“Drop the gauntlet,” she ordered flatly, and her voice was as cold and level as it ever had been. To her surprise, the man did so immediately, tossing the thing aside with a casualness that made her suspicious. If that was really what he’d come here for, why was he so willing to relinquish it? She studied his face for clues, and found none. An imposing man, considerably taller than her and broader, too, his broad shoulders and barrel-shaped frame making it clear he’d be a substantial physical threat, if he chose to be. But that wasn’t his weapon of choice, was it? He’d barely glanced at the sword in her hands, choosing instead to study her face with dull gray eyes that were nothing like Cato’s. “You’re Haspar.”
Barely even a flicker of recognition that she’d known his name. “Yes.”
“That’s what you’re here to steal, isn’t it?” She nodded at the gauntlet, discarded on the floor. He sighed as his gaze followed hers.
“Yes. A waste of a journey, and a waste of a servant. Still, I’ll take it with me, I think. What can I say? I’m sentimental.”
“Stay where you are,” Acantha warned him. He ignored her, striding over toward the gauntlet, and she readied herself to strike him down, almost grateful that he’d given her such a clear-cut opportunity. But something was wrong. Her blade stayed where it was, suspended in the air before her, pointed at the place Haspar had been. Every muscle in her body remained still, poised, ready to strike… but nothing she could do would transform that readiness into action.
“No, I don’t think I will,” the mage said, turning back to her with the gauntlet held carelessly by its thumb. His hands… she took in the rings that cluttered every single one of his fingers, her heart beginning to sink. There were at least three on every finger, if not more, depending on the size, all of them mismatched in size and style, the impression far from stylish… but style wasn’t the point, was it? As she stared at them, she heard him chuckle, and a dull gleam moved over the surface of one of the rings.
Pain, like a distant shadow, passed through her body. There was blood running down her chin from her parted lips. She heard her sword clattering to the floor, and the rest of her body was every bit as inert and useless to her as her weapon as it came to rest by her feet. Another twitch of Haspar’s fingers, and the sword went skidding off towards the shelves, swallowed by the shadows. Despair hit her. She still had a dirk strapped to the inside of her leg, but how could she reach it with her whole body in Haspar’s grip? Another gout of blood rushed out of her mouth, but she couldn’t even move her mouth to spit it out. Was this how she was going to die? Upright, drowning in her own blood in the Archives? Would she fall to the ground once she’d lost consciousness, or would her body rot here, suspended midair by Haspar’s terrible grip?
“Tell me where the traitor is,” Haspar said, his voice light and conversational. The grip on her face loosened at last.
“Die,” she spat instead, relieved to clear her mouth a little of blood. The relief was short lived as what felt like a fist the size of her torso clenched hard around her body, crushing the wind from her lungs and cracking at least half her ribs. The force holding her up was gone… but all that meant was that she crashed to the ground and curled up, wheezing desperately for breath.
“Tell me where the traitor is,” Haspar repeated, his tone identical to the first time he’d asked. Feeling on the verge of passing out, Acantha heard her own voice replying, giving clear directions to the Palace prisons. Haspar nodded when she’d finished, then wordlessly tossed the useless gauntlet down beside her body and was gone.
That was it, Acantha thought numbly as her vision darkened. Her chance to put a stop to the attack, to protect the Palace… and she’d failed.
Chapter 22 - Cato
Cato really began to worry when his guard left his post. The battle had been raging out there for quite some time, but he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it when he began to suspect it was growing closer. Not until hurried footsteps thundered past in the hallway directly outside, panicking voices shouting for help not far away. Cato looked toward the door despite the knowledge that he couldn’t see anything from this angle. But the guard, it seemed, wasn’t happy with that. He was on his feet, and the resentful look he shot Cato was very clear—he didn’t want to be here, safe and sound in a cell with some prisoner, while his fellow soldiers were fighting to protect their home.
Cato held his breath, waiting for the guard to return. But the prison door slammed, and seconds turned into minutes without the guard reappearing. He’d gone to join the fray, Cato reasoned, slumping. They hadn’t exchanged a single word, and Cato hadn’t even known the stern-faced dragon’s name—and now, he was probably going out there to die at the hands of one of Cato’s so-called colleagues.
Maybe not. Maybe the dragons would win and his stern-faced guard would be back presently to kill him. There were so many exciting possible futures for Cato, locked as he was in a cage with what felt like red-hot knives trying to force their way out from the center of his forearm in every direction at once. He had begun to wish fervently that he could get the manacles off, losing his connection to the rational knowledge that that would only allow Haspar to take control of him again. Right now, he’d embrace Haspar like a long-lost brother if it meant a breath of relief from the feeling in his arm.
He’d be seeing Haspar soon, one way or the other. Unless one of the dragons got lucky and put an end to his wretched life… but from the sounds of the chaos out there in the Palace, that wasn’t likely. The other mages would bear Haspar no loyalty in death. If they were still fighting, then Haspar was still alive. And that meant he’d be on his way to Cato’s cell. Haspar wasn’t in the habit of leaving loose ends untied. He only hoped that he might just be able to find some way to make his death meaningful… to get the jump on him somehow, do some damage before he took him out. It wasn’t likely, but it was something to cling to. Something that helped him see through the ever-growing haze of pain in his arm.
He felt Haspar’s approach before he saw him. Some kind of shift in the air pressure, some seismic impact the big man had, he wasn’t sure—but it couldn’t have been magical, not with the manacles still locked around his wrists. Whatever it was, he was on his feet before the prison door buckled in like it was made out of paper, and a shudder ran down his spine as he finally laid eyes on the familiar, dreaded shape of his boss, his tormentor, his nemesis.
“What are the chances of seeing you here?”
The joke would probably have hit better if his voice hadn’t shaken so much, but given the circumstances, he’d take the win. Haspar barely looked at him as he waved a hand, the metal bars squealing as some unseen force crushed them and hurled them aside.
“What do you have to say for yourself, you pathetic traitor?” Haspar asked now that the obstacles between them had been removed, folding his arms across his chest and staring him down.
“Only that I’ve always hated you, and I hope that my death can be some small part of your eventual downfall.” Dammit. Somehow, he’d forgotten about the collar around his throat, which even now was loosening his tongue. Haspar’s eyes narrowed.
“Pathetic. First all that nonsense about delaying the attack, now I see you’ve let yourself be captured and collared like a mutt?”
“Better treatment than I ever got at your hands,” he heard himself say. This wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined all of this going… but there was still something giddy and liberating about speaking his mind to Haspar. There was something like a surprise in the man’s eyes, too. How could that be? Was it really news to him that his prisoner hated him? Sure, he was usually nothing but complimentary towards the big man, praising his power and his cleverness, thanking him fervently for any scrap of favor or even basic human decency that he tossed his way… had Haspar somehow let himself believe that any of that was genuine?
“You’ve forgotten your place,” Haspar said dismissively. “You’re right, I ought to kill you where you stand. But perhaps I’ve grown sentimental. Beg for the right to return and apologize unreservedly for all of your foolish choices, and I’ll consider whether there’s a punishment significant enough to earn your way back into my house.”
“No thanks,” Cato heard himself say brightly. “I’d rather stay here and die of blood poisoning, but it’s very sweet of you to offer.”
“This isn’t a conversation.” Haspar had already turned away, twitching the finger that Cato knew from experience bore the ring connected to the stone in his arm. There was real shock on his face when he turned, slowly, to see that Cato hadn’t moved.
“No,” he whispered. Cato had never actually seen Haspar grappling with a problem before—he was so dedicated to the illusion that he’d thought of every possible outcome ahead of time that it was unfamiliar to watch the gears spinning. “You’ve broken the connection.”
“Not me,” Cato said, the truth spell loosening his tongue yet again. “The dragons. Even after everything I did—lying to them, betraying them, infiltrating their archives under your blasted orders and plotting an attack on their home—even after all of that, they didn’t take revenge, or try to punish me, to make me suffer. I was surprised at first, until I worked it out. They’re notmonsters, Haspar. But you are. You’re so proud of the noble tradition of the Hunters, aren’t you? But you’re not fit to speak their name. These dragons have done more work towards solving the riddle of the Fog in the last year than you have in a lifetime. And they’ve done it without terrorizing everyone around them. Name me a single one of your lieutenants who’d stand by your side without fear to hold them there, Haspar, and I’ll submit to you willingly for the rest of my life.” There was a long silence, and he scoffed. “Exactly. The Captain of the Palace Guard leads by virtue of her own strength, her own example. Her soldiers follow her because they admire her, not because they’re afraid of what will happen if they don’t. No, by all means, keep trying,” he snarled, seeing the tell-tale glow of Haspar’s ring as he tried to silence him the way he always had. “Keep trying to force me to do your bidding, it will never earn my respect.”
“Enough!” Haspar roared, louder than Cato had ever heard him. The furniture in the cell flew backwards in his wake as he stalked across the space between them, and for a moment Cato was convinced he was actually going to hit him with his hand. “Whatever you’ve done to break our connection, it doesn’t matter. I’ve a dozen other ways to crush you like a bug.”
“Do it,” Cato spat. “I’ll die happy to know you’ve got one less tool at your disposal.”