The four of us made our way in the darkness to the home of Revian’s parents. Rosie took the lead, and Ferius, Reichis and I followed. Soon enough we’d snuck over the tall iron fence and were inside the grounds. The house was massive, larger and more grandiose than Seneira’s family home. I wondered if Revian was ever lonely here, with so many empty rooms all around him.
‘There,’ Rosie said, pointing to one of the exterior walls.
I followed the line of her finger and saw the first of what proved to be a great many silver warding glyphs. When they’d built this place, they’d made damn sure nothing magical could get to them inside.
‘What’s the plan?’ I asked.
Rosie turned to me. ‘We will be very quiet, and very careful. Do nothing that could draw attention to—’
A sudden scream from inside the house made me turn. Blue and red light gleamed through the windows, almost blinding us before disappearing, followed by another scream, a man’s voice this time. Someone was being hurt very badly.
‘Okay,’ Ferius said, ‘new plan.’ She took off at a run towards the front door.
The screams continued, sounding increasingly tormented as we got closer. Ferius kicked the door near the lock, but it held. Rosie pushed her aside. ‘You never were very conscientious in your study of the physical arts, sister.’ The kick she delivered would have broken bone, but it still didn’t open the door. ‘A few more strikes should suffice,’ she insisted.
It was Ferius’s turn to push her out of the way. She gestured to me. ‘Kid, do your thing.’
I pulled powder from the pouches at my belt, tossed it in the air and made the somatic shapes with my hands as I said, ‘Carath.’ The blast took out the door and half the frame. Sometimes I get a little excited.
We ran inside, into a large open foyer. What we saw there made my stomach go cold.
Revian was in the centre of the room, his arms outstretched, floating two feet in the air. Ler’danet and the other house mage were lying in heaps, the skin burned from their faces, their hands even in death forming the somatic shapes for shielding spells. Nearby, a man and a woman – I assumed they were Revian’s mother and father – lay on the ground in pools of blood, their own flesh torn from them. Around Revian’s right eye, the winding lines of the shadowblack seemed to burn and glow like a star that shed only darkness. Seneira was standing in front of him, her expression flat, almost numb, waiting for her own death.
‘Kellen?’ Revian said, seeing me. He seemed to be in a daze.
I pulled powder again, not inclined to let him do to me what he’d done to the others and what he seemed intent on doing to Seneira. ‘Let go of whatever magic you’re drawing to you, Revian. I won’t warn you a second time.’
He stared back at me, his expression almost pleading. ‘How is this happening, Kellen? I’m not a mage. I don’t know any spells.’
I could almost feel the force of ember magic radiating from him, building in a crescendo, ready to be cast in a spell that surely couldn’t be good for any of us. Then I realised something: Revian’s hands weren’t forming any somatic shapes. He wasn’t speaking any of the incantations. His eyes were so wild there was no way he was holding the necessary envisioning for a spell.
‘Kellen, he’s talking to me.’
‘Who’s talking to you, Revian?’
‘I don’t know … He’s … He wants to say something …’ Revian’s mouth contorted in a twisted surge of agony. The voice that spoke next was his, but the words, the diction, were completely different. ‘Watch carefully, little spellslinger, watch what we do to this girl, and know that we can do the same to you, should you continue to interfere in our affairs.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Reichis asked, his claws digging into my shoulder.
‘I don’t …’ I glanced over and saw his fur was rising up of its own accord, the air was filled with static like the instant after you hear the thunder, just before … ‘Oh hell,’ I said, turning to Ferius and Rosie. ‘Get Seneira out of here, now!’
Revian caught my eye and I could see tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘They’re going to make me do it, Kellen. Please … make them stop!’
‘You’ve got to hold them back, Revian. Don’t be their slave.’
‘They’re too strong, Kellen! Tell me what to do!’
‘Fight them! Think of someone you care about …’ Like an idiot, I hesitated. ‘Think of Seneira. Think of how much you love each other. You can be strong for her, Revian, I know you can.’
He looked down at her and I could see the agony in his face even as the black marks around his eye swirled angrily, faster and faster. ‘I’m trying, Kellen. I’m trying so hard.’
‘You can hold them back, Revian. I promise you can! Just keep—’
Three things happened then, seemingly all at once. The first was that Rosie ran past me and scooped up Seneira in her arms, leaping towards one of the tall windows and turning in mid-air so that her back struck the glass, shattering it as the two of them went through. Something grabbed at me, hauling me back to the front door even as I took hold of Reichis before he could fall off my shoulder. Revian watched me go, his face a mask of terrible sorrow as he fought the forces that sought to control him. I could see on his face that his will was breaking. The strain of resisting the magic burning inside him must have been unimaginable, and he’d held it back so courageously it made me wish I’d known him longer, that in these last seconds I could have been a better friend to him. He looked so … ashamed. When he caught my eye, he said, ‘Tell her I –’
There was just time to see the first blush of multicoloured fire manifesting from Revian’s hands, his mouth and his eyes, as the flames began to reach out for all of us. Then the air went out of me and I realised Ferius had thrown me to the ground outside the house. I was still holding on to Reichis, and for an instant the two of us were staring up at the sky as if we’d come to lie on the grass and talk nonsense like we sometimes did. Then Ferius dropped on top of us, shielding us from the explosion.
The sound was deafening, and for several seconds I couldn’t see or hear anything. Then Ferius rolled off me. I could see she was dazed. Rosie and Seneira came around to us, the Argosi covered in cuts and lacerations from the broken glass. Seneira looked unharmed, save for the fact that the man she’d always known she would marry, who would be her partner in life, had somehow been incinerated by ember magic in a house warded against spellcraft.
I got up from the grass and looked at the remains of Revian’s home. There wasn’t much of it left.