Chapter 13 #2
“Are your guards still despondent they didn’t slit your throat when they were supposed to?
” Sinan was all too familiar with the Shields of Quartus, who were commonly thought of as the personal guards of fighting mages in the Noviodunam.
In truth, their main purpose was to ensure mages weren’t captured alive by the Blessed.
Jacques’s own guards had failed him in that, and he had been Karakoncolos’s prisoner before Odart had used Sinan’s father as a hostage to get his son back.
“If you have something to say to me, go ahead.”
“Why are you working with the King’s bastard and the Lioness of Abdju?” Jacques blurted out the words with his usual lack of restraint. “They hate your kind.”
“I seem to recall you were the first to reject my offer to assist in the recovery of the princess.” Sinan snapped the words out, but inwardly wondered if Jacques might be telling the truth.
The incensor was taking a huge risk in leaving the safety of the Noviodunam, and if he wanted to try and kill Sinan, he wouldn’t have attempted it alone.
“An alliance with the two of them was hardly my first choice.”
“If Rixende dies, Gallmau becomes the Dauphin.” Jacques ran his fingers through his hair, forgetting his pose of submission.
Sinan watched him closely but said nothing.
Physical gestures, spoken spells—no mage of sufficient power needed those aids, and Jacques could probably set things on fire when he was asleep. “That’s if she’s even alive.”
“You expect me to believe the entire Noviodunam can’t discern if the heir to the throne of Soissons has passed beyond the veil?” This conversation was wasting Sinan’s time. “Please stop pretending you don’t know the benandanti can perform simple necromantic spells.”
“The benandanti have been disbanded.” Jacques sounded at once bitter and relieved.
“My father is in forced retirement, and Zhang Jue only kept his position in the court out of deference to the loyalty oath he submitted to as Sorcier du Roi. There’s no one left who will admit to knowing how to do that type of magic. But you must know.”
“I’m not giving away valuable secrets to an enemy for no reason.
” Sinan made a gesture to the rat, which had been gnawing at the croissant with great enthusiasm but to little effect.
The animal hobbled closer to him. He would need to release its soul soon, as it was unkind to leave a simple beast as a corpus animatum for any longer than necessary.
On the other hand, Jacques would make a perfectly satisfactory undead servant, and Sinan regretted that both his agreement with the Queen and Karakoncolos law prevented him from turning the fire mage into one.
“Leave me alone, and I’ll try to restrain myself from killing you. ”
Sinan pulled on the shadows and was gratified to see that some of them responded. With his fatigue, he was only capable of moving a block or two away, but Jacques didn’t know that.
“Rixende was taken to an area in the south guarded by a modified weather Artifact.” Jacques got the words out in a rush.
“Terra Amata. The entire area is now walled off by a mist, and the only entrance is through the Artifact itself. It adapts to the mage’s affinity.
I’ll need a fire spell to unlock it when the time comes, and Abarsam will need his water magic.
Nothing we’ve tried has had any effect on it, and believe me, half of the Noviodunam worked on it. ”
Sinan stilled. Artifacts were trouble he did not need. He knew little enough about Artifacts related to death magic, like the one Karakoncolos was built on top of and the smaller one near where Meri and Gallmau had been attacked.
“Please.” Jacques’s unexpected use of the word jerked Sinan’s attention back to the conversation. “Tell me if Rixende’s alive.”
“She’s among the living, yes.” Like it or not, Sinan needed information from Jacques, and it sounded like the fire mage was willing to give it to him. “My mother reached out beyond the veil to confirm it. She’ll tell me if she dies.”
“Did Naghwe say anything else about Rixende?” Jacques knew his mother was a corporeal spirit, of course. After all, his father had been the one who had killed her.
“No.” Sinan didn’t want to give Jacques any more details than he had to. “You’re telling me that whoever did this was able to manipulate an Artifact to wall off a chunk of the countryside?”
“And sent back Zhang Jue’s headless body with a shadow letter daring me to go after him.
” Jacques’s voice was grim. “I already had the Sorcier du Roi’s instructions of what to do if he was killed, but the shadow letter gave a specific date and time when the Artifact would open. Tomorrow, between dawn and dusk.”
The Synod’s strange behavior now made sense.
They had waited as long as possible to make the news public, but they couldn’t wait long enough for help to arrive from Qing or their other allies.
Most of the Noviodunam mages would think a shadow letter could only be sent by one of the Blessed, proving the culprit was a necromancer.
That wasn’t true, but given the stiff penalties for even reading about death magic, it did rule out most of the mages in the city.
Except for benandanti like Jacques’s father, Odart of Dol.
“I know only a handful of the Blessed who know anything about Artifacts, and none of them would have any interest in using one to keep the princess of Soissons hostage.” That was true for Karakoncolos, but Sinan couldn’t exclude the possibility that the Order of Katil was involved.
They had sent Cliona out to kill him, and they guarded their secrets well—by killing anyone who might expose them.
He still thought this mess could be a Synod plot to blame Karakoncolos, but he didn’t think Jacques would have risked his life to speak to Sinan if he was part of it.
But there was another powerful mage involved in all of this—Abarsam the Magnificent.
“Perhaps you should investigate the Sultana of Kush. The University in Abdju has an entire department devoted to the study of Artifacts.”
“That’s why Abarsam’s here,” Jacques said. “I knew he was in the country, and I contacted him as fast as I could after Zhang Jue’s death.”
“So did Zhang Jue send Abarsam one of these invitations the two of you were going on about, or did you just give him a fake one?” Sinan knew the answer even before Jacques gave a reluctant nod.
“When Gallmau showed up with an invitation, Abarsam and I decided it would be best to set limits on who could attempt to get past the Artifact. Maybe Zhang Jue did reach out to the King’s bastard for help, or maybe Gallmau and the Lioness forged theirs and convinced the Queen it was real.
Then there’s Valentina, who also received one.
She showed it to me, and it has the Sorcier du Roi’s seal. None of it makes much sense.”
The only thing that did make sense was that this was an ambush, possibly for Sinan, or maybe even Jacques. In any event, whoever joined this quest would become a target if they weren’t one already.
Sinan paused, knowing he shouldn’t ask his next question—or at least shouldn’t care about the answer. “Are you going to let Valentina go into this obvious trap with hired guards?”
“No, I got her to agree to go with me instead of a second Shield.” Jacques threw up his hands.
“Aren’t you more worried about who you’re taking with you?
Gallmau will be the next King if Rixende dies, and even if he isn’t that ambitious, the Lioness of Abdju might want to switch her title to the Queen of Soissons.
Letting Rixende be killed and blaming you for it—that’s their plan. ”
Sinan thought back to the two Tomb Fighters on the road to Lutecia and Meri crawling over to Gallmau, willing to sacrifice her life for his.
Hardly the actions of a calculating schemer who was using the young prince for her own ends.
“I’m not sure if I agree with you about their motivations.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. I intend to kill whoever put Karakoncolos at risk of war and anyone else who gets in my way.
Including you. I’ll see you in Terra Amata. ”