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“Let me guess. I’ll die when you’re done with me.”
“That depends on you. You have shown yourself to be much more than a mere liegehound, Cassia. You jumped the plane during the Equinox Summit and have vanquished the paths ever since. You are the sort of token I love to unleash upon the board while I sit back and watch. You could clear your way to become one of my Overseers.”
“I have chosen my path, and it is Hespera’s, and so it shall remain for eternity.”
“It is immortality that you want? I can give you that as no one else can. Magic? I can put impossible amounts at your fingertips. Power?” He laughed. “I am power.”
“I don’t want the power I see before me.”
“You will learn to appreciate the offer. I make it to very few, Cassia. Fewer accept, and fewer still survive to become this magnificent weapon you see before you.” The Collector held out a hand, gesturing from Skleros’s scarred face to his spurred boots. “What do you think, Skleros? Will she last?”
Skleros smirked. “Let me play a few rounds with her and find out.”
“I will,” the Collector promised, “if she survives my current match.”
“Against whom?” Cassia asked. “If you call all of us in this room tokens, who is your opponent?”
“In time, you will see the broader board and realize every move you have made has brought me closer to victory.”
“You will not win. The Hesperines will not allow you to harm anyone.”
“The Hesperines have tampered with my delicate instrument. It is high time you returned to Tenebra with me, where I can readjust you.” He traced a finger in the air over her breastbone.
She flinched away before she could stop herself, then hated that she had given him the satisfaction. “You will never take me back to Tenebra. I am staying in Orthros.”
“That is an illegal move,” the Collector informed her. “I am correcting you.”
“If you’re a friend of the king’s, you should know I don’t respond to correction. Ready yourself. I shall be disobedient.”
“Ah, yes, you are quite fond of being disobedient in the arms of the ambassador. Such petty rebellions make you feel free. The fact remains, however, that you belong to me.”
“If you have any idea what I mean to him, you know he will break in here any moment with most of Orthros for reinforcements.”
“I have given the ambassador a mental exercise to entertain him.”
Cassia laughed. “We’ll see how long that keeps a mind mage of his skill busy.”
“His display in Martyr’s Pass served only to give me an accurate impression of his power. I have adjusted the exercise to his level.”
“We have our orders. She belongs to the boss. No hands, no darts, nothing—right to the boss, untouched.”
“He could at least let us have her when he’s done,” the swordsman complained.
“Not on your life. She’s to die after he’s gotten his use out of her—if she survives it. That’s what the boss and the king agreed on.”
Cassia put on the stone face she wore before the king, when she showed no fear, and looked into the eyes of the heart hunters’ leader. “Very well. Take me to your ‘boss.’ We shall see if he survives me.”
A chorus of whistles and catcalls went up around her.
“The boss has his work cut out for him,” said the swordsman.
“But he always has his way, in the end.”
“You are the heart hunter’s ‘boss,’” Cassia realized. “You are the mage of dreams.”
“I have invested great effort in keeping you secured in Tenebra. You should never have crossed the border into Orthros.” Eudias’s face hardened into malevolence that could never come from him. “The Ambassador committed the most illegal move of all. He tried to claim my token.”
Lio,Cassia called in her thoughts.Can your mind magery reach across his game? If you can hear me, I want you to know. We are not going to lose tonight.
