She had never heard this tone of entreaty from him. Could she believe his voice, his words? She tightened her jaw. This was too close to her long-forgotten dreams of reconciliation to be real. He knew her too well, was all. He knew how to play her like he knew how to play the baby grand that stood in the sitting room of his manor.
“Speak for you?” Old pain sharpened her words. “I am not the starry-eyed fool that you seduced fresh from General Academy.”
“I regret that I hurt you. I regret a lot of things.” His lips twisted briefly. “I have discovered, too late, that I do actually have a conscience. It’s rather hard to live with.”
“Die, then.”
“Cassandra, please.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, slid it down her arm in a familiar caress.
It took everything she had to step away from his touch. “If you mean what you say, then turn yourself in to the Guardians.”
He shook his head. “I will not subject myself to that. Quite aside from my distaste for the Guardians and their self-righteous arrogance—”
“You wanted to be a Guardian, once.”
His lips ghosted that brief half-smile she once loved. “The folly of youth. And I believe you know how well that turned out.”
“You can’t blame the Guardians—”
“Can’t I?” She got a full smile this time, one that challenged an apprentice’s ill-considered assumptions.
She glanced down to study the wet pavement, the toes of her boots.
“Do you know what happened to the last dark mage who tried to turn evidence against William?” Raven asked.
She only wished she could forget. “I saw the photos. Of the scene. Where the. . .where what was left of the body was found.”
“I watched him die,” he said. “It took more than two days. William was most creative. He has agents everywhere. How do you think poor Davide was found out? Are you truly naive enough to believe that your precious Guardians have not been infiltrated?”
There had been rumors, suspicions. Raven, as a member of William’s inner circle, would know the truth of it, might even know who the turncoats were.
But she could not trust a word that he said.
“No one has ever succeeded in leaving William’s fold,” Raven said. “Not even the lowliest apprentice who gets scared and decides he doesn’t want to be a dark mage, after all.”
Cass raised her chin proudly. “I left.”
“But you were never sworn to William. We never let you know what the real agenda was, or you would have never apprenticed to me. For those who have knelt before him and taken an oath, those who are close enough to him that the external wards are keyed to allow their entry, not one has left him and survived. William goes mad at the slightest hint of betrayal. The Guardians have only found the bodies he wanted them to find.”
The thought of countless murders gone undiscovered horrified Cass’s Guardian soul.
“I have been keeping something from William, something that would make him more dangerous than he already is,” Raven said. “Something that could help defeat him.”
Oh, he was still good. She held his dark stare. He knew exactly how to bait the trap. She hated the man he served, the man for whose interests he had betrayed her. Hated the man who threatened the peace her parents had died for.
“He doesn’t suspect me.” Raven frowned now. “At least, not any more than he suspects anyone. But when he finds out I’ve defected, he’s going to wonder what else I’ve been hiding. As a prisoner, I’d have no escape when his interrogator comes. And I am sure you know how effective William’s agents can be.”
Her mind flooded with pictures of the interrogators’ work, mutilated bodies, disemboweled, flayed, and her imagination put Raven’s face to each of them. No matter what he’d done to her and to others, she could not wish that fate on him.
He stared past her into the mist and darkness. “I will, if I must, accept death as a just consequence of the mistakes I’ve made, but I will not subject myself to a slow, painful death.” He gave her the dark, ironic smile she’d seen on a hundred tabloid covers. “Even if it would please you no end.”
Still lost in past horrors she shook her head. Realized too late she’d given herself away.
“No?” His eyes flickered. “I am sure there are many who would. But much as I hate to disappoint them, even if I had no . . .personal aversion to such a fate, I would not risk it.”
From anyone else, this calm discourse on his own potential death-by-torture would seem too studied, but she knew Raven too well to be surprised.
“I have seen brave men, strong men, betray all they held sacred.” His lips curved in a sour smile. “I am not quite arrogant enough to believe that I, who hold nothing sacred, could stand firm where they could not.”
Something crashed in the alley.
She jumped and turned, letting out a most un-Guardian yelp. Then she saw the culprit— her neighbor’s fluffy white cat, skittering out of the alley and away into the darkness, having no doubt executed its normal dive from the second-floor balcony to the lid of the garbage dumpster and from the dumpster to the smaller recycling bin, and then to the ground.
Her heart beat wildly for a few more moments, until her body accepted the all-clear from her brain. The startle had broken through the old, familiar spell of his presence, and she remembered all the reasons she shouldn’t trust him, didn’t dare trust him.
“You shouldn’t be here.” She pitched her voice low, warning. “And I shouldn’t be here listening to you. Find yourself another stupid young apprentice. This one grew up a long time ago.”
“I see.” He stepped back into the shadows; his shoulders slumped, and he seemed to diminish. “I will not trouble you again.”
III
Raven never loved life so much as the moment he held the blade to his wrist. The hundred-year-old brandy that burned in his veins took the edge from his fear and would kill the pain.
He sat in the cool, dim light of a single globe, sat on the floor to spare the antique couch from the blood that would otherwise soak through the dust cover and ruin the velvet. Just who was he saving the furniture for? Best not go there. His blood would do the imported Persian rug no favors, but that couldn’t be helped. He refused to die on the cold kitchen tile like some rodent a cat dragged in.
The cottage was silent. Centuries-old spells to insulate from the Mariner State cold kept out even the sound of the rain that lashed against the windows. Outside there was nothing for miles but the tall, proud trees, mostly spruce and redwood that had been full-grown already when the Mariner had landed. Once this cottage had been a haven he shared with Cassandra, alive with the scents of hearthfire and of the perfumed candles she loved, and of the incense they used when working. It had stood empty since she left him, the air stale with the dust of neglect and abandonment. The hearth was dark and held only cold ashes.
It was a Ravenscroft property. Fitting that the last Ravenscroft should die here. More importantly, he would not be disturbed until it was done.
He closed his eyes and bid farewell to all that he was leaving behind. The ecstasy of magic. The ecstasy of orgasm. The beauty of the moon silvering the lake just outside the cottage door. The green, loamy scent of the forest on a summer’s night.
Another, darker memory crowded in.
The window nearest Daniel’s table was open just a few inches, just enough to let in the fresh air blowing off the Pacific. Even on the coldest nights, Daniel would let the ocean breeze in if he was working alone. Or if they were working together and Raven indulged him.
Daniel lay slumped over his work table. Not unusual— Raven often had to wake his apprentice and send him off to bed, mumbling sleepy protests more appropriate to a young child than a dark mage just turned twenty.
Any anger remaining from their earlier argument vanished at the sight. Smiling, he put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder to shake him awake.
His apprentice’s body was cold under his hand, the muscles sla
ck and lifeless. Something fell from Daniel’s hand, thunked against the floor, and rolled. He picked it up. A stone the size of an egg, with the color and clarity of garnet, with the warm glow of a garnet set in a backing of gold. No natural stone had the sense of life, the feel of great power that thrummed against Raven’s mage senses at the touch.
Daniel had completed the last step in the process, the one he’d balked at earlier, the one they’d argued over. The Ravensblood was active. And Daniel was dead.
Raven had accused Daniel of not being devoted to the magic or to him, when in reality his dedication was far greater than Raven had deserved. If he’d not made that accusation, if he’d not stormed out earlier that evening, slamming the door behind him, Daniel would have surely waited for him. There might have been a chance to save Daniel’s life, if not his powers.
Only Daniel would have preferred death to a life without his magic. It was why he had come to the dark and to Raven— to avoid restrictions on the spells he could learn, the areas of research he could pursue. So very easy to exploit that eagerness, that quick mind.
Raven had known the risk— no, the likelihood— of this end. Daniel’s was not the first death he’d caused for William’s sake. But he had owed to Daniel the duty of a master to an apprentice, and he’d betrayed that, paid trust and loyalty with manipulation and treachery.
Daniel’s death had brought another to mind.
Raven was not quite six years old. He came running to his mother’s room to show her the interesting insect he’d just found.
His mother lay on her back, one leg bent beneath her body at an awkward angle. He called to her. She didn’t respond. He moved closer. Her skin was white, whiter than human skin should be. Her eyes were open and staring. In the dim light, it took a moment for him to identify the dark liquid pooling beneath her body. A few more moments passed before his mind grasped the reality of the gaping wound at her throat.
Young as he was, he could feel the dark magic lingering in the room. He knew who had done this.
It had been the height of the Mage Wars, and Bredon Ravenscroft had been untouchable. The little boy he had been had vowed to revenge his mother when he grew up, but Guardians killed his father before he ever had the chance. He vowed, too, to forsake the heritage of his name. To never repay love and loyalty with pain and betrayal and death. To never become his father.
Another vow broken. But then, dark mages were not known for keeping their vows.
William had pushed for the Ravensblood’s completion. He would want it for himself. The stone augmented the power of a mage in proportion to the mage’s innate power. With it, William, already the most powerful mage of their time, would be invincible.
William’s fear of vulnerability, his need to be in absolute control of his circumstances, was both his strength and his weakness. But if he could leave his sanctuary, his unparalleled power inconceivably augmented, the Three Communities would have no hope of opposing him.
William would realize his dream of a return to the old ways. But William would not be some beneficent True King from the fairy tales. He would reign in blood and terror and darkest magic. Daniel’s death would be as a candle to that firestorm. When that happened, Raven would not just become his father. He would far surpass him.
For the sake of those he once sought to serve, and for the tattered remains of his own soul, Raven could not continue to serve William. He could not let William Blanchard have the Ravensblood.
Taking his own life was the most logical of a handful of bad options. He should have known there was only one way to escape the fate his name and his blood laid on him, but he hadn’t been ready to give up without one last try to atone with his life instead of his death. Cassandra’s condemnation had set his sentence.
With the substantial Ravenscroft holdings frozen, he had precious few resources of his own to rely on if he tried to leave the country and disappear. If the Guardians didn’t find him, William would. Even with money, he was not brave enough, not stupid enough, to leave William without the help of someone he trusted on the other side. The deaths he’d witnessed were an abject lesson in why not to try it.
He had thought about challenging William directly. Thought about it a lot, sitting alone in his workroom, staring at the desk that had been Daniel’s. But William’s magic was unimaginably strong. Even with the Ravensblood, Raven wouldn’t be able to take him down.
He wasn’t entirely certain what help he had expected from Cassandra. But she was a Guardian, and her aunt Ana was on Council. He had hoped for. . .something. Meaningful protection in exchange for information? A way to help bring down William before there were any more Daniels? Maybe safe passage to some obscure location when it was over.
He’d been a dark mage all of his adult life, ever since his youthful dreams of becoming a Guardian were crushed by a world that could not see past his family name. He didn’t know how to be anything else. The only time he’d made an effort was playacting for Cassandra. But she’d believed it, and there were times when he was with her when he almost believed himself.
Now even Cassandra could not see hope for him.
He’d cringed at leaving a last message— it was nearly impossible to draft such a thing without sounding maudlin and over-dramatic. He hadn’t wanted to send it, but if the book and the Ravensblood fell into William’s hands, then his death would be meaningless.
The fear of death, that he could handle. Worse was the fear that his death would be a meaningless act of self-pity rather than a decisive act of redemption, that he would be a failure in darkness and in light.
Cass would come once he was dead. He was sure of it. She would come for the book and the stone. Perhaps, these gifts to the light might redeem her in the eyes of the Three Communities, might undo some of the damage he’d done her.
Most of those he’d hurt were beyond such repayment.
He took another swallow of brandy against the memories of betrayal and carnage and the too-recent memory of finding Daniel slumped over the work table like a wind-up toy with a worn-out spring.
They were both sworn to William, but Raven knew whom Daniel truly followed. Whom he worshipped. Whom he had died for.
He’d killed Daniel, and for what? William’s overweening ego and boundless ambition. Oh, William was all talk of the glory days before the Council, when the rule of the New World, as in the Old, had belonged to the most powerful mage for the betterment of the commonweal. Except that that idea had worked about as well in the Old World as it had in the New, and that was why it had been done away with on both continents generations ago.
And Raven knew, far too late, that it wasn’t worth it, that pride and promises and petty revenge weren’t worth the final destruction of the light.
Hidden in the shadows of the mantel, the clock that had been his great-great-grandfather’s chimed the quarter-hour. His message had promised Cassandra that he would be dead when she arrived, and for once in their relationship he intended to keep his word to her.
He couldn’t blame her for not trusting him last night. Had she been a little less strong-willed, she would have been the one dead in his workroom. Should he have told her that the Ravensblood was finished, and had been activated? He shook his head. She would have known instantly what that meant. For her the value of the Ravensblood as a weapon would never outweigh the knowledge of its cost. A fully active Ravensblood would not have been a bargaining chip but the last sin that finally damned him.
She would have the Ravensblood anyway, and the book, and he would have his escape from William.
He drew a deep breath, and with his shaking right hand he slashed the blade into his left arm, wrist to elbow, quick and deep. It hurt, but he’d endured worse. He switched the blade to his left hand already slick with blood and— now, before you are too weak— performed the same deft slice on the right wrist.
He trembled, and his stomach churned at the sight of his own blood running so freely. Oh, for gods’ sakes quit being such a bloody c
oward. His lips quirked at the unintended pun. Bloody, he certainly was. Coward? He hoped not, tried not to be.
It took all his resolve in those first moments not to apply pressure, apply magic, save himself. This was why he hadn’t tried suicide by magic. Too hard to focus the will. The subconscious mind always wanted to live. Few mages ever tried it, and those attempts ended in messy, lingering failures.
You promised Cassandra, in your message. For once in your misbegotten life, do the right thing.
Cassandra, his beautiful, bright Cassandra. She’d loved him once. It wasn’t for her beauty that he had come as close to loving her as he ever would any person in this world. Rather, he had been struck by her brilliant mind, her ready smile, and the open-hearted fairness that he had adored even as he ruthlessly exploited it.
Still, Cassandra was beautiful. Her coffee-and-cream complexion had been a gift from some distant Eastern ancestor; her green eyes came from her red-haired, green-eyed mother. Cassandra’s hair, long, soft corkscrew curls, shone nearly black, except when certain hours and angles of sunlight struck a coppery highlight.
Yes, Cassandra was beautiful, though she’d never believe it. What a modeling agent would have termed ‘exotic’ some distant, cruel, jealous classmates of hers had labeled ‘freakish’. He knew that label had stuck in some tiny, denied corner of her mind where her suitors’ sincere compliments could not penetrate.
Cassandra. He had hated those distant classmates on her behalf, even as he had hurt her far worse than they ever could. Too much to hope that his death would win her forgiveness. Not even his death plus the means to defeat William would repay that debt.
Perhaps William would still triumph, would lay waste to the world in the name of ruling it. At least Raven would no longer be party to the destruction.
Sentimental fool, his father would have said. Weak, sentimental fool.
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