darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,9
Blades who had gone over to the Son of Heaven after the fall of the temple. He had been Kelos’s chief pawn in the matter, and he hated me with a rare vigor.
She nodded at my reaction. “A piece of work that one. Venal, dumb in a clever sort of way, and more than half a coward. He speaks very highly of you, which would have been enough for me to look elsewhere for help if it weren’t for the fact that it’s obvious he despises you and that it pains him to feel the way he does about your abilities.”
“So, he sent you here?”
“No, I sent me here. Devin—gods help us—heads one of the five branches of Heaven’s forces on earth. I head another. Together we ought to be able to push the Son of Heaven off his throne without any help. But in addition to Devin’s cowardice, his traitor Blades are bound by terrible oaths that prevent them from acting directly against this Son of Heaven, and my own order is a hollow shell of what it once was. For which, curse Corik’s name for five thousand generations.” She spat on the floor.
“As much as I agree with you about the Son of Heaven, I’m finding it hard to feel a lot of sympathy for you after what your order did to mine.”
Her mouth tightened at that, but she nodded. “I can understand your position on that conflict. What would you say if I told you that I mostly shared it?”
“I . . . what?” That was not what I had expected.
“That attack killed over half of the active members of my order, and it utterly destroyed our command structure. Nor was that result unintentional. The Son of Heaven cannot convert mages without revealing himself, and that means that his control over the Hand has always been the weakest element of his command of the forces of the church. Since he took office, he has been systematically throwing our most powerful and independent members into the riskiest of situations, and the pace has accelerated dramatically of late.
“Seven Signets have died in the last ten years. Two at the fall of your temple, counting Taral’s single hour in that role. One in an ill-planned mission to Aven. Another, you killed two years ago at the abbey outside Tavan along with more than thirty of the Hand. One vanished shortly afterward, no one knows where. One fell in the battle understairs during the conflict over the Key of Sylvaras. His replacement was executed for treason three weeks later. For comparison, we lost three in the hundred years before that. Discounting half-trained novices and dotards like myself, the order has one fifth the number of members it did before your temple fell.”
She slammed a fist down on the table. “The Son has killed far more of us than your Blades ever did. Following the death of the last Signet there were only three active officers left who had held significant command roles in the organization, and not one of them felt up to the task of assuming the office—which is why they came to me. Privately, and before I took the ring, the three of them told me that they thought it would be a death sentence for any of them to do so. All of them were willing to offer up their lives if they thought it would save the order, but not one of them believed they could make a difference.”
“And you think you can?” I asked.
“I honestly don’t know. But I had to try. That’s why I’m here. The Son of Heaven has made this into little more than a shiny bauble.” She took off the ring and tossed it to me.
Reflexively, I caught it out of the air. When I opened my hand to look at it I realized for the first time what was missing. “What happened to the magic . . . ?”
I held it up to my eye and looked through the circle at Toragana. I had held the ring of a Signet before. Two of them, actually, and each had glowed brightly in magesight, infused as they were with many spells. Among other enchantments, they were, or had been, keys that opened every one of the many wards that guarded the great temple at Heaven’s Reach.
“Two years ago someone slipped into the Son of Heaven’s bedroom.” Toragana gave me a pointed look.
“Really?” I asked, my face as blank as I could make it.