Though he longed to write his thoughts every day, he had sent Majel only a very few letters, which he asked her to burn as soon as she read them. Even if she did keep them, who would dare rummage through the private possessions of an empress? And no courier would break the seal to read the letters.
But what if Iron Fang had questioned why a military courier would bear a secret sealed message from his general to his wife? Had Kurgan intercepted and read one of his letters? The courier was sworn to deliver it only to its intended recipient, but would a courier defy a direct order from his emperor? No.
Utros knew his ruler all too well. Kurgan was the man who sat upon the throne in Orogang, but he was capricious and reckless. What Nicci and Nathan had said about how history viewed Iron Fang was correct. Emperor Kurgan had achieved greatness only because of the victories and wise leadership of his greatest military leader. Utros had conquered the Old World, and Iron Fang had been left to rule it, despite his inability to administer such a vast realm.
Perhaps Kurgan had understood that himself. Maybe he’d felt inadequate, jealous of his talented general. He would have realized in his heart that the victories belonged to Utros, and his army and his citizens knew that also. When the volatile ruler discovered he was an inadequate lover as well as leader, Kurgan would not have been able to endure it. It was another victory General Utros had won over him. Iron Fang would have exacted his revenge on someone weaker than he, a person whom Utros loved. Majel.
Yes, he could very well believe Kurgan had skinned his own wife alive, then fed her still-living body to flesh beetles.
Utros winced, struggling to bear the vivid portrait his fears painted for him. Had Majel cried out his name, holding on to her love for him even as her body was torn apart? Or had she begged her vile husband for forgiveness, denouncing her betrayal and swearing her loyalty to him again? It would have done her no good.
Utros knew the clash of honor and need in her soul. He himself could barely stand the constant tug of war between his loyalties. He had made a sacred vow to serve Emperor Kurgan, and that was the core of his being, and yet his heart had gone over to Majel. How could he reconcile that? Loyalty or love? So long as Kurgan hadn’t learned of their passion for each other, Utros was able to compartmentalize his duty to Iron Fang as separate from his love for Majel.
But now, if his beloved was murdered and their affair revealed, and if the very empire had fallen, how could Utros balance anything? What was his reason to exist? What about his orders, his mission to bring down Ildakar?
He squeezed his eyes closed and felt the tears burn there. He remained deep in thought until he purged the emotions, turned them into stone so that they crumbled into dust within his heart.
Finally, he opened his eyes to find Ava and Ruva waiting intensely, their eyes locked on his face. He couldn’t even hear them breathe.
Utros said, “We still have to bring down Ildakar. I must complete my orders.” He thought about how he had challenged the legendary city fifteen centuries ago. “The wizards of Ildakar were very powerful once, but if the stone spell has faded, then we know their magic is weaker than it was before.” He narrowed his eyes at them. “And yours is still strong, I hope.”
Ava and Ruva nodded. “We have the gift as before, and now we are enhanced with the strength of stone, as well as flesh and blood. That makes us more powerful.”
Ruva added, “We know secrets that others don’t.” Outside the headquarters, twilight thickened, but the brazier light remained a dull, throbbing orange. “Nicci and Nathan may have inadvertently left something behind, something we can use against them,” Ava said.
Her twin smiled. “Yes, they were not careful. They don’t suspect the power that resides in every scrap of themselves. But we do.”
Before the two representatives had arrived for the parley, the sorceresses had tended to each other, using a knife to scrape their eyebrows, scalps, arms and legs, every patch of skin, removing the tiniest bit of hair, which they burned in the braziers. Then they clipped their nails, also feeding each bit to the fire. They had made sure that not the slightest speck of their bodies could be found by an enemy.
But Nicci and Nathan were careless.
Ava and Ruva intensely scoured every place where the sorceress and the wizard had stood. The women crawled about, scanning the rugs on the floor, the edge of the door, any place the two visitors had touched. Utros didn’t ask why. They were searching for something.
Ava combed her fingers over the rough wood of the doorframe, squinting in the light of the braziers. Then, with a cry of triumph, she produced a single golden hair caught on a splinter in the wood and snapped off. Their faces filled with delight and anticipation, the two sorceresses inspected the fine yellow strand, which obviously belonged to Nicci.
“Now we have what we need.” Ruva’s eyes shone.
“Nicci may be a powerful opponent with great magic of her own,” Ava said. “But she is a fool to leave us a weapon such as this. My sister and I would never make such a terrible mistake.”
Holding the strand, Ruva carried it close to the brazier so the ruddy light sparkled along its delicate length. The hair looked as fine and ephemeral as a spiderweb. She dangled it over the glowing coals, and her sister bent close, both of them looking hungrily at the single hair.
Utros could sense the magic building between them. Though he didn’t have the gift himself, he had watched the twins perform for him before. They would not let him down.
Ava lifted the strand high. “We have a day or two of preparations to make, but with this single golden hair, we can work great magic. And we can target Nicci.”
CHAPTER 16
Now that Nathan had looked General Utros in the eye, he realized the ancient commander would never withdraw his siege. He had seen the determination in the legendary leader’s eyes and his refusal to give up. With everything else lost to him, the siege was all Utros had left.
After Ildakar closed the gates and sealed itself tight again, the duma would spend days debating the reports he and Nicci had brought. Nathan knew in his heart that the city needed some other means to fight back. No straightforward clash was going to defeat the gigantic army.
“We have to find another way out of this siege, my dear,” he said to Elsa as they walked together the following day. “And considering the legendary glory of Ildakar, I’m sure its gifted citizens can come up with unexpected magic. It might not be another petrification spell, but surely they can offer something.”
“Oh, we will.” Elsa was a handsome woman with a smooth face, a little too broad to be delicate. Her warm brown eyes were filled with intelligence and humor as well as patience, and she had certainly been patient with Nathan, especially when he couldn’t use his gift. She had helped nurse him back to health after Fleshmancer Andre replaced his flawed heart with that of the dying Chief Handler Ivan. Nathan felt a twinge in his chest, a flare of pain along the scar. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. But the new heart was strong, his gift was restored, and Nathan was a wizard again.
“When Utros first came against us with his army, the wizards experimented with many types of magic,” Elsa said. “They didn’t fear the effects of their power and paid little heed to the consequences. They wanted to protect Ildakar, no matter the cost.”
The two of them walked along the edge of the bluff that dropped in a sheer cliff to the river below. The uneven rock face was dotted with a succession of platforms and walkways that led into tunnels for supplies brought up from the river. She gestured farther downstream, toward the tangled swamps that infested the land to the south. “Look there, the ancient wizards flooded the river valley and turned it into a deadly swamp.”