Falk had frozen in place. Brenna, beneath her horror, felt a surge of hope that she might yet live… if Falk didn’t simply throw her into the Cauldron anyway in a fit of fury.
“No,” Falk moaned. Then, “No!” he screamed, and then he did throw her, not toward the edge, but to the side. She spun away and fell, hitting the ground so hard the breath exploded from her lungs, and lay there, gaping, unable to breathe for a long, agonizing moment. Through her own pain she heard Falk’s wordless howl of fury go on and on.
Mother Northwind, she thought.
Mother Northwind had known who the assassin was. She had twisted that poor boy… made him kill himself instead of the king. And before that he had been twisted by Falk, maybe not through magic, but through blackmail or threats or one of the many other ways a man like Falk could exert pressure on someone young and helpless.
And even though that had been all that had saved her own life, at that moment, as she gasped for air by the Cauldron that was the beating heart of the MageLords’ domain, she hated both of them as much for what they had done to that poor naked boy as for what they had done to her.
CHAPTER 27
Falk bit off his howl of fury. He glared at the place where the magelink had been, willing it back into existence, but saw nothing but flame-tinged clouds and swirling, blood-colored snow. A vast roar filled his ears, and his vision grayed. Twenty years, he thought, the words pushing through the roaring like the rivers of bright yellow rising to the black surface of the caldera below. Twenty years preparing for the moment when I would hold the Heir, the King would die, the spell would be performed, the Keys would come to me… for twenty years I worked and waited, twenty years I plotted and schemed, twenty years…
… and as quickly as one of the rivers of lava plunging out of sight beneath the black, stinking rock below, the moment had come, and gone… and all had failed.
The boy had killed himself, instead of the King. The boy had killed himself. Falk had never imagined such a possibility, never imagined the youngster he had groomed for this task through threats and bribes, seduction and carefully orchestrated rape, would take his own life at the climactic moment.
He had the knife at the King’s throat. He had the knife at the King’s throat!
And now…
Killing the King was no problem. There were a dozen ways Falk could kill the King or have him killed. But killing the King while Falk stood here at the Cauldron with the Heir in his grasp and a mage ready to perform Tagaza’s spell…
How much longer before he could make a second attempt?
That thought snapped him back from the confusion and horror of the moment. So it’s a setback, he snapped at himself. A major one. But it’s not the end. I still have the Heir. I still know the spell. We’ll return to the Palace, I’ll conduct the investigation into the boy’s death…
… and assign a new bodyguard to the King…
He slammed his dagger back into its sheath, then turned and strode toward Brenna, who lay on her back, breathing as though it pained her. “Are you hurt?” he snapped.
“Why do… you care?” she snarled back, like a wounded, cornered animal. “You were… going to kill me. Like you were going
… to kill… the King!” She struggled to a sitting position. “My father!”
Falk started. “ What did you say?”
“King Kravon is my father. I’m the real Heir. That’s why you ‘fostered’ me. That’s why you brought me here. You were planning to kill me and grab the Keys and the power to destroy the Barriers the moment the King died!”
Falk knelt, grabbed Brenna by her shoulders, and hauled her to her feet. “ Who told you this? ” He shook her so hard her teeth clicked together. “ Who? ”
Brenna, with strength that surprised him, pushed his hands away from her. “Don’t touch me! Who do you think? Mother Northwind.”
“What? Why? ” It made no sense. Mother Northwind wanted the Great Barrier lowered as much as he did. Why risk that by telling Brenna her part in it?
“Because Mother Northwind is not your ally!” Brenna shouted. “Who do you think those men on the dogsleds-the men you had murdered!-were taking us to? Who do you think twisted that poor boy’s mind so he slit his own throat instead of killing the King like you’d planned? You thought you were using Mother Northwind all this time, and she’s been the one using you!”
Falk stood very still. Mother Northwind examined the boy to be certain he would do as he promised, he thought… and instead twisted him so that he failed. It made perfect sense of what he had just witnessed-but no sense at all in so many other ways.
But she wants the Barrier down! he thought. She brought Brenna to me and put Karl in the Palace. She’s worked as long as I have to make this happen, so why wreck everything now?
I’ll be sure to ask her, just before I kill her, he thought savagely.
“Why are you telling me this?” he demanded. “If Mother Northwind is the one who warned you, why are you betraying her to me now? You must know what I will do to her when I return to the Palace. You could be lying. You could just be trying to sow discord between us, thinking that might save your life.”
“Then who told me I was your intended sacrifice?” Brenna shouted back. “I’m telling you the truth. And I’m telling it to you because I hate her as much as I hate you. That witch is a monster, a worse monster than you. I hope you kill her!”
“If what you’ve told me is true, you can rest assured that I will,” Falk said. He stepped closer to her. “But that will not help you. I hold no ill will toward you and I have made your life as comfortable as I could. But you are the key to the Plan I have worked toward for twenty years. I promise you that when the time comes, I will kill you cleanly and quickly, but you will die. There is no other way.”
Brenna only glared at him.
Falk nodded to the guard, standing close at hand. “Put her back into the carriage,” he said. “We’re returning to the Palace.” He turned to Anniska, who had not moved but had a slightly stunned expression. “You’ll be coming to the Palace, too,” he said. “I want you close at hand for when we try again.”
“But, my lord, my own duties in Berriton-”
“Can go to the bottom of the Cauldron! Don’t argue with me, Anniska. Don’t… ever… argue with me. You will do what I tell you, or you will have no duties in Berriton or anywhere else ever again, and I will find another for this task. Do you understand?”
Anniska’s face, even in the ruddy glow of the Cauldron, turned noticeably paler. “I understand.”
“Let’s go.” Falk turned and stalked into the tower and down the stairs to where the magecarriage waited. Robinton took one look at him and, knowing better than to speak, scrambled into his seat. As everyone else climbed aboard and the carriage started rolling away from the Cauldron, Falk stared straight ahead and thought black thoughts, thoughts that whirled through his mind like carrion crows above a battlefield, waiting to feed.
Mother Northwind would very soon learn what happened to a tool that broke in the hand of its user… and the very big difference between the hard magic he wielded, and the soft she had used for him-and now, fatally, against him.
News of the scandalous suicide of a boy in King Kravon’s bed spread through the Palace like wildfire. Teran heard it first, in the guard barracks, and hurried back to Karl’s quarters, relieving the night watch, then rushing in to wake Karl and tell him the news.
You couldn’t keep something like that secret, not with servants having to clean up the blood, not with a body to dispose of, and especially not with Falk absent, Karl thought, staring out the window of his bedroom at the dark expanse of the lake. Had he been there, he might have succeeded in keeping the most salacious details, if not secret, at least obfuscated, turning the tale of a naked boy slitting his throat while in bed with the King to perhaps a deranged servant killing himself while the King slept alone. But with Falk gone north on his yearly inspection trip to
