The Silenced Tale, стр. 115
At first, the Viceroy simply stares up at me like a trapped prey animal. And then he grimaces. The cuts on his face reappear. His legs jerk. His wrist breaks. His eyes fly open as he understands what is happening. He begs mercy; I ignore him. I tell his joints to dissolve, his bones to liquefy, his cells to let go, his protein strands to unravel.
His final scream of defiance ends in a whimpering pop as all that the Viceroy was froths into nothingness and boils away.
Silence, glorious and pregnant, fills the room.
Only to be broken by Bevel’s breathy: “Holy fuck.”
Chapter 16 Forsyth
Bevel’s shock is momentary. He wrenches his attention back to his trothed, shouting Words of Healing and Words of Repair, and Words of Replenishment.
“Forssy, c’mon, help me,” Bevel begs, and I kneel beside my brother to add my Words to his.
“The magic can’t stay,” Pip says, and she sounds punch-drunk and woozy. “It’s building. It’s going to—I can’t—”
“Just give me long enough to save him,” Bevel sobs. “Please.”
“I can’t—”
“Please!”
“Forsyth,” Pip says, and she is grimacing when I look up at her, her skin growing brighter and brighter. Dear Writer, I think she’s going to explode. Actually explode. “Forsyth, I can’t hold on to it!”
“He breathes!” I say. “Kintyre breathes, the bleeding slows. He’ll live.”
“You can’t just—” Bevel protests.
“She must, Bevel. She must—”
Pip swallows hard and grinds out: “Think of home.”
“Home?” I ask. “Victoria?”
“Turn Hall,” my wife says. “Hain.”
The name is enough to conjure my memories of the place. It was the scene of some of my greatest sorrows, but also some of my greatest joys. The room where Pip’s first words to me were, “Oh, it’s you.” Where my daughter first slept in the cradle of my House. Where Bevel confessed his love to Kintyre, and where Kintyre returned to live as husband to him. Where they guarded Lysse, and bid Wyndam, “well come,” and offered sanctuary and occupation to Caerdac and Bradri. Where Pointe and I had whiled away long hours, sparring and laughing, and where, in the rosy dawn light of the first day of the new year, we sat on the front steps and shared a pipe, and confided to each other our Solsticetide wishes.
“That’s perfect,” Pip whispers, and then, struggling against some monumental weight that only she can feel, she raises her free hand. She points a single finger, raises it just above her eyeline, then draws it down slowly.
A bright white light follows, a rip in the veil of the skies, and the sound of the fabric of the realms tearing is like silver bells and shattering glass and the gleeful, high-pitched giggles of my daughter.
“Father!” a voice calls through the portal.
“Wyn!” Bevel shouts back.
“Bevel! You’re alive! You’re all right!”
“For now,” Bevel lies to the lad. Bevel looks up at us, his features grim.
“Wyndam?” Pip says, and already she sounds better, like a pressure valve has been released. “Stand back!”
“Aunt Pip?” the lad yelps, but there’s a scuffling noise that I assume is my nephew complying.
“Come on, Bevel,” Pip groans. “Grab Kintyre. The opening is going to close any moment.”
“I can’t . . .” Bevel chokes, startled back into his own body, staring down at Kintyre’s chest as his lover struggles for breath. The shock has set in, and Kintyre is fighting his own body now. Fighting to live. “Moving might kill him, and Mother Mouth won’t come in time.”
“Agreed,” I say, pulling off the mask and replacing it in my jerkin. “But staying here—the healer is powerless now. The Words are only air.”
“Uh, hello?” Wyndam calls from the other side of the portal. “Aunt Pip, what’s happening? It’s closing!”
“I know!” Pip calls back. “Bevel, you have to go.”
And she’s right. The two ends are starting to stitch back together, the rip in the fabric of reality healing over, the entry point getting smaller and smaller. The glow on her skin is starting to become unbearable to look at. We are out of time.
“Not without Kin!” Bevel snarls.
“But you’ll be trapped here, forever,” Pip insists. “The magic will be gone for good. This is it. This is your only chance. What about your family?”
“Kintyre Turn is my family,” he snarls with bull-doggish stubborness. “And I’m not leaving him!”
“Bevel, I can’t—” Pip gasps. The creak of branches in a breeze is the only warning that I get. I duck quickly, and just in time, too, for Pip’s ivy wings fold over her shoulders, the tips reaching into the tear. The gash closes hard on Pip’s wings and she skids forward a half a pace, eyes screwed shut, teeth clenched, fighting the pull of the Deal-Maker’s magic. Another booming crack fills the room, echoing across the ceiling.
Pip’s wings are splintering. They are cracking at the shoulders, the wood too fresh to break cleanly, the leaves being torn from their stems and sucked into the portal. Pip’s hair flies across her face, and I throw my arms around her waist, hold on to her, anchor her body to the floor as best I can.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper in her ear, warm, sure.
Pip throws her hands toward the portal, and the ivy twined around her arms skitters off and away. With a final resounding crack, both of her wings snap off and vanish into Hain.
“There,” Pip pants as we both back away from the opening. Her hands are fisted against her stomach; the separation must be making her nauseous. “The magic is back where it belongs.”
I press a relieved kiss to her temple. She sinks to the ground, hugging her middle, squinting back tears of immense pain, face flushed and countenance windblown. She has never looked lovelier to me, and I have never loved her more than I do in this moment.
“Bevel!” Wyndam shouts through the portal, which is rapidly shrinking now. “What’s happening?”
“We’re staying,” Bevel shouts back. “Writer, Wyndam, I’m sorry! We’re staying!”
“What?” Wyndam and Pip both shout in tandem.
“Goodbye!” Bevel shouts, tears spilling over his lashes