Page 32 of Twisted Magic

“More,” she urged, though she hardly needed to. One taste and this endless hunger that lived inside him roared into avid life, demanding all the magic she could give. Which wasn’t much, he quickly realized. Seliah always burgeoned with so much magic that he’d only rarely encountered her reserves this low. Making himself stop before her well went dry, he closed his eyes and lay there, letting her water magic fill his cells with life-giving moisture again, the moonlight flickering through his nervous system, zinging and shimmering with welcome vitality.

He became aware of his surroundings, El-Adrel magic ticking all around, the presence of hordes of other wizards and familiars, someone sobbing with heartbroken and wrecked abandon. “What happened?” he asked Seliah, the urgency of not-knowing a new panic.

“You don’t remember anything?” she asked with uncharacteristic caginess.

He considered what he remembered, memories knitting themselves together as he healed, and realized that, as Seliah shifted and the light glanced over her shadowed face, she was covered in a patina of crimson. Those weren’t red highlights in her hair. Seliah had the kind of black hair with blue undertones, not red. No, that was a fine scarlet mist of…

His mother.

“Dark arts curse me,” he whispered. He’d killed his own mother. And that sound, that was his father, sobbing out his grief. His emotions tumbled in a turmoil of relief, horror, joy, and a deep, grinding, formless regret.

“Dark arts saved you,” Seliah corrected sternly. “Saved all of us. Your magic, whatever it is, no matter how dark, how monstrous it seems to you, saved my life and Fyrdo’s. Never forget that.”

“She’s dead, truly dead?” He couldn’t quite grasp it. At the same time, he recoiled from the surge of exaltation. His mother. His tormenter. His killer. Gone forever. No longer able to harm anyone.

“Ring the bells,” Seliah responded solemnly. “Lady Katica El-Adrel is dead. Long live Lord Jadren El-Adrel.”

What? Those words worked to galvanize him, pricking him to lever into a sitting position. Dizziness swamped him with instant regret, but he made himself stay upright. “No no no,” he practically stammered. “I can’t be Lord El-Adrel.” Uneducated. Inept. Bumbling. Coward. “I can barely work magic. I can’t do anything.”

“Not true,” Seliah replied with impatience. “That’s your late-mother talking.”

“It is true,” he insisted, rather desperately. “Think about it. When I tried to make something of myself, what happened? I immediately ran afoul of those Hanneil wizards and got myself killed. I get myself killed all the time.”

“Fortunate that you can heal yourself and come back from the dead then,” Seliah said agreeably.

“This isn’t funny, Seliah!”

“I never said it was, but you need to get a grip on yourself. Your father needs you to be strong. All of House El-Adrel needs you to buck up and deal, including the house itself. Including me,” she added.

“You don’t seem particularly needy at the moment,” he griped, resenting her disregard for what had been a fine pity party.

“That’s because I’m giving you the tough-love portion of care and feeding of wizards,” she said. “Think for a moment, Jadren. There is a vacancy at the head of this very powerful high house. Your mother died without naming an heir. What will happen? Will all the wizards of El-Adrel happily come together to have logical debates and amicably vote for the best person to govern this house?”

He snorted at the ridiculous suggestion. “You clearly don’t know wizards if you think that…” He trailed off, subjected to that knowing glare again. His brain wasn’t quite clicking on all cogs yet. Of course she knew that. He dropped his muzzy head in his hands. “You’re right,” he admitted. “They’ll battle for the position. It will get ugly.”

“And the worst of them, the most willing to go to extremes, to employ ruthless power to attain their goal, will win,” she finished for him.

“The way of the Convocation,” he agreed ruefully.

“Not any longer,” Seliah replied firmly. “Not on my watch. House Phel needs all the allies we can get. House El-Adrel deserves a real leader, someone who cares about the house, its tradition, and its denizens.”

“That rules me out,” he retorted. “You know I don’t care about anyone but myself.”

“That’s no longer true, if it ever was. You’re a good man, Jadren. You’ll be a great high-house head.”

“With you at my side, I suppose.” He meant it to sound sarcastic, but a lilt of uncertainty made the words into a question.

“Always and forever,” she answered solemnly. “Consider this. If you are Lord El-Adrel, you can free all the captives in your late-mother’s laboratories. You can have the house collapse everything on the other side of that tunnel into horror. End that nightmare permanently.”

She did know how to get to him. “Tempting,” he allowed. More than tempting. The prospect of dismantling the torture chamber that had warped his early life, whose terrors haunted the twisted depths of his heart and mind still… Well, it wouldn’t change the past, but he could cleanse the future of its taint.

“Another El-Adrel wizard might elect to continue your late-mother’s work,” Seliah continued relentlessly.

He eyed her. “You just love saying ‘late-mother,’ don’t you?”

Her gaze flicked uneasily to the sobbing coming from Fyrdo’s direction, the sounds quieter now, but still soul-grating. “Fyrdo mourns her death, but I do not.”

No. No, Jadren couldn’t grieve either. Though he was sorry to have made Fyrdo witness her ghoulish demise. He’d have to find a way to help his father through this. Maybe a jaunt to House Refoel and time in that ridiculously peaceful valley under Maya’s healing care.

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