Ghost Wounds, Episode 18a

“We’ll take the secret passage into the Tower of Corthios,” you say.

Tylas nods. “And if this Croanna woman has dared to lay a finger on the Emperor, she’ll regret it sorely.”

You lead Tylas and the others to a deserted guardroom near the Court of Swords. The Imperial Citadel is thousands of years old, and therefore riddled with long-forgotten secret passages. At least, forgotten by everyone but the Ghosts. You take a narrow, dusty passage that winds its way through the heart of the Citadel, and opens in the great hall of the Tower of Corthios. Here the Emperor meets his private guests, though the hall is large enough to seat a thousand.

You stop before the secret door.

“You have a plan?” says Ark.

“Aye,” you murmur, listening at the door. Utter silence on the other side. “We find Croanna, and then we kill her as quickly as possible.”

“Simple,” says Noraster.

Moresti chuckles. “Moresti likes simple!”

You take a deep breath, push open the door, and step into the great hall.

Beyond is utter darkness. But you’ve been here before, and you know the way to the Emperor’s library and…

“Ah,” says a woman’s voice, a throaty rasp. “There she is. Some light, if you please.”

Light floods the great hall.

And you see hundreds of men and women around you.

You see the Emperor first, solemn in his black robe. The Lord Marshal and the Lord Exchequer and the other high officials of the Empire. The magistrates and dozens of powerful lords. The First Magus himself, who has sworn your death, and a dozen of the high magi. Over two hundred Imperial Guards.

And every last one of them has a bronze mindreaver on the left wrist.

You shout for the others to run, but it’s too late. The First Magus and the high magi lift their hands, faces blank, and you feel the sudden electric surge of sorcery. Noraster, Tylas, Ark, Moresti, and Rhazion collapse to the floor, unconscious, while your shadow-cloak ripples in a sudden invisible wind. A stunning spell, you realize, and your shadow-cloak kept it from reaching your mind.

But that won’t stop the First Magus from crushing your skull. Or the enslaved Imperial Guards from cutting you to pieces. You tense yourself, throwing knife in your left hand, ghostsilver dagger in your right.

But no one moves.

Then you hear footsteps against the marble floor.

A woman steps from around the Emperor. She’s lean and gaunt, perhaps ten years older than you, with ragged white-streaked hair and green eyes. She’s dressed outlandishly, with a leather vest, trousers, and armored boots. Rings glitter on her fingers, ears, eyebrows, nostrils, and lips, rings of gold and silver and bronze and steel. A heavy platinum bracelet encircles her left wrist. It looks like a mindreaver, but much larger, studded with rough chunks of green crystal.

Croanna. She looks at you, her eyes filled with…glee, perhaps? Or anticipation?

You step forward, hoping to get at throwing knife into her throat, and then you see the girl standing besides Croanna.

She’s nine or ten years old, dressed in a fine blue gown. A platinum bracelet, identical to the one on Croanna, covers her left wrist. She has long blonde hair, so blonde that it’s almost white, and her gray eyes…

You blink, and something clicks in your head.

Her gray eyes are the exact shape and color of Lucan’s.

“Oh,” you say. “You really are clever. And cruel.”

Croanna lifts a single eyebrow, rings glittering.

“Lucan’s wife,” you say. “She’s been dead for ten years. But…she was pregnant when Morneus killed her, wasn’t she?”

Croanna nods, her smile widening.

“But Lucan never knew,” you say.

“Yes,” says Croanna. “Livia was five months pregnant when I slew her at my master Morneus’s bidding. Morenus thought a grandchild of Lord Corbould Maraeus might prove useful, so I cut the child from Livia’s belly. He was right.” She reaches down and pats the child’s head, and a spasm of hatred flashes over the girl’s face. “But I put Siona here to a better use than my fool of a master ever dreamed.”

“And that was why you told Lucan that Livia was still alive,” you say. Another step closer. A few more and you can put a knife in her throat. “He never knew Siona. She would only be an abstraction to him. But he blamed himself for Livia’s death, even after all these years. And you knew that was the one thing that could make him act rashly.”

Croanna stares at you for a long.

“I must return the compliment, Countess,” she says at last. “You are indeed as clever as they say. But too clever for you own good, really. It would have been much less painful if you’d just let Rycurgus kill you.”

A blur of mist, and Rycurgus materializes at Croanna’s right, smiling. “I could kill you now, Countess, and spare you the…festivities to come.”

“I’m still not impressed, Niall Anabas,” you say to him.

Rycurgus’s smile curdles into a sneer of hate. If he gets a chance, he’s going to kill you. Slowly.

“Why?” you say to Croanna. “Why all this?”

Croanna gestures at the enslaved nobles and magi. “Why? The Empire is mine now, Countess. Mine to do with as I wish. Did you think this was about vengeance for Morneus? That was not the main point. It was only a…side dish, let us say. A dessert, even.” Her eyes glitter like green marble. “A sweet one, though. Observe. Aberon!”

The First Magus, a doughy, balding man, lifts his head, expression blank.

“Do you know,” says Croanna, “that I got the Magisterium to fund the mindreavers for me? I couldn’t have made so many without their coin. The First Magus thought I was going to give him the Empire. You should have seen the expression on his face when I slipped the mindreaver upon his wrist. The shears?”

Aberon lifts a pair of heavy pruning shears in his left hand.

“Cut the fingers from your right hand,” says Croanna. “One joint at a time.”

And the First Magus, the most powerful magus in the Empire, obeys. His face remains blank. But his eyes are screaming.

“Why?” you say, sickened.

Croanna shrugs. “Why? Why not? He wronged me once, you know.” Her smile widens, and she takes three quick steps towards you. “And if I did that to the First Magus…what do you think I made Lucan cut off?”

Siona stares at you, face filled with horror and alarm.

Rage, hotter than anything you’ve ever known, erupts through you, and the throwing knife seems alive in your hand. Croanna stepped within range, and it would be child’s play to put the knife into her throat.

And yet…and yet…

She’s so clever. She knows so much about you. Why is she standing so close to you, goading you? She’s even holding her head high…as if exposing her throat to you. And why doesn’t she just have Rycurgus kill you, or one of the hundreds of Imperial Guards with mindreavers upon their wrists?

Does she want you to put a knife in her throat?
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