AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Does he know it’s me?”
A shared glance, then Marquin said, “I don’t believe so. It is unlikely he would have let you leave tonight had he any notion of your true nature. With the others—with Marie—it was apparent what they were, if you knew what to look for. They were simply so young that the power had not grown sufficiently strong enough to be a threat.
“As old as you are, Clare, it should be a beacon brilliant enough to draw every mage in the country. But all I feel from you is a bare Songweavers’ talent, and I don’t always even feel that. Were it not for Verol’s Kinthing magic, we would never have found you. I don’t understand how that is possible.”
Because I built the Song a prison and I locked it away.
Marquin hesitated, then asked, “Does it ever talk to you?”
She laughed. “The Song and I…we used to talk. We don’t anymore.”
“The Song. Is that what it calls itself?”
Her throat closed up. She hadn’t meant to tell them that much. She had never meant to tell anyone anything. “No. It’s what I call it.”
“Why?”
Because it was the background song of her life. The one she’d always heard, even when she hadn’t realized what it was. The one constantly threatening to overwhelm her.
She shrugged. “I had to call it something.”
Her indifference didn’t deter Marquin. She could feel his excitement, though he tried to hide it beneath careful words. “We have never truly understood what this power is. Why Verol’s magic draws him to it. Why it is here, what it wants. If you are able to communicate with it?—”
“No.” She stood. “I can’t. Not anymore.”
“Clare—”
“You helped Alaric win the Mage Wars,” she challenged, cutting him off. “Why?”
Marquin would have ignored her question and pushed her on the Song, but Verol interrupted him, answering Clare in a tired, quiet voice. “Because the war was already lost. Alaric had enough people within the guild loyal to him that it was only a matter of time before the whole thing came crashing down. We helped him for two reasons. One, to salvage what was left of the mages, and two, because I thought it might keep Marie safe. Alaric has suspected something of what I am for a long time. I thought that if we helped him win a war he simply didn’t realize he had already won, he wouldn’t look at me too closely. Wouldn’t look at her too closely. I was wrong.”
Clare frowned. “Why hasn’t he had you killed?”
Marquin grinned and it was a wicked, lovely thing. “He has tried. Many times. But given that we are the glue that holds the Mages Guild to his service, our deaths are better off not tied to him. And we are not so easy to assassinate.”
She stood, too much information crowding her mind, the Song eagerly insistent against its cage now that it wanted her to understand, to stay. It wanted her to ask all the questions Marquin wanted her to. But she didn’t want those answers.
“Will you stay?” Verol asked.
Where else was she going to go? “Yes. But I’m tired and I’m going to bed.”
She turned before they could say anything else, her exit as abrupt as her words. All she could see was entire continents disappearing. All she could think of was that the entire world, save a single continent, had been destroyed simply to culminate in the creation of her.
Abomination, Madame Aria’s voice whispered in her mind. She wasn’t certain the woman had been wrong.
Marquin slid into bed quietly, even though the heartstone in his staff told him that Verol was awake. These little pretenses were part of how their relationship still functioned, after what he had done. Without the heartstone, he would have assumed Verol asleep, so he pretended he thought he was, and let Verol decide what he wanted to do.
After a moment Verol turned over to face him, pressing his forehead to Marquin’s. “Is she all right?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.
“Did you see the scars on her back?”
Marquin nodded. He had not wanted to invade her privacy by glancing beneath the glamour, but he had felt it necessary. Keeping the girl alive beneath Alaric’s nose was going to be difficult enough, even if they knew everything about her. And he suspected they would never know everything about her.
“If I might offer a suggestion?” Marquin said. “Don’t let her know that you know.”
Verol opened his eyes. “Shouldn’t we talk to her about it? There are so many, I…” He trailed off, uncertain.
