“My lord, my lord!” a servant called running out into the Master of Crows’ path. Briefly, he considered killing the man for the interruption, but such a paltry extra hint of power would not make up for all that had slipped through his grasp.
“What is it?” the Master of Crows demanded.
“My lord, there is a man to see you. He says that it is urgent.”
Again, the Master of Crows fought back the urge to lash out.
“I… think you might want to see him, my lord,” the man said.
The Master of Crows drew himself up, and stared at the man with lifeless eyes. “Very well. Lead the way. And if I do not find this very interesting, you will find yourself in a crow cage.”
He saw the man swallow. “Yes, my lord.”
The servant led the way down to the palace’s ballroom, which had become a throne room for his occupation. The mirrors there were largely broken now, reflecting shattered fragments of the people there. Most of them stood back, flanked by guards of the New Army. One stood further forward, shaven headed, dressed in dark clothes, his mind closed off with the kind of shielding that hinted at power.
“You have taken a grave risk, coming here,” the Master of Crows said. “You should speak quickly, whoever you are.”
“Whoever I am?” the man said. “Look at me closely.”
The Master of Crows did so, and realized just who he was speaking to. He had seen this face before, albeit with hair, and usually only for brief periods before his crows had been killed.
“Endi Skydar,” he said. “You have taken an even greater risk than I thought. You should speak quickly. Why should I let you live?”
“I hear that you have a problem,” Endi said. “You have run into an issue with magic that you cannot fathom. I have run into my own problem: I and my men have nowhere to go. Perhaps we can help one another.”
“And how can we help one another?” the Master of Crows asked. “You are not your brother Oli, to know the history of such things. And you are a Skydar; one of my enemies.”
“I was a Skydar,” Endi said. “Now I have no name. As for what I know, secrets and hidden things were my business. It might be that I heard about a man who was asked to give advice on a magical matter. It might be that when my cousins turned out to have power, I looked into ways of countering such things.”
“So, what are you asking?” the Master of Crows demanded.
“You give me and my men an honored place in your kingdom, and your army,” Endi said. “In return, I will provide you with a ritual that will weaken the walls of Stonehome, and any other magic they put before you.”
That would give the Master of Crows access to the town. It would give him Sophia’s daughter. With that much power in his hands, he could afford to be generous.
“Very well,” he said. “You have a deal. Fail me though, and I will kill you and all your men.”
CHAPTER TWO
Sophia stared at the city beyond the door, beyond the normal spaces of the world. Sienne pressed up against her leg, while Lucas and Kate flanked her to either side. Sophia didn’t know what to make of the city that lay there, even though she had seen it before in visions. The city was radiant, rainbow colored in parts and golden in others. People, tall and elegant, walked through the streets, dressed in radiant gowns and golden suits of clothes.
It was all beautiful, but none of it was what Sophia had come to the city to find. None of it was the reason she had left her daughter, her husband and her kingdom to trek across the sea and the desert, past the city of Morgassa and out into the wastelands. She’d done that to find her parents.
And then, there they were.
They stood on the street in a clear space between the others there, looking up at the doorway Sophia and the others had just passed through. They were older than they looked in her memories, but so much time had passed since then, could it really be any other way? More importantly, they still looked like them. Her father leant on a stick now, but he was still tall and strong looking. Her mother still had the same red hair, although it was shot through with grey now, and she still looked like the most beautiful woman in the world to Sophia.
She ran forward without even thinking about it, and wasn’t surprised to find Kate and Lucas running forward with her. Her arms closed around her mother and father, and the others joined the hug, until it felt as though they were all one big mass in the middle of the street there.
“We found you,” she said, barely able to believe it. “We actually found you.”
“You did, darling,” her mother said, holding her close. “And you had to go through such a lot to do it.”
“You know about that?” Sophia said, stepping back.
“You aren’t the only one in the family who sees things,” her mother said with a smile. “It is why we left the path as we did for you.”
Sophia could feel how worried that made Kate feel.
“You saw all of it, but you weren’t there?” Kate asked.
“Kate-” Sophia began, but her father answered before she could go on.
“We would have been there if we could, Kate,” he said. “You have suffered, all of you, and we would have stopped every moment of that suffering if we could have done. We would have brought you with us… we would have given you a perfect life if we could.”
“Why couldn’t you?” Sophia asked. She thought of the orphanage, and of everything that happened in the wake of the attack on their home. “Why didn’t you?”
“We do owe you an explanation,” their mother said, “and there are things that we have to tell you, but not here, in the street. Come with us, all of you.”
She and their father led the way off the street, the crowds there parting as if in respect, or perhaps the way that a crowd might have kept back from someone sick. Sophia and the others followed them to a large house with carvings on the outside that seemed to ripple in the sunlight. There was no door, as if people here didn’t fear the possibility of thieves, only a kind of curtain to keep out the wind.
Inside, their parents led the way to a room whose floor seemed to be a larger metal version of the disc map that Sophia and the others had followed to get there. Its lines glowed with every step they took upon the floor. A large, low table sat at the center of the room, with chairs set around it. There was a divan on which their mother and father sat together, a camp chair that Kate took without pause, an odd looking carved stool that Lucian smiled at for a moment before sitting on it cross legged, and a deep, comfortable looking chair with a rug in front of it that Sienne curled up on, waiting for Sophia to sit down too.
She did so, and a large woman in the same radiant clothes came out from a side door, bringing food and water. Again, Sophia had the feeling that the food had been prepared specifically for each of them. Lucas got a kind of fish dish, Kate a kind of hearty stew, Sophia a delicate dish that reminded her of the things prepared in the palace of Ashton.
“It’s like you know us better than we know ourselves,” Sophia said. A horrible thought came to her. “This is real, isn’t it? It isn’t some fever dream while we’re all dying in the desert? It isn’t some new kind of test?”