Philippa Ballantine: Harbinger

This has been a rollicking, fun series to write, and I am sad to leave Arkaym, Sorcha, Merrick, Raed and even the Rossin. To all who have supported me along the way, I need to give thanks, so here is the list.

To my editor at Ace, Danielle Stockley, for keeping me honest and on the straight and narrow with large cats and cursed princes.

To my agent, Laurie McLean, who back in 2007 said she liked my prickly Sorcha, and found her such an awesome home.

To my cover artist Jason Chan, who has always delighted and astounded me by capturing my characters in such wondrous detail.

Most especially to all the readers who have embraced the series. May you enjoy the ending, but keep dreaming of the comradeship and bravery of the Order.

Sielu—See from another’s eyes

Aiemm—See into the past

Masa—See into the future

Kebenar—See the real nature of a situation

Kolar—Send your sight traveling

Mennyt—See into the Otherside

Ticat—The Last Rune of Sight; for the last moment

The Runes of Dominion

Aydien—The Rune of Repulsion

Yevah—The shield of fire

Tryrei—Open a peephole to the Otherside

Chitrye—Bringer of lightning

Pyet—The cleansing flame

Shayst—Steal another’s power

Seym—The Rune of Flesh

Voishem—Phase through walls

Deiyant—Move objects with your will

Teisyat—Open the doorway to the Otherside

Smoke blew off the once-admired canals of the capital of the Empire of Arkaym. Several times the geistlord, who wore a coyote shape, had to backtrack as he found bridges broken before him and houses tumbled down everywhere. The Fensena sniffed at the bodies left to rot in the alleyways of Vermillion, but unlike a real coyote he did not pause to dine.

The fact that a five-foot-tall coyote was wandering the byways of the heart of the Empire in broad daylight would have been impossible to contemplate even just a few months before. Yet here he was with the run of the place, and not a Deacon of the Order or a soldier of the Imperial Guard to give him pause. The Emperor of Arkaym had very little care for his capital, and had chosen instead to chase after the Princes who had risen in rebellion against him—and it turned out there were quite a few such Princes.

Papers rustled and blew past the coyote in the sharp wind. He caught one as it spun by him, his lightning-fast paw pinning it to the ground. Through gleaming golden eyes the geistlord read—a skill he had taken pride in developing. It was the offer of a bounty; one on the head of Sorcha Faris. She was accused of sedition, treason and murder. More telling was the title they were giving her. “Arch Abbot of the outlawed Order” was written beneath the badly drawn picture of her. The Fensena had no love for the Deacons, but he knew what awaited him on the Otherside and had no desire to see this world burn.

As these dark thoughts filled him with dread, he moved on through the city and finally made it to the Bridge of Gilt. The canal that ran beneath it was clogged with all manner of dead and decaying things that made his nose twitch. Someone had tied offerings to one of the small gods on the railings: fruits, dead birds and something bloody and unidentifiable.

Still, the bridge was intact, and so he padded over it toward the Imperial Island. The coyote’s ears pricked forward as they traced running footsteps up ahead among the shops that lined the bridge. Though most merchants had long since abandoned their businesses for whatever safety they wrongly perceived elsewhere, a few brave held on. He could smell them huddled in their little shops, and hear them whispering.

A young woman was running along the bridge toward him, clutching something to her chest. The odor of fear was overpowering to the Fensena’s sharp senses.

It was a baby. She was cradling a baby to her chest as she ran. In the lowering light of sunset, her eyes were wide with terror. Finally, she saw the huge coyote standing in the middle of the bridge and skidded to a halt.

The wind ruffled the coyote’s brindle coat, made for deeper winters and more northerly climates. He felt a clench of sympathy for the woman and her child. The Rossin, the great geistlord who wore many shapes and all of them terrible, would have snapped her in half in an instant. The Fensena himself could have at least bitten her and leapt into her body to use her energy to keep his toehold in this realm for another few days.

The woman glanced behind her, and the Fensena could feel it now; the swirling approach of one of his kind. A geist eager for a host was sweeping down from the island. It tasted to him like a broken soul, perhaps one that had in life even worn the robe of a Deacon. Certainly, something that had been twisted by the Otherside and chewed into dire form.

The Fensena tilted his head, considering, and then placed one paw before the other to perform a slight bow in the woman’s direction.

“Run while you can,” he whispered through jaws made for cracking bone and tearing flesh.

That beasts should open their mouths and speak in the language of men had not been so strange in the first days, generations past, when the geists first came into the world—but humans had such very short memories and did not read very much of their own history.

The woman pressed her lips together and took her chance. She darted forward, and past him, so close that her skirts brushed against his fur and the perfume of her skin reached his nose. The coyote did not watch her, but his ears tracked her progress.

The geist was on her heels, and it was indeed as he had suspected. The torn and desecrated figure of a Deacon of the Order of the Eye and the Fist floated down the bridge. Once water would have prevented the geist from crossing, but the Otherside was very close to this realm now.

The geist did not acknowledge the Fensena’s existence. It floated on, making even the weeds in the cracks in the pavement wither as it passed. He knew what it would do to the woman when it caught up to her—and it would eventually.

It was not his concern, and he could not let it make him miss his appointment. Moving faster on its small, neat feet, the coyote crossed the bridge and trotted up the hill toward the seat of government. He did not like being in this city. However, just like the last time he’d been here, he was on a mission for the Rossin; the great and powerful geistlord whom he was tied to—like it or not.

The coyote raised his nose and sniffed as he approached the burned shell of the Mother Abbey. The odor of rotting human flesh was easily discernible here. When the roof collapsed, there had been none about to pull the bodies from under the stone, and now the ruins were a graveyard. This place had been full of beautiful gardens, dormitories crammed with Deacons, and a massive library.

However, what he was looking for was not here. Nothing was here.

The Fensena moved on, his nose twitching. Ahead lay only the Imperial Palace. However, a little caution was called for here. Like the shape he wore, the Fensena knew he had to exercise a care; he had a body, he could be killed, and lose his grip on this realm altogether. Unlike the Rossin, his bond with his host was not a permanent one. So he lowered his head and kept to the shadows of the buildings that looked out onto the Imperial Square. His nose told him that unlike the Mother Abbey, there were living people inside—people who would probably not like a large coyote having the run of the place.