Chapter 4 #3
“It’s that I’m Lord El-Adrel and I can do what I want. Take the opportunity to go, Boggy,” he advised coolly. “Lest I have you removed immediately with nothing. Believe me: that is me being generous.”
“Father.” Bogdan turned to Fyrdo. “Do something.”
Fyrdo looked regretful. Their father had a soft heart for all of his children. “Lord El-Adrel has spoken,” he said, all the answer he could give. He and Jadren had talked, though, and agreed this was the best move. Bogdan couldn’t be allowed to stay in House El-Adrel. He posed too much of a threat.
“He shouldn’t be Lord El-Adrel,” Bogdan shrieked in impotent fury. “It should be me. Me!”
Jadren nodded at a guard to silence his brother. In the blessed ensuing silence, he looked to the other wizard. “Wizard Anita—your decision?”
Anita swallowed shakily, then lifted her chin. “I’ll go, but I’m taking a complaint to the Convocation.”
“Please do,” Jadren invited silkily. “They should know I exist by now.” Establishing his citizenship with the Convocation—given that his mother had concealed Jadren’s existence for most of his life, all the better to exploit him—had taken an annoying amount of paperwork and bureaucratic wrangling, but they’d finally, finally agreed that Jadren not only existed, but was a legitimate wizard, if not human being, and legally confirmed him as Lord of House El-Adrel.
He’d gotten the official certification and seal that morning via Ratsiel courier. Thus today’s little play.
“This is a travesty,” Anita informed him. “I’ve lived in House El-Adrel my entire life. Longer than you’ve been alive. I was born here and I belong here. Far more than you do, boy. Katica must be rolling in her crypt to see what you’ve done with her legacy.”
Jadren leaned his chin on his fist, making his amusement clear.
“Do you think she is?” he asked with a grin.
“Golly, I do hope so. I should have installed a window in her mausoleum so we could watch.” Beside him, Seliah snorted softly.
Anita looked appalled, but kept her counsel, wiser than Bogdan had been.
“I’ll go,” Anita said. “Send your escort to me in two hours.”
“I can do better than that,” Jadren replied. “They’ll go with you now. Just so you’re not tempted to take anything that doesn’t belong to you.” At his nod, her guards led Anita away.
Reluctantly, he signaled for Bogdan to be allowed to speak again.
“You’ll rue this day,” Bogdan burst out, fighting the magical bonds that still prevented him from using his magic. “I’ll destroy you for this!”
“Oopsie.” Jadren tsked, glancing at Seliah and taking her hand. Among wizards, the gesture was tantamount to drawing a blade. Being in physical contact with his familiar allowed him to draw on Seliah’s inherent magic and use it to amplify his own. “Did that sound like a threat to you, my sweet?”
Seliah gave him a resigned look. You’d think someone so catlike in nature—and with a marsh wildcat alternate form—would enjoy toying with her prey more. But he loved Seliah’s tender heart. Dark arts knew, she wouldn’t tolerate him if she didn’t possess compassion and infinite patience.
“Fine, fine,” he said on a sigh, lifting her hand to kiss it.
“I won’t be unmaking any wizards today, though I suspect at least some of you could do with a demonstration.
” But he watched the assembly as he said it and, oh yes, that put the fear of the dark arts in them.
Ironic since he didn’t actually know any of the dark arts, though he’d heard Alise had been studying them and he was fascinated to know more.
But the unmaking was no idle threat and everyone knew it.
Turned out his gift to heal himself of anything short of incineration—and even that might be possible—wasn’t a healing magic at all but El-Adrel ability taken to an extreme degree.
He could remake himself, and he could unmake any living thing.
He didn’t much care to rule via power, but he also wouldn’t have any enemies like awful Bogdan thinking Jadren weak enough to let a threat go by.
Convocation law allowed him to deal with his own minions as he saw fit, but it also wasn’t a lie that the contracts had died with his mother.
Frankly, he’d rather they all just went away.
“Let’s do this,” he said in a mild voice.
“Bogdan, since I can’t trust you to toddle off into the sunset like Wizard Anita here, and since you don’t believe the house is sentient and makes her own choices, here is my sentence.
You will be placed in an empty room. The house will decide what to do with you. ”
“That’s it?” Bogdan threw back his head as far as he was able, laughing in disbelief. “Oh, no, I’m going to be locked in my room like a naughty boy. Maman is spinning like a top! It’s a good thing she’s dead because she’d be mortally embarrassed by the puling weakling nothing befouling her place.”
Jadren felt the house’s intent before the floor began to shift and signaled the guards to draw back.
They did so with alacrity, feeling the movement beneath their feet.
In fact, everyone not currently engaged in a manic rant—which was everybody except Bogdan—felt the incipient quake and drew back, widening the circle around the bound wizard frothing at the mouth.
A circle formed in the marble floor, like an underwater creature pressing against the surface of water, bending, distorting, and finally breaking through, like a brass shark fin.
Seliah gasped and he squeezed her hand. Fyrdo looked away.
Guess they didn’t need to even lock the asshole in a room.
The fin grew—and turned out to be a long, pointed fingernail.
It tipped a hand made of the same marble as the floor, other fingers and a thumb rising up in a cage around the wizard who’d finally acquired the sense to be afraid and had fallen silent.
The hand rose, cupping Bogdan in its palm, those marble fingers and brass nails enfolding him almost gently. Then, as silently as it had arisen, the hand sank again into the floor, carrying the wizard with it, the marble sealing itself immaculately smooth again, as if nothing had happened. Almost.
After Jadren dismissed everyone—the entire assembly more than willing to flee and save their petitions for another day—and he stepped down from the ass-numbing throne, he noticed a circle in the marble.
A thin brass line delineated a perfect circle around where Bogdan had stood, a subtle warning, directly before the chair of doom.
Which was apparently still going nowhere.
Oh well, Jadren had never kidded himself that he was in charge of the house anyway. He turned to Seliah. “Now about those panties…”