“The words are the words. Someone attempts to rewrite them. It is not a sympathetic magic, but it is fueled by death. Someone believes that they can rewrite what is written, revising its meaning, reshaping the power inherent in what has been given to your friend. And it is almost time now.
“They have started at the beginning, at what they must feel is the beginning.”
“What will happen to—to my friend?”
“If I am correct? Your friend will have power, but that power will be linked to, and possibly controlled by, those who now complete the sacrifices. If that is the case, boy, I take a risk I should not take—it is arrogance on my part. Or perhaps curiosity. If what your enemies now attempt is successful, your friend will have the power to destroy this fief, and perhaps the city itself. I think it is the fief—or all of the fiefs—at which that power will be aimed.”
“All of the fiefs.”
“Tell me, do you live alone? Is it only you and your friend? You do not answer. Let me assume that the answer is no. Are the others your age, or the age of your friend?”
Silence.
“They are mortal, and children,” Nightshade continued. “And they are the victims your adversary is seeking, even as we speak.”
“There are two.” The words were strangled, almost inaudible, even to Severn, who uttered them.
“Lord,” one of the Barrani guards said.
The fieflord shook his head. “You are too poor to leave this fief, but even were you not, I would not recommend it. The borders will be watched. Unless you attempt to pass between fiefs, or into the heart ofRavellon, the shadows that exist at the very heart of the fiefdoms, they will find you. They will find your friend.
“And they will find any others that depend on you. How much have those marks changed?”
He had not answered the previous question, and did not answer this one. “What will happen if they find the others?”
“They will do as they have done. They will sacrifice them. But this time—this time I believe they will have the power necessary to subvert those marks, and the person who bears them, entirely. Your friend will die in any meaningful sense of the word, and that death, that transformation, will be bought at the cost of the lives your friend values most. Tell me where your friends are, and I will confirm my suspicions.”
Severn understood. “No.”
“They will die anyway, boy. And if they do—”
“No.”
“If I kill them, they will not be used against your friend. They cannot be used against your friend. It is the act of dying that defines the sacrifice. And the pain of that dying, the length of it. If you give them to me, the deaths will be swift and painless. If you do not—and we do not find them, cannot follow you—they will be long and torturous. It might happen now. It might happen tomorrow. You are running out of time.”
“If they die,” he finally said, “if you kill them, will my friend with the marks be safe?”
“From me?” The fieflord smiled.
“From them.”
“As I said, I do not understand the magic well—it is, or would have been, a theoretical discussion, a possibility. But if I understand what little information you have been willing to part with, yes. If there are no others, if your friend forms no similar attachments in the fiefs, then yes. For now—and now is all mortals truly have—your friend will be safe. As you can imagine, it is not the fate of your friend that concerns me. It is the fate of my fief.
“Tell me, boy, and I will make certain your friends cannot be made into weapons.”
“And the person with the marks?”
“They have shown, by weakness, by vulnerability, that they cannot safely contain the marks bestowed upon them. Yes,” he added, to the question that would not leave Severn’s lips, “I will execute them. And if you are somehow considering flight from the fiefs, if you believe, somehow, that the law across the bridge will save your friend, you do not understand the threat they pose.
“The Eternal Emperor would no more suffer your friend to live than I. The danger to the Empire is too great. Have you other questions?”
Severn said nothing.
“You want to believe I am lying. You cannot. I will offer another alternative. Bring your friends to the well. To this well. Bring them in the daylight, so they will not be suspicious. I will see to them. Choose for them: swift death, or terrible slow death. They are, by your reckoning, children; they are not capable of making that choice for themselves. They will believe, of course, that they can avoid either death, no matter how terrified they are.
“I have not lied tonight. I believe you understand this. Bring the children here, and I will give them the painless, swift death.” When Severn did not speak, the fieflord’s voice gentled. “It is clear to me that the marked child is of great import to you. Were they not, you would not have risked both your life and theirs by coming to me.
“You are unwilling to risk their life now. You believe that I will kill your friend. I believe that Imight, but it is not guaranteed. Even that, however, you will not risk.”