Maybe the Saghred would refuse to bite the hand that had fed it—and would turn on the one holding its leash. That would be me.
I hadn’t considered that.
My intuition had never lied to me. Right now it was in my face, in a panic, telling me that I was in way over my head, I was going to die, and it was really going to hurt. But I knew if I screwed this up, I wouldn’t be the only one dying. Rudra Muralin was nearly a thousand years old. He’d been patiently searching for the Saghred all this time. His search was over, his work almost done. The Saghred was awake, its containment wards probably now a joke, and an arrogant and deluded elf mirror mage was in charge of the entire freaking island. Rudra Muralin was probably damned near giddy.
He’d probably make the Isle of Mid his first playground.
The air shifted.
That was all the warning I got.
“No songs, spells, or movement,” Rudra Muralin said quietly from behind us. “And the half-breed gets to keep breathing.”
A pair of Khrynsani stepped out of the darkness ahead of us with a tied, gagged, and blindfolded Talon Tandu between them. One of the guards yanked off the blindfold. Talon’s aqua eyes blinked in the sudden light.
A sound started low in Piaras’s throat.
“Khali!” Muralin snapped.
Instantly, one of Talon’s guards put a curved blade to his throat.
“Your voice is splendid, Piaras,” Muralin said smoothly.
“I’ve heard it once this evening.” The goblin’s voice was quiet, but the menace was clear. “I do not want to hear it again. If you make one sound, or so much as clear your throat, he dies—and it will be as much your doing as if you had slit his throat yourself. Do you understand?”
Piaras hesitated and nodded mutely. There was no fear in his dark eyes, just rage. I was going to do everything possible to give him a chance to use it.
“Gentlemen, would you relieve our guests of their weapons?”
His Khrynsani did as told, and unfortunately, they did a thorough job. I didn’t have any steel left on me, and I doubted Piaras did, either.
“Turn around,” Muralin ordered. “Slowly.”
The goblins had lightglobes of their own, and they increased their glow slightly. The goblins didn’t need light to see us, but they knew we needed light to see them. After all, what’s the fun of having a pair of elves at your mercy when the elves couldn’t see well enough to appreciate how helpless they were?
Rudra Muralin wasn’t alone. Mere psychopaths traveled alone; evil maniacs came complete with an entourage of minions.
And I hadn’t heard, seen, sensed, or smelled them coming until they were on top of us.
We weren’t in a tunnel. We were in a room, and it wasn’t empty. Darkened openings in the walls indicated more tunnels. The decor included a pair of chains hanging from the ceiling, each with a sturdy iron hook at the end. Iron rings were bolted to the walls, and there were a couple of other implements I couldn’t identify and didn’t want to. This wasn’t anybody’s happy place, except perhaps for sadistic maniacs like the one standing in front of me.
Rudra Muralin’s onyx eyes were on mine. “Both of you put your hands behind your heads and keep them there.”
When a crazy person tells you to put your hands up, you should at least think about it. When a crazy person with a dozen or so heavily armed friends says the same thing, you don’t think; you just do it.
I hesitated and then slowly put my hands behind my head. Piaras did likewise. I hesitated because I didn’t want Muralin to get the impression that I was a pushover.
“Bind them,” Muralin said.
Like hell.
Strong hands grabbed me from behind. I slammed the heel of my boot down on the goblin’s instep. He swore and hissed, but never loosened his grip.
I called up my power. All of it. If Muralin wanted the Saghred, I’d shove it down his throat.
A manacle clicked on my right wrist and icy numbness raced up my arm and kept going, paralyzing my body with burning cold. Stopping my breath. Freezing my magic. Another manacle clicked on my left wrist as a pair of hands swept my feet out from under me and pinned my legs.
“Hang her,” Muralin said.
My mind screamed fight. My body couldn’t respond— neither could my magic.
Two goblins lifted me and hooked the chain linking the manacles over one of the iron hooks. They released me, but not before the goblin pinning my legs ran his free hand up my body from hip to breast.
When he stepped aside, I saw Piaras sprawled unmoving on the ground.
“Best way to silence a songbird,” Rudra Muralin said mildly.
“If you killed—” I snarled.
“Killing Piaras would be wasteful. I never carelessly discard a potential power source.”
The balls of my feet touched the floor. Barely. It might be enough for leverage or it might not. The cold was gone, but the numbness stayed, though not in my body. I could feel every last bruise I had, and I’d collected plenty lately.
I couldn’t feel my magic. I still had it—it was there, my magic and the Saghred’s power—but I couldn’t reach either one if my life depended on it. And it was going to.
I never thought using the rock was a good idea, but now it was the last thing I could do. My soul appreciated the reprieve; my brain didn’t appreciate the pressure.
You don’t need the Saghred; you can get out of this. Think, Raine. Use your head. Yeah, a hacksaw would be great. Even better if the goblins closed their eyes and counted to a hundred. Neither one’s gonna happen. So think.
Rudra Muralin’s smile was full of fang. He was still just as perfect, just as beautiful. He also didn’t look old enough to buy himself a drink in a bar. Since I was chained, surrounded, and didn’t have enough magic to strike a match, I thought I’d keep that observation to myself.
“You’ve got me,” I said. “Congratulations. Now what do you want?”
The goblin’s black eyes glittered. “I thought that would be obvious, even to an elf. You’re the Saghred’s bond servant.”
“Let me guess—you need me to use the Saghred for you. That’s going to be some trick with these manacles.”
Muralin’s smile broadened as if he’d been waiting centuries for this moment. “No, Raine, I need you to feed the Saghred for me.”
Chapter 26
I hung there and tried to wrap my head around that one.
“You are confused,” Muralin murmured sympathetically. “It must be too much for you to comprehend. I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words. I died when I fell into that ravine. Or to be more exact, my heart stopped. It was only for a few moments, but it was long enough. In that instant, I ceased to be the Saghred’s bond servant. Your father was a mage, so when he took the Saghred, the mantle of bond servant passed to him. When the Saghred absorbed him, the stone considered him dead and the honor of bond servant remained unclaimed—until you unwittingly stumbled upon it. Then the honor passed to you by blood relation—and by what scant magical ability you possess. Unfortunately, the stone will only accept one bond servant at a time.” He smiled. “I understand you attempted to read my works?”
“Yeah, I read them, cover to cover, and I even did it without moving my lips. You needed a good editor; you couldn’t say anything in less than ten pages. They put me to sleep in the tub, and if it hadn’t been for Sarad Nukpana, I probably would have drowned. By the way, he sends his regards.”
Muralin’s smile vanished. “I’m certain he does—and he can keep sending his regards from precisely where he is. When you sacrificed Nukpana to the Saghred, your methods were not only primitive, but inefficient. There is a more direct and personal way for the bond servant to feed the stone.”
The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. I couldn’t tell if the twisting in my chest was the manacles’ doing or my own growing panic.
I knew what he meant. I had read it myself.
Rudra Muralin hadn’t always taken the Saghred with him on his king’s destroy-and-enslave excursions. Sometimes the rock had stayed at home—and it had stayed at full power. As bond servant, Muralin would accept “gifts” on behalf of the Saghred.
Those gifts were sacrifices.
Magic user sacrifices. Spellsinger souls. No wonder Rudra Muralin was a raving loony.
My body was meant to contain one soul. Mine.
Rudra Muralin was watching me closely. “Now you understand. Just as the Saghred’s power flows through you, the sacrifices will flow through you to the Saghred. They merely have to be killed so that their blood falls on you. I’ve found that slit throats work best. Once the stone has fed, I will kill you and the honor of bond servant will return to me where it belongs.”
“You still won’t have the Saghred,” I heard myself say. But I’d be dead—and so would Piaras and every spellsinger in that cell.
“I’ve used the Saghred to level cities.” Muralin’s tone was flat. He was finished playing. “I will gladly destroy one citadel. I can feed the Saghred from any distance, and use it the same way.”
The citadel destroyed. Hundreds of Guardians dead in an instant.
Mychael.
Muralin nodded. “Only the Saghred will remain. I’ll have to wait until the crater cools, but then I can reclaim what is mine. This time I’ll be the one giving the orders; no king will command me.” His lips smiled, but his eyes were the flat black of a shark. “I may even offer my unique services on the open market—for the right price, of course.”
“Megalomaniac and entrepreneur,” I managed past the tightness in my throat. Unlimited death and destruction to the highest bidder.
“Merely trying to adapt to modern times.”
“I won’t take sacrifices,” I told him. I tried to sound defiant. I don’t think it worked.
“The Saghred is willing. What you want is irrelevant. Those manacles will keep you from causing me any more trouble, but they won’t keep the Saghred from feeding.” He drew a thin, curved dagger. “You’re the bond servant; so in theory, this should work. But since you’re an elf… Well, I wouldn’t want to waste any of my valuable spellsingers. Tamnais’s half-breed bastard will make a perfect test subject.”
