The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (83 page)

“When he realized I didn’t actually want a rebellion, he
drove you lot to fan the flames.  I don’t blame you, Tarik.  You couldn’t know
where it would lead.  You couldn’t have imagined the events we saw today.  And
yet you’ve brought yourself so close to the edge…so close to shattering…to save
us.  And for that…for that I imagine your father would be proud.”

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath, but it escaped
all at once, broken and empty.  For a few moments no one in the room moved or
spoke.  Hayli was still as stone beside me and Zagger pinned Rivano with his
stare, while Kor just contemplated the faded wallpaper he leaned against,
plucking at some of its frayed edges.  And Rivano watched me, waiting, but he
watched me without any anxiety.  He wasn’t even the slightest bit worried that
I might reject all that he had just told me.

“There’s still one thing you haven’t explained,” I said.  He
gave a fluid gesture of his hand.  “Why.  Why were you so intent on finding
me?  I know you had to wait and see if I ever manifested a gift, but why?  What
did…my father…want from me?”

“He wanted to bring you home,” he said.  “You are the
Godarson.  And, if the legends are true, you were likely going to become
something…something this world hasn’t seen in a century at least.  Something
that could defend Istia from the threats we face.”

My breath hissed out.  I knew my history well enough.  I
knew all too well what had happened a century ago.

“You mean I would be an archmage, like Arnthor,” I said. 
“The one who led the Scourge in Cromis.”

“You can be even greater than Arnthor.”

“His actions nearly caused a genocide!” I cried, shooting to
my feet.  “I can’t think of a single thing he did that I would want to
emulate.”

“That is because you only know the history told by the
people who defeated him,” Rivano said.  “The genocide wasn’t caused by him.  He
ended
the genocide.”

I dug my hands against my head, my thoughts whirling in a
mad chaos.  And the singing…the way the light glowed as it came through the
windows… 
No.  Not now
.

“You waited for seventeen years for me to find you, and all
this time it never even occurred to you that I might not want any part of your
schemes?” I asked.  “You just assumed that I would, what, be your puppet?”

“That’s not what it is at all,” he said.  “You misunderstand
me.”

“You want me to turn on the King, don’t you?  There is a war
coming with Istia and you think I’m going to support you.  Don’t you know that
if I betray Trabin, then my mother’s life is forfeit?”

He paced a few steps toward me.  “What would she want?”

I ground my teeth, driving my finger at his chest.  “Do not
push me.  Don’t you dare drag her down by your schemes.”

“Who do you think sent Kor to me in the first place?” he
said, calm and quiet as ever.

I spun around to face Kor.  “Is that true?”

Kor pushed away from the wall, the smile completely faded
from his face.

“Of course it’s true,” he said.  “But damn, if you couldn’t
be a stubborn, thick-skulled
prince
sometimes.  Here I thought, let’s
take a boy who’s never had many real friends, who’s been driven into the
shadows his whole life by his hard-headed and overbearing father, who deep
inside craves nothing more than to rule, and let him start a life on the street
where he’ll make real friends who would do anything for him because of
who
he is, not
what
he is, and let his heart lead the way.  He wouldn’t
possibly betray his friends, would he?  But you did.  Soon as you had the least
bit of dirt on your new family, you came scampering back to me to rat them
out.  And not just once, but again, and again.  I don’t know how I misjudged
you.”

“Because you never knew me at all,” I said, rigid, exerting
all my will not to glance at Hayli, because I was terrified of how she must be
looking at me, hearing proof of my treachery. 

Kor lifted his hands in exasperation.  “I even told you the
truth about your father, and that still didn’t get you to reevaluate your
loyalties!”

“My father.”  I snorted.  “A man I never once saw in all my
life.  And some blind loyalty to him was supposed to make me willing to expose
my mother to the threat of execution?  You saw what happened, what was it, five
months after I discovered what I was?  Wasn’t it five months later that Count
Lorin and his wife were executed?”  From the corner of my eye I saw Hayli’s
hand reach up to cover her mouth.  “As if that wasn’t meant as a warning for
her, to show her what would happen if the world ever learned the truth about
her.  And you thought I would just dismiss all that because I’d fallen in love
with the streets, and the Hole, and…”  My voice caught; I narrowed my eyes at
Kor.  “Weren’t you the one who said that sometimes we have to lose so that
others can live?”

“If you turn your back on us now,” Rivano said, “they will all
die.  Including your mother.  Including you.”  He paused, glancing at Hayli. 
“Including her.  Do you honestly suppose that if you try to rush back and swear
fealty to Trabin, that he will forget what you are, Godarson?”

The title sent a prickle of ice through my veins.

“If war comes to Cavnal,” he added, “then every mage and
everyone who has given aid to a mage will be executed as an enemy of the
Crown.  Today was just a prelude.  Tomorrow they won’t bother with specimen
samples or genetic experiments.  The mages will be rounded up and summarily
executed.  And their blood will be on your hands.”

For a moment there was absolute silence.  Kor studied me
sidelong, waiting to see what I would do, and Zagger’s gaze kept darting
between me and the other two men.  Just from his posture I knew he was ready
for anything—if I told him to attack, he would take them both on and fight to
the death if necessary.  But Rivano only turned to face the window, folding his
hands behind his back.

“What,” I started, but my voice felt cracked, hoarse,
broken.  “What is it you think I could do?  What difference can I make?”

“You can stop this war from ever happening.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stop the war.”

Chapter 16 — Tarik

Zagger had brought me Tarik’s clothes.  I knew I would never
be able to see Trabin as Shade, so, when Rivano, Hayli and Kor left the room, I
unMasked my face and my body.  But everything inside me felt numb.  I didn’t
know what to think, what to feel.  I was moving through ice, slow, suspended in
time and space, a shell of a body.  Everything that should have been inside me
felt frozen and cracked.  Fractured.

As if I could stop a war.

I was a seventeen year old boy who had skipped out on too
many diplomacy lectures, but more than that…I was a traitor. 

I stopped buttoning my shirt, letting my hands fall idle to
my knees.

What horrified me more than anything was how I kept hearing
a strange, venomous voice in the back of my thoughts whispering that I had
leverage now.  Leverage I could use against Rivano.  He should have known
better than to trust me with so much information.  I could take it all straight
to Trabin and destroy him and all the Clan without an ounce of effort.

Stars.  All I am is a lie.

“You’ve got some kind of idea,” Zagger said, frowning at me
from his spot by the window.  “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking you should get away from me, Zag, while you
can,” I said.  “I don’t want to drag you down with me.  I don’t want to betray
you too.”

“You won’t,” he said simply.  “And I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’ve known, haven’t you?  Ever since I told you I was a
mage, you’ve known I wasn’t Trabin’s son.  Why does the bastard son of a
foreign duchess need a royal Cavnish bodyguard?  Why didn’t you leave me then?”

He snorted.  “Because I’m loyal to you, not some title.  I’m
not Cavnish either, remember?”  He shrugged.  “Besides, if you are the son of a
Tulian duchess and Istia’s Godar, then you still need a bodyguard, because as
far as I’m concerned, that makes you pretty damn well near royalty anyway.”

I laughed, then sobered and said quietly, “You’re a better
man than I’ll ever be, Zagger.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, but he ducked his head and
stared out the window, looking astonishingly self-conscious.

I finished buttoning my shirt, and pulled my waistcoat and
jacket from the back of the couch.  I still had the guard’s revolver from the
Esobor facility, so I tucked it into my belt and hoped no one at the palace
would confiscate it.  My hair was an impossible mess, but without Liman there to
fret over it, it couldn’t be helped.  I brushed it back over my ears and hoped
I could at least pass for
intentionally-mussed
, as Minister Batar always
said.

“As far as the world knows,” I said, “I’m still the Crown
Prince of Cavnal, and my mother’s honor is still intact.  If I can help it,
that won’t change.  I just want to convince Trabin to leave Istia alone, and
let the mages of Cavnal live like human beings.  An impossible dream, I’m
sure.”  I sighed and glanced at Zagger.  “Can you send in Hayli?  I need to
talk to her.”

Zagger shot me such a knowing smile that I blushed, but he
just nodded and didn’t say a word.  Not a moment after he’d left the room,
Hayli slipped in, quiet as a bird.  She hesitated briefly near the door, then
she broke and ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck.  I held her close,
burying my head against her shoulder, feeling the energy wreath us like a
lightning web.

“I’m so sorry, Shade,” she whispered.  “I wish I’d known. 
You’ve fought so long, haven’t you?  All those years, thinking everything
around you was a lie…”

I let out a shattered breath and squeezed my eyes shut.

“You are the only truth in my life,” I said.  I released her
and brushed the hair from her cheeks, smiling sadly down at her.  “The snare
still waits and hungers, but truth is a blazing star and the moon on the sea,
so all is well.”  Her eyes widened and I closed mine, my brow creased with
pain.  “No, don’t listen…I’m not speaking of rocks.  Sense.  Sensible things. 
I’m not a sensible thing.  Oh, God.”

I pulled away and took a few steps across the room,
confusion hammering in the corners of my mind.  Had I misspoken?  The words
shone with such clarity, but the way she watched me…  I knew she couldn’t
understand them.  My hands pressed against my forehead, but they couldn’t drive
away the madness.  I couldn’t let her see me like this, so broken…

“Shade,” she whispered, coming behind me.  She slipped her
arms around me and leaned her head on my shoulder.  “I dan’ care.  You hear? 
I’m not giving up on you.  I’m not ganna gan anywhere.”

“Yes, you are,” I said, turning around.  “You have to get
out of here, now.  I have to go the palace, and you have to find a way to rally
the mages.  Understand?”

She didn’t protest.  I loved her for not protesting.  She
paused, just a moment, then gave a decisive nod.  “I know.  I’d only complicate
everything.  But be careful.  Please.”  For a moment she hesitated, chewing her
lip and staring intently at the window, anxious and uncertain.  “Shade,” she
said finally.  “There’s something I just realized…I think you should know it
too.  But I’m so afraid to tell you…”

“That you were my best friend’s childhood friend?” I asked,
smiling.

Her eyes widened.  “You knew?  Of course.  You realized in
the…”

“In the Science Ministry.”

She nodded.  “Yes, but…that’s not what I was thinking of.” 
Her hand found mine, holding it tight.  “Derrin’s a mage.”

“I know that,” I said, frowning.  “It was a bit of a
surprise, but…”

“D’you know what kind of mage?”

I studied her carefully, wondering at the horror in her
eyes.  “No, what kind?”

“Oh, Shade,” she said, and covered her mouth with her hand. 
A moment later she lowered it and flicked the hair from her eyes, and said in a
scant whisper,  “He’s a Ghost.”

I fell a step back, staggered.  “Derrin?  But…but how…”

And I just stared at her, because I couldn’t find a single
word to say.  Derrin was the Ghost? 
No
.

She had to be mistaken. 

*  *  *  *

As soon as Hayli had gone to find the scattered mages,
Zagger drove me, Kor and Rivano to the palace.  I’d questioned the wisdom of
having Rivano accompany us, since he was still the most wanted man in Brinmark,
but he and Kor seemed to believe that my word would be enough to protect him. 
So I rode in silence, chewing on my nails, staring anxiously out at the passing
beech trees.  My mind was all in a jumble, my thoughts twisting from Derrin to
Rivano to Trabin with neither pattern nor sense.

When we arrived at the palace, the guard—Shade’s old
friend—came out of his post and stood staring down at the motorcar.  A moment
later Pont stepped out with the first footman, exchanging an uncertain glance
with the guard, but none of them moved toward us.