Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

White curtains hung over a single glass-paned window at the room’s back. There was a small bed on one side and a chest of drawers on the other, and everything smelled faintly of dust. As she inched inward, she saw no place to hide, but she eyed the window ... until she saw its latch was still closed on the inside.

Magiere turned, about to leave and search other rooms, and she froze.

The gray-robed figure stood in the room’s doorway, though she still couldn’t see his face.

It didn’t matter as hunger burned again, and she felt her rage rising up.

...what are you ... why have you come ... who do you serve?

Magiere held her place in that gale of whispers. She was not chained down this time. She bit down on her lip, hoping pain would keep her aware ... keep her from charging blindly to hack that robe into shreds.

And the robe shifted into the room.

“What did you think ... to kill me with steel? I have lived a hundred lifetimes and will live a thousand more. How long will you last denying what you are ... why you are?”

Her head swam and then her sight of the room as well. Everything warped before her eyes.

“You are as trapped as in that cell, alone and helpless wherever you go, until you go where you belong ... with me.”

In her growing nausea, something rose to eat it away. It came up her throat like the fire and hunger, and screeched in her head to drown out the whispers ... and that one voice. Or had that sound like an animal burst from her own mouth?

Magiere’s right hand opened and the falchion fell. She held on to the dagger as the room became less and less dark. On the edge of her awareness, she knew this wasn’t entirely due to her dhampir half.

Outside the window behind her, night was quickly fading at the coming dawn.

She lashed out with her empty hand. Hardened nails like claws tore into the gray fabric covered in glinting symbols. The only thought she could hold on to was ... Daylight .

Magiere twisted to fling her tormentor toward the window. Somehow he halted without going through it. The hood turned until its black pit faced her again. When the hint of his voice began to cut into her mind, she shut it out, lunged, and slammed into him.

Magiere barely heard shattering glass as she clawed at her prey.

Leesil ran out into the hallway behind Chane. Chap emerged an instant later, still shaky on his feet, but Leesil had lost sight of Magiere. With Chap limping at his heels, he hurried halfway to the closed front door and stalled to look into the empty sitting room. He looked everywhere, every way, in every shadowed spot and corner. Panic pushed him to something he thought he’d never do.

“Where is she?” he barked at Chane. “Where is the host? You should know—feel them—so where, now!”

Even in the dark, Chane’s eyes glinted like fractured crystals as he looked around. When he turned back, he shook his head. Perhaps he truly did not know.

Leesil wanted to hiss. Instead, he pushed past Chap and then Chane, looking again into every shadow as he headed toward the back of the house.

Ghassan’s feet touched the rooftop. He released Wynn and let her drop onto her knees. Running to the roof’s side edge, he looked down.

His first impulse upon shooting up through the air by his will had been to propel them both through the first window he saw in the top floor. He had feared dropping or injuring Wynn, though it was not like him to put safety before necessity.

“What are you doing?” Wynn asked as she gagged and stumbled nearer.

Ghassan ignored her. Down below, the majay-hì was still barking. He wished the scar-faced elder elf would quiet the dog. Then he leaned out carefully to peek down over the roof’s eave for the nearest window.

A near deafening crash from the house’s rear pulled him around.

Wynn sucked a breath as she turned with him, but Ghassan launched himself across the flat roof by his will. When he reached the rear edge and looked down, Magiere was falling in a shower of shattered glass and flapping gray fabric.

Wynn appeared at Ghassan’s side, though she turned and shouted toward the house’s front, “Shade, to the back!”

Ghassan gave her no more time than that.

He grabbed her around the waist as he summoned glimmering patterns and symbols across his sight. Thankfully, she kept quiet this time. As she wrapped an arm around his neck, he stepped off the roof and threw his will against the lower ground as they fell.

The ground still came up too fast.

In that blink he could slow their descent only so much, and he still buckled upon impact. Wynn lost her hold on him and collapsed to the ground. At a glance, she appeared unhurt as she braced on her staff and pushed up to her knees. Shade rushed around the house’s rear corner, but Ghassan looked only for ...

Magiere struggled up with a long silver-white dagger in hand, and Ghassan barely recognized her. Completely black orbs filled her eye sockets in a pale face twisted like a monster of pure rage. Cheeks, forehead, and any exposed skin were flecked with red from bleeding cuts. She looked insane, perhaps no longer knowing who or where she was. And her teeth ...

Ghassan had never seen such in a mouth supposedly human.

The robed figure—Khalidah’s host—lay just beyond her and attempted to push himself up. One arm gave way as if injured, and with a grating shout Magiere charged at him.

“Not yet!” Ghassan shouted, for the sun had not crested.

Something in his voice must have broken through her madness, for she froze and hung over her opponent with the dagger held up.

Her target had not even flinched and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. As he turned, half of his hood was torn away.

Ghassan lost his voice at the sight of Counselor a’Yamin in the gray robe. Sharp eyes in a heavily lined face stared back at him through white hair in disarray.

The counselor rose as if something invisible pulled him gently up to his feet. He did not stoop with age anymore.

Ghassan went cold inside. He suspected Khalidah had taken someone highly placed, but he had never guessed how high. And how long had the specter been so close to the prince?

If not for the sect’s medallion that Ounyal’am wore, all it would have taken was a whisper from a’Yamin in the prince’s sleep. The secret of the tie between an imperial heir and the sect would have been lost ... along with the prince.

The counselor’s eyes narrowed as he took in all those around him, and only then did Ghassan notice that Brot’an had come as well.

“Everyone hold,” Ghassan commanded.

He did not know if the specter was more desperate than aware, and he had already been beaten down once. There was also Magiere’s bloodthirsty state, and all of this had to end now.

Ghassan grabbed Wynn’s free wrist as he blinked for clarity. In that instant, he wrapped his thoughts—his very self —in walls of glowing glyphs. His quick incantation slipped out in a whisper under the strain. When his eyes snapped open, he reached for the specter’s presence ...

A’Yamin’s old face smiled at him.

Something clawed over the shell around Ghassan’s mind.

He began to choke as that shell cut off the air he breathed. Incomprehensible words fought to breach the barrier and get to him like worms boring and wriggling inward. One glowing glyph after another withered and decayed, until the last began to rot before his sight.

A chorus of whispers broke through, and Ghassan could almost make out their words.

He quickly retreated deeper inside himself, building more walls as he fled into his own mind’s depths. He used the last of his will to focus and to squeeze hard on Wynn’s wrist ... or he tried to will it so. He could no longer feel anything at all. And on the edge of Ghassan’s awareness, he heard Wynn cry out.