in the journals of the former Master of Kelos. “Do you believe they wish to rule Kelos? There isn’t much there but the spirits who are bound to the land, and they are mostly peaceful.”
She raised an ebony eyebrow, silently reminding him that both the captain of the guard and the other spirits had attacked them when they’d first arrived at Kelos.
“Mostly,” he repeated, smiling at her.
“I don’t know what the thane is up to,” she answered after letting her fingers trail over his hand where it rested on his thigh. The chaos magic threatened to wake up at her touch, but he clamped down hard on it. She hesitated, her brows pulling together for a few seconds. “I just have a feeling that he’s up to something. When Sandor said that the Eidolon were running amok, I had the same sort of idea you had—that they were killing anything that lived. But no one seems to have heard of the Eidolon doing anything. It just seems odd, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he said, absently capturing her hand when she would have withdrawn it, and twining his fingers through hers. “I think that Deo will have the opportunity he seeks to destroy spirits, although I have no idea how he expects to do that when chaos magic is powered by the act of death.”
“I have the exact same worry. I might be able to do it, though.” Allegria sighed and glanced upward, where a few fluffy clouds hid Kiriah Sunbringer from their view. “If Kiriah would remember that I exist, that is.”
Hallow decided that the time was right to broach a subject he’d had some time to think over. If nothing else, it would focus his attention away from just how warm her hands were, and how much he loved their touch. “Does it not occur to you that perhaps Kiriah is withholding herself from you in order to protect you?”
She shot him a startled glance. “Protect me how? I’m a lightweaver, Hallow—wielding Kiriah’s power is what I do. I shouldn’t have to be protected from it.”
“Not her power, no, but—” He hesitated, thinking of how best to put his thoughts into words that wouldn’t insult her. “But perhaps she wishes to keep her power from you so that it cannot be used by another.”
“Another? What other? Who could possibly be able to use the power of Kiriah other than a lightweaver, and possibly a priestess of her temple?” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Sandor might, but I can’t believe she would misuse such a blessing. Besides, one of the older priests once said that in her youth, Sandor had a sword made up of sunlight, and that she used it to banish the old ones. She has plenty of power of her own, so she need not poach mine.”
“Old ones?” he asked, his mind quickly rifling through the various facts gleaned from his readings. “The stone giants?”
“Yes. But no one has ever seen this sword. Once, when I was a girl, I asked Sandor if it was like my light animals, and she told me it was not a subject fit for discussion, which really doesn’t answer anything, does it?”
He chuckled at the expression of annoyance that crossed her face, wanting badly to kiss her, but knowing full well that although Buttercup tolerated Penn as she did no other horse, there were limits to what she considered her personal boundaries. Instead he squeezed Allegria’s hand and said simply, “There is one who is strong enough to wield the power of Kiriah. Indeed, if what Queen Dasa said is true, he has long sought it.”
“Who—oh.” Allegria looked thoughtful. “But Nezu is a god, himself. Why would he covet Kiriah’s power when he has his own?”
“A power that is limited in scope,” he pointed out.
“Now that he’s off Eris, you mean?” she asked.
“Being bound to Eris was what kept him from accessing power, not the reverse,” he gently corrected her. “Did you not hear the queen discussing what she’d learned of her time with Racin?”
“Before we sailed, when you and Lord Israel were closeted with her? If you recall, that was the morning Quinn decided Ella’s upper story was sufficient to be worthy of his notice, and she stabbed him in the thigh with a fork. I had to intervene before things got too out of hand, so I missed everything the queen said, although you told me it was nothing of great importance. Were you wrong?”
“No. Yes. Possibly,” he said, first shaking his head, then shrugging. “The queen said Racin—or Nezu, as I suppose we should call him now—was banished to Eris by the twin goddesses. The fact that he was able to leave Eris to travel to Genora proves he had greater mastery over the chaos magic than I suspect they realized.”
Allegria seemed to chew that thought over. “That’s why you think Kiriah has withheld her power from me, leaving me a lightweaver with no light? So that Nezu can’t get it? I don’t think I understand how he could take from me a magic granted by the goddess.”
“He’s a god,” Hallow pointed out with another little shrug. “He managed to break his exile. I doubt stripping Kiriah’s magic from you would be impossible for him.”
She was silent, her fingers withdrawing from his. He wanted to take her into his arms, to breathe in the sun-warmed wildflower scent that seemed to cling to her no matter how long she spent in the saddle, and reassure her that all would be well, but he knew she had been greatly troubled by the loss of her connection to the goddess she served. She needed time to consider this new thought.
His concern for Allegria was shoved aside when the road curved and twisted its way to the ruins of the once brilliant Kelos. Hallow paused, hearing faint sounds lifted high on the air. He listened intently for a few moments, the entire company halting when Deo, in the lead, reined in his horse and lifted his hand in warning to the others.
Instantly, the chaos magic inside Hallow burned to life, but he was prepared for that, and pulled hard on the power of Bellias, filling his being with arcany. Its familiar sensation gave him the strength to harness—at least temporarily—the insidious red chaos that demanded so much.
The others—Ella, the little vanth Dexia, and Quinn—all halted, obviously catching the distant sound as well.
And then Hallow was flying forward, leaning low over Penn’s neck, his hands drawing symbols even as he heard the sound of hoofbeats behind him, the shout of “Come on, Buttercup!” telling him that Allegria had gotten the jump on Deo.
Ahead, the crumbled outer wall spilled into the road with spiky fingers of stone that had once been smooth and white, but were now dusted with the gray grime that coated everything in Kelos. Half-standing walls dotted the area, with sharp remains of columns that had once been decorated with stars and moons, now stood as a sad reminder that even a place as venerated as Kelos could fall. Penn leaped one of the fallen columns when Hallow, with his eyes on the figure that flickered back and forth just beyond a pile of rubble, started murmuring spells. He was off Penn, and flinging arcany at the figure. At the same moment he heard a twang, and felt the air next to him ripple as an arrow sailed past and hit the figure just as his arcany peppered it with a dozen little holes of purest starlight.
The Eidolon—and Hallow had no doubt that the now-corporeal being with white, wispy hair flowing around his head like water was indeed one of the warrior race that had inhabited Alba before the coming of the Starborn and Fireborn—shrieked. It turned toward them, but its form melted into nothing, the strain of retaining a wounded corporeal form too much.
The spirit who had been fighting the Eidolon was one of the members of the guard that kept the other spirits in line. He turned a grateful look on Hallow, panting as he made a bow, his voice breathless
