The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

recalling how his hands had felt in those moments behind the statue, or wondering whether that evening had ruined any chance for another such encounter.

She slammed her branch into the final demon’s head with perhaps unnecessary force and found little satisfaction in its death. It would only dissipate, returning to unconscious scraps of creation from a “life” it had never sought and perhaps didn’t welcome, unaware of the trouble it had caused.

“The problem is,” said Branwyn when they stood surveying the aftermath, “as I said, these things don’t exist unless they’re drawn to our world.”

“How do you know?” asked a palace guard who’d come with them. “Made a study of demons, have you?”

Darya would have responded sharply. Emeth would likely have punched the man. The Adeptas, and Olwin, had sent Branwyn for more than one reason. She reminded herself of that and replied calmly, with another of the half-truths she could comfortably tell everybody but Zelen. “We thought it might be useful, when preparing for war, to know what it might draw, or what our enemy might summon.”

“Masses of people?” Mezannith asked. “We’ve had these festivals every year, though, and never with this result. As far as I know, there’s no stack of corpses nearby either.”

“Life does it as well as death, once they’re here.”

“Ah,” said a third of their companions, who’d been out in the gardens when the demons attacked. He coughed. “Well.”

“Once they’re here?” Mezannith picked up on the crucial point.

“It’s very rare for them to come through naturally. When they do, it’s usually because there’s been enough death or life in one place, at one time. I doubt this qualifies.”

“So this was deliberate?” The general’s question was swift and intense.

Branwyn wished she had a more certain answer. “Probably in part.”

“Give me the least troubling option first.”

“Badly done magic makes the world weaker,” said the wizard with them, a pale-haired youth, either uncertain of themselves or of speaking up. They gulped and went on when Mezannith jerked her chin at them impatiently. “Maybe an apprentice tried a thing they didn’t ought to have.”

“Right,” said Branwyn. She’d been called out to handle one of those incidents. It had ended even worse for the wizard in question than it had done for those around her, and that was saying a great deal. “Nastier spells bring them forward too, even when cast properly, and those who cast them generally don’t care. And specifically, if somebody summons a large demon, the small ones can slip through behind it.”

The mage winced. “So—”

“It’s possible that there’s a major demon roaming Heliodar, yes.” Mezannith gave Branwyn a hard bit of scrutiny. “Should I hold out hope, Madam Alanive, that one day you’ll bring us a piece or five of cheerful news?”

“The world is large,” said Branwyn, “and life hard to predict, and hope is always valuable.”

“No, then.”

“No, not really.”

Chapter 19

“You’ve done well here,” said the Mourner, magic glowing reddish-orange as her chair lifted her up and away from her final patient, the young mage who’d spent so much of her strength stopping time for the worst of the wounded. Now the badly injured lay, asleep but stable, on makeshift beds, and the wizard was slowly sipping a goblet of heated, watered wine.

City guards, wearing more severe uniforms and carrying less ornamental swords than the ones who’d been at the palace, checked the gardens. A Blade went with them, vast in their black clothing, and a knight in polished armor.

Zelen couldn’t feel glad about it; he didn’t have the strength to feel much except a dull relief. The night was over. Nobody had died.

Nobody in the ballroom had died, he corrected himself, and that did spur him to approach the Mourner. “Pardon, but do you know if the people who left here are all safe?”

“The people who left here?” She raised coppery eyebrows.

“The ones who went to get help, I mean. I don’t think any of us bolted for it.”

The correction helped. “I would hope not. I didn’t witness the rescue party myself, but this is the only place where the temple has received an unexpected summons tonight. I expect, if any of them had been badly injured, we would’ve known of that before I was sent here.”

“Thank you,” said Zelen.

It had been foolish to worry, he thought. Branwyn would naturally be all right. Sentinels were more than human, weapons of the gods. If the stories were right, they were practically unkillable—though the stories had never really mentioned what happened when they didn’t have soulswords, and “practically” wasn’t “entirely.”

Still: Branwyn was all right, and he’d been an idiot to worry. He suspected he’d been an idiot about quite a bit.

He watched the Mourner turn her chair, skimming across the floor as if she were sailing a boat over a very smooth lake, and move off. All of it seemed a long way away.

“Here,” said a youth in undyed robes, one of the Mourner’s apprentices. They pushed a goblet into one of Zelen’s hands and a slice of bread into the other. “Sit down, eat, and drink. Just because the demons didn’t get you doesn’t mean the evening didn’t leave a mark.”

Zelen managed a smile. “I’ve said the same thing myself a few times. Or similar. Without the demons.”

“Then you know it’s true,” said the apprentice, and disappeared into the crowd again.

The stairs were empty. Zelen sat on them and obeyed orders. The wine was good—not high-quality, but well-spiced—and combined with a few bites of bread, it took away a bit of the numbness.

He’d expected the evening to go differently. He’d very much wanted it to go differently. But it could have been worse.

The voices around him merged into a soothing, low hubbub. Zelen closed his eyes. Soon, once the wounded had been moved to more comfortable surroundings, he’d get up and seek his home. A bath would be good if he could stay awake long enough—the demons’ nature meant that he hadn’t gotten bloody, though he was conscious of dirt now, and sweat—but otherwise he’d