Brentworth looked down. “The ‘Blood’, you see. It freed them. Or so they said. But the spell broke. Explosively.”
Ashe’s jaw tightened as she fought to keep the memories at bay. Oblivious, the old man turned his gaze to the window.
“Affiliation is a funny thing,” he said contemplatively. “It damned us five hundred years ago. And eight years ago, it created something new. The spell was broken. The Merlin king and his family were killed, whether through the destruction of the spell or purely for revenge. And Victor and those with him… became something else.
“Utterly human in appearance, yet magically powerful like no wizard we had ever seen. His strength and that of his supporters dwarfed even the strongest of us, and we couldn’t be certain what he would do. We had never been certain. Which is why, in our efforts at control, we’d finally hit upon something that we thought would make him see reason once and for all.”
Brentworth glanced back at her. “We took his son. Had taken him, in fact, mere hours before Victor broke the spell. And when the king came for us, we suddenly found that, rather than negotiating for Victor to follow council rule, we were bargaining for our lives with that of his child.
“It was objectionable,” he admitted. “Some would say wrong. But the boy was a half-Merlin cripple and his mother wound up slaughtered by Victor’s hand not twelve hours later. In light of the evidence, one can only assume the boy would have died too. Our actions, however unpleasant, saved the child’s life.
“Victor disappeared almost immediately after. The council put the boy in hiding and then followed suit. And in a few weeks, we received word that his supporters had turned on him. With their magic back, they suddenly had little use for obeying a king.”
He paused. “It was convenient. Plausible. But terribly convenient. The Blood have continued hunting the council through the intervening years, an effort which could be prompted by a desire to take over Taliesin, or which could be Victor still trying to reclaim his son. And so you see, we say ‘most likely dead’. But we cannot be sure.”
Mouth tightening, he fell silent, and then looked back up at her. “For what it is worth, I am sorry about what happened to your family. I will not insult you by saying I’m displeased to have our magic back. But the method by which it was returned was… deeply unfortunate.”
Ashe regarded him. The considering look still tinged his gaze, though he nodded to her in acknowledgement of his words.
She turned away. Outside the car windows, skyscrapers swept by. She barely noticed.
The Taliesin king had killed them. Because of a stupid Taliesin power struggle, he’d wiped her family from the face of the earth. In the fallout, hundreds, maybe thousands had died. Children. Families. People he’d never met, who might’ve even agreed with him if he’d ever taken the time to ask.
But instead, he’d just killed them all.
Memory teased at the edge of her mind. Harris said Brogan and Jamison.
So that answered one question. Victor Jamison, the king of Taliesin who’d orchestrated the murder of her whole family, was still very much alive.
“How much farther?” she asked quietly, her voice foreign to her own ears.
From the corner of her eye, she could see Brentworth glance to Nathaniel. “Another few blocks,” the old man replied. “We’re almost there.”
She nodded.
“Your highness?” Nathaniel asked.
Ashe didn’t answer, watching the buildings go by.
She wondered if he’d be there, at Chaunessy with the council, or if he’d stay in hiding. If he did show up, he’d almost certainly try to take the magic of anyone who attempted to fight him, assuming he knew how. Which meant she’d have to get to him first. Before he could do to her or any of her people what she wanted to do to him.
Her gaze tracked toward Brentworth, the reason for the look in his eyes finally falling into place.
He wanted her to fight their king. Stop their king. As the only other person with the ability to bind magic, she stood the best chance. And if she died in the process… well, she was a Merlin. And the last of their ostensible nobility, an institution he disliked anyway. Her death would probably just be ‘deeply unfortunate’ too.
She felt cold, though she wasn’t entirely certain why. The blood just seemed frozen within her and the air left icicles on her lungs. It was strange.
The car came to a stop at the curb. Across the wide sidewalk, mirrored doors waited in the side of a building so high it blocked the sun.
“Your majesty?” Nathaniel asked quietly as Brentworth stepped from the car. “Are you alright?”
She drew a breath, her gaze still on the sheer glass walls, and carefully, she set the memories and the history aside. They didn’t matter. It wasn’t like the truth or Brentworth’s plotting changed her plans anyway.
The other cars pulled up behind them. Nervousness radiating from them, the twins climbed from the Jeep, Elias following a heartbeat later.
“Your highness?” Nathaniel asked again.
She glanced to him, and paid no attention to the way the concern strengthened in his eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” she answered calmly. “I’m fine.”
Chapter Sixteen
Cole closed his eyes as the glistening ebony doors swung ponderously open. Magic permeated the air. He could feel Lily tremble as she picked up on it, and her quivering only served to worsen his already pounding headache.
Of course the council surrounded themselves with magic. The wizard bastards couldn’t get enough of it.
Fighting back a scowl, Cole kept Lily behind him as he followed Vivian through the doors. He’d tried to shield the girl from view for the last few minutes, as they’d passed level upon level of checkpoints on the way to this floor. It had been a fool’s errand, given the sheer number of guards and cameras surrounding them, but there was nothing for it. As with everything else, it was just the best he could do.
At his back, Lily shivered, whether from fear or the icy air, he couldn’t tell. Dim light emanated from frosted glass sconces lining the walls and glistened on the black marble floor, though it barely lessened the shadows pressing down from the distant ceiling. Up ahead, a ten foot high wall ringed the space, and behind the top ledge, anonymous silhouetted figures sat in high-backed chairs and gazed down on the spotlighted center of the room like manifestations of a conspiracy theorist’s nightmare.
Cole’s lip twitched humorlessly, disgust moving through him again.
Tense decorum on her face, Vivian took a breath before stepping into the spotlight and then motioning him to follow. Cole didn’t move. Irritation cracked her demure expression as the woman glared at him askance, while behind him, Stephen growled a quiet warning.
“Fine,” Cole muttered.
Satisfaction showed in the wizards’ eyes, but he ignored it. Keeping Lily as hidden as possible, he moved forward, the blazing light overhead further disguising the figures above. Instantly burying their frustration behind masks of propriety, Vivian and Stephen bowed to the council, though grimaces twitched the wizards’ faces a heartbeat later when he didn’t do the same. Reaching over, the woman grasped his arm and tugged it in sharp-nailed encouragement.
He pulled away, damned if he was going to pay obeisance to his own kidnappers.
“Hello Cole.”
His gaze snapped to the figure at the center of the council.
“Who’s your friend?” the deep voice asked.
Vivian grabbed the girl while Stephen snagged his arms from behind. Jerking in the man’s grasp, Cole fought to break his hold, succeeding only in sending pain shooting through his shoulders. Desperately, Lily clung to him, but the woman was too strong and with a vicious yank, she ripped the child away and sent her stumbling into the light.
Silent, the council watched the exchange, saying nothing as Lily rushed back toward Cole and ran into Vivian instead. Spinning the girl around, the woman pinned Lily’s arms, immobilizing the child for the council and
giving no sign she noticed Cole struggling behind her.
“He calls her Lily,” Vivian told them.
Magic strengthened around the room. Internally, Cole swore.
“Hey!” he snapped, trying to pull their attention back to him. “I’m not here to talk to you about some kid!”
“How long has Merlin been working with the Blood, Cole?” the voice asked.
Ice hit his veins. “What? Merlin? Who said anything about–”
“How long have they been turning their royal children into monsters?”
“I don’t know what you’re–”
“The staff. The ‘human’ girl,” the voice continued implacably. “Princess Lily. She looks like the Merlin king. She has a weapon from their golden age. How long have you sided with them without our knowing, Cole? What did they offer you?”
Terrified, Lily twisted in the woman’s grasp, her panicked gaze finding Cole. Faint glints of light leaked from the staff in her hands.
“You’ll find it was a mistake to conspire with them,” the voice said.
The magic in the room surged.
Cole yanked against Stephen’s grip. “She’s not–”
A door flung open at the far end of the councilors’ seats. A short figure rushed in, making a beeline for the center of the row and paying no attention to the seething weight of magic hovering in the air.
The figure whispered to the central councilmember, who instantly rose.
“Security breach!” the councilor barked. He gestured sharply to Vivian and Stephen. “Take them to the service tunnel! The rest of you, escape routes! Now!”
Stephen and Vivian didn’t waste a second. Wrenching Cole around, the wizard muscled him toward the side of the room, with Vivian bringing Lily behind. Along the ledge, the councilors headed for the exit the smaller figure had used, while on the wall beneath the elevated seats, Stephen shoved one of the tall ebony panels, revealing a door to a blindingly white room.
Cries of confused alarm rang out. Frozen for a moment, a few councilors recovered themselves enough to bang on the locked door while others spun, abandoning the exit for the stairs nearby.
With a snarl, Stephen flung Cole around the doorway and into the white room. Scrambling up to his knees, Cole barely had time to turn before the wizard sent Lily stumbling after him. Grabbing her to stop her from hitting the ground, he winced as she clung to him, the staff squashed awkwardly between them.
He looked up from her tousled head. Through the massive window set to one side of the door, he could see the whole of the chamber, though from the opposite side, he’d been certain the space the window occupied had been nothing but wall. Councilors were running down the stairs and rushing toward them across the marble floor, while by the doorway, Stephen motioned for them to hurry. Across the room, Vivian punched a code into a keypad on the wall and then cursed vehemently when the numbers remained stolidly red.
The door to the council chamber exploded.
Ballistic chunks of wood and metal ripped through the center of the room, tearing down the councilors as it passed. The percussion drove the surviving wizards to the ground and left debris tumbling in its wake.
Stephen gasped, frozen by the sight of the wreckage and the writhing bodies within, and then he slammed the door. Eyes wide, he looked to Vivian. The woman was staring through the blood-splattered window in horror.
“Move!” he shouted.
The order broke her paralysis, and she whirled back to the wall, jabbing codes into the unresponsive panel with hysterical ferocity.
Shaking, Cole climbed the rest of the way to his feet, his gaze locked on the window and the bodies on the opposite side. In his arms, Lily began to turn, and he gripped her tighter, halting the little girl’s motion.
“Don’t,” he said.
Barely breathing, he watched the councilors. The survivors were trying to rise. Dust filled the room like smoke, obscuring the wizards on the far side, and the bright spotlight swung like a pendulum, revealing and then hiding the bodies on the floor.
Through the dust, a man stumbled into the room. Crashing to his knees on the marble, he stared at the bodies and then slowly began rocking back and forth, clutching his stomach with burnt and blistered arms.
Cole swallowed hard, barely recognizing Quinton through the blood covering him.
“Those sons of…” Stephen whispered.
Vivian turned at the words. A choked gasp escaped her and tears welled in her eyes. She spun back to the panel.
Still rocking, Quinton looked up, his gaze drifting over the chamber and then stopping on the window as though looking into the eyes of everyone inside the white room.
“Can he…?” Cole started.
“No,” Stephen said, his tone more cautious than confident. “This is an observation room for council aides. No one can see or hear anything from that – oh, hell.”
More wizards rushed into the chamber. Jabbing the keypad harder, Vivian whimpered and didn’t turn around. With methodical precision, the wizards swept the space, kicking over bodies and heading for the outer edges of the room.
“The door, Viv,” Stephen prompted, his gaze on the wizards. “Get the damn door.”
“It won’t–” the woman replied, choking on her tears. “All the overrides aren’t–”
Stephen tossed a sharp glance back. “Keep it together or take my place over here.”
The woman swallowed and shook her head, trying to focus. “No. No, I can get it.”
Growling a wordless encouragement, Stephen returned his attention to the other room.
Cole ignored them. At the outer reaches of the chamber, the wizards turned from their surveillance to form a perimeter, giving no sign they could hear the cries of the injured or Quinton’s sobs. Rigidly, they drew themselves to attention, their formality breaking only for the anticipatory grins he could see hovering around their lips.
He shivered, suddenly wanting to join Vivian on the opposite side of the room.
Two figures strode into the council chamber, dust curling around them as they moved. Silhouetted by the dim light, they appeared as little more than shadows.
Then the swinging spotlight caught them.
And everything became perfectly still.
Beneath the garish illumination, Victor Jamison paused, the light overhead nothing compared to the glow of Blood magic on his skin. His gaze dropped contemplatively to a quivering wizard splayed on the marble and swiftly, the scarred giant beside him kicked the wounded man over.
“Hello Terrence,” Victor said.
Cole’s gaze snapped from his father to the walls and back as the sound of Victor’s voice carried with crystalline clarity through the small room.
“It’s been a long time.”
On the floor, the wizard coughed, blood seeping from countless shrapnel wounds. Weakly, he tried to drag himself away and failed.
“Where is my son?”
Cole choked on his own air.
At the wizard’s silence, a thread of electricity whipped down, slicing the man’s chest to the bone.
“Where is my son?” Victor repeated in the same calm, controlled tone.
“You won’t… he’s gone… you can’t kill us…”
Victor regarded the gasping councilor. His face could have been made of ice.
And then his hand rose.
“That won’t work this time.”
Lightning lit the room.
Cringing from the blinding flashes, Cole heard Stephen curse as screams filled the council chamber. Her face buried in his side, Lily’s grip spasmed tighter. As the lightning faded, Cole straightened, one hand still averting Lily’s gaze.
Smoke clouded the air beyond the window. Within the ring of silently observing wizards, the councilors’ bodies lay scattered, their corpses reduced to smoldering bones and blackened flesh. Huddled at Jamison’s heels, Quinton stared around him, his mouth working like a fish on dry land.
And then he began to scream.
&n
bsp; The giant lifted an eyebrow. Expressionless, Victor turned away.
Magic cracked down. Like a marionette robbed of its strings, Quinton hit the ground and didn’t move again.
Victor glanced back at the giant. “Cole’s here. Find him.”
The giant nodded and then strode for the door, motioning for a few wizards to follow. Ignoring them, Victor looked down at the charred bones. A heartbeat passed before his gaze rose to the remainder of the room.
Cole stared, his thoughts spinning circles down into insensibility. His dad was alive. He hadn’t been shot. He hadn’t died because of the council. He hadn’t died from the Blood wizards. His father…
Led them.
Was one of them.
His father…
A gasp escaped him. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t…
Vivian let out a cry as the keypad turned green. Reeling, Cole looked to her briefly before the sight of his father drew his gaze back again. Victor still stood there, the bodies around him. The bodies of the council members he’d killed.
Cole had wanted them dead too.
He’d wanted…
Shivers struck him and they wouldn’t stop. In his arms, Lily began to squirm. She needed air. He was crushing her against him.
Gasping again, he released the girl, blinking at her in dumbstruck shock as she began to turn. Cole’s hands moved of their own accord, blocking her view.
His father led the Blood.
His father was looking for him.
All these years, he’d never stopped. And the Blood who’d killed Edmund Vaughn had just… they’d really just…
Murdered Ashley. And Patrick. And every family member Lily had.
He couldn’t breathe.
The door locks released. “Dammit, come on!” Vivian shouted.
Stephen grabbed his arm, yanking him from the window. The motion jarred him and instinctively, he fought back.
“Leave him!” the woman yelled.
“Insurance!” Stephen snapped.
“Cole!”
Lily’s frightened cry startled him. Twisting in the wizard’s grasp, he looked down, realizing she’d been thrown to the ground in the struggle.
Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) Page 30