THE KING’S CHAMBERS REEKED OF his sickness, a cloying, putrid smell that Kate could almost taste on the back of her tongue. The king himself sat in a cushioned armchair next to the window, his dull gaze fixed on some random point outside. Pale light beyond heralded the approach of night. She would have to hurry before her magic faded and they lost the chance. As it was, her nerves crackled beneath her skin with the worry that they would be discovered at any moment.
Or that Corwin might suddenly change his mind and call for the golds. In the long walk over here, they’d shared only silence, and he’d not touched her once, not even an accidental brush of his arm against hers as they moved side by side down the corridors.
“Good evening, father,” Corwin said, coming to stand just behind the king.
When Orwin didn’t respond, he motioned to Kate. “Do . . . whatever it is you need to do. We’ve only a few minutes before the servants come with his supper and before I must make an appearance at the banquet.”
Kate nodded, too tense to speak. It wasn’t just the idea of invading the king’s mind, but also of letting Corwin watch. She felt as if she stood here naked, all of her laid bare before him for the first time, and without the reassurance of the love he’d confessed earlier. His acceptance now was uneasy at best.
Carefully not looking at Corwin, Kate reached out to King Orwin, her stomach clenched in both pity and revulsion at the worn, sickly look of him. This was not the man she’d known. She’d once thought Corwin’s description of his illness was a son’s despairing exaggeration, but she could see now it wasn’t. Not at all. Something is wrong here. She felt it, the same way she’d felt the wrongness in the Wandering Woods that day, in the minds of the drakes.
Steeling her courage, Kate laid her palm against the king’s shoulder. Then she closed her eyes and reached out to him with her magic. The moment she touched his mind, she knew it was a mistake. She felt the spell close in around her, a trap that had been set for her—or others like her.
Like my father.
She opened her eyes just long enough to see the brightening glow on the magestone around King Orwin’s neck, the way it pulsed a warning—sending out an alarm to whoever had created the spell in it and given it to the king.
Kate tried to break away, but it was too late. The magic held her in its grasp. Then against her will she felt thoughts and memories and feelings pouring into her, like a floodgate at the moment of breaking. It was too much, too strong, King Orwin’s mind a broken vessel. She felt her own mind being drawn into his until she was seeing the world through his eyes and the slant of his memory. Corwin and the room vanished away as time slowed and Kate slipped into the past. . . .
IT’S EARLY, DAWN just breaking over the horizon. Orwin lies in his bed, wakeful still as he has been all night. Sleep rarely comes for him anymore. Not now that he sleeps alone, his wife dead for nearly a year.
He hears the footsteps long before the knock sounds on the door. It’s Hale. He knows it before he calls for entrance. Hale has come to continue the argument from last night, to try to plead against the Inquisition, but Orwin won’t hear of it. The Inquisition is right. It’s just. The wilders must be stopped. It is as Master Storr claims—the crown must protect the people from the dangers wilders pose. Even children can do great harm. The wilder who set the fire in the market that day was just a boy, and yet he was responsible for so much destruction, pain, and suffering—all of it inflicted on the innocent, those incapable of defending themselves against such power.
Like his poor Imogen. Even now he hears the sound of her death cries, the pitiful, labored breathing. It haunts his sleep, his soul.
Hale enters, bowing before his king and friend. “Please, Orwin. You must reconsider. This isn’t right. Too much can go wrong. It gives the League too much power, which is just what Storr wants.”
“I am not concerned with Storr and his ambitions,” Orwin says. “In this, he and I are agreed. We are determined to eradicate this wild magic from our land once and for all. Only then can we live in peace, knowing our children, our wives, are safe.”
“What about those who never do harm? Who want to live in peace as well? There are innocents among them.”
Orwin grits his teeth, refusing to hear. “But they still possess a power that no shield can block, no sword cut down.”
“Pistols can’t be stopped with a shield or armor either. Yet we allow them.”
“Those weapons can be taken away. These cannot.”
“Yes, but we don’t take them away until they’ve been used for harm. Not before.”
Orwin answers with a glare, done with words.
Hale looks away, shaking his head reluctantly in defeat. When he raises his gaze, Orwin feels a pressure building in his temple. It’s foreign, alien, an outside force, like the power of a mage spell.
“I’m sorry, my king,” Hale says, and his voice seems to be inside Orwin’s head. “I can’t let this happen. Please forgive me. I would never force your will if there were any other choice.”
“What do you—”
Hale raises his hand and touches Orwin’s forehead. Pain explodes inside Orwin’s skull, and he screams, feeling ripped asunder.
Hale stumbles backward, and his expression turns fearful. He gapes in horror. “What magic is this?”
Orwin doesn’t answer. Stooped over, he cradles his aching skull. Hands touch his shoulders, pushing him upright.
Hale grabs for the king’s neck, and his fingers close around the glowing stone at Orwin’s throat. “Where did you get this?”
Orwin doesn’t answer. He has no memory of the stone or its purpose.
Cursing, Hale yanks the stone free of Orwin’s neck. But he grips it too hard, breaking the stone. The magic oozes out from it in a gray, oily mist. It slithers upward, sliding into Orwin’s nose, his mouth, his ears. Hale cries out, trying to stop it, but such formless power can’t be stopped.
Orwin feels the magic inside him, writhing like something alive. It’s in his head, the pressure building. He claws at the sides of his face now. But then his mind shatters, his vision fragmented, like staring into a broken mirror.
“My king, my king,” Hale says, trying in vain to help. “What have I done? I didn’t know. I didn’t. I would—”
Senseless and no longer in control, a murderous rage explodes inside Orwin. Screaming, he lunges for the dagger at Hale’s side. Pulling it free, Orwin moves to strike, but Hale raises his hands in time to stop the blow. The two men struggle. A small part of Orwin understands what’s happening—that he’s no longer in control of himself. Something has pushed him aside and taken over. He can’t stop it, even though he wants to. The rest of him is determined to kill the man before him.
But Hale has always been stronger. He gains control of the dagger, but Orwin is frantic with the rage pulsing inside him. The dagger shifts, the blade turning downward. And then it plunges, sinking deep into Orwin’s thigh.
“Oh gods, Orwin,” Hale says.
Orwin screams again just as the door opens and Corwin rushes inside. “Father!” . . .
Without warning, the memory broke and Kate was hurled from Orwin’s mind back into her own. Gasping, she bent over and grabbed her head, the inside of her skull aching with the memory of what Orwin had suffered. What he suffered still.
“Kate? Are you all right? What happened?” Corwin’s hands slid around her shoulders, warm and steadying.
“Magic,” she said. “The magestone around his neck. It was a trap.” She looked up at Corwin, the truth expanding in her mind like clouds parting to reveal the sky. “Someone knew what my father was going to try, only the magic went wrong. It infected your father and—” She broke off, her gaze flicking to the magestone King Orwin wore. She remembered the alarm she’d sensed when she first touched his mind. She turned back to Corwin. “We’ve got to get out—”
The door across from them burst open, and three people rushed inside—Maestra Vikas, Prince Edwin, and Grand Master Storr.
“You!” Kate screamed, the king’s memory fresh in her mind. Storr had planted the idea in Orwin’s head, nurtured it. He was the most powerful magist in the kingdom. “You did this. You killed my father.” He might not have wielded the ax, but he’d set the trap.
“What’s going on here?” Edwin demanded, his gaze flashing from Kate to Master Storr, then to Corwin.
“Wilder!” Maestra Vikas cried. “Just like I said.”
The maestra raised her mace toward Kate, a magestone starting to glow. The spell erupted out from it, soared through the air, and struck Kate with the force of a battering ram. It lifted her off her feet and threw her down. Her head cracked against the floor and a starburst lit her vision, blinding her. Then darkness set in, absolute and inescapable.