Chapter 29: 28. The Betrayal

Aletheia looked too surprised to act. She did not scream or shout or say anything. Melitas seized the opportunity; he reached a hand over her neck and grabbed for his knife in the pillow, and he tugged, rocking the whole of the bed. It gave and gave as he pulled, but finally, just as it came loose, Aletheia reached up to grab him by the shoulders.

But he had it now. He sliced at her hands and drove the knife into her chest.

And like before, the blade deflected away from her skin at the last moment. Something invisible intervened to save her life. She gasped in pain as her right hand was knocked aside, as if it absorbed the whole of the impact of the stab.

The knife was again lodged in the mattress.

Melitas had to let it go. He dropped the handle and reached out to hold her, preparing to cast a spell; he put his hands flat against her bare, scarred shoulders and channeled the magic in his blood to raw destructive force.

He wanted to engulf her in flames. He wanted to finish what whoever had left her with those scars had started. He was nearly ready to let slip a shroud of flame over her.

But she was much faster with her magic. As her eyes narrowed and her surprise and pain faded, she wrapped her hands around his wrists, and a powerful surge of magic passed through her.

Melitas felt something very cold.

His arms went numb in an instant. His concentration lapsed. The magic he had prepared left harmlessly with his breath, dispelled back into the air.

The pain set in. He stumbled backward and screamed as he looked down at his hands, and in the dim light of the candle he saw that his flesh had turned white.

The blood from his fingertips to his elbow was ice. She had frozen his arms. He could not move or feel anything below his biceps.

He hit the vanity’s mirror as he backed away. He had been afraid and excited as he fought Aletheia, but now pure, relentless dread deluged through him. The realization that his life was on the line came like it hadn’t before. He knew that he had made a terrible mistake.

He looked back at Aletheia. She was on her feet, staring at him, chest heaving with rapid breath, and she clutched her right wrist, at the place of the jade bracelet, as though it ached badly.

“Help me,” he screamed into the darkness beyond the candle’s light. “Help me!”

The flickering light across the walls shook as he hit the vanity again. The candle rocked with the movement of the desk. Aletheia took a step forward.

“Stop!” she said.

He panicked. He had been wrong. He couldn’t use any magic at all. He was useless, like Eris had said—too useless even to recognize the enchanted bracelet Aletheia wore. Eris had one just like it, and so did Corvo. He should have known. He could have killed her if he had thought to take it off. Why hadn’t he? Because he hadn’t known, because he was a neophyte, an impotent child after all.

He would die if the Shadow Man did not save him. Eris would kill him if Aletheia didn’t. That would be how his story ended.

He looked to the candle on the vanity. He reached for it, scrambling, and when he couldn’t extend his arms, he batted it from the desk with his elbow.

It fell to his feet with a clink. Molten wax snuffed the flame out as it tipped over on its side.

“Help,” he gasped. He could see nothing now. “Help me!”

“Stop!” Aletheia shouted.

For the shortest moment Melitas felt a chill across his face, and he swore he saw something move despite the darkness, but it lasted no longer, for a blinding yellow light appeared in Aletheia’s hand. She raised it up over her head and let it go, and it floated above her like a tiny sun, illuminating the whole of the room.

She made a gesture. The sword on the floor opposite the bed pulled itself from its scabbard and shot into her hand, and she pointed it at him.

“Stop.” Her voice was low and serious, and she shook her head. “Just stop.”

“My arms,” he gasped. He sidestepped to the chamber door, and when he hit it, his knees weakened. He sank slowly, until soon he collapsed to the ground. “My arms! Help me! Help! What did you do? My arms—”

“What did I do?” she gasped.

He didn’t watch her after that. He tried to focus heat from his Essence to warm himself, but all that did was make the pain so much worse. Intense, shooting agony flooded from his forearms and to his head, and he screamed and writhed.

This was not how things were supposed to go. He could do nothing but stare at his hands.

Aletheia appeared in front of him. She dropped her sword and kneeled down beside him, and she grabbed his arms. He couldn’t feel her fingers, but her touch left an unclear impression across his frozen skin, and he screamed as she took hold of him.

She cast a spell. Melitas took a sharp breath; when his lungs were full, the pain numbed significantly.

Their eyes met. He was horrified when he saw no anger in her face, but only sadness. He shook his head.

“Kill me,” he said. “Just kill me, you bitch!”

“I can fix this,” she said. “Stay still.”

She took hold of both of his arms, like she had when she had used her frost spell, and channeled raw mana again. Her fingers glowed red for a moment; quickly, from Melitas’ fingers and to his elbows, the white faded.

When it was gone, his skin was left bright, flushed pink.

The pain got much worse after that. But he could clench his fists and move his arms again.

She grabbed her sword and tossed it on the bed.

“I can still save them,” she said. She looked closely at his arms. “I just need a salve, and a potion—I can still save them.”

She stood and rushed to her backpack near the vanity. Melitas watched her as she tossed stray whetstones, scrolls, and wooden shafts aside, searching for what she had said.

And he saw his opportunity.

Aletheia was a fool. At first he had respected her, when they met, before they had killed the Hydra. She had seemed powerful. But she was nothing. Just a girl—and a stupid one at that.

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Melitas cupped his fists together. He drew magic from the air, and he cast White Fire between his palms while her back was turned.

The pain distracted him. It took longer than it would have otherwise to gather his Essence. But slowly a ball of electricity gathered in his hands, crackling silently, snapping and arcing at the air, growing larger each second within a black cloud.

She found what she was looking for. A potion. She pulled it into the open and looked to Melitas.

He threw the White Fire at her. Lightning blinded him, and a bolt of thunder roared in his ear. The yellow light was overpowered by white. Smoke poured into the air. The foundation of the castle shook, and dust rained from the ceiling.

Aletheia stood still at the wall. She stared down at him. Her hands held her stomach.

She blinked, and her hands fell to her side. The potion fell to the floor.

There was a hole through her gut. The skin around it was black and charred, freshly burnt, and torrents of red poured down her leathery skin. Even after all he had done, she stared at him as though she couldn’t believe he would betray her.

Any numbness that she had cast over him dissipated as she toppled limp to the ground. The magelight overhead went off, and Melitas’ arms roared with pain once more. But he didn’t care. He had done it. He had faced Aletheia and won.

He smiled.

His doubt was for nothing. He was a great magician after all. He had known, the moment he incinerated his professor, that he would wield true power one day—more than cinders would be left of Aletheia, he hadn’t cast it with all the strength he had intended, too much of the power had dissipated into heat and sound and light, but it was more than enough to kill a little girl.

And he felt a buzz. A high of victory. The pain meant little to him now.

He cast a small spell of fire to guide him toward her body. She quivered, gasping, coughing up blood on the ground, and he felt another tingle through his arms and legs. Not pain this time, but pleasure.

He felt drunk.

He grabbed the potion that she’d withdrawn and took a long swig. Then he made for the door.

This wasn’t over yet. He had made a horrific raucous, just what he had meant to avoid, but he had the confidence to face Eris now.

He put his hand on the door and turned the knob slowly. It hurt badly. He began to cry. But he was determined.

It exploded open in his face.

The door flew off its hinges. It impacted him in the chest, knocking him halfway over, dazing him as he stumbled backward to the bed.

His eyes stung and his vision flared as he looked into the corridor. A blinding light shone directly on him.

Eris stood in a nightgown on the threshold. The white fabric of her attire was almost transparent in the glow, as though she were covered only by a ghost. Tall, radiant, statuesque—she was like the image of an Old Kingdom queen, or an elf or a demon or some other creature of mana in human shape. He beheld her in awe.

He shook his head. There was one chance. He had to take it. He quickly summoned his Essence, and he prepared his mana, and he almost lobbed another bolt straight at her, ending this for good.

She did nothing but wave at him. She dragged a hand across the air.

His spell dissipated. His breath caught. A lump formed in his mouth. The pain in his arms faded, and in its place came a kick to his gut. The world began to orbit around him, and when he looked down at himself, he saw his body erupt in hives.

Purple hives. Green hives. Blue and yellow and red. The blood beneath his skin boiled and formed pustules. One beneath his tunic burst, and blue fluid leaked through his shirt, pouring from his torso like some monster’s lifeblood.

The agony that followed was much worse, worse by far, than any burn, or wound, or freeze. His screams echoed throughout the entire castle. He tried to retaliate with his Essence, panicked once again, but when he did, he realized that he had no Essence left. No mana at all. Eris has stolen it from him, used it against him.

His throat closed up.

He fell face-first into the ground.

He woke up thinking he was dead. Darkness surrounded him. He could not feel himself. He detected no mana in the air. All he knew was pain. He had been sentenced to eternal torment in the afterlife, and an eternity would go on for a very, very long time.

It only ended when he heard the voice.

“The captors of my little crow were right about the red one.”

Melitas gasped. For the first time in this place he felt his lungs fill. An outline of his body formed in his imagination, pain across every inch of him. His mouth was filled with hives. He could barely breathe.

“I thought they were cruel. I took pity on you. I thought we could play. But they were not cruel. They were honest.”

He tried to retaliate, but he could not speak.

“I would not want to play with you anyway. You are a bad friend.”

Silence crushed him. But after a long time, as he felt his own blood pouring down his throat, he gargled out the words: “I did it. I killed her.”

“I should have listened to the short one. Maybe she could have given my little crow to me after all.”

“I killed her,” he gargled again.

“She would not have failed me. She would not be sick, and perhaps she would have played, too, if not for the little crow’s mother.”

Melitas felt his own heartbeat. A migraine descended on him. He blew air from his mouth to hold in the pain.

“Kill me,” he said.

“I am not like you. I do not hurt my friends. Not even the bad ones. I only hurt my enemies. I will leave you, like I was left in my prison. Maybe someday you will find your own little crow, who will let you out, and you will be happy like me. Maybe then you will learn how to keep your promises.”

“Kill me!” he tried to shout. His voice was muffled. “Kill me! Please! Just kill me!”

But the Shadow Man said no more.

“Are you alive?” said Dorian.

A bucket of water splashed across Melitas’ face.

When he opened his eyes, this time he saw that he was in a dungeon. Shackled to a wall by the wrists. A torch near his head.

He felt drained and feverish. He had been stripped naked, and his whole body was covered in rainbow-colored hives. The flesh on his arms was peeling away.

But his outsides felt nowhere near so bad as his insides. His blood seemed to course like poison through his veins. He felt every drop pumped by his heart. He was nauseated and dizzy. He felt like he would die at any moment, if only his captors would let him.

He had felt this once before. He was spellsick.

“Look at that. You are.” Dorian stepped in front of him and slapped his cheek. “Things are bleak enough down here without you scowling. I’d try to smile if I were you.”

He looked up to the old man. He was smiling. At his hip was a sword, and his hand was on its hilt as he regarded the prisoner before him.

“Eris told me you’d be spent for a few weeks. After what happened to Aletheia, though, I’d rather not find out. You could give a nasty surprise, eh?”

“What did she do to me?” he whispered.

“Mana Burn,” Dorian said. “I’m not sure what that means myself. I gather it’s unpleasant.”

Mana Burn. A spell known only by the Seekers. It detonated the mana in an Essence, turning it against itself, burning it all away until there was nothing left. It was an evil, forbidden thing to do to another magician, even in a battle to the death. That Eris knew it at all terrified him. She was far worse than even he had thought.

Melitas couldn’t look at the old man’s eyes. He had to stare at the ground, and then at his own eyelids. He could hardly think through the pain—but he did feel a hint of shame. Embarrassment. More humiliation.

Yet he did not feel guilt.

He longed for the moment of victory over Aletheia’s corpse once again. That memory almost made it worth it.

“I won’t lie to you,” Dorian said. “I think what you’re feeling now might just be a start.” He tapped Melitas’ shoulder, hitting a hive. “I like Eris, for all her problems. I like Corvo. I quite like Aletheia, too, though I don’t know her well. But you—you I never liked. But I still couldn’t have thought you’d do a thing like this. I’ve betrayed my share of friends, of course, but the magicians—they’re never wise to cross. Morality aside. Did you really think you’d win? How stupid are you?”

“Leave,” Melitas whispered.

“You think I want to be here, in a musty old dungeon in Veshod? I’ve spent enough time in dungeons, mostly in your place it must be said. I’d leave if I could. But I’d rather not end up like you. So I’m going to play nice with Eris, this time.”

“Just leave,” he repeated, and he cried.

“Not yet. But I can leave soon, if you’d like. You only have to tell me why you did it.” Dorian came in front of him and kneeled down, to look Melitas directly in his eyes. “So why’d you do it?”

Melitas shook his head. But when he looked into Dorian’s eyes, he saw something he had not seen before. Never from Aletheia, nor the Boyar, nor even Eris.

It wasn’t evil. It wasn’t maliciousness, or anger. It wasn’t even eagerness, to see an enemy in pain. In that moment, what Melitas saw in Dorian’s eyes was nothing but calm familiarity. Indifference. No emotion at all.

Melitas meant nothing to Dorian. He had been on both sides of an encounter like this one time and time again. He had seemed like a kind old man for the last three weeks, but now Melitas was certain that Dorian was nothing close to kind. It was a façade. A skin. This was a man who had seen, done, and endured horrible things. He was as cutthroat as any adventurer.

Melitas’ eyes went wide.

“The Shadow Man,” he whispered, and he told Dorian everything.