Bonner grunted. “Once you were taken, the golds rounded up everyone for questioning. They found the diamond magestone. It didn’t take them long to guess I’d been using it to hide my magic making revolvers.”
“I’m so sorry, Bonner. I didn’t know what would happen.”
“How could you have?” He waved her off, then raised his hands to the collar. “If we could just find a way to get this off, I could bend these bars open.”
For several minutes both of them tried to loosen the collars, to no avail. They needed a key. Then they searched the cages, probing them for weaknesses but finding only pebbles and dirt. Wearied by hopelessness, Kate sagged against the back of the cage. There was nothing to do but wait for what would happen next.
Eventually the golds returned, herding more people into the cages. When Kate saw Vianne and Kiran, she cried out, “No! Let them go!” She grasped the bars in front of her, wishing she had the strength to pull them apart.
The golds shoved Vianne and Kiran into the cage next to Kate’s, and it was all Vianne could do to calm the boy. She pulled him onto her lap, muffling his sobs against her shoulder.
Kate turned away, tears pricking her own eyes. Surveying the other captives, she realized they were all members of the Rising, including Anise.
When the magists had gone, Kate learned the story of what happened, the golds raiding the Sacred Sword without warning or provocation.
“It’s my fault,” Kate said, struggling to keep her emotions under control. “I never should have visited so often.”
“You couldn’t have known you’d be found out,” Anise said. “It’s a risk we all take.”
Vianne ran her hands down the back of Kiran’s head, saying nothing. He lay quiet at last, perhaps asleep.
“Is he all right?” asked Kate.
“For now, but what are they going to do with us?” Vianne spoke the question loud enough for the others to hear, but no one answered. It was like waiting to wake up from a nightmare—that feeling that maybe you never would.
The golds returned again sometime later—hours, it seemed, with Kate’s legs and back aching from lying on the hard floor. Her throat and mouth felt stuffed with wool. Maestra Vikas came with them. Kate screamed at her, demanding an answer for why they were here.
“Silence,” Vikas said, and spoke an incantation.
Kate saw the glow of magic beneath her throat as one of the magestones in the collar activated.
The maestra knelt before her cage, a smug look on her austere face. “There now. That’s better. But tell me, Kate, how did you like my trap, the one you stepped into when you tried to sway King Orwin?”
It was you! Kate tried to respond, but the spell stopped her.
Vikas smiled. “Yes, that’s what I thought. Your father didn’t care for it much either.”
What did you do to him? Kate tried to scream, but again nothing came out.
Vikas stood, silencing anyone else who dared talk.
Helplessly, Kate watched as Vikas conferred with the other golds.
“Prepare these three for shipping, but take this one off for testing.” Vikas indicated several of the wilders. Then she moved farther down the line, sorting the rest of them like sheep. What they were being sorted for, Kate couldn’t guess.
“These two are to stay for now.” Vikas pointed first at Bonner, then Kate. “The Lord Ascender has plans for them, but the mother and child I want on the road by nightfall. Any later and they will miss the ship.” She waved a dismissive hand at Vianne and Kiran.
“Isn’t the boy too young to make the journey?” one of the golds asked.
Vikas smiled. “From what I hear, he’s older than he looks.”
Kate tried to scream, her anger like a wild beast inside her chest. She slammed her body against the bars, but Vikas only gave her another smile, sickly sweet and triumphant.
She left a few minutes later, but the golds remained to do her bidding. Kate watched, powerless as the magists unlocked Vianne’s cage and pulled her and Kiran out. The boy thrashed and screamed until one of the golds invoked the spell for silence on his small collar.
The stillness afterward pressed down on Kate like a boulder atop her chest. She closed her eyes and willed sleep to come for her, but it refused, her mind too strained by fear and dread. They were taking Kiran and Vianne to a ship, but a ship to where? How would she ever find them again? She couldn’t lose Kiran now, after so many years apart already.
Time trudged by. It might’ve been days or weeks, although she feared it was only hours. There was no way to account for the passing, nothing to ground her to reality. The light in the Hellgate never changed, and the only noise was the sound of the daydrakes’ restless pacing and the strange way they called to one another in their wailing snarls and growls.
At some point, Kate must’ve finally drifted off, because the next thing she knew, two golds were pulling her free of the cage.
“Come now,” Maestra Vikas said, standing behind them. “The Lord Ascender is asking for you.”
The Lord Ascender? Was Storr giving himself new titles now?
In the cage next to her, Bonner pounded his fists against the bars, but the golds ignored him, their masked faces hiding any reaction at all.
With no other choice, Kate followed the golds without protest as they led her to a room in the main corridor.
The maestra paused outside the door and regarded Kate with her pale, icy gaze. “The honor of seeing the Lord Ascender is one granted to only a few. Above all else, you will show him respect.”
Kate blinked at her, confused. She’d met Storr before.
“And if you’re wise, you will heed his words. He is the Lord Ascender. A god on earth. He possesses more knowledge than anyone alive, who has ever lived. I could spend a thousand years by his side and still not learn all he has to share.” There was naked awe in her voice, and Kate wondered if she wasn’t quite sane. Before becoming the head of the golds, Vikas had been one of the whites, an order whose members were sometimes plagued by madness, a side effect of their area of focus. The whites pursued magical knowledge over everything else, and they studied the high arts, dangerous and arcane magic.
Her speech over, the maestra waved a hand, undoing the silencing spell. Before Kate could talk, Vikas stepped into the room first, then moved aside, motioning Kate forward. The two golds remained in the hall as Vikas shut the door behind Kate.
The sight of the room beyond took her breath away. Tapestries woven of spun gold studded with glistening gemstones hung from every wall, transforming the plain, ancient stone into a space fit for a king. Or a god, as Vikas claims. A plush carpet, the color of blood, spilled down the center of the room, leading to an ornate chair carved from crystal. Sconces placed on either side of the chair set the crystal ablaze until it looked like a glowing throne, almost like the Mirror Throne itself.
A man sat upon it, leaning back against the indigo pillows with both his hands curled around the armrests. Kate’s heart thumped against her breastbone as she realized it wasn’t Storr sitting there. She’d seen this man often in the castle, but never like this. He wore a silver circlet and a cloak made of white and black feathers.
“Welcome, Kate Brighton,” he said, his golden eyes glistening nearly as bright as the throne he sat on. “We meet as our true selves, at last.”
Kate stared at Minister Rendborne, sense escaping her. “I thought Storr was behind this.”
Rendborne nodded. “He does make for a good scapegoat, but no. Storr is merely a vain, greedy man. Such are easy to manipulate. But I must say, that wasn’t the first response I expected from you.” He waved to the area next to him.