Right here in this room.
He was on guard, very, very much on guard. Yet he still felt his lips part and form the shape necessary to pronounce the first syllable of the truth. “I thought we had already established that I have neither interest in nor knowledge of your elemental mage.”
“Why are you protecting her, Your Highness?”
Because she is mine. You will have her over my dead body.
“Because—”
He yanked himself from the precipice. A sharp pain slashed through his head, nearly tumbling him off his perch on the chair. He righted himself; the chair wobbled with his effort. “Because I have nothing better to do than run afoul of Atlantis, apparently?”
The Inquisitor’s brow knitted.
“There is something you should know about me, Madam Inquisitor. I do not give a damn for anyone except myself. I dislike Atlantis. I despise you. But I am not going to harm a hair on my head over mere irritants such as yourself. Why should I care whether you find the girl or not? No matter what happens, I am still the Master of the Domain.”
The words hurt. His throat burned. The inside of his mouth felt as if he had been chewing nails. And the pain in his head distorted the vision in his left eye.
The Inquisitor considered him. Gazing into her eyes was like looking at blood running down the street. “You mentioned Lady Callista a minute ago, Your Highness. I’m sure you are aware that Lady Callista and your late mother were close friends. Do you know what Lady Callista told me just after your coronation? She said your mother fancied herself a seer.”
Titus swallowed with difficulty. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“One of the things Princess Ariadne predicted was that I would be the Inquisitor of the Domain.”
“You are,” said Titus.
The Inquisitor smiled. “I am, but Her Highness played a crucial part.”
Titus narrowed his eyes. He had never heard anything of the sort.
“About eighteen years ago, a new Inquisitor named Hyas was appointed to the Domain. He was young, energetic, outstandingly capable, and superbly loyal to the Lord High Commander. The Lord High Commander couldn’t have been more pleased with his performance. It seemed to everyone that Hyas was set for a long tenure.
“But three years into his appointment, he was abruptly dismissed. No one knew why—we serve at the Lord High Commander’s pleasure. His replacement, Zeuxippe, was just as skilled and loyal. She held the post for only eighteen months, her removal no less abrupt and unceremonious. After that, I was promoted.
“For years, I remained as puzzled as everyone else concerning the events that led to my appointment. Yesterday I had an audience with the Lord High Commander. While I was in Atlantis, I called on my two predecessors and persuaded them to tell me their stories.”
Titus made no comment on her “persuasion.”
“Hyas was dismissed on charges of graft and corruption. He strenuously protested his innocence, but as some of the greatest treasures of the House of Elberon were found in his keeping, his objections fell on deaf ears. Zeuxippe’s tale was even more ignominious, if that was possible. She was accused of improper advances against the Princess Ariadne.
“It was a pernicious charge. It destroyed not only Zeuxippe’s career, but also her personal happiness: the love of her life left her after learning of the accusations. Now I am cynical—if mages were honest, there would be no need for Inquisitions. But I came away convinced of both Hyas’s and Zeuxippe’s innocence in their respective debacles. Which led me to the only conclusion possible, that Princess Ariadne was a deluded madwoman willing to do anything to make her so-called prophecies come true.”
Titus leaped off his chair. “I did not come here to listen to such drivel.”
He was furious. He could only hope his fury was sufficient to mask his dismay.
Everything—everything—rested on the accuracy of his mother’s visions. If she had been a fraud who cheated to fulfill her prophecies—he could not even follow the thought to its logical conclusion.
The Inquisitor smiled slightly. “Lady Callista also told me that when they were children, Her Highness had a vision that one day she would die at the hand of her own father.”
He blenched. His mother’s death left wounds that had yet to heal. The Inquisitor was tearing off the scabs one by one.
“The common mage believes Her Highness’s death to be the result of illness—her health had always been delicate and her passing at age twenty-seven unexpectedly early, but not implausible. You and I, however, both know that Prince Gaius, to demonstrate his desire to keep peace with Atlantis, executed Her Highness himself as a gesture of goodwill and submission. But now I wonder if Her Highness didn’t participate in the uprising with an eye toward being punished, so that she could preserve the integrity of her prophecy.”