The King's Craft (The Petralist Book 6) Read online

  Now all of those plans felt fragile. She wasn’t sure she could fight or destroy him. She might not have a choice. Too many lives depended on her. Even worse, if he was rational at the moment he fell to the mind bomb, he would beg her to destroy him before he could hurt anyone, despite how that would destroy her too.

  Kilian said, “We do have a plan. It’s risky, of course, but doing nothing is riskier.”

  Student Eighteen added, “Linking to Connor’s mind in advance and trying to remove the mind bomb is beyond my abilities, and perhaps beyond the abilities of anyone but Connor himself once he ascends the third threshold.”

  “Are you suggesting he ascend?” Verena asked, surprised.

  Kilian shook his head. “Not yet. The risk still outweighs the potential reward.”

  “That’s why you keep pushing off the idea of ascension. All that talk of needing to train and prepare was a diversion,” she guessed.

  “The training was necessary, but yes, I delayed on purpose. If he were to fall to my mother’s command and we couldn’t intervene in time, I doubt we would be able to stop him if he’d already ascended.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Student Eighteen said, “We orchestrate a controlled triggering of the kill order. We need him to think the spring thaw has come. If the mind bomb is triggered, any concealed secondary orders should be erased by that fact.”

  Verena grimaced and drew in a long, shuddering breath as she considered the proposal. “We just need to stop Connor in a blind murder rage.”

  Kilian flashed his roguish smile, easing the cold knot of fear gripping her heart. “Connor’s been training hard all winter, but I haven’t taught him everything. Even without another ascension, stopping him won’t be easy, but I believe we can do it.”

  Student Eighteen added, “We don’t need to beat him. The plan is to trigger the rage, then for me to link to his mind with chert. I will try to help him realize the directive is external. At that point, working together we should be able to overcome the order and set his mind free.”

  Kilian added, “Then when Connor is free, he can help us free Ivor before he can do any serious damage.”

  Verena didn’t miss how many shoulds and coulds and probablys they used. It seemed all too often of late their plans were like that, but she didn’t see a better way to do it.

  She forced calm into her voice. “What do you need from me?”

  Kilian rubbed his jaw. “This is the tricky part. We need to schedule a city-wide high alert drill without revealing the nature of the threat. If things go badly, we need everyone ready to defend themselves.”

  Student Eighteen added, “In that eventuality, you would need to spread the word that Connor has fallen to a mind attack and that he’s not himself. That might give us a chance to stop him, or at least slow him down long enough for some people to escape.”

  Verena shivered again. Connor and Ivor together in a fit of murderous rage could probably level New Schwinkendorf all over again and possibly kill everyone there. It sounded like they would target the Builders first, so she considered ways to move them to better defensive positions and distribute some of the more powerful defensive mechanicals among them.

  Frustration at the awful situation interrupted her thoughts. She rose and paced to the fireplace, fists clenched. “I hate that we have to prepare to kill him! He’s sacrificed so much so many times already. It’s so wrong.”

  Kilian gave her a reassuring smile. “I know it’s hard, but refusing to face reality only puts more people at risk.”

  She sighed and sank back onto the couch. Student Eighteen shifted back to Aifric, who gave her a sisterly hug and pushed a gentle current of warm healing to her. It helped calm Verena and she smiled her thanks.

  “Consider this the first step toward freedom,” Kilian said. “If we succeed, we’ll prove that my mother’s mind control is not insurmountable, and use that as a rallying cry for the revolution.”

  “Although maybe not right away,” Student Eighteen said with a wicked grin. “We’ll still want to ensure the queen’s spies send word that her command was successful.”

  That was brilliant, and it explained why they’d kept a few spies around. Verena had suspected they were sending misinformation, but Aifric was suggesting an unprecedented coup. If the queen thought Connor and Ivor had succeeded in killing the Builders and been either captured or killed themselves, she would think the road to victory was open and might make a foolish mistake. Unfortunately, that meant that either way, win or lose, their actions would trigger the next major battle of the war.

  Verena drew in a deep breath and nodded, accepting the duty and tackling the challenge with the same determination that had carried her through to that point. “Does all of this have anything to do with the challenge course you had Wolfram design for Connor to run today?”

  “Absolutely. We do need to demonstrate to our Arishat allies the extent of his powers and present a united front to help dispel the rumors of a weak lord being appointed by the crown to rule New Schwinkendorf. Most importantly, today’s run will help identify any weaknesses in his training we might have to exploit when we trigger the mind bomb.”

  Verena shivered again at the term. It was so accurate, but it carried with it the full weight of danger that hung over her beloved Connor’s head. She wanted to protect him from danger, but she was agreeing to push him off the cliff right into the fires of Queen Dreokt’s mental assault.

  They would defeat the murder rage. There simply was no other alternative.

  2

  Dig Deep, Go Fracked, and Hurl

  Connor sprinted across Schwinkendorf valley, basalt-enhanced legs flashing over the brown grasses, matted down by the fading winter snows. He moved faster than a diving pedra, the whistling wind the sound of freedom. He reveled in the open air and wide space, letting the stresses of intense training and the constant fear of an all-out attack from the queen fade from his mind for a moment.

  He lacked a Wingrunner’s protective face mask, but he didn’t need one. He maintained an invisible wedge of air just in front of himself to split the cold, dry wind, forming a pocket of moving calm through which he ran.

  Running fracked was great. Fighting a running battle against Kilian with elemental powers was simply awesome.

  A fresh wave of intertwined water and fire lanced out from Kilian as he raced past in the opposite direction. Connor was already tapping marble and soapstone, with flames coiled around his left hand and rippling water flowing around his right.

  He didn’t dare try to wrest the elements from Kilian, but threw his will into deflecting the blast aside long enough to zip past. Then he banked after him in a turn so tight he nearly went horizontal and his legs started to slip on the dew-covered grass.

  Good thing he could also tap slate for a second to secure his footing. How Kilian avoided slipping was a mystery, but he banked just as tight in the opposite direction. Connor needed every advantage, because any mistake would guarantee Kilian got the win.

  “Not today,” he vowed as he poured on more speed.

  In his mind, Fire and Water took human form as they’d started doing since his second ascension. Fire was a wild youth who loved to laugh, and who courted Water with desperate longing. Water always looked like a beautiful, mature woman whose long tresses flowed around her like crashing waves. She flirted with Fire, but still kept a cautious distance. Connor enjoyed the glimpses of their personalities, even if they were just his own projections.

  He couldn’t resist laughing as his legs blurred with superhuman speed, blood pumping with the thrill of the important match. The wide, northern end of the valley had been designated as the location for the ultimate challenge course to test Connor’s mastery over his second-ascension powers. He’d practiced intensely all winter to master them, and when he won today, he’d prove he was ready for the final ascension.

  Hundreds of spectators were watching the event, including senior delegates from the Arishat League. T
he crowd stood on a high ridge of earth to the north that Evander had raised for that purpose. They were watching the proceedings from behind a tall screen of white canvas. The Builders had created a number of sightstone viewing posts scattered across the field, as well as nearly a dozen more hovering above the challenge course on little remotely-guided hover platforms that Verena had dubbed Bumblebees.

  With the Bumblebees managed by one of the other Builders, the observers could watch every angle of the competition as if they were standing right next to Connor instead of two miles away. It was important to perform well for them, but more important to finally face the daunting challenge of ascension. Connor had no idea why the queen had granted them such a long reprieve, but time weighed heavily on him. He needed that ascension to master the full range of Petralist powers so he could take the fight to her and keep everyone he loved safe.

  Only then could he let himself enjoy the dreams of a life with Verena. But for the moment, if he didn’t focus, Kilian would wreck him, and Kilian was only the first challenger Connor needed to defeat. Nothing like taking on the toughest challenge first.

  And he didn’t get all day to do it, either.

  As Connor banked after Kilian, he glanced toward the first of four earthen pyramid pylons placed in the wide, flat valley in a rough box shape, about a mile to each side. Connor’s challenge was to reach each pylon and touch it in turn, defeating everyone who tried to stop him.

  He wasn’t off to a great start. He hadn’t even reached the box yet. He’d foolishly expected to not face much opposition before that first pylon, but Kilian had intercepted him on the wide open grasses, closing like a living meteor.

  Connor tapped a little more porphyry to help solidify his connection to the elements. He was already sucking on a small piece of quartzite, tucked into his cheek, and another wafer of marble pressed under his tongue. He wore a necklace with additional stones, including serpentinite, tucked under his battle jacket, wafers of slate were wedged into special pockets inside of his boots, and he’d downed a gritty draught of soapstone in water twenty minutes ago.

  He was going to need every one of them.

  Connor didn’t need to waste time dipping a finger into a bag of powder at his belt to access porphyry. He wore removable leather battle plates strapped to his thighs, with precious grains of porphyry sprinkled onto the sticky inside edge of the right one. He could absorb what he needed the moment he needed it, without wasting effort or needing to purge.

  With porphyry ignited in his heart, the rampager stirred there, pacing in the cage he’d fashioned out of willpower. He and the beast had reached an accord and usually it submitted, but he would never let down his guard. He couldn’t risk the beast raging through him, forcing him to transform into a deadly rampager again.

  Instead of engaging in a time-wasting running battle, Kilian abruptly reversed course by fashioning a sloping ramp of ice that acted like a slingshot to hurl him back at Connor. That was a fantastic move, one Connor had practiced many times recently, but somehow Kilian pulled it off with a level of flair that Connor couldn’t match.

  Connor was maintaining a light connection with chert, but Kilian was adept at shielding his thoughts. All Connor managed to pull from him was a vague sense of confidence and a thorough sense of enjoyment.

  Again the two of them flashed past, too far apart to strike with powder-coated weapons, but within easy reach of their elemental powers. Connor struck with every bit of skill, slinging fire and water at Kilian, who responded in kind. Elements erupted all around them, exploding into brilliant bursts of multi-colored lights and glittering shards of ice, quickly saturating the late morning air with warm humidity. Kilian yanked that water back out and formed a horizontal waterfall right in front of Connor.

  Connor whooped as he burst through it, but it felt like he breathed in more water than he threw back at Kilian. The two of them had practiced this type of running elemental battle many times, and they could keep it up for hours if they wanted to, but today Connor lacked the time. He only had ten minutes to complete the entire course.

  Time to take the duel to the next level.

  Connor tapped slate as he banked around again. Earth appeared in his mind, and as always reminded Connor of Evander. He used earth to spin the ground beneath him, allowing him to make a perfect about-face in an eyeblink and run back in the opposite direction.

  The hardest part about that maneuver was handling the gut-wrenching twist as everything spun around him. He lacked time to enjoy the excellent stomach-lurch, so tried to ignore the intriguing flopping of his guts. Then he twisted the ground beneath Kilian, altering his direction too so that instead of running past Connor at thirty yards, he suddenly ended up on an intercept course.

  Kilian could have blasted himself into the air to avoid a collision, but instead he grinned, and a huge sphere of water appeared between them. It had to be at least twenty feet across.

  They both struck it from opposite sides at the same time, moving so fast that anyone without a soapstone affinity would have simply splattered. Connor used the waters to slow his momentum to a standstill in a matter of yards, bleeding the excess energy out into the waters. Kilian did the same, and they ended up within spitting distance.

  Usually that would be the moment Connor would crack a joke and Kilian would groan and try to say something ancient-arcane-masterishly-awesome.

  Not this time. As the waters bled away, Connor drew his powder-coated wooden long-knives and lunged for Kilian’s torso.

  Kilian deflected both of Connor’s blades with his own long-knife, while whipping a wooden meteor hammer around his head to deliver a brutal strike at Connor’s sternum. Even though it was supposed to be a non-deadly practice weapon, he struck so fast that he might still crack Connor’s chest since he wasn’t tapping granite. Connor appreciated friends who trusted his reflexes so much.

  He was still tapping quartzite, and Air flitted over the other elements in his mind like a mischievous young woman, dressed in exquisite robes as if clothed in sunset-streaked clouds, black hair whipping about her lovely face. She no longer fled his touch, but granted stable access to air.

  With her help, he deflected the meteor hammer with an invisible barrier, barely an inch from his chest. He’d learned the shielding technique from the Builders and had recently perfected his Petralist version of it.

  Good thing, because Kilian hit his shield seven more times in the next three seconds. He fracked his arms, forming new joints halfway down his biceps, allowing his arms to spin ten times faster. They blurred, and that meteor hammer hummed through the air.

  Connor fracked his arms too, groaning against the sharp stabs of pain, and redoubled his attack. His blades whipped around him so fast they looked like shadows. Connor poured on every ounce of speed and skill to reach Kilian.

  It wasn’t nearly enough.

  He could have switched to obsidian, which would improve his fighting skill, but not his pure speed, and against Kilian the speed was more important. So he trusted his shielding and threw himself at Kilian, slashing dozens of times every second.

  Kilian dodged or deflected every single stroke. Connor didn’t even come close to hitting him. Sure, his blades sometimes missed by mere fractions of an inch, but against Kilian they might as well have missed by yards.

  He grinned as he fought, riding a wave of battle thrill as he pushed the limits to the uttermost edges of control. Somehow basalt helped him understand where his blows would strike, or almost strike, and helped him aim.

  Kilian struck Connor eight more times across his shielding, despite Connor’s best efforts to defend himself. Meteor hammers were graceful weapons, and in Kilian’s hands, his looked like a cloud of wooden spikes whizzing around him. Even though Connor was replenishing his air shield, the blurring meteor hammer was peeling it away just as fast.

  The practice weapon wasn’t designed for such a brutal onslaught and began to crack, and several spikes ripped free. It would disintegrate in a few
more seconds, but that might be long enough.

  Connor urged all the elements to join hands, then drew a little earth into the mix of his shielding air. He added a bit of fire, then water, creating an impenetrable mixture of combined elements that not even Kilian could penetrate. The enhanced shielding shimmered around him, a constantly shifting blur of colors. Quicksilver water mixed with crimson fire, laced with black earth and wisps of transparent air.

  Then he added a touch of serpentinite. Of all the elemental powers, serpentinite did not yet manifest in his mind like a living person. He envisioned it as the sound of Verena’s laughter, circling the other elements. Connor wove it into the mix and unleashed it all into Kilian’s face.

  The elemental barrage struck Kilian and catapulted him backward. Not even he could stop that.

  Of course, not even getting clobbered hard enough to send Boulders crying for a Healer slowed Kilian much. Somehow he managed to still strike back. The insidious weight of stilling settled over Connor as Kilian shifted to inner-focused basalt and tapped the weird power.

  Connor slowed, his fracked arms snapping back to normal, but even that flash of pain felt subdued. With stilling, Kilian could drag Connor to a halt, steal away his life, stop the beating of his heart, the pumping of his blood, and even the movement of his thoughts.

  It would take about eight seconds.

  Way too long. Connor also tapped inner-focused basalt, embracing the strange feeling of stilling. He immediately sensed Kilian’s power wrapping him like an invisible hand. He threw his own senses against Kilian’s, grappling to throw off the ancient Dawnus, but he was fighting from a compromised position.

  Holding stilling in place was apparently a lot easier than breaking free. Made sense. Connor had never managed to pry Hamish’s fingers from a sweetbread once he grabbed it.