Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [76]
"What do you mean by that?" Keph demanded.
Roderio snorted derisively and said, "Just what I said, little brother." He pushed his breakfast away. "You're always taking someone else's place, borrowing someone else's power. From the day you were born, always 'Mama, I want Rodo's food! Mama, I want Rodo's toys!'" Roderio's voice rose high and whining. "'Da, I want magic like Rodo and Mali!'"
"Roderio," said Dagnalla, "don't taunt your brother. He's too young to know any better."
Roderio just made a face. "So now you're going to be Shar's dark priest, is that it, Keph? You're still just borrowing power. Even if you have magic now, it's not yours. It's Shar's."
"Shut your mouth!" screamed Keph. He lifted a clenched fist and opened it.
Dark, glittering magesbane dust was heaped on his palm. He flung it at Roderio.
His anger caught it and turned it into a shining, swarming cloud. Suddenly his brother was flailing back away from the table, shrieking and tearing at his clothes as glittering particles settled onto his skin and collapsed into drops of thick, yellow-green acid. His robes began to smolder. When he turned to Keph again, huge red sores had been eaten into his face. Acid poured in smoking streams from his eyes. Skin was sloughing off his melting hands.
"Keph…"he choked.
Fear stabbed into Keph's heart. What had he done?
"Rodo!" he gasped, and started to rise.
Hands held him firm.
"Tell me you regret it," said Jarull.
"The agony of an enemy's spirit is joy to the Mistress of the Night," said Variance.
Keph watched Roderio slump into formless, bilious ooze.
"No!" he shouted, struggling to stand. Variance's grip tightened harshly and she look down on him.
"False regret," she hissed. "Everything that you've done, you've done deliberately."
"Keph?" Malia said, staring at him in loathing and hatred. Krin and Dagnalla were staring too. Only Strasus kept eating, oblivious as Malia spat at her youngest brother. "This was no accident? You did this?"
He shook his head in desperate denial, but his sister was already rising. Her staff was in her hands, a shimmer of force surrounding it. Dagnalla held a staff as well. Krin was drawing a wand.
Jarull held out his fist. From between his fingers, black grains of magesbane sifted down. He opened his hand and flicked his wrist. Dust scattered through the air like a wave of shadow. Keph sucked in a breath.
"Mali!" he shouted, straining forward. "Don't-"
Too late. Malia held up her staff, spoke a sharp word, and the magesbane exploded.
The blast was deafening. It slammed Keph back into his chair and hammered against his chest. He felt dry grit, like wind-blown sand, sting his cheeks, but he couldn't see anything-the explosion was dark and cold, without heat or light. Keph screamed against it, flinging up an arm to protect his face-pure reflex-but it was already too late.
Variance and Jarull swayed, their grip on him firm.
Silence followed. Keph lowered his arm and stared at the devastation. Black dust hung thick in the air. The dining table was gone, with only a few scattered splinters to mark its passing. The walls of Fourstaves House were broken stone, the roof and upper floors blasted away. Keph could see the black sky looming close above.
There was no sign of Dagnalla, Malia, Krin, or the foul ooze that had been Roderio.
Or of Strasus. His father was gone.
Keph sat back. His heart felt… dark. And empty.
"Shar's blessing," said Jarull. "The Lady of Loss touches you."
His hands were gone from Keph's shoulder. So were Variance's. Keph rose unsteadily and turned around to find them facing him, silently watching" He swallowed.
"This isn't what I wanted," he said.
"You made the sacrifice," Variance replied. "Your family for Shar's embrace." She held out the sacrificial knife, the same one Bolan had put into his hand in Shar's temple only five nights before. Keph stared at it. Blood stained the blade. Adrey's blood.
"No," he breathed.