CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NOW!” VEDRAN POLLARD SHOUTED AS HE raised his sword.

At Pollard’s word, his army surged forward, screaming a war cry that echoed from the stone walls of Lepstow Castle, the domain of Dag Marlief, talishte Elder Onyx. Hundreds of soldiers stormed the gates as archers fired down from the high stone walls and guards hurled rocks down on the invaders.

Larska Hennoch was at the forefront, permitting Pollard himself to watch from a safe distance, just beyond the range of arrows. Pollard shifted in his saddle, but no matter how he moved, he could find no relief from the raw wound in his chest or the red, running sores that covered all of his skin except his face. Until Pentreath Reese was freed of his imprisonment, those wounds, mirror images of what Reese suffered from his torture, would remain. That was one of the prices to be paid for his kruvgaldur bond. One of many, Pollard thought.

Only Nilo knew that the wounds had grown so dire that it was impossible for Pollard to do more than skirmish. Pollard had defied his wounds to fight in the Battle of the Northern Plains, but even then, he had not been at the forefront of the fighting, and he no longer possessed the stamina to hold his own in an all-out fight.

Damn Reese! It would be bad enough to have to hang back because of age, or from an injury taken in battle. There’s no shame in that, Pollard thought bitterly. But I’m forced to be an onlooker when I could still make good use of my sword, because of wounds that aren’t even my own. All because I’m bound to Reese, body and soul. And through him, to Thrane. All to win a throne!

Pollard had no doubts that Reese knew exactly the price his many blood readings would impose on him, and how tightly Pollard would be bound by the intrusion. While Reese picked through Pollard’s thoughts and memories at will, Pollard was denied a reciprocal arrangement. And because Reese was Thrane’s get, and Thrane had insisted on his own blood readings, Pollard was bound not once but twice to masters who exacted a dear price for whatever favors they chose to bestow.

Nilo led the second wave of troops. As Hennoch’s soldiers returned fire with the archers, Nilo’s men readied a large, iron-bound battering ram and moved the siege machine into place in front of the castle’s heavy gates.

The thud of the battering ram echoed from the castle walls and the nearby cliffs and shook the ground. The soldiers manning the machine sang in time to the pounding to synchronize their efforts. The low tones of the war song were almost lost with the crash of the huge metal-tipped log that smashed against the reinforced gates.

Out of archer range, small catapults slammed load after load over the wall. The shocks of hay and bundled cornstalks would spread their flammable cargo as soon as they hit.

“Mages, ready!” Pollard shouted. Half a dozen of his mortal mages moved to line up behind the soldiers on a ridge where they had an excellent view of the battleground.

“Fire!” Pollard commanded.

The mages each stood within a warded circle drawn into the dirt as they gathered their power. Balls of flame appeared over the wall, then dropped down into the dry grasses and stalks. Lepstow had no wooden roofs. Its talishte lord was too afraid of fire for that. Nor were there wooden walkways or outbuildings. Everything was made of stone or covered with tiles. But the bales of grass and stalks would burn fast and hot. So will the soldiers, Pollard thought. And talishte burn like kindling.

Let it burn, Pollard thought, watching as flames rose against the sky. Black smoke rose into the blue sky and from inside the castle walls, as panicked shouts and the clang of a fire bell made a descant to the steady rhythm of the battering ram.

As far as Pollard was concerned, Lepstow Castle could burn to the ground, and all its residents with it. What he sought was hidden well below the ground, deep in an oubliette far removed from flames or sunlight. Pentreath Reese lay staked and bound at the bottom of a deep pit. When the council had passed judgment, they had not thought it possible that a mortal army might breech their defenses. They were wrong.

Onyx had not factored Thrane into his plans. Nor had he accounted for purely mortal treachery. With the rest of the allied Elders’ attention focused on helping McFadden win the Battle of the Northern Plains, it had been easy for one of Nilo’s locals to infiltrate the mortals that supplied Lepstow Castle and gain their trust. Once the traitor was in place, it was just a matter of timing for him to slip poison into the castle cistern. All Pollard had to do was wait until the poison had time to take effect.

The poison was why Hennoch’s assault was not met by defending mortal soldiers, and why the archers on the walls were few and their aim imperfect. They and all those within the walls were already dead men. Attacking in daylight meant that Onyx and any talishte allies were shadow-bound until sundown, unable to protect themselves.

The massive gates gave with a crash as the battering ram smashed and splintered the wood. A victory shout went up from the soldiers. By now, the grass and corn shocks were ablaze, and the archers on the walls had withdrawn, running for their lives.

Hennoch might be serving under duress, but he was an excellent commander, and his soldiers were disciplined and skilled. Hennoch himself led the first troops to enter the castle enclosure, as the mages scryed from a distance to ensure there were no reinforcements on their way.

When Nilo raised Pollard’s colors above the battlements, Pollard and the mages led the rearguard troops down the slope to enter Lepstow Castle as victorious invaders. Pollard forced himself to hold his head high and move with his horse as if every shift and step were not excruciating. He knew his withdrawal from fighting was a matter of gossip among the troops. Nilo had told him as much. Let them talk, Pollard said, gritting his teeth against the pain. Anything suffered is bearable, if one survives. I can suffer a lot to gain a crown.

The smell of death was overpowering. Pollard gave a mirthless smile. Apparently, the estimates of how long it would take the poison to work were conservative.

Bodies were stacked against the inside of the castle walls. The courtyard smelled of rot and shit, and the warm summer days made the stench even worse. Flies buzzed everywhere, barely noticing the newly dead in preference for the bloated corpses on which they already feasted.

“The buildings are secured, m’lord,” Nilo reported.

“Survivors?” Pollard asked, raising an eyebrow.

Nilo chuckled. “There won’t be. Hennoch is seeing to that now. Actually, it’s more of a mercy to finish them off. They’ve seen the others dying. They know what awaits them.”

“So the poison was effective,” Pollard said, looking over the still bailey. Normally, a castle courtyard should have bustled with activity of servants carrying firewood or water from one building to another and children chasing chickens while stable boys exercised horses. The air should have smelled of roasting meat and baking bread, of horses and goats and cook fires, walls echoing with the voices of servants and the clatter of carts.

Instead, smoke hung in the air and the ground in the center of the bailey was scorched black. The bailey itself was eerily silent. Pollard’s horse fidgeted, its nostrils twitching.

Hennoch’s soldiers finished clearing the bailey, and proceeded to the keep. Lepstow Castle was old, perhaps even older than its lord. That meant that the next phase of the operation was more dangerous than storming the castle walls had been. Surviving a fight with mortals and arrows was relatively simple. Subduing an ancient, powerful talishte and his undead brood in order to get to his well-guarded prisoner was going to be much more difficult.

“Well?” Nilo joined Pollard, sidling his horse up alongside as Pollard supervised the troops’ efforts to lock down the storage buildings, looting whatever could be easily carried as they went.

“Now we wait for sundown,” Pollard replied. He was sure Nilo read his concern, though Pollard hid it from his expression.

“Have I mentioned that I don’t like this part of the plan?” Nilo replied. “We’re being offered up like lambs to the slaughter.”

Pollard gave a sharp, short laugh. “Of course we are. I never thought anything else. Did you really expect Thrane to let us have a practice run at killing an ancient, powerful talishte and his brood?” Thrane was many things, but stupid was not among them. Pollard was certain the talishte lord was well aware that mortals could storm a talishte day crypt with fire and magic in daylight, besting even strong vampires at their weakest time of the day. He was equally certain that Thrane had no intention of giving him any ideas of attempting a coup against himself and his followers.

“So he expects us to wait here, like targets for the archer, as the sun goes down?” Nilo’s eyes flickered with anger.

“Yes.”

“To prove our loyalty?” Nilo demanded.

Pollard shrugged. “Partly. Thrane loves fealty. Mostly because he loves the idea of us squirming out here, watching the sun go down, knowing that there will be a gap between when Onyx and his followers awake and when Thrane and his brood can get here. And he will find it delicious that we are in fear of our lives for every second of it.”

“Are you sure he’ll show up?”

Pollard let out a long breath. “I am sure of nothing with Thrane. However, I’ve found self-interest to be a relatively reliable motivation, even for Thrane. He needs a mortal army, for exactly the kind of things we did today. So I doubt he’ll allow Onyx to kill us.” He paused. “At least, not all of us.”

Nilo gave Pollard a murderous look, but said nothing.

“Go see to the mages,” Pollard ordered. “They’re our only real defense once it gets dark. Make sure they’ve got their wards in place and whatever other hocus they can muster up. I’ll stay on the soldiers here to make certain we bottle up those talishte and keep them that way until Thrane gets here.”

Nilo nodded. “I’m on it,” he said, and spurred his horse to ride toward where the mages gathered near the keep.

Pollard turned his attention toward one of Nilo’s commanders who oversaw searching and looting the bailey. “Captain Elsworth!” Pollard shouted. “A word with you.”

Elsworth was a seasoned soldier in his early thirties, a veteran of many battles. He was spattered with mud and blood from the fight outside the gates, and seemed to be struggling to rein in a foul mood.

“M’lord?”

“Do you know what happens at sundown?” Pollard asked, making the painful effort to sit up in his saddle and look disdainfully at the captain.

“Yes, sir. The biters wake up.”

Pollard nodded soberly. “Yes, they do. And what’s to hold them in the keep rather than tearing out our throats?”

Elsworth swallowed hard. “Not much, sir, if you pardon my saying so.”

Smart man, Pollard thought. “No, there isn’t much,” Pollard replied coolly. “The mages are sealing the keep, but there are probably tunnels all over this fortification and trapdoors in every building. And if you miss even one of those secret doors, there will be a bloodbath.”

Elsworth nodded. “Aye, sir.”

“Talishte are cunning,” Pollard said sharply. “The doors may be well hidden. They could be halfway down a cistern, or under heavy crates. You’ll have to seal the entrances with the materials we brought. Ash and rowan wood boards to close up doorways, covered with the mixture of buckthorn, dog roses, and juniper you have in the crocks. Make sure you have men watching every entrance you find, and that they have aspen and linden arrows. Choose your best archers: Nothing except a direct shot to the heart will kill these biters,” Pollard instructed. And for the oldest, even a stake in the heart won’t be enough. “Old talishte can withstand your arrows, so take off the head if it comes to that.”

Elsworth swallowed again. Surely he knows he’s being sent on a suicide mission, Pollard thought. But the captain straightened and gave a nod.

“It will be done, m’lord.” Elsworth walked away with the manner of a man just sentenced to the gallows.

Silently, Pollard cursed Thrane and his brood, as well as Thrane’s sadistic sense of humor. Yet if they could succeed at freeing Reese, and if Reese could be cured of his wounds, then Pollard stood a good chance that his own torment would end. I inherited Reese’s wounds through the kruvgaldur, Pollard thought. Let’s hope I stand to inherit the healing as well.

Tension rippled through the troops as the sun dipped lower in the sky. Hennoch and his soldiers encircled the keep. They had blocked the door with a removable barrier of ash and rowan, painted with the plant mixture the mages assured them would make it impossible for talishte to touch the wood.

Pollard could think of at least half a dozen ways such protections might be foiled, but it was the best alternative available. Thrane and his people, when they came, would need to make a quick entrance into the keep. Mortals could easily drag the barricades away from the doors, instead of having to rip out spikes driven into the stone. If the mages are wrong about the talishte not being able to touch the wood-and-plant mixture, then it doesn’t matter whether we lean the boards against the doorway or nail them tight. The talishte will pass through them like a knife through butter.

Thrane had provided no help when Pollard had consulted him regarding how best to contain Onyx until the talishte reinforcements could appear. “Figure it out,” he said. Of course he wasn’t going to give me any suggestions of ways to keep a talishte bottled up. Doesn’t want me to use it against him, even if the kruvgaldur would allow it, Pollard fumed. I bet he knows ways mortals have done it before. That’s why the biters are so afraid.

Rising up against Thrane and the rogue Elders was not a possibility, even with an army at his disposal. The kruvgaldur bond was too strong. Thrane would sense treachery long before Pollard could make good on his scheme, and given the nature of the bond, killing either Reese or Thrane might well destroy Pollard and Hennoch as well. He’s got us, Pollard thought bitterly. He knows it. And he has us out here, twisting in the wind, to make damn sure that we know it as well. Thrane was powerful enough to keep his thoughts hidden from Pollard despite their bond. He seemed to enjoy keeping Pollard off guard and painfully aware of the one-way nature of their mental communication.

Just a breath after the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, Thrane appeared in the bailey. With him were twenty-five black-clad talishte. Pollard recognized some of them: Garin. Aslanov. Kiril. Sonders. Some, Pollard had never seen before. He wondered which of them might be among the renegade Elders. And then he wondered whether even together, they would be any match for Onyx and the obstacles that awaited them in the tunnels beneath Lepstow Castle.

“You’re here.” Thrane’s voice thrummed with power and eagerness for the hunt.

“You ordered it so,” Pollard replied, not bothering to look at Thrane as he addressed him.

“The poison worked?”

“You knew it would.” Outright insolence or rebellion would not be tolerated, but Pollard reminded himself of who he was, or at least who he had been, by making at least a token effort at disdain from time to time.

Thrane’s chuckle was cold and terrifying. “And did you wonder how I knew?” he asked in a dangerously smooth tone. “Of course you did. Best not to ask, of course. But here’s something else you might want to know,” he baited. “Those painted boards of yours wouldn’t even slow down a talishte of Onyx’s strength if he wanted to get out.”

Pollard had suspected as much, although it was just as likely that Thrane was toying with him to get a reaction. He had already accepted the idea that he and the others faced down a nest of ancient talishte with nothing more than useless talismans. Thrane could rip out my throat or drain my blood anytime he wants, Pollard thought with the indifference that came with constant mortal fear. If this is how he wants to squander my life, then that’s what will happen.

“You knew that, and let us believe otherwise.” Pollard’s voice was hard and flat.

Thrane grinned. “Mortals need their lucky amulets,” he replied. “I’ll admit that a newly turned talishte might find your barricades daunting, but not for long. But really, what harm did it cause? Your men felt they controlled the situation. It kept them busy, so they didn’t have time to feel their fear. Not the first useless military gesture to pacify troops on the eve of battle.”

Deep inside, in the part of his mind Pollard tried hard to hide away from the kruvgaldur, he seethed at Thrane’s casual cruelty. I am not expendable, that hidden part of himself raged. It was the nugget of self that he hung on to, buried as deeply inside himself as he could hide it, in case someday, when he gained Donderath’s crown, he might be his own master once again.

“What would you have us do now?” Pollard asked, maintaining an edge to his voice so it did not sound servile.

“Hold your ground,” Thrane replied. “For however long it takes. I’m not surprised Onyx didn’t attack. Once he comes out of his keep, he’s vulnerable to mortal weapons. In there, in close quarters, he owns the darkness and the territory.” He gave a terrifying grin. “Or at least, he believes he does.”

With that, Thrane and the other talishte stalked toward the keep of Lepstow Castle.

Pollard and his army waited. No bell rang from the castle’s tower, nor did the peal of bells from a nearby village tell the candlemark. It was difficult to gauge how long Thrane and his allies had been inside the keep, but by Pollard’s rough estimation, several candlemarks passed.

Soldiers waited nervously in their ranks. The men were tired from the fight. They were hungry, too, since Hennoch and Nilo had made it painfully clear that the water and foodstuffs were poisoned. If any of the soldiers had doubted that before they broke down the gates, the stench of rotting corpses had made the point terrifyingly clear.

Nilo dispatched a handful of soldiers to move among the ranks, handing out dried meat and offering water from buckets drawn from barrels the army had brought with them. The scant rations would hardly constitute a meal, but they might stop soldiers from fainting of hunger.

Now and again, a shriek or screech would echo from somewhere in the complex. Then, silence. That the sounds seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once made them all the more terrifying. Most of these men had seen talishte in battle, at Valshoa, or on the Northern Plains, or at Mirdalur. These soldiers had witnessed comrades torn apart, heads ripped away, throats savaged. They had seen commanders snatched from their horses by an enemy that moved with inhuman speed and strength. Now, they stood nearly defenseless inside the keep—the lair—of one of the most powerful of the talishte. No wonder they’re terrified, Pollard thought. Any sane man would be.

“Someone’s coming!” The soldier who shouted the alert could not quite keep a quiver of fear from his voice.

Black-garbed men emerged from the keep’s main door, waving, as had been prearranged, a blood-red kerchief as a signal. One of the talishte Pollard did not know came out first. Of course, Thrane wouldn’t risk leading the way in case one of the soldiers panicked and shot him full of arrows, Pollard thought. Thrane followed, then two more talishte carrying what appeared to be a corpse in a shroud. Garin and the more senior talishte brought up the rear.

The undead fighters looked worse for the wear. Their clothing was shredded, torn nearly from their bodies. Deep bruises and oozing gashes might be gone by morning, but even at a distance, Pollard could see that the injuries were severe enough to have crippled or killed mortal fighters.

Hennoch’s soldiers parted to let Thrane and his entourage pass. Nilo’s command did the same. Pollard counted heads. Five of the twenty-five did not come back. Even Garin and Aslanov, two of the oldest talishte, were limping and bleeding. Thrane looked as if he had been in a tavern brawl. His usually immaculate clothing was covered with dirt and ichor, and from the amount of blood on one side of his head, it appeared that a handful of his carefully groomed hair had been yanked out by the roots. A sword slash across the chest gave disturbing glimpses of bone beneath the blood and tissue. Yet despite the injuries, Thrane strode up to Pollard with as much vigor as he had shown on his way in.

We both know something about making a good appearance in front of the troops. Never show weakness to an underling, Pollard thought. There was a degree of satisfaction in knowing that at least for an evening, Thrane might share in his suffering.

“We have him,” Thrane announced as he approached Pollard. “Reese was not destroyed.”

Pollard nodded. “Good to hear. What about Onyx?”

Thrane bared his bloodstained teeth. “Gone. Onyx and all his brood have been eliminated. There are no talishte left inside the keep.”

“And your Elders?” Pollard asked, curious to see how they had fared.

Thrane shrugged. “Sapphire and Jade were destroyed, so were three of the others. The rest of those who came with me survived.”

“How would you have us leave the castle grounds?” Pollard asked, keeping his voice neutral.

Thrane stared at the darkened, empty keep. “Burn everything. That will send a message to Penhallow and his traitor talishte. Tell your men not to dally. Once Penhallow realizes what we’ve done, there will be retaliation. When you return to Solsiden, come to the cellar. Reese will want a full report.”

With that, Thrane walked briskly away for a few paces, then vanished in a blur of movement. His last comment sent a chill down Pollard’s back.

“They get to Reese?” Nilo asked, approaching Pollard once he was certain Thrane was gone.

Pollard nodded. “Yes. And once again, we’ve been left in the lurch. Thrane wants our men to burn the place before we leave—knowing that Penhallow and the Knights of Esthrane might be on us any moment.”

“While he and the other talishte are back at Solsiden by now,” Nilo finished.

“Yes.”

Nilo cursed creatively under his breath. “Well then, let’s send all but half a dozen men back to camp, and see that we’re well on our way before the others torch the castle.” He met Pollard’s gaze. “You know it’s a symbolic gesture, setting it afire? I’ve been through most of the outbuildings and barns. Nothing’s built with wood. I’d guess the keep is the same way. All a fire is going to do is call attention to us—the wrong sort of attention.”

Pollard nodded. “Then rig it. Hold back one or two of the mages. Have the men set burning candles or oil lamps where there’s anything that will burn. Get well clear, and have the mages tip them over. Or just wait for the candles to burn down and light the rest of it.”

Nilo’s reply was a slow grin. “I do like how you think. We can do that. And with luck, we’ll be most of the way back before the flames go up.”

“Don’t trust to luck,” Pollard advised, setting his heels to his horse. “It hasn’t been on our side of late.”

“Get out of the way, mortal.” Marat Garin pushed past Vedran Pollard as he entered the small, dimly lit cellar room.

“Have a care,” Pollard snapped. “I’m not your get.”

“Watch what you say, or you could be.”

“I doubt Reese would approve. He doesn’t share well,” Pollard replied. He stood against the wall in one of Solsiden’s basement rooms as three talishte crowded around a still figure. The room had been prepared weeks before, changed from a storage area into a secure sickroom. Pollard held the only lantern, since he alone needed help to see in the dark. The room had a bed, washstand, and trunk. After centuries, Pentreath Reese’s world had come down to this small space.

Pollard watched as the talishte carefully removed the cloth wrappings from the shrunken body on the bed. Before his capture and imprisonment, Pentreath Reese had been a tall man, powerful even without his talishte strength. Now, after months of starvation, imprisoned at the bottom of an oubliette, tortured with magical bonds, Reese looked like a shriveled corpse.

Thin skin pulled tightly over his skull. His eyes were sunken and closed. Blackened lips had drawn back, revealing his sharp teeth. The rest of him appeared to be mere bones beneath the rags that were left of his clothing. And in the center of his chest, a hole where Reese’s foes had driven a thick wooden stake. Talishte as old as Reese could survive a stake to the heart, but it immobilized them while leaving consciousness intact. And so Reese had lain aware and unable to move, wrapped in rope made from plants that burned his skin, sprinkled with leaves that caused his skin to itch and blister, condemned to starve for fifty years as a punishment by the talishte Elders for his crimes.

And they say Hemming Lorens survived such a fate for more than seventy-five years, Pollard thought. No wonder he went mad.

“My lord requires food,” Garin said, eyeing Pollard. “Bring it.”

Pollard seethed at Garin’s tone, but he kept his face impassive and leaned out of the room, barking an order to one of his talishte soldiers. “We’ve been gathering food for Reese since your plans were made,” he replied impassively, turning back toward the others. “And if he requires more, it can easily be obtained.”

Pollard stepped back as a talishte guard led a dazed young man into the room. He could see the hunger with which Garin and the others regarded the man, who had been captured only the night before on a lonely roadway not far from Solsiden. The captive should have been terrified out of his mind. Instead, he appeared drugged, or more likely, glamoured to make for easier feeding.

Garin pushed the man to his knees beside the bed and took his wrist, feeling for a pulse and allowing the blood to throb beneath his fingers for a moment, as if savoring the smell of a delicious meal. The prisoner watched, utterly oblivious to the danger of his situation. Glamouring a victim was a generous act, a kindness unexpected of Thrane’s brood, which enjoyed the terror and suffering as much as the blood itself.

Then again, Reese couldn’t feed from a struggling donor, Pollard thought. It’s practicality, not kindness. That makes perfect sense. Once he’s stronger, Reese will probably prefer his food wide awake and screaming.

Long practice meant that Pollard could watch Reese sink his fangs deep into the man’s arm and draw out the lifeblood without wincing. He had seen far worse on battlefields, and in the years he had been Reese’s collaborator, he had watched Reese feed under far more horrific circumstances. Usually, Pollard felt only a profound sense of relief that this night, this time, it was not his blood being taken, not his life forfeit.

And thankfully, not Nilo or Eljas Hennoch, Pollard amended. Thrane considered all mortals to be interchangeable and expendable. Pollard knew better, and there were key people he would do everything in his power to protect, not for sentiment’s sake, but because without them, his army could not function. Pollard had no illusions about how long his life would last if he ever ceased to be useful, either to Reese or to Thrane. Whatever it takes to win a crown.

A quiet moan escaped the captive’s lips. Even in the lantern light, Pollard could see that the man had paled. Reese lacked the strength to tear into the artery, but his puckered lips closed around the wrist greedily, suckling the warm skin as the captive sagged against the bed frame. Pollard had seen talishte drain a man dry in minutes. Reese’s weakness would likely prolong this death. Pollard felt nauseous.

Still, since Reese’s release and the withdrawal of the stake that had pierced Reese’s heart, the raw, agonizing sore on Pollard’s chest had stopped its constant throbbing and begun to scab over. One of the talishte gentled Reese out of his filthy rags, while another soaked a cloth in the washbowl and began to wipe Reese’s wrinkled, atrophied body from head to toe, cleansing away the poisonous powders used by his captors to torment him. Pollard could see the deep cuts where toxic ropes had cut into Reese’s wrists and ankles. He knew the location of Reese’s wounds well, since he bore their mirror image on his own body, a result of their kruvgaldur bond. So do Garin and all of Reese’s get, Pollard thought. But out of all the other mortals he’s put in his thrall, I appear to be the only one bound so tightly that his wounds are mine. I’d feed him a thousand peasants to be rid of the damn itching and the constant pain.

“Let me through.” Thrane pushed through the doorway, and with a jerk of his head, dismissed all of the talishte except Garin, who was still holding the captive’s wrist against Reese’s mouth. Thrane gave a hiss of displeasure as he saw Reese, and let out a string of curses at the sight of his damaged blood-son.

“Has he spoken?” Thrane stared at Reese with a combination of concern and uneasiness.

Garin shook his head. “No. He’s barely feeding. He’s weak and not fully conscious. Give him time.”

“We will hunt down the Elder Council for what they did to him,” Thrane vowed. “We will destroy their broods, take their lands, seize their crypts. I want nothing of them to remain. Nothing.”

“How will you do it?” Pollard’s voice seemed loud in the underground chamber.

“What?” Thrane barely seemed to have heard him, his attention fixed on Reese.

“How will you punish Penhallow and the others?”

The question was not idle curiosity. Pollard knew Thrane’s vanity. A plan clever enough to thwart the plans of the now-disbanded Elder Council would be a point of pride for Thrane, and boasting about it might improve his mood, raising the odds of survival for everyone. Pollard had learned long ago that any knowledge he could gain from his talishte allies stood him in good stead when it came to keeping what little autonomy he retained. For now, he needed Reese and Thrane in order to win the crown of Donderath for himself. But that would not always be so, and when that day came, he would seize his freedom.

Someday, he thought, before forcing his mind away from the possibilities. Someday.

“We will draw them out with attacks on the mortals they hold so dear,” Thrane said. “Weaken their defenses by stretching them thin between our Meroven allies and the ambitions my agents have stoked in the Cross-Sea Kingdoms’ mad king. When their armies are destroyed and their mortal allies scattered, we will destroy them and their broods.” Anger transformed Thrane’s features, bringing a flush of blood to his cheeks and lighting his eyes with a vengeful glint.

Pollard did not doubt that Thrane meant every word. And we are all likely to go down in flames again because of it.