‘Must it be the Wytch Lords?’

‘You don’t really need me to answer that question, do you?’ Styliann smiled. Nyer shook his head. There was a knock at the door.

‘Come!’ barked Styliann. A young man entered, short red hair riding above a face taut with trepidation.

‘My Lord?’

‘Bring up a fire and another bottle of this rather average Denebre red.’

‘At once, my Lord.’ The young man left.

The two senior mages paused in their conversation, contemplating the future and not liking what they saw.

‘Can we stop them this time?’ asked Nyer.

‘I fear that rather relies on your man,’ replied Styliann. ‘At least as much as the timing of the Wytch Lords’ escape. He has reported, I take it?’

‘He has, and we now hold the amulet.’

‘Excellent!’ Styliann slapped the arms of his chair with the palms of his hands and rose. He walked over to the window, hardly daring to ask his next question. ‘And?’

‘It is Septern’s amulet. We can make progress now, assuming we get the right help.’

Styliann breathed deeply and smiled as he looked out of his Tower high above the College. The Tower dominated the College and its encircling balcony gave him unrivalled views of the City and its surrounds. The night was cool but dry. A thin cloud was bubbling up from the south-east, threatening to obscure the countless thousands of stars whose pale light pinpricked the dark. The smell of oil fires and the heat of the City wafted on a slight breeze, not unpleasant to the senses. Beyond the College walls, the quiet was growing.

Styliann’s Tower was encircled by those of his six Mage Masters but stood far taller. Looking down, he saw lights burning in Laryon’s Tower too. The most recently appointed Master, he was a man who would now have to join the inner circle, completing the seven-tower bond.

‘This could mean everything to us,’ he said.

‘Laryon has worked hard,’ said Nyer, coming to his side. ‘He has earned the credit.’

‘And your man. He’ll see the necessary help is obtained?’

‘I have every confidence.’

Styliann nodded and gazed out over Xetesk, at ease that his people would obey his every order without question. The first step had been successfully taken but now the way would become fraught and those who knew enough would have to be kept close.

‘I think, Nyer, that when the wine arrives, we may permit ourselves a small celebration.’

Chapter 3

She lay back on the bed again, the pounding in her head bringing sweeping nausea through her body. She shuddered, prayed that she’d been sick for the last time but not really believing she had.

Every muscle ached, clotted with pain, every tendon strained. Her skin felt so tight across her chest it would split if she dared breathe in deep, and her shallow, gasping intakes drew whimpers as they stretched her tortured lungs. It would subside. However, having no idea how long she had been out, she had no idea when the symptoms would fade.

But the physical pain coursing through her body was as nothing to the well in her heart and soul, opened by the loss of her sons. Her reason to live. For them, her body quaked and shivered. She reached out with her mind, striving to touch theirs but knowing she could not and cursing her decision to delay the teaching of communion.

Where were they? Were they together? Gods, she hoped so. Were they alive? The tears came as the drug eased its hold on her body just a little. Great heaving sobs tore through her being and her cries echoed around her prison. Eventually, exhausted, she slept again.

Dawn and a second waking brought no relief from the agony of her loss. Pale light came through a single window high up in her circular room. She was in a tower, that much was certain. The room contained a small pallet bed, a desk and chair, and a woven rug whose red and gold had long ago faded but whose weight gave welcome insulation from the stone-flagged floor. She was still wearing the nightgown they had taken her in. She had not been wearing any socks, let alone shoes, and the room was chill. Dust covered every surface, puffing into the air around her body as she shifted uncomfortably on the bed. She pulled the blanket up around her shoulders.

A single door commanded her attention. It was locked and bolted, its heavy wood flush in the stone frame of the tower wall. The tears came again, but this time she was strong enough to force them back, driving her mind to seek the mana and a way out of the tower. It was there, pulsing within her and flowing around her, never stopping, always shifting and changing, urgent and random in its direction. Escape was just an incantation away. The door would prove no barrier to her FlameOrb.

But even as she readied to cast, the words came back. If you cast, your boys will die. Her senses returned and she found she was standing. She sagged into the chair.

‘Patience,’ she said. ‘Patience.’ Anger in a mage could be so destructive, and while she didn’t know the fate of her sons, she couldn’t afford to lose the famously short Malanvai family temper.

While the yearning in her heart and the ache in her womb intensified with every passing second, her mind was beginning to see clearly at last. They had known she was a mage because they took her from Dordover for something specific. But they also wanted control. And controlling a conscious mage is difficult without restraint and violence. But they had found a way to chain her through her sons. It was for that reason she believed them alive. And not only that, close. Because whoever took her must know she wouldn’t help them without seeing her boys first. Hope surged within her but the flicker of joy she felt at an imminent reunion died as she saw her locked door.

Her heart turned over at the thought of her boys, so young, so alone and so frightened. Snatched in the middle of the night and locked in a place they wouldn’t recognise or comprehend. How must they feel? Betrayed. Abandoned by those who claimed to love them the most. Terrified by their solitude and helplessness. Traumatised by separation from their mother.

Fury bubbled beneath the hurt.

‘Patience,’ she murmured. ‘Patience.’ They would have to come soon. While a jug of water had been left on the desk, there was no food in the room.

She fixed her eyes on the door while hatred for her captors seethed in her veins, the brophane dragged at her strength and her body pulsed mana and love to her children.

But when the key finally turned and the man she had dreaded seeing stood before her, she could do nothing but sob her thanks at his words.

‘Welcome to my castle, Erienne Malanvai. I trust you are recovering. Now, I think we had better reunite you with your beautiful little boys.’

It was cold and he sat alone on cracked earth in a vast featureless empty space. There was no wind yet something was moving his hair and when he looked in front of him the Dragon was there. Its head was big, he couldn’t see the rest of its body. It breathed on him and he just sat there as the skin was burnt from his face and his bones darkened and split. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. He was flying above the land and it was black and smouldering. The sky above him was thick with Dragons but on the ground nothing was moving. He looked for his hands but they weren’t there and he felt for his face but the flesh was gone. It was hot. He was running. His arms were pumping hard but his legs moved so slowly. It was catching him and there was nowhere to run. He fell and there it was in front of him again. It breathed and he just sat there as the skin was burnt from his face and his bones darkened and split. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide and the heat scorched his eyes though he could not close them. He opened his mouth to scream.