again, my friend, may the God go with you.” Dorian said. He fused the gold spikes to the manacles and knelt behind the tree. He slid the spikes into the wood with unnatural ease. His hands were set high and far apart. As he knelt there, obviously ready to pray his way through whatever ordeal he thought was coming, Solon felt a stab of envy. This time, it wasn’t for Dorian’s power or Dorian’s lineage or Dorian’s simple, humble integrity. He envied Dorian’s certainty. Dorian’s world was very clear. To him, Khali wasn’t a goddess or a figment of the Khalidorans’ imagination or just an ancient monster who’d conned the Khalidoran people into worshipping her. She was an angel who’d been expelled from heaven.
In Dorian’s world, everything had a place. There was a hierarchy. Things fit. Even a man with Dorian’s vast powers could be humble, because he knew others were far above him, even if he never met one of them. Dorian could name evil without fear and without rancor. He could claim that some did evil or served it without hating them. Solon had never known anyone like that. Except perhaps Count Drake. Whatever happened to him? Did he die in the coup?
“What does all this do?” Solon asked, picking up what had been a gold bowl. Now, it was something between a helmet and a mask. It would fit completely over Dorian’s head, with only two small holes in the nose for breathing. He turned it over. It was a perfect sculpture of Dorian’s face, weeping tears of gold.
“It will keep me from seeing her, from hearing her, from shouting out to her, from moving from this place. It will keep me from indulging in the last temptation— believing myself strong enough to fight her. I hope it will also keep me from using the vir. But I can’t bind myself magically. I need you to do it for me. After she’s passed, I’ll be able to escape when the sun rises and refills my Talent, so you needn’t worry for me. If you need your gold, it will be here.”
“You’re leaving, no matter what.”
Dorian smiled. “Don’t ask where.”
“Good luck,” Solon said. There was a lump in his throat that reminded him of how good it had felt not to be alone again. Even fighting with Dorian and Feir had been better than peace without them.
“You’ve been a brother to me, Solon. I believe we’ll meet again, before this is done,” Dorian said. “Now hurry.”
Solon fit the gold helmet over Dorian’s head and bound it with the strongest magic he could, completely emptying his glore vyrden to do it. He’d do no more magic until sunrise. It wasn’t a comforting thought. As he climbed down from the rock outcropping, he swore that he saw bark growing over Dorian’s arms where they otherwise would have been exposed.
From the road, Dorian was invisible. “Goodbye, brother,” Solon said. Then he turned and strode toward the wall. Now he just had to convince Lehros Vass that he wasn’t stark raving mad.
35
The Godking perched on the fireglass throne he’d ordered cut from the rock of the Maw. To him, the sharp-edged blackness was a reminder, a goad, and a comfort at once.
His son stood before him. His first son, not just the seed of his loins. The Godking spread his seed far and wide. He never considered the weeds that took hold to be sons. They were just bastards, and he gave them no thought. The only ones who mattered were the boys who would be Vürdmeisters. The training, though, was more than most could survive. Only a few boys out of scores of wytchborn survived to become his aethelings, his throne-worthy sons. Each of those had been given an uurdthan, a Harrowing to prove his worth. So far, only Moburu had succeeded. Only Moburu would he acknowledge as his son. And still not yet his heir.
The truth was, Moburu pained him. Garoth remembered the boy’s mother. An island princess of some sort, captured in the days before the Sethi Empire had destroyed Garoth’s attempt at a navy. He’d been intrigued by her, and while an endless procession of other women born high and low, willing and not, made its way through his bedchamber, he’d actually tried to seduce her. She’d been as passionate as he was calculating, as hot as he was cold. She’d been exotic, enticing. He’d tried everything except magic. He’d been certain with a young man’s certainty that