Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

“Magiere, pull him down, now!”

Wynn’s arm wrenched downward. She had to brace on the staff as Ghassan dropped to his knees still gripping her wrist. The old man in the gray robe hooked his fingers and tried to charge at her ... or maybe at the domin.

In one sudden step, Magiere caught the back of the shimmering gray robe, wrenched the old man around, and slashed. The Chein’âs dagger split the robe’s front and the vestment beneath it. Smoke rose from the wound.

The host’s eyes widened over a gaping mouth.

Normal blades caused little injury to the undead. The white metal weapon gifted to Magiere by the Burning Ones was more than steel.

The host screamed and Magiere slashed again and again.

Wynn’s relief turned into horror as Magiere tormented her prey. The dagger’s blade raised lines of smoke in every slash, under every scream, until the old man was beyond torment and obscured by smoke.

Wynn had no idea what to do as Khalidah’s host writhed. Pounding footsteps came behind her and she looked back to see Osha come around Brot’an. Osha stopped upon spotting Magiere and looked to Wynn as if expecting her to do something.

No one did anything. Wynn didn’t dare step into Magiere’s frenzy.

Leesil and Chap burst from the house’s rear door. Then Chane ran out behind them. Wynn couldn’t help looking their way, but in that brief distraction Magiere had straddled the host, pinned his legs to the ground, and grabbed his throat with her free hand.

She struck again, and this time sank the blade into his stomach.

His next shriek turned to choking convulsions.

Ghassan’s grip clenched tight so suddenly that Wynn almost collapsed. The sun had not quite crested.

“Magiere, stop!” she screamed out. “Leesil, Brot’an ... stop her!”

But it was Chap who got there first.

He slammed headlong into Magiere’s back, and they both tumbled and flopped over the host’s head and across the ground. Leesil came an instant later, stopped short, and eyed Magiere warily as she spun on all fours to look for her victim.

The host’s body went still with eyes wide toward the night sky. Limbs twitched as a discoloration in the dark wavered above him. But this wasn’t smoke.

“Now, you little fool!”

Wynn regained sense at Ghassan’s sharp whisper. She pulled up the dark glasses hanging beneath her tunic and held them over her eyes. There was no time to warn anyone as she thrust out the staff’s crystal and shouted aloud in Sumanese:

“Mên Rúhk el-När ... mênajil il’Núr’u mên’Hkâ’ät!”

White light exploded from the staff’s end.

Even with her glasses held in place, Wynn couldn’t see anything but the light. The black lenses adjusted, but she saw only smoke rising from the body. Whatever else had been there was gone.

Magiere lay curled away on the ground with Leesil crouched atop her, his face covered in the crook of one arm to shield his eyes. Likewise, Chap hunkered beyond them with his crystal-blue eyes shut tight. Above them, the glow of dawn began to spread.

Wynn wiped the crystal’s presence from her thoughts. The bright light died, but how long did they stand, sit, or cower there in silence, unable to move?

Ghassan had released his grip on Wynn’s wrist and sat on the ground with his head bowed, and she stood staring at the host’s body. Its blackened wounds barely smoked anymore, though its eyes were still wide, its mouth gaping, and it didn’t move.

Had the specter been burned ... destroyed? She believed so.

Brot’an held out a hand to pull up Ghassan, and Osha stepped in toward Wynn.

“You are all right?” he asked in Elvish.

Wynn didn’t know and looked to the three beyond the body.

Magiere now curled around Leesil with her face pressed into his stomach as he held her. Chap sat close watching, and though he looked up once, not a word from him popped into Wynn’s head. When Magiere fell into this state, only Leesil or Chap or both could ever bring her back to herself.

But this time had been so horrible.

“Where’s Chane?” Wynn asked weakly.

He’d come to this fight fully prepared and covered, but who knew what had happened since then. Chane never before had to face both the staff and dawn at the same time.

“He turned back before the sun came,” Osha answered.

Wynn sighed in relief. At least he’d made it inside before falling dormant.

“Was he still fully covered?” she asked. “Had he been burned?”

Osha shook his head as if to answer that he didn’t know.

Wynn turned and ran for the house, and Shade caught up to her.

Osha stared after Wynn. He had stood on a rooftop and fired arrows into the bodies of men to protect her. He had come after her to make certain she was safe. And even when he stood beside her, it was not him she thought of.

It was Chane.

It would always be Chane.

Magiere didn’t really hear Leesil’s whispers, and Chap had finally given up trying to chatter into her head. Even the soothing memories he called up from the depths in her mind didn’t touch her. The last clear thing she remembered was searing pain before she’d crashed through the window and fallen. Other things ... what she’d done ... were not so clear, and that made the scant bits she did remember so much worse.

Pulling back, she elbowed up enough to lift her head from Leesil’s lap. The early-dawn light hurt her eyes, and when she looked for the others, there was the body.

That sight left her numb. It had no connection to her. It was the specter she had hated, not this shell.

“Is it dead?” she asked with an edge in her voice.

Beyond the corpse stood Ghassan, pale and unsteady. The domin managed a nod to her, but his gaze quickly returned to the body with something like puzzlement.

Magiere wished she could remember—could have seen what had hid in that flesh—when it finally died.

“We must leave. Now,” Brot’an said. “We have lingered too long, and the city is awakening.”

Ghassan flinched as if startled and looked up at the elder assassin. “Yes ... yes.” And then he frowned and glanced around. “Does Chane live?”

“He’s in one piece,” Leesil answered from behind Magiere. “Wynn already went to ... to check on him in the house.”

Ghassan nodded slowly with a long breath. “All of you return to the sanctuary. Wayfarer will let you in.”

“And you?” Brot’an asked.

“Chane will be dormant until dusk,” Ghassan answered. “This house is safe now, and I will assist Wynn in moving him to the hidden room in the cellar. We will join the rest of you after nightfall.”

“You’d sit in a cellar all day ... for him?” Leesil asked.

“Enough,” Magiere whispered.

At his sudden silence, she didn’t look back. If Chane hadn’t been there for what happened in the passage below the house ...

“Do you really think you can get Wynn, Shade, and Chane out of there after dark?” Leesil asked. “There are bodies everywhere. This place will be overrun with imperial and city guards soon enough.”

That did make Magiere look up.

“No, it will not,” Ghassan answered calmly and fixed on Magiere. “Go now. All of you.”

Magiere stared at the corpse again, wishing she could have watched Khalidah die and remember it clearly. Leesil grabbed her arm and pulled her up, but some things Khalidah had said began coming back.

How long will you last denying what you are ... why you are?

Two mornings later, Wynn sat on the floor with Shade in the back corner of the sanctuary’s main room watching Chane as he lay dormant. She hadn’t bothered covering him yet. The sun had risen, but Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Wayfarer were still asleep in the bedchamber. The sheet tacked up over the bedchamber entrance was still in place.