“I’m sorry,” she said, through tears. “I …”
“They said you’re a slave,” Jay said. He rubbed the side of his face, which was displaying a nasty bruise. “Is that true?”
“It was,” Charity said. She knew she’d never live it down. A brief period of enslavement would have been quite bad enough, but she’d believed she’d belong to the Emperor for the rest of her life. “I … I got better.”
Jolie frowned. “What happened?”
“I killed the Emperor,” Charity said.
She said the words slowly, finally allowing herself to accept that she’d cheated her oaths and survived. Nothing happened. She smiled in open relief – she’d shied away from considering the fact that she might have been wrong – and hugged her siblings tighter. Jay pulled back hastily – he thought himself too old to be hugged by his older sister – but the others hugged her back.
“Jamal is dead,” she added, after a moment. She might as well get all the bad news out at once. “Johan … is alive, but occupied.”
She didn’t miss the flicker of fear that crossed their faces. Johan had stolen Jamal’s magic, after all; it was quite possible he’d want to do the same to them. They understood, instinctively, that magic was the only thing that made them special. Without it … Jamal had ended up enslaved, while no one knew what had happened to their father. Johan had plenty of reasons to want revenge …
“I don’t think he’ll want to hurt you,” she said, finally. The hell of it was that she would have cheerfully accepted the loss of her magic, like Dread, if it had freed her from her oaths. It probably would have done if she’d had a chance. “But right now the four of you are going to be leaving the city.”
Jay shook his head. “As the Conidian …”
He broke off, looking confused. Technically, he was the Conidian, although he was still underage. The Empress would have to appoint a regent, someone who could run the family’s affairs before he reached his majority; Charity wondered, absently, if Dolman would be interested in the post. If he wasn’t … it was quite possible that the Empress would pick someone who would loot the family bare before it was too late. The Empress’s lover had every reason to want to hurt the family …
“It may not matter in a week,” she said, firmly. Most of the family’s wealth still lay in their estates to the south, well away from the Golden City. The rest would probably have to be abandoned; it struck her, suddenly, that she wasn’t sure if Conidian House was still standing. “Jay, I expect you to look after your younger siblings …”
“I will,” Jay promised. He scowled at her. “But am I the Conidian?”
“You’re the person with the best claim to the title,” Charity said. “Jamal is dead, Johan doesn’t want it, I don’t want it either …”
She shrugged. “But you have to understand that things have changed,” she warned. “The title may be meaningless soon enough.”
“I’ll make it mean something again,” Jay said, stiffly.
“You’ll be taken out of the city,” Charity said. “If the Empress allows it, I will have you sent directly to the estate. You can stay there until … until everything is settled. There are enough wards there to keep you safe from almost any reasonable threat. If not, you’ll board a ship and head off to a distant land. You should be safe there.”
Unless the Witch-King really does become a god, she thought. The idea of a real god walking the lands was chilling. He might be able to reach for them wherever they are.
She spoke a silent prayer to the household gods, then looked at her siblings. Jay looked alarmingly like a younger version of their father, although his hair was jet black instead of grey. But then, the Conidian had had troubles even before the move to the Golden City. Jolie took after their mother instead, with golden hair and a smile that was so charming that it would have fathers preparing death hexes to protect their daughters in the next few years. Chanel too had her mother’s looks, while Chime took too much after their father … they’d be fine, she told herself, if they survived the war. Brains, beauty and whatever they could salvage from the estate.
“I expect you to go straight to the estate, or the ship,” she said, looking each of them in the eye, one by one. “Do not attempt to stay here or go elsewhere.”
“The Conidian cannot run,” Jay protested.
Chime elbowed him, sharply. “Charity … we don’t want to leave you.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Charity said. She loved her siblings, but she didn’t really want to spend too long with them. They were innocents and she … was a wreck. “The family line must survive, whatever else happens.”
She closed her eyes in pain. Their father would have lifted an eyebrow and his children would have scrambled to obey, Jamal would have used force or the threat of force. She … didn’t have the presence of her father, nor the willingness to cast compulsion hexes to make sure the children behaved. Besides, repeated compulsion spells could have an unpleasant effect on one’s intelligence. She had a feeling that some of Johan’s worse moments came from long-term spell damage.
“I understand,” Jolie said. He took Jay’s arm. “We’ll get to the estate, Charity.”
“I hope I’ll see you again,” Charity said. She hugged each of them, individually. “And if you don’t see me again, remember I love you.”
Chime looked doubtful. “Does Johan love us too?”
Charity tried to think of a way to sound convincing. “I think it will be a long time before he forgives you – forgives any of us,” she said. She had her doubts – Johan had made it clear he had no intention of returning to the family – but she kept them to herself. “I’m sure it will come, in time.”
Dolman cleared his throat, loudly.
“It’s time to go,” Charity said. “Goodbye.”
The Administrator was waiting for them outside, standing next to a long line of children of between twelve and fifteen years of age. Charity would have recognised them as mundane-born even if she hadn’t been told; they wore regular uniforms, with neither the house crests nor the style of someone born to a magical bloodline. They certainly hadn’t had the tailoring that any aristocratic student would have used to make their uniforms fit perfectly.
“They’ll be escorted out in twenty minutes,” Dolman said, after a brief – and silent – consultation with his fellow Inquisitors. “There aren’t many horses left in the city, thanks to the army, but there are a couple of farms on the other side of the mountains.”
“Good,” the Administrator said. He looked at Charity. “Lady Charity, there are a number of magicians waiting to speak with you.”
Charity frowned. “Like whom?”
“Lord Arndell appears to be their spokesman,” the Administrator said. “But he is accompanied by Lord Ruthven and Lady Hollows.”
“I see,” Charity said. Arndell was a Great House; Ruthven and Hollows would probably qualify, if they held their place in the Golden City for a few more decades. “Please can you show me to them?”
She followed the Administrator through a set of doors and into a small meeting room. The Arndell was a grey-haired man with a grim expression – she recalled, vaguely, that his son had been murdered shortly after Johan had developed his powers – while Lord Ruthven was a red-headed man carrying a sword and Lady Hollows looked hardly any older than Elaine or Daria. Her father had died young, Charity remembered; she’d had to take up the title of Lady Hollows only a couple of years ago. It was a minor miracle she’d survived Deferens’ rule, when older and more powerful women had been targeted for elimination.
“Lady Charity,” the Arndell said. If he knew of her experience under Deferens, he showed no sign of it. “I have been … requested … to demand the return of the hostages.”
Charity blinked before remembering. Deferens had taken a number of hostages from the Great Houses, but where were they? Elaine hadn’t said anything about them living in the palace; she doubted they would have been sent to the Peerless School. They
might even be dead … but that would have alerted the Great Houses that Deferens was not to be trusted. No, they had to be hidden somewhere …
“When we find them, we will return them,” she said. She made a mental note to check with Elaine before she ordered a search for the hostages. They might have been caught up in the Imperial Palace, after all. “There’s a great deal you have to know.”
She insisted that Lord Arndell cast a truth spell, then ran through the whole story for the second time. The Arndell looked shocked; Lord Ruthven looked determined to fight, while Lady Hollows looked disbelieving. Charity understood; if she hadn’t seen the Witch-King, she would have doubted that a figure from half-forgotten legend had returned to walk the earth once again. But the truth spell made it impossible for them to doubt her.
“The Empress needs your help,” she said, once she’d finished. “We need you to send your people to assist us …”
“For a price,” Lady Hollows said. Her voice hardened. “We barely survived one Emperor. We may not survive an Empress.”
“This isn’t the time,” Lord Arndell snapped. He looked at Charity. “We’ll discuss the price later.”
“I believe the Empress intends to abdicate the throne after the battle is over,” Charity said, before Lady Hollows could object further. “But unless we defeat the Witch-King now, everything we’ve done will be wasted and our hope of freedom will be lost forever.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Johan was feeling rather useless.
It had been a familiar feeling, when he’d been a child. He couldn’t use magic, so he couldn’t assist his father or go to the Peerless School; he couldn’t work in the kitchen, so he couldn’t even help the servants. But he’d felt better about himself when his powers had developed and they’d fled the Golden City. He’d been useful. Now, with hundreds of civil servants hurrying into the palace to pledge their loyalty to the new Empress, he felt useless again.
He leant against the wall in the Throne Room and watched, sourly, as Elaine issued orders in her quiet voice. She was growing more assertive the longer she sat on the throne, he realised, as if the Golden Throne was slowly shaping her into a stronger ruler. He could feel her presence in his mind, but there was something else there, something that had come between them. It didn’t take much imagination to realise that the Golden Throne was now part of her, at least until she put it aside.
If she can, he thought. He understood the desire for power – and, even though Elaine had never shared it, he had a feeling she would come to like it. Hundreds of men and women were bending the knee to her; there would be thousands more, including entire kingdoms, if she stayed on the throne. He found it hard to imagine that she would surrender power so tamely. Magicians always want more power.
“Hey,” Daria said. “You want to go help some kids?”
Johan jumped. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard her slipping up next to him. The werewolf looked tired, but surprisingly happy. Johan took one last look at Elaine and followed Daria through a side door, into yet another maze of corridors. A man was standing in the middle, frozen in time. It would be weeks or months before anyone got around to freeing him.
“I could smell you from right across the room,” Daria said. “She will have time for you soon, you know.”
“I know it, but I don’t believe it,” Johan admitted. Daria looked … different, somehow, although he couldn’t put his finger on it. “What happened to you?”
Daria grinned, showing sharp teeth. “The pack didn’t want to believe me,” she said, “even though I could hardly lie to them. I wound up having to challenge the alpha male for leadership of the pack.”
Johan stared at her. “You … you could have lost!”
“Yeah,” Daria said. “If I’d lost, it would have been pretty bad. Good thing I didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Johan echoed.
He felt sick. He wasn’t an expert, but if he recalled correctly the loser of a leadership challenge would be knocked right to the bottom of the hierarchy. Daria had gambled with her freedom, risking everything just to claim the leadership. He felt a bitter stab of shame. He’d been grumbling about feeling useless while Daria had risked a fate worse than death to help them. Elaine was lucky to have her as a friend.
“Don’t think about the risks,” Daria urged, as she sniffed the air. “Think instead about the future.”
Johan nodded. “Are you going to keep the pack?”
“I’ll stay away for a few months, afterwards,” Daria said, briskly. “A new alpha will arise to take my place. I’ll make sure he has enough time to get entrenched before I go back, so he won’t feel obliged to challenge me.”
She sniffed the air again. “This way,” she said. “Come on.”
Johan eyed her retreating back. It was hard to be sure, but were there scars under her thin robe? A fight for dominance between an alpha and a challenger would be nasty. Daria had been lucky to survive without serious injuries, even though the pack mentality would preclude other challenges until she recovered. And the fate of the loser didn’t bear thinking about, not for werewolves …
“You mentioned kids,” he said. “What happened?”
“Your sister discovered that Deferens took hostages,” Daria said, as she hurried down the corridor. Johan followed, grimly aware that her legs were scarred badly too. “They were never returned or sacrificed.”
“Because there would be a blood-tie,” Johan said. “Their families would know the instant they were killed.”
“Correct,” Daria agreed. She pulled her wand from her belt and tapped it against a door, carefully. “Let’s see what’s inside.”
Johan tensed as the door opened, revealing a small dormitory. There were twenty-seven bunks, stuffed into a room smaller than Jamal’s study. Johan had the feeling that most of the kids would have complained, loudly, even though they still had more room than the average mundane worker in the city. A dozen children, ranging in age from eight to sixteen, were frozen in time; some lay in the bunks, others were reading or trapped in poses that suggested they were trying to work magic. His eyes narrowed as he recognised some of the family crests. Deferens had collected a hostage from almost every major magical family or bloodline in the city.
“They’re safe, at least,” Daria said. She paced between the hostages, looking for signs of trouble. “Elaine can release them, once their parents arrive. It should make matters easier for their families.”
“Their families may want to resist Elaine,” Johan pointed out. “Do you want to run the risk of surrendering our only guarantee of good behaviour?”
“They’re children,” Daria snapped, angrily. “They shouldn’t be held prisoner because we don’t trust their parents.”
Johan sighed. He’d known, of course, that hostages were regularly exchanged amongst the Great Houses, but the hostages were generally treated like honoured guests. It would have been a breach in etiquette to abuse them, even to the point of insisting they share a tiny room with a dozen other hostages. Deferens, of course, hadn’t given a damn. He’d probably thought that the idea of forcing the children to share was funny, if he’d thought about it at all.
You were brought up to accept it as normal, he thought, grimly. But Daria sees it as appalling.
“It should be considered,” he mumbled. He didn’t want a werewolf angry at him, particularly not a pack leader. “I …”
“The kids can go back home,” Daria said, firmly. She did a quick head count and turned back to the door. “Let’s go find the Empress.”
Somewhat to Johan’s surprise, Elaine was alone when they returned to the Throne Room, sitting in front of a small table that had seemingly grown out of the floor, and studying a set of diagrams. Daria reported quickly; Johan hesitated, then decided to keep his thoughts to himself. Elaine eyed him sharply – she’d be able to sense his concern – but evidently decided not to ask.
“See they get back home,” she said, to Daria. “Johan �
� stay here, please.”
Daria nodded and left. Elaine rose to her feet, caught Johan and pulled him into a desperate hug. Her body felt warm against his, but he could sense the tiredness burning through her soul. The Golden Throne was clearly exacting a price for its services. He wondered, suddenly, just where the Emperors of yore had slept, then dismissed the thought. Deferens would have been the last person to use the royal bedchambers.
“I feel harassed,” she said, when she pulled back from him. “Do you think your father felt the same way too?”
“Probably,” Johan said. “He always threw a fit when he was interrupted in the middle of the day.”
“I don’t blame him,” Elaine said. “Do you realise just how many minor matters have to be handled by the Grand Sorcerer, personally?”
“No,” Johan said. He smirked. “Hire minions for that, Elaine.”
“I don’t have any who can be trusted with this,” Elaine said. She pointed a finger at the floor, which bubbled and produced another chair. “Have a seat, please.”
Johan hesitated before sitting down, remembering just what the Golden Throne did to people who didn’t have the right bloodline. But Elaine wouldn’t have made him sit on something dangerous, not knowingly. The chair felt oddly comfortable underneath him; he rubbed the stone thoughtfully as Elaine sat facing him, her fingers tracing out the equations on the papers. They were completely beyond his comprehension.
“This is the Witch-King,” Elaine said. “I’ve been working my way through the web of spells he used to create his new body. It’s a fantastically complex piece of work, really.”
Johan eyed her, doubtfully. “You sound like you admire him.”
Elaine hesitated. “He’s a genius, no doubt about it,” she said. “But at the same time he’s a complete lunatic.”
She cleared her throat. “The interesting thing is that he combines both wild magic and traditional spell-casting,” she said. “My guess is that the magic I detected in you, when we first met, will actually grow stronger over the years. You may be capable of traditional spell-casting yourself within the next couple of decades.”
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