Chapter 5
TESTIMONY
Iwas surprised to hear Portia support my testimony. And so was the Court. But, regardless, she’d caught their attention. A third chair materialized.
Vela indicated the chair. “Please be seated.”
Portia obliged, looking confident and relaxed. I wish I could be confident and relaxed. Actually, I’d settle for confident or relaxed, but unfortunately both eluded me. I was so tired.
Vela, on the other hand, was as alert as a hawk on the hunt. “You claim Prince Fenris abducted the Apprentices from Gaia. You also claim to have evidence to back up this accusation.”
“He did. And I do.” Portia smiled, unruffled by Vela’s intimidating presence.
It made sense. Vela was a powerhouse, but Portia was in a league all her own, at least compared to the rest of us in this room.
Portia was a Paragon of Magic—the Princess of Portals, to be exact.
That made her the most powerful Dreamweaver in all the Many Realms. And she was also kind of a spirit.
At least that’s what Capricorn had told me.
Come to think of it, where was Capricorn anyway? I hadn’t seen her or Scorpio since we’d escaped Fenris’s dungeon.
Vela glanced at the eleven members seated on their golden thrones. They nodded. They wanted to hear more. If nothing else, Portia had piqued their curiosity.
Vela looked at Portia. “Tell us what you know.”
I checked the hope rising inside of me. I couldn’t take any more disappointment today.
Portia was the Princess of Portals and a powerful Dreamweaver.
I just didn’t see how any of that would help us here.
Did the Court members even know she was a Paragon?
Unlikely. They weren’t treating her with any special reverence.
“Savannah Winters is telling you the truth,” Portia said. “Prince Fenris kidnapped the Gaian Apprentices and experimented on them.”
“And how can you know this?” Vela asked.
I was wondering the same thing. I hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences to Portia. She didn’t really know me. And she hadn’t been anywhere near the scene of the kidnapping or Fenris’s creepy castle where he’d been building his army.
Portia smiled. “Let me backtrack. It was Fenris who stole the Paragons’ spellbook from them.”
“The Paragons and their spellbook are just myths,” said Vela.
Ah, that answered my question. The Court didn’t know what Portia was because they didn’t even believe in the Paragons.
“There is no all-powerful spellbook,” Vela said.
Portia snapped her fingers and the familiar spellbook appeared in her hands.
I leaned toward Conner and whispered, “I thought you said you hid it.”
He looked baffled. “I did.”
Portia must have overheard us because she turned to us. “I know how to conjure it from anywhere. But moving on—”
“Wait, how do we know that book—” Vela pointed at the book in Portia’s hands. “—is the Paragons’ spellbook?”
Fenris laughed. “I fail to see how any of this is relevant.”
Portia gave him a chilling look, and the smile on his lips died. “Oh, it’s very relevant, I assure you.” A table appeared in front of her. She set the spellbook on the table. “The book is genuine. Take a look if you don’t believe me.”
A few members of the Court took her up on her offer. They went to the table.
One of them opened the book. He frowned. “Why, there’s no text at all!”
“Just because you can’t see the text, that doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Portia said serenely.
“It’s enchanted.” The famed Alchemist Lord Daykan held the book now. He brushed his hand across one of its pages. “The book’s enchanted so only some people can read it. If only I had more time, I could figure out which people.”
Portia snapped her fingers again. The book disappeared for a moment, and then it was back in her hand. “Very few people can read it. I can. And so can she.” She pointed at me. “Remember that because it’s very important.”
Several members of the Court gawked at me. Even Vela looked taken aback by the knowledge that I was one of very few people in the Many Realms who could read the spellbook.
“So where were we?” Portia smiled. “Oh, yes, Prince Fenris’s hired help. He ordered one of them to make sure this book found its way into Savannah’s possession. And this mercenary is going to testify to that.”
Portia snapped her fingers, and a man tied to a chair appeared beside her. I knew that man. It was Zenik, the mercenary who’d delivered me to Fenris’s castle. He didn’t look so smug now. He looked scared. What had Portia done to him?
She looked at the mercenary. “Tell them.”
Zenik swallowed hard, then he began to speak. “Fenris is a member of an organization called the Order of Kings.”
Gasps of recognition rose from the Court. I guess some of them had heard of the organization that wanted to take them down and rebuild a new order out of the rubble of their toppled civilization.
“The Order of Kings hired me to kidnap the Apprentices shortly after the Blending, last year and this year too. I brought them to Fenris in exchange for a lot of money.”
Zenik fell silent, but another sharp look from Portia got him going again.
“Fenris also hired me to sell the spellbook to the street vendor named Mistress Meeta in the Emporium. He wanted Savannah Winters to have the spellbook.”
“Why Savannah Winters?” Vela asked.
I’d heard this story from Zenik before, but even so, I waited for his answer with bated breath, just like everyone else.
“Because Fenris had received intel that Savannah Winters could read it.”
“Intel? From whom?” Vela asked him.
Zenik shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Vela looked at Fenris. “Care to enlighten us?”
The vampire prince gave her a smooth smile.
“Oh, I am as much in the dark as you, First Inquisitor. But this thrilling fabrication certainly has me on the edge of my seat. Portia, I knew you were a master illusionist, but I didn’t realize you could change the fabric of reality to suit your narrative. ”
Several Court members laughed in appreciation of Fenris’s joke.
Portia ignored them all. “Continue, Zenik.”
“Wait,” Vela said.
But Portia didn’t wait. She went right on questioning the mercenary like she was the one in charge here. And no one tried to stop her. She sure knew how to put on a show.
“Why would Fenris want Savannah Winters to have this legendary spellbook?” Portia asked Zenik.
“Fenris was sure that anyone who could read the book could perform all the spells within. And he needed her to use the teleportation-between-realms spell to bring herself to him. So he had me attack her and put her friends in danger. And when she was performing a teleportation spell to save her friend, I used a special bracelet to hijack and rewrite her spell.”
“Teleportation magic?” Vela asked.
“Right.”
“So using this special bracelet, anyone who can teleport at all, even short distances, can teleport between realms?” Vela asked.
“No. It doesn’t work that way. You need enough magic, and the spell has to be something you can already do.
Savannah Winters was having trouble channeling enough magic.
She came to Mistress Meeta for help. I instructed Mistress Meeta to nudge her in the direction of a particular spell in the Paragons’ book: the spell that allows someone to combine magic with other people.
Savannah combined magic with the other two Polymages. ”
“The two Polymages standing next to her now.” Vela pointed at Conner, then at Kato.
“Right. And then—”
Fenris laughed. “People can’t combine magic. It’s impossible.”
Kato gave the vampire prince a cool look. “Just because you can’t combine magic, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
But Vela was with Fenris on this one. “Actually, combining magic is impossible,” she said. “It’s written into the laws of magic.”
“It seems like it’s time for a rewrite. Polymages aren’t supposed to exist either. And yet here we are.”
Vela frowned, but his words seemed to sink in. She looked like she was contemplating the idea, even as she flicked her hand at Zenik. “Continue.”
“Once Savannah Winters had pooled her magic with the other two Polymages’ magic, she had enough power to perform the inter-realm teleportation spell. So I just had to use the bracelet to change the teleportation target, and then she ended up in Fenris’s realm.”
That’s where he lost Vela. She folded her arms over her chest.
“And we’re just supposed to take your word for it that this bracelet exists?”
“Don’t worry. We have proof.” Portia smiled. “For those who lack faith.” She snapped her fingers, and a familiar woven bracelet appeared on the table before her.
“Lord Daykan, if you will.” Vela glanced at the famous Alchemist.
Daykan rose from his chair and walked over to the table. He picked up the bracelet, turning it over in his hands a few times. He examined it for several minutes—under several different lenses—until finally he declared, “The bracelet does as he says.”
“Thank you, Lord Daykan,” Vela said.
Daykan bowed his head, then he returned to his seat.
Vela looked at the mercenary. “You claim Prince Fenris set a trap for Savannah Winters?”
Zenik nodded. “Yes, and she fell right into it. Savannah Winters is very powerful, but she’s also very naive.”
I frowned, my shoulders tensing up. I didn’t like his assessment of my character, mostly because it was probably true.
I felt two supportive hands on my back. Kato and Conner.
My shoulders relaxed—slightly. They had my back.
Always. Knowing that helped a lot. I didn’t think I could face this inquisition alone.
“Why Savannah Winters?” Vela asked Zenik. “Why would Prince Fenris lure her to him?”
“Prince Fenris wanted her because she’s a Polymage. Furthermore, she’s an Apprentice. She lacks experience—specifically, combat experience. That makes her far more vulnerable than a Knight. Easier to catch and easier to keep.”
“And what did he plan to do with her once he had her?”
“Fenris captured spirits—many spirits—and forced them to Blend with the young Apprentices he’d captured, but the process didn’t work as he’d expected.
Blending with six spirits is too much power for one body to handle.
His Polymages are dying. But those Polymages—” Zenik pointed at me, Kato, and Conner.
“—are strong and healthy. Fenris thought that if he ran enough tests on Savannah, he’d figure out how to make a stable Polymage. ”
Murmurs rose from the members of the Court, and this time, they weren’t all in Fenris’s favor.
Portia gave them a serene smile. “And there you have it: the truth, as told by someone who worked within Fenris’s operation.”
“He’s hardly a trustworthy witness. He’s a mercenary!”
“And he looks terrified for his life. Portia, did you threaten him?”
Portia folded her hands over her lap. “Of course not. Violence is not my way. I merely gave him a truth serum.”
Once again, Lord Daykan was called to the front. He examined Zenik.
“He is under the influence of a truth serum. Perhaps we should administer the same truth serum to Prince Fenris,” Daykan added with a chuckle.
Fenris jumped to his feet. “You forget yourself, Lord Daykan!”
“Actually, it is you, with all your pageantry and lies, who has almost made us forget ourselves,” Daykan countered, then he turned to face his comrades.
“This Court is rational, unemotional, and just. We do not succumb to hysteria and fear. We allowed Fenris to manipulate us. We cannot make the same mistake again.”
Voices rose from the Court, some in Fenris’s favor, but just as many were not. The two sides began to argue. Discord saturated the ballroom. It took a few explosive spells from the First Inquisitor to silence them.
“The matter will be put to a vote,” Vela declared. “Members of the Court, prepare your arguments. Everyone else, leave the room.”