“I’ve heard the stories. High King Borwin Tormane only claimed the right to the Mirror Throne after he slew his two brothers in the name of uror.”
My grandfather did not kill his brothers, Corwin longed to reply. One died during the uror trials, yes, but it wasn’t murder. The very idea of kin slaying was unthinkable. The other brother lived to old age.
“What is this uror?” Signe tapped the edge of her blade against the table.
“It means fate,” Gordon replied.
“Not quite,” Corwin said, unable to stay quiet on this point, at least. “It means a calling of fate or sometimes a call for trial. In Norgard, the right to rule doesn’t always pass from father to firstborn son. If there is more than one heir, the sign of uror will come and the brothers must prove to the people their worthiness of succession through trials and deeds.”
Signe nodded as if this made perfect sense to her. “In Esh, if a king or queen is weak, others will challenge their rule. Only the strongest and wisest should lead.”
“Yes, gorgeous girl.” Gordon put a hand on Signe’s shoulder, dwarfing it completely. “But in your country, the challenge isn’t foretold in signs and portents.”
“What signs?”
“The first is always the appearance of a uniquely colored animal,” Dal said. “The last uror sign was a wolf, I believe.”
Murr, Corwin thought, nodding. He remembered the animal clearly even though she had died when he was just a boy. “And the coloring is always the same—half white and half black.”
Signe frowned, as if she were trying to picture a creature like that but failing. Corwin didn’t blame her. Such coloring didn’t exist in nature. Only the gods could make it so.
She started to ask another question but broke off, her head cocked to the side as if she was listening to something. A moment later, the rest of them heard it too—the sound of a commotion outside.
“What is that?” Gordon demanded, searching the room for someone to provide an answer, but his employees were already heading for the door. Corwin, Dal, and Signe followed.
Outside, the town square had become an ocean of bodies, the source of the disturbance impossible to see. Not to be delayed, Signe climbed onto the porch railing in front of the Boarbelly, grabbed hold of the roof’s edge, then hauled herself up onto the low-sloping shingles with remarkable ease, unhindered in the breeches she always wore.
Dal and Corwin quickly followed suit. Once up, Corwin spotted the trouble—a group of magists, including a white robe, a blue, and two golds, were gathered out front of a flower shop across the way. A skinny boy stood in the center of them. Gangly limbed and with ears still too large for his face, he looked ten or eleven at most. An Inquisition collar encircled his throat, marking him a known wilder. So young, Corwin thought, a sick feeling rising in his stomach. The glowing stones set into it served a single purpose—to keep a wilder from using their magic.
It wasn’t the boy causing the stir though, but his mother. She was screaming at the magists, begging them to release her son. Corwin couldn’t make out her exact words over the noise of the crowd, but there was no mistaking her desperation. Her arms and hands shook, and tears glistened on her cheeks.
Signe made a strangled noise. “Why are they arresting that little boy?”
“He must be a wilder,” Dal said, sounding dubious.
Corwin bit his lip, distraught by the woman’s cries. He’d heard of the Inquisition taking children, but this was the first time he’d borne witness to it; the golds did not generally hunt among the nobility. He wanted to step in, to question why they were taking the boy. He seemed harmless, and far too young to be put to death. But there was nothing he could do. High prince or not, he had no authority over the League. That was the price of the League’s service to the kingdom—they did not interfere or make policy, but they were not under the crown’s command either.
The magists began to haul the boy away. For a second, Corwin thought the woman would collapse. Andrean guardsmen in orange and black had stepped in to hold her back, but instead they seemed to be holding her up. Then without warning, she wrenched free of them and raised her hand at the nearest one, a look of rage transforming her features. Corwin’s breath caught in his throat as he watched the guardsman stiffen as if some force held him in its grip. A red haze appeared around his body. No, it was coming out of his body. Blood. The woman was a wilder, too—a hydrist, with command over water.
The skin on the guard’s face began to draw in on itself, like an apple left to dry in the sun. Then his whole body began to do the same until there was nothing left of him but skin dried to leather and the bones beneath nothing but dust. It was over in the space of a breath, stunning in speed and destruction. Utterly terrifying.
A second later, the crowd began to scream and scatter in panic. Even the guards were retreating. The magists turned toward the woman, maces raised with the magestones in them aglow. Water burst forth from the hydrist’s hands, but it vanished before reaching the magists. Refusing to give up, the woman tried again, the water flowing harder this time, as if she meant to drown them beneath it. But again it was beaten back by the wardstones.
She screamed her outrage, oblivious of the danger coming at her from behind. One of the guards had conquered his fear, drawing his sword. He plunged it into the woman’s back, ramming her all the way through to the other side. The water magic vanished as the woman’s face slackened into shock. Then the guard yanked the sword free, and the woman fell. Her son, so silent and still before, began to shriek and struggle. But whatever his power, the collar rendered him harmless.
The magists hauled the boy away, bound for the gold house and the Purging. They picked up his dead mother—for burial. A terrible mixture of pity and fear swirled inside Corwin as he watched them depart, knowing that soon the child would be laid in the ground beside her.
13
Kate
THE MOMENT THEY ARRIVED IN Andreas, Kate was ready to leave. She despised this city, crammed full of people both day and night. The two days they ended up spending there were nearly unbearable, even though she understood the need for it. The attack on the Gregors unnerved her, especially learning for certain that wilders were indeed behind it. With the violence escalating all around, she could almost feel the collar around her neck. Even if she never used her magic again, the magists had ways of knowing what she was. And death by the golds’ hands wouldn’t be quick, but long and torturous. The Purging.
At least Corwin had quickly identified the miner involved, although he’d needed another day to track down his family—only to discover Ralph Marcel had left behind no kin.
“But he did seem to have some gift with animals,” Signe reported back to Kate and Bonner the night before their departure. Signe had accompanied Corwin and Dal on every visit they made, insisting she be included.
She could insist the sun not set, and it would probably listen, Kate thought, bemused at the idea of her best friend spending so much time with Corwin.
“That’s what got him into trouble,” Signe continued. “We found the man who reported him to the golds, and he told us how Marcel could always predict when one of the canaries they use down in the mines was soon to die.”
Bonner’s brow furrowed. He was leaning near the window of the room Signe and Kate were sharing, a far larger one than they’d rented back in the Crook and Cup. Even still, he seemed too big for it, his head lurking near the ceiling. “And the man told on him for that?”
“It makes no sense,” Signe said. “I thought when those birds die, it means the air is poisoned. They should’ve been grateful for the warning.”