They split the party, p.1
They Split the Party, page 1
THEY SPLIT THE PARTY
THE GLINTCHASERS SERIES
ELIJAH MENCHACA
CONTENTS
Map
1. Oblivion
2. Family Matter
3. Aenerwin
4. Ruby
5. Monica
6. Cold-Blooded
7. Sasel
8. The Call
9. Assembled
10. The Cask
11. Kindred Spirits
12. Entrapment
13. The Sanctum
14. The Oracle
15. Kira
16. The Priest
17. Departure
18. The Prince Killer
19. On the Road
20. A Bad Idea
21. Escape
22. Puerto Oro
23. Lord Roso
24. Unexpected Reunion
25. The Druid
26. The Cult of Stars
27. Bad Memories
28. Cords that Bind
29. Broken Gates
30. The Warden
31. Edelfric
32. Indebted
33. Dress Rehearsal
34. The Dread Knight
35. Sentinel
36. Homecoming
37. Repairs
38. The Order
39. Demons
40. Adrift
41. Hurt
42. Divided
43. Loraine
44. Opening Night
45. Perspective
46. Fireworks
47. Curtains
48. The Starbreakers
49. Unfinished Business
50. The Knight in Exile
51. Return
Glossary
Acknowledgments
About the Author
More from CamCat Books
Ghost Tamer
More Fantastic Reads from CamCat Books
CamCat Books
CamCat Publishing, LLC
Brentwood, Tennessee 37027
camcatpublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
© 2023 by Elijah Menchaca
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 101 Creekside Crossing, Suite 280, Brentwood, TN 37027.
Hardcover ISBN 9780744309201
Paperback ISBN 9780744309225
Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309249
eBook ISBN 9780744309256
Audiobook ISBN 9780744309263
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022949459
Cover and book design by Maryann Appel
Map illustration by Maia Lai
5 3 1 2 4
To my Wings, who makes me feel like I can fly.
1
OBLIVION
It was said that Oblivion’s architect had declared the prison inescapable. The prison was built on a tiny island in supernaturally rough waters; every cell constructed from floor to ceiling of solid iron. Its doors were sealed to open only at the touch of a guard. To test the architect’s claim, the emperor who’d commissioned it had the architect himself imprisoned inside.
He never got out.
Ink chuckled to herself, thinking about the story. Somewhere in there, she supposed, was a moral about being consumed by your life’s work. Most likely spun by someone who’d never worked a day in their lives but still felt the need to lecture others about it.
If it was true, she felt no pity for the architect. If he couldn’t rise above his own creation, that was his own fault, to say nothing of his poor choice of employer.
“High Inquisitive?”
Ink was dragged back to the present by the guard in front of her, who was nervously eyeing the cell she’d requested access to. This one had to be new. Guards who’d spent any real time in Oblivion were well past the point of being afraid of the place.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, waving him off dismissively. “You can go. I’ll call when I’m finished.”
The guard shifted nervously, like he was working up the nerve to say something, and Ink felt a wave of dread descend upon her. Hands folded, lips pressed together, she waited, silently daring him to say something.
“It’sagainst the rules for visitors to be left alone with prisoners.”
Now she knew he was new. Ink gave a sharp inhale, and the guard flinched.
Ink was beige-skinned with sharp, unnaturally blue eyes and hair that stood out against otherwise rounded features but perfectly matched the softly glowing glyphs on the sleeves of her thin-layered summer robes. She carried herself like a person of power—both the kind that made people listen to her and the kind that could turn people to ash with a flick of her fingers.
“Who dictated these rules to you?” Ink asked.
“The warden, High Inquisitive.”
“And who does the warden work for?”
“The . . .” The guard trailed off. To his minimal credit, he figured out where Ink was going with this. Oblivion was operated by the Academy. Its wardens and all personnel under them answered to it. And to all but a very select handful of people, Ink was the Academy. “Good day, High Inquisitive.”
Ink kept her face calm as the guard made a hasty retreat. It was important, she reminded herself, not to get too angry at people for what they didn’t know. Otherwise, she would never not be angry.
A dark chuckle echoed from inside the cell. “You love being in charge, don’t you?”
The prisoner was dressed in simple burlap, singed in several places. He was shackled by hand and foot, anchored to the floor with Old World chains. The soft orange glow from his eyes and the stray embers that trailed off his skin and hair filled the dark interior. Even from the outside of the cell, the heat inside was palpable.
“Beats living in chains,” Ink mocked. “Enjoying your stay?”
“What do you want?” Pitch spat.
“Lots of things,” Ink said. “There was an old shellfish place by the marina I wish would reopen. Some new perfumes, since mine are all starting to go bad. Somebody else to crack spellforging or to at least get it out of Phoenix. But really, I’ve just had a long week, and I figured seeing you in a cell would make me feel better. And I was right.”
Pitch growled and lunged forward, immediately making his chains go taut as his eyes burned, and his shackles took on a dull red glow. Ink barked a single word in Arcania, and the chains crackled to life with electricity. He fell back to the ground, spasming.
“Down boy.”
Ink didn’t even attempt to hide the satisfaction in her voice. Even through the contortions and twinges from the shock, Pitch’s boiling fury was plain to see. And after all the trouble he’d caused and all the years of hell he’d given her—and Renalt knew how many others—that pointless, impotent rage was delicious to drink in.
“I am going to skin you alive when I get out of here,” Pitch spat. “I’m going to burn you to a crisp and piss on the ashes.”
“No. You won’t,” Ink said. “You’re going to sit in this cell until I figure out a way to get the Heart of Flames out of you, and then I will leave you to rot in here for the rest of your miserable, pathetic, angry little life. Officially, for all the murders and the assault on Olwin Keep, but mostly so you can finally stop being a pain in the world’s collective ass.”
“You think you’re so hot, don’t you?” he growled. “Little runaway girl, all grown up. I bet this brings back memories. Except now, you get to be the one on the outside of the jail cell.”
Ink’s hand twitched in the beginning motions of a spell before she caught herself. She was the one who got under people’s skin. Not the reverse.
“Except I’ve moved up in the world, while you’ve only gotten more worthless.”
“Don’t pretend you’re better than me,” he retorted. “You act like you rose above. Like you stuck it to the world and now you’re the head bitch in charge. But you haven’t risen above shit.”
“When I left the Cord of Aenwyn, they begged me to stay,” Ink said. “They threw you out on the street like a rabid dog. And now you’re in prison and I own the keys.”
“And you love your job so much, you had to come visit me to feel better about yourself,” Pitch prodded. “What happened? Is the Principal of Magic School being mean to you? Or is it hitting you that after fifteen years of running, you’re still just somebody else’s little servant?”
Ink almost took the bait, almost dove into a defense of her life and how she was not and would never be anyone’s servant. But she had nothing to prove here. Their situations spoke for themselves.
“You know, you’re absolutely right. I’m incredibly dissatisfied with my life, and you’ve cut me to my very core,” she said, every syllable stitched with sarcasm. “When I go home, I will sob into my warm dinner and silk sheets, unable to think about anything other than how much better off you are than me, eating rats and shitting in a bucket. Which doesn’t look that full. I’ll be sure to tell the guards they don’t need to clean it out.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Goodbye, Pitch.”
“Fuck you!”
He may have sucked some of the fun out this visit, but that was the only victory he was going to get from her. With a fli ck of her fingers, she shut the door slot behind her.
“Hey! Don’t walk away from me! Ink!”
His voice echoed through the halls of the prison, hounding her, and she smiled as his frustration grew. She was done here.
She called the guard back and graciously accepted the escort out of the cell block. He was still nervous, but now he was as scared of Ink as he was of the prison. The thought put a smile on her face.
The warden was waiting for her on the way out. A tall, broad-shouldered man with no hair and a name she didn’t bother learning.
“I trust your inspection went well, High Inquisitive?” the warden asked.
Ink seamlessly slipped into the lie of her official excuse. “Oh yes. You run a tight ship here, Warden. I’ll be happy to return to the Academy knowing our most important project is in safe hands.”
Her sentence was punctuated by a broad smile from the warden and a sudden flickering of the lightstone in the room. There was a thud that reverberated through the walls and then a slow, building din of noise coming from the cellblocks.
Ink’s own polite, practiced smile vanished. “Provided you can explain that.”
The warden went pale and frantically slapped the shoulder of the closest guard. “I’m sure it’s just a storm. We see quite a few of them in this region. I’ll send someone to confirm it; you don’t have to—”
Ink was already moving, grabbing her escort by the wrist and using his hand to open the seals on the doors as she made her way toward the commotion that was only growing louder by the second. The warden followed behind her, spinning desperate lies and reassurances she could see through without even looking the man in the eye. When she got back to the Academy, she was going to have him fired.
Alarm horns began to sound, confirming what she’d already been dreading. Escape attempt.
“High Inquisitive, I must insist that you—”
This time, the warden was interrupted by a haggard guard sprinting into the room, gasping for breath. The guard nearly ran face-first into them before Ink grabbed her by the shoulders, halting her in her tracks.
Recognition replaced panic on the guard’s face. “High Inquisitive! Warden!”
“What happened?” Ink demanded.
“There was an explosion in the cellblock. She got free, started killing the guards and breaking open cell doors.”
“Who?” Ink asked.
The guard answered, fear in her eyes. “Kurien.”
Kurien. Of all the people locked away in Oblivion, it had to be to her. Even Ink’s blood went cold.
“That’s impossible!” the warden shouted, even as he was ignored. “Her cell is warded against every conceivable means of escape!”
“How many are loose?” Ink asked, trying to get a grasp on the situation.
“That’s just it, ma’am,” the guard said. “All of them.”
Everyone in the room fell silent. Ink felt her legs shake for a second underneath her until she forced them to steady. Every prisoner in Oblivion was loose. They didn’t need panic. They needed action.
She started giving orders. Establish a perimeter on the cellblock. Get archers positioned to watch the coast. Call the mainland for immediate reinforcement. The warden tried protesting early on before Ink made it very clear that this was her prison now. When everyone had their orders, she personally marched back into the cellblock to bring the situation under control.
The halls were chaos, full of everything from undead mutants to shapeshifting putty monsters. They had to cut through plant roots as thick as trees and as hard as iron. Subdue mind-controlled guards rioting even more fiercely than some of the inmates. Extinguish fires that moved like living things.
In the end, it took a full day and a hundred lives to restore order to Oblivion. Academy mages, royal soldiers, and even the knights of the Seven Gates themselves all had to be called in. Dozens of prisoners—the most dangerous men, women, and monsters to curse Corsar with their lives—were unaccounted for. And Ink, at the end of it all, was left staring at a massive hole where Pitch’s cell used to be.
This was going to cause problems.
2
FAMILY MATTER
Sparks flew from the partially dismantled fire sphere in Arman’s hands as he carefully traced a handheld grindstone across its surface. If his math was right, the new grooves he was carving would make for a significantly more controlled detonation, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he tested it.
All that was left to do was reinsert the core—a ball of spellforged rock and condensed fire magic the size of a grape. Everything else about the sphere—the casing, the engravings, the glyphs—was about control. The core was where the actual explosion came from, which meant it had to be handled with caution.
Half the sphere in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other, he reached over and found the core was missing. His head frantically swiveled as he worked through the possibilities in his mind. He could have misplaced it or maybe bumped into it without noticing and sent it rolling off somewhere. Considering the porch wasn’t on fire, it was still stable. But where did it go?
He got his answer in the form of a toddler’s excited giggle. At the other end of the porch, with the core clenched in her tiny fist, was his daughter.
Robyn squealed in delight as she beheld the strange red orb. It was warm to the touch and gave off a faint glow that transfixed her attention. She had absolutely no idea what it was, but that was true about most things, and she’d yet to meet a mystery that couldn’t be unraveled by sticking it into her mouth.
“Robyn, no! Put that down!” Arman yelled as he scrambled to get up.
A powerful gust of wind burst from the house, sending the front door flying open and Arman’s tools scattering across the yard as Elizabeth sprinted out. Her green eyes crackled like lightning as she took in the scene, spotted Robyn, and flicked at the air with her fingers. Wind whipped around her fingertips, shooting out like a bullet and striking the core with perfect precision.
The stone shot out from between Robyn’s fingers, landing several feet from the house before bursting into flames. Completely oblivious to the mortal peril she’d narrowly avoided but dazzled by the flash of light, Robyn threw her hands into the air and squealed in delight.
Concerning as it was to see a fondness for pyrotechnics manifesting in her daughter, Elizabeth had more pressing matters to deal with. Namely, glaring daggers at her husband.
“I told you to watch her!”
“I was!”
“Then why was she about to eat a fire bomb?”
“In my defense, it only blew up because you shot it. Before that, it was almost completely stable.”
Elizabeth’s nostrils flared as her head cocked to one side, and Arman felt himself sink into the grave she was already mentally digging for him.
“That wasn’t a good defense, was it?”
“No.”
Arman opened his mouth to respond but thought better of it. At this point, there was nothing he could say that wouldn’t just make him look even worse. Better to accept his fate.
“How much trouble am I in?”
Elizabeth sighed as she protectively scooped Robyn into her arms. Much as she might have wanted to stay angry, Arman getting distracted and over-absorbed in his work was nothing new, and he’d already been tinkering on the porch when she left Robyn with him. In hindsight, that hadn’t been the best call on her part. And damn him if he wasn’t hard to stay mad at when he got that guilty look in his big, sad, brown eyes.
