Corec’s shield spell flared out as one of the red-eyes got a horseman’s pick past his sword. Corec stepped back and angled himself to the side to present a smaller target. The pick, which looked like an elongated version of Boktar’s warhammer, was slow and unwieldy, but it was designed to fight men in heavy armor. If the red-eye got in a lucky shot, the pick could get caught in a gap between Corec’s armor, effectively immobilizing him. Worse, if the man managed to hit him hard enough, it could penetrate the plating itself.

Luckily, just like the red-eyes who carried shields, this man didn’t seem to understand how to effectively use his own equipment. Corec blocked the next blow, then drew his sword back, preparing to strike. As he did so, he felt an unfamiliar shifting in his mind, a sensation he’d come to recognize as a new spell. A faint blue glow appeared, lining the blade of his new sword—the same color blue as his warden runes.

With the red-eye’s weapon still out of position, Corec swung down diagonally at the man’s neck, which wasn’t covered by the armor. He missed his target, but it didn’t matter. The sword bit deeply into the man’s shoulder, through the lighter layer of the brigandine there. The red-eye dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, blood gushing over the tiny metal plates that covered the armor.

Ignoring him, Corec saw another opponent to his left. After checking that none of his friends were nearby, he swung the glowing greatsword in a wide arc, aiming at the new target. The blade hit the man’s torso, again biting into the armor.

Was the blue glow similar to Venni’s sword-strengthening spell? Before, even with Corec’s strength spell, a slash like that would have been deflected by the armor—only a good thrust would have worked, with the tip of the blade finding its way between small metal plates. Corec had been trying to teach himself the spell ever since Venni had told him about it, but he’d never managed to cast it before. He’d begun to sympathize with Ellerie having to spend hours each day studying spells in her spell book.

The second man had been hit too badly to recover, but the first was attempting to stand up. Corec punched the red-eye in the face with a gauntleted fist, and when he fell to the ground, stomped on his back, pushing him into the slush. Whirling the sword around, he stabbed down, killing the man.

There was a clanging sound, and Corec felt a light impact on his left side, even through all the layers of armor. He looked over to find another red-eye, this one armed with a flanged mace and a shield. Whirling around, he took the man through the neck, beheading him.

Behind him, he found Sarette struggling to defend herself from three of the men, and rushed to help her. Just as he did, though, the glow faded from his sword.

Very well. Fighting the red-eyes would have been easier if he could cut through their armor, but he’d fought them before without that, and he could do it again.

#

Shavala closed her eyes. There were too many people moving around to get a good aim if she tried to use both her vision and her elder senses at the same time.

Reaching out and concentrating, she felt the distance between herself and the enemy; she felt the speed of the wind coming down from the mountains; she felt the chill in the air that would slow down her shot. She nocked an arrow, but bided her time—the red-eyed men had surrounded her friends, and if her target moved at the last moment, she might hit the wrong person.

She waited for the right time. From experience, she knew her arrows would bounce off the men’s armor, and the pull of her bow wasn’t strong enough to penetrate bone unless she got lucky. The only good hits were to an eye, the throat, or the neck. Or a leg, since their armor didn’t extend all the way down, but hitting a leg wouldn’t take them out of the fight.

There was a sharp clacking sound to her right as Gregor loosed a crossbow bolt, then he cursed in the stormborn language. Shavala opened her eyes to see the bolt sticking out of a red-eye’s back. It had gone through the armor but only penetrated an inch or two into the man’s body. The red-eye moved stiffly, but still stood, ignoring the injury.

“The legs,” Shavala said, “but be careful.” The crossbow was strong enough to break through a man’s skull, but she wasn’t sure if Gregor was good enough to pull off a headshot, and she didn’t want to suggest it while her friends were in the middle of the melee. He nodded but didn’t reply, grabbing a metal claw-like device from his belt to cock his crossbow again.

Shavala turned her attention back to the fight, and saw one of the red-eyed men far enough away from the others that she could risk a shot. He was facing to the side, so she quickly took aim at his neck and fired, then fired again before the first arrow reached its target. Her shots were a few inches low and to the left, so she closed her eyes and adjusted her aim with just her elder senses. Her third arrow ricocheted off the metal cap he wore, and the fourth hit him just below his right ear.

He swayed, then fell to the ground.

Shavala looked for another target, but found more than she wanted—five men had broken off from the main skirmish and were coming straight at them.

Katrin lifted her flute to her lips and played, while Bobo stepped in front of her, clutching his cudgel with white knuckles. Ellerie whispered indistinct words, and launched three darts of light at the man in the lead. The red-eye paused but didn’t fall, so she cast the same spell again, killing him. Gregor shot at the next man’s leg. He hit, and his target collapsed to the ground, but continued crawling toward them.

Katrin stopped playing. “It’s not working!” she exclaimed.

Shavala glanced up at the sky, but there wasn’t enough cloud cover to be of any help, so she handed her bow to Katrin and stepped in front of the group.

Old Arvillin had once told her that fire was the most difficult to control out of all the elements, but Shavala had never found that to be the case. Fire was the only magic she used on a daily basis, even if it was usually limited to lighting the campfire.

She’d only used it as a weapon once before, but she was stronger now than she had been then. Holding her palms out, facing forward, she summoned flames, calling more than she’d ever called in her life.

The air directly in front of her caught fire, billowing out to catch the three red-eyes who still stood. Gregor cursed in surprise, stumbling backward and falling down as he stared at the conflagration. Shavala ignored him, keeping her attention on her opponents.

Two of the red-eyes died soundlessly, burning and falling to the ground. The third screamed and tried to run to Shavala’s left. She followed him with her hand, redirecting the stream of flame until he, too, collapsed and stopped moving.

Ellerie drew her rapier and made quick work of the man Gregor had shot. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she murmured.

Shavala just sighed, staring down at the dead men. It seemed like such a waste. “We’d better help the others.”

#

Treya dodged out of the way of the red-eye’s sword, then dashed in and punched his nose as hard she could, her fist blazing with white light. His head rocked back, and he stood stunned while she moved to the side and struck at a sensitive spot at the base of his skull, behind his ear.

He dropped, but before she could find another target, there was a sharp, stinging pain in her left arm. The arm flopped uselessly at her side, bleeding on her tunic, but she channeled healing magic to it even as she spun around to find the swordsman behind her. He brought his sword back to swing again, but she’d finished the healing and rushed at him. Rather than waste time lining up a shot at his head, she hit him directly in the armor instead, and then again and again. She continued hitting his chest, pushing him back, and when he tried to swing, she caught his sword arm in her hands and forced it down against her knee, cracking the bone. He didn’t cry out—the red-eyes almost never did—but he dropped his weapon. She gave him one last punch to the jaw, knocking him out.

Stopping to catch her breath, she looked around at the battlefield. Over half of the red-eyes were down, and the rest were already engaged. Then she saw two more approaching from the other side of the village. She squared her shoulders and ran toward them, but stopped suddenly.

She knew them. They were dirty and gaunt, but still recognizable. One had brown hair and a missing front tooth; the other had long blond hair and a bushy beard. All of the red-eyes had gone without shaving for weeks, but this one’s beard was longer than the others’, and even more unkempt than the last time Treya had seen it.

Focusing her strength and thrusting her hands out toward them, she yelled, “Stop!”

A white burst of light washed over the entire village as her shouted echoed and reverberated, growing louder before it faded out. Every red-eye that was still standing fell to the ground, unable to move. Corec had swung just as his opponent collapsed, and he stumbled as the blade passed through empty air. He caught his balance and looked over at her.

“Was that you?” he asked.

“We need to tie them up before they get loose!” she said. “I know these two. I want to try to talk to them.”

“I’ll get the rope,” Boktar said. “Sarette, could you help me? No, wait, you’d better not try to move. Gregor?”

Sarette was barely standing, propping herself up with her staff-spear. Treya quickly healed the stormborn woman, her healing senses finding cracked ribs, a broken shoulder blade, and contusions running across her upper back and left arm. The healing only took a moment.

“Thank you,” Sarette said, working her arm, then stretching it out. “I’ve never felt anything like that. I’ve only visited a healer for a sore tooth before.”

“Let’s hope you never need it again,” Treya replied.

While the others were fetching the rope, Corec checked each of the red-eyed men.

“I think you knocked out eight of them, including your two,” he said to Treya. “There are a few more that are injured but still alive. You’ve met these two before?”

“Briefly. They’re mercenaries, but they weren’t like this then. Something changed them.”

Katrin had grabbed several lengths of rope from Boktar and brought them over. Together, she and Treya tied up the two men. Once their feet were bound together and their arms tied behind them, Corec dragged them over to lean up against the last remaining wall of one of the burned-out buildings.

Treya knelt in the snow beside the two men, laying a palm across each of their greasy foreheads. Unlike the imps, the men had fallen unconscious, so at least she didn’t have to look into their disturbing red eyes while she worked. Extending her healing senses, she found an oily black aura coating their minds. It wasn’t a physical injury that could be healed, but it was the source of the wrongness she’d felt from the red-eyes in the past.

Corec asked, “Do you want me to wake them up so you can try to speak to them?” The rest of the group had gathered around, having finished binding the other attackers.

Treya shivered at the thought of talking to the men in their current state. “I don’t think they could answer me right now. I’m going to try something first. If they wake up in the middle of it, hold them still.”

Corec nodded, and he and Boktar each braced themselves by one of the men.

Treya extended her senses again and began a spell she’d never tried before—one she’d never even thought of before, but it felt like the right thing to do. It was less like healing and more like she was back at the chapter house, scrubbing a dirty floor. She scoured the oily aura away from the men’s minds until the sense of wrongness was gone.

Then she wiped her hands against her tunic and stood up, not wanting to be so close to the men when she spoke to them. Their parting hadn’t been on good terms.

“All right,” she said, “Corec, wake yours up, but don’t untie him.”

Corec shook the blond man awake. His eyes were clear as they darted back and forth, the red having faded back to his normal blue.

“Des,” Treya said in a cold voice.

“What happened?” he said, panicked. “Where am I?” He struggled, then struggled more when he realized he was bound.

“Stop trying to move,” she said, standing directly in front of him. “Do you remember me?”

His eyes blinked rapidly until he managed to focus on her. “You…the road. You hit me!”

“I’ll do worse than that this time if you don’t answer my questions. Do you know how you got here?”

“Running. I had to run a lot, even in the snow. I’m so hungry!”

“I’ll give you food if you tell me what happened. Why did you attack us?”

“He made me!”

“Who?”

“The voice! He talks in my head and makes me do things!”

“Who is he?” Corec asked.

Des stared at him, his eyes widening. “It’s you! You’re the one I’m supposed to kill!”

“Me?” Corec looked around at the rest of the group. “Why me?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I just did what the voice told me!”

Treya slapped the man in the face. “Look at me! You were heading to Larso, right? Did you make it there?”

Des calmed down. “Yes. Arnol and me, we went to Telfort and joined up. There’s a big group of us, almost two thousand.”

“Mercenaries?” Corec asked.

“Yes, a whole brigade, and we work for the prince. The real army, they don’t like us. We get paid more ‘an them.”

“How did you end up here? We’re over a thousand miles away from Telfort.”

“I told you! The voice!”

“Des!” Treya said sharply. “What happened after you joined the prince’s mercenaries? Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t leave! Prince Rusol, he had contests and took the best squads for…” Des trailed off, squinting as he looked toward the horizon. “He wanted us to do something special, he said. Double pay. I took it. Who’s going to turn down double pay?”

“Then what happened?”

“I…I don’t remember. That’s when the voice started. But there was food there, and it was warm. We stayed there for a long time. Then the voice made us run here, and it’s so cold!”

“You killed the villagers,” Ellerie said flatly.

Des’s face grew shifty. “I don’t remember that. Maybe they were already dead. Maybe some ran away. The voice made us wait here for you.”

Corec stood suddenly. “Prince Rusol,” he said. “Why would Prince Rusol be sending people to kill me?”

“You’re from Larso,” Katrin said.

“Yes, but I can’t think of any reason why he’d want to kill me. I’ve never even met the man.”

“They don’t like magic there,” Boktar said.

“No, but hunting down mages who’ve left the kingdom? They don’t even kill mages in the kingdom anymore, not for centuries. They just chase them away. And this has to be magic, right?” Corec pointed toward the fallen red-eyes.

“Do you know anything about him?” Ellerie asked.

“Not much. I was in Telfort once or twice, but never near the palace, and he didn’t join the knights. It was something of a scandal at the time. His brother joined, but I didn’t meet him either. They kept him in Telfort to protect him, rather than letting him serve at the borders. Not that it did much good—I heard he died a while back anyway. Rusol is the heir now.”

“Could it be something to do with your father?” Katrin asked.

“I haven’t been back to check my mail since summer, but the last I heard, it sounded like things were fine at home. This doesn’t make any sense. How can a prince of Larso be involved with magic?”

“It might be worse than that,” Ellerie said. “Treya’s a priestess. If she was able to banish the spell, it may have been demonic magic.”

“There’s a demon in Telfort?” Corec asked. He looked worried. “Controlling the prince?”

“I’m not an expert—maybe we should ask Yelena. But you’ve seen what the red-eyed men are like. If the heir to the throne was being controlled the same way, everyone around him would realize it. The demon might be working withhim instead.”

“That’s even worse!” Corec said, pacing. “What am I supposed to do about that? If the prince knows about it, I can’t warn anyone.”

“I can write to the Highfell chapter house, to see if they’ve heard of anything strange going on,” Treya said.

Corec nodded. “Yes, and I’ll write to my father to make sure things are all right with him. I can’t tell him about this, though—I don’t know how he’d react.”

“You should probably stay away from Larso in the meantime,” Boktar said. “He can’t send the whole army after you if you’re way out here.”

Corec sighed. “I suppose you’re right, at least until I hear back from my father.”

“Will you untie me now?” Des asked, his eyes moving from person to person.

“Untie you?” Boktar said. “After what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t mean to! The voice made me!”

“Maybe that’s true for the others,” Treya said, “but I haven’t forgotten what you did to me.”

Des’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t…I mean, we were just having fun!”

“These are the ones you told us about?” Katrin asked. “From before we met you?”

Treya nodded.

The red-haired woman glared at Des and stepped forward, fingering the hilt of her dagger. “I’ve known men like him before. They never change.” She looked at Corec. “We can’t let him go, or he’ll just hurt someone else.”

Corec nodded.

Des gulped. “Please! I’ll leave you alone! I’m sorry!”

The solution came to Treya in a flash of insight. She held off Katrin and Corec with a shake of her head, then shaped the magic in a way she’d never attempted before. Des screamed in pain as a symbol burned itself onto his forehead. She waited until he stopped crying before she spoke again.

“Now,” she said, “you’ll never be able to hurt a woman again. If you even try it, you’ll experience the same pain, and it’ll grow worse each time.” He started sobbing again.

“Was that a binding spell?” Ellerie asked.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t bind him to anything. I just made sure he couldn’t hurt any more women. As long as he doesn’t, he can go about his life like normal.”

“I’m sorry. I never knew.”

Treya shrugged. “I didn’t give them a chance to do anything to me, but later, when I was thinking more clearly, I realized I probably wasn’t the first woman they’d tried it with. I should have done something more, but I don’t know what that could have been. It’s not like I could have dragged them back to Tyrsall on my own. This time, I knew what to do.”

Des was still crying, but she ignored him, looking out over the unconscious red-eyes.

“Keep the rest of them tied up until I’m finished,” she said. “I’m getting tired already, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to them all right now. But first, Boktar, could you wake up Des’s friend here?”

#

“Well? What’s taking so long? Did the ambush work?”

Yassi looked up from her scrying orb, trying to decide how to word her reply. “You drew them into town and took them by surprise, but the hunters were still defeated, Your Highness.”

After the hunters had been shown to have a weakness to Leonis and his priestly magic, Rusol had sent the last four squads away in a final attempt against the newest of the wardens. Yassi had been tracking the man as he traveled north, and learned he was heading toward the Storm Heights. The mountain range was far from Larso, but not as far as their previous attempt near Circle Bay, so Rusol had ordered the hunters to go after him. Yassi suspected it was as much to get rid of them as anything.

The prince growled, but all he said was, “I’d hoped we’d get lucky this time, but at least with the hunters dead, nobody will be able to connect them to me.”

Yassi managed to keep her face expressionless. He’d never actually asked her whether they were dead, so she hadn’t been forced to tell him the truth. The warden and his bondmates had captured several of the men, and the priestess had freed one of them from demonic influence before Rusol had interrupted Yassi’s viewing. She wasn’t sure if the hunters would remember who was responsible for the state they were in, but if they did, it would give the wardens warning that Rusol was after them. She’d have to be cautious in how she replied to his statement—her bond might interpret agreement as a lie, and change her words.

Luckily, he didn’t wait for a response. “I have some ideas on how to improve them,” he said. “It’ll take time, though. I need to experiment.”

“More hunters, Your Highness?” she asked, not bothering to hide her distaste. This latest attempt had been a disaster. The hunters had killed half the village before she’d realized what was happening and got Rusol to stop them. He’d shown some remorse at first, but then decided to take advantage of the opportunity. He’d ordered the men to chase the remaining villagers out of town, and then had most of them hide so he could spring his trap.

“If it works, the new ones will be different,” he said. “Able to think for themselves, but completely loyal and obedient—just like you. It’ll be easier to hide them amongst the other men, too. Magnus and I have been discussing it. Maybe the new warden will remain in the north long enough for us to make another attempt.”

Yassi frowned. She despised Magnus. Of all of Rusol’s bondmates, the priest of The Lady was the only one happy to be in the position he was in, claiming that a vision from his goddess had sent him to Telfort. He was willing to do anything Rusol asked in exchange for the chance to strike at the Church of Pallisur. He’d been trying to convince Rusol and Marten that their plan to corrupt the Church didn’t go far enough. Instead of just sending Pallisur’s true priests away from the capital and using demonic influence on the unblessed ones that remained, Magnus wanted to destroy the Church entirely.

Yassi didn’t like the priests of Pallisur any better than Magnus did—she’d spent her life in fear that they’d learn of her magic—but Marten had pointed out that Larso’s military might was backed by the Church. The knights answered directly to the priests, and half of the soldiers in the army were followers of Pallisur, as were half of the kingdom’s citizens. A direct attack on the Church would cause a civil war. Rusol had reluctantly conceded his father’s point, but Magnus still pressed.

“I still don’t understand why you want to kill the new warden,” Yassi said. “He couldn’t have been responsible for the attack here.” She didn’t mention Rikard’s name, since that sometimes sent Rusol into a rage.

“They’re all responsible! I’ll find the one that killed Rikard, but we need to eliminate the rest to ensure our safety. Mages with that sort of power can’t be allowed to hide among the people. Who knows what they’ll do?”

She didn’t bother to argue with him. He sounded like a priest of Pallisur himself, railing against mages, but she didn’t mention that out loud again, not wanting another black eye.

There was a knock on the door to the study and Jasper stuck his head in. The skinny, elderly wizard had been Rusol’s second bondmate, after only Yassi herself. He’d been living in Westport rather than Telfort, plying his trade openly in a city where it wasn’t technically against the law, though he was sometimes pelted with eggs or tomatoes. He’d been both pleased and honored when the prince himself had offered him a position…right up until he’d discovered what that truly meant. Yassi still couldn’t forget the look of betrayal the old man had given her as the bond had taken hold.

“Your Highness,” Jasper said, “Samir has returned and wishes to speak with you.”

“That was fast,” Rusol said. “Send him in.”

Yassi glared at her brother while he and the prince greeted each other. She might not be able to tell him the truth about Rusol’s warden bond, but how could he not have figured it out on his own yet? Whenever they spoke, he just listened to the simple answers she was allowed to give him, and he never once questioned how little she said, or how much she’d changed. Why couldn’t he figure out she needed his help?

“Did you reach Blue Vale?” Rusol asked.

“I did,” Samir replied. “I took three horses and switched off, made good time.”

“And?”

“I thought Leonis was about to kill me when I called him a warden, but he got interested when I said you wanted to speak to him.”

“You told him I was a warden?”

“Yes. He was almost friendly after that. He wants to meet you. He suggested Fort Northtower as a middle ground.”

“Northtower? He’s willing to meet in my territory?”

Samir hesitated. “I’m not sure he considers Fort Northtower to be your territory, Rus. He calls himself the High Priest of Pallisur. He sounded very familiar with the fort.”

Rusol began pacing. “High Priest? What about Cardinal Aldrich?”

“I didn’t ask, but I got the idea he doesn’t think very highly of the priests here.”

“Neither do I, but Larso has been the home of the Church ever since Telfort was founded. I don’t like the thought of another branch believing they take precedence.”

Yassi spoke up. “Cardinal Aldrich isn’t blessed by Pallisur, is he?”

Rusol’s eyes narrowed. “You think the blessed priests are gathering together under Leonis’s banner? Could they have realized what Father’s doing to the Church here?”

“I didn’t get that impression from him,” Samir said. “He introduced me to a few other priests, but only a few. There are five or six normal-sized church buildings scattered around the city, but no grand temples.”

“No, of course,” Rusol said. “And we haven’t received any reports of the blessed priests abandoning their posts. They grumble about being sent away from Telfort, but they’re still doing their duty. It’s got to just be a separate branch up north—one that doesn’t take direction from the cardinal. I almost want to tell Aldrich that, just to see his face. Well, High Priest or not, Fort Northtower is still part of Larso, and Leonis would do well to remember that. When is the meeting supposed to take place?”

“He was planning to leave Blue Vale a week after I did. If he travels light, he might be at Northtower already.”

Rusol frowned. “It’ll take my carriage at least a week to get there, and that’s if fresh horses are available at every stop. You’ll come with me. Yassi, you too, so go pack. And one more. It can’t be Magnus, so maybe Kolvi. But we’ll leave her outside the town—she’s not good at hiding who she is. I don’t know how Leonis squares being both a warden and a follower of Pallisur, so I’m not sure how he’ll react to other mages.”

Dismissed, Yassi left the room to find Jasper in the corridor.

“You’re going with them?” the old wizard asked as he fell in beside her.

“Yes.”

“And Samir?”

“He’s going, too.”

“Can you talk to him?”

Even when they were speaking with each other, the bond limited what they could say.

“I’ve tried!” she said. “For years. I don’t know what else I can say to him.”

Jasper sighed. “Then maybe talking isn’t the answer. Show him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t spent any length of time with him since you were bonded, right?”

“No, I’ve lived in the palace since then.”

“This trip will give you weeks together, and you’ll be away from the guards. Show him what your life is like now. Show him…” Jasper grunted, unable to complete the sentence.

Yassi nodded, understanding his intent. “I’ll try.”

They turned a corner and almost ran into Queen Merise, who stood in the middle of the hall, still wearing a dressing gown. She was staring at a portrait of Prince Rikard.

“Your Majesty?” Yassi said.

“Oh, hello there, dear,” the queen said with a smile. “Have you seen my son? He hasn’t been around all day.”

Yassi shot a worried glance toward Jasper, but he just shrugged. The queen had been unwell ever since Rikard died, but lately, she’d been growing worse.

“No, I haven’t seen him, Your Majesty. Has Shara given you your medicine yet?”

“I don’t like that medicine. It makes me so tired.”

“Come with me, Your Majesty. I know where she keeps it.” Yassi took the queen’s elbow.

“But I wanted to talk to Rikard first.” Merice pointed to the portrait. “Look, there he is now. Through the window.”

“That’s a painting, Your Majesty. Let’s go take your medicine, and you’ll feel better.”

“Oh, very well, if you insist,” the queen said. “You know, I was so happy to see you and Rusol get together.” Yassi had to hide a shudder of revulsion. “I wish Rikard would meet a nice girl. You don’t have a sister, do you?”

“No, Your Majesty, I’m afraid I don’t.”