A terrible weariness seeped through me. I knew where this was going, and I knew the answer I was going to give. It wasn’t even a choice. I wanted so badly to drag this out, buy a few more moments, and I knew it was hopeless. The edge of the cliff was getting nearer, and all I could think of was digging my heels in to slow down the inevitable.
I opened my mouth, took a deep breath. Saying the next word was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. “No.”
Silence. I kept my eyes down at the floor.
“I see,” Richard said.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I couldn’t bring myself to meet Richard’s gaze; all I could do was put some bitterness into my words. “I guess I haven’t exactly turned out to be what you wanted in an apprentice.”
“I am disappointed, yes.” Richard’s voice was calm, and all of a sudden I felt sure that he’d known what my answer was going to be, known it before I said it. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why refuse? You must know what the consequences will be. Why choose a course so obviously self-destructive?”
I could have lied, tried to spin a story, but if this was going to be the end, I wanted to tell the truth. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.” I managed to look up. Richard was watching me, apparently curious. “You’re right, it is my fault that I’m here. I’ve made bad decisions and I’ve done a lot of things I’m not happy about. But there’s one thing I’ve never done, and that’s betray a friend. What you want me to do to Anne . . . it’d be taking everything I love, everything that matters to me, and breaking it. I won’t do it.”
Richard looked at me, and I met his gaze. The fear was still there, but now, at the end, there was an odd sense of freedom. I didn’t have to play games anymore.
“That is unfortunate,” Richard said at last. He rose to his feet, straightened his jacket, then nodded to me. “Good-bye, Alex.” He walked out and the door closed behind him. There was something final about the sound.
chapter 7
I had a brief wait before the door opened again. Long enough to see who was coming, and to prepare for the worst.
A woman walked in and shut the door behind her. “Hello, Verus,” she said pleasantly. She was a little taller than average, with sculpted features and gold hair that fell around her shoulders. She looked maybe thirty, though I knew she was at least ten years older. She wore an expensive-looking suit, and her eyes were cold.
Cold was a good word to describe Crystal. When I’d first run into her, she’d been in charge of an apprentice tournament at Fountain Reach. I later found out that she’d been responsible for sending several of those apprentices—and who knows how many others—to be slaughtered in a blood ritual. I’d never seen any sign that she felt the slightest remorse for what she’d done. Crystal was a mind mage, a domination specialist, and her presence here meant nothing good.
I looked back for a moment before answering. “Anne should have killed you back in Sagash’s castle.”
“Anne is stupid.”
“So what did Richard promise you?” I said. “Power?”
“Of a sort,” Crystal said. She pulled back a sleeve of her jacket to reveal a bracelet. “I imagine you recognise this.”
“Yeah,” I said. The bracelet was thick, as long as Crystal’s thumb, and made of age-darkened silver. Spiralling patterns were carved on it, and a pink-purple stone was set into the centre. Unlike some of the imbued items on the Council’s list, it didn’t have a name, but its description had mentioned that it acted as an amplifier for certain applications of mind magic.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Crystal said. She held it up, the stone’s colour shifting as it caught and reflected the light. “I always had my eye on this one back when I was a Light mage. The Council wouldn’t let me have it. It would have made things so much easier if they had. Do you know what it does?”
I looked at her in silence.
“Domination has so many drawbacks,” Crystal said. “You can control the target, even make them take complex actions, but you have to direct them for even the smallest things. It makes their behaviour clumsy. Stilted. You might fool a stranger, but not someone who knows the target well. This item allows you to overcome that limitation. It smooths the control, and taps their memories to copy incidental details. You choose the behaviour, they carry it out.”
I thought about attacking Crystal, going for the throat. With surprise and a little time, I might be able to break her neck. But I wouldn’t have surprise—she was very much ready for me—and there were guards outside ready to burst in.
“You’ve sabotaged my plans twice now, Alex,” Crystal said. “Once at Fountain Reach, once in Sagash’s shadow realm. I could have retired by now. Gone somewhere nice and relaxing. But you took all that away.”
“I guess we don’t always get what we want.”
“Oh, I think I’m going to do quite well out of this,” Crystal said. “If Drakh succeeds in his plan—and I have good reason to believe he will—I’ll have all the resources of the Council to plunder. That’s quite a step up, don’t you think? But let’s get down to business. When Drakh told us what he wanted to achieve with Anne, Vihaela told him that she could do it in five minutes by torturing you while Anne watched. Have you ever seen Vihaela work? She’s very good. Obviously that kind of manipulation wouldn’t influence anyone sensible, but as I said, Anne’s stupid. And she actually cares for you for some reason.” Crystal shrugged. “I imagine it wouldn’t take long before Anne called up that jinn to make it stop. But Drakh chose my plan instead. Do you want to know why?”
I didn’t answer.
“Drakh thought it was more elegant,” Crystal said. “And it is, but that wasn’t why I picked it. I picked it because this way is going to hurt you so much more.” Crystal straightened. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.”
Mental pressure crushed down on me like a vice. I’d been ready for it and tried to push back Crystal’s attack, but it felt like trying to push back a wave. There was no point of leverage.
I braced myself, holding my defences. It felt like holding up a circular wall, with my thoughts and self protected at the centre. But the pressure from Crystal didn’t stop; it just kept mounting and mounting. There was no way for me to strike back. At least not mentally—
I took a step forward, but Crystal was already speaking a command word. A wall of force flared up between the two of us, and I came to a halt, staring at her. She was only a few feet away, but it might as well have been a mile. Holding Crystal off wasn’t getting any easier; it was getting harder. Already I was getting tired, and as I looked at Crystal I felt fear. She was smiling, and didn’t look tired at all.
“That wall should last a few minutes,” Crystal said. “Probably enough for me to finish the job. But if I can’t, what does it matter? You can’t beat me in psychic combat; all you can do is hold me off. And there’s no one coming to help.”
I’d been looking frantically through the futures, trying to find one where I won. There wasn’t one. In every future I could see, Crystal overwhelmed me. The only variable was how long it took. And even as I watched, the numbers were shrinking. There was no rescue coming, no reprieve that I could reach if I held out. Before long, the futures in which Crystal hadn’t won would dwindle to dozens, then a handful, then three, then one, then zero.
Crystal was going to take control of me.
I was terrified of what that would mean. I fought back desperately.
It wasn’t enough.
Ten minutes later, I exited the room, closed the door behind me, and walked out past the guards and down the corridor. Reaching the end, I turned left. My movements were steady and normal.