Eleri Lanfear's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

They set out for Moanroe's Ford at dawn. Eleri rode ahead on the coast road. Rhydian stayed beside the cart where Vandoriel sat bound. The sorceress had killed many of Jory's men with ice. Now Eleri needed the same woman's voice to close the tear in the sky. She hated how that bound them together. By midday they stopped near a weathered lighthouse, its beacon still lit above the stone tower. Eleri meant to water the horses and move on. Then Vandoriel planted her boots and refused to climb down from the cart. "I will walk no further," the sorceress said. "Not another step." "You will," Eleri said. "You cannot cast chained in a cart." Vandoriel smiled. White hair fell across her pale eyes. "You need me alive. I see it now. Your spell takes two voices. Mine and yours. Kill me and the sky stays open and swallows your little marriage whole." She let the words sit. "So I set the price. Free my hands now. Promise me the king never takes me back. Or I sit here and rot, and you rot with me." Eleri's stomach dropped. The sorceress was right. That was the trap of it. Rhydian stepped between them. "We don't need her goodwill," he said, light and quick. "We need her mouth to make the shape of a spell." "It is not that simple," Eleri said. "It is." He looked at his wife. "You learned the words. You hold the tear still. She only pulls. A person pulls when they're afraid, not when they're pleased." He turned to Vandoriel. "You want a promise about the king. I can't give you that. Neither can she. But I can give you the truth. You stand at that rift and you cast, or the pull takes you first. It reaches for the one closest. That's you." Vandoriel's smile thinned. Eleri understood then. She had been bargaining as if she needed the sorceress willing. She did not. She needed her standing in the right place, afraid of the right thing. "Climb down," Eleri said. "I won't free your hands until we reach the tear. When we do, you'll want them free more than I do. The sky will be pulling at your bones." For a long moment the sorceress did not move. Then she climbed down. Her boots hit the dirt. The concession she'd demanded never came, and she took the road anyway. They rode on past the lighthouse. Eleri felt the small victory and its price. She had refused the bargain. But she had done it by promising Vandoriel to the rift's pull, as bait and as caster both. If the sorceress let go at the wrong moment out of spite, it would be Eleri left holding a tear that wanted to drink her down. The thing that made Vandoriel walk was fear. Fear was not a leash you could trust to hold.