NINETEEN
“Into the Oaths Chamber. Now.” Gellar didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. But his eyes landed on Martar like a command.
Damn. When Martar would rather go after Zarek, he joined the rest of the Sworn Exarchs through the stone corridors of the Keep, boots striking in unison as their echoes were swallowed by ancient wards carved into the high stone walls.
The double doors at the end of the hall opened without touch or turn of a key, because entry was only allowed by recognizing the blood from their vow, sealing quietly shut behind them.
The chamber’s circular, smooth stone walls rose to meet the unseen ceiling. The side door was open, showing a room filled with shelves, heavy with leather-bound tomes older than the Accords themselves that made up the Hidden Hall of Histories.
In this place, they could talk freely, without fear of being overheard.
Agitated, Martar paced the center of the Oath’s Chamber, absently brushing imaginary dust from his leathers. He didn’t sit. Couldn’t.
“What in the realms was that?” Condorr dropped into a chair that creaked ominously beneath his bulk, pushing back his blond hair. “I’ve felt battlefield surges before, but that was bigger than all of them.”
Gellar took his place in the high-back chair and brushed over his graying beard in a habitual gesture of restraint to remain calm. “Martar, tell us everything you know about this female. No omissions.”
Martar exhaled slowly. Hands on hips, he faced the table that seated his brothers. “Zarek first heard her scream over forty miles away in the mortal realm. He answered it.”
Rocharde frowned, fiddling with his single gold hoop earring. “That’s not possible.”
“It happened,” Martar defensively snapped. “And it keeps happening. It’s like they can sense each other.”
“Again, that’s not possible. That only happens when our magick senses magick, and only in the mortal realm. Unless he’s…” Rocharde let it hang.
“Doesn’t that violate the Accords, being with a mortal?” Condorr asked flatly.
“Zarek doesn’t touch anyone,” Martar replied. “Everyone knows he can’t touch without his protective leathers on.”
“So what is going on then?” Condorr shrugged those beefy shoulders, asking the questions everyone was thinking.
From the Hidden Hall of Histories, pages rustled, then a book thudded to the floor.
Martar nodded toward the far end of the chamber. “Seems the ancestors have an opinion.”
“They always do…” Gellar leaned back in his chair, his eyes lifted to the endless height of the Oath’s Chamber, where the air felt heavier and older than its smooth stone walls, so white as if bleached from the sun. “I wish we could let you rest, brothers,” he whispered, a promise still unmet.
The silence that followed carried its own weight, and they all felt its burden. It was the reminder that their oath didn’t end with death, not when this war had stretched so long that its fallen still stood watch and could not rest until the battle was over.
The same battle they’d been fighting for centuries. All against one foul creature.
Katarra.
Bellus rushed forward, spectacles slipping down his nose as he scooped up the fallen tome. He pushed them back absently, looking like a boyish bookkeeper when he was as lethal a fighter as the rest of him—if you could pry whatever new book from his fingers long enough to fight.
“What does it say?” Gellar asked Bellus, who was busily scanning the pages.
“It has a name,” Bellus said, as his brow shifted from a frown to one of awe. “The Claiming.”
“The what?” Condorr muttered.
“The Claiming.” Bellus flicked through pages as if searching for confirmation. “It is… magick choosing survival over restraint,” he read.
Gellar paused mid-stroke of his beard. “Care to explain?”
Bellus looked down again, as though hoping the words might unscramble across the pages, which happened with some magical tomes.
Bellus’s fingers stopped on the page, and for a long moment, he didn’t speak.
Gellar’s voice cut the silence. “Bellus.”
“There’s a marginal note here.” Bellus swallowed, readjusting his grip on the book. “It’s not written as law or doctrine, because it’s ancient. From what I can tell, it’s much older than the Accords.”
“What is it, then?” Martar demanded.
Bellus read aloud, “When awakened power does not burn itself out, but changes in contact with another’s will… the ancients did not call it magick.” His voice dropped as he lifted his gaze to meet theirs. “They called it alchemy.”
Condorr shifted, and his chair creaked in protest. “Alchemy, as in—”
“No,” Bellus cut him off. “Not gold. Not transmutation of matter.”
“Then what?” Gellar asked.
“Transmutation of power.” Bellus mumbled as he flicked more pages, “Awakened ash and alchemy…”
Martar frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
Bellus looked up. “Nothing.” He snapped the book shut, only to re-open it as if restarting the conversation. “This isn’t attraction,” he said carefully. “And it isn’t mating or bonding.”
“Then what is it?” Gellar pressed.
“It’s where power recognizes where it can exist without destroying everything around it.”
Condorr snorted. “That’s not an answer, man.”
“When Zarek’s magick encounters a living will strong enough to stand inside that space,” Bellus continued, “the magick reacts first. The Claiming doesn’t act on the person—it acts through their magick. It’s not a spell cast from outside. It’s recognition from within.”
Martar frowned. “Recognition of what?”
Bellus swallowed and shrugged. “Of…equality with bonds and fated partnerships, only different?”
“I still don’t get it.” Condorr shrugged his beefy shoulders, the leather straining to contain the bulk.
“Until the body understands what the magick has recognized,” Bellus read out, “the power acts alone.”
Rocharde’s fingers fiddled with his gold earring. “Like Zarek’s magick is now a separate entity?” He glanced at Martar. “Like if your ice stopped listening to you. And Zarek’s fire—”
“—could burn the world,” Bellus finished.
“It already is,” Condorr muttered, his chair groaning again as he shifted. “That explains the warning our captain dropped on us just before.”
“That was a territorial surge,” Gellar murmured. “A threat we all felt.”
Condorr leaned forward. “You’re saying that wasn’t Zarek warning us, but his magick? His suit glowed. And I know, when those staves glow, it’s a warning to back the hell up and fast.”
“No, that wasn’t against us. Zarek wouldn’t do that,” Bellus said quietly. “That was instinct. I believe it was Zarek’s magick reacting to keep everyone away from her. Like it’s claimed this female, and it will kill to do it.”
Rocharde frowned. “Zarek has always had control. Even at his worst.”
“Which is precisely why this is so dangerous,” Gellar said with a frown that he didn’t even hide.
The Hidden Hall of Histories again stirred with movement. More pages fluttered along the shelves, as though unseen hands from the ancestors searched for answers and another book fell open onto the floor.
Bellus picked it up and read: “The Claiming does not ask permission. It assumes the instinct of prime survival before trust. And until then, everyone else becomes a potential threat.”
Martar’s head snapped up. “Including us?”
“Especially you, being so popular with the women,” Bellus said, pushing up his glasses. “Until the claim is answered—bonded or broken—the claiming male exists in a constant state of readiness. Heightened aggression. Obsessive focus. He’ll remain in a readied protective violence over the… claimed.”
“What in the realms?” Condorr muttered.
“And the female?” Martar asked.
Bellus hesitated. “She is insulated. Shielded….” His finger traced down the page. “It seems that his magick will bend around her. Think of it like this: it’s his magick, the power of the flame, that has claimed the female as theirs—”
“Mine. Our captain used the word Mine. We all heard it,” said Rocharde.
“Pfft, you mean we all felt it,” mumbled Condorr.
“But it wasn’t Zarek.” Bellus pushed up his glasses to resume reading. “It’s his magick that is protective over this female.”
“Whether she wants it or not?” Martar pressed.
“Well, consent matters, I guess.” Bellus shared a meek shrug as he tapped the open pages. “But from what I can tell, the Claiming won’t wait for it, not now it’s been unleashed. It’s already chosen who they… claim.”
Gellar leaned forward. “What happens if she rejects him?”
Bellus traced a line on the page and read from a list. “The instability worsens. Sleep disruption. Obsession. Loss of hierarchy. Loss of restraint.”
“So he becomes miserable?” Rocharde scoffed.
“It’s a slow unraveling of everything,” Bellus replied, “where he will put her before all others.”
Gellar ground his teeth so loud that even the books in the Hidden Hall of Histories stopped shifting.
Martar knew Zarek’s code. They had lived it together as boys, sharing the same values: The Vanguard. The Accords. The realms. Duty before all else. “And if she dies?”
Bellus closed the book. “If the claimed female dies before the Claiming is answered,” he said quietly, “the male will burn the world looking for something to blame.”
Heated ash settled like bad indigestion in Martar’s chest just by the weight of those words. They all knew how dangerous Zarek’s power was. It’s what made him the most lethal warrior in the realms.
Gellar straightened. “Then Angela Duboise is in danger… Or she is the danger.”
“No,” Martar barked out. “She saved him. He’s here, in this castle, healed because of her.”
“But he’s also come back stronger than ever; we all felt it.” Rocharde shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “This can’t be right. Zarek has never—”