The Black Palace was made of narrow corridors, sitting chambers, long ballrooms where Ivar spent endless penge entertaining the richest in Klockglas, or foreign dignitaries. He boasted his power. He reveled in it since the technicality of not officially having a king left the four regions with a weakness. Civil strife could shred the land apart, but Ivar took a great deal of vicious pride in knowing no one would dare stand against him.
Of course, power was easier to keep when he could change the very thoughts of others.
I straightened my spine as the skydguard led me into the large council room. I would not bow in front of Ivar. To crumble like some weak thing he’d conquered, I would rather cut out my own heart.
Heavy wooden benches with beautifully carved symbols of the gods were lined in a large square in the center of the room. Covering the stone slab floor were thick, wiry bear pelts. Tables were adorned in horns and ewers of brän and sweet wine. Cakes with honey sauce and berry custards as if what was left of the Masque av Aska was simply brought into the palace to carry on the festival indoors.
Gathered on the benches were members of Ivar’s inner council. A few generals and captains of the skydguard. I cared little about them. My gaze went to the high-backed chairs at the head of the room.
If Ivar were a king, this would be his throne room. Even without the title he’d created quite a show of looking like a royal. The Lord Magnate claimed the widest chair. He looked at me with a rage that simmered below the surface. Beside him Niall sharpened a curved knife with the head of a wolf as the pommel.
The weapon was used in ceremony, and for my ten turns in this place I’d avoided that knife. I clenched my jaw to keep from giving away how the sight of it burst through boyhood fears of that wolf pommel.
The Lady Magnate was seated on a bench between two of her lovers. Then, leaning against one of the posts holding the arched doorway in the back, Luca Grym had his nose in a book.
He lifted his gaze, mouth tight. He’d kill me for getting caught, but the way he rolled his eyes, I had few doubts the second son of Ivar was already scheming something horridly dramatic to try to fix this. A Hypnotik with mesmer, a trickster by nature. Luca would be planning.
At least that was another hope to cling to.
″Malevolent.” Ivar stopped drumming his fingers. Dread coated the room, every fiber on the rugs, every page of every book on the shelves was thick with it.
I lifted my chin, grinning. “That is not my name.”
″Malevolent, you will not speak unless invited to do so.” Ivar rose from his chair. He never used my name. To him I was the missing piece of his precious set of light and darkness. His pristine balance of power. He would not rest until it was complete. The Lord Magnate took the steps off the raised floor and crossed the space to me. “Tell me who the girl is.”
″No.”
The strike to my face didn’t surprise me. I did not groan. Did not wince. I took the hit, spat the blood, and returned my attention to the Lord Magnate as if nothing had happened.
″Tell me who the girl is.”
″A thief in the Guild of Kryv.”
Ivar chuckled and glared at his oldest son. “Duped by a thief. Are you so desperate for a woman to fill your bed?”
″There was mesmer at play,” Niall snapped back.
″And as the Lord Magnate you must be keen to tricks of magic.” Ivar’s voice rang out across the room. It was powerful, cruel, it silenced every breath. His eyes narrowed. “You disappoint me.”
Niall’s cheek twitched, but he had the brains to keep quiet.
Ivar circled me, a hawk on the hunt. “Why does she matter to you? Don’t deny it. Your mistake was made the moment you looked to her first when we arrived.”
″Everyone matters in my guild.”
″I’ll find out the truth, Malevolent,” Ivar said like a promise.
I had nothing more to say.
Ivar held out a hand for the knife. Niall hesitated for half a breath, then handed it over. I steeled against what would come. To finally grant Ivar what he’d always wanted was worse than the hells.
″Since you insist on telling us nothing about the girl, I will make her nothing to you.” He grinned viciously and grabbed my arm, forcing my hand out. I clenched against the cut of his blade. Deep and swift, enough blood Ivar could fill the bottom of a mortar bowl. He leaned close; his brow nearly touched mine. “She’ll be nothing but a nightmare in your head, Malevolent. I’ll make you fear her, despise her, wish a torturous death for the girl.”
I looked past Ivar. If he met my eye, he’d see the fear in there.
Ivar chuckled like he’d already won. “I know there are some who believe there are still memory oracles among us, but I rather like the gift of memory manipulation. It makes the world a great deal more interesting.”
Ivar dipped his fingers into the bowl, soaking the tips in my blood. How many times had I observed this very thing? When new Alvers came to the Black Palace, through trade, through the masque, through foreign routes, he would ruin their memories. Twist them until the Alver boiled with recollections of unwavering loyalty to the Lord Magnate.
All other thoughts, faces, and loved ones were destroyed. Only Ivar and his palace remained.
Malin took breath or bone to steal a memory. Ivar used blood to alter thought. The same as legends of old, one line would use thoughts to see, and the second would change the mind to believe something else entirely.
The things Malin did not know, things I’d wanted to tell her time and again, were startling.
All I could do was hope the Guild of Kryv, the Falkyns, and Hagen would protect her from it all.
Ivar’s inner circle watched with a bit of twisted awe as he swirled my blood around, no doubt concocting horrid images he’d use to replace the few tender moments. I brought a hand to the rose over my heart.
With two fingers, Ivar drew the runes he’d use to cast Malin’s face from my mind on my forehead.
My grip tightened on the rose. I closed my eyes.
He could warp her face, my thoughts, but I prayed to the fates—if they existed at all—that he would not touch where she lived in my heart. Even if it was hidden from my mind, let my heart hold tight to her.
I loved Malin Strom.
I’d lived my life loving her. If asked, I’d die loving her.
