CORWIN LOOKED UP FROM WHERE he’d fallen to the ground, his eyes still disbelieving the sight of the man before him. Rendborne. A Tormane. Yet as he looked, he could see a hint of it in the man’s features, a vague familiarity. This is the Nameless One. God made flesh. For a moment Corwin believed it might be true. Never before had he seen such power. With a single flick of his wrist this man could level armies. There seemed no stopping him. Nothing to do but lie still and wait for the end to come.
No. One look at Kate was all he needed to know he couldn’t be still. Couldn’t let this happen. Corwin raised his head, seeing the magic building inside Rendborne’s cupped hands. The man’s right palm still bore an uror mark. Corwin couldn’t see it, but he felt it. Felt it in the burning in his own palm, as if like called to like.
Rendborne raised his right hand. Corwin lurched to his feet and leaped, arm outstretched as if he meant to catch the spell like a thrown spear. Magic, white and bright as the sun, burst out from Rendborne’s palm, his uror mark ablaze. With an instinct that didn’t belong to him, Corwin reached toward the magic and caught it with his own hand, his own mark.
Agony lit through his body, his mind, his soul. He felt the magic burn through every fiber of his being, a force trying to tear him asunder. He screamed, the sound swallowed up by the magic. Images ripped through his mind, of places he had never been, faces he had never known. Memories that didn’t belong to him. He saw Rendborne as a young man, a young prince and heir. He saw the uror sign, a grand eagle feathered in black and white. He felt Rendborne’s hatred and fear of the creature and all it meant, all it could mean. He doubted himself, resenting the way the sign made him feel less. He wanted an out, and killing it seemed the only way. But he didn’t know what would happen. He didn’t know the magic would react—that it would go into him, claiming him as its new vessel, its nature perverted.
The magic’s corruption was slow at first, a festering disease. The high priestess banished him for his treachery, his brother named heir. They erased his name from all records. He wandered, lost in isolation as the magic ate away at him. Until at last it sundered him in two. He died, but the magic wouldn’t let go. It needed its vessel. It put him together again, broken and wrong and yet more powerful than any man should be.
He learned to live again, but that wrongness consumed him even as it kept him alive, year after year, his power growing instead of waning. His hatred building until all he wanted was to see Rime and its people fall, to suffer and be subjugated, his to control and command at last. As it should have been.
He worked for years, laying his plans while a new Tormane ascended the throne, then another. But the corruption taught him patience. Until he formed the alliances he needed with Magnar Fane, the Godking, Maestra Vikas, those like him. He drew anyone he needed, his magic making these tasks simple. When the new uror sign appeared, he knew it was time to act. He tried to kill the colt but couldn’t. No matter what he did, he couldn’t touch it. Something protected the creature from him. The princes, too, were beyond his reach. Even his daydrakes failed to kill them. But the magic that protected them wouldn’t last forever. Only he would last forever. He would outlive them all. Nothing could stop him. Nothing.
No, Corwin thought. I will stop you. You will not win.
A scream filled Corwin’s ears, and belatedly he realized it wasn’t his scream but Rendborne’s. The magic had reverberated, forced back by the power in Corwin’s uror brand. His mark glowed, brightly burning, pulsating with magic. Blinking through the haze of pain, Corwin looked up to see Rendborne crouched over, his right hand clutched to his stomach, the fingers blackened husks, like twigs charred in a fire.
With an outraged scream, Rendborne turned and fled, calling for his golds to follow and protect him.
Slowly, trembling all over, Corwin lowered his hand, the glow already fading from his palm. It was over, and somehow, he was still alive. So were the others. He got to his feet and reached for Kate, helping her to stand. Across from him, Dal picked up Signe once more, Bonner aiding him.
“Let’s go,” Corwin said, “before he comes back.” He didn’t think he could face Rendborne a second time. Not now.
With his arm around Kate’s shoulder and her arm around his waist, they hobbled toward the gate, leaning on each other. Long before they reached it, men on horseback came charging through the gate toward them—Norgard cavalry, with Edwin riding at their head and Grand Master Storr and Captain Jaol beside him. They halted, and Edwin surveyed the scene, taking in the sight of dead wilders and golds, drakes, and the crumbling ruin of the Hellgate.
Then finally Edwin turned his gaze on Corwin. “Traitor.”
Corwin flinched at the hatred in his brother’s voice, the condemnation in his eyes. “Edwin, if you’ll just listen. Rendborne has been sending wilders to Seva, to the Godking. He’s gotten away, but if—”
“I let you go and you do this.” Edwin gestured to the carnage. “You join your wilder friends.”
“Why aren’t you listening to me?” Corwin dropped his arm from Kate’s shoulder, shuffling her behind him, to shield her from anything his brother might try.
“We will deal with Rendborne,” Grand Master Storr said. At least one of them had been listening. “This corruption in the Inquisition will not stand.”
“Yes,” agreed Edwin. “Now step away, Corwin, while we deal with these wilders.”
Captain Jaol raised his hands and the soldiers drew their revolvers.
Corwin stared at the weapons. Each one would fire six rounds, and unlike the battle between magist and wilder, there was no way to cancel out the destruction here.
“Edwin, just listen. This is wrong. The wilders aren’t our enemies; we need—”
“The wilders are a threat. They always have been. Nothing will ever change that.” Edwin turned to the soldiers. “Shoot around my brother if you must.”
“Wait!” Corwin held up his hands and took a step closer. “I am your prince and I say to put your weapons away.”
The soldiers hesitated, torn between the two heirs.
“Don’t listen to him,” Edwin shouted. He tugged on his horse’s reins, wheeling the bay about. “He’s a traitor. Kill the wilders!”
Again the soldiers hesitated. Even Captain Jaol looked uncertain. Furious, Edwin drew the revolver at his hip and cocked the hammer, the barrel pointed at Francis, the wilder nearest him. Francis stared back, hands flexed at his sides and his chin thrust out in defiance. Edwin raised the gun, his finger tensed on the trigger.
The gun split in two.
Edwin flinched, watching the broken pieces fall to the ground.
“Those were never meant to kill humans,” Bonner said, hand outstretched. He waved his arm, and the other revolvers broke in half as well. Corwin took a relieved breath. He glanced at Bonner, seeing the weariness in his face. How much more magic could he wield? Not enough. Not with so many swords. All the wilders were drained from battle, ill prepared for this fight.
“This is your last chance,” Edwin said through gritted teeth. A vein pulsed in his forehead, his cheeks flushed with anger. “You must choose, Corwin. The wilders who killed our mother. Or your family, Norgard, your birthright.”
Time seemed to slow around Corwin as he weighed the choices in his mind, feeling the burden of them, the absolute finality. He glanced behind him at Kate and the others. Then he glanced down at the brand on his palm, remembering the way it had glowed and burned a moment before, pulsing with magic, with promise. In that moment he understood—Edwin couldn’t take this from him. He could label him traitor, make whatever claims he wanted, spread whatever lies he wished—but he couldn’t deny the uror. The third trial waited for them both. No power short of the gods’ could stop it.
Slowly, Corwin stretched out his hand behind him, fingers reaching for Kate. A moment later, he felt her hand slip into his. “I choose them, Edwin. I choose the hundreds who have lived under the shadow of the Inquisition long enough. They are just as much people of Rime as you or I. And I am their prince as well.”
Edwin drew his sword, and all around him the soldiers did the same. The hesitation they’d shown with the revolvers was gone now. Swords meant a fair battle, an honorable death instead of slaughter. So be it, Corwin thought, reaching for his own sword.
Something spooked the horses. Almost at once they all reared and spun, unseating their riders, men unprepared to hold on with the awkward balance of the swords in their hands. Edwin and Storr both fell while Jaol’s horse carried him away into the woods, the man clinging to her neck. The other horses followed.
Edwin recovered quickly, sword raised once more. “Attack!” he screamed.
The remaining soldiers rushed forward, one pace, two.
“STOP!” The scream came from behind Corwin. He felt the power in the voice, the pressure in his mind. It rendered him still, incapable of moving, of doing anything besides listen. He watched Kate step around him to face Edwin and the soldiers—all of them frozen in place like living statues. She was doing this, same as she had sent the horses flying a moment before. Controlling them all with her magic.
The look on her face sent a shudder arching down his spine. Murder gleamed in her eyes. There was too much white in them, her teeth bared in a feral snarl.
“Kate,” Corwin whispered, remembering the way she’d struck down Vikas with her magic. That was the only explanation for the way the woman had died, so sudden, like a candle snuffed by the wind. “Don’t . . .” Don’t kill them, he thought but couldn’t say. The reality that she could sent a tremble through him. But it wasn’t what she could do, only what she would do. A choice. Not yet made. Spare them, Kate, he thought. Have mercy.
Seconds passed, the forest still and silent. Tension crackled in the air, all of the men aware that they balanced on the edge of a knifepoint, death a mere thought away.
Finally, at last, Kate waved her hand. “Sleep,” she said. Instantly, the soldiers slumped to the ground, Grand Master Storr and Edwin with them. The latter crumpled to his knees, a look of defiance in his expression, even to the last.
When it was over Kate turned to the others, a strange glow on her face, a distance in her gaze.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t know how long they’ll stay under.” She held out her hand to Corwin.
He hesitated half a moment before taking it. Her fingers felt cold in his palm as they walked side by side past the sleeping soldiers. Corwin glanced down at Edwin just once, regret squeezing his chest. But there was nothing he could do for his brother now. His choice was made.