Page 33 of Serpent and Shadow

Valor didn’t know if it was fear, simple blood loyalty, or a far more cynical calculation, but the King had blinked. It was obvious enough and dramatic enough that even taking this simple step had required a near five days of negotiation.

During long, rambling, meetings about how to address the “Malefic problem,” Roland talked of blood, of kin, of “misunderstanding,” of the overreach involved in going after a beloved wizard for “disciplining” his son, and inadvertently causing a rift with his wife and tearing a family apart. King Roland seemed to have decided that everything that happened the first time Malefic was arrested was an “overreaction.”

In this, of course, King Roland was brushing over all the missing young wizards and witches, the obvious evidence of illegal Resurrection rituals, the attack on Academy Square, the fight between the Praecuri and Dark Cathedral, not to mention years of talk and speeches and ongoing efforts to indoctrinate his fellow royals into establishing a system where all of humanity was enslaved and Malefic ruled as some kind of pharaoh.

King Roland dismissed all of that by claiming there was no evidence Malefic had any role in such things, nor that Dark Cathedral even existed, which meant he could not use those “suppositions” to condemn one of their oldest and most respected lineages.

The reasons for the deliberate self-delusion were obvious.

Gold still spoke louder than most wanted to admit.

Deference to royal blood, even when it fought to burn down the edifice that gave it power, spoke louder than anyone wanted to say aloud, as well.

Even now, the King hid behind not his own Royal Guard, but the Praecuri, a body already seen as tainted due to its frequent contact with the human world.

They would be handy scapegoats if anything went wrong out here.

Valor’s eyes tilted up towards the sky as they continued to wait.

The snow had stopped falling sometime in the night, but the drifts had all frozen, leaving their boots to break through the crust into the deep powder below. Valor watched one of his comrades stamp a black boot to get the packed ice off the deep tread, but only a few chunks fell.

The silver-haired mage in front of Valor didn’t look away from the iron front gate. At the continued silence, he finally scowled at the sorcerer on the other side of those bars.

Molokai Saladin, leader of the Praecuri, wasn’t a wizard to be trifled with.

Even apart from his title, he wasn’t just any praecurus.

He’d led their sect for over thirty years, and had the scars and the thousand-yard stare to prove it. While all who obeyed him called him by his given name, and he had few adornments to his rank apart from the purple cape, his official title was “Praetorian.”

The rest of them wore all black.

“I have a writ from the Magus Imperius,” the Praetorian said coldly. “Endorsed and signed by the King, sealed with the King’s mark.” A sneer touched his lips. “Will the fugitive, Malefic Bones, really deny the authority of the King he professes so vehemently to love? Even for something as toothless as a discussion of what occurred?”

The Praecuri standing around Valor shifted their feet in silent approval.

Most of them might have been willing to throw Caelum Bones to the wolves, but they weren’t so cavalier about all the young mages and wizards who disappeared only to come back changed. Many had family among the Resurrected. Many had known those witches and mages personally. Many had warm feelings about their parents, or their aunts and uncles, or knew them from school, or perhaps from one of the massive temples of Magical England.

They had other reasons to be angry, as well.

Valor wasn’t the only member of the Praecuri who knew they were being used.

A few folded thick arms over their chests, or toyed with the handles of concealed weapons. Valor might have thought their agitation to be nerves under different circumstances, or impatience, but he strongly suspected what he was witnessing was closer to suppressed rage.

He thought this mostly because his own fury barely remained in check.

A large part of him would like nothing more than to unsheathe his sword and run through this smirking, simpering little monkey Malefic had sent out here to dance with them.

How dare this traitorous murderer deny them entry? How dare he continue to act like the high lord and favored royal successor? After what he’d done?

He’d murdered dozens of young mages and witches with his disgusting magics.

Forsooth told him they suspected nearly a hundred.

Some had been actual children.

Now, with Roland singing songs of reconciliation, and scarcely daring to inconvenience the evil prick with their presence, Malefic still had the gall to leave them in the snow, begging to be allowed inside.

It was infuriating.