Amon was coming to realize that he was reaching a place where Dark magic could not help him, and could only hurt him. The healer had chastised him severely for using it while bleeding. He had known, and been told many times, that dark magic kept wounds open.

But Amon also knew his own emotional state. If he didn’t keep his mind shut down, he would be in severe trouble.

In the past week, he had been the subject of--or just discovered--numerous betrayals. Only Janinda, the daughter he had marginalized throughout her life, had yet to undermine or control him. And she had spent her whole youth threatening to kill him!

Roan had been driven mad by who knows what, staying in the sacred grounds until he became volatile, violent trash like so many of the workers. The action made no sense to Amon. If he had brought the sample to his father immediately, there would be no need to hide anything. Instead, he had crawled into the far reaches of the sacred grounds, spent money to hide it, and stayed there becoming tainted with his sex pet until he lost all reason.

Amon made a mental note, not for the first time, to hunt down whoever had taken Roan’s bribes and hidden the facility from him. If they had come to him, this could have been avoided. So much of this could have been avoided.

He couldn’t quite understand why people didn’t want to be around him. Things would work out so much better if they just trusted him.

He gestured to a pale servant, wordlessly requesting that they remove the body of the healer from his sight. He already regretted killing the man, and had to admit he wasn’t sure why he had done so. He spent a good ten minutes in quiet contemplation on the subject, finally deciding that it must be a consequence of all the dark magic.

He’d known, in his head, that dark magic made him more susceptible to natural magics. Perhaps this pain he felt, and the twisted nature of it, was its own kind of natural magic. Perhaps he was more susceptible to becoming twisted by agony while using dark magic to keep himself under control.

That would be most unfortunate, since he needed the dark magic just to think straight. And he could not, under the circumstances, go and sleep this off. He had already done too much sleeping. Even with Janinda running things, he needed to be present and of sharp wit.

Didn’t he? Did he?

Amon spent a short time pondering this before Janinda herself showed up before him. He was half-prepared to be chided for killing the healer, but let her decide when to address it.

“We will be pushing back the audience,” she began.

That was an amazing relief, to Amon. If he didn’t need to be mentally sharp now, he could, indeed, go back to sleep, and let the effects wear off on their own.

“...the King’s Own will be here, this evening. I don’t know what they want, but I need to know what our position is with the King.”

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Amon stopped. His felt his mental sorceries failing him. Whatever self control dark magic gave him access to, it paled in comparison to the surge of hatred within him now.

The King had betrayed him, as well.

It wasn’t entirely clear to Amon in the minutes that followed what he had done, but when Janinda’s fingers closed on his wrist, he stopped to look around. A guard cradled a broken arm, and another bared steel--at him. He bristled, but understood. Janinda was in charge, and must not be threatened, even by him.

Amon’s breath was raspy, and he knew he was too weak to stand much longer. But he had his pride. He nodded to her, knowing that she still saw him as her Lord, that she would let him walk back to his rooms in peace. She released his arm, and he tottered towards the door.

“Father,” she interrupted, sternly.

He paused, mostly shocked that she dared interrupt him. It took him a long moment before he realized, again, that she was in charge.

And that she had asked him a question.

So Amon tottered back to the throne. He didn’t dare sit--he thought he might collapse if he tried--but he leaned on it. “Yes… daughter. The question, again.”

“What is our position with the King?”

“You might have guessed. We are not permitted to admit having direct ties, for a number of reasons. And we are not in favor. However, your mother had thin ties to royal blood, and so do you. That’s why I would never allow her to leave.” Amon chuckled darkly, remembering days when he had bound her, by chain and spell, not to leave his bed chambers, and the joy he felt when, finally, she would remain without them. “So long as there is a drop of that blood in you, King Horace will bend laws to protect you, so long as it can be done quietly. But if he has moved the King’s Own, that means he intends to act in public.”

“That will protect me, perhaps, but not you.”

“Ah… true enough, daughter. I have been trading money for my own protection, until now. Money, and things that could not be bought with money. We did not chase the Ancet group when they copied our Brass Adamant, you recall? I had offered the secrets to the King, and he simply uses them to make the metal. That gave us many years of protection.”

“So it is the King that you will be offering the new metal to?”

“If he will have it. We don’t even know what we have, yet.” He paused. “I don’t think I can make this clear enough, daughter, that you must not allow anyone to know of this. No member of the King’s Own, certainly. If a deal is to be brokered, it will be directly with Horace, or his daughter Margarit, or their closest confidant, and in the strictest of confidence. If any bears witness to the deal, he will betray us and pretend that was always the idea. King Horace enjoys this, daughter. He enjoys people writhing in doubt and fear. He enjoys watching people powerless. He knew what I did to your mother.” Amon smiled. “Better, I think, than you did.”

Janinda shuddered, but did not speak or move.

“If you must speak with him, you must use the confidant. He is a spy for the king, in this house, and has been known to me for many years. A word to this spy is as good as a word to the king. He has the king’s own ear, and passes there as a ghost. He is among the cruelest and most private of the king’s tools, and it is an honor to have him in our house, even as an enemy.”

“Who?” Janinda leaned forward, having gotten, finally, to something useful.

“You would never guess.” Amon laughed. “He is in the basement with your friend Dennet. You called for him, yourself. The King’s spy is no less than the Inquisitor.”