KATE WOKE TO DARKNESS AND a strange pressure at her throat. Disoriented and confused, she raised her hands to her neck and gasped as her fingers brushed cold, hard metal. A mage collar. At once the memory of what had happened flooded into her mind—of visiting King Orwin and being attacked by Maestra Vikas. Now here she was, imprisoned by the Inquisition.
She tried to sit up only to whack her head against something hard above her. Raising her hands, she felt the wooden lid. She was inside a box of some kind, a crate—one that was moving. The motion was the familiar chaotic bounce of a wagon.
Kate pounded on the lid with the side of her fist. “Let me out of here!”
“Be quiet,” a voice shouted back, followed by a violent thud against the top of the crate. Powerless to do anything, including bend her knees or shift onto her side, Kate lay there and listened, fear simmering inside her. She thought about Corwin, wondering how he’d reacted when she’d been attacked, if he’d simply stood aside and let her be taken. She didn’t know. But either way she couldn’t count on his help now.
Sometime later, the wagon came to a stop and she heard the creak of wood as someone pried off the lid. She blinked against the sudden light in her eyes, the man who appeared over her nothing more than a shadow.
“Get up,” he said.
She struggled to her feet, swallowing words of protest as she saw the three gold robes, all with maces at the ready. She stood no chance of escaping. Her only weapon was her magic, but the collar at her throat blocked her from it as surely as if it were night.
The nearest gold grabbed her arm and hauled her off the back of the wagon. With her eyes finally adjusted, she realized it was late, almost night, but she didn’t think it was the same night.
“Kate! Are you all right?”
She looked up, her heart lurching into her throat as she spotted Bonner on the other side of the wagon. He too wore a mage collar. “What happened?”
“Be quiet.” The gold shoved her forward. “Move along, both of you.”
Bonner fell into step beside her and took her hand, squeezing her fingers with a tremulous grip. The sharp scent of fear-laced sweat hung in the air around him.
Glancing about, Kate took in the sight of an unfamiliar keep ahead of her, a massive towering fortress. Rounded like an amphitheater, it seemed to be made of a single continuous piece of stone with no visible sign of mortar or blocks. It had no towers and no windows, as if it were meant to keep everyone and everything out—or to keep something else within. By contrast, however, the battlements surrounding the keep looked incapable of protecting anything. Huge gaps in the wall left by crumbling stone made the place feel ancient and ruinous.
Where are we? Kate craned her head to look behind her. The answer stole the breath from her throat when she spotted slender, white-barked trees through a hole in the battlements. The Wandering Woods. Which could only mean this was—
“The Hellgate,” she whispered aloud, and saw Bonner jerk his head at her in alarm. She shared the feeling. They should’ve been at the gold house, awaiting the Purging, not here, in a place of myth and legend.
The magists led them through the opened door into the fortress. Despite its size, it was simply constructed, with a single outer corridor surrounding the vast main hall at its center. Dozens of platforms rose up around the room all the way to the ceiling. But instead of seats like in a true amphitheater, the platforms held cages with daydrakes trapped inside. Kate shrank back from the sight. The drakes’ black scales glistened in the light of the torches hung from the walls. There were enough of them in here to raze an entire city.
“It’s the gold robes,” Kate said, and Bonner nodded solemnly. “They must be behind the attacks.” On Storr’s orders, she felt certain.
The golds stopped in front of a row of empty cages on the ground floor and forced Kate and Bonner inside two of them, locking them in. Then they walked away, leaving them alone in the dark, damp space.
“Is this really the Hellgate?” Bonner asked, peering around.
Kate pointed at the dropped floor just beyond the cages. Instead of stone, iron bars crisscrossed over a wide, deep hole. She could feel the warm air seeping out from it like the exhaled breath of some slumbering giant in its depths.
Bonner shuddered, but couldn’t do much more than that. The cages were clearly made for animals, long but too short even for Kate to stand up in.
“No one will ever find us here,” Bonner said.
Kate didn’t reply. It was pure chance that she and Corwin had stumbled across the drakes that day in the Wandering Woods, and magist magic must’ve kept them from finding more when they came back with the search party. Not that the golds needed magic to keep this place hidden. Belief in the Hellgate had fallen into myth, its true existence forgotten except in stories. But centuries ago people feared it. They stayed away, allowing the land surrounding it to grow wild, to swallow it up until the golds freed it from its own wasting death, a ready-made secret fortress.
“How were you discovered?” asked Bonner, pulling her from her thoughts.
Kate told the story quickly, stating how when she’d visited the king she’d set off some sort of magist trap, one she guessed had been left by Storr, same as he must’ve done to her father before. “But how did they find out about you?”
Bonner grunted. “Once you were taken, the golds rounded up everyone for questioning. They found the diamond magestone. It didn’t take them long to guess I’d been using it to hide my magic making revolvers.”
“I’m so sorry, Bonner. I didn’t know what would happen.”
“How could you have?” He waved her off, then raised his hands to the collar. “If we could just find a way to get this off, I could bend these bars open.”
For several minutes both of them tried to loosen the collars, to no avail. They needed a key. Then they searched the cages, probing them for weaknesses but finding only pebbles and dirt. Wearied by hopelessness, Kate sagged against the back of the cage. There was nothing to do but wait for what would happen next.
Eventually the golds returned, herding more people into the cages. When Kate saw Vianne and Kiran, she cried out, “No! Let them go!” She grasped the bars in front of her, wishing she had the strength to pull them apart.
The golds shoved Vianne and Kiran into the cage next to Kate’s, and it was all Vianne could do to calm the boy. She pulled him onto her lap, muffling his sobs against her shoulder.
Kate turned away, tears pricking her own eyes. Surveying the other captives, she realized they were all members of the Rising, including Anise.
When the magists had gone, Kate learned the story of what happened, the golds raiding the Sacred Sword without warning or provocation.
“It’s my fault,” Kate said, struggling to keep her emotions under control. “I never should have visited so often.”
“You couldn’t have known you’d be found out,” Anise said. “It’s a risk we all take.”
Vianne ran her hands down the back of Kiran’s head, saying nothing. He lay quiet at last, perhaps asleep.
“Is he all right?” asked Kate.
“For now, but what are they going to do with us?” Vianne spoke the question loud enough for the others to hear, but no one answered. It was like waiting to wake up from a nightmare—that feeling that maybe you never would.
The golds returned again sometime later—hours, it seemed, with Kate’s legs and back aching from lying on the hard floor. Her throat and mouth felt stuffed with wool. Maestra Vikas came with them. Kate screamed at her, demanding an answer for why they were here.
“Silence,” Vikas said, and spoke an incantation.
Kate saw the glow of magic beneath her throat as one of the magestones in the collar activated.
The maestra knelt before her cage, a smug look on her austere face. “There now. That’s better. But tell me, Kate, how did you like my trap, the one you stepped into when you tried to sway King Orwin?”
It was you! Kate tried to respond, but the spell stopped her.
Vikas smiled. “Yes, that’s what I thought. Your father didn’t care for it much either.”
What did you do to him? Kate tried to scream, but again nothing came out.
Vikas stood, silencing anyone else who dared talk.
Helplessly, Kate watched as Vikas conferred with the other golds.
“Prepare these three for shipping, but take this one off for testing.” Vikas indicated several of the wilders. Then she moved farther down the line, sorting the rest of them like sheep. What they were being sorted for, Kate couldn’t guess.
“These two are to stay for now.” Vikas pointed first at Bonner, then Kate. “The Lord Ascender has plans for them, but the mother and child I want on the road by nightfall. Any later and they will miss the ship.” She waved a dismissive hand at Vianne and Kiran.
“Isn’t the boy too young to make the journey?” one of the golds asked.
Vikas smiled. “From what I hear, he’s older than he looks.”
Kate tried to scream, her anger like a wild beast inside her chest. She slammed her body against the bars, but Vikas only gave her another smile, sickly sweet and triumphant.
She left a few minutes later, but the golds remained to do her bidding. Kate watched, powerless as the magists unlocked Vianne’s cage and pulled her and Kiran out. The boy thrashed and screamed until one of the golds invoked the spell for silence on his small collar.
The stillness afterward pressed down on Kate like a boulder atop her chest. She closed her eyes and willed sleep to come for her, but it refused, her mind too strained by fear and dread. They were taking Kiran and Vianne to a ship, but a ship to where? How would she ever find them again? She couldn’t lose Kiran now, after so many years apart already.
Time trudged by. It might’ve been days or weeks, although she feared it was only hours. There was no way to account for the passing, nothing to ground her to reality. The light in the Hellgate never changed, and the only noise was the sound of the daydrakes’ restless pacing and the strange way they called to one another in their wailing snarls and growls.
At some point, Kate must’ve finally drifted off, because the next thing she knew, two golds were pulling her free of the cage.
“Come now,” Maestra Vikas said, standing behind them. “The Lord Ascender is asking for you.”
The Lord Ascender? Was Storr giving himself new titles now?
In the cage next to her, Bonner pounded his fists against the bars, but the golds ignored him, their masked faces hiding any reaction at all.
With no other choice, Kate followed the golds without protest as they led her to a room in the main corridor.
The maestra paused outside the door and regarded Kate with her pale, icy gaze. “The honor of seeing the Lord Ascender is one granted to only a few. Above all else, you will show him respect.”
Kate blinked at her, confused. She’d met Storr before.
“And if you’re wise, you will heed his words. He is the Lord Ascender. A god on earth. He possesses more knowledge than anyone alive, who has ever lived. I could spend a thousand years by his side and still not learn all he has to share.” There was naked awe in her voice, and Kate wondered if she wasn’t quite sane. Before becoming the head of the golds, Vikas had been one of the whites, an order whose members were sometimes plagued by madness, a side effect of their area of focus. The whites pursued magical knowledge over everything else, and they studied the high arts, dangerous and arcane magic.
Her speech over, the maestra waved a hand, undoing the silencing spell. Before Kate could talk, Vikas stepped into the room first, then moved aside, motioning Kate forward. The two golds remained in the hall as Vikas shut the door behind Kate.
The sight of the room beyond took her breath away. Tapestries woven of spun gold studded with glistening gemstones hung from every wall, transforming the plain, ancient stone into a space fit for a king. Or a god, as Vikas claims. A plush carpet, the color of blood, spilled down the center of the room, leading to an ornate chair carved from crystal. Sconces placed on either side of the chair set the crystal ablaze until it looked like a glowing throne, almost like the Mirror Throne itself.
A man sat upon it, leaning back against the indigo pillows with both his hands curled around the armrests. Kate’s heart thumped against her breastbone as she realized it wasn’t Storr sitting there. She’d seen this man often in the castle, but never like this. He wore a silver circlet and a cloak made of white and black feathers.
“Welcome, Kate Brighton,” he said, his golden eyes glistening nearly as bright as the throne he sat on. “We meet as our true selves, at last.”
Kate stared at Minister Rendborne, sense escaping her. “I thought Storr was behind this.”
Rendborne nodded. “He does make for a good scapegoat, but no. Storr is merely a vain, greedy man. Such are easy to manipulate. But I must say, that wasn’t the first response I expected from you.” He waved to the area next to him.
Kate followed the motion, at last seeing what the splendor in the room had kept hidden—a second chair, this one occupied by Signe. She was strapped into it by ropes tied around her arms, waist, and chest. Her legs remained free, except for the spiked wooden screw around her right foot—the two pieces of board compressed together by an iron vise. One that had pressed so hard it had crushed the foot beneath.
“Signe!” Kate dashed toward her, only to be thrown backward by a blast of magic. It had come from Rendborne, right out of his outstretched hand. “You’re a magist?”
“Oh, no, dear child. I am so much more. As are you, wilder.” He stood from the crystal chair with a terrifying aspect.
Kate pulled her eyes off him, surprised by how hard it was. A part of her wanted to watch him, mesmerized by his presence, as if he were a flame and she the moth. She got to her feet, gaze fixed on Signe unconscious on the chair with her chin resting on her chest. “Why do this to her?”
Rendborne walked over to Signe. “Are you familiar with the Eshian notion of Seerah?”
“The holy silence,” Kate said on an exhale.
Smiling, Rendborne motioned to Signe. “This one holds fast to that vow. She is a credit to her people.” Cupping Signe’s chin with one hand, he raised her head off her chest and turned her face toward Kate, revealing the thick gash from her brow line to her chin. Blood still oozed out from it, running down her neck like a red river.
Kate choked on a gasp.
“It’s a difficult thing, breaking a person,” Rendborne said in a detached, clinical tone. “You have to find out what matters most to them, where their heart lies. This one I thought might’ve been vanity, but I was wrong. She didn’t fear the scar this will leave behind at all. Impressive.”
Vomit climbed Kate’s throat, and she sucked in a breath. She needed to stay calm, keep her wits about her. “Why are you doing this? She’s done nothing to you.”
Rendborne continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Then I thought perhaps the threat of crippling her would work. She’s so fierce and independent. Surely the idea of never walking again would have broken her. But you know what happened?” Rendborne dropped Signe’s face and turned to Kate. “She still refused to divulge her secrets. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Kate shook her head. It wasn’t if you knew Signe.
“Yes, fascinating.” Rendborne raised his hand to touch the necklace of talons strung around his neck. “But frustrating. I need to know how to make the black powder. Since she refuses to tell me, you are going to fetch it for me instead.”
Several seconds passed before Kate fully understood what he was saying. Her stomach recoiled at the idea. “You want me to steal the secret out of her mind?”
“We both know you have the ability.” Rendborne motioned to the glass jars on the workbench. “These are the elements she uses. I recognize them all, save this one.” He picked up a jar. “It seems to be a substance found only in the islands. But the proportions elude me, and the trial and error it would require to work out the recipe would take an age. Time I don’t have. I need you to use that gift of yours and find out from this one.”
“I won’t do it.”
Rendborne smirked. “Believe me, child, you are not my first choice. But I’ve only two wilders left with your ability, after you killed poor William in Thornewall, and neither is available at the moment. I need it done now and quickly. You will do it for me, Kate Brighton, willingly or not.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but then an idea occurred to her. For her to use her sway, he would have to remove the collar.
Worried he would suspect something if she agreed too quickly, Kate said, “What happens if I refuse?”
“Suffering and death, of course.” Rendborne rolled his eyes as if the subject bored him. “I’m afraid I know your character too well to bother trying to bribe you instead. Proud and honorable like your father. Now, before I remove your collar, you should know that any attempt to use your gift on me will fail.” He touched his chest, where a crystal full of a dark-red liquid lay beneath the necklace of talons. “This magestone shields me. The magic was woven from your father’s blood.”
Kate inhaled sharply. “You’re lying.”
“It’s gruesome, I know, but of all the gifts I possess—control over fire, water, earth, air, and even most of spirit—the gift of sway still alludes me.” Envy rang clear in his voice, his eyes a golden smolder as he stared at her.
“No one man has that much magic,” Kate said, her gaze fixed on the crystal, still disbelieving his claim that it was her father’s.
“I told you. He is no man, but a god.” Vikas spoke from behind Kate. She’d almost forgotten the maestra was there. Vikas stared at Rendborne with raw desire on her face.
Rendborne beckoned Vikas forward, and when she reached him, he bent his head toward her and kissed her full on the mouth. Breaking the kiss, he stared down at her with genuine affection. “And you will soon be the goddess who rules Rime next to me.” He turned his gaze to Kate. “I have Isla here to thank for discovering the spell to create this.” He picked up the crystal and shook it, stirring the tenebrous contents.
Beside him, Vikas reached into her robe to reveal an identical crystal. She held it up, examining it with a fond gaze. “Magic resides in the blood. Even after death, the power remains—that is, if the blood is extracted from a still living host. In the end, your father gave me every last drop before the executioner took his head.”
Kate gritted her teeth so hard, pain shot through her jaw as she fought to hold in a scream. She remembered the way he’d looked that day, when they led him to the executioner’s block. Pale and emaciated, a man drained of all the life and hope left in him.
“He never spoke a word,” Vikas said, “not even to cry out.”
Kate closed her eyes, hatred expanding inside her like air drawn into a bellows. She understood at last why it was her father had refused to see her. Why he’d left his message in code. The meaning had been double—find Kiran and leave Rime, get away from this evil.
“Let’s begin then,” Rendborne said. “Once I remove the collar, you will enter your friend’s mind to find out how she mixes the black powder. If you do it successfully, she will live and not suffer any more abuse. If you refuse or attempt to escape in any way, there will be death to pay.”
Kate stared at the man, trying to know his thoughts without her sway. The death he spoke of wouldn’t be Signe’s, she decided. The secret she possessed was worth too much for him to kill her outright. But I’m expendable. That was all right. Kate would rather die than let this man control her. If she failed, her death would buy Signe time. But first Signe needed to be freed.
“I understand,” Kate said at last.
Satisfied, Rendborne waved his hand, and she felt the collar loosen around her neck. It fell to the ground, and when she glanced at it, she saw the lock on it was still intact but the metal to either side had been pulled apart. With magic. It seemed Rendborne had been telling the truth about his powers; he had the magic of both air and earth, that she’d seen so far.
Kate breathed in, stretching out with her sway. Gently, she probed both Vikas and Rendborne. As they claimed, she couldn’t reach either of them. But behind her, just through the door, she sensed the two golds, neither of them protected from her magic.
Kate made a show of turning toward Signe. Her friend was awake now, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain. I’m sorry, Signe, Kate thought as she approached the chair.
“Hurry,” Rendborne said. “If you’re successful, I will heal her pain myself.”
Kate placed her palm against Signe’s forehead. Physical touch made connecting with another mind easier, but this was all for show while she reached out with her magic to the two golds. The moment she sensed them, she grasped hold and forced them to her will.
Their minds folded to her power at once, bending like stalks in the wind. Kill the Lord Ascender! she commanded, and both men obeyed, bursting through the door with maces raised. Their spells soared toward Rendborne, and he raised his hand like a shield before him. The magic fizzled and died as it reached him, and in the next moment he summoned lightning in the palm of the same hand and cast it at both the golds. Still attached to their minds, Kate felt the pain tear through them. She shrieked and let go.
Turning toward her, Rendborne cast another spell. The magic hit Kate like a strong wind, and she fell to the ground, paralyzed.
“You really should not have done that.” Rendborne retrieved the collar. He placed it around Kate’s neck, melding the broken pieces together with his magic.
“Kill me now,” Kate said. “I won’t do what you want. Not ever.”
He smiled coldly. “I wasn’t ever threatening to kill you, Kate. Your death has no value. Only your abilities do.” Rendborne turned to the golds, who were just now recovering from the attack. “Go and fetch Bonner . . . and his father.”
Chills erupted down Kate’s skin, and she struggled in vain to break free of the spell. Why is his father here?
The golds returned all too quickly, dragging in the Bonners, both of them in chains. Thomas visibly trembled with fear.
The moment Bonner spotted Kate and Signe, he began to struggle. “What are you doing? Let them go!”
For a second it was all the golds could do to keep control of him, but then Rendborne froze him in place with his magic—a vortex of air surrounding him.
“Don’t struggle, son,” Thomas said, his voice kind and gentle as ever. “It won’t change anything.” Although his words were strong, Thomas seemed to sag beneath the weight of them.
Rendborne drew a knife from his belt and approached father and son standing side by side. “I warned you, Kate, there would be a death to pay if you disobeyed me.” Rendborne raised the knife to Bonner’s throat.
“NO!” Kate screamed, terror robbing her of reason. “Don’t hurt him! Please, I’ll do whatever you want.” Rendborne was right; everyone had a breaking point, and he had found hers.
“Yes, I know you will do what I want now,” Rendborne said. “But still, the consequences of your disobedience must be paid.” He pressed the knife to Bonner’s throat, a sliver of blood appearing beneath the blade.
“Don’t hurt my boy,” Thomas sobbed. “Take me instead.”
Rendborne glanced at the old man. “Very well,” he said, and before anyone could react, he pivoted toward Thomas and sliced his throat. The man let out a single, liquid gasp, then crumpled to the floor.
Bonner’s scream was loud enough to shake the walls. The agony in the sound ripped through Kate. She could see him struggling against the magic that held him, mad with the need to kill the man before him, to do anything to save his father.
“Settle him down,” Rendborne said, releasing the vortex of air around Bonner. At once, the golds turned their maces on him. Bonner fell to the ground as they beat him over the head, neck, back, legs, arms, everywhere. Kate cried for them to stop, but it made no difference. She was still paralyzed by Rendborne’s magic, helpless to act. They continued on until all the fight went out of Bonner, and he slumped against the floor, his face pressed into the ever-expanding pool of his father’s blood.
Rendborne turned back to Kate. “This was the punishment for the first disobedience, Kate. I recommend you do not try a second one.” He pointed his hand at her and released her from the paralysis.
“Why are you doing this?” Kate said, tears making her voice thick. “Who are you?” She couldn’t pull her eyes off Bonner. He was still conscious, but only just. Thomas, she couldn’t bear to look at, heartsick with memories of laughter shared over meals, his gentle teasing that his son should find a wife like her.
Rendborne bent toward Kate, removing the magestone on his right hand. The skin on his palm blurred for a moment, then cleared, revealing the raised, branded flesh there, a faded eight-spoked wheel set inside the holy triangle. An uror mark? Seeing it only added to her confusion. He cupped her chin, raising her face to his.
“Who are you?” she said again. She peered into his golden eyes, feeling the weight of age in them. He seemed both old and young at the same time. A god, Vikas called him. A god in human form.
“You will know me in time. But for now, do as I command, Kate, and the suffering will end.” Rendborne released her.
She felt the fight ebbing away from her. She could not defeat this man. But Bonner and Signe still lived. She needed to do whatever it took to keep them from further harm.
“Don’t do it, Kate.” Bonner raised his bruised and blood-smeared face toward her. “I’d rather die.”
“I can’t let you.” Kate climbed to her feet, then turned and walked over to Signe, defeat bowing her spine until she felt she might break in two. I am Traitor Kate, she thought. Betrayer of her prince, her kingdom, and her friends.