Mikaen’s view was blocked by the broad back of Haddan, until the liege general stumbled aside with a grunt of shock. The entire chamber looked made of hammered iron, as if they’d stepped into an oven. Only the metal riveted to all the surfaces appeared blacker than any iron. At the back, flames roared from a small barred hearth.

  A chair of the same iron stood in the center. Beside it, the withered form of Shrive Vythaas greeted the king silently, then bent over a spread of silvery tools atop a nearby table. The instruments were all sharp-pointed or bladed or spiraled like an awl. Many of them were wet with blood. But it was none of this that drained the heat from Mikaen’s body and left him icy with dread.

  A naked woman sat in the chair, her forehead, neck, and chest secured to its back by leather straps. She hung slack in her bonds, as if she had passed out from whatever made her scream. Her head was shaven, recently from the pile of white braids left on the floor. Rivulets of blood ran down her cheeks and pooled in the hollow of her exposed neck, before spilling again down her chest.

  But worst of all was the top of her head. From her skull, a half dozen copper needles stuck out. As Mikaen watched, Vythaas crossed around his table to the back of her chair. The Shrive leaned over his captive, lifted his hands, and sank another copper sliver, as long as Mikaen’s outstretched fingers, through a hole freshly drilled through scalp and bone.

  Mikaen pictured that needle sinking deep into the woman’s brain.

  What is that bastard doing?

  Even the king looked aghast, turning wide eyes on Wryth. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Wryth lifted a hand, asking for patience. “Prioress Ghyle has proven far more stubborn than we anticipated.”

  * * *

  MIKAEN PACED THE room as Wryth and Vythaas finished some final preparations with the trussed-up mistress of the Cloistery. They measured the copper needles in her skull, shifted each incrementally, whispering together.

  Mikaen kept his arms folded over his chest, trying to hold in his horror, to mask any sign of shock or fright in front of his father and the liege general. He smelled the blood, even the pool of piss under the chair that torture had wracked out of the woman. His tongue tasted the bitter alchymicals burning in the flames of the hearth.

  He kept his gaze away from the chair. He knew Anskar vy Donn, the head of the detachment of Vyrllian Guards, had returned from the swamps, both furious and empty-handed. As best Mikaen could understand, his brother, Kanthe, had absconded with the girl who had miraculously survived the bat’s poison.

  Brother, what mischief have you entangled yourself in?

  It was a question that needed answering. Anskar suspected there was more afoot, plots within schemes. So, he had returned with the school’s prioress in hand, believing she knew more than she would admit to him. To get answers, he brought her before the king.

  Mikaen swallowed and looked at the bloody woman.

  And my father gave her to the Iflelen.

  Wryth seemed to note all their distress. “As stubborn as Prioress Ghyle has been, I fear this is the only way to make her talk. And with our mooring docks smoking and rumors of ships massing along the coasts of the Klashe, we dare not dally with ordinary methods of inquiry.”

  “But what is this that you’re doing?” Toranth gasped out, motioning across the breadth of the room.

  “It’s a technique honed by Vythaas but derived from centuries of study.” Wryth turned to his fellow Shrive. “Are you ready? Can you demonstrate?”

  Vythaas gave a small bow of his head and crossed back to the table. He picked up a coppery box, which had the same needles poking out of it, though each ended in a puff of feathery filaments so fine they appeared more like soft down. He thumbed a small lever on one side and a low hum rose from the box.

  The noise spread around the room and grew sharper, trapped between the chamber’s iron walls. In another breath, its edges grew as sharp as the finest blade, yet toothed like a saw. It scratched at his ears, stabbed into his skull. Even Haddan winced, and Mikaen had once watched the man sew a sword slice across his own thigh without a flinch, even laughing while he set needle to flesh.

  The tiny tufted filaments began to glow faintly, with the very air seeming to shiver around those tips. And still the keening rose higher.

  A pained gasp drew Mikaen’s attention to the woman. The prioress’s eyes were stretched open but appeared blind, her mouth twisted in a rictus of agony. The needles sprouting from her scalp now shone with the same glow as the filaments from the box. Their lengths looked to be shivering in her skull.

  Vythaas studied her reaction until the woman’s expression went slack, succumbing to whatever magick was employed here. Still, her brow remained beaded with sweat, like juice squeezed out of the flesh of a plum. Somewhere inside, she clearly labored against this assault.

  Vythaas nodded to Wryth.

  The Shrive turned to King Toranth, speaking louder to be heard past the screaming of the copper box. “Sire, you may now ask any questions you wish. She will not be able to refuse.” He waved to the prioress. “Her will is suppressed, leaving no space for lies.”

  “But how…?” Toranth asked, his gaze sickly but also fascinated.

  Wryth sighed, clearly seeking a way to explain to those who were not steeped in Shriven knowledge. He finally settled upon an explanation. “You are familiar with bridle-song, are you not? How some have the talent to lull the simplest of beasts and sway them to do their bidding. What we do here is much like that, using sound, heat, and vibration through the air to strip others of their will and force them to bow to ours.”

  Haddan’s voice roughened with amazement. “So, with this method, you’re able to imitate or mock bridle-song?”

  Mikaen felt none of the general’s appreciation. It’s not a mock of bridle-song, but a foul mockery of it.

  “Indeed.” Wryth turned to the king and waved toward the prioress. “Ask what you wish to know.”

  The king stepped forward, wincing at the noise as he drew nearer to the chair. “Prioress Ghyle, what role did you play in the disappearance of my son Kanthe?”

  Those dull eyes found the strength to shift and settle on Toranth. Her cracked lips parted. “I … told him. A … A great danger comes. Moonfall … it will end all.”

  Mikaen noted the king’s shoulders rise. He knew how much store his father placed in portents of the future. Toranth kept as many soothers and bone-tossers in his palacio as he did pleasure serfs.

  “Who speaks of such doom?” Toranth asked.

  “Al … chymist Frell. He calibrated … stars. And another, too…”

  “Who?”

  “A girl … Nyx … heard in warnings from the cries of Mýr bats.”

  Haddan scoffed loudly.

  The king waved him silent.

  Wryth shrugged. “True or not, the prioress believes it. She cannot lie.”

  Haddan still was having none of it. If the general couldn’t strike it with a sword, he didn’t believe it existed. “Prioress Ghyle was born in the Southern Klashe, which means she has deep family roots there. Mayhap this is some plot seeded into her by our enemy, to sow discord. Spreading rumors of doom in a time of war will weaken convictions when we’ll need them at their strongest. Look what it’s already done to your son, sire.”

  Toranth scowled. “What does any of this have to do with Kanthe?”

  The question was directed at Haddan, but the prioress heard and could not stop from answering. Her brow ran with sweat as she clearly fought this bridling. “He … seeks to help … his sister.”

  Mikaen stiffened, unfolding his arms. “Sister?”

  “The girl who speaks for the Mýr … she … is Marayn’s … Marayn’s lost daughter.”

  Mikaen did not understand, but his father clearly did. He stumbled away from the woman’s words.

  “No…” the king moaned. “It cannot be.”

  Toranth swung to Wryth, who looked equally shocked.

  “You said the babe was dead,” the king accused.

  “So we all believed,” Wryth answered, but his expression grew shadowed.

  Toranth’s face darkened with fury. “A child you portended, Wryth. A girl, just as you prophesied. One who would end the Crown, and with it, the world.”

  Mikaen knit his father’s words together, building the fabric of the tale of the Forsworn Knight. He and Kanthe had whispered such chilling rumors of their family’s secret history, nestled under their bedsheets at night, when they were still boon companions, before being separated between Kepenhill and the Legionary.

  Haddan’s expression remained skeptical. “More likely the girl is nothing but a ploy of the Klashe, to sway a second-born prince to pair with a supposed daughter of the king, to use such stories to stir insurrection against the true heir.”

  The general glanced back to Mikaen, who in turn pictured the small bump in Lady Myella’s belly.

  “Even if she is Marayn’s lost daughter,” Toranth countered, “we don’t even know if the girl is of my loins or the traitor Graylin’s.”

  Their discussion was interrupted by a pained cry from the chair. The prioress struggled against her bonds, her arms yanking at the cuffs that bound her wrists to the chair. Still, she could not stop the words from escaping her throat.

  “Graylin … Graylin goes to her even now,” she gasped out. “To Havensfayre.”

  The king swung back to her with a bellow. “What?”

  Vythaas brought the copper box closer to the chair, clearly trying to grind the woman back under his thumb.

  Mikaen knew from Anskar’s report that Kanthe and the others had fled up the Path of the Fallen. No one knew if they had survived such a climb, as Anskar’s men had been driven back by some scourge rooted there. Still, if Kanthe had made it to Cloudreach, his most likely goal would be to reach the woodland trading post of Havensfayre. There was nothing else up there. Knowing that, the king had already ordered a warship to be readied for a flight up to Cloudreach to scout for the missing prince.

  Mikaen watched his father sag, as if he were a punctured wyndship. He knew how much the king had loved Graylin, a friend from his earliest years. Toranth had punished the oathbreaker but spared his life, banishing him instead. Everyone had thought the Forsworn Knight had died in exile.

  Apparently not.

  And if not, Graylin was proving himself to be an oathbreaker once again. He swore never to return to Hálendii, to never set a boot upon the kingdom’s soil.

  Even Haddan recognized how mercy could bite you in the arse. “Can there be any doubt that insurrection is being stoked? The king’s son, a suspected daughter, and now a disgraced knight of the realm returned. They must be stopped before this rancor spreads and roots deeper.”

  Toranth nodded, his face hardening with the general’s passion.

  Wryth, though, was not done with their prisoner. He crossed closer. His eyes narrowed, watching her continued thrashing. Vythaas closed on her other side with his accursed screaming box.

  “What are you fighting not to tell us, Prioress Ghyle?” he asked coldly.

  Her eyes rolled back, showing only white. Froth flecked her lips, which stretched to lines of agony. Still, the copper needles glowed even brighter, stabbing deeper into her will.

  She screamed, returning to her native tongue. Klashean words burst from her pained throat. “Vyk dyre Rha!… Vyk dyre Rha se shan benya!”

  Wryth rocked back a step. Vythaas shuddered, almost losing hold of the copper box. He fumbled to keep hold of it—but it was enough for the prioress to regain herself.

  Her eyes snapped to center. Pain turned to fury. She yanked an arm free of its cuff, ripping skin. She lunged out and snatched a long blade from the nearby table. Before anyone could stop her, she plunged the knife into her throat.

  Wryth grabbed for her hand, but she twisted the blade and yanked it back out with a great fountain of blood. She stared with such hatred that the Shrive fell back a step.

  Then in a few hard breaths, life faded from those eyes.

  The king grabbed Wryth by the shoulder. “What did she say at the end? What did she mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Wryth said. “Just nonsense churned up as she fought to free her will. She clearly did not want us to know more.”

  Mikaen suspected the Shrive was lying. Even the king squinted hard at Wryth. But Haddan had heard enough.

  “No matter. This is all further proof of a plot to spread discord and divide the kingdom,” Haddan said. “A scheme fueled by the Klashe and orchestrated by one of their own. We must stamp it out immediately.”

  Wryth turned to them. “The general is correct. This must be ended before any war begins.”

  Toranth nodded. His face was as red as Mikaen had ever seen it. “Haddan, you will command the warship headed to Cloudreach. In fact, double those forces. We will end this, once and forever.”

  The king turned to his bright son. “And you will go, too, Mikaen. It is time for you to stake your claim against your brother’s betrayal. All of Hálendii must witness it, to end all possible question of lineage.”

  Mikaen bowed, accepting this harsh duty. He knew, with the war to come, he would need to shine brighter than ever, to be the flag that the kingdom rallied around. Still, he also knew why his father risked his first son in such an endeavor.

  He pictured Lady Myella’s belly ripening with promise.

  The Massif royal line would hold—must hold—no matter what.

  40

  AFTER ASSIGNING ANOTHER of the Iflelen to guide the royal party back to Highmount, Wryth fled farther from the sun. He descended a half league to the true heart of the dark god’s domain—and the secret buried there for seven centuries.

  He had left Vythaas in his scholarium, where the man intended to split the prioress’s skull and pick through her brain. Vythaas intended to discern what had worked and what had failed in his procedure, all to further hone his method. The Iflelen—like all Shriven—knew knowledge was seldom gained from sudden bursts of insight, but more through painstaking failures and tiny triumphs. Few appreciated the centuries it took to gather what the ancients had abandoned and to shine such artifacts back to life.

  Which was especially true for what lay ahead.

  Wryth reached a set of tall ebonwood doors, inscribed with the horn’d snaken. As he pushed through, he split the sigil into halves and entered the inner sanctum of the Iflelen. It was not unlike the main hall far above, a dome of polished obsidian. The chamber was also lined by doors marked for various avenues of studies, all pertaining to what this chamber held.

  The breadth of the room contained a convoluted web of copper tubes and blown-glass tanks, running and bubbling with arcane alchymicals. It stretched from the arch of the roof to the polished floor. The immense apparatus huffed, steamed, and beat like a living beast.

  Four bloodbaernes marked the cardinal points of the Urth’s magnes energies. The bound sacrifices were all children under the age of eleven, stolen from the crowded streets of the city’s Nethers. Such young consecrations were the most potent for the distillation process. Each child lay limp, their chests cleaved open like little windows. Bellows filled their lungs, blowing them up and down, revealing peaks of their beating hearts.

  Their blood ran through the apparatus’s pipes and vessels. Their young cylls were macerated, then purified at each stage, until all that remained was a concentration of lifeforce. According to ancient tomes, those energies were held within tiny particles freed from those torn cylls, invisible motes that the ancients called mytokondrans. The recipe for this potent fuel came from those same texts. Still, it had taken centuries of Iflelen study to refine their methods, through adaptations and advancements—including the incorporation of living sacrifices.

  Each child lasted five days before succumbing, giving all their life to the hungry copper-and-crystal web. Just a century ago, the same machine had once consumed a child each day, but the Iflelen had improved their methodology over the many years, such was their progress. They also learned how to use those same distilled elixirs to extend their own lives.

  Wryth stepped past a small tow-headed girl, her head lolled back, a tube down her throat. He brushed fingers through her hair, silently thanking her for her gift and sacrifice.

  He remembered when he had first knelt before the great machine, shortly after swearing fealty to the god Đreyk and joining the Iflelen. That had been sixty-three years ago—but it seemed far longer.

  He could barely recall his youth as an acolyte to a Gjoan mystik. He and his mother had escaped the Dominion when he was six, just before he was to be blinded in preparation for his own training to be a mystik in their mountainous stronghold. He fought down the memories of that harrowing time, being chased by Gjoan hunters, the murder of his mother by slavers, his own years of misuse, until he finally ended up at the school of Teassl, on the Islands of Tau on the other side of the Crown.

  He only gained entrance to the illustrious school because a hieromonk, one who had been abusing him at a whorehouse, had noted the tattoo on the inside of Wryth’s upper lip, marking him as a possession of the mystiks. Only rare children were afforded such training. Believing such a boy to be special—and maybe wanting Wryth to be closer for easy pleasuring over the next years—the monk had gained Wryth entrance to Teassl. There, he had excelled on his own, eventually gaining his first Highcryst, that of alchymy. Afterward, he had thanked the hieromonk, gutted the bastard with a dagger, and left for Kepenhill, where Wryth earned his second Highcryst, thus becoming first a Shrive, then an Iflelen.

  Even now, after so long, after achieving so much, he could still awaken that old pain and humiliation of his younger years, when he was defenseless and at the mercy of so many others. It stoked the cold fire inside him, of ambition, of the drive to never again be under another’s thumb. To ensure that, he sought power found in ancient knowledge, intent to let nothing and no one stop him from becoming a formidable force, one more potent than any king.

  With a silent growl, Wryth cast aside such dark musings and focused back on the shining wonder before him. He had dedicated the rest of his life to divining the mysteries buried here. He searched ahead, to where one of his brothers waited.