Fletcher knew they were goading him, hoping he would lower his shield and attack Zacharias head on, losing the defensive advantage.
“A fool and a coward, trusting dwarves and elves over his own race,” Zacharias spat, striding forward until he stood directly in front of Fletcher’s shield, the pale oval of his own still fixed to his wrist. “You’re so much like your father. Edmund was a race traitor too. Always visiting the elves, trying to broker trade between our nations.”
He paused, as if contemplating his next words.
“But that’s not the only reason I betrayed him,” he continued, his voice lower so only Fletcher could hear.
“What did you say?” Fletcher said. A chill ran across the back of his neck.
“My weapons business was stagnating. Too much peace, you see.” Zacharias’s eyes bored into Fletcher’s own, willing him to see the truth there. “I needed a catalyst. So I sent the orcs a message. Told them about Raleighshire’s secret passage, when and where to attack, all of it. You would not believe how perfectly it came together—your family’s lands, inherited by your mother’s sister—my wife. A war with the orcs, to fuel my weapons business. And another race traitor dead, just icing on the cake. Tonight I’ll have to finish the job. Never send an orc to do a man’s work.”
Fletcher looked into the man’s cold, serpentine eyes and knew it was true. Perhaps he had always known, ever since Sir Caulder had spoken of a “betrayer” at his trial. But he had cast it from his mind. He hadn’t wanted to contemplate it—that a man could truly be that evil. He hadn’t wanted to give in to hatred.
But now that hatred bubbled inside his chest, caustic and hot. Zacharias needed to die. If this worked, the man would soon be locked away, out of Fletcher’s reach forever. There would never be a chance like this again.
The shield. He could resorb it into himself, replenish his mana. Enough for one, powerful attack.
Now.
Fletcher roared, draining the white wall in a vortex of swirling light. Even as he did so, he was already firing all three spells in a twisting beam from his fingers. It corkscrewed into Zacharias’s shield in a blaze of spitting energy. The oval split like an egg, exploding in a blast of spinning shards that hurled the noble into a pillar with a sickening thud. He crumpled to the floor, limp as a corpse.
“Fletcher!” Sylva screamed, and Fletcher’s shout of triumph died on his lips. Because Rook’s shield was gone, and a wave of fire was roaring across the hall.
Ignatius dove to take the brunt, his wings outstretched. Missed.
The blaze hit Fletcher like a flood, tumbling him from his feet and into the dark recesses of the throne room. He skidded across the ground as the flames billowed over him, blinding bright in his eyes. He could hear the roaring of the inferno, feel his clothing blacken and peel away into nothingness. The heat blew scalding hot against his skin.
But no pain. No agony of his flesh being scorched to ash, nor the stench of burning hair. Instead, he rolled and rolled, until the worst of the flames had left the tattered remains of his clothing. He staggered to his feet, beating at the smoldering cloth, blinking the smoke from his eyes.
Rook stood there, his chest heaving in and out with exertion. By the size of the conflagration that had blown Fletcher across the hall, the Inquisitor must have put everything into that attack—every last drop of mana he had. But somehow, Fletcher had come away practically unscathed.
A translucent ball of kinetic energy hit Rook in the chest, flinging him against the floor and pinning him there. Sylva strode across the room, a cold fury in her eyes.
“We should kill them both,” she said. Her finger was raised, a bolt of lightning crackling from the symbol fixed to its tip. Ignatius barked in agreement, his large chest turning it into more a roar of a lion than the baying of a dog. A jolt of anger from Athena’s consciousness confirmed her opinion on the matter. The two demons were shocked at how close their master had come to death.
Fletcher turned to the scrying staff, suddenly fearful that her words could be heard across Hominum, but it had been covered with the heavy cloth once again. It was then that he realized they had succeeded. Hominum had heard their story. Now all they could do was wait.
Rook was emitting a keening sound, wheezing from the blow to his chest. He had had the wind knocked out of him, and could barely move as Sylva leaned over him, the sizzling lightning poised over his face.
Fletcher stumbled toward them, and somehow the hatred that had bubbled inside him seemed diminished at the sight of the men’s prone bodies. Instead, his mind drifted to why he was alive at all. The fire should have killed him. How had he survived?
“No,” Fletcher coughed, his throat raw from the smoke. “If we kill them, Hominum will have no one left to blame, and Harold, nobody to imprison. We need the world to see them condemned.”
And for a moment he wondered if that was truly the reason. Or was it because he didn’t want to commit cold-blooded murder of the two helpless men? He wished he could say he was surprised that Sylva seemed capable of such an act—but the look in her eyes left Fletcher in no doubt.
Sylva used the ripped cloth from her dress to bind Zacharias’s and Rook’s hands and feet, with Ignatius keeping a watchful eye beside her. Rook’s mouth was stuffed and tied too, for he began to spit obscenities at the two as soon as he recovered his breath. Once they were trussed up like chickens for a roast, Fletcher and Sylva lifted the two onto Ignatius’s back and walked out through the main doors.
Fletcher took the liberty of purloining the unconscious Zacharias’s trousers, for his own has been reduced to a bunch of charred threads. He took grim satisfaction in how ridiculous the bear of a man looked in his underwear, his pale legs contrasting with the golden tan across his face and forearms.
“Come on,” Sylva said, once Fletcher had rolled up the bottoms of the trousers. “Let’s see what’s waiting for us outside.”
The corridors were deserted. Likewise, the stairs showed no sign of disturbance. It was as if their speech had never happened, and for a moment Fletcher’s heart began to pound with the worry that it had somehow not worked, that Sylva had done it wrong. But when they kicked open the doors to the banquet hall, the reason for the absence of pursuit became apparent.