Lisa Shearin - Con & Conjure

You’d think being told an evil king and his even-more-evil quasi -demigod minion want you at their mercy or thousands of people would die would be as bad as anyone’s day could get.

You’d be wrong.

The Seat of Twelve had to be told.

The Seat of Twelve was the ruling council for the Conclave, which was the governing body for every magic user of consequence in the seven kingdoms. These were twelve of the most powerful mages, period. Thanks to the Saghred, I now had more power than any of them. This bothered them.

A lot.

In their collective opinion, anyone with that much power needed to be watched very closely. Which meant if I so much as blinked wrong, I’d find myself in a citadel containment room. And if I completely cut loose with the power the Saghred had given me, my head and shoulders would soon be parting ways.

Before the meeting, Mychael needed to meet briefly with Justinius Valerian, the archmage, the supreme head of the Conclave of Sorcerers, the commander in chief of the Brotherhood of Conclave Guardians, and a crafty, foultempered old man.

I loved the guy.

Even better, he was right fond of me, too.

Vegard and I were in the citadel on our way to Mychael’s office to wait. His office had wards and a well-stocked bar. I needed the former and wanted the latter.

Naturally, we didn’t make it there.

From the end of the hallway came a cool and crisp voice. “I hoped I would find you here, Mistress Benares.”

Crap in a bucket.

The voice belonged to an elven mage who thought he was about to get me right where he’d wanted me since the day I set foot on Mid.

A tall figure stepped into view.

Magus Carnades Silvanus was a pure-blooded high elf who wasn’t about to let anyone forget it. White-blond hair, glacier blue eyes, pristine porcelain complexion. His black and silver robes were elegant and expensive, and emphasized his cold beauty. Gleaming against the silk of his robes was a mirrored disk dangling at the end of a silver chain. I’d never liked mirror mages, and I’d never like Carnades Silvanus.

As the senior mage on the Seat of Twelve, Carnades Silvanus saw himself as the champion of the elven people. I saw him as a self-righteous, narrow-minded jerk. Unfortunately, he also had the influence to convince a lot of powerful and dangerous people to see things his way.

Two others stepped up behind him. Elves. Mages. Two mages on the Seat of Twelve. I’d seen them before with Carnades. Always standing a step or two behind, their deference to Carnades made it clear to anyone who cared to notice that they were nothing but lackeys. Lackeys who were probably two of the top mages in the kingdoms, but were still Carnades’s flunkies and hangers-on. As Carnades grew in power and influence, they moved up the ladder with him without doing a thing except what he told them to.

Vegard came to reluctant attention. The Guardians’ main duty was the protection of the archmagus and the mages of the Seat of Twelve. Carnades was second in command only to the archmagus, and he was convinced that my involvement with certain goblins not only made me a goblin sympathizer, but a traitor to the elven people.

He smiled, a dazzling white flash of insincerity. “I understand that your visit to greet your precious prince didn’t turn out as you planned.”

I flashed him a smile of my own. “I don’t think anyone got what they paid for this morning. Too bad assassins don’t give refunds, isn’t it?”

That wiped the smirk off his face.

Carnades and Taltek Balmorlan had become the best of friends, and friends didn’t keep secrets from each other—especially not secrets that involved hiring the deadliest assassin in the kingdoms, who conveniently happened to be an elf.

“You used your Saghred-spawned power to defend a Mal’Salin—a creature who would go to any length to kill an elf, any elf.” Carnades’s voice was a self-satisfied purr. “Except you, of course. Merely a continuation of the relationship that began in—”

“Relationship?” Maybe I’d hit my head when I fell against that guard shack wall.

“Your clandestine meeting with the prince at an estate in Mermeia was—”

“A kidnapping. Mine. Prince Chigaru wanted me to find the Saghred for him. I refused.”

“A second encounter was more public. An embrace at the goblin king’s masked ball two nights later.”

“If your snitches had looked closely enough they would have seen that the prince had a dagger to my ribs. Stepping away from him wasn’t just ill-advised, it was impossible.” I took two steps closer to Carnades, close enough to make him flinch. “But I could hardly expect you to be concerned with facts.” I lowered my voice to the same purr. “You just want an excuse.”

“Guardian, I want to speak to Mistress Benares alone.” Carnades said it without even looking at Vegard. He knew Vegard’s name; he just refused to use it. Just one more way to belittle Mychael’s knights.

“It’s all right, Vegard,” I said. “I want to have a private chat with Magus Silvanus.”

Vegard and Carnades’s two yes-mages moved down the hall and out of earshot. However, I did notice that Vegard stayed within his ax-throwing range. I gave him a knowing wink.

“Let’s stop playing games, Mistress Benares,” Carnades said.

“Works for me. I’m tired of this one anyway. For starters, stop with the ‘Mistress Benares’ act. You hate my guts; I hate yours, so why waste perfectly good dislike on acting polite when neither of us wants to. I know there’s another five-letter word you’d love to call me, but for now let’s just go with ‘Raine,’ shall we?”

Carnades’s mouth twisted with distaste. “That would imply familiarity.”

“Yeah, it’s offensive to me, too. But let’s try just this once.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Okay, you’ve got your privacy. Talk.”

“I want to see you dead.”

“That’s nothing new, but you are dispensing with the small talk. I like that.”

“The ideal end for you would be on an executioner’s block before sundown. That won’t be for another two hours. In my opinion, that’s two hours too late. Unfortunately, for the good of many, the desires of the few must be pushed aside.”

“Meaning you don’t get to see my head lopped off before you go to dinner.”

“That would be a much better start to my evening.” Carnades’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “Though from what the Saghred’s history has shown us, I won’t have much longer to wait.”

“So now you’re entertaining yourself by rewriting history?”

“There’s no need to alter the truth,” Carnades said. “You’ve read Rudra Muralin’s journal. He was the Saghred’s bond servant, exactly like yourself. No doubt you’ve realized that you’re following in his footsteps.”

“I am not now, nor will I ever be like Rudra Muralin,” I said, my voice tight with fury. The goblin was a thousandyear-old, seriously psychotic mage who’d used the Saghred to slaughter thousands and enslave thousands more. He was dead now. Permanently, thanks to Sarad Nukpana. In several pieces then reduced to ashes, thanks to Imala Kalis.

“You have used the Saghred more than a few times now,” Carnades continued as if I hadn’t said a word. “It becomes more a part of you each time. You don’t see this, but others can. I can. Soon its desires will become your own. When that happens, you’ll have become too dangerous to live. It’s only a matter of time.” His long fingers toyed negligently with the jeweled chain lying against his dark robes. “It will happen quite soon, I think.” His eyes gleamed in triumph. “If it hasn’t already.”