The Necromancer’s Light by Tavia Lark
Sneak Peek at Radiance Book Two: The Paladin’s Shadow
“Are you even listening, Karis?”
Karis blinks out of his daze and looks over at his friend. “Absolutely not,” he answers, breaking into a laugh. The slight smile lights up his youthful, freckled face, but doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s still distracted by the echoes of another voice inside his head. “Could you repeat it, if it was interesting?”
Stazie rolls her eyes. She’s used to his attitude. “Everything I say is interesting,” she responds, just as haughtily. A fellow squire of the Radiant Order, she wears the same sky-blue tunic and undyed trousers he does. “Especially that I’m going out with Annett to pick up supplies, and you’re stuck here with Bernard on prison watch.”
“Again?” Karis sighs and slumps back against the garden wall. “This is the worst vacation ever.”
All right, so it’s not a vacation. The two of them are currently in the garden courtyard of the Harvest Lord church in Marrick, halfway back to their home in Ostaris. The Radiant Order worships Vara, not Maiza, but the two faiths are friendly with each other. The rest of the paladins in the party are currently talking to the Harvest priests, arranging rooms for themselves—and for their prisoner.
Karis’s eyes flick towards the enclosed carriage in the center of the courtyard. When he concentrates, he can see gold shimmering around the doors and shuttered windows. Even with the locking magic, two paladins stand constantly at the door.
Ronan Vizia, thief and murderer and heretic, wasn’t easy to find in the first place. The Radiant Order doesn’t intend to let him slip again.
They might not have captured him at all this time if it weren’t for Karis’s tracking magic. But his glorious contributions to the cause haven’t resulted in any benefits. He and Stazie are two of the lucky squires riding along with the party to capture Ronan and bring him to justice for crimes against the order. Karis hadn’t expected a lot of leisure time, but this trip has been his first chance to leave the Bright Cathedral since he joined the Radiant Order nearly a year ago. Especially after catching Ronan, he thought he would have chances to explore the towns they passed through. Maybe even talk to people who aren’t also in the order. Instead, every bit of downtime has tied him down with dinner shifts, horse duty, and guard duty.
He never gets sent out to pick up supplies like Stazie and Annett. It’s getting to the point where the different treatment seems intentional, and he doesn’t want to ask why.
“Aw, I’ll bring you back something nice, kiddo,” Stazie says, patting his arm faux-reassuringly. “Candy? A toy?”
“Ribbons for my hair?” he says shamelessly, looping an arm around her shoulders.
She laughs again and pushes him away to go meet up with Annett. Karis leans back against the courtyard wall, out of sight and out of mind for the moment, and lets his mind drift again.
Late afternoon sunlight paints the chapel garden in gold, lighting up the fragrant pink blossoms and perfectly pruned citrus trees. At the head of the courtyard stands the church; to the right is a stable, and to the left a row of barracks for the Harvest priests and guests. A statue of the Harvest Lord stands enclosed in a small pond nearby. There’s no room for a sprawling orchard in the middle of the city, but there’s enough fruit and flowers for worship. But it’s not Lord Maiza’s voice that whispers in his heart.
Karis—tonight—
“Karis!”
His eyes snap open, and he runs a hand through his hair. Interrupted again. He peels off the wall and joins Sir Bernard near the center of the courtyard. The man’s stocky, with an unnecessarily billowing cloak and his hair pulled back in a fairly silly bun.
“There you are,” he says when Karis reaches him. “Don’t run off.”
Karis doesn’t point out that he was thirty feet away at most. The constant supervision is really starting to grate, but he doesn’t think it’ll get any better if he complains. “Did you need me for something, sir?”
“Scry out Captain Tanner and see how close she is. They’ve been moving faster than us, it might be better to wait here for her before we press on to Ostaris.”
“Yes sir,” Karis answers lazily, touching the gold and lapis stud in his left earlobe. He remembers to close his eyes, so nobody will see anything strange, and he searches for the Captain’s presence.
Show me Captain Tanner,he thinks. And with an easy blink, he sees her, with the small group she took on another task, riding through familiar terrain. He recognizes a fork in the road, a feeling in the trees, from two days ago. He waits a few seconds after the vision clears before opening his eyes and dropping his hand from his earring.
He doesn’t actually need a focus stone to work magic, but he can’t let anyone else know that.
Most paladins of the Radiant Order are ordinary people who only gain magic when they complete their training and form a contract with Vara, the god of sunlight, sight, and truth. Their golden pendants are the catalyst for their borrowed powers.
Then there are people who were born with an affinity for magic. They might stay minor hedgewitches forever, or they might bind themselves to a god or demon to access higher powers. Either way, they still need symbols or herbs or gems or other catalysts to channel raw power into controllable spells.
Karis has never met anyone else who didn’t need a catalyst, and he learned long ago to keep his differences a secret.
After scrying, he counts to ten before opening his eyes again. “They’re two days north of here,” he tells Bernard. “Probably one day, actually, at their pace.”
Bernard lets out a heavy breath. “That’s good. We’ll wait here until they catch up, then. I’m excited for this guy to be someone else’s problem.” He cocks his thumb back towards the warded carriage.
Karis runs his hand through his bangs. “Need anything else, sir?” The words are polite, the tone isn’t. He can’t help it.
But Bernard doesn’t seem to notice his sarcasm. “That’s all. Go help the rest of the squires move everyone in. The Maizans gave us enough rooms for the night. Sir Dace will tell you what to do.”
“Right away, sir,” Karis says, then runs off to make himself scarce. He’ll find Sir Dace in a bit. First he has someone to talk to, if he can avoid any more interruptions.
He walks briskly towards the entrance to the barracks, then veers quickly around the corner of the building. A graveled path leads through another side garden, and Karis appreciates the thick hedges and flowering trees not for their beauty but for their privacy. He finds a stone bench in a patch of sunlight and slumps down on it. Feels the warm light soaking into his bare hands.
Thinks to the voice in his head, I swear, you are the neediest god. What is it now?
Radiant Vara answers, the words colored with divine amusement, Most people would be grateful for my counsel, you know.
Then talk to them instead,Karis thinks back. He doesn’t expect an answer to that, though. Vara never answers when Karis asks why he doesn’t talk to other paladins or priests directly. There are a lot of topics Vara never answers—why he never talks in Ostaris, whether it’s legal or moral to make Karis work dinner shifts on holy days, how to flirt with men. Karis likes to ask anyway. Fine, fine. Your noble and shiny graciousness, how can this humble servant do your bidding today?
There’s a hum in the back of his mind. Karis looks down at his hands, his skin seeming to glow in the sunlight. Every freckle is starkly outlined. The edges of his nails are sharply white. His veins are faintly blue beneath the skin. The sunlight brightens until his eyes sting.
And Vara says, Talk to the thief tonight.
“Ronan?” Karis asks out loud, startled. “Why?”
Vara doesn’t answer, but says instead, Go alone.