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At least now she knew what had been in all those reports Alaric had been getting. Why he kept looking at her so oddly after he received them. And whatever news he had received today had finally prompted him to leave the palace to investigate. One thing, however, still didn’t make sense. “If you are trying to convince him the real Song is out there, that I don’t matter, why would you let all these rumors circulate that you plan to adopt me?” An untrue rumor was the last thing a mindmage ever needed to suffer. And just like that, the answer was startlingly obvious. “You’re trying to make him think I’m the decoy. That you found the Song somewhere else, so you brought me back to court to take his attention.”
Of course they hadn’t actually wanted to adopt her. What would be the point? She was an adult. She didn’t need guardians. She didn’t need fathers. Hadn’t she said so enough?
“Yes.”
“You’ve certainly distracted him,” she admitted. “But though he’s hunting the trail you’ve laid, it will eventually run out. What is the plan, after that?”
Verol shook his head. “I don’t want you involved in the rest of it. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s too dangerous if I don’t know.”
“We are planning,” Marquin said softly, “to kill him.”
She looked at them, incredulous. “How are you going to kill a man who could Reap the city with a breath? A man who can take a dagger to the heart and pull it out without even staining his clothes?” She’d been hoping they had some plan to contain him.
They were quiet for so long that she finally understood. “Me. You intend to point me at him.”
“No,” Verol said. “Absolutely not.”
But Marquin said, “It would be a lie to say you don’t have the best chance of success.”
Verol turned on him. “You promised me. You promised me you would not ask this of her.”
Marquin smiled sadly. “I promised I wouldn’t ask you to ask it of her.” He turned to her. “And I am not asking it of you now. But you stand to lose more than any of us.”
“Quin,” Verol warned.
“He isn’t wrong,” Clare said. “Not about what I stand to lose. But as of this moment, I do not believe I have the best chance of success. The Song won’t fight him. It’s terrified of him and hides like a child in his presence.”
The Song seethed within her, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. “So if you point me at Alaric, it will only be me. And I can tell you from recent experience that everything a black diamond Songweaver has to throw at him didn’t even make him blink.” They shared a look. “So since one of you, at least, had no intention of relying on me, how did you plan to kill him?”
“By creating mages strong enough to counter him.”
She frowned. “Creating?”
Verol rubbed at his temples. “His initial power came from his Reaper ability, but the rest of it—everything that he has become in the years since—is from magical objects he has acquired. Many of them from countries that no longer exist. He Reaps them and absorbs their abilities.”
She remembered a room, objects displayed behind glass cases, her sense that they were all missing something. Numair’s explanation that it was a collection, and her failing to understand what any of the pieces had in common.
“We have not only been misdirecting his attention when we’re gone—we’ve been tracking legends. Every legend about every item of immense power. While we don’t have a Reaper of our own”—he carefully didn’t look at her—“were we to acquire enough of them, and find a mage capable of mastering each, we might have a chance of defeating him.”
Possibilities sprang to life in her mind. Chances that hadn’t been there before, a narrow exit opening from her cage. “How many of these objects have you found?”
It was clear they had been hoping she wouldn’t ask that question.
“Of the kind that hold the power we are looking for? One,” Verol admitted.
She didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. “One. Alaric has Reaped hundreds.” And hundreds—thousands—of lives. “I’ve seen the room.”
“He has Reaped hundreds of lesser artifacts,” Marquin corrected. “What we are looking for—they are all artifacts we believe the Song created throughout history in the other people it has inhabited. They would possess far more power than anything Alaric has acquired.”
Far more power than any ordinary mage could wield, the Song said with satisfaction. At least that answered the question of whether they were as powerful as Marquin and Verol hoped.
Then I will wield them, she snapped back. As if she would be foolish enough to leave Alaric’s destruction—and her survival—in the hands of someone else anyway.
“I would like to see it.”
“What?”
