Peter Brett - The Skull Throne

Leesha watched through warded spectacles, her young bodyguard ablaze with magic as she pressed five hundred pounds the way another woman might open a heavy door. Leesha had been painting blackstem wards on Wonda’s skin for almost a week now, carefully recording the results.

Arlen made her swear not to paint wards on skin, then turned around and did it to Renna Tanner. If the practice was as dangerous as he claimed, would he have risked it on his own bride?

She’d meant to confront him about it before breaking her oath, but Arlen was gone a month, and had hidden his true plans from her. Even Renna lied to her face. When neither of them appeared at Waning, it was time to take matters into her own hands.

You are all Deliverers, Arlen had told the Hollowers, but had he meant it? Truly? He spoke of all humanity standing as one, but had been stingy with the secrets of his power.

And so Leesha spent a week testing Wonda to establish baselines for her metabolism, strength, speed, precision, and stamina. How much sleep she averaged per day. How much food she consumed. Every bit of data she could gather.

And then the warding began. Just a little, at first. Pressure wards on the palms. Impact wards on the knuckles. The weather had turned chill, and the blackstem stains were easily hidden under Wonda’s gloves during the daylight hours.

At night, they hunted alone, stalking and isolating lone corelings to gradually test the effects. Wonda began by fighting with her long knife in her dominant right hand, delivering warded slaps and punches with her off hand as she experimented with the utility.

Soon, she was fighting unarmed with confidence, growing stronger and faster each night. Tonight had been her most intense kill thus far, slowly crushing the skull of a wood demon with her bare hands.

Wonda eased the bar down until the basket touched the ground, then moved over to the carefully stacked pile of steel weights. Each was exactly fifty pounds, but Wonda picked up two in each hand as easily as Leesha might carry teacup saucers.

“One at a time, dear,” Leesha said.

“I can lift lots more than that,” Wonda snapped, irritation clear in her voice. “Why waste the whole night lifting one at a time? I could be out killin’ demons right now.”

Leesha made another note. That was the eleventh time in the last hour Wonda had mentioned killing. She’d absorbed more magic in a few moments than an entire Cutter patrol did in a full night, but rather than feeling sated—or overwhelmed, as Leesha predicted—it only made her desperate to absorb more.

Arlen had warned her about this. The rush of magic was addictive—something she’d witnessed firsthand with the Cutters. Those warriors Drew magic by feedback from their warded weapons. It remade them as perfect versions of themselves, healed wounds, even granted temporary levels of inhuman strength and speed.

But warded skin was something else altogether. Wonda’s body was drawing directly with none of the loss experienced through feedback. It made her a lion amongst house cats, but the signs of addiction were frightening.

“You’ve killed enough for tonight, Wonda,” she said.

“Ent even midnight!” Wonda said. “I could be savin’ lives. Ent that more important than marks on a page? S’like ya don’t even care …”

“Wonda!” Leesha clapped her hands so hard the young woman jumped.

Wonda dropped her eyes and took a step back. Her hands were shaking. “Mistress, I’m so so—!” Her words choked off with a sob.

Leesha went to her, reaching her arms out for an embrace.

Wonda tensed and took a quick step back. “Please, mistress. I ent in control. Y’heard how I spoke to ya. I’m magic-drunk. Coulda killed ya.”

“You would never harm me, Wonda Cutter,” Leesha said, squeezing Wonda’s arm. Night, the girl was shaking like a frightened rabbit. “It’s why you’re the only one in creation I trust to test this power with.”

Wonda remained stiff, looking at Leesha’s hand skeptically. “Got upset. Really upset. Don’t even know why.” She looked at Leesha with frightened eyes. For all her size, strength, and courage, Wonda was only sixteen.

“Never hit ya in a million years, Mistress Leesha,” she said, “but I might’ve … dunno, shaken ya or something. Don’t know my own strength right now. Might’ve torn yur arm off.”

“I’d have drained the magic from you before that happened, Wonda,” Leesha said.

Wonda looked at her in surprise. “You can do that?”

“Of course I can,” Leesha said. She thought she could, in any event. She had drugged needles and blinding powder ready, if not. “But it’s on you to see I never need to. The magic will try to sweep you up, but you need to account for it, like you’re aiming your bow in the wind. Can you do that?”

Wonda seemed to brighten at the comparison. “Ay, mistress. Like I’m aiming my bow.”

“I never doubted it,” Leesha said, going back to her ledger. “Please add the next weight to the scale.”

Wonda looked down and seemed surprised to find she still held two fifty-pound weights in each hand. She put one on the scale, restacked the others, and went back to the bar.

Leesha tried to take up her pen, but her fingers were stiff with tension. She squeezed her hand into a fist so tight her knuckle cracked, then flexed the fingers back to dexterity before dipping for fresh ink. The vein in her temple throbbed, and she knew a headache was coming.

Oh, Arlen, she wondered. What was it like for you, going through this alone?

He had told her some of it, on the many nights they spent in her cottage, teaching each other in wardcraft and demonology. In between the lessons they shared hopes and stories like lovers, but never so much as held hands. Arlen had his couch and she hers, a table carefully between them.

But she always walked him to the door, and offered a farewell embrace. Sometimes—just sometimes—he put his nose in her hair, inhaling. Those times she knew he would accept a fleeting kiss, savoring it a moment before pulling away, lest it lead to more.

She lay awake in bed after he left, feeling his lips on hers and imagining what it would be like if he were beside her. But that was out of the question. Arlen had many of the same fears and mood swings as Wonda, terrified of hurting her, or getting her with a magic-tainted child. Her offers to take pomm tea were not enough to persuade him.

But like warding skin, all that had changed when Renna Tanner came along. She was nearly as strong as he was, and could take the punishment he’d feared to unleash in passion with Leesha. The whole town knew about the noise those two made.

Creator, Arlen, where have you gone? she wondered. There were questions she needed to ask, things only he or Renna could understand.

I don’t care if we never kiss again, just come home.

“Have a look at this,” Thamos said. He had his shirt off, and it was a moment before Leesha realized he was holding a coin in his hand. He flipped it to the bed, where she caught it.

It was a lacquered wooden klat, the common coin of Angiers. But instead of the seal of the ivy throne, the coin was stamped with a standard warding circle of protection, the lines sharp and clear.

“This is fantastic!” Leesha said. “No one will ever be left without wards for the night again when every coin in their pocket is a guide.”

Thamos nodded. “Your father made the original mold. I have half a million ready to disperse, and the presses are running day and night.”

Leesha flipped the coin over, and laughed out loud. Stamped there was Thamos’ likeness, looking stern and paternal. “It looks like you when one of the Hollowers forgets to bow.”