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Lio felt the doors plucked from the grasp of his Will as if sheets of paper had fluttered from his hands. The massive iron panels slammed, barring him from the hall, locking Cassia and the mortals in with a Gift Collector.
AN OLD FRIEND
The boom of thedoors reverberated around Cassia. Mere doors couldn’t stop Lio. How could this be happening?
Nothing stood between her and the Gift Collector who prowled toward her. Nothing stood between the Gift Collector and the embassy but her.
She put a hand on the glyph shard and faced Skleros with Knight at her side.
Beyond the panes of the window, shadows gathered and roiled. Storm clouds. The beacon’s light shrank. The rose’s red petals turned a deathly shade, and the room plunged into shadow.
Cassia held fast to her pendant and listened to her own breaths. No one stirred around her.
“Cassia.” A deep, articulate voice spoke in the gloom. “We meet again at last.”
Her chest tightened. She knew that voice.
“You will not remember me, but I am an old friend of your father’s.” His words reached for her in the emptiness.
She had heard that voice in the king’s solar out of the mouth of a man who was now dead.
“One question, as an old friend.” The mage’s voice deepened. Without an invitation from the king, he took the chair on his side of the desk and sat in the royal presence.
From his decanter of wine, the king filled the empty goblet beside his own and slid it across the desk. “What would you like to discuss?”
Dalos took a sip of the wine and savored it in his mouth for a moment. When he spoke again, all trace of his nasal tone was gone. His voice was rich and smooth, his words articulate. “Have you reached a decision on what you wish me to do regarding Cassia?”
The king shook his head. “Not yet.”
“I need to know so that I have sufficient time to prepare before my working.” The mage’s tone had never been so clear and cold before.
She listened to Dalos’s voice, the voice of the man who might be the one who killed her. A realization thawed her frozen thoughts.
She had heard that voice before.
The mage had spoken to her that way when the king had ordered her to his solar to humiliate her. It had not been her imagination.
The king went on, as if nothing had changed. “I will inform you before the hour comes… She has forgotten she must ask my leave before she breathes, eats, or shits. I must make sure her restless aspirations will not be an inconvenience.”
“The hour draws near,” the mage warned. “Do not wait too long.”
“Indeed. I have waited too long already for the day when I have expended her usefulness and can finally be rid of her.”
“I look forward to taking care of her for you.”
A deep instinct made Cassia back away. She stumbled against her chair and caught hold of it to steady herself. Light returned, brilliant as a lightning strike, and glared without ceasing into every corner of the hall. She could see Knight barking so fiercely his body jolted with each bellow, but the room was silent. Skleros stood beneath the window, his head bowed and his hands folded before him. Cassia dared take her eyes off him to glance at Chrysanthos across the table.
The war mage did not rise from his seat. Not a single person around the table moved.
The rustle of fabric startled Cassia. She stared in the direction of the sound.
Eudias rose gracefully to his feet. He gave her a dignified smile and strolled toward her. As if she were a hare and he the hunter, she stood paralyzed where she was and watched him approach.
He drifted to a halt within arm’s reach. Then he picked up Cassia’s goblet of Notian red. Cupping it in his palm with the stem between his fingers, he lifted it to his nose and took a deep breath. Savoring a sip of the wine, he turned, his robes sweeping around him, and joined Skleros under the window.
Skleros fell to one knee and put a fist to his chest in salute. “Master.”
“Skleros, my greatest Overseer. It is good to speak to you with my voice.” Eudias extended a hand and rested it on the Gift Collector’s head.
