Kit moved toward her. “What does he need?” she asked, at the same time Nox said, “What is he planning?”
Wringing her hands together, Tenny began pacing back and forth in front of her bed, the pale pink skirts of her dress rustling as the hem caught on the carpet. “Half a crown was never going to be enough, he said. The instant he found out the prize at the end of the Crucible was incomplete, he started making other plans. Or maybe, he was his contingency plan all along.” She was muttering, mumbling, speaking to herself as if she’d forgotten Kit and Nox were even in the room. “If he couldn’t have celestial power, he would take his birthright instead.Renew his legacy.”
“Tenny.” Kit reached for Tenny’s hand, forcing her rambling to stop. “Please. What are you talking about?”
Tenny’s eyes were wet when she met Kit’s eye. “Mal?—”
The world shook.
A deep, gutturalboomtore through the estate, the very foundation, rattling the floor beneath their feet, cracks spidering through the ceiling.
Tenny yelped as her windowpanes shattered, several pieces of furniture toppling over. She ran across the room, gasping as she looked out the now-open window.
“We’re too late,” she said, her face pale when she turned back to Kit and Nox. “It is beginning.”
57
THE BEGINNING
CEDRIC
Seastone was colderthan Cedric remembered.
A chill prickled up his spine, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up as they climbed the winding stair at the base of the looming eastern tower. It spiraled up and up and up, curling around a pillar of nothingness—a daring drop that had Cedric’s heart pulsing in his ears. Light poured in through thin-slit windows dotting dark stone walls, and Cedric kept his eyes focused on each step in front of him.
“One foot after the other.”Elyria’s voice was a balm in his mind, a cooling whisper. He could feel her presence just behind him, her shadows dancing reassuringly over his skin—a soft mist. Just there, but barely. She’d grumbled about how it felt locked up again, inaccessible in this place, but Cedric wasn’t surprised. He only felt stupid fornot recognizing the wards that Lord Church had put in place here long ago.
Why would he have though? It wasn’t as though he’d known what they felt like, or known what to look for, as a child. And he’d spent little time at the estate once grown. He hadn’twantedto spend time here, he now realized. As though even before he entered the Crucible, he knew there was something about this place that was...wrong.
He loosed a relieved breath when they reached the top of the stairs, Elyria’s shadows receding as they stepped onto the landing and stared down the closed door before them.
She cocked her head to one side, sniffing the air.“I don’t hear anything inside, but knowing what we do about the blood runes the sanguinagi seem so fond of, that doesn’t say much. Are you ready?”
He nodded, cinching a hand around Ashrender’s hilt.
Fire simmered, restrained, behind Cedric’s ribs.
They locked eyes.
And Elyria kicked in the door.
The first thing Cedric noticed wasn’t the smell, though it hit him like a wave—the coppery stench of blood, the scent of charred wood, the tang of raw magic.
It certainly wasn’t the room itself either, little more than a blank canvas of bare stone walls and a floor made of smooth-cut slate, interrupted only by the large, spiraling runes that had been carved into its surface.
It was the manaforge in the middle of the room that caught Cedric’s immediate attention, had his heart hammering in his chest. An enormous basin was sunken partially into the floor at the precise center of the room, bright liquid mana swirling inside. Silver pipes curved up from the edges, though unlike at the magicsmith in Kingshelm, they did not look worn and rusted from use. They did not hiss steam. There was no condensation beading along the places where they were coupled. It looked...new. Unused.
Also differing from Master Llewis’ manaforge was the metal platform that seemed like it was floating in the center of the basin, another perfect circle, perhaps three feet in diameter. Cedric blinked, and only then did he see the thin walkway creeping out over the far side of the basin, connecting to the platform.
That was also the moment he noticed the half dozen cultists standing to either side of the room, evenly spaced along the wall, hoods drawn over their faces. Their wolven medallions, centered in the middle of their dark robes, caught the light glinting through the high tower windows as they turned, as one, toward Cedric and Elyria.
The room held its breath.
Then, as though participating in a collective exhale, everyone moved.
A layered hiss of pain screeched through the room as several cultists smashed their hands against their chest, the sharp points of their medallions slicing open their palms. Blood dripped onto the floor, red crystal weapons sprouting in their grips.
“Stay close,”Cedric said down the bond, drawing Ashrender from his hip.
