The Spirit Thief(38)

“He’s alive,” she said, her voice hoarse with relief. She slid her arms under his shoulders. “Help me get him up.”

Gin lowered his head, and she rolled the king onto his long nose. When he was balanced, Gin lifted the unconscious man and, with Miranda’s help, laid the king gently across his back.

She was getting ready to climb up herself when Gin growled low in his throat. He caught her eye, and she knew why.

“Lord Renaud,” she said, turning around. “You’re faster than expected.”

Renaud stepped out of the swirling dust, a cocky smile on his handsome face. “Look at it from my perspective, lady. I see my brother’s murderer stealing his body, is it so surprising I should hurry to stop her?”

“No, but not for the reasons you give.” She brushed her fingers over her rings, calling her spirits awake. “Your brother is still alive, but I imagine you knew that, seeing how you were the one who flung Skarest at him.”

“Skarest?” Renault folded his hands behind him. “Was that the little lightning bolt’s name?”

Miranda’s eyes widened. “You don’t deny it?”

“Why should I?” Renault shrugged. “I am a wizard, controlling spirits is my right.”

Miranda clenched her fists. “What you call your right we call enslavement, and it is an abomination. No spirit, human or otherwise, has the right to dominate another! Even if you hadn’t tried to kill your brother, what you did to Skarest is crime enough to bring the whole Spirit Court down on your head!”

“Enslavement?” Renaud chuckled. “You Spiritualists were always very fond of giving things names, anything to set yourselves apart, to label your magic as right and everything else as wrong.”

“Considering enslavement destroys the soul of the spirit it commands, I’d say it’s a pretty clear-cut division.”

“And what do I care for their souls?”

Miranda took a step back at the disgust in his voice, but Renaud stepped closer, ignoring Gin’s warning growl as the prince closed the distance between them.

“We have our own souls to think of,” he whispered, almost in her ear, and the cold hatred in his voice made her shiver. “In nature, it is the strong who dominate the weak, the strong who survive.”

“Those rules don’t apply to us, Renaud,” Miranda said. “We’re not animals! Only humans have the power to dominate another spirit. We have to—”

“It was the spirits who dominated me for most of my life!” Renaud snapped, eyes flashing. “It’s because I was born with their voices talking in my ears that I lost everything to that idiot,” he said and pointed to Henrith’s smoking body sprawled on Gin’s back.

“That’s different.”

“No!” Renaud roared. “No difference! I will take back tenfold what was taken from me. A hundredfold! It was the world that decided to make my will a weapon, Spiritualist, and I will use it bluntly, as it was intended. No rings, no pretensions, only my strength against the spirit’s, my boot on its neck until it cries for mercy.” He stepped closer still, clenching his fists beneath her chin. “I will take Mellinor from its weakling king,” he growled. “I will take my inheritance with these hands, and then I will take dominion of the spirits from your weakling Court. I will return the world to its natural balance, with the wizard on top and the spirits below, and you”—he looked at Miranda with disgust—“you, with your hobbled power and your foolish pledge, will go down with the trash you’ve tied yourself to. A fitting end for a wizard who would not take her power.”

Miranda jerked back, eyes flashing, but when she spoke, her voice was cold and sharp. “Bold words, enslaver,” she said, holding up her right thumb, which was wearing a knuckle-sized ruby that was glowing like an ember. “But it will take more than the raving of a jilted prince to make me forget the truth of the vows I serve.” She thrust out her hand, and the ruby began to smoke on her finger. “Perhaps you’d like to try your speech on another of my spirits? You’ll have to speak quickly, though, because I don’t think he’ll listen as patiently as I did. Will you, Kirik?”

When she spoke the name, the wind around them died out completely. A flame winked to life above Miranda’s fist. It hovered there for a split second, sputtering like a candle, and then, with a deafening roar, it exploded upward, growing into an enormous column of fire that reached the sky. Any dust it touched vanished, burned to cinders in an instant. The column surrounded Miranda on all sides, the heat pouring off it in waves until even Renaud was forced to step back and put up his hands to shield his face.