Carnades laughed, an ugly sound. “Why would I want an empty, barren rock? The students and most of the mages have been evacuated.” He gave me a humorless smile. “However, as a member of the Seat of Twelve for many years, I know the Conclave’s evacuation routes and destinations.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, even from Carnades. “You sold out those children.”
“They knew when they came to Mid that the profession they chose was dangerous. This is one of those dangers. Sarad is well aware of where your uncle and cousin are taking them. He has a squadron off the coast of Mylora sailing to intercept them as we speak, with orders to take all prisoners alive. Dead mages and magelings are worthless to him.”
My upper lip pulled away from my teeth in a snarl. “You’ve betrayed children—and your own people—to that monster.”
“The Conclave are not ‘my people.’ They still are what they have always been—a means to an end.”
“Did your new best friend happen to tell you that the elves are the first people he’s going to attack using that Gate he’s building?”
“I’m well aware of the Gate, and his intentions for it. I told Sarad the locations and strengths of all of the elven defenses. Precision strikes will significantly simplify and expedite the cleansing process.”
Cleansing.
I felt sick. I knew what Carnades Silvanus wanted. I knew what he was going to do.
“My allies in the elven military and intelligence service have been imprisoned,” he said, “but their incarceration will be brief—as will the rule of our shortsighted government. For far too long we have been passed over while those from polluted bloodlines have risen in positions of power. I won’t have to settle for being the power behind the throne. I will be the king of our new and reborn people. My long-suffering allies and I will be the elven government—free to reestablish the purity of our ancient race. The elves have become mongrelized by the mixing of races, the tainting and degradation of our noble bloodlines.” Carnades looked like it took every ounce of restraint he had not to spit on me.
“You handed Sarad Nukpana our people on a silver platter.”
“Not mine. Yours. Elves with certain desirable physical characteristics will be spared.”
“And you will be Sarad Nukpana’s puppet, to dispose of as he pleases.”
Carnades’s grip on my arm tightened to the point of pain. “I will have everything I have ever wanted,” he spat. “Everything I deserve. And unlike you—I will be alive.”
“To bow and scrape to a goblin. What will your pure-blooded henchmen have to say about that?”
Carnades quickly regained his calm. “A temporary sacrifice of my dignity for the ultimate good of the elven race. History will see me as the savior of my true people.”
Then his expression changed. His face became suffused with twisted joy; his pale blue eyes glittered. It was the face of a fanatic. He honestly believed what he was saying. Carnades Silvanus would do whatever he had to do to make his warped and perverted worldview a reality, even if he built it on the corpses of tens of thousands of elves—men, women, and children—who didn’t meet his standards of elven purity.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he said, “but thought I would have to content myself with the changes that I, as only one man, could make. Yes, Sarad Nukpana is using me to get what he wants; but I am using him to get what the elven race needs. The Saghred is evil, but out of evil can come great good. There is nothing that I won’t do, no man or woman I won’t kill who dares to stand in my way.”
“Sarad Nukpana will stand in your way,” I snarled. “All you’ll be is a king of cattle. The Saghred doesn’t care what kind of blood runs in your veins, and Nukpana doesn’t give a damn about your purity. You’ll be raising prime beef for his altar. You may have delayed your slaughter, but you’ll never escape.”
“Little seeker, are you annoying my new partner?” said a smooth, cool voice.
Sarad Nukpana didn’t look like a man who’d taken a crossbow bolt through the shoulder only hours ago, and who had his hands and forearms literally cooked inside armored gauntlets the day before. His unmarked hands were visible from beneath the sleeves of his simple black robe, and he wasn’t wearing a sling to take the weight of an arm off of a wounded shoulder.
The Saghred had completely healed him.
He was studying me as well, his dark eyes shining. “You are a constant source of surprises, little seeker. Or since you seem to have lost the use of your magic, that title is no longer appropriate.” He cast an amused glance at Kesyn. “And my revered teacher, who endlessly professed that the best magic was no magic. How is that working for you, sir?” Nukpana stepped aside and, with a courtly bow, gestured for me to precede him. “Shall we?”
I was looking for a way out, any way out.
Not that it was easy to see where I was and where I was going while surrounded by a ridiculously large and heavily armed escort. We were going up a lot of stairs, which I took to mean up into the main part of the temple.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” I told Nukpana, indicating the guards.
“You should be flattered, Raine. Not every guest of mine warrants such careful attention.”
I raised my manacled hands. “Or this much magic-sapping steel.”All traces of humor vanished. “I have not reached this night by taking chances. You have talents beyond magic. I am merely guarding against any and all of them.”
The main level of the temple was full of robed Khrynsani—robed and silent. They moved quickly and with purpose. Their boss had a big night planned.
These Khrynsani were different from any I’d seen before. Each of them—whether mages or guards—wore a long silver chain with a red, glowing gem. Down the long and wide corridor, the black-garbed goblins blended with the shadows. The only way I could tell that some of them were there was that the gems glowed like mutant fireflies. Carnades was sporting one exactly like them.
Nukpana noticed where I was looking. “My brethren all wear lifestones when inside the temple. Each is calibrated to that individual to ensure their safe passage through the areas they are permitted to enter, and to deny entrance where they are not authorized to go.”
“So you don’t trust Carnades here enough to give him the run of the place?”
“It is for his own protection,” Nukpana replied mildly. “He is unfamiliar with our temple; it is merely a preventative measure to keep him from dangerous areas.”
“And if he does go astray, he gets a chastising zap?”
“My other mages would be alerted to his location, and would politely redirect his steps. Magus Silvanus has not and will not abuse my hospitality. He has been a most generous and accommodating guest.”
“So I hear.” I paused. “So, how does it feel to be on the verge of getting everything you want? Carnades has already told me his feelings.”
If Nukpana had been a cat, he’d have been purring. “It’s a sensation I most highly recommend. It’s a pity you won’t be experiencing it.”
“I’ll just have to live vicariously.”
A pair of armed Khrynsani standing guard on either side of an open doorway spotted Sarad Nukpana and instantly snapped to attention as we approached. I casually glanced in just in case it was a way out.
It wasn’t.
No. Oh no.
Deidre Nathrach stood just inside the room; Nath was beside her. It was a cell, empty except for a bench bolted to the far wall. Barrett was sitting on the bench. All of them were wearing long, pristinely white robes. Sarad Nukpana was a fastidious psycho; he’d want his sacrifices neat and tidy.
Sacrifices. He was going to kill Tam’s mother and brother first, then the elderly butler Tam thought of, and loved, as family.
I stopped breathing, paralyzed with a dread so sharp that it staked me to the stone where I stood.
Nath saw me and ran for the door, stopping short of the opening. There must have been a ward. When he spotted Nukpana, his lips pulled back from his fangs in a feral snarl. I knew Nath, and I still had to force myself not to reach for a weapon.
A weapon I no longer had.
No sound could escape that cell and neither could they.
Sarad Nukpana stood impassively as Nath followed his snarl by screaming a few physically impossible and fatal things he wanted to inflict upon Nukpana’s person. I couldn’t hear him through the ward, but no sound was needed. It was in Goblin, it was emphatic, and all of it was perfectly clear.
Sarad Nukpana’s hand against the small of my back pushed me forward again, but not before Deidre and I locked eyes.
Her large, dark eyes said it all. If I had been captured, then so had Tam, or he would be soon. Her entire family was in the hands of a madman. Her only consolation was that she wouldn’t have to watch them die. She would be the first to fall under Sarad Nukpana’s sacrificial knife. Deidre Nathrach wasn’t chained, just caged, but just as helpless to do anything about it. We were her last hope, and now her hope had failed her.
Nukpana’s voice was crisp and formal. “We prefer to give our sacrifices as much freedom as possible in the time remaining to them, hence the lack of restraints and an unobstructed view of open spaces.”
A dimly lit corridor, lined in light-sucking black granite, would be their last view, before the altar and Sarad Nukpana’s face, as his hand brought the dagger down.
“My first official act as king will be to execute the assassin of my honored predecessor,” he continued.
“And the mother of your lifelong nemesis,” Kesyn called from behind us where he was surrounded by his own guards. “Come, now, boy. At least admit the real reason.”
“Merely taking the opportunity given to me to settle scores. An opportunity passed is an opportunity wasted. You taught me that, and I learned it well. Uncommonly wise words, sir.”
“And you always twisted my words to suit your own purpose.”