At first it was a game, and Maxim enjoyed duping the needy people. But as his plan grew more complex, he realized he had stumbled on a way to undermine the foundations of the nobles, the duma members, the arrogant wizards—and especially Thora. The entire city was dry tinder, and he supplied the spark.
The revolt had been his finest hour. He watched the slaves unleash the combat animals, rile up the arena warriors, and run wild through the streets. Maxim had felt an erotic thrill to see his plans come to fruition, aided by the charismatic sorceress Nicci, who truly believed in the goal.
Maxim had succeeded, and Thora had been deposed, but he fled Ildakar, not wanting to become a victim of its internal collapse. Adding more fire so he could be sure the great city would crumble, he undid the unique petrification spell he had developed, so that the countless soldiers in the ancient siege could awaken. How he wished he could simply sit back to watch events unfold!
Instead, he was alone and miserable in these swamps, though the misery was of his own making. Sitting on his moss-covered log in front of the snapping campfire, Maxim used his gift to dispel the water from his clothes and cleanse himself so that he felt more comfortable. Yes, he had the power to control his environment. He didn’t have a lavish, silk-covered bed in the grand villa, but he would survive. In fact, he thought of himself as the king of this entire swamp, a domain of mud and bugs and scaly creatures.
At least he was a king, and this was a new beginning.
Uprooting a green willow stick from the edge of the hummock, Maxim probed in the sluggish water and found a large bottom-feeding fish. With a release of his gift, he stopped its minuscule heart. Seconds later, the dead fish floated belly up, within reach. Maxim pulled it out of the water, gutted it, and threaded the willow twig down its mouth so he could roast it over the fire for his dinner.
He sat in silence listening to the ominous, yet comforting, hum of night creatures. He heard a heavy splash and cracking branches, but knew the large predators wouldn’t bother him—or if they did, they would regret it.
He watched the fish skin blacken, curl, and slough off, leaving pale meat that clung to the bones. The buzzing whine of bloodsucking insects swept around his head, drawn not to the scent of the roasting fish, but to him. When one of the large gnats bit his neck, he flinched. With an annoyed thought, he conjured his petrification spell and cast it out in waves so that all the flying, biting insects turned to tiny grains of stone and dropped out of the air. Now he would have peace long enough to eat his meal, but more of the pests would soon come to plague him.
Maxim’s thoughts drifted as he chewed the tender fish. He reminded himself, again, that living with Thora had been worse than this.
Suddenly, out of the shadowy night thickets, a demon appeared—a woman. Adessa, the morazeth leader. He saw murder in her eyes.
She had a lithe body, a hard-bitten expression, and a weapon in each hand, a short sword and a dagger. Her exposed skin glistened in the orange light of the campfire, covered not only with branded runes, but with scratches, welts, and swollen insect bites.
The sight of her was so incongruous, Maxim could only gasp.
“I’ve been sent to kill you.” Adessa slashed with her short sword, cutting branches and shrubs out of the way so she could lunge toward him.
Maxim scrambled back from his campfire, blurting out, “What are you doing? I forbid this! I am your wizard commander.”
She charged toward him without speaking another word. A different warrior might have let out a bloodcurdling yell, but Adessa was a silent killing machine.
Maxim reacted instinctively, releasing his gift to hurl a ball of fire at her, but the protective morazeth runes made the flames ripple harmlessly aside. She swung her sword at him as he jumped over the log, and the blade struck the mossy wood with a loud thunk.
She stumbled on a soft divot in the muck, and Maxim sent his magic into the campfire, blowing it up in a surge of flame. The fire didn’t burn the protected warrior woman, but the sheer flash of light and heat made her reel backward, giving him a chance to dart away.
Maxim plunged across the hummock and sloshed into the muddy water. Adessa leaped right through the surging flames, and her hard and merciless eyes glittered in the sparks of the blaze. “Sovrena Thora has ordered me to kill you and bring back your head. I will not fail.”
He had seen Adessa fight many times, had watched her defeat Nicci in the ruling chamber after the sorceress challenged Thora, and he had seen Adessa fight her warrior trainees or slay powerful monsters in exhibition bouts in the arena. She seemed to enjoy it. Maxim could never fight her in that way. He wouldn’t survive.
He lashed out with a fist of wind, tried to knock her backward, but the runes on her skin protected her. Instead, he used the wind to rip branches loose and hurl them at her like clubs. She battered them away, striding toward him as if he were a yaxen caught in a slaughterhouse pen.
Maxim ran through the watery channel, struggling in the soft mud, sinking up to his knees. Adessa had little difficulty running after him.
With a burst of magic, he made the water boil behind him. Steam curled up, blinding Adessa. He couldn’t concentrate on manipulating his gift while he fled for his life. He was the wizard commander! He could resist, he could delay her, but he knew that Adessa was relentless, and she was a morazeth. He didn’t know what he could do, where he could hide.
In the end, the swamp saved him. As Maxim churned through the muddy water, splashing steam and tearing up bushes and vines to throw at her, Adessa kept coming, paying no attention to the other dangers in her environment.
But two large swamp dragons lay in wait among the reeds, ready to lunge out at unsuspecting marsh deer or wild boars. The armored lizards scuttled toward the morazeth with jaws that could snap a tree in half.
Maxim sprang onto another hummock and swung himself over a fallen tree while Adessa turned to face the unexpected swamp dragons. She hacked with her sword, and the blade struck sparks off their gray-green hides. The first swamp dragon snapped at her, driving her backward. The second dragon closed in, lunging for her leg, but Adessa jumped up with an angry snarl of her own. She concentrated on fighting the pair of giant lizards.
Maxim spared only a glance for her as he ran off into the night. He didn’t expect the swamp dragons to kill her—Adessa was too skilled a fighter for that—but the monsters would keep her busy long enough to give him a chance to escape.
Now that he knew the morazeth was hunting him, he would never let down his guard again.
CHAPTER 18
Though the city and the people had betrayed her, Thora still believed that Ildakar was hers. Its wealth, its legend, its very soul and society endured because of her, no one else. She had stood in the ruling tower and surveyed the sweeping buildings, the levels of society from the outer walls to the pinnacle of the plateau. She had ruled it all, protected it all.
And Ildakar had turned on her. They didn’t appreciate what she had done for them as sovrena, how much they owed her for their very existence. If Utros and his invaders now ransacked Ildakar because the people had no powerful leader, then maybe they would understand. She hoped they would realize their mistake before it was too late.
The stone walls of the cell surrounded Thora like a throttling grip. She clenched her fist, felt her stiff knuckles and fingers bend according to her command, but the lingering taint of stone was still inside her because of the damnable spell that Elsa, Damon, and Quentin had hurled upon her.