“Nice recovery, but no dice,” I told him.
Carnades bristled.
Nukpana’s voice was amused. “Magus Silvanus, nothing happens in this temple that I do not know—or am made aware of.”
The elf mage drew himself up. “Are you questioning my loyalty?”
I snorted. “He’s already said the rock’s more loyal than you.”
Carnades turned on me and hissed, “Shut up!”
Fear makes a man so much easier to goad. I smiled. “Wrong move. I won.”
The elf mage froze as if the Scythe of Nen had already been plunged into his back. He could feel Sarad Nukpana’s presence looming behind him like Death himself. The goblin was holding out his arm and hand, stopping his personal guard from coming any closer. This was still a game and Nukpana wasn’t finished playing yet.
“Magus Silvanus, I permitted your conversation with Mistress Benares because I wanted confirmation that you had the Scythe in your possession, instead of being forced to be so crass as to have my new partner searched. As a host, I owe that courtesy to my guests. You have abused my hospitality.”
Carnades’s face twisted into something ugly. “You promised that I would be king of the elves.”
“I promised nothing aside from what I have just told my people,” Nukpana replied mildly.
Unlike Carnades, the goblin had himself under complete control. Then again, he wasn’t the one staring Death in the face.
“Any conclusions you arrived at were driven by your own grandiose imagination,” Nukpana added. Then he smiled. “I possess a unique gift of simultaneously speaking and listening from a distance. It is a talent I have cultivated over many years in the goblin court. As Mistress Benares so eloquently stated, everyone hates a traitor. By keeping the Scythe of Nen from me, you have unequivocally proven that you cannot be trusted by anyone. Therefore you have no worth to me.” He lowered his arm, the only thing that was keeping his guards at bay.
Game over.
“Strip him of that robe and then burn it,” Nukpana told his guards. “It’s been tainted. Then prepare him for the altar.”
Carnades Silvanus was in the top 5 percent of the most powerful mages in the seven kingdoms. Did he cut loose with everything he had? Try to take out as many Khrynsani as he could before they brought him down?
No and no.
Carnades knew this was a fight he was going to lose. Badly. So what did he do? The chickenshit coward used me as a shield. I was shackled to the Saghred and couldn’t move, so I didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish.
Sarad Nukpana’s voice dripped with contempt. “Once again, Magus Silvanus, you lay hands on what is mine.”
Faster than thought, Nukpana shoved me aside, grabbed Carnades’s shoulder, and plunged the Scythe of Nen to the hilt in the elf’s chest. The goblin gripped Carnades’s shoulder, holding the elf upright until the last signs of life had faded from his ice blue eyes. Then and only then did Nukpana release him, and Carnades Silvanus’s dead body slid off of the blade and crumpled at my feet.
“Dispose of that,” Nukpana told the guards.
I watched as Carnades’s body was dragged away, his final expression one of utter disbelief.
One of the Khrynsani had retrieved the Scythe’s scabbard from the floor and presented it to his leader. Without another word, Nukpana sheathed the Scythe, tucked it into his sash, and descended the steps to where Princess Mirabai stood flanked by her needlessly big guards. I’d almost forgotten about the wedding. He had to marry Mirabai first to secure the alliance of her family. Then he’d come back to me and celebrate with a night of sacrificing.
Business before pleasure.
Nukpana glanced up at me and smiled. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a little sigh of contentment. If my hands had been free I would have given that smile the response it deserved. I had to settle for an aloof glare. He’d finally gotten everything he wanted; he was one happy psycho. A beautiful, stolen bride at his side to secure his political power, the family of his lifelong enemy at his mercy, and me chained to the Saghred’s pedestal, my torture the icing on his wedding cake.
Sarad Nukpana turned to Princess Mirabai and lifted her veil. With an involuntary whimper, the girl stepped back—trapped against the crossed pikes of the guards behind her. Sarad smiled and reached out to touch her face.
“Take your filthy hands off of her!”
The roar came from everywhere at once, echoing off of the ceiling vaults and filling the temple with his rage.
I knew that voice.
I wasn’t the only one. Mirabai’s head came up, her face the very picture of hope.
Her prince had come to save her. Either that or die a really slow and gruesome death.
The people began murmuring and looking around trying to locate where the voice was coming from.
You’d expect one of the most wanted men in the city to stay hidden, or if he was going to taunt Sarad Nukpana directly to do it from afar—way afar. In the time that I’d known him, Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin had never done the expected. The crazy and suicidal, yes. The expected, no. I just hoped he’d had the sense not to be this crazy without backup.
Not only had Chigaru made himself heard; he’d ensured that he could be seen. There he was on a gallery right above the door that Kesyn and the Nathrachs had been brought through, dressed like a king about to go into battle in Tam’s spare suit of armor. Chigaru looked appropriately regal and, if Mirabai’s expression was any indicator, sexy as hell.
The people’s mutterings turned to shouts and gasps of surprise and shock.
While I didn’t doubt that the prince could bellow when he put his gut to it, Chigaru’s volume went way beyond that of a prince being trained to project. There was master spellsinger magic at work. Now it was my turn to grin like a smitten schoolgirl.
Mychael was here and he was close.
Sarad Nukpana suddenly had a public relations problem on his hands.
Yes, Sathrik had named Nukpana as his heir, and had been conveniently assassinated immediately afterward, but Chigaru was the legitimate successor. The goblins in the temple had supported Sathrik Mal’Salin, and had transferred that support to Sarad Nukpana because of his power over them, not due to any dynastic loyalty. They may not have agreed with Prince Chigaru’s politics or even liked him, but he was the only sibling of their late king, and, most important, his last name was Mal’Salin, the family that had been their ruling dynasty for the past two thousand years.
Goblins were big on intrigue, but even bigger on tradition. It didn’t get more intriguing than what was happening right now.
To the goblins in the temple, it appeared that Sarad Nukpana had merely taken the position that was his by right, along with possession of his late king’s bride. However, with only his presence and the demand that Nukpana unhand his woman, Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin told everyone within sound of his voice that the only thing Sarad Nukpana had the right to was his choice of method of execution.
Nukpana could have quickly eliminated the problem by eliminating Chigaru, but he’d risk scuttling his plans. If he killed the prince now, he might be doing the same to a lot of his political alliances. Until I was dead and the Saghred’s power his, Sarad Nukpana wasn’t a demigod yet. I stood perfectly still, and tried not to breathe or otherwise draw attention to myself. Hopefully Nukpana was too focused on Chigaru to use the Scythe of Nen or any other handy, sharp object on me to correct his oversight.
I needn’t have worried; Sarad Nukpana had come too far to let a little thing like the appearance of the legitimate successor ruin his night.
Nukpana stared at the prince impassively for a moment, his eyes steady. Then without melodrama, he said, “Kill him.”
In an instant, two temple guards raised their crossbows and fired. The bolts shattered on impact with some kind of shield. I didn’t recognize the pattern of the bright green lattice that flared when the bolt hit, but I did know it as goblin mage work.
Looked like the newly freed mages had joined our side.
Only a couple of them would have been needed to keep Chigaru shielded. Which left the question: what mischief were the rest of them up to? I couldn’t wait to find out. I normally didn’t like surprises, but I’d gladly make an exception for this one and anything else they’d like to pull out of their collective bag of tricks.
The crossbowmen continued to fire, Khrynsani mages started lobbing fireballs, the shield continued to protect, and Prince Chigaru’s voice rang clear and compelling against the vaults of the temple’s ceiling.
“This treasonous usurper was responsible for the murder of my brother and your king. He has kidnapped with intent to defile my fiancée and your future queen, and he has betrayed the goblin people—your brothers and sisters whose only crime was loyalty to our people, defending our right to live in peace, and holding high the ideals we prize above all.”
Those were the kinds of words that ended up in history books, read by children of future generations—that is, if Chigaru didn’t take a steel bolt or fireball through the throat first. Though that possibility decreased with each word the prince spoke; the Khrynsani firing on him were lowering their weapons and hands, their eyes on Chigaru, their expressions vaguely dazed.
Spellsingers could do a lot with their voices, and Mychael was doing one of the most difficult using Chigaru’s voice, not his own. That took skill that only a very few spellsingers ever attained. It was one of the reasons why spellsingers were so dangerous, and so prized by rulers and the politically powerful. A spellsinger’s influence running beneath the words of a speech couldn’t change minds, but they could make an audience believe that the words being said sounded reasonable and rang true.
The magnifying magic was Mychael’s, but the words and their passion were all Chigaru.
It was one hell of a potent combination.
“You remain free—for now,” Chigaru continued. “Until this creature that stands before you takes your life and the lives and blood of your loved ones to preserve his own foulness, a thing bent on the destruction of the goblin people to feed his own demented appetites. He cares not for you. He loves not our people. He will feed on you until the goblins are no more and he is but a monster bloated from feasting on your souls. Will you allow that to happen?” The prince’s question rang with challenge. He turned to face Sarad Nukpana and his voice dropped to a growl seething with barely contained rage. “I. Will. Not.”
