Page 177 of Fortress of Ambrose
He sucks in a nasally breath. “Ellery is a complicated boy. Has been since he was born. He would never have killed Nore. He loved her.”
“That is not love.”
“I won’t make excuses, there’s been much wrong done. But we are standing on the edge of the future. And I am telling you, daughter, what we can build is greater and better than anything that’s ever existed. Will you hear my plan?”
He turns his back to Nore, and my heart skips a beat. But he’s still a few paces too far from her for Nore to be able to reach him.
“Go on,” I say.
“I know you’re fond of my Dragunheart.”
“He has a name.”
“Jordan. His body can’t handle the magic inside him. He is an obstacle for you and for magic. Itriedto get rid of him. If we put the Sphere’s magic all inside me, an immortal, it will not kill me, and it can be foreversafelypossessed. From there we can change the world, do away with the Houses and build new ones that instruct toushana. We gave mwertae magic too much dominance. It’s time to flip the scales.”
My conversation with Jordan after the horrors in the lab plays like a song in my mind.
“Youwould hold on to all this power? For safekeeping.”
“Exactly. No one else can.”
“I see.”
“It is good, isn’t it?” Tiny creases hug his old eyes. Even in this moment, the person sharing these confessions wears a mask. I don’t even know what my father really looks like. He spreads his arms as if for a hug, and a reckless urge comes over me, to take something I never had, in case it’s as sweet as I always imagined it could be. My toushana flickers in warning. But I embrace my father in a big hug.
So big, he stumbles back a step.
Then another, nearly bumping against the funeral stand.
I hold tightly to him and say, “Someone I admire once told me that the world is changed by inspiring hope inothers. Not one person having all the power.”
Nore rises like a ghost behind him, all fiery red hair and angry eyes. His stare widens as she wraps the cloak around him like a jacket. His movements become slower. He groans. I race to help Nore get down from her burial table.
I turn back just as the Dragunhead throws off the cloak.
Nore and I freeze. He shifts the weighty robe to a heap of threads. Fury burns in his feeble eyes.
I stumble backward into the funeral bed. Nore shrieks as he grabs a fistful of her hair.
“No!”My heart hammers as I reach for my magic. I hold my palms open, but not a wisp appears.
Seventy-Two
Jordan
I’m shivering, watching from behind a tall headstone as Quell and the Dragunhead talk. The ice garden is quite the distance from the funeral, but the specks against the depthless white backdrop make the funeral easier to see.
Their talk is going much longer than it should. But the Dragunhead is smooth with words. Cold magic pulses in my bones, begging to be used. The bastard stabbed me the last time I saw him.An immortal.There are so many things about him that make so much sense. His strange affections for history. He would sometimes have me spend the whole evening reading sections of texts aloud to him from tomes that he said he’d collected. From where, I always wondered.
My brother hasn’t moved, leaning against a tree a few paces away from me, watching the scene unfold in the distance.
I should apologize to him now. But I’m not sure where to start.
“This will be over soon,” I say to him. “That’s some relief, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” he says without meeting my eyes. There is a hardness in him I’ve never seen before. And I’ve seen my brother stonewall Beaulah and our father many times.Does he know about Father?
“I wrote Mother,” I say. “No word back yet.”
