Stormwatcher - Book 4 'Lost to Darkness'
an excerpt

Torhond was fidgeting with excitement as they left the inn after breakfast. Rhialla watched him, wondering if he was going to have another seizure.
‘Calm down,’ she said as he jiggled impatiently on the pavement, waiting for a line of carriages to pass. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked down at her, his mouth quirked in a half-smile. ‘Well, I do, a bit. It just seems so…ordinary. We’re in another country and we’re going sightseeing. Like I’m a normal person.’
‘Oh, Torhond.’ She repressed the instinct to hug him, not sure if there might be rules about that, too. ‘You are a normal person.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘You, and Aravir, and Sild—you’re kind to me. You try to understand. But the rest of the world is like Eldrian. All they see are the things I can’t control, the things I don’t want to be. They decide that’s what I am, and nothing I do will change their minds.’
This time she did hug him.
‘I’d tell you to ignore Eldrian, but I can’t manage it, either. He gets under your skin.’
‘Like a persistent type of louse,’ Torhond agreed.
The carriages had gone and the road was empty. They crossed and started up the long, curved incline to the palace.
‘What makes it really difficult is seeing Sild caught in the middle. I keep reminding myself that Eldrian’s the closest thing he has to a brother, and so I can’t expect him to take sides. And you know something even more annoying? I remembered something about that stuff that Tiel found. It said ‘Five shall go to the island and six return to stand before the king.’ So we can’t even throw him off the boat on the way home.’
Torhond laughed. ‘Maybe if we did manage to bring an army back with us we might be forgiven for losing one person on the way.’
‘Not much chance of that, though, is there? Aravir’s like a dog with toothache. He said he’s going to give it another couple of days and then try and get in to see Varent again. I think he’s beginning to regret what he did to those shipyards. A dozen warships full of Gaultmen sailing into the harbour might focus the council on the realities.’
‘Except then they’d say they needed the army to stay here. It…’
They came around the last bend and the road levelled and straightened in front of them, becoming a wide avenue along the sides of which two rows of pennants fluttered and snapped in the stiff breeze. Under their feet the paving had changed to pale blue marble, drawing the eye along its sparkling length to the building that stood at its end.
It was, by the standards of palaces, quite a low structure, only three floors high at its central point, and billowing down into long wings on either side, each of a single storey. As they drew closer Rhialla realised that the roof was of deep blue slate, each tile cut to echo the curve of the building. The entrance was pillared, but the columns leaned towards the centre, their angles defying both architecture and gravity. It gave the impression that the whole edifice had gathered itself and just begun to leap skyward.
‘That’s incred—’ she began, and found Torhond was already moving, hurrying towards the central doors. She ran after him. ‘Wait! We have to go in over here,’ she pointed to where a small queue had formed by the left-hand wing.
‘But—’ he stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. ‘I have to go inside.’
‘We will go inside,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Are you all right? Do you need to sit down for a minute?’ There was a soldier coming towards them, and she hoped the man wouldn’t panic Torhond into a fit.

It was pretty stupid, petitioning a statue, though no doubt the council encouraged it as a way of reducing the numbers they were expected to deal with. The voices around them dropped to a whisper as two soldiers escorted the small crowd through the doors. They entered at one end of a long hall, carpeted in blue and gold, the arched ceiling far above patterned in stars. Constellations, she realised; not surprising for a nation reliant on seafaring trade. In front of them the floor rose in a series of curved steps, each some four paces or more distant from its neighbour. At the top, the dais was roped off, and within this area was the marble king.
He was smaller than she’d expected. Most statues were exaggerated, made to be seen from a distance, but this figure was lifelike in size as well as in every other respect. High above, the roof arced into a dome broken by a ring of triangular windows through which the sun poured, making the white marble glitter softly where it touched.

‘Torhond!’ she made a grab for him, but he was too fast for her, ducking under the rope and running up the steps toward the statue. Around the room soldiers sprang into action, the scrape of their swords emerging blending into one steely cry.
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t hurt him!’ Shoving people aside, she followed him, flinging herself up the stairs in his wake. The thick carpet muffled any sound, and the soldiers bore down on her in silence. She skidded to a halt beside Torhond, who had fallen to his knees in front of the statue.
‘No,’ she said again, interposing herself between him and the half-dozen drawn swords. ‘He won’t hurt any one. He’s been ill…he—he wanted to beg the king to heal him.’ To her relief she saw hesitation in the soldier’s faces. ‘That’s all,’ she said quickly. ‘He would never hurt anyone. He doesn’t even carry a sword. Torhond,’ she glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘You can’t do this, it’s upsetting everyone.’
Torhond was weeping, his forehead pressed to the cold arm of the statue. Quite a handsome king, some uninvolved part of her mind noted.
‘Mestra,’ one of the soldiers said, ‘do you need assistance to take him home?’ He nodded at the others, who sheathed their swords.
‘Thank you, Ta’Mestre, but it might upset him if strangers touched him. I think I can manage. And I’m sorry for the disturbance.’
‘It happens occasionally,’ the soldier said with a wry smile. ‘People can get a bit carried away. Keeps us on our toes, at least.’
‘I’m grateful for your understanding.’ She knelt beside Torhond. ‘Come on. We have to go home.’
He was weeping like a small child, tears pouring down his face, clinging to the hand of the marble king. She hunted in her pouch for a handkerchief, held it out to him. ‘Here,’ she said. He ignored her, and she pushed it into his hand.
As their fingers touched it was as if a vast bell had been struck. The air vibrated around her, setting up a buzzing in her ears that drowned out all sound. Was that why Torhond couldn’t hear her? Rhialla could see the soldier’s lips moving as they spoke among themselves, but they were impossibly distant. She reached into the pouch with her free hand, felt something hard and cold. Slowly she forced her gaze back to Torhond. The knife came free of the pouch and she gripped it tightly, and then in one swift stroke drove the blade through his hand and into the statue.
The impact should have been jarring, but, impossibly, the stone gave way, the knife sinking smoothly into it. In that strange silence she saw Torhond’s head jerk up, his disbelieving gaze fix in her face.
And then he screamed, leaping to his feet and trying to pull his hand free, throwing himself from side to side like a fox in a trap. The sound broke the spell that had held her, just as she was yanked backwards against the nearest soldier, a line of icy metal pressed to her neck. He might have been speaking, but Torhond’s wailing prevented her from hearing it. He was still trying to escape, but something more than the blade was holding his hand in place. With an effort she kicked out at the person in front of her, trying to keep the rest of her body still. With a frightened glance at her he jumped to one side and she could see what was happening.
The statue’s hand had twisted upwards and gripped the living flesh. Even as realisation struck her, the knife clattered free, but Torhond was still pinned, screaming, in that implacable grip.
‘Let me go,’ she hissed. Something trickled down her neck. Blood. The soldier holding her didn’t move, though she could feel his panicked breath against the side of her face. She gathered her scattered concentration and with a quick burst of power forced the blade away, then pushed him backwards. As an afterthought she heated the sword to somewhere around boiling point, heard the oath as he dropped it.
‘Torhond?’ She tried to catch hold of him, but he jerked himself free. There was no recognition in his face. ‘Torhond, don’t, you’ll hurt yourself.’ He stopped moving, and for a second she thought he’d understood her. Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. He was too heavy for her to catch, but she managed to break his fall, turning it into a slither onto the soft carpet as she dropped to her knees beside him. Involuntarily she followed the line of his arm to where it was trapped.
The hand that gripped his was no longer marble. It was a broad hand, far bigger than Torhond’s, the fingers blunt and strong. As she watched, colour ran out from it like a tide, flowing up an arm suddenly garbed in turquoise velvet, a doublet of silver and gold, and then upward again and the cold face became flesh, the blue eyes staring sightlessly out over the room.
It should have frightened her, but she knew that there was one thing left to do, and no space remained for fear or doubt. She placed her own hand on the king’s chest, and let the power flow into him.
‘Breathe,’ she said softly. There was a slight, faltering movement, another, and then he took a deep gasp of air. His gaze steadied, fixed on her, and then his eyes closed. His breathing settled into a slow rhythm and, satisfied, she removed her hand and faced the soldiers.
They didn’t know where to look; at her, at their king, or at the slumped form of Torhond.
‘I am Mage Rhialla,’ she said loudly, her voice carrying to the far corners of the room where the shocked crowd of petitioners still huddled. ‘I have come as representative of the First Mage, to bring back your king.’