Free Broken Quill [2] by Joe Ducie Page B

learned to fight men and women with
the same power at the Infernal Academy all those years ago. My Will was
tempered steel, hard and unbreakable, and the books I used to duel were written
to wound and ensnare.
    In this case, Midnight Steel was written for the Knights by the Knights. The section of the book I’d ignited
with my Will described an area of black space, where nothing but dead stars and
dust existed, folded back on itself in an infinite loop—the perfect place to
send Emissary. Even if he could survive the vacuum, it would be centuries, if
not more, before he escaped such a prison.
    This was what made the Knights and
the Renegades so dangerous. Never mind the spells, charms, wards, or
enchantments we could learn from the right books, never mind our armies or our
fleets of Eternity-class battleships. We could bind our enemies in shackles of
words and, with a thought, cast them beyond perdition and into prisons of such
complex cruelty that escape was impossible.
    The words jumped off the page of Midnight
Steel , warped in the air with a harsh whip crack, and lashed themselves,
physical and real, around Emissary’s wrists. The words ran up his arms, under
his shirt, marking his skin as though he had a living tattoo, and yanked him
forward.
    He grunted, resisted the pull, and,
throwing his arms up toward the sky, snapped the words that bound him.
    “Sweet, merry fuckery,” I whispered,
gaping.
    That was impossible. Midnight
Steel burst into flames in my hands, and I dropped the book with a cry, my
fingers blistered. The flames consuming the tome were made of dark, fetid
Void-light.
    “The walls of the Eternal Prison
crumble, Declan Hale,” Emissary said, and strode toward me, whole and unharmed
despite my best efforts. His jaw had shrunk back into his face, making him look
normal—handsome, even—but his eyes were still orbs of burning coal, spoiling
the illusion. “You think to bind me with your paltry new words, bound to mere
paper? The weak scratchings of your race are an insult to the Knights of old. I
was there, fool, ten thousand years ago, when the Infernal language,
runes of such tremendous power, were used as weapons by humanity. But those
days are dead, and the old locks shattered. The Everlasting will inherit True
Earth.”
    “Why are you doing this? Murder and
chaos? What could killing these people possibly get you?” I took a step back,
away from the flame eating the boardwalk at my feet, out of the curling smoke
that burned my eyes and my throat. Emissary followed. “If you wanted me, you
should have just come for me! ”
    Emissary nodded. He raised his hand
and a pool of ruby fire shone in his palm and between his fingers. “If this was
only about you, Shadowless, then you would already be dead. Why the chaos? Well
shit, son, why not?” He rolled his head and cracked his neck. “I’ve been sealed
away for aeons, Hale. Ten millennia in darkness! Why? Spill enough blood and
the walls of reality begin to crack. What, perchance, may slip through then,
hmm? You’ll see soon.”
    “I won’t let you kill unchecked. I
may not be a Knight anymore, but I’ll stop you.”
    Emissary snarled and jabbed a finger
into my chest. “You place yourself between me and them because you’ve come to
view your life as something that’ll bounce back. You’ve died and will die
again. You’ll live forever unless you’re killed.” He laughed. “But you’re
vulnerable. Just because you outwitted the natural order once… does not make
you one of us. One of the Everlasting.”
    “You’re not of the Everlasting,” I
spat. “You’re not one of the Nine.”
    “I am of Their kind. A first cousin,
if you will. The Emissaries serve the Everlasting. We are legion, Declan, and
it will take more than flashing light and storybooks to best us this time. We
are aged. We have learned in our exile. You humans break so easily.” He looked
over my shoulder and nodded.
    I followed his gaze and cursed.
Annie, and