought, something had walked close to the Emperor. It leaned nearer as if it were whispering something in Phoran’s ear, then faded from Tier’s view.

Jes, he thought. Anxiously, Tier looked at the audience, but they didn’t seem to have seen that nebulous shape.

Phoran took a breath. “You have a choice tonight. You can hold to the oaths you made to the Masters of the Path. Realize that they have not given you an oath in return—as I did when I became emperor. I owe you fair hearing in disputes, I owe you a place in our society, and I owe you an emperor worth serving in return. You must choose now.” He looked up, scanning the crowd. When he saw what he sought he nodded once. Then he began speaking rapidly. “Choose who you fight carefully, because this is a battle for the soul of the Empire.”

He swung one of his chained wrists to indicate the wall of the Eyrie and, as if he’d wielded the magic himself, the wall disintegrated into so much plaster dust and splintered wood. The noise and magical backwash distracted Tier, and he lost his tenuous hold on his own magic.

The failure of his control hit Tier like a blow to the head. It awakened every inch of the screaming flesh the Masters had abused. He cried out, and his vision blackened. The sounds of battle erupted around him, and half-dazed as he was, he couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing here without a sword.

The destruction of the wall caught Seraph by surprise. She had been supposed to help bring it down, but, unable to see over the crowd, she must have missed the signal—or Hennea had used an opportune moment in the Emperor’s speech.

Irritably, Seraph poked the tall, bulky Raptor who stood in front of her. Since she’d used a touch of magic, he jumped aside with a yelp, pushing several other men over and briefly clearing a visual path for Seraph just as Avar’s men and the Travelers began pouring into the room with a war-cry that was even more effective in a room designed as a theater than it would have been on an open battlefield.

The astonishment of such strangeness held the Followers of the Path oddly still until the first of Avar’s men gutted the nearest Raptor.

A man near Seraph drew his sword, but he was looking toward the far side of the room for his enemy, so he never even noticed Seraph until her knife intersected his belly. A young blue-robed boy drew his sword and finished the job—but gave her white robes a wary look.

“I’m Tier’s wife,” she said, tossing back her hood.

“Pleased to meet you, ” he said, grunting the last as he used his sword to catch the blade of a Raptor who was a bit quicker than most to realize that the Passerines were as much a threat as the fighting men who’d come through the wall. “I’m Kissel.”

She had to get to Tier. Discarding the robes both because they got in her way and because they might get her killed by one of Tier’s Passerines, she aimed for the most direct path to Tier, whom she still couldn’t see.

The fighting was widespread by now, and the heaviest fighting lay between her and the stage. Seraph called her magic to her.

Blindly, instinctively, Tier tried to rise to his feet, since a down man on a battlefield was a dead man, but something held his wrists and he couldn’t call any strength to his muscles.

“It’s all right, sir,” said Toarsen’s familiar voice. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“The Emperor,” managed Tier, falling back to his damaged knees and biting back a moan. Screams were for people who weren’t as weary as he was.

There was a series of clanking sounds, battle sounds that ended in a grunt and a thunk. Toarsen, panting a bit, said, “Kissel’s with him, and someone cut him loose and gave him a sword. I never knew that Phoran knew how to fight. Never thought”—another thunk and gasp—“someone as fat as he is could move that fast.”

“The Masters?” asked Tier. Seated and calmer, he found that his vision was coming back a bit, but not well enough to sort through the chaos of battle. He wiped his good eye with the back of his hand. His hand came away wet, but he could see again.

“I don’t see ’em,” Toarsen said. “I was watching Avar and his men boil into the room. When I looked back, this place was covered in fighters and I thought I might come up here and bear you company a bit. We’ve a nice view of the fighting up here—those two boys of yours can surely fight.”

Someone in white blundered into the small area of stage that Toarsen was guarding, and he sent the Raptor on his way with a kick that impaled him on a sword held by a man with moon-pale hair.

“Gessa,” said the man.

“Anytime,” said Toarsen.

“Collarn?” asked Tier, his returning vision allowing him to see that the boy’s place was empty.

“Naked as a newborn,” said Toarsen cheerfully. “You’re not able to get high enough to enjoy the sight, but I can see him from here. Remember all those times you told him that he carries his guard too high?”

“Yes?”

“You should have made him fight naked.”

Tier laughed, one short bark, then held his breath and his ribs. “No joking right now,” he managed.

Lehr rolled onto the stage and then bounced up and ran over. “Good to see that you’re alive, Papa. But I think I speak for us all when I tell you that I’d rather not worry about you again for a while. Parents are supposed to worry about their children, not vice versa. Let me get a look at those chains.”

He held the manacles in his hands and closed his eyes. After a moment, the locks clicked open. Lehr grinned at his father’s expression.