Helena closed her eyes and tried to shut out the phantom voices.

  “Please, don’t let him hurt us,” a horrid pantomime of Emil’s voice pled. Helena had never heard her husband sound afraid before. Not like this. One of Hanion vis Dreamweaver’s illusions drawn from his own twisted imagination instead of Helena’s own memories. “Just do what he says.”

  She wasn’t sure exactly where she was now. Some empty storage building at Northstar’s docks, waiting for a ship that would take them from the city. Back to her family, she could hope. Away from this nightmare where powers beyond her clashed.

  “This will be over soon,” Hanion’s tone would have been reassuring if it wasn’t so condescending. “Just as soon as the ship is ready.”

  Helena waited until Hanion’s attention drifted to feel for the dagger hidden in the wide sleeve of her dress. As if she could ever use it. Father had taught her to use a blade as a way of placating a rambunctious child. Not seriously. She’d never so much as drawn another person’s blood with such a weapon. It was something to cling to, though.

  She tried to remember Father’s other lessons. Separating illusions from lies. She couldn’t split her mind as Aven did. She could only focus and try to pick apart what was real from what wasn’t. The floorboards were solid beneath her feet. The scents of sea salt and tar were real. The chill in the air was real. The voices were not. They didn’t have that same tangible quality. But knowing they were false didn’t make them any less tormenting. Not when the false Leda’s cries joined Emil’s pleading.

  Opening her eyes did nothing to help. Even if she looked away from the illusions, they always lingered at the corner of her vision, no matter which way she turned.

  Hanion stood by the door, pacing back and forth, occasionally glancing out the crack of the shuttered windows. Far more agitated than she’d ever seen him, despite the arrogant confidence he’d displayed for weeks. For months. His cane tapped the floor in uneven rhythm.

  Briefly, a fantasy flickered in Helena’s mind. Whipping out the dagger, plunging it into Hanion’s back, running back to the citadel to throw herself at Septentrion’s mercy.

  A childish fantasy. Even if she escaped, the threat to Emil and Leda remained. Far, far away from here, the Shadow Order watched them. Waiting for word to strike. All she could do was cooperate. She had to hold out hope.

  “What was the point of all this?” Helena asked, more to herself than to Hanion.

  “The point,” Hanion spared her only the briefest glance, “is to deny your devil of a mother control over five provinces at once. Everything we have done saves the empire from the void. Shattering this ruinous gathering will spare millions from her webs. You should be proud.”

  The twisting disgust in her gut didn’t resemble pride in the slightest.

  A knock sounded at the door. Three polite taps. Not in the signal of Hanion’s agent.

  Hanion stiffened, and a frown came to his face. Surprised by the sound. That shouldn’t be possible. A mind domain vis like Hanion should have sensed any approaching mind.

  He grabbed Helena’s wrist and pulled her up.

  “Quiet,” he hissed. “We-”

  Black threads crept through the latch. The lock clicked open, the sound echoing in the small room. The door creaked inwards.

  Mother stepped inside. Another woman at her side, the same apprentice who’d followed her around at the gathering. Helena’s heart skipped a beat. Beyond Hanion’s illusions, she’d not spoken a single word to Mother, even after reuniting for the first time in over seven years. Hanion had ensured they were kept far from each other.

  Mother looked just as she had at the gathering. Just as she did in Hanion’s illusions. The same dark eyes that Aven had inherited, and the high cheekbones that she’d passed on to Helena. Dressed in deep violet clothes that covered her beyond modesty, leaving nothing visible below the high collar. She pushed open the door with a black-gloved hand. The glove was immaculate. Not a single mark upon it. She had not been fighting, or fleeing, or doing anything but calmly walking here.

  “Hanion vis Dreamweaver,” Mother looked from Hanion to the fingers he had wrapped around Helena’s wrist. “It’s been a very long time. Not nearly long enough, I think.”

  “Elesmara,” Hanion snarled, grip tightening on Helena’s arm. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I could ask you the same,” Mother still didn’t look at Helena. As if Helena were no more a person than the chair or the table. “It appears to me that you are abducting my daughter.”

  She said it as if Helena were a stolen possession. Not a living, breathing person she’d abandoned.

  “Helena and I,” Hanion said, “are leaving the city. You must not have heard, but Ambassador Tovran took his own life only a few hours ago. And Legatus Tovran has gone quite mad. Between that and Governor Iraias’ poisoning, this city is obviously unsafe. This gathering is a farce, and we’ll have no part of it.” His eyes flicked to the doorway, the look of a cornered deer seeking escape.

  “Come, Hanion.” Mother stepped into the room. “Surely there need be no pretense between us. You needn’t feign innocence with me. I know exactly what sort of man you are. I know full well your part in what has happened to the governor, the ambassador, and the legate.”

  “Do you now?” Hanion asked. “Of course. After all, Lady Elesmara knows all, doesn’t she? She knows all, she controls all, and the entire empire works to feed her knowledge. Even her own family exists only to serve her ambitions.”

  Helena flinched at the venom in his words. He might be a monster, but that didn’t make him wrong.

  Emil’s phantom voice rose above Leda’s false cries, “She’s no savior, Helena. She only wants you back under her control. To twist you just like she twisted Aven and Viola.”

  “Helena.” Finally, Mother looked her in the eye. Her eyes still feigned maternal affection so well. “Has Hanion hurt you?”

  “No...” the words came to Helena’s lips without her own will. “I am not hurt.”

  Not physically. That much was true.

  “We are leaving, Elesmara,” Hanion said decisively. “You would do well not to attempt to stop us.”

  “No,” Mother said, voice still calm. “You are not leaving. This is the end for you, Hanion.”

  “It’s the end for you,” Hanion snarled. “You think anyone will follow this sham after all this? No one will listen to a word you say. Your grasping for power in these provinces is over.” He wrenched the top of his cane off, revealing a dagger hidden beneath.

  A dagger now pressed to Helena’s neck. For a brief second, the cold touch of the blade broke even through the illusions.

  Anger flashed across Mother’s face, there for an instant before it smoothed over. A crack in the perfect facade. “Don’t be a fool, Hanion.”

  “You were the fool to come here,” Hanion shot back. “I hold all the cards, Lady Elesmara. You know the consequences of acting against me.”

  So now the illusion was broken. Hanion only meant to use her as a shield against Mother. That was what all this was about. Hanion’s intrusion into her life, his threatening her family, all for this.

  That understanding broke through the fear. Just for a second. A single moment of pure, unadulterated rage.

  With all Hanion’s attention on Mother, he didn’t even realize she was moving until the dagger left her sleeve.

  Heat flashed across her neck as Hanion’s blade bit through skin. The pain felt distant. Unreal.

  The only thing real was the feeling of her own dagger sinking into his chest.

  It plunged through the thick fabric. It hit something hard and stopped.

  Hanion screamed, a scream that echoed in her mind in Emil’s voice. Leda’s. His own. All at once. A scream that drowned out any thought.

  A dark blur shot through the air, slamming into her. Knocking her back. Another blade seemed to sprout from Hanion’s chest. He stumbled back.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Hold, Deva,” Mother commanded.

  The screams faded. The illusions were gone. Helena was lying on her back, a black-furred felin crouching in front of her with a dagger flourished and black craws protruding from her hand.

  Heat still raced on her neck. When she felt it, her hand came away bloody. But she could breathe. The cut was shallow.

  Hanion clutched at the two daggers in his chest. He was still standing. Still breathing. Looking down at the blades with disbelief. Then he plucked them both out and contemptuously tossed them away. The torn clothes revealed leather armor underneath.

  “You’d dare risk Emil and Leda’s lives?” Hanion hissed.

  Fear rose up in Helena. Even if Hanion died here, they still-

  “They are in no danger,” Mother’s voice remained calm. She stepped forward, gesturing to the felin to lower her weapons. She glanced back to her apprentice. “Priscilla, a question: when is the appropriate time to win the game?”

  The young woman looked startled to be addressed. In fact, she looked even more overwhelmed than Helena. That fact brought a strange sense of comfort.

  “It is...” Priscilla stammered, “Ah, the answer is ‘before the game begins’.”

  “Correct,” Mother sounded delighted in her student. Helena recalled that same tone as though it were from a different life, when Mother and Father were still together, at least making a pretense of family. She turned back to Hanion. “I won this game before it started. Your threats to Helena’s family mean nothing, because they are already protected. Tell me, Hanion, what do you know of the Brúnaidh?”

  Hanion said nothing. A surge of hope rushed through Helena. There were things Hanion did not know. Pieces on the board that he hadn’t anticipated. That hope chilled at the thought that all such pieces were in the hands of Elesmara Genthus.

  Mother’s smile broadened, and she continued, “You know nothing. Just the same, your attempt to flee was doomed from the start, because Deva here has been tracking your movement this entire time, and you didn’t notice at all.”

  The felin purred satisfaction.

  “A voidtouched,” Hanion spat, glaring at the felin. “And you’ve taught her your Voidmind as well.”

  “Of course.” Pride filled Mother’s voice. “I had years to perfect it against you, and I’ve since trained with far more potent mind domains than you could hope to be. Everything you have done here will come to nothing. You are a failure in every way. You and your entire order. Both you and Gaius clung to old glory even as it decayed. Even as you were surpassed. Your order was husk of its former self even when Gaius took leadership. And under his leadership you successfully turned your two most promising pupils against the order. You fell upon the very blades you forged, just as I told Gaius you would. And you still feel the wound Aven gave you, don’t you Hanion?”

  Hanion’s hand unconsciously went to his side, rubbing the spot Helena had seen him favor so many times before. He said nothing, face twisted in rage, eyes still seeking any path to escape and finding all closed.

  Mother gave him the opportunity to reach that conclusion before she continued, “Do you know what you have accomplished in Northstar, Hanion? You have succeeded in murdering your own asset, Ambassador Roswal. You leave behind your own corpse and his, and you gain nothing. Aven lives, as does Executor Etrani. Even Governor Iraias’ poison was a failure.” She laughed softly. “Though not as much a failure as my own. Have you figured it out yet? Why poisoning me failed?”

  Hanion snarled, “You have a captive audience. Enlighten me.”

  “Witchflower is a potent poison,” Mother said. “Against vis of the first or second circle. Even third-circles without a body domain my struggle. When we last saw each other, I was exactly that.”

  Slowly, Mother tugged at the fingers of her right glove. One at a time, loosening them.

  “You assumed,” Mother continued, “that I had remained stagnant. Like yourself. Perhaps even decayed as Gaius did. That assumption...” The glove fell away, revealing a hand black as tar. Not merely blackened in veins like Aven but a uniform, obsidian blackness, as if the void itself had swallowed her arm up to the wrist. “Was a fatal mistake.”

  Hanion’s eyes widened. He tried to move. He didn’t even make it a step before Mother’s fingers erupted into dozens of spiked tendrils that stabbed into his body. Through his body, pinning him to the wall. The screams that came now were real. No illusions this time.

  “For a vis of the fifth circle, who has mastered domains of the body as well as the mind and soul, witchflower is no threat at all,” Mother’s obsidian fingers clenched, and Hanion’s screams rose to a fever pitch.

  Helena could only stare in shock at the horrid sight.

  “Close your eyes, Helena,” Mother said. “You don’t need to see this.”

  Helena obeyed Mother’s command.

  “Priscilla, you should watch closely, however,” Mother continued. “There is an important lesson here. Two, in fact. First, true power has no need to flaunt itself. Certainly not to pretend more power than it holds, such as Hanion’s ridiculous swirling eyes mimicking a Sign of power. True power has no need to show itself until the time is right. Second...” Another choked, agonized cry. “This is what happens when someone far too sure of their power finally understands their place in the world. This is what happens when they underestimate their betters. Do you understand?”

  The voice came back weak, wavering. The apprentice sounded sick. “Yes...Lady Elesmara.”

  The sounds that followed would haunt Helena’s nightmares. Not just Hanion’s screams. But a wet tearing. A sickening series of cracks. Then a sound like a sack of stones being dropped from a great height. A final wet thud.

  Silence.

  At last, Hanion vis Dreamweaver would threaten her family no more.

  * * *

  Priscilla excused herself from Lady Elesmara’s presence long enough to empty her stomach in the back alley. Everything she had seen, all the deaths of bound prisoners injected with voidblood...none of it compared to what she had just seen.

  She was no monster, no vis warrior. She was a researcher. Not even that. Perhaps she was just a vulture circling for the scraps that Lady Elesmara left behind. What right did someone like her have to question Lady Elesmara’s methods, when everything she had gained came from Lady Elesmara’s mentorship? The question felt like a snake coiling around her throat, choking her. She retched again, tasting only bile.

  “Pardon me,” a man’s voice sounded behind her.

  She opened her eyes and turned to see the night illuminated by the man’s golden hair, radiating a light that seemed too pure for the darkness of the alley.

  “Apologies if I startled you,” the man’s voice was as bright as his hair. “I’m looking for directions, and- Oh, dear, are you alright?”

  Priscilla wiped her mouth, too baffled to answer.

  “Who are you?” she finally gasped out.

  He bowed, “My friends call me Aurelio. Forgive me, I had no desire to trouble you. Only I’m looking for a man and a woman who may be around here. A fine gentleman at the nearby tavern reported seeing them around these docks. Have you seen either of these faces?”

  The man held up a pair of charcoal sketches, hastily sketched but recognizable as Hanion vis Dreamweaver and Helena Arvanius-Folis.

  Priscilla stared past the drawings at the man’s glowing hair. Recognition prickled. That Sign of power had stirred the capital, rumors reaching deep into Thallakar of its holder. But surely the Princeps’ Spear couldn’t possibly be here.

  “My, my,” Lady Elesmara stepped outside, eyes locked on the man called Aurelio. “This is a surprise.” She barely looked surprised. “Achaeus Aurelios Marian.”

  Priscilla gasped. Of course she had already heard the name becoming more a legend with every passing day. But why on earth was the princeps’ bodyguard, one of only ten vis of the sixth circle in all the empire here?

  “Lady Elesmara Genthus,” Achaeus Aurelios bowed low. “Please, call me Aurelio. My friends do.”

  “So I heard,” Lady Elesmara replied. The only hint of anxiety came from a slight lack of the affected warmth she put on for social meetings. “But that presumes quite a bit, does it not?”

  “If your patron and my master are to be wed, should we not be friends?” Achaeus Aurelios’ smile seemed perfectly genuine.

  “If?” Lady Elesmara asked.

  Achaeus Aurelios chuckled, “Pardon, when they are wed. The rumors are true: you seize on every idly placed word as swiftly as a swordmaster seizes on opening in an opponent’s guard.”

  “Words have power in my business,” Lady Elesmara returned the chuckle. “Much as weapons do in yours.”

  Whatever understanding the two reached was beyond Priscilla, but they each relaxed, some sort of peace brokered between them. With every moment, Priscilla felt less like a vulture and more like a mouse. Feasting on scraps fallen from the table. Once, she’d arrogantly assumed that she contributed to the feast.

  Achaeus Aurelios glanced past Elesmara to the door. “I can see that Hanion vis Dreamweaver has met his untimely demise.”

  “An end he deserved, I assure you,” Lady Elesmara replied.

  “Undoubtedly,” Achaeus Aurelios said. “But I promised a certain Aven Arvanius I would have the dreamweaver in custody and his sister returned unharmed.”

  “Helena is unharmed,” Elesmara said. She half turned, “Are you not?”

  Helena emerged, walking unsteadily, holding a mass of black cloth from Deva’s cloak against the side of her neck to cover the knife wound. She stared uncomprehending at Achaeus.

  “Aven...sent you?” Helena asked.

  “Well, no doubt he’d come himself, but I...ah, mistook him for a threat,” Achaeus Aurelios explained. “He’s recovering from my blunder, I’m afraid. Would you like to see him?”

  Helena hesitated. She glanced at Lady Elesmara. Then, she shook her head, “Not tonight. I...” She trailed off, words understandably failing.

  Achaeus Aurelios bowed, “Then I’ll at least carry the good news to others. No doubt there will be more opportunities in the coming days of this conference.”

  “Will it continue?” Priscilla asked.

  All eyes turned to her, and she felt like she’d rather be in front of a pack of hungry wolves at the moment.

  She cleared her throat, “With all that has happened, with essentially the entire leadership of Tenebras compromised...will the gathering continue?”

  “It will,” Achaeus Aurelios said decisively. “If the voidspawn are of the threat your report indicates, this cannot go unnoticed.”

  “You...read my report?” Priscilla asked, shock running through her. A look from Lady Elesmara, “Er, our report. Lady Elesmara’s report.”

  “Oh, I barely understood it,” Achaeus Aurelios replied cheerfully. “But if there’s a new threat to fight, how could one such as I possibly stand by and let it form unopposed?”

  Others seemed to ignore it with distressing ease, so Priscilla had no answer.

  Achaeus Aurelios bid a last farewell and ran off into the night, a golden blur vanishing into the distant darkness and winding streets. Lady Elesmara’s attention returned to her daughter, leaving Priscilla alone outside.

  “Incredible, aren’t they?”

  Priscilla jumped at Deva’s voice. The felin had an unnerving tendency to sneak up on her. Her catlike eyes shone in the darkness. Supposedly, they were far better than human eyes for seeing in darkness. Priscilla couldn’t help but wonder what they saw that Priscilla could not.

  “Lady Elesmara,” Deva said. “Achaeus Aurelios Marian. Fifth-circle and sixth. Those are the heights that power can reach in this empire.” She licked her lips. “Powers that can build an empire. Or break one.” She looked to Priscilla, “The voidblood brought me closer to powers like that. Still miles upon miles away, but a step further on that journey. You’ve never wanted to take that step?”

  “I...I’m not vis,” Priscilla replied. “I’m just a researcher.”

  Deva grunted and nodded. “Right. Millions don’t have the power like those do. Millions get crushed under their feet. I suppose a few lucky ones get to feed on their scraps. Is that all you aspire to be?”

  Priscilla didn’t say anything, and Deva apparently didn’t expect a reply from the way she vanished into the night. Priscilla rested against the wall, hand to her emptied stomach. All the horrors left her drained. Empty.

  Hungry.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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