Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (43 page)

“And this,” Grimur added, tracing invisible lines for the third time.

“Torven,” Piran said. “Any fisherman worth his salt can sketch those star figures.”

“The connection to the constellations could just be luck,” Blaine said, struggling to dampen his growing irritation. He had the feeling Grimur was leading them somewhere, and Blaine didn’t like being led in the dark. “I understand building the old houses on the meridians. They probably had mages telling them where it would be ‘auspicious.’ But those star figures are hard enough to see in the sky—they take more beer than imagination, if you ask me. It’s all in what you want to see.”

Grimur regarded him for a few seconds in silence. Blaine had the uncomfortable feeling that the vampire took more meaning from his outburst than Blaine had intended. “Perhaps,” Grimur replied mildly. “And yet, I can attest that in the days of the old houses, astrologers were consulted as frequently as mages, and the omens they read from the stars guided the hand of the king.”

“So you don’t think it’s coincidence,” Kestel supplied.

“No,” Grimur said. “I don’t.”

“What does all this have to do with making magic usable again?” Blaine snapped. “And why tell us? We’re not mages.”

“Because the configuration of fortresses created back when King Hougen took the throne changed magic on the Continent—and I’d bet, here in Edgeland and elsewhere. Before Hougen’s time, there were few if any mages of great power. Magic was mostly of the seer and hedge witch variety. After Hougen, we saw powerful mages arise, and magic became an art of war.”

“You think something about the fortresses and the meridians ‘created’ magic as we know it?” Blaine challenged.

Grimur shrugged. “ ‘Created’ is perhaps too strong a word. Perhaps ‘harnessed’ or ‘channeled’ might be more accurate. But something changed after Hougen with the role magic
played on the Continent—until this last battle between Donderath and Meroven.”

“Word came to Quillarth Castle right before I left that Meroven had attacked the noble houses before attacking the king,” Connor said. “If at least some of the noble houses were linked, somehow, to the magic itself—”

“It would have been like snuffing out a candle,” Verran finished. “Those Meroven sots probably never had any idea that by attacking the old manors they were destroying the very magic they themselves were using.”

“This is all very interesting,” Blaine said, “but how does it change anything? If what Connor says is true, the manors were destroyed. What does all this information matter if it can’t fix the problem?”

“Maybe it can.” Grimur met Blaine’s gaze.

“How?”

Grimur pointed to a spot on the map. “This is where Mirdalur’s ruins still stand. King Hougen’s castle. All of the meridians from the other original noble houses pass through Mirdalur, and Mirdalur is the head of the figure that looks like Charrot’s constellation. I believe Mirdalur could be the key to putting things right.”

“You don’t seem to get what I’ve been saying,” Blaine retorted. “None of us have the power to do what you’re expecting. And we’re in Edgeland, not in Donderath. We’re a world away.”

“We have a ship,” Piran said quietly. “We could get there, if it would make a difference.”

Grimur went to a leather bag that sat against the wall. “There is another, older magic that plays a part in this,” he said. “I have had this book for more than a hundred years, but until I saw Connor’s pendant and the writing on the map that the pendant decoded, I did not know what I held.” He walked around the
table with the map, toward Blaine. “I have spent the last four nights using the pendant to translate what was written. It’s a journal by a mage of great renown, Archus Quintrel. He wrote down what had been an oral tradition among mages until then, the secret to how the magic was channeled.”

“Quintrel,” Connor murmured, and everyone turned to look at him. “A relation to Vigus Quintrel?”

Grimur nodded. “Vigus Quintrel would be a direct descendant—in name as well as in power.”

“Lanyon Penhallow told me to find Vigus Quintrel.” Connor paused. “But by that time, Quintrel had vanished.”

“Penhallow would have known about the link between Vigus and his great-great-grandfather,” Grimur replied. “What Archus Quintrel recorded in his journal tells me that the magic of the meridians was harnessed by an older, more powerful magic—blood.”

Kestel caught her breath. “Sacrifices?”

Grimur gave a disquieting smile. “No, m’lady. Not blood shed but blood bound and blood stirred by magic to become a greater magic. Archus Quintrel’s journal says that the rise of magic was part of a compact between Hougen and his most trusted nobles. They met at Mirdalur and made a blood oath, binding themselves and their descendants to defend the kingdom. Their blood was the crucible and the seal for whatever the mages did that night. And from that moment on, magic as we knew it stirred on the Continent.”

“If the magic was somehow bound to the blood of the old nobles and the king…” Verran began.

“And Meroven struck first at the noble houses, not knowing about the origin of magic,” Connor supplied, “then if they wiped out the old families, the magic died with them.”

Blaine felt as if he had been punched in the gut. Though he
had heard Connor’s story about the fall of Donderath more than once, he had not allowed himself to think about what a strike by Meroven against the noble houses would have really meant. Now, his mind supplied the images that his heart did not want to see. His own home, Glenreith, in ruins, and his loved ones, Mari, Judith, and Carr, dead. Carensa’s home, Rhystorp, leveled, and Carensa among the dead.

Kestel laid a hand on his arm. “Mick? You’ve gone pale. Do you need to sit down?”

Blaine tried to catch his breath, and found his chest tight. “It’s just that… my family…”

Grimur’s expression softened. “The death of magic doesn’t mean that everyone was ‘wiped out,’ as Connor put it. King Hougen was clever. From what I’m able to piece together, the magic had two sources: the blood oath of the nobles, and anchors to the power that were set within the manor houses themselves, on the meridians.”

He paused. “The blood inheritance could have been growing weaker for generations. It wouldn’t be surprising if several of the old houses failed to produce male heirs or saw their heirs die in battle without a suitable successor. That might be enough to break the bond. The combined bond between the manor houses and the blood oath might have been enough to sustain the magic, but when Meroven struck at the manors, it could have been the tipping point.”

Grimur looked at Blaine. “The blood oath would have passed down through the oldest surviving son, the inheritor of the title. We must be willing to consider the idea that all of the blood heirs may be dead, except for one.”

Everyone was staring at Blaine. “Except for you, Mick,” Piran said quietly.

Blaine still felt the shock of Grimur’s announcement. He
struggled to clear his thoughts. “But… I lost the title when I was condemned. Merrill himself stripped me of it. It would have passed to my brother, Carr, when he came of age.”

“I doubt the magic would have been concerned with technicalities,” Grimur said. “Legalities don’t change blood. To the magic, you would have remained the heir, since you are still alive.”

“Meroven might have struck at the noble houses without even knowing about the magic.” Dawe snorted. “They probably didn’t have any idea about where the magic came from.”

“But it would explain the backlash, wouldn’t it?” Kestel murmured. “If they struck at a target that was bound up in the source of their magic itself.”

“It means there’s a chance that you could set it right,” Grimur said. “The fact that the magic ‘died’ tells us that something has broken the old bonds. To do that, from what this book suggests, it would take a combination of destroying the manor houses and having the original pure bloodlines die out to the point where the power of the oath was weakened.”

Grimur stared down at the book in his hands. “Unfortunately, bloodlines are more fragile than you might imagine. Infidelity, a barren wife, or an impotent husband can mean that the ‘heir’ is not the real heir of the blood. A round of plague or pox can wipe out entire families.” He shook his head. “You may well be the last surviving Lord of the Blood from the original thirteen houses.”

“This is crazy!” Blaine protested. “My magic was no good except in a brawl. I don’t know about blood and oaths and meridians.”

“It may require nothing more than your presence to reactivate the magic,” Grimur replied. “Or perhaps, a token of your blood. The
kruvgaldur
, or blood bond, has not been weakened by the ‘death’ of magic. It was the
kruvgaldur
that spoke to me
of Connor’s bond with Penhallow,” he said with a nod toward Connor. “And I suspect that through the
kruvgaldur
, Penhallow may yet speak with Connor, even at this distance.”

They all turned to look at Connor, who reddened.

“Is that true? Can you communicate with Penhallow, even from here?” Piran demanded.

“It’s not what I’d call ‘communication,’ ” Connor said awkwardly. “I get dreams that… aren’t my own. On the edge of waking and sleeping, sometimes I think I can hear his voice. I had convinced myself I was imagining it,” he said with a sour look toward Grimur.

“And what does your master tell you?” Piran said with an edge in his voice.

Connor reddened further. “Penhallow was not my ‘master.’ I served Lord Garnoc, who was a fine master. Garnoc had long been Penhallow’s eyes and ears at court.”

“You mean, his spy,” Piran said.

Connor hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes, his spy. When Garnoc got too old to move easily back and forth to Rodestead House, I went in his place.”

Kestel smiled at him encouragingly. “Court wouldn’t exist without spies,” she said, and turned a withering glance on Piran, who shrugged.

“What do you see in these ‘dreams’?” Grimur asked.

“I see castle ruins,” Connor said slowly, struggling to recall. “Very old.” He gave a nervous smile. “I assumed Penhallow was giving me a way to find him if I ever came back.”

“Tell me about the ruins,” Grimur replied.

“It had broken walls, and walls inside of walls. The ruins stand on a rocky hill. There’s a forest, and a deep valley with a river. The base of the tower has an odd shape—like a five-pointed star.”

Grimur nodded. “You’ve seen what’s left of Mirdalur. It was rebuilt after the first time it fell, and then was destroyed again. Over the years, mages held their rituals there, sensing the power. For a while, they preserved the site as best they could. Over time, they abandoned the place. No one’s used it for decades. I would say that Penhallow knows the site is important. Perhaps he’s come to the same suspicions that we have, and if so, he knows exactly where to find a living Lord of the Blood.” He met Blaine’s gaze.

“I’ve been tracking the magic storms,” Grimur continued. “They’re getting stronger, and coming closer together. I believe they’re moving along the meridians here in Edgeland. Bay-town lies at the nexus of several meridians. How many storms like the one that hit you out on the ice would it take to wipe out the Edgeland colony?”

Not many
, Blaine thought.
Maybe just one if it were big enough. And the bastard knows it. He’s forcing my hand, damn him.
“I’d rather not find out,” Blaine replied.

“You may be the only one who can fix it, Lord McFadden,” Grimur said, and Blaine did not pick up any hint of irony in his use of Blaine’s long-discarded title. “You could return to Donderath on the salvaged ‘ghost’ ship. Go to Mirdalur. If we’re right, you might be able to set the magic right, stop the storms.”

“Donderath? Who said anything about going to Donderath?” Blaine protested.

Grimur shrugged. “We don’t know much about how the blood-oath magic worked. But we do know it was done at Mirdalur. That seems like the logical place to attempt to bring the magic back.” Grimur met his eyes. “But be careful. If our guess is right and you are the last Lord of the Blood, if you die, the magic may die with you—permanently.”

B
LAINE THRASHED AWAKE AS THE POUNDING ON
his door grew louder. It took a moment to shake himself clear of the nightmares from Velant. In the near-darkness, another moment passed before he could orient himself. He took a deep breath as he recognized his surroundings as one of the guest rooms at the Crooked House.

“Mick, we need you out here. By the gods, wake up!” Ifrem’s voice was insistent, and from his tone, Blaine gathered that the innkeeper had been shouting for him for a while without result.

Groggily, Blaine swung his legs out of bed. It was cold enough that he had slept in his clothes; good thing, since he had thrown the thin blankets to the floor during his dream-induced thrashing. He made his way to the door and slid back the bolt.

“If it hadn’t been my own door, I’d have been of a mind to break it down,” Ifrem greeted him ill-humoredly. “For all the noise you make, you’re damnably hard to rouse.”

Blaine grunted, still blinking to wake up. “What can possibly be important enough for this?” he grumbled. “If the inn were on fire, I’d smell smoke.”