The Sorcerer Heir (Heir Chronicles) (27 page)

He stood, a shadow among shadows, waiting, heart throbbing, his breath coming fast, senses tuned to the world outside the building.

Then he felt it—a stir of emotion, all around them. A break in the attention focused on the building. Quick footsteps on the street outside. Someone was coming. If it was Lilith, she was hosted. Jonah had expected she would be; it was safer for her that way.

Jonah glanced back at Gabriel, who showed no eagerness for this reunion.

Someone fumbled at the door, eased it open. Hesitated a moment, then came forward into Jonah’s view. He released a long breath, his first in a while. Lilith Greaves had come alone, as agreed, wearing the same cadaver as she had the last time Jonah had seen her. The same clothes, too, of course.

Jonah moved to the door and locked it behind her.

She whirled to face him, bringing both hands up in defense. She dropped them a little when she saw no weapon.
You’re locking us
in
?
she said, her gaze sweeping the dark interior.

“So we aren’t interrupted,” Jonah said. He felt much better now that the three of them were enclosed within the brick and stone of the old terminal. He jerked his head toward the back of the room. “We’ll talk over there.”

Lilith followed him back to where Gabriel waited.

The sorcerer stared at her as she approached, his eyes wide, hands clenched. He seemed absolutely riveted, even though she couldn’t possibly look anything like the woman he remembered. His former lover, if what Lilith had said was true.

Lilith stared back. It had been ten years, and a lot had happened in the interim to age Gabriel, but he must at least somewhat resemble the man she knew. The man she’d fallen in love with.

Shifting his gaze to Jonah, Gabriel nodded, signaling him to go ahead and make the kill.

Jonah pretended not to see it.

Gabriel!
Lilith said, in what sounded to Jonah like mind-to-mind shouting.
I’m so glad you’ve come. It’s been a long time.

Gabriel flinched back. “I can hear you,” he said, going paler than before. “It’s faint, but—” He licked his lips, swallowed hard, looked at Jonah. “Why is it I can hear her?”

That’s the power of blood magic,
Lilith said.
I’ve loaded up for this meeting. With enough power on board, even the living can hear us. That’s just the beginning.

Gabriel said nothing, his eyes smoldering like scorched slate against chalk, burning into Jonah.

Instead of sitting, Jonah stood behind his chair, his hands resting on the back, knowing he might have to move quickly. “I told the other slayers to give us about an hour before they begin to worry,” he said. “That should give us plenty of time to talk.”

I did the same with my shades,
Lilith said.

“Jonah.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows, tucked his chin, and lifted both hands, palms up, the universal gesture for
What the hell?

Jonah turned away, toward Lilith. “How is your hearing? Do I need to repeat what Gabriel says, or are you able to make it out? He isn’t used to speaking mind-to-mind.”

My hearing isn’t great, but I should be able to make out what Gabriel says in a quiet room.

Jonah turned back toward Gabriel. “I may repeat some of what you say, if it’s unclear, but you should be able to speak directly to Lilith.”

“Jonah,” Gabriel repeated. His face was bloodless, his lips white with anger. “We made a deal.”

“We did,” Jonah said. “But I made a deal with Lilith, too. Her price for talking to me was the opportunity to talk to you.”

“And so you lied to me. After everything I’ve done for you.”

“If you’ll remember, I asked you to talk to Lilith. I begged you. Several times. And you refused.”

“And that should have been the end of it,” Gabriel said. “I know Lilith Greaves a lot better than you do—”

“So I hear,” Jonah said, tipping up his chin and looking him in the eye.

Even though Jonah was expecting it, Gabriel moved faster than he’d have thought possible. In one quick motion, he lunged forward, gripped Lilith’s hair with one hand, and cut her throat with the other.

I
n a split second, Jonah had Gabriel imprisoned in an iron grip. He increased the pressure on Gabriel’s wrist until he dropped the knife. Jonah kicked it away. His pounding heart was beginning to slow a little. He turned to look at Lilith.

There was no blood whatsoever, just a slice into the flesh that went halfway to the windpipe. She sat upright, supporting her head with a hand on either side.
Oh,
Gabriel
,
she said.
I was comfortable in this body. I thought I
’d
be able to use it another month or more.

Gabriel struggled briefly, then settled again.

Jonah turned back to Lilith, who was exploring the wound with her fingers. “Are you sure you’re all right to continue with this? Do you need—?”

No problem. I’ve waited for this too long to let anything stand in my way.

“Jonah, I’m warning you,” Gabriel said. “I’ve tried to provide you with a path forward, to honor your growing independence, but—”

“But you didn’t expect me to actually think for myself. That’s what you get for turning us into grown-ups so quickly. Oh, right, all the grown-ups died, so you didn’t have anybody else to work with.” Jonah patted Gabriel down methodically, retrieving two more knives and two shivs. He was much better at it than Brendan. Pushing him down into one of the chairs, he handcuffed him to the arms. “By the way, for future reference, it takes a much heavier blade to decapitate someone. See, you use the momentum of the—”

“Jonah,” Gabriel hissed, pulling at his bonds. “What’s happened to you?”

“Those are the rules. The first one who tries to kill the other person gets shackled.”

He’s just being what he was meant to be, Gabriel,
Lilith said.
Brilliant, strong, beautiful, deadly. You know that. He’s a spectacular success, if you look at it that way.

“What are you talking about?” Jonah looked from Gabriel to Lilith.

Lilith settled into another of the chairs.
Gabriel, it’s time you were honest with Jonah and all of the other children of Thorn Hill,
she said.

Gabriel said nothing, only glared daggers at Jonah.

I know you think I’m to blame for what happened,
Lilith said,
but it’s not true.
She paused, waited for a response, got none.

She’s here to win Gabriel over, Jonah thought, with a prickle of unease. What will happen if she does?

Gabriel seemed to be trying to ignore the fact that Lilith was in the room. He remained hyper-focused on Jonah, as if still hoping he might follow through on the riff. It was like an odd love triangle: Lilith focused on Gabriel; Gabriel fixed on Jonah; Jonah intent on Lilith now that Gabriel was fixed in place.

“Jonah. I warned you about her. I told you not to listen to her—that she would mislead you. And, apparently, she has.”

If you won’t tell the truth, I will,
Lilith said.
Trust me, you’re better off telling it from your point of view—you’re a lot more likely to come off as the hero.
She paused, then said,
Please. I want to work with you to make this right, or at least to see justice done.

Gabriel leaned forward in his chair as far as his manacles would allow, his eyes fixed on Jonah. “Listen to me. I’ve spent my entire life trying to undo what
she
did. What I’m saying is, this is not my fault. I trusted her. But if word gets out that—that— Kill her, please. Kill her now. Don’t let her destroy everything we’ve built together.”

Jonah tried to sort through these conflicting fragments and put them together into a picture. “Are you saying that Lilith was the one who poisoned us? Or that she was the one who betrayed us to the Wizard Guild?”

“Maybe she never meant to poison us,” Gabriel said. “Maybe it was unintentional, but the end result was the same.”

I was working for
you, Lilith said.
I never dosed anyone except on
your
orders.

“Well, you must have gotten it wrong,” Gabriel said.

Jonah looked back and forth between the two of them, a sick suspicion boiling up in him. “So,” he said slowly. “You’re saying that the two of you cooked up the poison that killed thousands of people at Thorn Hill? That is still killing us.”

No!
they said in unison. But it appeared that they even disagreed on no, because they immediately began issuing discordant disclaimers.

“I didn’t poison anyone,” Gabriel said. “She did.”

I didn’t poison anyone either,
Lilith said.
That’s what I’m trying to tell you.

Jonah came and stood over Gabriel. “Gabriel, here’s your chance. Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

“What does it matter now?” Gabriel said. “Don’t you see? If word gets out that—”

“Thousands of people died, and you’re worried about your
reputation
?” Jonah methodically removed his gloves and tossed them aside. “Perhaps you misunderstood. That wasn’t a request. It was an order. I’m not going to charm you into doing the right thing.”

Gabriel made one last desperate effort. “Why don’t we go back to the Anchorage, so that we can discuss this in more comfortable surroundings? There’s no need to hide out in a bunker in order to—”

“I’ve waited ten years to find out what really happened at Thorn Hill, when all along the answers were within reach. If you don’t tell me the truth right now, I will kill you. You can’t really complain, because, after all, you’re the one who turned me into an assassin.” Jonah was bluffing, of course. There was no way he’d kill Gabriel until he’d pried free the secrets he’d been holding close for so long.

Maybe Gabriel believed him. Or maybe he was just worn out with lying. “All right,” he said. “I’ll start at the beginning. I’ll tell the truth as I know it.” He closed his eyes, as if to avoid Jonah’s. Plus it was easier to speak of dark things in the dark.

“For years,” Gabriel said, “wizards have claimed that Thorn Hill was a training camp for rebellious underguild operatives.”

“I believe the term they used was
terrorists
,” Jonah said.

“That is an inflammatory word,” Gabriel said, “but there is an element of truth in it. The commune
was
the site of a...an experiment in self-defense.” He looked to Jonah for a reaction, but Jonah said nothing, so Gabriel continued. “Keep in mind, this was before the last tournament at Raven’s Ghyll, the establishment of the Sanctuary at Trinity, the emergence of the Dragon—none of that had happened. The underguilds were little more than slaves to their wizard masters. There were many of us who were quite wealthy—myself included—but we were as much at risk as those with few resources. In fact, we were even more at risk of discovery, because we were visible. We sorcerers are the makers, so to speak, and so we were especially valuable. Wizards were the takers, who profited from the fruits of our labor.”

Gabriel paused, and Jonah looked at Lilith. She shrugged slightly.
I was born into a so-called “servant” family—sorcerers who had worked for wizards for generations.
She turned to Gabriel.
Tell him about your family.

For the first time, Gabriel responded directly to something she’d said. “The wizard houses have always been ruthless in putting down guild rebellions. That’s one thing the Red Rose and the White Rose agreed on. My sister and brother were killed in the last serious sorcerers’ rebellion.”

“And yet,” Jonah said, “when I asked why we weren’t targeting the wizards who caused so much misery, you preferred to finish the job they began at Thorn Hill.”

“Hear me out, then maybe you’ll understand,” Gabriel said. He took a deep breath, then continued. “Given the nature of our gifts, some of us—mostly sorcerers—had begun to realize that there was no way we would ever prevail. The fight was too one-sided. We wanted to change that. We wondered whether it might be possible to strengthen ourselves in ways that wizards could not counter. The biggest wizard advantage was conjury. It was so flexible, so nuanced, so versatile, that we had no defense against it. We thought, what if we could develop Anawizard Weir who resisted conjury? Wouldn’t that be a huge advantage?”

Gabriel leaned forward in his seat, eyes alight with enthusiasm. In him, Jonah saw the vestiges of the young sorcerer who believed that sorcery could solve every problem. “So we brainstormed, assuming that anything was possible. For instance, another advantage that wizards have is that they are so long-lived. What if we could make ourselves immortal? If it came to a fight, what if our healers could heal wounds in new ways? What if they could look right into a client and identify the disorder without scans or surgeries?”

What if we had warriors who were savvy, amazingly strong, agile, and quick to heal?
Lilith put in.
What if we had assassins who could kill painlessly, kindly, even pleasurably? If you’re planning on going to war, wouldn’t that be an advantage?

For a long moment, Jonah’s throat locked up, and he couldn’t force any words out. “Did you ever think of the person who had to do the killing?”

The two sorcerers looked at each other, as if each hoped the other one would speak up. Neither volunteered.

“Tell me about Thorn Hill,” Jonah said, once it was clear that no answer was forthcoming. “How did that get started?” He didn’t want to listen to a pitch for genetic engineering, especially since he had to live with the results.

“We knew we were taking a risk,” Gabriel said. “We knew what happened to members of the Weirguilds—even wizards—who conspired against the regimes in power. Leander Hastings, for instance. Because Hastings was a well-known subversive element, he was constantly on the run. As was Linda Downey, who, of course, had to hide her identity in order to protect her family. But we couldn’t do the hit-and-run-type thing. We needed time to do our research in a protected environment, to trial therapies and evaluate results. But the Roses had spies everywhere. And we needed resources to fund our research.

“So I bought the property in Brazil. The mines were already operating. I had a diverse portfolio, so nobody questioned it. The mines provided income to support the commune, to build the labs we needed, to develop agriculture so that we could be self-sustaining.”

“Where did Lilith come in?” Jonah asked.

“I recruited her,” Gabriel said. “She came highly recommended. I was told that she was the most talented sorcerer of this generation. I believed it.”

Because it was true,
Lilith said.

“I knew she had a rather shady background—”

If you wanted somebody with my experience,
Lilith said,
it wouldn’t be someone unsullied by contact with wizards.

“What kind of expertise were you looking for?” Jonah asked, wary of the answer.

“Lilith had been working for wizards to research methods of modifying Weirstones,” Gabriel said.

“Why would wizards be interested in that?” Jonah opened his stance a bit, resting his hands on the back of a chair, preparing for a lie or a long story. “It seems like they already have every advantage.”

Oh, they had no intention of experimenting on themselves,
Lilith said. Then looked at Gabriel, as if to encourage him to carry on.

“You’re aware that the wizard houses have a long history of holding tournaments between warriors and gambling on the result,” Gabriel said. “They mimicked racehorse owners, always looking to breed a stronger, more bloodthirsty warrior. But selective breeding in humans takes a long time to achieve, especially given the fact that there was and is a real shortage of warriors, because most of them have been killed off. So it occurred to some wizards that it might be possible to genetically engineer warriors who would be impossible to defeat. Or modify the Weirstones of members of the other guilds to turn them into warriors.”

A memory came back to Jonah, of the swordplay demonstration in Trinity, when Ellen had called Jack Swift a “mongrel.” “Is that what happened to Jack Swift?”

Lilith shook her head.
As I understand it, that was a surgical procedure. Really risky, and it still requires finding a warrior stone. My employers thought it might be possible to use treatments to gradually change, say, a sorcerer Weirstone into a warrior stone, or at least one that was close enough to fool a stone reader. If, at the same time, it was possible to enhance the warrior’s fighting capability, even better.

“So you have a long history of experimenting on unwilling subjects,” Jonah said, allowing his bitterness to show through.

Unwilling sorcerer, unwilling subjects,
Lilith said.
I hated it. So when Gabriel contacted me with a proposal, I was immediately intrigued. Not only would it provide a means of escaping the situation I was in, it might mean freedom for all of the Weirguilds.

“At least you meant well,” Jonah said. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

That’s the point—I did
not
make a mistake,
Lilith said.