Every single thing in Zeryth’s office looked too expensive to touch. It was large and vast and
meticulously decorated — furniture crafted with accents of platinum, curtains of wafting white chiffon, beautiful classical landscape paintings clinging to the curved walls. The room was closer to the size of an apartment than a typical office. Half of the wall was one massive sheet of windows, exposing miles and miles of thrashing sea from a truly dizzying height. Zeryth’s office was located at the second highest floor of the Order of Midnight. The top floor, he told me amiably on our way up, was where he lived.
Now, I sat in a little white velvet chair in front of a desk made of marble and mahogany. Zeryth settled into his own chair, leaning back and propping his heels up on the edge of the desk, regarding me with that ever-present smile.
Nura stood in front of the window, back straight, hands clasped behind her back. When Zeryth offered her a seat, she merely shook her head. He shrugged and flicked an almost-roll of his eyes.
“So,” he said to me. “Tisaanah. Thank you for joining us.”
My fingers were twined together in front of me, the pressure slowing a heartbeat that threatened to race. I carefully guarded my mental barriers — I didn’t need either
Zeryth or Nura to know how nervous I was, especially not when I still could not get Max’s face out of my head, the sound of his voice begging me to leave still echoing in my ears.
“We’re here to discuss my evaluations, yes?” I said.
“Yes.” Zeryth swung his legs off of his desk and leaned forward, grin widening. “Well, you passed! Congratulations.”
I waited for more. He said nothing else. Nura paced behind him in long, slow steps.
“That’s wonderful,” I finally said, flatly. “Are you pleased with yourself?”
“Yes. But I am more interested in what is next.” Nura continued to pace.
Zeryth looked pleased with this response. “Of course. That is why we called you to meet us here today, after all—” Mid-sentence, he whipped his head around to shoot Nura a sharp look. “Must you loom like that?”
“I am not looming,” Nura shot back, looming over Zeryth’s shoulder.
“You are testy today. Nervous energy?” He gestured to the empty chair beside mine. “Have a seat. Relax.”
“I’d rather stand.”
The thread of my patience was growing tighter and tighter. “What are we here to discuss?” I cut in.
Zeryth shifted back to me. It was amazing how quickly and seamlessly his expression changed, his hard-edged frustration melting away. “This is not yet public knowledge, but early this morning, we received some deeply upsetting news. Our Queen Sesri had to throw another traitorous noble family out of power. This was a Ryvenai one this time. Nearly two hundred soldiers and civilians were killed in the resulting skirmish.”
Gods! Two hundred.
“There were Wielders involved on both sides,” Nura added.
“And it will only get worse from here,” Zeryth said. “There will be retaliations. And it has become clear that a much larger rebellion against Queen Sesri is—”
“Civil war is an inevitability,” Nura cut in. “We stand on the precipice of a war that stands to be as deadly as—”
Zeryth snapped his neck around again, his composure shattering into a glare. “Again, with the looming. And the interrupting.”
“Again, I am not looming.” “Sit down.”
A sneer twitched at Nura’s lip. “I’m not a child.”
“No, but you are my subordinate.” Zeryth flicked his finger, and the other chair screeched across the tiled floor, as if sharply yanked by an invisible hand. “Sit.”
Nura fell heavily into the seat, her expression carved in ice.
I sat still, trying not to visibly react. I wondered if this show was for my benefit.
Nura cleared her throat, still glaring at Zeryth. “As I was saying…we are looking at a situation that could be as deadly as the last Ryvenai war.”
“Nura and I both fought in that war. Neither of us with to relive the things we saw or experienced.” The edge in Zeryth’s voice was gone as quickly as it had come. “I’m sure that Maxantarius has expressed similar sentiments.”
I didn’t even like the way Max’s name sounded on Zeryth’s lips. “That is terrible. But I do not understand how it involves me.”
Zeryth leaned forward, smirking. “I told you we were testing you.”
“For admission to the Orders.” I had to fight to keep my voice level.
“For something more than that.”
I thought of the things that had never made sense before. Their insistence that I march on Tairn. The incisions
where Willa had taken my blood. Nura’s unusual interest in me. My strange evaluations.
But I refused to let my expression change. “Then what?” Nura and Zeryth exchanged a look. The smile stilled in
Zeryth’s eyes even as it clung to his mouth. “To wield a weapon,” Nura said.
And when Zeryth turned back to me, that smile was back in full, dazzling force, light glistening on his teeth. “To be a weapon,” he corrected. “A weapon powerful enough to save both our country and yours.”
I only blinked.
I had so many questions. They danced in front of my face in such a morass that I couldn’t close my fingers around just one.
I decided on, “What sort of weapon?”
“It is a form of raw magic,” Nura answered. “It is many times more powerful than any natural power of any Wielder that walks Ara, or beyond. Even rivaling the power of the extinct Fey.”
“Powerful enough,” Zeryth added, “to end a war before it begins. Without it, the Great Ryvenai War would have gone on far longer and far bloodier than it did.”
“Be a weapon?” I echoed.
Surely, I had misunderstood that — didn’t I?
“Yes. It will become a part of you.” Zeryth said this so casually, as if we were discussing the weather. “Just as your own magic flows through your veins. But… more.”
Oh, is that all?
“Forever?”
“No. It can, and will, be removed.”
“Why do you need me to wield it?” I didn’t understand. Why would they entrust me with something that was, supposedly, so powerful? Why would they want a Fragmented foreigner to come end their war?
Nura shifted in her seat. Then rose, as if she couldn’t help herself, her arms crossed over her chest. “It is very…
selective about its hosts.” Selective? Host?
“You talk about it as if it is a person.”
“All magic chooses its Wielder in a sense,” Zeryth said, casually, in what struck me as a very deliberate non-answer.
“But if it was used before,” I asked, “then why do you need another Wielder?”
Nura had begun pacing again. “Our last host is no longer a willing participant.”
There was just something about the way she said it—
Without it, that war would have gone on far longer and far bloodier than it did.
Puzzle pieces scattered across my mind, slowly clicking into place as I rearranged them.
This man is almost single-handedly responsible for ending the Great Ryvenai War.
My eyes snapped to Nura.
No matter what they offer you, no matter what they ask you to do, say no.
“Max,” I whispered. “It was Max.”
She gave the slightest nod. “Yes. The only one.” My blood turned cold.
“We will train you in the specifics,” Zeryth said. “But most importantly, this will give you more than enough power to achieve your goals in Threll. Far more than enough to free your friends, and anyone else you wish. And even if it didn’t, we will send support to accompany you. All of this in exchange for your service in our conflict, of course.”
“But I don’t understand—”
“I think the most important thing for you to understand, Tisaanah, is that I’m giving you everything you’ve fought so hard for.” He leaned back in his chair. “What more could you want?”
In a way, he was right. Support. Power. Resources.
Everything I came here to achieve.
I closed my eyes, took in a breath.
Even if they offer you everything you want. Max’s words beat in my ears. Say no. Promise me.
I wondered if he was still outside. I imagined myself standing, striding out of the room. Imagined myself embracing him at the doors, telling him I was wrong, boarding a boat on our own.
Say no.
I opened my eyes to Zeryth’s expectant stare and parted my lips.
Say no.
“I want a blood pact.”
And with those words, my fantasy disintegrated like ash scattering into the wind.
Zeryth arched his eyebrows and let out a short laugh. “A
blood pact? Who’s been talking to you about blood pacts?” “You know exactly who’s been talking to her about blood
pacts.” Nura did not seem to find this nearly as entertaining.
Zeryth shook his head, a bemused smirk playing at his mouth. “Ascended. That man is so relentlessly morbid.”
I forced my voice into something calm and confident — just as I did when I was twelve years old and tried to buy my freedom for fifty pitiful pieces of silver. I felt like that little girl now, even as I would never, ever show it.
“I’d rather be morbid than betrayed,” I replied, coolly. “If I do this for you, I want the terms clear. And I want to be certain they will be fulfilled.”
Zeryth leaned back in his chair, gazing at me with a hungry kind of amusement. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and reached in once to produce a sheet of crisp ivory paper. Again, for a silver pen. And a third time — for a curved dagger. Its edge glistened beneath the sun
streaming through the window as he unsheathed it, laying it neatly on the desk.
“Very well, Tisaanah.” His eyes held that same glitter as he pushed the sleeves of his silk shirt up to his elbows. “Let’s make a deal.”
