Lady Dread by John Patrick Kennedy

Author:John Patrick Kennedy [Kennedy, John Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9781727326536
Amazon: B07F8CLQ6R
Barnesnoble: B07F8CLQ6R
Goodreads: 40721018
Publisher: Dark Trope Publishing
Published: 2018-07-24T23:00:00+00:00

T he Consecrator’s hand landed on Lady Dread’s shoulder. “I am sorry. What is her name?”

“Mari.” Lady Dread felt as though her guts had been torn away, leaving her as hollow as her empty suit of armor.

“Then we shall pray together that Mari’s passing will be peaceful.”

And if a Consecrator is directing those prayers… “That will make her die faster, won’t it?”

“Which would be a mercy, given the injury she has sustained.”

“No.” Lady Dread shook her head. “No, she can’t.”

“If that is what you wish.” The Consecrator schooled his face into an image of calm. “But it only prolongs her suffering.”

“Not if I can help it.” She watched Mari’s oozing, ripped back heaving as the woman gasped for air. But how?

Patricus pulled a stool from under another table and set it beside Mari. “Why don’t you sit for a bit?”

Lady Dread looked at the stool. She wanted to rage at the man, wanted to do something, but she had no idea what. She sank onto the stool, trying desperately to think.

“Let me get you a drink,” the old man said. “No charge for it.”

“Take her hand,” Patricus suggested. “It will help her pass easier.”

I don’t want her passing at all. I’ve lost so many. Grief, stronger than it had been in Edsarge’s house, rose up inside her, for Furion and Jade, for her parents and all who died in Corselith. Not Mari too.

Under the grief, Lady Dread’s frustration built higher, like lava ready to erupt. She looked away, and her eyes landed on the two women holding the babies by the fire. Bettye hugged the girl and whispered gentle words into her ear. The baby fussed and grumped but didn’t cry.

The girl healed me. Lady Dread’s brow wrinkled. How?

She let go of Mari and opened her mind to see the baby’s magic again. A purple cloud of threads enveloped them as it had the copse of trees. Lady Dread traced the thread that led from her to the child. She reached out a hand, letting the thread pass through it. Then she closed her eyes, reading the magic more deeply than she had in the grove only days before. The first time, she had wanted to see what magic the child possessed. This time, she needed to understand how it worked.

There’s Binder magic here. And Consecrator magic. Is that why it could heal me? The magic pulled power toward the baby and sent it out to everyone and everything around it. And that’s how it protects her. So how does it work for healing?

“Are you all right?” Bettye asked.

Lady Dread found the thread between Mari and the baby. It had less than a tenth of the power that flowed between the girl and Lady Dread. Lady Dread put her hand once more in the thread’s path and raised her magic. She watched the thread glow brighter as the child absorbed it. She couldn’t tell if more flowed out.

So the spell takes whatever energy it finds and uses it to increase its own strength.

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