But the language of magic hadn’t always belonged to Antari alone. No, there were stories. Of a time when others could speak directly to magic (even if they couldn’t command it by blood). Of a world so bonded to power that every man, woman, and child became fluent in its tongue.
Black London. The language of magic had belonged to them.
But after the city fell, every relic had been destroyed, every remnant in every world forcibly erased as part of a cleansing, a purge—a way to ward against the plague of power that had devoured it.
That was the reason there were no books written in Antari. What few texts existed now were piecemeal, the spells collected and transcribed phonetically and passed down, the original language eradicated.
It made him shiver now, to see it drawn as it was meant to be, not in letters, but in rune.
The only rune he knew.
Kell possessed a single book on the Antari tongue, entrusted to him by his tutor, Tieren. It was a leather journal filled with blood commands—spells that summoned light or darkness, encouraged growth, broke enchantments—all of them sounded out and explained, but on its cover, there was a symbol.
“What does it mean?” he’d asked the tutor.
“It’s a word,” explained Tieren. “One that belongs to every world and none. It is the word for ‘magic.’ It refers to its existence, and its creation.…” Tieren brought a finger to the rune. “If magic had a name, it would be this,” he said, tracing the symbol’s lines. “Vitari.”
Now Kell ran his thumb over the stone’s rune, the word echoing in his head.
Vitari.
Just then, footsteps fell on the stairs, and Kell stiffened. No one should be able to see those stairs, let alone use them, but he could hear the boots. How had they followed him here?
And that’s when Kell saw the pattern on the swatch of pale fabric that had once been wrapped around the stone and now lay unfolded on his bed. There were symbols scrawled across it. A tracing spell.
Sanct.
Kell shoved the stone in his pocket and lunged for the window as the small door behind him burst open violently. He mounted the sill and jumped out, and down, hitting the street below hard and rolling to his feet as the intruders came crashing into his room.
Someone had set him up. Someone wanted him to bring a forbidden relic out of White London and into his city.
A figure leaped through the window in his wake, and Kell spun to face the shadows on his heels. He expected two of them, but found only one. The hooded stranger slowed, and stopped.
“Who are you?” demanded Kell.
The shadow didn’t answer him. It strode forward, reaching for the weapon at its hip, and in the low alley light Kell saw an X scarred the back of his hand. The mark of cutthroats and traitors. A knife-for-hire. But when the man drew his weapon, Kell froze. It was no rusted dagger, but a gleaming half-sword, and he knew the sigil on its hilt. The chalice and rising sun. The symbol of the royal family. It was the blade wielded by members of the royal guard. And only by them.
“Where did you get that?” growled Kell, anger rolling through him.
The cutthroat flexed his fingers around his half-sword. It began to glow dully, and Kell tensed. The swords of the royal guards weren’t just beautiful or sharp; they were enchanted. Kell himself had helped create the spellwork that ran through the metal, spellwork that dampened a magician’s power with only one cut. The blades were designed to put a stop to conflicts before they began, to remove the threat of magical retaliation. Because of their potential, and the fear of that potential in the wrong hands, the royal guards were told to keep the blade on them at all times. If one of them had lost their sword, they’d likely lost their life as well.
“Sarenach,” said the cutthroat. Surrender. The command caught Kell by surprise. Knives-for-hire took loot and blood, not prisoners.
“Put down that sword,” ordered Kell. He tried to will the weapon from the cutthroat’s grip, but it was warded. Another fail-safe to keep the blade from falling into the wrong hands. Which it already had. Kell swore and drew his own knife from its holster. It was a good foot shorter than the royal blade.
“Surrender,” said the cutthroat again, his voice strangely even. He tilted up his chin and Kell caught a glimmer of magic in the man’s eyes. A compulsion spell? Kell had only a moment to note the use of forbidden magic before the man lunged, the glowing weapon slicing through the air toward him. He jerked back, dodging the sword as a second figure appeared at the other end of the alley.
“Surrender,” said the second man.
“One at a time,” snapped Kell. He threw his hand into the air, and the street stones shuddered and then shot upward in a wall of rock and dirt, barring the second attacker’s path.