Fated

going to make things interesting. I drew a breath and spoke clearly, meeting his eyes. ‘Only one mage can use the fateweaver. That mage is going to be Onyx. Once he has it, he won’t need you. You think Onyx is planning to come back to Morden with anyone? You think he’s going to share the credit? Why do you think you’re still wearing that bracelet?’

Khazad stopped and I knew I’d gotten through. I kept pushing. ‘Onyx told you he’d take it off if you killed me, didn’t he? He’s lying. As soon as you’ve done your job, he’ll trigger it. Once he’s got the fateweaver, there’s no reason to leave you alive. Why do you think Morden didn’t care about us being recognised? We were never meant to survive this. None of us were. We’re just one more set of pawns—’

‘Shut up,’ Khazad said. He stared down at me. I held very still, and felt my life hanging in the balance. I knew Khazad was waiting for me to keep talking, but I didn’t. Everything I’d said was true. My only hope was that Khazad would realise it.

Khazad stepped forward and held out his right arm. ‘Take it off.’

I swallowed. ‘I can’t,’ I said very carefully. ‘But I can change it so it won’t work.’ I began to rise, just slightly.

‘Stay on your knees,’ Khazad said, and I froze. Khazad touched his left hand to the side of my neck. It felt very cold, and I could feel the tension of a spell hovering in his fingers, waiting to be let loose. ‘You have five minutes.’

I swallowed. ‘I do this, you let me go.’

Khazad studied me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘Agreed,’ he said at last. He held his right wrist in front of me, the bracelet gleaming dully. ‘Do it.’

Have you ever had to work under pressure? You probably think you have. You’re wrong. Real pressure is knowing that if you make a mistake you’ll be dead without ever knowing what you did wrong.

Believe me when I say I worked very carefully.

‘It’s done,’ I said after a few minutes, lowering my tool. Khazad looked down at the bracelet. It looked the same as before. I’d made the same change that I’d made to Rachel’s and Cinder’s.

‘If Onyx triggers it?’ Khazad asked.

‘Nothing.’

Khazad nodded. ‘You said you’d let me go,’ I said, my mouth dry.

Khazad looked down at me and I held my breath. His eyes were opaque, dark. Up close Khazad smelled of dust and death, the scent of old bones. I felt the thoughts running through his head, saw the futures shift. Come on, Khazad. I prayed silently. Be a typical Dark mage. Play with your food.

‘Go on,’ Khazad said, and stepped back.

Slowly I picked myself up. My head spun, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall. My body ached all down my right side where I’d been thrown against the pillar, and my head was pounding. When my vision cleared, Khazad was still watching. I limped away.

Khazad let me get almost to the end of the hall. ‘Oh, Verus?’

I stopped and turned. Khazad was standing there, smiling. The hallway was quiet.

As Khazad lifted his arm to cast the spell that would kill me, I made a small gesture with the fingers of my right hand, the same one Onyx had made.

Black lightning surged from the bracelet on Khazad’s wrist, crackling over his body, and the spell he’d been about to throw dissolved. Shock flashed across his face, followed by agony. He hit the floor with a scream.

‘Did you know death bracelets work on a signal?’ I said to Khazad. The bracelet was still discharging, pouring out lethal energy as Khazad writhed and screamed. I walked back towards Khazad and stopped, my voice absent. ‘They’re old magic, these things. Not many people study them any more. If you understand how they work, you can change the signal. Make it respond to your command, instead of someone else’s.’

Khazad’s head snapped up. He glared at me, but all he could do was twist in agony as the negative energy crackled into his body, his limbs, his heart. ‘You—’ he managed to gasp. ‘You—’

I looked down at Khazad without expression. ‘I warned you. At the ball. I gave you a chance. But you could never believe it, could you? That someone like me could ever be a threat to someone like you.’ I paused. ‘Tobruk was the same, you know. Right to the end.’

Khazad couldn’t speak any more, but he stared hate at me even as he clawed at the stone. I looked down and I watched the black lightning play over his body, and I waited for him to die.

I didn’t wait long.

When Starbreeze arrived I was slumped against one of the pillars. Starbreeze whisked in and hovered over Khazad’s body, looking down with wrinkled nose. She was in her elfin form, short sticking-up hair and skinny arms. ‘Dead man,’ she announced.

‘Dead man,’ I agreed. I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the pain in my muscles. ‘Starbreeze, I need to get to the heart of this place. The centre. Can you take me there?’

‘Middle?’ Starbreeze said in interest.

‘Middle.’

‘Middle!’ Starbreeze swept around me and turned my body to air. I had one last glimpse of Khazad’s corpse, then Starbreeze whisked me forward, through the gaps in the stonework, carrying me the last stretch of the way.

The heart of the facility was a huge circular room. Columns rose around the edge, supporting a high-domed roof. There were inscriptions of some kind on the walls, but the light was too dim to make them out clearly. On the columns were magelights, weak and widely spaced, leaving the room just bright enough to see in, yet dark enough to cast shadows. The middle of the room was bare except for a dais at the exact centre. Upon the dais was a pedestal. Two figures stood before it.