Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 58

After smashing through the high window, Nicci fell through space, plummeting out into darkness. The cold claws of the night air grabbed at her battered body. Blood droplets from her wounds sprayed in the air, flowing upward and drifting away like red stars among the strange constellations.

She plunged, her black dress whipping around her. The stone walls of the ruling tower flashed past, and then the stark cliffs of the plateau’s edge as she hurtled toward the twinkling lights, rooftops, and convoluted streets of the lower city far below.

She felt like a bird, a black raven with broken wings dropping toward her death. But Nicci could not fly, because she was not a bird. She was a sorceress. She was Death’s Mistress. And although Adessa had battered her and Sovrena Thora had delivered the coup de grâce by blasting her through the windows, Nicci was not destroyed, not defeated.

She fell … but she could save herself. She had controlled the wind before, using her gift to manipulate the air, pulling together a solid barrier. Now, despite her pain-scrambled thoughts, she drew in a quick breath, tasting iron blood in her mouth. She summoned the breezes into a lifeline, gathered the winds beneath her to slow her fall.

Rooftops rushed toward her with the speed of an arrow in flight. Nicci had only seconds.

She strengthened the air, pushed it around her, felt her body tumble. The tiled roofs and tangled streets shot closer, and she knew she was still going too fast. She spread out her arms, trying to guide her descent. With a nudge of wind she knocked herself sideways, scraping past the sharp gutter of a three-story building, only twenty feet from impact.

Nicci cried out, drawing upon all the magic she possessed. She refused to fail, refused to die. But even though her anger was strong, she didn’t have the precise control she needed. The backlash of breezes buffeted her in the air and slammed her into the building wall as she dropped into the chasm of a dark alley.

With one last burst she turned onto her back, slowed herself—and crashed onto the slimy, garbage-strewn cobblestones of a dark street behind a tannery and a warehouse.

She cracked her head against the hard ground, and surrendered to merciful half consciousness. Nicci didn’t let herself slip into the blissful blackness, though. She had often escaped into the blessed respite of unconsciousness as a personal defense. Many times, Jagang had beaten her senseless when he raped her, and that brief escape into oblivion was sometimes her only way to defy him. She would surrender completely to the blows just to deny him the satisfaction of hearing her cry out from the pain.

Nicci didn’t need to escape now, though. She couldn’t hide from the pain. This pain was part of her. This pain meant she had survived. She lay for a long moment with her eyes closed, smelling the stink of tannery chemicals, the discarded scraps of yaxen hide, the gobbets of tissue scraped from the leather and dumped in a midden pile for the rats to fight over. She heard the rodents rustling through the dripping liquid in the gutters, stirring the garbage in a back alley where no one would see.

Lying motionless, Nicci took a silent inventory of her body, tasting the blood in her mouth, smelling it caked in her nose. Her head throbbed from a cracked skull, probably a concussion. Her muscles had been smashed from the brutal combat as well as the fall, and she knew her pale skin would become a mottled canvas of bruises. As she inhaled and exhaled, she could tell that several of her ribs were cracked.

A sufficiently gifted wizard could have healed her, but she was all alone here except for the rats. She could use her own gift to heal herself, once she regained enough strength … but that would be a long time coming. She doubted any of the wizards of Ildakar would lift a finger to help her, even if some of them also secretly resented the sovrena’s hard ways. They would not admit it now that Nicci had failed in her challenge.

At least she hadn’t been turned to stone, like the defiant sorceress Lani. That meant she could still fight. For now she had to endure, and survive.

Nicci opened her eyes. Despite the pain, she forced herself to move, getting to her feet slowly and methodically, catching her breath. She looked up between the buildings that rose on either side of her, the tannery and the warehouse. The ominous pinnacle of the ruling tower stood like a sentinel on the edge of the plateau. It seemed impossibly high above her. She couldn’t believe she had fallen that far and lived.

When she looked at the walls of the warehouse, Nicci noticed unexpected glints of lights, jagged reflections flashing from cracks in the bricks. Mirror shards. Pieces of sharp-edged reflective glass left as a sign.

Mirrormask! The rebels.

Holding on to the wall for balance, Nicci made her way along. The shadows in the alley were easy and comforting. She leaned against the cool stone of the warehouse and rested, catching her breath. She knew she needed to move again—but she was all alone in the city, and had nowhere to go.

This late, the streets were deserted, and that was good. She wanted to be alone, to assess what to do next. Each step drained the last scraps of energy from her. She had expended too much power during her fight against the morazeth, defending herself against the sovrena’s blast, and then stopping her fall. Now she had nothing left. Nothing. Nathan was unconscious and might never recover. She didn’t know where Bannon was. Mrra was held in a cage. Nicci was on her own.

Her vision was so blurred and the thoughts so loud in her head that she didn’t at first notice the furtively moving figures. Nicci flinched, drew back, knowing she could not let any guards see her. But this wasn’t High Captain Stuart or his armed city guards. These were the rebels.

One hurried forward, speaking in a gruff voice. “It’s the sorceress. Mirrormask will want her.”

Her knees trembled, and she tried to draw on her pride and determination. She stepped forward to face the rebels, but she buckled and slid back against the wall. The hooded figures rushed up to catch her.

“The sovrena … did this.” She drew a breath that stabbed like sharp knife blades in her lungs, in her side. “I need to kill her.” Their faces were masked with shadows, and Nicci had only the smallest reason to trust them, yet this was the only hope she had.

She felt hands on her arms, propping her up. “Come with us, Sorceress. We have a place to take you, a place that will be safe.”

Those words were all she needed to hear. She surrendered to the calming black oblivion.

* * *

Nicci awoke in a dank place that smelled of mist. She heard the gentle flow of water like a lover’s soft whisper. She blinked her blue eyes, tried to focus, and looked around to see narrow stone-walled passages lit by enclosed lanterns.

The tunnel was smooth and dark, as if some giant magical worm had burrowed its way through the sandstone uplift. Through the center flowed a stream of water, like an arrow-straight underground canal. The aqueducts! A stone walkway four feet wide extended into the darkness on either side of the water.

She lay on a wooden pallet softened by several layers of blankets. Her makeshift bed rested on the solid walkway near the water. She turned, expecting an explosion of pain from bruises and broken bones, but although she felt the raw ache of healing, she no longer seemed to be on the verge of death.

“Someone healed me,” she muttered, surprised by the realization. Someone gifted. “Where am I?” Her voice was dry and raspy, her throat parched, despite the moisture in the air. She lifted her head, saw figures in brown robes. They had shrugged down their hoods, not afraid of showing their identity here. The men and women watched her, looking pale and frightened, but defiant.

She propped herself up, which created a stir among the rebels. One ran down the tunnel to get help, while two came forward to assist her. “Ease yourself, Sorceress.”

An older woman handed her a shallow bowl filled with water, and Nicci drank greedily. It tasted clear, cool, and glorious. She drained the bowl and wanted more, but her helper refused. “Too much and you will vomit. Take it slow.” The woman handed her a soft knot of bread, and Nicci tore off a piece. “I baked this myself and stole it away from my master. The bread will give you strength. You still have much healing to do.”

“I’ve healed enough.” Chewing the delicious bread, she forced herself to sit up, swinging her feet off the pallet to touch the cool stone of the walkway. “Enough to contemplate my next actions.”

Her black dress had been removed and was folded neatly beside her. She gathered blankets around her, seeking warmth to offset the cold anger that sizzled through her. She took in the details of her surroundings. The air smelled of clean moisture, not the stink of sewers, not the sour stench of the alley behind the tannery. Sharp memories came back to her. “Thora … Adessa.”

“Shush now, you don’t need to worry about them. I am Melba. Recover here. Fight them later.” The old woman’s lips curved in a grim smile. “We are all ready to fight them.”

“Where are we? Who are these people?”

“You already know the answer to both of those questions, Sorceress,” said a male voice.

When she turned, pain shot down her back, but she faced the new figure, who wore hooded gray robes and a smooth silvery oval across his face. The reflective mask muffled his voice, but his words had a certain power.

“You challenged the evil in the ruling tower. You were defeated, alas … but you were not destroyed. We’ll help make you strong again.” Mirrormask paused. “So we can all be stronger and change Ildakar forever.”

“Yes.” Nicci felt a strange glimmer of confidence. “Let us find a way to destroy them. How long … has it been?”

Mirrormask came closer to her pallet. “You have been unconscious for more than a day. It is a good thing my followers found you soon after you fell, before the city guard did.” He let out a soft chuckle. “The fact that they can’t find your body has caused them great consternation.”

“We heard about your combat,” said Melba, offering another small piece of bread. “It sounded brave and admirable.”

“I failed,” Nicci said.

“Nevertheless, you shook them up,” Mirrormask said. “Just as we did when we released the combat animals to cause chaos in the city.” His followers had gathered around to listen to her words, joining Melba. In their shining eyes and eager expressions, Nicci saw that she added hope to their very existence … a hope Nicci wasn’t sure she deserved.

“We must keep doing damage until we have broken the old order,” Mirrormask continued. “The black society of Ildakar must be reshaped. The council has ruled for too long without change, and the people have suffered. That must end.” The secretive rebels gathered around and muttered their agreement.

“I will do everything in my power to help you make that happen,” Nicci vowed.

Mirrormask nodded, as if he had expected no less.