“He planned to bring his mother back from the dead,” I said numbly.
“Osriel read everything he could find about Aurellian sorcery, and he questioned my mother and his father’s other purebloods until their ears blistered. He studied and followed my mother about as she worked with the sick. She said Riel could have been a healer himself were he not a king’s bastard, required to study politics and war. Everyone believed Osriel sought a cure for saccheria, but I knew what he was looking for. At twelve, when his father took him to Ardra for the first time, he brought back a wagonload of Aurellian books, and in an old book of herb spells, he found the key.”
Saverian’s long, capable fingers were tangled in a knot, pressed to her chin, and she kept her eyes averted as people do when they tell stories they believe they should not.
“At fifteen, he showed me how he could smother a frog and set it breathing again. A few months later, he claimed to have touched the living soul of a villein who had been kicked by a horse, though the man’s soul escaped him before he could catch it. By this time he had accepted that his mother was gone, but he could not stop.” She paused, pressing her lips together.
“And Voushanti?” I said, urging her on.
“From the day Lirene died, wherever Osriel walked, sat, studied, or slept, Voushanti stood by. Riel hated it. He called the saccheria his prison, and Voushanti his warder. When he was small, he cast magical curses at Voushanti—little flaming, stinging things—and his father chastised him sorely for it. By the time he turned sixteen, he merely lived as if Voushanti did not exist.
“One winter afternoon, Osriel was sitting in the old library of this house, studying. He was feverish again, his joints so swollen that any movement was excruciating. He was practicing fire work, smothering the hearth fire and starting it up again with pure magic. Voushanti warned him repeatedly to stop, for the steward had reported the library chimney clogged. Voushanti stood directly in front of the hearth…”
I needed no more words to see what happened—a frustrated, angry, pain-racked youth flaunting his talent before his jailer, casting a great flaming spell toward the hearth.
Saverian stopped and drank from her ale cup. I was so caught up in the story, my own remained untouched. “Voushanti saved him from the fire,” I said.
Saverian drained her cup. “The place burned like dry wheat. You can still see the ruin out behind the west wing. Voushanti took the full brunt of Osriel’s fireburst and the eruption of the chimney, yet he carried Osriel out, completely shielding him from the flames. No one could have survived such injuries as the mardane bore. My mother pronounced him dead within the hour.”
Like the tides of Evaldamon, cold dread swept over me again. “But Osriel…”
“He demanded servants carry the body into his private study. Almost a full day later, Riel summoned my mother to tend Voushanti’s burns. Lungs, heart, all his organs were functioning, though his burns remained savage. Voushanti lived again.”
“You say this has happened more than once…his dying…”
“Three that I know of. One that I saw, when Riel was too sick to complete the spell and called me in to help. Severe wounds can stop Voushanti’s heart, but he can be brought back if the enchantment is renewed immediately. Time can stop his heart if the enchantment is not renewed at least once in a sevenday. But the one whose blood seals the enchantment on the mardane’s lips is bound to him, able to command Voushanti to his service. Unless you force him elsewhere, Voushanti will not leave your side. He will sense your presence, know when you’re in trouble, and he fights like a man who has nothing to lose. He could make the difference between your venture’s success and failure.”
“What of his soul?”
“I don’t believe in souls.”
“What does the prince say?”
She folded her arms tight across her breast and hardened her mouth as if expecting me to assault her. “He says that Voushanti’s soul and body are fused, and that when his body dies at last—truly and forever—his soul will die with it. Osriel bears some dreadful guilt over the whole thing, which is ridiculous. The magic is truly remarkable.”
I would have given my teeth to have more time to consider what Saverian had told me, for in her story of Osriel’s bold sorcery lay the truth about dead men’s eyes and votive vessels sealed with blood and what Osriel intended to do with them. I had assumed he planned some great enchantment, built with the substance and energies he had stolen from dying men. But now…It came to me that the Bastard thought to ensorcel himself an army.
Chapter 20
“Who gave you leave to speak of these matters?” The red centers of Voushanti’s dark eyes gleamed with fury. “The prince will have you flogged.”
Saverian stepped closer to my side, as if together we could withstand his wrath. I wished I was far from Saverian’s meticulously ordered study.
“The prince commanded me to do what was necessary to give you a full span of life, Mardane,” said Saverian. “You owe him your obedience, as I do.”
“Him. Not you. Not this fey sorcerer.”
“Then do as he would command you. If you have another partner in mind, perhaps Magnus could fetch him.”
Cream-colored light streamed from a lamp of the magical variety that lit Renna Syne, illuminating shelf upon shelf filled with books, beakers, bottles, and jars. Two well-scrubbed tables laid out with brass implements, mortar and pestle, pans, and balances furnished one end of the room. A chair, side table, and footstool held the opposite end, with a variety of stools and benches in between. The physician had failed to mention the chamber’s location in the bowels of Renna’s fortress or its lack of windows. Evidently she disliked being bothered by household noise, outdoor views, or air as she worked.
When I had said I would consider doing as she suggested, Saverian had bustled me here immediately. “What of your scruples?” I’d asked her, as we traipsed across the dry hillside between Renna Syne and the fortress. “You once told me that ‘no worthy physician could stand by and see a healthy body damaged.’”
“To cause death deliberately violates every principle of the healer’s art,” she had said. “And to keep a body alive by enchantment violates the good order of nature that stands before any god in my esteem. But if I refuse to perpetuate Osriel’s ugly mistake, then I have destroyed Voushanti just as surely and far more permanently. He will die unless you and I do this.” That was the point I could not argue.
Then we had arrived and Voushanti had been waiting for her. And before I could say yes or no, she had told Voushanti I would be his new partner in this macabre business. Since then he had been circling the workroom like a trapped wolf.
Saverian continued to speak calmly. “It seems unlikely that the prince will return in time to perform this service for you himself. As you are accompanying Magnus to Palinur to effect our lord’s rescue, it would be most inconvenient if you were to die in the midst of it. This seems a reasonable solution to your problem.”
“Reasonable?” There ensued one of the most horrible sounds I had ever heard—a strident gargling bellow that might have emanated from one of the nearby dungeons. The accompanying jerk of Voushanti’s shoulders and the spasm of emotion that crossed his scarred visage gave me the unlikely idea that he was laughing. “You cannot even tell me how this one’s fey blood might affect the enchantment. Would I had a tankard, physician, that I could raise it to your twisted notion of reason.”