“Nor could I,” Acantha said, exhaling. She didn’t love the idea of trusting a magical artifact Cato had been instrumental in teaching them about… but she couldn’t deny that the thing worked. “I’ll add the observation that the item in question was one that Cato attempted to steal on his first visit here. I’ll add that when the rest of us were trying it, he declined.”
Queen Lana glanced sidelong at Seth, who held her gaze for a long moment. The Queen and the Alpha were never anything but professional in public settings like this one—Acantha couldn’t remember seeing the two of them ever so much as make physical contact. But the love between them was unmistakable all the same. There was something about the soulmate bond that was simply unmistakable, once you saw it.
“The circumstances are dire,” Lana said finally, turning her gaze back to the crowd. It was a mark of the severity of the situation that they’d been so quiet throughout the proceedings, Acantha reflected. “While I’d usually insist on more caution regarding such new discoveries… I don’t see that we’d be any worse off to rely on this object’s power.”
Arric rose to his feet and sketched an odd little bow to the Queen. “Understood, Your Majesty. I will fetch the item at once.”
He hastened off across the Throne Room—Acantha had never seen the man move so quickly, or with such authority. The crowds parted wordlessly to admit him, exchanging worried glances with one another. Was this going to become a new way of life, Acantha wondered? They’d barely scratched the surface of what lay in the Archives, and already they’d discovered dozens of strange and powerful items. More change was ahead of them, more upheaval, more turbulence… and she was barely keeping up with how far they’d come already.
But it wasn’t time to worry about the future, she told herself firmly. Right now, their priority was to ensure that the future would even extend beyond sunset.
Chapter 18 - Cato
It was taking everything Cato had not to sway on the spot as the meeting wore on. Acantha was burning in his peripheral vision, standing deliberately a few paces in front of him to make it abundantly clear that she wasn’t looking at him. And with her very clear instruction not to speak still burning in his mind, he had no way of drawing her attention. Then again, why would he need it? What could he possibly say to her, now that she knew the truth about him?
Not all of the truth, he kept thinking. She didn’t know everything… only that he’d lied, only that he was still in contact with Haspar. Could he have explained the situation better? In those frozen few seconds between the discovery and her furious order for him to be silent… what if he’d made himself clearer? Told her about Haspar, told her about what bound the two of them together, about the magical artifact embedded in his very flesh. His right hand—quite literally—belonged to his leader, to his coven, to his cause…
But what reason would she have to believe that, when so much of what he’d told her already was a lie?
He was doing his best to hold panic at bay and to keep his mind clear enough to try to think of a way out of this. That had always been his strength—creativity under pressure, flexible thinking that had gotten him out of a hundred tight spots in his life, both before and after that awful, fateful meeting with Haspar. But he kept running up against dead ends… and all the while, the pain in his forearm was growing, distracting him, making it harder to think. The awful trick of the gem embedded in his forearm was that it was the power of the gem itself that allowed it to remain there. He tried not to think too much about it, but he knew his body was always working to reject the gem, and the magic of the gem was always working to heal the damage inflicted. It wasn’t like Inota and her various piercings… this wasn’t a wound that would scar over. This was a wound made fresh every second, healed and re-made thousands of times a day.
And now, with his ability to reach into the gem for its power curtailed by the thick, heavy manacles around his wrists, his body was taking the opportunity to gain the upper hand in a battle that had been raging for more than a decade.
It was a testament to how poorly his mind was working that he hadn’t thought of the collar until the archivists spoke up. The idea felt like being struck by lightning. Of course—of course. That was the only way they’d be able to have any modicum of faith in what he was saying… if he was magically compelled to tell the truth. He caught Acantha’s savage glare and stopped nodding, gritting his teeth. Careful, Cato. If they think you think it’s a good idea, they’re going to get suspicious… his heart was pounding hard in his chest as they discussed the matter, and he’d never wanted to speak so badly in all his life, but he held himself back. For Acantha, if nothing else. After everything he’d done to her, the least he could do was follow her orders.
And then the decision was made, one of the scholars dispatched to fetch the collar, and Cato felt his heart suddenly sink into his feet. He’d been so thrilled at the prospect of finally being allowed to speak, to explain himself, that he hadn’t fully thought through the consequences. The collar would compel him to speak the truth—and only the truth. No lying by omission, no clever sliding away from subjects he’d prefer not to clarify, no subtle adjustments to make himself seem better than he actually was. He’d been under the influence of truth spells before, usually as part of some horrible ‘bonding exercise’ with the other mages of the coven—it rarely ended with an increase of positive feelings between them, of course, which he suspected was why Haspar allowed it. Truth spells felt a little like being drunk, but with none of the fun, none of the warmth or camaraderie… only the complete lack of filter.
The minute they put that collar on him and started asking questions, he was going to spill his guts. He’d have no choice. And when Haspar found out that he’d told their enemy all their secrets, his life would be forfeit… that was, if it wasn’t already, after his failed attempt to call off the attack. None of this looked good for him. And while Haspar had forgiven a lot of his failures before, he knew in his heart that this one was different. This wasn’t a failure of skill, or ability, or even of planning… this was a failure that had emotion at its core. This, he knew, was because of Acantha. And one thing Haspar could never forgive a subordinate for was love. Inota had told him that once. He hadn’t been brave enough to ask her how she knew.
So it was pretty clear he couldn’t go home. Maybe he was overreacting—maybe Haspar would forgive him if the invasion went well, maybe if he threw himself at his mercy and begged him for another chance… but Cato was feeling less and less like he had that in him. But where was left for him to go? Here, he supposed. The last few weeks of his life, wracked by stress and uncertainty as they had been, had strangely enough been some of the happiest of his life. It had been a lie when he’d come to them and told them he needed shelter and a new start, that he was willing to do anything in exchange for safety from his old life… but the more he thought about it, the more he realized he’d been telling more of the truth than he’d thought.
But how could that matter now? There was no forgiving this second round of betrayal—whatever happened with the invasion, Cato knew he’d be lucky if the dragons let him leave with his life. He’d been pushing it when he came back the first time, truth be told. Should have stayed away. Should have taken the hit, let Haspar torture him for a few weeks until he lost interest or found a new outlet for his rage, should have left Acantha and her people in peace… but no, he’d had to come back, hadn’t he? Couldn’t bear the idea of losing.
Couldn’t bear the idea of never seeing her again.
Selfish. Selfish and careless. He’d never been anything but a force of destruction in the lives he entered. The throbbing in his arm intensified as the scholar returned with the collar, everyone in the crowded Throne Room craning their necks to get a look at the unassuming artifact. It just looked like a worn leather strap, the kind you’d use to secure a cloak around your neck, perhaps, or even to fasten a load to a cart or a horse. Some mages preferred their artifacts to be shiny and alluring, objects that served also to symbolize status and wealth… but others preferred to hide their power in plain sight. The collar belonged well and truly to the latter category. It was a testament to the dragons’ tendencies to hoard old things that the thing had been kept around at all.
And now, they were going to use it to ruin his life. He bent forward to allow Arric to fasten the worn leather band around his throat, feeling a little awkward with his hands behind his back—Arric smiled at him in thanks, then immediately cleared the expression from his face, looking horror-stricken at his lapse in decorum. Cato felt his heart sink at yet another reminder that the friendships he’d allowed himself to think had begun to form were all built on the same fundamental lies he’d told when he’d arrived here.
“You have permission to speak only when spoken to,” Acantha said coldly, gesturing at him without looking. He nodded his understanding, cleared his throat, felt the odd, cloying, heady feeling of the truth spell imbued in the collar beginning to take hold of him. “You will answer our questions and then you will be silent. Understood?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice rasping strangely in his throat. Acantha had already returned her attention to Queen Lana.
“When will the attack take place?”
“Sunset today,” he said, not resisting the pull of the collar.
“What is the nature of the forces we’ll be up against?”
“The coven numbers an even dozen, myself included. The exact details have been decided in the last two weeks, so I was not privy to them, but previous experience tells me ten mages will launch the initial attack, with Haspar bringing up the rear.”
“Only ten?” Prince Conrad frowned, glancing sideways at Lana. “The dragons in this room alone outnumber them five to one.”
“Cato?” Queen Lana hesitated, clearly trying to frame the question unambiguously. “Are your forces outnumbered?”
“Outnumbered, yes. Outmatched, no. Haspar and his coven have been amassing powerful artifacts for a long time. One mage cannot be considered equivalent to one soldier.”
“What do they know about our defenses?” That was Prince Conrad, whose suspicious expression hadn’t changed.