Short Story Collections #02 - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey [Lackey, Mercedes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General, Anthologies, Anthologies (Multiple Authors), Fantasy Fiction; American, Valdemar (Imaginary Place)
ISBN: 9780756401665
Google: 64ce7xBT6dgC
Amazon: 0756401666
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2003-12-01T23:00:00+00:00

The blow had thrown off Vess' internal balance-he was seeing double, the physical world layered under his Mage-sight. Sinuous red tendrils wrapped Sevastan's arms, gathering in pools in his hands. A cord of red power, like a leash, dripped out of his left hand and connected to Juni, and from Juni spun out hundreds of thin red threads, pulsing in time with a heartbeat of their own.

Everything fell into place with painful clarity.

He's the blood-mage, Vess thought in shock. Not her. She has Mage-Gift-he's working through her and disguising it as a "Gift"-good gods!

Sevastan raised his arm and shouted something, and a black levin bolt cracked through the air toward Vess, who threw up his arms in a pitiful mockery of defense.

Inches away from him, it disintegrated in a shower of sparks as it hit invisible shields.

Vess blinked in surprise, then blinked again as a pale white form faded into sight beside him.

:I can't keep this up,: a vaguely familiar female voice said into his mind. :If you have a plan, use it.:

"Well," Sevastan said, his attention shifted off Vess. "This is unexpected. Didn't I kill you?"

Vess heard the female voice answer with flat emotion, :By your own hand we are entangled, mage. I do not die if you do not die.:

Sevastan laughed. "A complication I will swiftly amend," he said, raising his hands again-Vess didn't give him a chance.

Dragging up his mental energies, he split open his shields, threw his mind at Sevastan-And screamed inside his head.

Years of anger, frustration. and disgust broke out of Vess, his Empathy fueling the raw violence of his attack. Months of watching Nadja die by inches in her bed-months of sitting with the King as he quietly went to pieces with the agonized guilt of the latest Herald he'd had to send off to possible death or worse. Years of court deception, petty politics and subterfuge-deceivers and backstabbers with smiling faces and no concept of the pain they caused.

Tragedies. Sorrows. Pain. The struggle to keep from being beaten down by the very people he tried to help.

And past that, the certainty that the thing he was fighting was the same thing that had killed Starhaven, the thief of life.

The mind-blast broadened and changed to incoherent rage. Lost in the blinding power he had given himself over to, Vess's world dissolved into a solid sheet of fury, and evaporated.

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