Torn: Bound Trilogy Book Two (12 page)

And if it doesn’t always work,
I added to myself,
that’s a small price to pay
.

“This is why my brothers closed their eyes when you passed,” he said, “lest anyone ask whether they saw anything unusual.”

“And this?” I asked, and turned my hands palm-up against my hips.

“To show you they were unarmed, and welcomed you in peace.”

“So you understand, then.”

“No.” Phelun’s gaze turned cold, and I felt as though it were boring into my soul, if indeed I still had one. “Are you familiar with the concepts of dark and light magic?”

“The idea that some forms of magic are inherently bad and others good? Killing versus healing?”

“Just so. What do you think of it?”

My shoulders tightened. “I think that it’s a lie. I think that magic is magic, and it’s how we use the gifts we’ve been given that is dark or light.”

“It is so for many things,” he said. “Your brother’s gifts concerning fire might be used to light flames that keep a family warm on a cold night, saving them from certain death. The same gifts may also be used to kill, or to torture.”

“Just so,” I said, echoing him. I’d seen it myself.

“Something like this, though. Is it possible to know that you don’t harm anyone when you manipulate their thoughts?”

I pushed away the memories of the previous morning. That was an anomaly, and therefore irrelevant. “I don’t see how it could have harmed the people at the hotel where Rowan and I stayed. All that changed was that they remembered a couple who looked quite different from us passing through the night before we actually stayed there.”

“There is always a cost to great magic,” he said softly. “Either to you or to someone else. What about when they found signs that their memories were false? You can’t have covered your tracks so well. Unaffected people must have seen you. There would have been signs that someone had been staying in a room that they thought unoccupied on that night. I imagine these people began to question their own sanity.”

“It would be temporary.”

“It took away their free will, my son.” His gaze was compassionate now, but with steel in it. “The greatest gift the Goddess has given us. This is the essence of the talent you’ve so carefully developed. It’s magic of the darkest sort, and I don’t see how it could be seen as anything else.”

I stood and paced as well as I could in the tiny space. “What would you have had me do? Let them find us and kill me? Let Severn take Rowan back to Luid and keep her a prisoner while his researchers experimented on her, then do whatever he wished with her after they had used her up?” I tried to keep my temper in check, but he was digging into the very center of who I was and telling me that it was evil. Worse, something in his argument rang true.

“There must have been other ways,” he said, his voice calm. “And you don’t know for certain what would have happened.”

I thought I did, but didn’t bother to say so.

“Would you give this up if you believed me?” he asked. “If you knew for certain that what you did was wrong?”

“I don’t know. No.” Right or wrong, it was a useful skill.

“What else do you do? What other skills can you use to bring good to the world as you continue on your journey?”

I had a few gifts that I’d worked hard for years to strengthen. Mind control and transformation were the two that I used most frequently, but there was also the awareness of things happening around me, and my mostly-successful attempts to keep Severn from locating me. There were little things I’d picked up along the way that were useful even with my imperfect skills, like shocking a lock to pop it open, or my newly acquired ability to spark a flame. It all took some time to tell.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said when I’d finished. He took a sip from his carved cup. “What else?”

“It’s nothing. I haven’t done it since I was a child.”

He waited without speaking, and I reluctantly continued. Perhaps my mind-control would seem a brighter thing to him in comparison. “When I was young, maybe seven years old, I had a dog that I loved. I was often alone otherwise. My brothers were too old to want anything to do with me, and my caretakers were trying to keep me away from them anyway. The little girl I played with when I was small stopped coming by around the time my mother died, and the other servants kept their little ones away from me, so the dog was my one friend. My brother Wardrel killed her.”

“Accidentally?”

“No. He enjoyed hurting things. Still does. He cut her throat enough to let her bleed out and then watched her crawl around the room trying to find me until she died. He made sure he was there when I found her. He’ll take whatever kind of pain he can get. I was sad and angry, and more than anything, I wanted her back. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You brought her back.” He shuddered and took another long swallow of wine, emptying his cup.

I shook my head and looked away. “Not her. She was gone. But her body moved. It stood and walked, slow and shaky at first, and then it got stronger.”

“Your skill grew that quickly?”

“Yes. It terrified Wardrel. That would have been satisfying for me under other circumstances, but I was too upset to really notice. I called my dog, and she didn’t come to me. Her eyes were blank. I told her to come, in my mind, and she did. She wagged her tail when I told her to. But she wasn’t really there. I let it go and buried the body in the garden.”

“Is that the only time you ever did it?”

“I experimented on a few other animals, but never got better results. I never tried to bring people back, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He shuddered. “No, that’s good. The effects of that sort of thing on you would have been horrifying had it continued. There’s a reason no one develops that skill. This thing that you did, it’s—”

“Dark magic, I know.”

“It should never have happened.”

“I didn’t try to do it. It’s not like transformation. I had to study that for years before I could so much as attempt it. If I have a natural gift—”

“This is not a gift. It’s a curse.”

“Did the Goddess curse me, then?” I turned to face him. “You put such stock in her will. Why are you so sure that this is not a part of it?”

Phelun frowned. “Instinct. I’ve had longer to hone mine than you have. Dark magic is one of the unanswerable questions, but we have some understanding of it. Never have I seen it so clearly.” He unclenched his fists, which had tightened around the folds in his robe as I spoke. “You were right to let it go. If you stop going into people’s minds, this is not something you should take up as a replacement.”

“I know. I took quite a beating when my father found out about the dog. Even my family knows better.” We were silent for a few minutes. “What exactly are you trying to make me realize, here? That I should give up on using talents I’ve worked hard to develop, that have served me well for so long?”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m not trying to do anything. You seem to want to leave your family’s ways and your brother’s lessons behind and move on, perhaps to be a better person, to stop hurting people. I would suggest that you look deeper into your own heart and see whether you really think it’s acceptable for you to continue doing this. Killing people isn’t the only way we hurt them. You’re a powerful Sorcerer. I hope you will use your gifts for good, even if it means starting over in some places and rebuilding different abilities that you can use for better purposes.

“To a certain point,” he continued, “I think you are correct about magic being neither good nor bad, only the way we use it. But these things you’ve done, interfering with people’s free will and raising the dead…these things are ultimately never worth their cost to your spirit, or to the world.”

My upper lip curled. “You have no idea. I believe that you’re educated, that you know much about magic. But you’re sheltered here. What do you know about the world I have to survive in?” Every conversation I’d had with people who disapproved of my skills crowded in on me, fueling my anger. “You can’t possibly—” A wave of dizziness hit me, and I sat down on the bed. “What did you do?”

He didn’t respond, but sat and watched me as he traced his finger over the rim of his wine cup. I glanced at mine.

Cold sweat broke out on my face, and a violent shudder wracked my muscles. “You son of a—” `

The world went black.

I
woke feeling
like I’d been knocked out by a hit to the head rather than a potion, and through the lifting haze of pain I cursed Phelun and wished on him every imaginable torture.

The sun shone in through the window of my little room, and someone had pulled the gray wool blanket up to cover me. I blinked hard, trying to clear the grogginess that made the room swim, and pushed up to sit on the edge of the bed. Pain flared over the top of my skull, then shrank to a single aching spot at the crown of my head when I stopped moving. The blanket crackled with static as it pulled away from my robe. I pulled that off, too, and tossed it in the corner.

Phelun was gone, as were the dishes. Judging by the light, I guessed it to be mid-morning. I’d slept almost an entire day and night.

Every muscle in my body tensed, and my body temperature shot up as my pulse increased, making me light-headed. I took deep breaths, attempting to control the rage that churned inside me and made the pain worse. It hardly helped.

This was what trusting someone got me, what following my positive instincts brought. Severn had been wrong about many things, but he’d been right about this.
No one wants to help out of the goodness of their heart. Everyone wants something, and will do whatever they’re capable of to get it. Gods, I’m stupid.

I wondered what Rowan would say to that.
Trust people
, she’d said. A fine idea. What would she do now? She’d once talked her way out of a dragon’s cave. If these people had ways of protecting themselves from me, I could do worse than to follow her example.

Certainly she wouldn’t be overcome by her anger. She’d be upset, let that out, and then think things through. She’d look at things from a perspective that didn’t involve the desire to destroy everyone who opposed her.

I could try to calm myself, at least.

When I’d slowed my visceral reactions and calmed my muddled thoughts, I took stock of the situation. My strength was quickly returning, my head clearing, and a cursory inspection revealed that I’d apparently come to no physical harm while I was knocked out. Panic gripped me when I thought that they might have tried to bind my magic, or the parts of it that they considered evil, but everything felt as it had before. Having no minds to control or dead bodies to animate left me unable to test those powers, but I thought they’d left me alone. I held a shaking hand in front of me and managed a weak flame.

They wouldn’t dare anger a Sorcerer as powerful as me
, I thought, and could have laughed at my own hubris. Obviously they weren’t afraid of anything if they’d done this.

I stumbled to the door and tried it. Locked. I slammed the palm of my hand against the lock and directed magic into it. The components groaned, but the lock held, protected by its own magic. I was about to try again, with the force of my frustration along with the magic, when someone knocked at the door.

I slid open the iron panel that sat slightly below my eye level. Brother Phelun’s brown eyes came into view, the only things visible aside from his unkempt brows. His eyes revealed no fear or trepidation.

“How are you?” he asked, as though we were old friends meeting after a long absence.

“I’ve been better,” I replied through clenched teeth. “Am I a prisoner, then?”

“Nothing of the sort, I assure you. Is it safe for me to enter? We should speak.”

I stepped back from the door. “I suppose you’re taking your chances. I’ll try to control myself.” And I would, I decided. Though my nerves and my temper remained on edge, I wanted to hear him try to explain this.

He stepped away and spoke to another person standing in the hall, and after some struggle the key clicked the lock open.

Brother Phelun stepped in, carrying a breakfast tray on one hand, and jiggled his key to work it out of the lock. “Seems to be stuck. Did you do that?”

“I did.”

“Hmm. Just as well I arrived when I did, then.”

“I thought you didn’t use magic here.”

Phelun tapped the door with his fingertips. “This building is centuries old. We don’t direct magic ourselves, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.”

“You drugged me.”

“I did. Will you allow me to explain?”

I motioned for him to sit in the chair.

“To be clear,” he said, “if you try anything, I will have you on the floor before you can blink.”

“Understood.” I would believe him, at least for now. I’d already misjudged him once. “So the stories are true about the Dragonfreed Brothers? All of them?”

“The stories don’t tell half of it.” There was steel in his eyes today, and determination emanating from him that I needed little magic to sense.

I returned the hard look. “I’m afraid I underestimated you.”

Phelun adjusted his robes as he sat, and I remained standing, ready to run or fight as soon as I needed to. But I wanted an explanation, some reason to believe I hadn’t been as foolish as I suspected I’d been.

“You did,” he said, and met my eyes without fear. “But I’m glad you didn’t leave before I had a chance to explain. What we did was for your protection.”

“I hardly think drugging me and locking me up was in my best interests. In fact—”

“The messengers came back with armed soldiers while you slept.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. “You knew this was going to happen?”

“We suspected.” He looked out the window, where drifted snow sparkled on the outside ledge. “I’d hoped the storm would keep them away. They know our reputation for assisting those in need, even if it’s not in their interests, and they knew you might be in the area. It stood to reason that they would come back to check.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

He pushed a bowl of steaming oatmeal toward me. I didn’t move, and he smiled. “Can’t fool you twice. There’s nothing in it except oats and a little sugar. We only needed you out for the night.”

“Why? I could have left, instead.”

“And been caught, or died in the storm. If they’d seen you leaving, it would have been our necks on the block as much as yours. This was not a risk we were willing to take.”

“I could have remained in this room, disguised as one of you.”

“No one would have felt the magic in you?” He shook his head. “They have a Sorcerer traveling with them. Perhaps not someone you know, but he would have known that you were out of place here. Your magic had to be invisible when they came.”

My skin grew cold for reasons that had nothing to do with the chill in the air. “You bound my magic.”

“Silenced it temporarily with a potion prepared by Brother Roched. It’s a far more nuanced thing than what happened to your friend.”

He watched my face carefully as I struggled to accept his words. I had been powerless. Helpless. Had my stomach not been empty, I’d have vomited.

“We have not survived as long as we have by taking unnecessary risks.” He arched an eyebrow. “I’m sure you understand.”

“You left me defenseless with enemies in the building? Against my will?” I felt as though I’d been robbed, stripped and humiliated. “Did you not think I would object to this?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Why do you think I slipped it into our wine instead of asking politely?”

“You had no right.”

Phelun watched my hands close into fists. “I can feel that, you know,” he said. “Your magic. The way you’re pulling it to you, ready to attack. I can well imagine how it feels to another Sorcerer. To anyone who knows you.”

I made no effort to contain it.

He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Let me put it this way, then. How is what we did to you any different from what you’ve done to anyone else? Are you angry that we gave you no choice, that we manipulated you to suit our purposes?”

My breath left me in a rush. “I told you, I—”

“You had to, I know. When you did those things, you were protecting yourself and the woman you care so much for. Brother Roched and I were protecting the men who are our family, and an institution that existed long before your family took the throne. Before Tyrea existed. Is this less noble?”

“You would condemn me for what I do, yet do the same to me?” My heartbeat sounded in my ears, and every muscle tensed.

He stretched, arching his back against the hard chair, and met my gaze again. “The world is complicated. Take what you will from this. Is this a reminder that no one can be trusted?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a growl that didn’t seem to faze Phelun.

“Or might it be an opportunity for you to understand what you do to other people when you use your magic against them? True, I acted against you, and I did it for reasons similar to ones you claim. To protect my brotherhood, but also to keep you safe.” He leaned forward, and his gaze held me captive. “Remember how you feel right now. Violated. Confused. Now imagine if you had no idea what had happened to you. Imagine that we hadn’t had this conversation, that you woke in an unfamiliar place, or that people told you you’d done things last night that you had no recollection of. Imagine that reality doesn’t match up to memories that are clear and fresh in your mind. Imagine you think you’re—”

“Stop.”

“Insane.”

My stomach heaved again. “You could have done anything to me when I was in that state.”

“True. Unpleasant thought, isn’t it?”

I wanted to choke him until he turned purple, to punch him, to break his mind until he shut up, to turn him into a quivering shadow of the man who sat before me, calm and apparently confident that I couldn’t hurt him.

He stood and turned toward the window, leaving his back exposed.

I lunged, and he spun around, moving faster than any human I’d ever seen. Before I could react, he had me pinned against the door with his forearm at my throat, pressing ever harder as I gasped for air. My magic screamed within me for release, but as he met my gaze with his own, I felt nothing. His mind was a wall of marble, impenetrable and unyielding.

I had access to my magic, and it was useless.

He released me, and I dropped to the floor, gasping.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

“I think a better question might be who you think you are, Aren. Powerful? Undoubtedly. Intelligent? Possibly, though inexperienced, and your pride gets in your way. But what else? You’re not a prince anymore, if your brother has anything to say about it. Assassin? Killer? What will you use your magic for now? What would you be without it? Is there more to you?”

“How did you block me without magic?”

“Our potions master is quite good, isn’t he?” Phelun crouched on the floor in front of me. “You don’t understand as much about this world as you think you do. You have been given great gifts, and you squander them. You use them for selfish reasons, to harm and kill and destroy. Do you think this is what the Goddess intended when she blessed you so?”

He offered a hand. I ignored it, instead pushing myself up from the floor by pressing my back against the door and forcing my shaking legs to straighten.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Was it her plan for my father and his mother before him to arrange their marriages to produce the strongest children? Was she at work in his bedroom when I was conceived, or Severn? And where was she when my father and my oldest brother turned me into what I am? Where was she when my mother died, when my caretakers were killed, when I lost the only friends I’d ever had? Did she expect me to rise from the cesspool of hate and mistrust I was born into, to turn my back on the advantages of belonging to the wealthiest and most influential family in the world? To betray them for a deity who’s never given a shit about me?”

“You did betray your family, in the end.”

“Not for her. You said yourself that the magic I use is dark, and not her will. Yet you also say it’s a gift from her. Which is it?”

He stayed where he was, crouched at my feet. “I don’t know. But I don’t believe she would have sent you to us if you were beyond redemption. There’s hope for you, Aren Tiernal.”

“So you believe you’ve done good here?”

“It’s possible. The results of our actions are often not immediately apparent. I trust in the Goddess, based on my experiences and what my brothers have learned over the centuries.”

“And I trust in myself.” I crossed my arms, looking down at him, seething with hatred.

He looked back, but with compassion. His eyes became wet as we stared at each other, reflecting the pain that I didn’t often allow myself to feel.

There was a time when I would have called it weakness and turned my back on him. It still made me uncomfortable, but I’d learned from Rowan and my grandfather that my father’s ideas on what made a person weak were not the whole truth. Not by far. And though I had no desire to turn my back on
dark magic
for the Goddess’ sake, perhaps Phelun was not entirely wrong. Maybe, if I wished to be the hero Rowan deserved and the man my grandfather thought I was capable of becoming, I would have to make some sacrifices.

Gods, it will hurt.

I extended a hand. Phelun grasped my wrist to pull himself up.

“I won’t thank you for what you did,” I told him.

“Nor would I expect you to.” He returned to his chair as though nothing had happened. “We did what we thought necessary. I do not control your response to it.”

“So you went through all of this, risked much to help a stranger who you suspected to be dangerous, only because you believe it was the Goddess’s will? How do you know she wanted this, that Severn isn’t her chosen darling? You might be working against her right now.” I was beginning to suspect that the man was mad, though I’d seen no other evidence of it.

He turned slightly toward the window, and a smile flickered over his face. “The Goddess plays a larger game than any of us can imagine. We can’t know the purpose or effect of anything we do. We simply play the moves as we are able. Some of us see more, as we remember better how things have played in the past.”

“And what will your next move be?”

“To evict you. They found nothing last night, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be back. I’m afraid you’re too dangerous to keep here. Brother Roched is gifted, but our eggshell stockpile is too low for him to keep everyone safe from your magic, should you choose to use it.”