“That one looks strong,” Gadrith said, pointing to my brother Bavrin. “Bring him.”
Bavrin thrashed and fought as the walking corpses pulled him up and pushed him toward the table. He too had decided that whatever was about to happen was nothing he would like. Devyeh stood and rushed to his brother’s defense.
Gadrith threw Devyeh an annoyed look and pointed a finger at him. I recognized the gesture and cried out, but it was too late.
My brother’s skeleton fell to the ground and his flesh made a messy mound on the other side of the table.
There was cacophony after that; people screamed and sobbed. But Gadrith’s voice cut over the tumult. “Quiet!” he said. “Now you understand the price of rebellion. Be. Quiet.” The necromancer turned to Thurvishar with an aggrieved expression. “Do something.”
The man nodded, squared his shoulders, and bowed his head, concentrating. A lull fell over the group of prisoners.
Thurvishar had not calmed them, I realized. He had stopped any sound from escaping their immediate presence. It was the same trick he’d used during his duel with Jarith years before.
Gadrith returned to his work as I surveyed everyone around me. No one had any visible weapons I could see. I didn’t think there would be any exceptions: it was too easy for a wizard to tell if someone wore metal.
A scream cut short returned my attention to Gadrith, who had bent Bavrin over the table. He had one hand clenched like a claw over Bavrin’s chest, a gesture I also recognized from the first time I’d spied on Gadrith. I watched as thin filaments of light floated up from Bavrin’s chest and coalesced into a ball in Gadrith’s outstretched hand. Bavrin began to spasm, then he stilled, and never moved again.
Gadrith pushed Bavrin’s body off the table and set a delicate uncut blue crystal on a black velvet cloth: a tsali stone.
“No,” I said. “No…”
“Bring that one.” Gadrith pointed to Master Lorgrin.
I remembered what Tyentso had said about Gadrith’s witch gift: he could pull someone’s soul out of their body and add its power to his own. “You can’t kill everyone here, damn it. You don’t think the Emperor won’t figure out what you’re doing?”
Darzin walked over and kicked me in the face. My vision flashed white as the pain hit, then I turned my head to the side and spat blood. When I looked back, it was to see that Gadrith had already killed Lorgrin, and was placing a yellow stone next to the blue one.
“He’s right, you know,” Gadrith said in a conversational tone to Thurvishar, who was watching his father with such a careful poker face he might have been listening to a lecture on the best crops to plant come spring. “Not everyone here would make a good tsali stone.” He paused and removed the silence spell around Tishar. “Hello, dear Tishar. Have you been enjoying your carriage? I made it for your brother, especially for you.”
The vané-blooded woman looked stricken. “Enjoying it less now I know your vile hands touched it.”
“Ah, that saddens me to hear.” He motioned with a hand. “Her next.”
“Gadrith, please, I beg of you!” Tishar pleaded as the undead took her by the arms.
“Alas, such entreaties mean little,” he reassured her.
“Gadrith, stop this,” I said.
Darzin hit me again. “Shut up.”
Tishar spat on Gadrith as the zombies hauled her to the table. She cast around the room for any means of egress, any possible escape. Her eyes met mine. “Please,” she mouthed, but I don’t know if she was asking Gadrith or asking me.
It hurts to think about it. It hurts to remember. I watched her die. Watched as that bastard pulled Tishar’s soul from her body.
She made a beautiful blue stone. Of course she did.
“Stop this!” I shouted, not caring if Darzin hit me or worse. I knew he wasn’t trying to kill me: not when I wore the Stone of Shackles. “What do you want?”
Gadrith paused and turned. “Ah? I’ve been hoping you’d ask, though young man, you shouldn’t ask questions when you already know the answer. You know what I want.”
I looked down at the outline of the Stone of Shackles through my shirt. “You want this.”
“I want that,” Gadrith agreed.
“For fuck’s sake,” Galen cried out. “If that’s what he wants, give it to him!”
“Your son is wise,” Gadrith complimented Darzin.
Darzin’s mouth twisted into the ghost of a smile. “Thank you.”
“Him next.” Gadrith ordered his undead to take Galen.
Darzin’s smile faded. “What? Killing my heir was not part of our agreement.”
Gadrith didn’t answer except to raise an eyebrow.
“He’s my son,” Darzin reiterated. He crossed over to stand in front of Galen, who seemed more shocked by his father’s defense than by the deaths of family.
“Make another,” Gadrith suggested. “You said Kihrin cares for him.”
“Go ahead,” I said. Oh, it hurt to say those words. Hurt because I knew Gadrith wasn’t bluffing, but I sure as hell was.
Gadrith cocked his head at me. “What was that?”
I shrugged. “Kill him. Kill all of them if you want. All you’re doing is destroying the only bargaining chips you have. You can’t kill me. I know you can’t kill me. You can disfigure me, torture me, rape me, whatever—we both know it’s not permanent. You have one of those zombies do it and the stone won’t let me die. I’m not giving you the Stone of Shackles, and there is nothing you can do that will convince me otherwise. How long do you want to play this game? Until the High General shows up? The Emperor? I’ve already messaged the Emperor, so your chance to catch us by surprise is gone.”
“You mean with one of his little toy rings?” Gadrith gestured in the general direction of my bound hands. “I really don’t think you did.”
“I told him you were still alive before that,” I sneered. “He’s on his way.”
Gadrith smiled. “That’s very helpful of you. I didn’t need the assistance, but I’m not so proud I’ll refuse it.”
I fought to keep the sneer on my face, to not look at Galen, to not give them any sign I actually cared what happened to him.
Gadrith turned to Thurvishar. “Is he telling the truth about his loved ones? Is there no one here whose death would touch him?”
Thurvishar flinched, as if that were the one question in all the world he had hoped Gadrith would not ask.* He gave his father an open glare.
“Tell me,” Gadrith said. “Now!”
The next flinch I recognized: self-correction from an almost-disobeyed gaesh order.
He sighed and pointed. “Her.”
Thurvishar pointed at Lady Miya.?
“I don’t care about her,” I protested, keeping my voice steady, keeping the disdain clear. “Why would I care about some vané slave? She’s nothing.”
Darzin sighed and rubbed his jaw. “Kid, even I’m not buying that one.”
“Bring her,” Gadrith said.
I could barely breathe as I watched them pick her up, still unconscious, and drag her over to the table. “Look, there’s really no point—”
Gadrith formed a claw with his hand over her heart.