House Lyrandar's most prized possession, the one thing they owned that no one else could obtain, was now in the hands of a rival House.
'Gaven, Storm Dragon, hear my words.' Senya took his hand in her cold grip and drew him back before the altar. 'I must soon depart from this place and let my daughter sleep. My people gathered here demand some satisfaction from you, for two children of Aeren are dead by your hand. Nor is their blood the only stain on your soul.'
Gaven fell to his knees as strange memories washed over him.
His magic let him scale the wall of the Paelion tower as easily as a spider, unseen beneath the dark clouds of the brewing storm. He-he who was both Shakravar and Gaven, dragon and meat-slipped like a shadow through a high window. It should not have been so easy, but it didn't matter. Of course the elf had set him up. It didn't matter. The Prophecy mattered.
All he needed to do was find something to steal, something to prove he had been in the tower. With that and the letter he had already carefully crafted, the Thuranni line would have the evidence they needed to strike.
The Paelions would die, House Phiarlan would split, and thirteen dragons would rule the land. As the Prophecy required.
'I admit my guilt,' Gaven said. He heard a murmur spread through the gathered elves, the first sound he had heard from the crowd. 'But what satisfaction can I give?'
'Would you give your life?' the ancestor asked.
A few voices raised above the softer murmur of the onlookers, expressing approval of that idea.
Gaven looked down at the floor. On some basic level of arithmetic, it seemed like a fair request. He had killed Phaine quite intentionally, and killed Senya by accident. That alone was two lives weighed against his, and as Senya's ancestor had said, theirs was not the only blood on his hands. Add in the Paelions, and his life seemed like far too small a price to pay for what he had done.
But he couldn't accept it as a simple matter of arithmetic. Phaine had been trying to kill him, and had nearly succeeded. The Thurannis had used him, manipulated him when he was not in his right mind-and all he did in the end was help provide them with a pretext to do what they wanted to do anyway. That left Senya, whose death had been a terrible accident. Of them all-of all the lives he had taken-she was the one who grieved him the most, the one who could almost make him consider giving his own life as restitution. Was that simply because he had known her, because he cared about her? Perhaps it was.
It didn't matter. 'No,' he said at least, looking up to meet Senya's fiery eyes again. 'I will not give up my life to pay for the death of an assassin, and not even the accidental death of your daughter. I regret her death, but my destiny lies beyond this place.'
'What makes you think you're so damned important, Gaven?' Bordan thrust his face into Gaven's. 'You think you're more important than the people you've killed? Is your life worth more than theirs?'
Senya's ancestor watched him as if she expected an answer to Bordan's question, and Gaven wondered if she had dredged up these memories. Was this some kind of trial?
He had answered Bordan with belligerence, and while he argued, the dwarves with Bordan had captured Rienne. He closed his eyes, briefly entertaining the notion of fighting his way out of this temple, even if it meant more elven blood on his hands…
A crack of thunder shook the building. For a moment Gaven thought it was an echo of his violent thoughts, then he remembered-Aunn had gone to retrieve the dragonshard that held his Mark of Storm. Where was he?
'The time has come for you to make your choice,' Senya's ancestor said.
Gaven stood up and turned to look at the open doorway. He heard no sound of a struggle, no shouts of alarm. He wondered if Aunn were dead, and the thought filled him with sadness.
Is that all? he thought. How can I be so calm?
He felt the ancestor's presence behind him, and she seemed no longer contained within Senya's slender form. Her presence was larger, somehow-larger than the frightening deathless form he'd seen in Shae Mordai. It was as though she were just one of a host of elders assembled at his back, like a great tribunal seated for his judgment, or perhaps a council gathered to advise him.
He closed his eyes. From far away, it seemed, he heard Aunn shouting his name, and he knew the dragonshard was gone, and with it the dragonmark Kelas had stolen from him at the Dragon Forge. The choice that lay before him now was simple and yet utterly profound: To pursue whoever had taken the shard, or to relinquish the shard, the Mark of Storm, and the power contained in them.
'Gaven, Storm Dragon, dishonored child of Lyrandar.' It was a chorus of voices behind him now. 'What do you choose?'
Storm Dragon, Gaven thought. Can I be the Storm Dragon without the Mark of Storm?
He turned back to face Senya. Her head lolled back slightly, as though the ancestor's hold on her body were slipping.
This is what that power has brought me, he thought. It's beyond my control. It's no longer a tool in my hands, but the other way around.
'Let it go,' he said softly.
Senya's dead face smiled. 'She is pleased, Gaven,' the ancestor whispered, 'and she wants you to know she forgives you.'
Tears sprang to Gaven's eyes. 'I'm so sorry.'
'Let him go,' Senya's ancestor proclaimed, and the flames in her eyes faded as she slumped into Gaven's arms.
CHAPTER 34
Why don't you tell me what this is all about?' Ashara said. The Sentinel Marshal grabbed a chair from a nearby table and swung it around, sitting across from Harkin but focusing her attention on Ashara. Cart glanced at the dwarf, who was still glaring at him.
'I've heard reports that House Cannith recently undertook a significant construction project in the south of Aundair, between Arcanix and the Blackcaps. The Arcane Congress might have been involved, in fact.'
Cart turned his gaze to Harkin, wondering again whether he knew anything about the Dragon Forge. Cart couldn't read his face, but it was clear from the way he leaned forward slightly that he was interested in what Mauren was saying.
'I might have heard something about that project,' Ashara said. 'What of it? House Cannith has a hundred construction projects going on at any given moment. That's what we do.'
'Indeed,' Mauren said wryly. 'Give a House the Mark of Making, and watch them make. Well, my House has the Mark of Sentinel, so you should not be surprised that we keep watch. And our observation suggests that you know more of this project than you admit.'
'Again, what of it?'
'What were you building there?'
'Forgive me, Sentinel Marshal, but you must also understand that our House must often keep its operations confidential. Perhaps if you discuss this matter with our baron, she can decide whether your need for this information outweighs our need to protect our secrets.'
Ossa snorted. 'Not likely, I'd bet.'
'To put it a bit more delicately,' Mauren said with a smile, 'if your baron is engaging in activities that defy the Treaty of Thronehold, she's not likely to tell me.'
So that's it, Cart thought. She thinks the Dragon Forge was creating more warforged.
The Treaty of Thronehold had brought an official end to the Last War, but it also included a number of provisions relating to the legal status of the warforged in Khorvaire. By the terms of the treaty, warforged already in existence were free-some nations had held them as slaves during the war-but House Cannith was prohibited from creating any new warforged. Given enough time, the warforged race would die out.
Except, Cart thought, that rumors suggested Merrix d'Cannith might be making new warforged somewhere in
