This Strange Magic

By C.M.J. Wallace

The king of Carvel and the sultan of Ardual join forces against Mistrin, but the sultan’s true motive is avarice: he covets the wizard Andrin Sethuel. The Mistrin necromancer’s enchantment is poised to entice the empire’s heir into slaying his father, freeing the sorceress to rule from behind the throne as she plots vengeance against her enemies. Knowing she can never have the Rondural, the necromancer is determined to destroy it, along with everyone in Torvia, and she summons an army of the dead to fight the last battle against the kingdom. This strange magic threatens to devastate the world and tear Andrin, Rift, and the Rondural apart, and it may force Andrin to obliterate the Rondural—and therefore himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.M.J. Wallace
• Release date: May 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9780985914066

C.M.J. Wallace

C.M.J. Wallace is the author of the Rift series and is also a medical editor. She received her bachelor of science degree with honors from Michigan State University and, being a lover of English and not laboratory work, promptly started editing instead. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and is currently working on another novel in the series.The first four books of Rift are completed and available as e-books, and the first three are available in print through Amazon; This Strange Magic will soon follow in their footsteps.Sing the Midnight Stars, book 1 of the Rift series, is a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree.

Book preview

ABOUT THIS STRANGE MAGIC

The king of Carvel and the sultan of Ardual join forces against Mistrin, but the sultan’s true motive is avarice: he covets the wizard Andrin Sethuel. The Mistrin necromancer’s enchantment is poised to entice the empire’s heir into slaying his father, freeing the sorceress to rule from behind the throne as she plots vengeance against her enemies. Knowing she can never have the Rondural, the necromancer is determined to destroy it, along with everyone in Torvia, and she summons an army of the dead to fight the last battle against the kingdom. This strange magic threatens to devastate the world and tear Andrin, Rift, and the Rondural apart, and it may force Andrin to obliterate the Rondural—and therefore himself.

BY C.M.J. WALLACE

RIFT

Book One: Sing the Midnight Stars

Book Two: Flight of Shadows

Book Three: This Darkling Magic

Book Four: This Strange Magic

Book Five: Call Down the Mighty Waters

THIS STRANGE MAGIC is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to events, locales, or actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by C.M.J. Wallace. All rights reserved.

Cover art copyright © 2012 by Hillary Frances Eleanor Coy

Cover design by Hillary Frances Eleanor Coy

Map copyright © 2012 by T. F. Wallace

ISBN-13: 978-0-9859140-6-6

Smashwords Edition

CONTENTS

About This Strange Magic

By C.M.J. Wallace

Map

Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5

Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10

Epilogue

Acknowledgments • About the Author

Preview: Rift, Book 5, CALL DOWN THE MIGHTY WATERS

The Characters of Rift

CHAPTER 1

Calm bereft of peace descended on Andrin Sethuel like a chill cerement as he watched Captain Jonya Velurian quaff his ale, hunching possessively over the tankard as if expecting someone to try to snatch it from his gnarled grasp at any moment. Acidic hate, raw and scraping, ate at Andrin’s guts and made them tremble, and he fought to control the black undulation of magic that urged him to decimate right then and there the man who had tortured him, who had robbed him of parents, home, and self.

When he thought he could speak normally, he said quietly to his apprentice, I want you to go back to our rooms. Now.

Benj Slatar didn’t even try to protest. Andrin’s face was terrifying, like a death mask with cold life squirming beneath it, its dead white fingers scrabbling at its stiff prison, seeking release. He said a farewell that Andrin didn’t hear, and the wizard was barely aware that the boy had left.

Velurian swilled the last of his drink and thumped the vessel down on the scarred tabletop. Weaving slightly as if still at sea and using the tables he passed to correct his course, the captain tacked toward the bar and moored himself to it gratefully. He swayed and blinked slowly, trying to focus on the tavern keeper.

Bringing his tankard as an excuse, Andrin followed discreetly and sat at a stool several feet away.

The short, slight man who owned the establishment had a thin angular face and even thinner lips that twitched like a rodent’s snout. He sized his customer up and approached him reluctantly. Help you, Captain?

Velurian released a long, liquid belch and wiped an errant streamer of mucus from his nose. Got a girl you can have cheap. Prime material. Use her as a scullery wench, barmaid, you name it.

The tavern keeper sighed. Another one of your rejects, Velurian? You know I don’t want a topaz whore. They take too much maintenance and they’re not reliable. Their minds are on their next meeting with the gray slayer, more often than not.

She ain’t like that. She’ll work hard.

The ferrety man huffed and gave the captain a contemptuous look. And how would you know that? You snatched her from some Carvellian village, dosed her with mordizánte, and tossed her in your hold. That’s all you know of her. I work too hard for my coin to throw it away on your wares. Now, unless you’re going to have another round of ale, you should leave. Velurian bristled and opened his mouth to argue, but the tavern keeper pulled a nail-studded club from behind the bar and hefted it casually, his eyes never leaving Velurian’s. I said get out. Don’t be fooled by my size; I’ve taken down bigger men than you, and they were young and sober. Out.

Velurian hurled a pungent curse at the diminutive man, but he pushed away from the bar and staggered out of the tavern.

Andrin threw some money down beside his tankard and followed the captain outside.

The last of the twilight had bled from the sky, leaving a vacant darkness that waited for stars to fill it. Men and women hurried through the streets, most heading toward home and their dinners, some turning in to the alehouses and brothels to find their pleasure for the evening. None of them paid the least attention to Velurian or Andrin.

The captain walked in the direction of the harbor, stumbling occasionally over nothing at all. The number of people strolling past, talking and laughing, thinned and then became nonexistent near the harbor. Andrin and the drunken slaver were alone.

Velurian started humming a tune known only to himself, the sound echoing hollowly off the piers and bouncing off the ships docked along the broad, manmade waterway. His footsteps clunked loudly on the lamp-lit boardwalk in an offbeat inebriated accompaniment. The faint voices of sailors calling orders drifted across the water from a ship underway, punctuated by the chatter of the heavy anchor chain and a shouted reprimand. Once, Velurian stopped and looked back in Andrin’s direction, listing starboard slightly as he scanned the docks. The wizard stepped into the deep shadow of a warehouse and waited until the man convinced himself that no one was there and resumed his crooked journey.

At the end of the docks, which were crowded between the customhouse and the harbormaster’s quarters, lay the Sylph, Velurian’s ship. The ill-lit, apparently deserted craft was the same one Andrin had been spirited away on so long ago, after the captain’s men had slaughtered his parents and torn him from his home.

The same one where he’d been enslaved to mordizánte.

Gall wormed its way through Andrin, burrowing into the dark festering sludge that was the memory of his captivity, excreting its rancor there in the recesses. Keen, pinpoint animosity as hot and lethal as a burning star flared within him, narrowing his world to the Sylph and her doomed master. Quiet as a thief, he flitted up the gangplank and melted into the sheltering play of shadows cast by the rigging’s movements in the lamplight. The barely audible sound of his footsteps was muffled by the hushed slap of waves against the hull.

Velurian, unaware, wove toward his cabin and swore sharply as he tripped over the only other sailor on the vessel, whom he’d set as the watch. But he was too deep in his cups to care that his watchman was in as sodden a state as he and was shirking his duty. Puzzled when his door failed to yield but finally remembering that he’d locked his chambers before beginning the evening’s imbibition, he managed to open the portal by supporting himself on its handle, turning it with the exaggerated care of the very intoxicated, and then lunging at the keyhole as if it were an adversary and his key were a sword. Yellow light lanced out and was quickly extinguished as he shut himself inside his bower.

Andrin crept forward but stiffened into motionlessness as a soft moan wafted up from the hold. Glancing at the cabin, he sidled to the hatch and carefully lifted it, pausing when the hinges screeched, pulling it slower to silence it as he lowered it to the deck. Another moan made a sighing debut in the night-veiled hold, overshadowed by the cold impartial clank of chains.

The Sylph carried human cargo.

Andrin started down the steps, speaking a small cool ball of fire to life in his palm to light the way, forgetting the danger that his magic might be detected, forgetting everything else but what he intended to do. Before he reached the floor of the hold, the rancid odor of unwashed bodies, underlain by a miasma of urine, feces, and vomit, hit him like a maul and he very nearly made his own contribution to the unspeakable mess smeared across the bottom of the compartment. A deeper, richer stench of rot hinted at decaying flesh; at least one of the prisoners had died and lay unremarked in the fetid tomb.

Andrin lifted his hand to better illuminate the foul chamber. Pity and horror made their acquaintance with rage in his heart, and their meeting spawned vitriolic fury. At least forty children, the oldest no more than ten, lay in their own excrement on the stinking floor. Most of them didn’t bother to look at Andrin, no longer caring who came and went in the hell that had become their existence. The few who gave the wizard a lethargic perusal soon turned away, expecting nothing, hoping only to avoid an indiscriminate clout or kick. And one boy was indeed dead. There was so little flesh on his skeletal body that he must have stopped eating—or stopped being fed—long ago. He’d simply starved to death.

Velurian had grown very careless with his source of income.

It was easy to tell who’d been imprisoned the longest: They were the thinnest, their eyes the deadest. One painfully emaciated girl looked as if she hadn’t eaten for weeks. Her legs and arms were covered with oozing sores and welts, the latter gifts from her impatient jailers. She looked at Andrin vacantly and let out a phlegm-choked cough that disintegrated into a wracking spasm as she fought for breath.

She must have been the one Velurian was trying to sell to the tavern keeper, and she’s probably too ill to feed herself, Andrin thought grimly. I’ll have to bring that to his attention.

There was little he could do for the children before he completed his business with Velurian. To keep them from making too much noise and alerting their captor, hating the necessity of it, he left them chained and ascended the stairs to the deck.

The sailor on watch retained his tight grip on unconsciousness, snoring thickly while Andrin skirted him and padded silently to the captain’s cabin. He laid his hand on the knob and hesitated, but not from apprehension. A shudder of visceral satisfaction, of raw fervid anticipation, took him and he hissed at the feral intensity of it.

The man himself was within Andrin’s grasp.

The wizard entered the cabin quickly, shutting the door and locking it. He stared at the man who had changed the course of his life and disrupted it so permanently and foully, stared at him and could scarcely comprehend that he was looking at the author of so much misery and pain.

Velurian lay on his back across his bunk, arms and legs splayed as if he had dropped from an unimaginable height and splattered there. His protruding gut rose and fell with each stertorous intake and release of air, and the room was infected with his halitosis. He grunted in his sleep and one of his legs twitched.

Andrin stole to the bedside and looked down at Velurian’s disgusting carcass sprawled on the noisome bedding. So weak. So vulnerable. A vulpine smile devoid of humanity stretched across his mouth before he tore his predatory gaze away.

Mordizánte. It was here somewhere. The captain would have to keep a good supply on hand to dose his prisoners. Andrin rummaged through a cabinet with crooked doors that didn’t shut properly, warped by years of sea air. There was nothing inside but the ship’s log and other papers pertaining to the Sylph’s cargo, all of it falsified to ensure safe passage through waters of countries that might be hostile to trafficking in human flesh. The small desk offered similar disappointment.

But there was a strongbox under the bed.

Andrin knelt and tugged it out. A mild spell sprang the lock and he was rewarded by the sight of tin after tin of gray paste, some labeled with a prisoner’s name and some not yet assigned, a small fortune in mordizánte but nothing compared with the value of the ship’s unfortunate cargo despite their wretched condition. He grabbed one of the small unmarked containers and kicked the strongbox back under the bunk. It crashed against the bed’s leg and careered off the wall with a boom like a rock being smashed by a sledgehammer.

Velurian gave a rasping snort and opened his bloodshot eyes. When they lighted on Andrin, the captain scrambled upright, alert and groping for the sword that he’d dropped near the door when he entered his cabin. Cornered, he resorted to an ingratiating smile that had the rueful effect of accentuating his few remaining teeth. Now, now, there’s no need for any unhappiness between us. He threw a furtive glance at the entryway, took a sudden deep breath, and screamed the watchman’s name.

Andrin grinned like a shark that smells fresh blood. Don’t bother. He’s as well versed at the bottle as you, so he can’t hear you. And if by some chance he does, I’ll deal with him.

Pale, the captain subsided on the bunk, but his eyes continued to dart hopefully toward the egress. Do we have business?

Andrin’s grin widened. Why, yes, we do. Long overdue, I’d say. He casually tossed the mordizánte tin into the air a few times.

The sailor tracked its progress, recoiling each time the metal struck Andrin’s palm. His tongue flicked out to give his lips a nervous, wet caress. Gabbling like a bird about to submit to the hatchet, he said, Do we know each other? Do I owe you money, perhaps? There’s no need to quarrel about it if I do; I have enough gray slayer and cargo to cover whatever debt there might be.

Andrin’s low laugh made Velurian cower. "I doubt very much that you can cover your debt to me or anyone else.

But how rude I’ve been. You did know me, but not as I am. Allow me to remedy that situation. In the wake of Andrin’s spell, mahogany leached from his skin, and his bones and muscles assumed their normal shape and size. His left eye lightened into gray; his right, into the pure gold luster that proclaimed his profound comprehension of mordizánte.

The captain shrieked and shoved back against the headboard, smacking his skull against it with a dull thunk, his head bobbing forward from the impact. He ran his unsteady hands over his face as if to wipe away what he’d just witnessed. Then his eyes fastened on Andrin’s, recognition and disbelief rising in them like an oncoming avalanche. It can’t be!

Andrin laughed again, softly, like an echo of old pain. Ah, but it is, Captain. I’m the little topaz whore you couldn’t even give away, the one who was rendered mute for years from the shock of what you did to me and my family. I’m the one who cost you king’s-tooth, but you cost me everything. A bit inequitable, don’t you think? He pitched the container to Velurian. Open it.

Wh-why?

Because I asked you to, Andrin replied reasonably. But he released a garrote-thin wire of magic and lashed it across the captain’s face. The man flinched and whimpered, staring wide-eyed at him. Open it. The wizard’s command was an iron goad, sharp and penetrating.

Velurian fumbled hastily at the lid. He dropped the tin and snatched it up again, shaking it free of the crumpled bed sheet that he’d snagged along with it. His unsteady fingers managed with difficulty to unscrew the top of the container. When it was finally open, he looked at Andrin warily, waiting.

Put a dose under each of your eyes. Andrin spoke idly, indolently, picking at a thread on his cloak as he watched the slaver.

Y-you can’t mean that. The captain’s breath came in quick little spurts as if he were carrying a heavy load up a long flight of stairs.

Andrin’s smile promised many things, and the captain groaned at the appalling implications. "Oh, but I do mean it. However, unlike you, in the spirit of fair play I’ll give you a choice. You can die like my father. Your men clubbed him to death, beating him so badly that they tore off his nose and smashed his skull to pieces. Did you know that?"

Velurian let out a small cry, and he started shaking his head back and forth like a dog with a rat in its jaws. Not that. Not that!

No? Well, then, how about dying like my mother did? One of your crew ran her through so hard he almost punched his fist through her stomach. I saw it happen. That was quite a day for me, but it didn’t end there, unfortunately. The captain’s reply was incoherent, garbled by his terror. Andrin looked at him impassively. "I see that’s not to your liking either. So here’s your final choice: You can take the coward’s way out and become a slave yourself, owned by the mordizánte you so freely and indiscriminately dispense.

Now choose.

Andrin’s directive was a flint that sparked abject fear in Velurian. He sniveled as he unhesitatingly dipped a finger into the tin and brought out a small glob of the gray paste.

More, Andrin barked.

Velurian jumped and scooped out half the contents of the container. He smeared part of the drug under one eye.

All of it, Andrin snapped.

The captain obeyed.

And the rest under the other eye.

Sobbing, Velurian spread the paste beneath his other eyelid. And then he abruptly quieted. As if it were water draining from a broken basin, all the color seeped from his undamaged iris. In its place, topaz rose like the sun breaching a cloudless horizon, clear and blazing in his virgin eye. His mouth went slack. A smile drifted across his lips. This time his groan was sensual, anticipatory. But before he could fall into the drug’s silken, deceptive embrace, he jerked upright, rigid, lips pulled open in a rictus of agony.

Did you really think I’d let you off so easily? Andrin said incredulously. He pierced the captain with another bolt of magic, heightening the man’s awareness and sensitivity, bleeding off the mordizánte until only a trace was left. I thought you should know how it feels when the golden death starts raking its talons through you. This is what it’s like every day for one who belongs to the gray slayer. And I want you to think of this while you die: every man your crew slaughtered, every woman they raped and killed, every child they stole and savaged, every life they sacrificed to mordizánte to satisfy your greed. Think of them, Jonya Velurian, and remember each one well.

Andrin spoke another spell that opened the captain’s memories and meshed them with the memories of the dead, resurrected by mordizánte, urgent, cogent. They flooded in like a tidal wave, crushing the slaver beneath the weight of their indictment. Boots seemed to kick him from every side, sharp steel to pierce him, cudgels to batter him. His groin was on fire, and rasping rawness reached deep inside him, tearing and burning, scraping viciously. Choking hands wrapped his neck, squeezing, squeezing. Despair shuddered down on him in a great, heavy pall, and he was screaming and his screams went unnoticed, lost in the hellish chorus of the others who were dying too.

And overriding everything, the keen, mounting torment of mordizánte as it ebbed inexorably.

He shrieked so loudly that it ripped at his throat and made it feel as if it were bleeding. He cried out again and would have done so a third time, but Andrin muted the captain’s voice, denying him even that small release. Then the gray slayer wrapped Velurian in its arms and constricted his chest, a thief of breath, a false lover. A seizure took him and his head slammed against the wall, pounding it until his ears rang and his cranium felt as if it would split. His bowels and bladder released, their reek painting the already thick atmosphere of the cabin. His jaws crashed together, and his teeth sliced through his tongue. Blood filled his mouth, poured down his throat. He was choking, drowning in his own blood as he writhed and his muscles cramped into rocklike knots. He couldn’t separate pain from pain; they melded into one horrific, unending tribulation. His vision darkened and failed, and his thoughts were a blind panic that ordered him to flee from his own body because it was killing him. He dragged in air, fighting for every scrap of it, tried to draw in more and couldn’t.

Then it was over.

Andrin stood immobile, a specter, a bringer of death looking down at the husk of the man who had done so much evil. He had destroyed a destroyer, saved untold children from Velurian and a short, brutal life of servitude to men and mordizánte. He had killed the slaver, as he’d vowed to do all those years ago.

And he felt nothing.

Much later, after he had arranged for the children to be cared for and a ship to take them to Carvel and freedom, he walked the streets of Mistrin until the sun banished the remainder of the night. Slowly, peace came to him with open arms, like an old friend greeting a weary traveler long absent.

• • •

Kurgin Veshred was terrified. Ynala hadn’t spoken or eaten in two days, and although she looked at him when he talked to her, her eyes had a blank deadness that wrenched at him and mimicked the emptiness in his heart. He held his wife as best he could through the bars that separated them, stroking her hair and murmuring nonsense. Willumin and his friends had paid her several more visits since she and her husband had been imprisoned days before, the most recent one the previous evening. When the other two Guard had finished taking turns with Ynala, Willumin had sent them away and given her special, enthusiastic attention throughout the long, long night. The astromancers were to be released today, and the Prison Guard had wanted to leave them with one last, indelible memory of their imprisonment.

In that, he had been successful.

Kurgin didn’t realize he was crying. The tears streamed down his cheeks and fell in a steady rhythm like rain on a dismal day, dampening his sleeves. Ynala. Ynala, can you hear me? She turned those dead, insensate eyes on him and he shivered. Sweetheart, they’re releasing us today, soon, I think.

She resumed staring at the floor.

Please, Ynala, will you talk to me?

I see the Prison Guard did their job admirably.

Kurgin jerked away from the bars and scrambled to his feet, fists clenched as if to use them on the woman who had spoken outside his cell. Ynala didn’t move, and she didn’t look at the newcomer.

Elarin Preshia fixed Kurgin in her hypnotic gaze like an adder. I’ve come to release you—and to deliver a message from the emperor. His Imperial Majesty desires you to know that if anything happens to the three men who have…come to know you during your stay here, you and Ynala will answer to me. And I won’t be as merciful as the emperor. The necromancer rested her hand on the lock and paused while she made a leisurely evaluation of Kurgin’s mood. "Don’t make the mistake of thinking vengeful thoughts, Astromancer. The magic that prevented you from using your own power ends outside the door of your cell, as you probably surmised, but if you try to touch me either physically or by astromancy, I’ll kill you where you stand. Believe it.

The emperor orders you to find the Malefica Cloelle Banderal and bring her to him. I would obey him, were I you. She looked at the iron and spoke, and the lock scraped open reluctantly. Then she opened Ynala’s cell. Now go.

Kurgin rushed out and knelt by his wife. As gently as he could, he made her stand and wrapped his arm around her waist to support her, leading her from the chamber where she’d been tortured, where a part of her had changed forever and a part of her had died. He wanted to get her past the necromancer as quickly as possible to protect her. And to avoid giving in to the temptation to slam a lethal stroke of astromancy into Elarin. He wasn’t at all sure which of them would end up dead if he did. He put himself between the women as he guided his wife down the corridor, but Ynala stopped so abruptly before she passed the necromancer that Kurgin nearly trod on her foot and had to skitter out of the way.

She drew her torn robes closed and looked at Elarin, really looked, something hot and seething replacing the void that had taken up residence in her.

And at last she spoke.

You brought this on Kurgin and me. I won’t ever forget it. A quiet accusation. An iron promise.

Elarin tried to laugh disdainfully, but something in Ynala’s face dried her mouth and throat completely, and her scorn emerged as a croak. She summoned what moisture she could and swallowed with an effort. I said go.

But it was Elarin who turned and fled the dungeons.

• • •

The Rimshaw board had been used by Mistrin emperors for centuries to train their young sons in the art of war—strategy, maneuvers, the use of specialized troops—although board was a misnomer. The warlike contraption filled the large chamber dedicated to its use, with only a few narrow pathways running between and around its sturdy wooden supports, a concession to any human presence. The Rimshaw’s four sections were accurate detailed topographic representations of Mistrin, Carvel, Ardual, and Labissia. Rivers and lakes were filled with water moved by waterwheel pumps beneath the chamber floor, and the greenery was painstakingly carved from wood species native to the countries represented and painted to exacting standards of realism. Horses, men, ships, structures, and weaponry were also realistic, although made of gold or silver and at a somewhat larger scale than they should have been for the sake of ease of use. The siege engines actually worked and had been the cause for several repairs to the Rimshaw throughout the centuries.

Ullin d’Ylléd flipped his curly raven hair out of his eyes and grasped a long wooden forked stick like a saber, thrusting it at the center of Carvel with a vigor that would have pleased the less civilized side of his fencing instructor. Almost twelve years old, at which time he would attain manhood, the emperor’s eldest son looked much older to the Carvellian eye. He was tall, almost his father’s height, and his musculature was well defined and typical for a Mistrin male his age. His eyes held the wisdom of a man and the entrenched beginnings of a cruelty that would one day outmatch that of his most recent forebear.

There, he declared. There is where I would strike the enemy.

Emperor Ulgreth d’Ylléd could have indulged his son, knowing that one instance of such relative weakness wouldn’t topple the empire and that the boy would learn quickly, but instead his eyes narrowed and he surveyed his firstborn with a gaze like that of a leopard about to rip into a young gazelle. Indeed? Please explain.

Ullin hesitated fractionally at his father’s tone before plowing doggedly on. I’d bring my forces out of the Tavendis Hills, across the Sepulchren Valley, and on into Torvia herself. His defiant stance wavered under the mocking censure in the emperor’s look.

Contemptuously, Ulgreth said, Tell me, boy: After you wear out your men with a hard march through the hills and expose them in the valley for several days to the surveillance of the enemy’s spies, how much of a surprise do you think your approach to the city will be? Do you think the Carvellians guard their land with any less vigilance than we do ours? Do you have even an inkling of the number of supply wains that would have to follow the army and how many horses such a vain undertaking would waste?

Ullin flushed angrily and tossed the stick onto the ground, crossing his arms tightly on his chest. His lips distorted into a thin, furious line, and the effect changed the heir to the Mistrin Empire into nothing more than a petulant child.

The emperor ignored the silent tantrum and bore on relentlessly. Such an open assault would destroy your forces and deplete your supplies. You’d be killed or captured before you were halfway across the Sepulchren Valley. Here, he said, pointing at the Crellor River. You’d enter Carvel from the shore south of Port Briarin, in the Spinetop Forest, and make for the Crellor River. You’d bring boats with you on the ships so you wouldn’t have to steal them and draw attention to yourself or waste time making them, and you’d make your way west to Torvia, stow the boats near Yinahl, and cover the remaining distance on foot. He looked at Ullin to make sure the boy was absorbing the lesson. Then you’d be able to take the Torvians unawares, or at least give them too little warning to be of use.

Ullin nodded unconsciously, caught up in the excitement of the thought of battle. His pout turned into a frown of concentration. It would be risky, but the bulk of our forces could scale the cliffs while the rest mounted a diversional assault on the Western Gate. Then we could come at them from all sides. They’d never expect it.

Ulgreth smiled and slugged his son’s arm playfully. Now all you need do, boy, is find a way to scale the cliffs. And he was certain Ullin could do it. The child’s active mind had solved many a thornier problem.

But he had to admit that Ullin was a child no more, no matter the occasional childish lapse. Ulgreth looked him up and down and assessed him as if the boy were a fine piece of horseflesh. Ullin thought like a man, like a warrior, and he could reason with the best minds in the empire on matters of logic, mathematics, and strategy. He was a man in all but years, and even that made little difference; he would attain his full growth soon enough, early, like his ancestors. It was time.

Enough of lessons for today. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Come out to the balcony and we’ll take some wine together.

A strange play of light and shadow made Ullin look like a child again, and Ulgreth experienced a rare moment of indecision and hesitation. But no, the childlike aspect was only an illusion created by the sun and the walls of Fendrell Palace. His son was ready.

What is it, Father? Ullin went to a small table made entirely of scrimshawed ivory and poured deep-red wine into silver cups.

We’ve spoken of the necromancer and her destiny at your side. The emperor looked at his son across the rim of the goblet as he sipped.

Yes, Father. A hint of color on Ullin’s cheek, a diversion of his gaze, were all that marked his thoughts on the matter. And Elarin and I have spoken of it too.

Elarin. So he’d become that comfortable with her. And he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not a soul.

Not even his father.

Ulgreth’s jaw tightened and his teeth clamped together hard enough to make him wince. He had always been aware of the inherent danger in a pairing between his son and the necromancer, but the potential power it represented was far too great to be ignored. No, he hadn’t been wrong. He could control the boy and the necromancer, and the supremacy he would realize as a result would be unprecedented.

"Necromancer Preshia had what to say on the matter?" A slight emphasis on her title and Ullin reddened as expected, still very much the child in some ways.

Ullin cleared his throat and replied, She said we should become friends. His expression was stiff, unreadable.

The emperor suppressed a laugh. Yes, the necromancer would say that, always thinking of herself—only thinking of herself. She was dangerous indeed, but Ullin would subdue her with his father’s help. The boy should put her decisively under his authority as soon as possible.

Ulgreth set his cup down with the overweening care that frequently signaled his displeasure, and Ullin imitated him uncertainly. The emperor put his hands on his son’s shoulders and dug his fingers in hard enough to make Ullin squirm under his grip, using the pain he inflicted to reinforce his words. There’s one thing you must never forget about this woman: She is a necromancer, first and foremost, and her every thought is bent on using her power for her own gain. If you fear her, good; you should. She’s like a rabid cur, and she’ll turn on you and rip you to pieces if she can. But don’t let fear paralyze you. Use it to your advantage, as you would in battle, because this is what having her as your concubine will be: a constant conflict between your will and hers, between what she wants and what you desire. And you must win each skirmish.

Then why? Ullin asked. Why give her to me at all?

She’s a weapon. All weapons are dangerous, but in the right hands they can be used to achieve great victories. Do you understand?

Of course. Ullin shook Ulgreth off and stepped back. She’s powerful enough to affect Mistrin’s fate.

Decisively. But remember: she is exceedingly dangerous, just as a sword’s edge is dangerous even to the one who wields it. You must exercise absolute control over her because one day the empire will be yours, and she’s counting on it. When that day comes, I want your rule over the necromancer to have been long established. She must never question your emperorship, and she must know her place. Teach it to her.

How? Ullin knew, but he needed to hear his father say it.

Chagrined, Ulgreth thought about Chartra. The empress had instilled in her son a sense of decency toward women that the emperor considered a weakness, and it was the one thing he regretted allowing her to do. He had loved her too much, perhaps, and had thought only of pleasing her. And now persuading Ullin to break the necromancer would be difficult. Know this: No matter what Elarin says, she doesn’t really care for anyone except herself, and she never will. That includes you perhaps most of all because of your position in the empire, which she wants in whatever form she can get. She’ll say whatever she needs to say to sway you, do whatever she needs to do. Treat her as a cunning enemy at all times. She’ll use you as much as possible, and she manipulates effortlessly. You won’t know she’s doing it. Do you understand?

Yes, Father. Doubt obscured Ullin’s reply like a rain-choked cloudbank masking the dawn.

Ulgreth’s voice was stern. Women are to be used, submissive. A woman like Elarin has to be restrained, controlled, watched. The necromancer must be treated like a hunting hound: kept caged until needed and cuffed when necessary for correction. Think of her as a wild animal that will turn on you without warning.

But you and mother—

The emperor struck his son hard across the face. Shock drained the boy’s cheeks of blood and outrage brought his fists up.

Ulgreth smiled to himself. Anger was something he could exploit. Don’t mention your mother in the context of the necromancer. We were equals. Elarin Preshia is a tool, nothing more. Use her necromancy. Use her body. Beyond that, she’s no more than a beast of burden. Slowly, deliberately, the emperor raised his hand and slapped his son again.

This time, sullen resentment suffused Ullin—along with a man’s murderous rage.

Your humiliation is nothing, Ullin. The necromancer will kill you if given the chance. I need you to understand. Do you?

And at last Ullin did. He bowed his head and replied, It will be as you say, Your Imperial Majesty. But when he straightened, his eyes were as cold and hard as gravestones.

• • •

Ullin, Rinmere, and Emnin slept in the nursery, as they had since their birth, but that would change today. Elarin needed the eldest prince alone, unobserved by brothers or governess. And the change must seem natural.

The necromancer stood at the foot of the boys’ beds, and like a reptile waking and stretching out to meet the sun, her necromancy unwound from her, reaching in serpentine leisure toward the children. A thin black line of it wrapped around Rinmere’s neck and Emnin’s, and each boy whined before sinking into deeper slumber. On their cheeks bloomed patches of deceptively healthy-looking red, precursor of what was to come.

Elarin lifted her hands and clenched her fists. Rinmere’s breathing became labored, and Emnin began coughing hoarsely as if he had an affliction of the lungs.

The necromancer smiled.

A sharp crash of a foot against a chamber pot, a slosh, a muffled curse, and the governess stumbled into the bedroom, her ears long attuned to any untoward sound from her charges. Here now, what’s this, my pets?

Elarin’s spell hid her from the woman, but she shrank against the wall nevertheless.

Ullin sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily, looking at his brothers. What is it?

The governess rushed from Ullin’s bed to Rinmere’s to Emnin’s, feeling first their foreheads and then their chests. Whatever she discerned about the younger boys alarmed her, and she shrieked a warning to the Palace Guard. Send for the chief physician! Send for the astromancers too! At once!

A Guard’s tousled head appeared around the door. "What is