Page 33 of Turncloak

But first, he wanted only to observe.

Halant was one of the tallest people Levan—who himself towered over six foot—had ever seen in the flesh. Kissing the boundary of seven feet, the necromancer was wiry and pin-straight, like a cathedral spire. Coarsely curled black hair was cropped close to his scalp, and the severe hollows of his cheeks gave the impression his skull had been caved in and never properly repaired. His hooded eyes were deep-set, dark as peach pits, with a heavy brow and a pair of emerald-rimmed glasses. An unusual cinnabar wand with a narrow, pointed tip hung by his hip, leathery hand clenched around it.

“Haïl Halant,” moaned the surviving Disciple, touching her thumb knuckle to her brow and dipping her head in a reverent half bow. Her greeting was thick with tears—and, Levan thought, a serrated edge of terror.

Around them, the tavern emptied of patrons sensing trouble. Only Çernasti and the cheerfully oblivious lutist, who played with his eyes pressed shut, remained. Levan felt the tension emanating from Miret.

Halant strode toward the corpse, and the Disciple started negotiating in such dense Tarsan that Levan only garnered snippets. From those slices he pieced together that the Disciple’s proposals for her final bargain were retreading old ground, and the necromancer met her with stony silence.

Eventually, the Disciple pleaded, “Can’t you just tell me what you want?”

At last, Halant responded. “Ak tösar Djarelki vol avälti çis.”

A true Disciple would already know.

He nudged at the bloodied pocketwatch with the pointed toe of his shoe. “Where did you get this? I certainly did not give it to you. These belong only to those with an Ülam Kasit in place—otherwise I would not have traveled so far to heed the call. It is rather tiresome, and rather risky, but I honor my final bargains. You, however, are a fraud.”

“I found it in an antique artifact shop. But I am a true Disciple.” She climbed to her feet, every inch of her body trembling. “I see your vision. I know you bide your time on Nomaden, gathering strength in numbers, building your army from the devoted and the Risen. I know you’re building boats. I know you plan to take Irisi first. I just do not know how anything I can offer will give you the jeweled throne you deserve.”

All over the world, powerful mages covet thrones, Levan thought. One of the inevitabilities of being born to a great power, to a rare magical classification: the sense that one must put it to good use. Irisi was a fool’s target—a volcano-and-jewel-crusted island with intense fortifications—but Halant seemed arrogant enough to believe a magicless army of the Risen could take it.

“Küratstula,” Halant hissed, an ugly slur insulting her intelligence. “You cannot slot those pieces together?”

The Disciple lifted her chin, a dried smear of amber honeywine around her mouth. “I’ll join you on Nomaden, then. We both will. Leave our lives behind and devote ourselves to your cause.”

Something sickly, almost grotesque passed over Halant’s face. A gargoyle imitating empathy. “You truly love your friend.”

“My sister.”

Some ancient part of Levan felt a sharp twinge of remorse, a remnant of the version of him who’d once been loved by his own brother.

“Very well.” With a curdled grin, Halant extended the sharp tip of his cinnabar wand. “Ülam Kasit.”

The Disciple lifted her own, and as the jagged end of Halant’s pierced the tip, the simple pine wand whimpered in pain. “Ülam Kasit,” she whispered. “Maršta-vel, maršta-vel.” Thank you, thank you.

Halant withdrew his wand then pointed it blandly down at the corpse on the ground. “Avi viçerak.”

One incantation was all it took.

The dead Disciple bucked, spine arched, eyes peeling wide, air gasped into her lungs.

Her sister sank to her knees and wept.

Levan thought bitterly of all the thousands of times he had uttered ans visseran to no effect. All the times he sat beside the body of his mother and sobbed into her cloak. All the times he felt small and sad and helpless, all the times he questioned why he bothered to exist at all if he could not do this one thing.

The surge of emotion ushered him from the shadows, wand raised.

“Sen debilitan.”

The spell flew ninety degrees west of target, sinking into Çernasti’s unsuspecting chest. The tavern keeper stood rigid, immobilized, an expression of shock and outrage hewn into his paralyzed face.

Hells, Levan cursed.

Magic had disobeyed him again.

Halant turned on his heel with a swish of violet cloak, peach-pit eyes narrowing to knife slits. “Siv çurida.”

Vicious shards of magic shot in Levan’s direction. Levan jumped and swiveled, landing on his feet with catlike elegance. The shards buried themselves in a support beam, drilling small, deep holes that sizzled and smoked.