Chapter 36 Resist Ancient Whispers
(That Make Excellent Points About Murder)
Kazimir
Wind clawed at my face, desperate to tear me from the Spire’s landing platform.
I welcomed it. After a night and morning of fruitless searching, the physical discomfort was almost a relief from the chaos in my head.
Even Griffin’s experimental, exceptional—and nonexplosive—tracking runes had failed to find Pip’s trail.
And there wasn’t much of a trail left to follow from the assassins. They’d hidden their movements with magic, and since I had so thoroughly dispatched the bodies, I didn’t have much to work with.
The Alchemist stood at the platform’s edge, their shifting robes creating a hypnotic display of color against the gray sky. They didn’t turn when I approached, though I knew they’d sensed me coming.
“Your display at the restaurant was… excessive,” they said, their musical voice carrying perfectly despite the wind. “The Writhing Tentacle has been a neutral meeting ground for three centuries. Now it’s rubble and viscera. The kraken will have to be relocated.”
“They attacked my wife,” I snapped. Everything came out sharper these days, like there were thorns growing in my throat. “What would you have had me do? Politely ask them to stop?”
“I would have had you show restraint.” The Alchemist finally turned, and though their mask hid their upper face, disapproval radiated from every line of their body. “The power you wielded—that wasn’t just dominion magic. The Heirloom’s influence?”
Mostly, I thought. The Heirloom had certainly amplified things, but there’d been something else.
“You summoned me,” I said, changing the subject. “I assume it wasn’t to critique my combat techniques.”
The Alchemist’s face twitched. “No. I summoned you to deliver a warning. The other chairs are concerned.”
“Concerned.” I let the word hang between us.
“They’re asking for your resignation.”
Ah. There it was. The real reason for this meeting. I stepped closer to the edge, close enough that one good shove would send the Alchemist plummeting into the abyss below. The thought was tempting. So tempting that I had to clench my fists to keep from acting on it.
Do it. One less complication.
I forced myself to step back. “There’s only one way a chair resigns. They planning to come collect?”
“Not while you’re here, certainly. None of them are that foolish.
” The Alchemist tilted their head, studying me.
“But they don’t need to face you directly to make your life difficult.
What will you do when Lord Gilt decides to fund Auremar’s campaign?
When Lady Zaraiah’s spy network turns against you?
When Baron Revek’s cursed artifacts find their way into your enemies’ hands? ”
“They wouldn’t dare.” But even as I said it, I knew better. The Syndicate had survived this long by being pragmatic above all else. If they saw me as a threat to their profits…
The Alchemist began to pace, their robes swirling. “Your mercenaries have given us victories, yes. But mercenaries can be hired from other places. Your territories can be isolated, your trade routes strangled. Are you prepared to fight a war on multiple fronts?”
Ultimately, yes. With the ley lines under my control—both here and eventually in Solandris—I’d have power the Syndicate couldn’t imagine. But there was another complication.
The voice in my head had been just as loud this morning as it had been all night—a constant, insidious hiss that I couldn’t silence no matter how hard I tried. I’d attempted meditation, fury, even channeling power through my runes until pain should have drowned it out. Nothing worked.
“You’re quiet,” the Alchemist observed. “Calculating odds? Or perhaps thinking of your wife? What makes you so certain you would win?”
My jaw clenched. “Get to the point.”
“The point is that you’re becoming everything the Syndicate was created to prevent—a singular power that threatens the balance. But I didn’t call you here to threaten you.”
I laughed harshly. “Could have fooled me.”
“I called you here because I voted for you to join our ranks, and I feel a certain responsibility for what you’ve become.”
That caught my attention. “You voted for me because you owed me a debt.”
“True. But not the whole truth.” They stopped pacing, facing me fully. “Do you know why I really supported your membership?”
“Enlighten me.” The words dripped sarcasm, but I was genuinely curious.
“Because I saw your hunger for power and recognized it. As a guardian of the ley lines, I should have opposed you. Should have died rather than allow another villainous overlord to rise.” They paused, and when they spoke again, their voice carried an odd note of respect.
“But I also saw someone strong enough to eventually oppose Auremar. Someone whose honest tyranny might be preferable to the hypocritical ‘good’ that lets children starve while kings feast. And most importantly, to stop the destruction that was weakening the Shadow King’s prison every time Auremar performed a ritual. ”
I processed this in silence, too tired to fully mask my surprise. The Alchemist admired me? That was unexpected.
“Of course,” they continued, “I didn’t anticipate you’d acquire the Heirloom and a wife capable of wielding it. That does complicate things.”
“Life’s full of surprises.” I rubbed my eyes, feeling every hour of my fruitless hunt. “Speaking of surprises—did you know my former servant Pip would be at the Gilded Gallows?”
The Alchemist’s mask tilted slightly. “I’d heard rumors the boy had been seen there, yes. Consider it a freely given favor. I cannot abide traitors either.”
“And the assassins?” I pressed. “Do you know who sent them?”
“No.” The word was flat, unadorned. Truth, or at least partial truth.
Without Arabella’s truth-sense, I had to rely on instinct, but the Alchemist had no reason to lie about this.
They needed Arabella alive for their plans to restore the ley lines.
Killing her would be counterproductive. “Though I have my suspicions.”
“Share them.”
The Alchemist moved back to the platform’s edge, staring out at the roiling clouds.
“Consider the timing. Pip appears and then mysteriously disappears so thoroughly that no amount of your considerable resources—or your shadows—can find him. I’ve done my own searching, with the same lack of results.
Then assassins strike where collateral damage would cause maximum chaos. ”
I nodded. “You believe they’re connected. I agree. Was it a Syndicate member?”
“If it was, I have not heard. Did Pip know of the Heirloom?”
I rubbed a hand on the back of my neck. “Not intentionally, but I believe that somehow he found out, and then used that information to barter or even give it to the Hero’s Guild.”
“To what end?” The Alchemist turned back to me, their ever-present smile somehow sharper.
“That, I don’t know,” I ground out. But it’d crossed my mind that Pip was working for someone. Which brought me to another problem. “Lady Zaraiah is at the Spire.”
The Alchemist’s smile widened. “Yes. She’s been quite busy.” Their fingers drummed that maddening rhythm. “She wants you gone, Lord Blackrose. Permanently, I suspect. Do watch your back.”
“So you won’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”
“Because I have no new information to give you,” the Alchemist said. “Perhaps you should focus on what you do know. You cannot remain here indefinitely, hunting assassins and chasing ghosts through the halls. The fate of our world—quite literally—depends on your return to your task.”
Rage flared hot in my chest. How dare they dismiss this threat to Arabella as mere distraction? The voice surged forward. Kill them. One gesture, one thought, and they cease to exist. No more debts. No more obligations.
My hand twitched toward the shadows, magic crackling along my bones. It would be so easy. The Alchemist stood at the platform’s edge, perfectly positioned for a fall that would look like an accident. Or I could simply tear them apart, let the wind scatter the pieces across the Lawless Expanse.
Do it, the voice urged.
No. I forced my hand still. If I broke my word to the Alchemist, if I failed to repay this debt, the magical consequences wouldn’t fall on me alone. The magic would rebound onto Arabella, who owed the debt. And we needed the Alchemist’s knowledge.
“I’m not abandoning the search,” I said instead, each word carefully controlled.
“I’ll be sending my most elite guards to continue the investigation.
They’ll arrive within the week. I’ll be leaving shadow warriors as well.
They’ll patrol the Spire, hunt for our missing traitor, and report back anything suspicious. ”
For the first time since I’d known them, the Alchemist went completely still. “Shadow warriors that can operate independently at such a distance? That’s… that level of power shouldn’t be possible. Not even with your bone-carved runes.”
I smiled coldly. “I do have the Heirloom of Dominion, after all.” I let shadows curl around my fingers. “And thanks to our little ritual yesterday, I now have a rather convenient connection to the ley lines here. The nexus makes an excellent anchor point, don’t you think?”
The Alchemist was silent for a long moment, and I could practically feel them reassessing the threat I posed. Finally, they nodded slowly, as if they’d expected nothing less than my immediate exploitation of the power they’d helped me access.
“Very well. Your shadows may remain, though I expect them to follow the Spire’s rules of engagement. No killing without cause.”
“They’ll be perfect guests,” I assured them, the lie rolling off my tongue. My shadows would follow my rules, no one else’s.