Page 34 of Serpent and Shadow

If they hadn’t been there on the King’s orders, it would have been enough that they would have taken matters into their own hands by now.

Valor had scarcely slept nor rested since the fight on Malcroix Bones grounds the previous Thursday, which scarcely helped his mood. He doubted most of his comrades had, either. They were all angry about the delay, about the endless debates among the royals about what to do with one of their own who refused to follow the rules.

But the core of their feeling still stemmed from the outrage that Malefic had perpetrated on all of them.

He was a murderer.

Yet no one in power seemed willing to do what should be done.

If it were up to Valor, they’d drag him out of the tower by his hair, and put him in chains.

“Will your master really hide from us inside his cold fortress like a coward?” Josef called out from Valor’s right, his tone holding an open contempt. “I thought he prided himself on his blood. On his family’s unrivaled power and magic. Is this really all that precious blood has to offer? A sniveling whimper from a high window?”

Saladin turned his silver head. He warned Josef silent with a swift stare.

Josef obeyed, but with obvious reluctance.

Valor looked back to the insolent stare of the wizard on the other side of those iron bars. Rather than appearing chastened by Josef’s words, the tall, gaunt prick made up of hard features and unharmonious angles smirked. From that lip curl and the dead-eyed stare, he was obviously pleased with himself, and pleased with the Praecuri’s reaction to him.

Valor had a vague memory of seeing his face before, but he couldn’t remember where. He tried to remember if it could have been at the school, or at the Sanctum Occulus raid, or somewhere else entirely. When he tried to focus on it, to recall the image that wanted to rise in his head, his memories slid around and blurred in a way impossible to pin down.

It took him a few seconds longer to realize the problem wasn’t him.

His recall was being actively thwarted.

A memory field.

The prick was actively blocking them from remembering him.

It might not even be the mage himself; it could be something in the magic of the castle’s boundaries, something that protected anyone on the other side of that gate.

When approaching them on the drive just now, the weasel-like mage introduced himself as a “servant” of the Bones family, and a mere conveyor of his master’s will.

He hadn’t provided a name.

Valor wasn’t buying the obsequious bowing act, although he had no doubt some element of truth lived there. The mage struck Valor as a true believer, one of those who would skin himself alive if Malefic required it, in the ardent belief he was fulfilling the will of the gods.

All of these dark-magic-addicted fucks believed they’d live forever through Malefic, basking in the glow of their One True King. They thought they would ride that glow far into the afterlife bestowed by gods and goddesses of the Ancients.

But that wasn’t the same thing as being harmless, nor particularly humble or submissive in other respects. Something in his hawk-like, angular face struck Valor as cruel.

Sadistic, even.

He enjoyed telling them to go fuck themselves a little too much.

He’d likely enjoy murdering and torturing them for his king even more.

“I do apologize, noble emissaries of our exalted King,” the prick said loudly, with an exaggeratedly obsequious bow and flourish. “But my master does not refuse you. He certainly does not wish to offend his King, nor the incandescent Magus Imperius. He simply is not here at the moment.”

“It took him that long to tell us that?” Josef muttered to Valor under his breath.

“He is doubtless aware that we are here?” Saladin asked drily, giving Josef another warning stare. “I assume his magics would inform him of that much?”

“Of course.” The servant’s lips again twitched visibly. “Which is why I am outside, talking to you, despite the cold and it being a holy day, to express his disappointment in his stead. But you must understand, esteemed friend and protector of Magique… no one is allowed through these gates unless the master of the house is present. No one. Not even personages of your stature. The rule is sacrosanct.”

Josef looked at Valor, and they silently shared their mutual disgust.

“How inconvenient for his wife and child,” Saladin remarked, even more drily. “Your master is also aware, is he not, that he is a wanted fugitive? And that he has restricted rights under the law, as a result? Including the right to refuse us entry?”