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“Impetuous. Rash. Too passionate and brave for your own good, and you take too many risks. You know this, Lexington. We’ve talked about it.”
I did and we had. And I blamed it on my magic, which was extremely powerful and getting more potent all the time. It made me think I could do anything, and I had to constantly fight against that feeling. All of my cousins had a bit of magic—mostly lower level than mine and good for small healings and minor potions. Only Asher and I, out of all of our family, had inherited the magic of our grandmother, who, though an omega, had been legendary in her day. It had mostly skipped my brothers entirely, though my grandmother had passed on many other noble qualities, like courage and intelligence and a keen sense of honor.
Harrison was a great man and a good king, but he had very little magic, if any. Fortunately, I had enough for all of us.
The thing about my grandmother’s magic was that it was tinged, ever so slightly, with the darker elements of the craft. It probably meant that we’d had a warlock operating somewhere far back in our lineage, and we had to constantly fight against the urges that had come down through our blood. My cousin and pack brother Asher’s darker side was even worse than mine, which was why he turned down leading our pack, even though he was almost as strong as I was. He felt he wouldn’t be the best leader, because he might be persuaded by extreme greed or lust.
“I have another plan for you,” Harrison was saying. “I’d like you to help me with an important mission. I need you to cross the border and go to King Elam’s castle in Igella. You’ll be posing as Igellan. Say you live at the edge of the northern border. It’s true enough and besides, the Igellan queen is a fool. Our spies tell us she’s unintelligent and doesn’t venture much past her castle walls. She won’t bother to check who you say you are, once she sees the color of your gold and if you agree to her plan. Negotiate an offer to this Queen Berinda for her stepson and tell her you’re willing to do what she wants. Give her plenty of gold—I’m sure she’ll go along with it.”
“But to what purpose? I’m not going to kill this boy, and I don’t want to bind myself and my pack with him either. Besides that, rumor has it that the boy is a warlock, the son of the Warlock Queen Vesper. His energy could be disastrous for both me and Asher.”
“That’s what they say about the boy, but it’s rumors only. If he is a warlock, simply bind his powers. He’s an omega, Lexington. He won’t fight you. I need you to do this for me, brother, so that when the time comes, and King Elam is gone, I’ll be able to count on you taking over Igella as Regent, instead of someone else who will no doubt be a murdering, cutthroat bastard who could pose a threat to us. We could join our two countries for the good of them both. Anyone else who came in would be a leader of a pack with no morals or scruples, who will be nothing but disaster on our borders for years to come. Just think—if you and our cousins can do this, working together, it would save lives. It would be almost like a bloodless coup.”
“And I’d be stuck with some barrenwarlockas my omega.”
Harris leaned forward. “But he is an omega, so that should take care of the attraction, no matter what he looks like. Besides, what does beauty matter? It’s fleeting at best. It comes and it goes, but you can help this young man learn to be a better person. Once he belongs to you, you can teach him right from wrong. You’ll have to bind his powers, but if you do, and he gives you children, you may be able to have a close friendship with him and shared interests. As you know, any kind of marriage for royals is about alliances, rarely about love.”
I regarded him closely and saw the lines that were appearing around his eyes. I knew my brother had felt he had to marry a princess from the seafaring country of Sudfarma only two years earlier, in order to secure port access for our country. Her name was Rozamond and she was a stern, religious woman, and not a beautiful one, though she was very striking. She had piercing dark eyes that didn’t seem to match her ice blonde hair. Her cheekbones could have cut glass and her chin was too strong for beauty, but I knew she was intelligent and shrewd.
She was a bit of a fanatic about her religion, though, and that always spelled trouble, in my experience. She’d brought her own personal group of Sudfarman guards with her, and they were the only ones she trusted around her. The Sudfarmans kept to themselves, as sullen and unfriendly as their queen.
She, like many Morovians, had some magic, though her talents lay in prophecy and clairvoyance. She was often able to see things that might happen in the near and distant future. That was the problem with clairvoyance, in my opinion. Clairvoyants always hedged their bets, saying this or thatmighthappen. Anyone who had good observation powers and decent judgment could do the same, it seemed to me.
I also knew theirs wasn’t a happy union, but it was also nothing my brother ever wanted to talk about. His wife was another Alpha, like he was, and two Alphas together never seemed to produce happy marriages. So far, their union had produced no children, but I somehow couldn’t imagine Rozamond with children—she was far too reserved to show much emotion or affection, I thought.
“I’ve had to put my country first, and I’m asking you to do the same,” Harrison said.
My shoulders slumped, and he knew he had me. I’d do anything to help my brother and my country. He’d had to give up on a pack of his own and an omega to bind them because of his status as the eldest child of our father. He leaned forward, still trying to convince me.
“Omegas are getting increasingly rare and valuable. And we’re not entirely sure he’s barren. Omegas come into heat later than others.”
“He’s also a fucking warlock.”
“Then teach him how to act, or if he can’t or won’t be taught, lock him down if you have to and only visit him long enough to get him pregnant. Look, as you know, I’ve never totally agreed with the law about black magic. Likeeverything else in life, anyone can choose how to use their gifts in this world. Warlocks utilize magic that goes against our church’s teachings, so they’re seen as selfish, hateful, and even demonic. The court magicians say their magic doesn’t come from nature and their goal is only to get power. But I’m not sure if I believe that.
“Not come from Nature? Where does it come from then? Anyway, perhaps that isn’t the case with this boy. I think you could change this young prince’s thinking. I understand his mother died when he was only an infant, so she wouldn’t have been able to teach him anything. You’ll have to start right away by showing him the right way while he’s still young. His grandfather was a good man. Some of that must be inside him.”
“Tell me about this Vesper,” I said. “How were her powers discovered? And why did Lord Rory take her to Igella? Why didn’t he simply bind her powers instead?”
“It’s a strange story. Vesper fell in love, apparently, with a young nobleman, when she was quite young. He was tragically killed in the war, and when Vesper learned of his death, she went mad with grief for a time. Truly mad. The story goes that when she learned of his death, she fell to the ground in some kind of convulsion, or fit. She struck the ground with her fists and a small earthquake—no one knew what else to call it—hit her village, out of the blue. Many homes were destroyed, and twenty or more people died when they fell down. Part of her own father’s stone walls fell down too. They knew it had come from Vesper’s unbridled passions. And still, her father didn’t want her powers bound. When she had recovered a bit, she was examined by the court magicians who said her magic was unlike anything they’d ever seen before. It frightened them and they couldn’t control it. Her magic didn’t work the way white magic or even dark magic normally did.
“They bound her in silver chains to bring her before the king, but she was incredibly beautiful and her own guards helped her to escape. No one knows exactly what happened next, but the priests who had her in chains all died. She escaped. Her father, Lord Rory, pleaded with Father to end the search for her and let her go. He argued that the priests had tried to hurt her, and her magic had merely defended itself. He said her magic had struck back against them to protect her, and he spoke of it like it was a conscious thing and not totally under her control. Lord Rory said her magic was a gift from the gods, and who were we to try and bind it or stifle it?
“I think he may have had a point.” He sighed and shook his head. “Father’s council didn’t agree, and in the end, Lord Rory told them he’d bring her in front of Father and let him decide if she should be bound. Lord Rory said she was so powerful anyway that the effort would fail, and that none of us could bind her. That she might be damaged or even killed if we tried.”
“And Father didn’t believe that.”
“No, hedid. But he thought that if she were that powerful, she might be a danger to him as well. He demanded that Lord Rory surrender her to a new set of court magicians. I think he meant to kill her, but Lord Rory ran away instead, going over the border with her to Igella.”
“Imagine that.”
“Lex. Take this seriously.”
“I do, brother, believe me. But Father surely couldn’t have expected the man to turn over his own daughter to be killed by the court magicians.”
Harrison blew out a breath and shrugged. “It was a different time back then.”
“Apparently. And yet you want me to bind this boy’s powers—and if I can’t, you want me to put him to death.”
