Page 113 of Take No Prisoners
"I consent. I wouldn't steal it from Niall, but I'll gladly take it from Martiz."
The look she gave the man still clinging to the other side of the scale was almost predatory. Then, she looked toward the ceiling, rising on her tiptoes, her back arched as power rushed from Vadim to her.
"This is blasphemy," Martiz moaned. "Where is the balance you always speak of?"
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
She let out a wail as the whites of her eyes turned black, and then they were the pools of brown Niall remembered.
"Life and death, once again in balance," Vadim said. He released Niall's grandmother and the scale at the same time.
Martiz jerked his hand away and fell to the cave floor with a sob. "You always thought you were better than me," he said. "Now you've taken everything."
"You brought this on yourself." Niall's grandmother offered Martiz a hand. When he gave it to her, she locked a mundane iron shackle around his wrist.
Once both hands and feet were shackled and bound together with a chain, Vadim pushed Martiz back the way they came. "You'll have plenty of time to think on it inStarlight Specter's hold."
Outside the sentinel oak, they found the ship's crew huddled around Renald and Jasmine, who were showing them how much they'd learned from Frost and Jermain over their time together. Jasmine drew the moisture out of the air to make an icicle, while Renald made the ground ripple beneath his feet. "I'm better with living things," he said. He placed his hand on a bare patch of ground. As he raised his hand, grass grew beneath it.
"Earth and life magic together," Vadim said. "I wonder how he got that."
"Everything we do has a consequence," Niall's grandmother said.
"Balance." Niall risked a glance at Vadim. The death weaver was smiling, which was even more terrifying than his usual scowl.
Vadim dragged Martiz to Stan and Tovey. Niall tried to appear interested in their discussion, but his gaze settled on Efren. He nodded to Vadim and left them discussing partitions in the hold.
"Beatrice looks well," Efren said.
"Right." He wanted to lose himself in Efren, to spend the rest of the day curled up with him on a hammock under some shade trees, but he had something to do first. He pressed a chaste kiss to Efren's lips. "I'll be right back."
He found his grandmother seated in dry sand, her skirt pulled up over her knees. Her toes were buried in the wet sand left by the tide. A beatific smile painted her face.
"If you've come to gloat and say you told me so," she warned as he sat beside her.
"I'd do no such thing."
"You were right, though," she said. "The moment I lost my power, I regretted it." She cracked her eyes open to glare at him. "I would do it again in a heartbeat, don't doubt it."
"I'm honored," he said. "I'm also glad Vadim had a more compelling argument than I."
"Not true," she said. "You broke the link with Coryn, which mattered more than anything. Vadim's gift was something I couldn't have predicted."
"I heard your conversation, about protecting Emperor Hugo."
She nodded. "You and Hugo are of an age. If he's been as sheltered as Vadim claims, he's going to need a good friend." She gazed across the beach, and Niall followed to where Stan and Tovey dragged Martiz to the skiff. The rest ofStarlight Specter's crew joined them, except Vadim, who stood beside Klaus on the dock, and Efren, who leaned against a palm tree.
"Go to him. We will have plenty of time to talk when you return from Hearthstone."
He leaned in and gave her an awkward side hug, squeezing her shoulders. She laughed and kissed his cheek.
"I'll hold you to that."
"I'm sorry I worried you, Niall. There's nothing like the prospect of death to rekindle one's will to live."
"Do life weavers die?" He asked. Martiz already looked years older than he had an hour ago, but he'd also been through a stressful ordeal.
