“Cobb,” I said. “He used the reunion to cover up an attempted coup and sent the fire mages to attack the guards while they were off-duty. I locked him in the Order’s dungeon, but he already freed his friends. Maybe I should have brought him here instead.
“If you hadn’t gone to the reunion, your friend would be dead,” said the Death King. “I would go and fetch Cobb myself, but I would rather he wasn’t imprisoned here in my castle.”
At least I’d made one good call by leaving him behind, considering Cobb’s first target would be the hall of souls.
Devon groaned, stirring. “Ow… my hands…”
Even after I’d used the cantrips, the burns were still red raw. Powerful fire mage magic like Sledge’s might have permanent effects, and if she was unlucky, she might never be able to make cantrips again. And I’d already lost my job at the Order. Even if we survived this, how could we move on?
Cal ran into the room. “Someone is at the gates.”
I turned away from the sofa. “Who?”
“I’m taking a wild guess that it isn’t an ally,” said Ryan grimly.
“I’ll handle them,” said the Death King. “You three—stay alert. There might be more fire mages hiding in the swamp.”
Instinct told me to stay beside Devon, but a more pragmatic voice in my mind told me that the person at the gates was most likely one of the vampires, and that I’d be better off giving myself up to Lord Blackbourne than letting anyone else take the fall.
The Death King and I reached the gates, where the liches on guard duty parted to allow us to see the visitor.
“It’s me,” said Brant.
The Death King moved. In a heartbeat, he had Brant by the throat, a stream of energy connecting the two of them. Brant struggled and kicked out feebly.
“Wait!” I said. “Look, now is not the time to be strangling our allies.”
“This man is no ally of yours.” He flung Brant across the swampland, where he sprawled on his back in the mud. “He’s here for a favour, or to beg for shelter again.”
I looked at Brant. “Tell me you aren’t here to steal anyone’s soul.”
“I’m not,” he said. “There are some horrific reports coming in from the Order. Something about an explosion at the reunion?”
“Your fire mage friends,” I said. “Working with Cobb. I locked him up again after he tried to rip out my soul. He set you free, too, didn’t he? You might have warned me.”
“I didn’t know he’d stay at the Order,” he insisted. “I thought he was coming here. Besides, Cobb isn’t the one you should be worrying about.”
He rose to his feet, and this time, I was the one who grabbed his life essence. “Tell me who it is, then.”
“I don’t—I can’t.” He leaned back, eyes bulging at the sight of the energy current connecting the pair of us.
“Then you’re going to help us find them.” I clenched my hand over his life force. “Davies is already dead, and if you don’t help us find your allies, you’ll be next.”
Behind him, the node outside the gates lit up from within. The Death King glided in that direction, and I braced myself for a fight.
A vampire emerged from the current of energy, hardly a hair out of place.
“There you two are,” said Lord Blackbourne. “I hear you’re wanted by the Order, Olivia. And I see you have Mr Edwards with you, too.”
I didn’t move. “If you want someone to blame, then look for Cobb. His allies took over the Order. I locked him in the Order’s dungeon, if you want to find him.”
“I heard about the attack at the reunion,” he said. “However, you cannot possibly expect me to believe the Order—which endured the spirit war and was instrumental in bringing down the perpetrators—would fall so easily.”
“They’ve been taken over from the inside,” I said. “And there have always been people wanting to reverse the decision made at the end of the war. Dirk Alban…”
“I seem to remember you were involved in his scheme yourself,” said the vampire lord. “Is this a confession?”
The Death King stepped up to him. “I would prefer not to have to set my guards upon you, Lord Blackbourne. I have already told you my opinion on Olivia’s innocence—”
“She’s as innocent as you are,” he said, “which is to say—not at all. This deception is frankly tiresome to watch, and does you no favours, Grey.”
Anger flashed across the Death King’s face. “Believe it or not, the Order stands poised to fall, and if anything, you should be seeking new allies, not alienating them.”
“That is why I am asking you for these two individuals,” he said. “Edwards and Cartwright are wanted for questioning for their involvement in the deaths of two of my allies. If they’re innocent, they can tell me in person.”
“Oh, for the Elements’ sakes,” I snapped. “A bunch of rogues from the House of Fire killed your allies. The same people which formed an alliance with Cobb.”
Brant stepped forwards. “You can take me with you, but leave her out of this.”
“Very well.” Two vampires stepped in behind their leader, seized him, and vanished into the node.
“Hey!” I advanced on Lord Blackbourne. “Cut that shit out. Brant wasn’t the one who killed your people. You must know that. He’s—”
“A former inmate of the House of Fire,” interjected Lord Blackbourne. “If you wish to speak for him, come with me.”
The Death King spoke in a low, deadly voice. “I wouldn’t.”
A chill raced down my back. Devon lay injured in the castle, but there was nothing more I could do for her. Brant, on the other hand, was on the cusp of being sentenced to death, and the vampires might be the only allies I had left outside of the Court of the Dead.
I needed them on my side.
I met his eyes. “I want to make a bargain of my own.”
“A bargain?” The vampire’s teeth flashed as he smiled. “Enlighten me.”
“I’ll go with you, if you promise not to declare war on the Court of the Dead,” I said. “We have a common enemy, one who’s bound to strike you next. If you want my help, don’t attack my allies.”
“In that case,” said Lord Blackbourne, “I’d like to invite you to come with me.”
He took my arm, and an instant later, we passed through the node and emerged in front of the vampires’ council house. Brant was nowhere to be seen. Locked up, no doubt. I warily followed Lord Blackbourne into the red-carpeted hallway. As usual, old-fashioned lanterns lit the way into a wood-panelled room filled with plush red chairs and a long wooden table.
Lord Blackbourne walked into the room and indicated for me to follow. Not a cell. Good start, then.
“I’m glad you saw things my way, Olivia,” he said. “Greyson can be stubborn, but he must understand that your life isn’t worth the safety of his people.”
“You’re looking at the wrong enemy,” I said evenly. “The Order has been attacked from within. I didn’t believe it at first either, but Cobb freed every one of their prisoners and sent his allies to attack the school reunion. The Order’s staff need to be warned, but they wouldn’t take my word as proof.”
“A dilemma we have faced ourselves, recently, with the Crow case,” he said. “I have to confess that it was rather difficult to believe one of our own was once a spirit mage.”
“Not to me,” I said. ‘It didn’t take me that long to conclude it was a vampire pulling the strings.”
“The Crow was never a mastermind,” he said. “He was a follower, despite his ambitions, just like Cobb.”
“Speaking of Cobb, he’s only going to be in jail for as long as it takes his allies to realise that he’s down there and send someone to set him free, which isn’t long enough for my liking.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the empty soul amulet. “Cobb had a spirit mage he freed from jail and he was going to put my soul in this. He’d have succeeded if the spirit mage hadn’t helped me instead and my sprite hadn’t shown up
.”
“Your sprite?” he said. “I have to admit, I’m surprised that talent came back to you first, given everything you’ve forgotten.”
“What’s your point?” I said. “I’m getting a little tired of everyone dancing around the truth. Is it because spirit mages had some kind of affinity with sprites?”
“Yes,” he said, “but you must know you have been connected to this scheme from its inception.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “And why is that?”
“Because you killed Dirk Alban,” said Lord Blackbourne. “And Greyson Beaumont helped you do it.”
21
I stared at the vampire lord. “You have got to be joking. I killed him? Wouldn’t Cobb or one of the others have hunted me down for it if I had?”
But I had his blood on my hands. Or someone’s blood.
“I doubt anyone told Cobb,” he said. “I’m reasonably confident that he wasn’t present at the time of Alban’s death, though I don’t doubt he blamed you for the loss of his own magic… hence his attempt to take it for his own.”
I lowered the soul amulet, returning it to the pouch at my waist. “If you aren’t sure, then how in hell do you know I tried to kill Dirk Alban? The Order wouldn’t have spared my life if I had.”
They would have arrested or killed my former mentor if he’d survived, but now I didn’t know what to think. For all I knew, my dreams might have held a kernel of truth. Perhaps I truly had ripped out Dirk Alban’s soul.
“I can’t speak for the Order,” he said. “You were young and easily led, and perhaps they thought you regretted allying with Alban, so they sought to right both wrongs at once and erase your memories.”
My hands fisted. “How do you know? You weren’t there.”
“Would that I had been,” he said. “The only surviving witness is yourself, and your memories alone conceal the truth of that fateful day.”
“You can’t bring back memories that the Order took away, so don’t bother lying to me,” I said in brittle tones. “Besides, what’s the point in any of this? Why’d you bring me here, except to taunt me about my missing memories?”
“Because the truth of what we are up against lies in those memories,” he said. “You’re starting to remember, aren’t you? Greyson said you often saw visions of your past during near-death moments.”
“I thought you and the Death King were at cross-purposes at the moment,” I said. “You mean to say you’ve been meeting up to gossip about me behind my back?”
“Our last meeting was before the regretful murder of our emissaries,” he said. “After that, I realised we needed you in custody. You’re too ignorant of what you can do.”
“And whose fault is that?” I said. “The Order—who, I reiterate, are on the brink of being taken over by spirit mages hell-bent on domination. Won’t that cause a major shakeup of your arrangement? They might even come for your territory, too. I wouldn’t put it past them. Cobb already tried to take down the Death King.”
“If you hadn’t stopped him,” he said “It is true that we owe you a debt… though it took me some time to work out how to repay it. I think your memories will be a good place to start.”
“If you’re saying you can bring them back—”
“There was a video recording of your trial which I think you’ll find fairly enlightening,” he said. “Greyson told me he thinks you might be in need of another reminder to trigger your buried memories.”
“How did you get that?” Disbelief bled into my tone. “Electricity barely even works here. Besides, why would the Order record the trial?”
The vampires were loaded, though, and they had connections on the surface which would enable them to get anything they needed, if they wanted to.
Not only that, they’d been discussing my deepest secrets with the Death King without him breathing a word to me. Yet I didn’t have the energy left to burn on hating a man who’d been faced with an impossible choice the same way I had.
And, if Lord Blackbourne was telling the truth, we’d been in this together from the start.
Lord Blackbourne reached under the desk and pulled a laptop from its case, which he deposited in front of me. As it loaded up, an image filled the screen, showing my own face. At seventeen, I’d had longer hair, and sat with my head bowed. I didn’t look at the camera.
A chill wafted down my spine, and my whole body locked to the spot as a long-buried instinct urged me to flee.
“Do you deny using spirit magic?” said a low, masculine voice.
“No,” said the teenage Olivia.
“You were found beside the body of a dead man,” he said. “Did you kill him?”
“No,” said the girl on the screen.
No. I denied it. But was I telling the truth? I didn’t remember, even now.
“You will be spared death, on one condition,” he said. “Your memories of learning spirit magic will be stripped from you and you will be placed under surveillance for the remainder of your time at the academy.”
“Okay,” whispered the girl.
Dread seeped through my bones. Then, darkness filtered in, and the world disappeared, to be replaced by a bloody wall made of cold metal. Unbearable brightness shone in front of me. A voice murmured in my ear: “Let him go.”
Someone was talking to me, but I couldn’t see the speaker. The brightness in front of me grew until I couldn’t see anything at all, and I was aware that I was falling… falling…
“Liv. Liv, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
That voice again…
My eyes flew open to find myself leaning against the table in Lord Blackbourne’s room. I jumped to my feet, shaking all over. “What the hell did you do to me?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Whatever you saw was triggered by the video of your trial. It’s not uncommon for that effect to come from reminders of the moment when your history was erased. After all, your memories of the trial weren’t taken. I assume you blocked them out yourself. So… what did you remember?”
I shook my head. “Nothing that made sense. Voices… I recognised them, but not who they belonged to.”
“You didn’t see Alban before his death, then?” he asked.
“I didn’t see anything except… blood. And—I was holding someone’s soul, in my hands.”
“Alban’s soul?”
I don’t know. Cold sweat coated my body. Once, I’d have said there was no way I’d ripped out someone’s soul in cold blood, even someone like Dirk Alban. Even a murderer. But now?
“If I killed him, he deserved it.” I raised my head. “Why does it matter so much to you? It was over a decade ago that he died.”
“Because it is Dirk Alban whose ideas have inspired the current uprising within the Order,” he said. “The cantrips the Crow was making were one of his ideas, too. If Cobb and the others lay their hands on the very instruments that started the spirit war, they could do a great deal of damage.”
“Then you think Alban told me his plan,” I said slowly. “Before he died.”
Because he was training me to be his successor. Even the vampires had known.
“You, Olivia, might be the only person with insight into Alban’s strategy,” said Lord Blackbourne. “The Order likely knew it, too, and they assumed erasing your memories would also erase the risk. Unfortunately, it seems his ideas were spread through other means, and we have yet to capture a living victim to question.”
“The two assassins committed suicide,” I said. “The ambassadors… did you send them to spy on the Order?”
He inclined his head. “I hoped they might gain useful information from the fire mage, but I doubt he knows anything of import, either. The enemy would have disposed of him already if he did.”
Unfortunately, I suspected he might be right. “He’s a pawn. Like I was. Look, I believe you, but my friend is in serious danger, my family is under threat—and what did you do with Brant?”
“He’s safer than he would be if the Order stil
l had him,” he said. “Without his magic, he’s not much use to anyone.”
My chest tightened. Remembering the Order’s rooms brought me out in chills, especially given my more recent narrow escape. “You’re right. He’s not. I know he fought on the wrong side, but I don’t think he deserves to die.”
“You wish to make another bargain?” he said.
“Sure, why not.” Recklessness seized me. “If you spare Brant, what would you want in return?”
“When you remember the information Alban told you before his death, you will tell us right away.”
“You seem certain I’ll remember.” But he’d offered me a way out, and I trusted Lord Blackbourne to keep his word. Certainly more than the Order. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.”
Firstly, I needed to see to Devon’s safety, and ensured Cobb returned to jail where he belonged. Which meant returning to the Order.
Lord Blackbourne glided across the room and opened the door. “Think very carefully, Olivia. There are more forces at play than you know.”
“Or so people keep telling me.” I stepped out into the hallway. “Thank you for sparing Brant. And I’m sorry about your ambassadors.”
I walked through the corridor, feeling more alone than I ever had in my life. While part of me wanted to check up on Brant, a far more significant part wished I hadn’t left Devon and the Death King alone when some of Cobb’s allies were still at large and the Order was in disarray. The vampires might be our allies, but they’d leave the Death King to fight his own battles alone unless something was in it for them. Besides, I’d wrangled enough favours from Lord Blackbourne already.
A knife soared towards me. I called on my spirit magic and deflected it, as the door to the council house burst open.
“You’re under attack!” I shouted.
Two assassins circled me, faces masked, knives in their hands. I called on the node’s power and blasted the weapons from their hands, as the vampire emerged from the council house with two allies in tow.
One of the attackers spat at Lord Blackbourne’s feet. “This is for the Crow.”
Trial of Shadows (Order of the Elements Book 3) Page 21