“Aaron Tintabel.”
Things began falling into place. Tintabel’s home was close to the Nerrow house, and the first vampires he had seen had leapt from its roof. Of course, that didn’t mean much, but with later context it made sense, especially now that the family was dead, and the only apparent survivor was Lord Tintabel himself. It didn’t matter much, but Will asked anyway, “Was he involved in the wool trade?”
She nodded. “His estates produce much of the wool in Terabinia.”
Jorn Slidden, the trader who had bought the white phosphorous, had dealt primarily in wool, meaning the man had probably been a close associate of Lord Tintabel’s. Will began walking away from everyone, in the direction of the main entrance. He couldn’t guess whether Slidden had been a willing or unwilling participant; in fact, the same might be true of Tintabel. If the lord had been involved, why would he kill his own family? Were they being used against him? Had he defied someone’s orders?
And why had he stolen the money? Lord Tintabel was presumably a very rich man, certainly rich enough to have afforded the white phosphorous without resorting to petty theft—unless for some reason he had been unable to access his own accounts. A chill ran down Will’s spine. Since marrying Selene, he had apparently become wealthy, but until Blake had informed him he’d had no idea. He still had no idea how to access the money on his own. Tintabel might be the same. If the man calling himself Lord Tintabel was an imposter who had no idea how to access the real Tintabel’s funds.
He activated the limnthal again. “Could a wizard disguise himself as someone else?”
Arrogan sensed his urgency. “Of course.”
“How?”
“There’s plenty of ways. Illusion, flesh shaping, mental enchantments, you get the idea.”
“Do you think a wizard could fool King Lognion that way?”
“There’s always signs. A practitioner will notice an illusion, and mental tricks are much more difficult, but physical transformation might do the trick. You’ve said the king is very adept at noticing deception though, and his sense of turyn is well honed if he saw Aislinn’s mark on your forehead that time. For a wizard to fool someone like him, they’d have to be extremely experienced.”
“How experienced?”
“Centuries of practice probably, although it’s funny. When you’re dealing with someone like Lognion, who has such absolute certainty regarding his ability to detect falsehoods, if you can fool him a little, then you can easily fool him a lot. Someone like that never expects that someone could actually lie to him, so if you can trick his intuition, he’d probably believe anything you said, even if you said the moon was purple. See what I mean?”
“Do you think Androv has that sort of skill?”
“How do you think he’s survived until now? He’s been walking under the sun and disguising himself as a living person since before I was born. I doubt there’s anyone Androv couldn’t fool.”
“Thanks.” Will dismissed the limnthal. From the corner of his eye he could see that everyone was watching him, but he didn’t care. While they were isolated, in the center of the city, Lord Tintabel was beside the king, and most of the king’s forces were spread out around the city wall. If Androv really was masquerading as Tintabel, and if the king couldn’t see through the man’s lies, then he’d believe anything the man said.
So what if our ritual works? He’ll tell him it wasn’t enough, and that they have to go ahead with the purge of the city. Once that happens, he kills the king as well. Cerria would be thrown into complete disarray, and Darrow could claim it with only a token struggle. Greater Darrow would be reborn, under the rule of the Prophet.
Assuming the Prophet is the one in control in Darrow. Will wasn’t sure what he could believe anymore.
Rob’s warning had been spot on. Their ritual didn’t matter. Androv’s plan was completely indifferent to it. Will stared at the people waiting on him, depending on him, and he felt impotent, hopeless. Inevitably, his eyes traveled to his friends, Janice, Tiny, and his sister, Laina. They had pinned their hopes on him.
And he had failed them—utterly.
The only way to save them for certain would be to abandon the city. The sooner the better. He had sworn to kill the king anyway. Laina would be free of the man’s control, as would any wizards and sorcerers who survived the coming catastrophe, though it would mainly be those outside of the capital.
All he had to do was make peace with letting a few hundred thousand people die. He could choose who to save, get the Nerrow family out of Cerria, gather his family in Barrowden. We could start anew in Trendham.
He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking away tears of frustration, and then his feet began to move. Lifting his chin, he met Elizabeth Sundy’s gaze and said clearly, “I’m ready. I just needed a moment to clear my head.”
Chapter 53
The ritual seed, similar to a spell construct, came together flawlessly in the air between Will’s outstretched hands, shining in all its argent glory. The inner circle of participants began channeling turyn around him, forming thirteen separate bands of power that moved in a tenuous spiral. He caught the bands of turyn with his will, taking ownership and increasing their speed, while the thirteen controllers began accepting turyn from the other one hundred and sixty sources gathered beyond them.
His mind felt like ice, like the sharp clarity of the first wind of autumn. Moving his arms outward so that they pointed straight out to either side, he faced his palms toward the flows of turyn, quickening them and maneuvering them into ever more powerful channels. Soon he was surrounded by a whirlwind of magical currents that continued to increase in intensity, blinding him to anything outside their boundary.
Gradually, he teased delicate strands of power away from the whirlwind and began feeding them into the ritual seed, which pulsed and glowed before him. Will was exhilarated, as though he stood on a precipice looking down at a fall that might kill him. The power ripped at the very fabric of reality around him. It sang in his ears and tugged at his soul, tempting him to step off the cliff and join it.
To become pure magic.
But he was a wizard. The heart of wizardry was control, not submission, not transformation. Asserting himself, Will maintained the balance, refusing to be pulled away, to surrender his life or his humanity. Then a strange voice came to him. Stubbornness is good, but can you maintain it forever? Or will you become like me?
It sounded male, and though he hadn’t heard it with his ears, he recognized the speaker. It was the man he had met when he died. The one who had counseled him on whether or not returning to life was worth it. Will was curious, but he couldn’t afford distractions, so he ignored it.
A crashing sound echoed through the cathedral, and Will heard someone scream. The vampires had found them, but Will could do nothing. He continued feeding turyn into the ritual seed. To stop would mean their deaths.