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Prologue

Bryn Calazar, Caladorn

 “Braden Reis.”

He didn’t look up at the sound of his own name being spoken from the doorway. Instead, he swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut as he ran his tongue across his parched lips. The sound of his own breath was a turbulent noise in his ears. He forced himself to concentrate on that sound, focusing his mind on every sharp hiss of air he sucked into his chest.

The sound of approaching footsteps made him flinch. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop his hands from trembling.

“On your feet.”

Braden ignored the command, knowing there would be a penalty for his defiance. He squeezed his hands into fists in anticipation of the pain. For heartbeats, he waited. When nothing happened, he allowed himself to relax a bit.

The pain hit with force.

Molten-silver lightning raged like a firestorm through his mind. He threw his head back, clenching his teeth. Slumping to the floor, Braden convulsed as liquid energies seared through his body. Bile rose in his throat, choking him as he writhed on the floor.

The pain lessened only gradually, taking a long time to completely go away. He lay on his back on the cold stone floor, staring upward, spent and gasping.

A different voice, soft and repulsively familiar, addressed him from the doorway. “Think very carefully, Ambassador Reis. There are many kinds of deaths, some much worse than others.”

He shuddered at the sound of that voice. It was despicably seductive, stroking like soft velvet down the length of his nerves. Braden kept his eyes squeezed closed, so loath was he to gaze upon that face.

He could feel her moving toward him across the cell. Her hands brushed his skin, a silken caress as she slid her arms around his torso. With gentle pressure she compelled him to his feet. He stood, swaying, naked from the waist up, arms chained behind his back. His breath still came in gasps.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she whispered gently in his ear as her soft fingertips stroked the skin of his back. “You can still choose to make a difference. Think of the lives you could save. It’s the right thing to do.”

His eyes shot open, glaring his contempt at her.

“Don’t lecture me on morals, woman,” he grated. “You have no idea what they are.”

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The smile that bloomed on her lovely face was only a dim reflection of the delight that filled her eyes. His response had pleased her. It sickened him, knowing that he had given her exactly what she’d wanted.

“I want you to die knowing that they chose me to inherit your legacy,” she informed him with a grin. “One way or another, your gift will be put to the service of Xerys. With your power inside me, I will be the one destined for greatness. And you?” She looked at him sadly and scoffed with a shrug. “You’ll just be dead.”

Hearing her words, Braden Reis closed his eyes and bowed his head in acceptance of defeat. Never before in his life had he felt so utterly powerless.

The sound of her slippered footsteps moved away from him across the floor. Then hands were upon him, wrenching him forward. Braden allowed his guards to escort him out of the cell.

The despair that gripped him dulled his senses. It was as though he moved through a dim and murky haze, the world around him distant and strangely muted. They ushered him up many flights of stairs toward the floor of the Lyceum. The dance of magelight that churned at their feet only served to confound his senses all the more.

Braden gazed ahead with bleary eyes at the woman who strode before him. She glided in a sway of blue silks, platinum curls spiraling to her waist. She moved with an easy grace, every motion poised, every step a deliberate, calculated seduction. Arden Hannah was just as alluring as she was vile. It was a powerful and frightening dichotomy. She gazed back at him and smiled, her wide eyes glistening in the magelight.

He dropped his stare back to the floor.

They reached the level of the Assembly. There, his guards wrenched back on Braden’s arms, forcing him to a halt. The sound of a staff rapping thrice upon wood resounded throughout the hall. There was a pause. Then the knocks were answered in kind, echoing from the other side of the barred doorway.

The bars were thrown from the inside, the enormous double doors cast open, shuddering on their hinges with a throaty groan. Braden avoided Arden’s eyes as his guards forced him forward. He could see very little, only shadowy silhouettes of people gathered above in the galleries. Within, the room was completely dark save for a single sphere of brilliant light in the center of the hall. It was toward that orb of light that he was made to walk.

Braden forced himself to hold his head up despite the chill fingers of dread that caressed his bare skin. Nervous sweat trickled down his brow. He couldn’t help trembling as he stepped within that sphere of light. There he paused, hands bound behind him, completely blinded by the dazzling brilliance. That was the purpose of the light: to protect the anonymity of those gathered above in the galleries.

The doors slammed closed, sealing the chamber with a resounding thud. An awful, gaping silence struck the room. The silence lingered, long moments stretching on and on. Braden continued to stand, blinking against the glare, eyes groping desperately for the sight of just one face he could recognize. But he could make out nothing; the thick wall of light was dense and unyielding.

A deep and resonant voice addressed him:

“Braden Reis, you have been convicted, attainted, and condemned of high treason committed against the state of Caladorn and the Lyceum of Bryn Calazar. A sentence of death has been pronounced against you. May the gods have mercy on your soul.”

Braden bowed his head under the sheer weight of the words. A paralyzing numbness overcame him. He stood there shaking, withered by the miserable knowledge that he had failed so utterly in his purpose.

Slithering ropes of energy twined around him, restraining him completely as they forced him roughly to his knees in the circle of light. He fought to draw breath, but succeeded only in producing a strangled wheeze.

The prime warden himself stepped forward into the wash of light to carry out his sentence. Panic seized Braden at the sight of the object displayed in Zavier Renquist’s hands: a stone of many facets, lifeless, dull and black. It hung from the bands of a silver collar that shone like satin in the light.

The sight of the Soulstone was ghastly, terrifying.

Braden’s eyes shot up, groping at Renquist’s face. But in the gaze of his executioner, he found no trace of mercy.