“It was far more beautiful than the city of the queen,” the captain said, his voice full of pride as he walked next to me. “The white stone of the towers glowed at night, and the domes shone almost as bright as Bellias Starsong herself. And of course, we had many more arcanists than those who served at Starfall. It has ever been an honor to serve the Master directly, and the arcanists who lived here were the most powerful Alba had ever seen.”
“Hallow’s pretty powerful in his own right,” I said, feeling defensive on his behalf. I didn’t mind the captain chaffing Hallow a little, but it was quite obvious to me just how learned Hallow had become since Exodius had gone into the spirit realm, leaving Hallow to wrangle the arcanists who made up their order. “Without his help, Lord Deo and I would never have been able to close the rifts that the Harborym used to invade us. I will admit that I don’t know the extent of Exodius’s power, but I have seen Hallow in battle, and it was awe inspiring.”
The captain eyed me. “So sayeth the priest who has channeled Kiriah Sunbringer herself.”
I couldn’t help but glance down at my hands. Fine scars ran from my elbows to my fingertips, fanning out like flames, the result of our last battle with the Harborym. “I am ever blessed by the goddess,” I murmured modestly, knowing just how much I owed to my lightweaving abilities.
If only Kiriah would grant me the full extent of my powers again, rather than the brief little sips that came with decreasing frequency…
“Which is why the Master needs to think twice about spurning my offer of help. Without it, you will not succeed.”
I opened the door to the tower where Hallow and I resided, the runes on the door keeping the spirits from being able to enter, including the captain of the guard. He glowed with a faint bluish white light, his face set in its usual impassive expression, but I felt a sense of frustration in him that was different from his normal impatience with Hallow and me. I hesitated, biting my lip for a moment, knowing that I didn’t have time to try to resolve whatever problems the captain had with Hallow’s leadership. “We would never spurn your assistance,” I told him in a soothing tone, deciding a few seconds spent smoothing his ruffled feathers might give us a little peace and quiet. “But unless Exodius told you where he hid Queen Dasa’s moonstones, then I doubt if you can help us much. Hallow is doing everything he can to locate the two moonstones that are hidden, which is why it’s important to let him conduct his search without disruption. The spells he casts to look through the veils that obscure the stones’ location take much concentration—”
“Bah,” the captain said with a snort. “All he has to do is take the talisman.”
“What talisman?” I asked, wanting to go in and report my lack of findings, and more importantly, check how Hallow was doing. I hadn’t seen him since early evening the night before, when he had climbed to the upper floor of the tower, where he joined five other arcanists scattered across Aryia and Genora to commune via arcany.
A coy expression crossed the captain’s face, translucent as it was. “I cannot give it to anyone but the Master of Kelos. It is he who must seek my aid. Thus it has been, and thus it ever will be.”
“Doesn’t it normally work the other way around?” I asked, confused. “Shouldn’t you serve the Master?”
“I do!” he said, looking outraged. “But I am the captain of the guard! It is for the Master to ask for my service.”
I opened my mouth to say that didn’t make any sense, then shook my head, and murmured something about letting Hallow know what he’d said. By the time I made it to our living quarters halfway up the tower, I had mentally drafted a speech in which I pointed out to Hallow how important rest was, and that he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours; thus, he needed to let me put him to bed. And if I joined him, making sure he was well loved before he rested, well, who was to complain?
Our living area showed no sign of a blond-haired, blue-eyed arcanist, which made me tsk to myself in irritation. I glanced upward and tried to decide if it was worth interrupting Hallow to tell him about the Eidolon, then decided that he’d had long enough to commune. “It’s time we do something,” I said aloud, climbing a short ladder that was used to reach the upper levels of the tall bookshelves that lined the tower before clambering onto a small landing, and proceeding through a narrow door to an even narrower stone passage that wound upward to the top level of the tower. I eased the door open, worried I would interrupt Hallow in the middle of a spell or incantation, but although the scent of smoke and incense wafted through the open door to me, there was no noise from within.
I poked my head through the opening. Sunlight flowed through crescent shaped windows, making motes of dust dance in the air, and leaving warm, golden pools shimmering across the stone floor. Unlike our living quarters, this room was bare of all except a small table, a plethora of candles that had burned themselves out, and one prone arcanist, lying in the center of the circle of candles, a sheaf of papers on his chest.
“Hallow?”
His body lay still. Too still, without movement or breath.
Fear dug into me with sharp little claws of despair, sending me forward with a sob caught in my throat. “Blessed Kiriah, no! Hallow, my love!” What had happened? Had his magic gone awry? Had the other arcanists done something to harm him?
I was across the floor before the last word left my lips, kneeling beside the prone form of the man who had so wholly captured my heart the year before, tears pricking painfully at my eyes when I reached a shaking hand out to him. He lay so still, his beautiful burnished hair splayed on the floor, a similar golden stubble covering his jaw and chin. “I can’t…Hallow, I can’t do this without you…goddesses of day and night, help me!”
“Hrmph?” To my utter stupefaction—followed immediately by joy, and a few seconds after that, anger—Hallow gave a little snort, rubbed his nose, then turned his head to peer at me with sleepy eyes. “What did you say?”
“You…you…” I wanted to laugh and cry and yell. I wanted to shake him, and kiss him, and strip the blue arcanist’s robes he’d donned for the communion from his body, and show him just how much I’d missed him. Instead, I grabbed the papers on his chest, and smacked them onto the top of his head. “I thought you were dead, you great oaf! Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”
“Dead? Me?” He sat up, rubbing first the top of his head, then his face. He yawned, the rat, his eyes warm despite the rich blue hue that characterized all users of arcane magic. “What made you think that?”
“You weren’t breathing.” I put my hand on his chest, over his heart, just to reassure myself. “Your chest wasn’t moving at all.”
“Of course it was. You just didn’t see it because you were too busy ogling my manly form.” He smiled, making me feel as if I had been lying out in a summer field receiving Kiriah’s warmth. Then, with a hand on the back of my neck, he pulled me forward to kiss me, murmuring against my lips, “My heart, I can’t promise that we will leave the mortal plane together, but I can swear that we will not be long parted in this world or the next.”
I allowed myself to be mollified, and would have given in to the temptation that he posed but just as I slid my hand inside the neck of his robe to stroke his chest, he leaped up, saying, “Bellias blast me to the stars and back. It’s morning?”
“Yes, and if I were any other sort of woman, I’d take umbrage with the fact that you clearly don’t want me to do more than ogle your manly form.”
He laughed and pulled me to my feet, giving me a swift kiss as well as pinching my behind. “You know full well there is nothing I would rather do than dally with you in bed…and on the green couch…and that rug with the white fur that you said tickles your legs…but there is much we need to do before the day is gone. I must have fallen asleep after