The Sworn (5 page)

“Which means that the non-Sisterhood mages like
Arontala can do what they please unopposed, while the strongest and best-trained mages spend their days chronicling elaborate spells to boil water,” Beyral muttered.

“Surely at some time in the history of the Sisterhood, a pregnant mage was exposed to wormroot,” Tris persisted.

Fallon grimaced. “I’ve already asked Landis for access to her Citadel’s healing histories, and she’s refused. It will take some time to acquire any books from the Library at Westmarch, but I’ve sent a messenger with a request.”

“Can Royster use the resources at Westmarch to help us? Isn’t the library run by the Sisterhood?”

A smile touched Fallon’s lips. “Many things work differently in the north. Yes, Royster’s still in charge at Westmarch. But the Keepers of the Library at Westmarch have never listened to the leader of the Sisterhood. They share their secrets as they please. Landis knows that she can’t stop Royster from helping us, no matter how she fumes and argues. But it will take weeks for the messenger to arrive, and more time before he returns.”

Tris leaned back in his chair. He was nearly a head taller than many men, and lean. The hard-fought war for the throne had put muscle on his rangy frame and brought a weariness to his features that seemed incongruous to his twenty-two summers. White-blond hair, shoulder length, fell in disarray around his face, and stray wisps fell into his green eyes. “Margolan needs a reason to hope for something better,” he said quietly, setting his empty cup aside. “Sweet Chenne! Look what the kingdom’s suffered in the last two years.”

He glanced up at the portrait of his father, King Bricen, that hung over the mantel. “It took Jared less than a full year to empty the treasury, beggar the kingdom, and leave the army in shambles. The farmers still haven’t all
returned to their lands, and the plague’s killed off so many people, I don’t know how they’ll get the crops in. It’s going to be another hungry winter.”

“It’s not just Margolan at stake,” Soterius said quietly. “Isencroft has a civil war on its hands. Donelan won the first round against the Divisionists, but any weakness in your heir is likely to make the opposition bold.”

Soterius shook his head. “Think about it. Every time someone’s tried to fix one problem, they created a new one. By the Whore! Carroway couldn’t concoct a tale as wild as the truth. The whole betrothal contract between Isencroft and Margolan was supposed to stop a war with Eastmark a generation ago. Instead, it made the whole mess with Jared even worse. Now that you and Kiara are married, Donelan’s got a civil war on his hands because the Divisionists think it’s all a Margolan plot to take over Isencroft. And here we sit, with a brand-new heir to two thrones who might not be able to rule.” He ran a hand across his forehead as if his temples ached. “Goddess true! I’ve lived through it, but when I put it into words, it sounds like something out of the ballads!”

Tris grimaced. “Thanks to Carroway, it
is
something out of the ballads, or did you forget he wrote us into his songs and stories?”

Soterius rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me. It was bad enough surviving everything it took to get you on the throne. I don’t need to hear it sung about and embellished every time I go to an alehouse for a drink!”

Tris leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “When will we know how badly the wormroot has affected Cwynn—or whether it’s damaged him at all?” Tris looked to Fallon hopefully, only to see the mage shrug.

“There’s no way to tell,” Fallon replied, choosing her words carefully. “If he learns to walk and talk like other babes, it’s a sign the wormroot hasn’t damaged him. What concerns me more is how it might have affected any magical talent he might possess. You’re one of the most powerful mages in the Winter Kingdoms, and heir to the magic of Bava K’aa, one of the strongest sorceresses of her time. Kiara has the regent magic, and while it hasn’t manifested strongly in her, the stories tell of powerful battle magic by the kings and queens of Isencroft in dire times. Magic can skip a generation. Your mother had none of her mother’s power. But often, the magic breeds true. We don’t know what the wormroot might have done to Cwynn’s ability to wield magic.”

“That’s not entirely true.” Everyone turned to look at Beyral. A necklace of charms and runes rattled as Beyral leaned forward. “During the last great Mage War, the Obsidian King experimented on the weaker mages he captured. He wanted to understand the source of power in order to drain magic from his opponents to strengthen himself. When his spirit was bound and his fortress breached, we saw just how far his experiments had gone.” A haunted look came into Beyral’s eyes. “I heard one of the old Sisters speak of it. In his dungeon, he had a score of captured mages, many of them Sisterhood. He’d sired children on them, and then used magic and potions to alter the babes before birth. None of the women or their children survived, although the Sisterhood did its best to save them.”

“How did they die?” Tris asked quietly, suddenly cold all over.

Beyral met his eyes. “Some were consumed alive by magic gone wild. Others died birthing babies that were
monsters. We found bodies in the Obsidian King’s dungeon of more women and of babies too grossly deformed to survive. It’s best for all of us that he left no heir.”

But he did.
Tris felt Fallon’s gaze even as he averted his eyes. Only a few people knew the truth. The Obsidian King had taken the sorceress Bava K’aa prisoner. Her rescue had been one of the only bright spots in the cataclysmic battle. That Bava K’aa had been pregnant with the child of the Obsidian King was a secret that her rescuers took to their graves. That secret was kept for over fifty years, until Tris defeated the new incarnation of the Obsidian King and learned the truth. The child of that forced union had been Serae, Tris’s mother.
There was nothing wrong with mother. She didn’t have any magic at all. Maybe the Obsidian King didn’t try his experiments on Bava K’aa. I know Lemuel’s spirit fought him as best he could.
Tris struggled with the fear that welled inside him.

“Tris?” The sound of Soterius’s voice roused Tris from his thoughts and he looked up, hoping his expression masked his feelings.

“I didn’t know about the experiments,” Tris replied. “But do we know whether wormroot was one of the drugs the Obsidian King used? Cwynn looks perfectly normal, even though he had a difficult birth.”

“The journals of the Obsidian King were recovered after the war,” Beyral said. “Two of them were entrusted to the Library at Westmarch for safekeeping. The third journal was lost. It’s believed to have been destroyed.”

Tris kept his face impassive. Thanks to a gift from a powerful
vayash moru
, the “missing” journal lay safe inside a locked trunk upstairs in Tris’s rooms.

“We may have more to deal with than the heir,” Fallon
said. “For centuries, a loose alliance of mages has kept sentry along Margolan’s borders. They aren’t Sisterhood, but they do represent all of the elemental magics: land, water, air, and fire. Their job has been to be aware of the currents of magic, with the hope that they might spot hostile magic before it reaches Margolan.”

“Then why didn’t they do something to stop Arontala?” Soterius demanded.

Fallon turned toward him. “Their role is to watch beyond Margolan’s borders for an invader with strong magic. But to your point, the Sentries did make the Sisterhood aware that two mages of increasing power were in Margolan. One of them was Foor Arontala.”

“And the other?”

Fallon inclined her head toward Tris. “Martris Drayke.”

“What do your Sentries tell you now?” Tris asked, leaning forward.

“Two currents in the Flow run beneath Margolan. The Eastern current was healed from the damage that made it unstable. The Western current is troubled.”

“Is it damaged?” Tris asked. Rivers of magical energy crisscrossed the Winter Kingdoms. Known as the Flow, the rivers enhanced magic.

Fallon shook her head. “The Sentries believe that someone is working strong blood magic beyond the Northern Sea.” She met Tris’s eyes. “They’re certain it’s a spirit mage. A very strong summoner, and a dark one.”

“What happens beyond the Northern Sea is none of our concern,” Soterius muttered. “We have our hands full with our own problems.”

“Things like a dark summoner have a way of becoming everyone’s problem.”

G
o!”

Lord Jonmarc Vahanian gave the signal and a dozen black-clad fighters made their way from the cover of the forest toward the shadow of a massive barrow. An unnatural fog clung to the grassland, giving them cover. The brown-robed mage responsible for the fog was right behind the fighters, and Jonmarc could hear the land mage Sakwi chanting under his breath.

He felt a shiver run down his back. For a few steps, the air around him grew as cold as winter, and he knew it was the invisible warding Sakwi had warned them about, a warding set for
vyrkin
shapeshifters or the undead
vayash moru
. Behind Jonmarc, a dozen
vyrkin
and
vayash moru
fighters awaited a signal that it was clear to advance.

Jonmarc rose from the cover of the waist-deep fog behind one of the guards who watched the doorway cut into the barrow’s side. Rounding into a perfect Eastmark kick, Jonmarc’s boot caught the guard in the chest and slammed him to the ground. Before the man had a chance to cry out, Jonmarc drew a blade across the man’s throat.
Three guards fell with muffled groans as the other fighters found their marks. Jonmarc gave a curt nod to Sakwi, and the land mage raised his hands and closed his eyes, reaching for the magic that spelled the barrow’s entrance. A sudden gust of wind swept across the long summer grass. Sakwi opened his eyes and nodded, then gestured with his hands toward the forest. An owl hooted in response, taking flight, followed by the swift advance of the
vayash moru
fighters.

“We’re already dead and the
vyrkin
heal faster than mortals,” Laisren, the lead
vayash moru
fighter, said tersely. “I don’t like you going in first.”

Jonmarc glared at him. “You wouldn’t have made it through the warding. Otherwise, I’d be happy to let you go first.”

Sakwi walked toward the torch-lit entrance to the barrow. Runes were carved into the wooden doorposts and the lintel. The land mage’s hands moved slowly across the runes, which glowed in response, shifting from fiery red to cool silver. Sakwi nodded and gestured for the others to move forward. They slipped silently down the stone stairs that descended into the depths of the barrow.

The
vyrkin
shimmered and their forms blurred, changing them from men into large gray wolves. As they’d agreed beforehand, the group swiftly sorted themselves: mortal,
vayash moru
, and
vyrkin
. Jonmarc and the other mortals wielded close-range weapons in the tight space, and the torchlight glinted on their daggers and short swords. At the front, Jonmarc held his crossbow at the ready. Behind him padded one of the
vyrkin
, and Laisren, who would need no weapon beyond his strength, speed, and fangs. The others followed them, with Sakwi close behind.

The passageway opened to a large room. Three black-robed men startled as the fighters burst into the chamber.

“You have no right to desecrate—” The man’s protest died in a bloody gurgle as Jonmarc’s quarrel tore through his throat. The
vyrkin
launched himself at the second robed man, taking him to the ground and silencing his spells with a snap and a snarl that nearly tore the man’s head from his neck. Laisren moved faster than sight could follow to pursue the third man, who had turned to flee. Laisren caught him by the shoulder, wheeling him so that he could see the terrified man’s face.

“You desecrate this place,” Laisren growled, closing one pale hand around the man’s neck. “You foul it with the blood of innocents to wake a power you don’t comprehend. You can’t possibly atone for what you’ve done.”

The man struggled and gasped for breath, then spat in Laisren’s face. “I have no need to atone,” he gasped, jerking in Laisren’s grasp before his spine snapped and he fell to the floor.

“Sweet Chenne,” Jonmarc whispered as he and the others looked around the chamber. The body of a
vyrkin
hung chained by its hind feet above a basin filled with blood. Two other wolf corpses lay where they had been thrown into a gutter carved into the rock along one wall. Both had been skinned. Around the room, cages lined the rock walls. The bars shimmered with magic.

Jonmarc moved toward the cages, careful not to touch the glowing bars. He heard Laisren swearing under his breath beside him. In each of the cages lay
vayash moru
, injured too severely to rise, although it was night. Several had been eviscerated; others bore the deep gashes of axes or lay carefully because of multiple crossbow quarrels
through their bodies, wounds that would have easily killed a mortal. One lay completely still, with the hilt of a
damashqi
knife protruding from his heart, his panicked eyes the only clue that he remained aware.
Vyrkin
lay in other cages, some in human form, others still shifted, all showing the gashes of an ax or multiple wounds where they had been run through by swords.

“How could they have captured so many
vayash moru
?” Jonmarc asked, stunned.

Sakwi began to move from cage to cage, muttering words that sounded like water flowing over rock. As his hands traced the outline of the cage, the bars lost their glow and the cage doors swung open.