Chapter Eight #4
to find her sitting beside them, her eyes closed as one of the pregnant women sang and ran a comb through the girl’s dark
hair.
A leaf crackled beneath his feet. The servant girl’s eyes flew open, and he saw a glint of familiar silver before she scrambled to her feet.
That child again. The affront to his bloodlines.
Sired by one of his own descendants—those silver eyes made the shameful truth undeniable—but born utterly without magic.
“What do you think you’re up to, girl?” he snapped.
“Forgive me, Master Maur. They always seem happier when they have someone to take care of. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”
The words were submissive, those telltale eyes downcast, but there was a tone in her voice that raised his hackles. Just her
presence raised his hackles.
“You thought?” His lip curled. “When I want thoughts from you, I’ll put them in your worthless skull myself.” He grabbed her chin, pinching
her face between his fingers. Her silver eyes flashed up—just for an instant, but that was long enough for him to see the
hard glitter of hatred. His nostrils flared. He summoned power and stabbed it into her with merciless force. She gave a choked
cry and dropped to her knees. “Slaves do not think. They serve. Silent and unseen. And don’t dare to think those eyes of yours
grant you any special worth in Boura Fell. Magic is the sole coin of this realm, and you have none. Now get out. If I find
you in here again, you’ll be the next sacrifice to the Guardians of the Well.”
He waited until she was gone, then turned back to the women gathered by the pond. They had huddled together and were clutching
one another, weeping in fear and confusion.
“Shia, Tailinn, Fania, come here.” They didn’t immediately obey, which only infuriated him more. With a muttered oath, he
summoned a rush of Azrahn, only instead of stabbing it into the women as he had the girl, he spun a powerful compulsion weave.
Their lovely faces became expressionless, their eyes going flat and vacant.
“Come here,” he repeated, and all three women came to his side with silent, blank-eyed obedience.
He placed his hands on their naked, heavily pregnant bellies and sent his Mage senses inward to test the health and readiness of the fetuses.
All three of the pregnancies were proceeding exactly as he’d planned, and all three of the unborn responded to his presence with little cracks of power that made their mothers flinch.
Vadim selected Shia, the Celierian-born woman with the long black hair and pale blue eyes who had been singing and brushing
the girl’s hair when he came in. Descended of the vel Serranis line and Vadim’s own Mage blood, Shia was among this generation’s
most promising females, so sensitive to the dahl’reisen that Vadim had been forced to render her unconscious before releasing the stud to mate with her. Even then, Shia had nearly
roused, whimpering, as the dahl’reisen pumped his seed into her prepared body.
The High Mage snapped his fingers and pointed, and four servants rushed forward with robes and gold silk slippers to clothe
Shia. Vadim drew an empty vial and lancet from one pocket and made a tiny cut on her arm. Bright scarlet blood welled out.
He filled the vial, capped it, then closed the small wound with a swift weave of Earth.
“Take her to the birthing room and prepare her.”
Leaving his servants to their tasks, Vadim made his way back to his own chambers, to the small, heavily warded room secreted
in the heart of his private suite. Though an enormous vault deep in Boura Fell contained enough gold, silver, and gems to
buy a kingdom ten times over, this tiny room was where the true treasure of Eld lay.
Vadim released the wards and locks and opened the door.
Inside, rows of locked chests and rack upon rack of drawers and shelves were stuffed with every conceivable tool of power, objects Vadim had inherited from his predecessors, along with the enormous personal collection he’d gathered himself.
Magical implements men and women of knowledge would conquer worlds to possess.
Stones to call particular demons. Rune-etched collars and manacles to contain and control them.
Tikis made by powerful Feraz Black Witches for the darkest intent of Mother Night herself.
Drogan chalices that, when filled with the blood of an infant, became dark mirrors through which the High Mage and his distant emissaries could communicate without any other form of magic.
One small chest, protected by no fewer than twelve deadly wards, contained his bands of power. Vadim released the wards and
opened the chest. Trays of magical rings and armbands gleamed up at him. He spread them out across the counter. Four trays
were filled with gleaming Tairen’s Eye crystals set in gold rings; eight overflowed with black selkahr set in platinum.
From a deep pocket in his robes, he withdrew the small vial of Shia’s still-warm blood. He uncapped the vial and poured several
drops of the blood into one palm. He touched his tongue to the blood, taking the taste of it into his mouth, then rubbed his
hands together until a thin, rapidly drying sheen of red coated both palms.
“Gaz mora khan,” he whispered. From blood power. His eyes closed as runners of rich, seductive darkness sparked in his veins. The blood
on his hands grew warm, heating his palms. The remnants on his tongue assumed a dark honey flavor, rapidly taking on an overpowering
sweetness that made his teeth ache.
His eyes snapped open, black now and glowing with the dark red embers of Azrahn. To his Azrahn-enhanced vision, the small
treasure room was a well of shadow, set afire with blazing magical lights. The Tairen’s Eye crystals were near-blinding prisms
of multicolored light. He splayed his blood-smeared hands over them.
“Vi mora ulchis,” he commanded. To blood obedience.
His palms, glowing a dull, dim red, passed slowly over the crystals.
A score of the crystals gleamed brighter, minute sparks leaping from them like a shower of embers bursting from a fire.
He plucked them from the tray and retested the smaller group several more times until he had whittled the score of crystals down to the four that responded most strongly to his testing spell.
Using a similar process, he selected four black selkahr from the other trays, then chose two of his purest, most powerful deep purple amethyst rings to adorn each thumb. Finally,
the High Mage opened a separate set of trays below the first and withdrew two armbands of gold chased with ancient Merellian
runes.
When he finished, he reactivated the wards guarding the chests and exited the small room.
The darkest bell of night was approaching. The time for great magic was near.