“You bastard!” Isabel shouted, surging to her feet and lunging at him. He caught her with his magic and lifted her off the ground, gently depositing her back in her chair.
“Stay,” he said, giving her a stern look before gesturing to the soldier at the door. Another five people filed into the room, fear palpable in their expressions as soon as they saw the five fresh corpses.
“Pick one.”
“I hate you.”
“I can do this all day,” Phane said. “Shall we call in the next group?”
“No, I’ll pick,” she said, scanning the five souls whose lives were in her hands and landing on the oldest man in the bunch. He had kind eyes and a weathered look about him and he nodded sadly when she settled on him, stepping forward.
“Take me, My Lady. My life is mostly behind me.”
“Well said, old man,” Phane said, snapping his fingers at a guard. “Remove him and let him go unharmed.”
“Pick another one,” Phane said.
A wife, a husband, a brother, a daughter.
Isabel couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat so she just pointed at the middle-aged man.
“Free the rest of them unharmed,” Phane said, lifting the man Isabel had selected off the ground with his magic, then slowly drawing him through the air, turning him to face him and holding him a foot off the ground.
“He’s afraid,” Phane said.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel said, hanging her head.
“Oh, now, now, Isabel … you don’t even know his fate … but you’re going to find out, right now.”
Phane cast a spell, still holding the condemned man off the ground with his magic. A set of four small rings of reddish energy materialized in midair. Phane moved the man to the four magical rings, aligning two with his ankles and two with his wrists. Then each ring snapped into place, suspending the man a foot off the ground, completely helpless.
With a few words, Phane burned a magic circle into the stone floor, bright red symbols fading quickly through orange, then to black.
“Please don’t do this,” the man begged. “I’ve never done anything to you.”
Phane laughed in his face, forced and deliberate, devoid of humor.
“Let him go,” Isabel said.
“Or what? That’s the real question, isn’t it? It’s the only real question. What can you do? What will you do?” He held her eyes but pointed to the helpless man. “I’m going to have my way with this man and there’s nothing he can do to stop me. He’s powerless; I’m powerful. That’s the only reality that matters-certainly the only reality that matters to him right now.”
“Please don’t do this …” the man begged, crying.
“What do you want, Phane?” Isabel asked.
“I want to show you the consequences of your actions,” he said, gesturing toward her, lifting her off her feet, putting her back in her chair and binding her there with a spell.
“Don’t do this, Phane.”
“It’s already done,” he said, facing the condemned man squarely. “It was done the moment you broke my mirror.” With a gesture, the man slid through the air until he was floating in the center of the magic circle.
“Ready?” Phane asked with a smile, but then his visage transformed into a mask of unbridled rage and he began chanting in a guttural and angry language. Wisps of darkness started to swirl around the floor beneath the man. His fear spiked into panic. Phane cast about on the floor until he found a pebble the size of a ripe pea … grasping it with his magic, he brought it up floating in front of him and then propelled it through the man’s heart, stabbing through him cleanly like a pike.
The man gasped and sputtered, his life’s blood spilling forth, pooling inside the magic circle. But then the blood started moving, flowing toward the circle, into the symbols. The air grew heavy in the room, then suddenly cold. Isabel felt a dark and unnatural presence arrive. It felt unclean, as if the air itself had been spoiled.
“I have paid your price,” Phane said. “Will you show me?”
The corpse hanging by Phane’s magical shackles began to convulse, wracking violently as if it were struggling to get free of the bindings. Then the struggling stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the body hanging limp and lifeless for several moments before the head snapped back and craned out as far as it could reach toward Phane, its face seeming to spasm and contort unnaturally.
“Yes,” said a voice that was decidedly not human.
A chill of dread raced up Isabel’s spine.
“How has my plan unfolded?”
The area inside the magic circle became translucent, like moonlight with shadowy substance, then abruptly started showing images: Druja boarding a ship, followed by Rankosi disguised as a deckhand; the box exploding once the ship was a league out to sea; Lacy and Wren’s capture and secure transport back to the fortress city. The last image faded away and the darkness lifted, leaving a half-desiccated corpse floating in the middle of the room.
With a wave of Phane’s hand, the spell ended and the corpse crashed to the ground.
“This is what I must resort to since you broke my mirror,” Phane said. “You will choose my sacrifices from now on … as punishment.”
“You have the real box,” Isabel said, ignoring his very terrifying threat. She felt sick to her stomach, but pushed it aside and imposed control on her emotions as only a witch could.
“Of course I have the box,” Phane said. “I replaced it with a weapon inspired by your own Mage Gamaliel scarcely five minutes after Lacy Fellenden fell asleep the night she arrived.” He looked at her, shaking his head. “Did you imagine that it could be otherwise? My prize walks right through the front door and you think I would leave it in another’s care?
“I have all three keystones, my dear Isabel … it’s just that I can’t get to one of them right now.”
“That is a problem, isn’t it? But why the fake box?”
“Isn’t it obvious? My enemies want the box as much as I do, so I put a powerfully enchanted fake into play. It was a simple matter to ensure that it fell into one of my many enemies’ hands. After that, I could take their life with a single command. I had originally intended to end the Sin’Rath once they’d gathered on Ithilian, but I couldn’t resist when I saw the shade board the ship with Druja.”
“Aedan is dead?”
“If that was the dragon’s name, then yes,” Phane said. “I suspect the shade is especially unhappy with me, but it was well worth it. He’s dangerous enough as it is, but intolerably so in possession of a dragon. As for the witch, well … I’ve always hated the Sin’Rath.”
“I mourn Aedan,” Isabel said, “but I can do without Druja, and I’m happy to hear that the shade is preoccupied with you. More importantly, you still can’t open the box.”
“Not yet, but more paths to victory become available to me every day.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hector, Trajan, Lacy, Torin … all of them represent a way to open the box. One of them will deliver, sooner or later. But even if they don’t, I can still win. Your beloved is a prisoner on Andalia. Once they persuade him to hand over the Stone, he will be delivered to me.”
“So your people don’t have the Stone now, then?” Isabel said.
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“If you say so.”
“As I understand it, Alexander is entangled in a web of lies with the Babachenko. He believes that he and the Andalians are working together in their efforts to recover the Sovereign Stone.”
Isabel tried to maintain her composure, but she couldn’t help herself. She broke down laughing, then slowly sat down to mitigate the pain her convulsions caused in her still-healing body.
“The Babachenko assures me that he’s created a spell capable of thwarting your beloved’s ability to see a person’s aura.”
“What about everyone else?” Isabel asked. “All of the other people who have to be around him if you’re going to make sure he doesn’t escape. Do you really think you managed to lie to him?” She started laughing again.
“It won’t matter,” Phane said. “Nero is there with ample forces. If the ruse doesn’t work, we’ll simply take Alexander without the Stone.”