Gray jolted to his feet.
The prisoners close by were all utterly quiet.
A lamp flickered overhead.
Baldwin eyed Gray with his intense gaze. His silvery hair was braided back, and the haughty angles of his face looked skull-like in the patchy lighting of the prison. His elaborate mage robes brushed the concrete floor. His wand was in his holster at his wrist.
With a small movement from his hand, the gate to Gray’s cell clicked open.
And the king stepped into Gray’s cell.
Gray panicked.
He tried to bow and back away at the same time and ended up hitting the small sink behind him. With a hiss of pain, Gray made to bow lower. Tried to find his voice.
But, he was speechless.
There was no stream of thoughts to words, no unfiltered conversation, no loose tongue. Gray realised Lunn’s potions were, at last, gone from his system. He was himself again. Angry and terrified heat was rapidly building deep within him, at the sight of this man.
Gray couldn’t tell if the sentiment was reciprocated by the king. There was nothing but a cool and disinterested countenance to the king as he took in Gray’s cell with a single sweeping glance.
Left with too much time on his hands and a load of tangled thoughts about the events over the past few weeks, Gray had become even more fastidious about his cleanliness. He’d used the small sink several times a day, keeping the cell, himself, and his grey prison clothes in order. The swelling and pain from the round-house kick was fast dying down. His dark hair was tied back.
‘Up,’ said the king. ‘In the circle. I don’t have much time.’
In the circle?
They were going to fahren.
But, it hadn’t been seven weeks. It had barely been three days. The king couldn’t know if Gray was a sorcerer yet. And would it even matter - the fact he was a sorcerer-
‘Boy. Now.’
Gray stood rigidly still as the king drew a chalk circle in the small cell. Gray had no weapons on him. The king would be able to overpower Gray easily anyway. But, Gray was not going to let him just slice his throat, as he'd done with Darcy, he wasn't going to go down without a fight.
But, Gray was going crazy - fighting the king was crazy - Gray would have to talk his way out of this, or just run first chance he got, like he'd never run before in his life.
The king got out his wand and muttered the enchantments to fahren.
Gray was crushed into blackness.
And was thrown onto a lush carpet inside a very large and lavish office.
Gray climbed to his feet, his breath shuddering, shaking his head to clear his vision and stumbling to put as much distance between himself and the king as possible.
He was searching, searching, for the door.
The far wall was covered in paintings and portraits, and shelves with wands and keepsakes. Another wall was covered in bookshelves, groaning under the weight of books. A cold, empty fireplace, gilded and large enough to stand in, took up another wall.
And then, underneath a large window, a large workbench made from dark and polished wood. An alchemist’s pot bubbled there, perched over a small blue fire.
Gray stilled, staring at it, all thoughts of sprinting through the closest exit completely leaving him.
The king strode across to the workbench as though he hadn’t just been pressed into nothingness, as though fahrenning was no big deal at all.
Doing a distracted double take, Gray glanced at the portraits up on the wall again. They were all mages. Most of them Augustes. Sorena's face was up there.
He was in the king's office, Gray realised. Inside the royal palace.
The king waved Gray over to the alchemist’s pot. ‘I need your blood and breath. Come.’
Gray flexed his fingers, chewing the inside of his lip, his heart hammering hard. He glanced behind him. The door was right there, ornately carved.
'Now, little boy,' said the king.
Gray made his way over to the workbench, his boots sinking into the deep carpet. The view from the window - the window, perhaps, that Branbright’s crow had smashed through - was spectacular. The whole of Dierne spilled out before them, all blue rooftops, temple spires, organised streets, and the grand stadium in the middle.
Gray stood, his lungs tight, as the king pricked Gray’s finger over the cauldron, and then commanded him to breathe into the pot.
The king worked at the cauldron, and every movement was precise and controlled. He worked differently to Longwark - Longwark had the same precision and control but edged with an intense fascination. Longwark would always lean so close over his work, eyeing every detail as though he wanted to get inside it to see how it worked.
The king had a smooth confidence, a coldness. A businessman running a practised eye over accounts.
Gray stood off to the side, awkwardness settling over him, over the beating of his rapid pulse.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
This close, Gray could see the workbench was scarred and stained with burn marks and spills. It had been used a lot. Glass jars and bottles were lined up and ordered, filled with glittering powders and luminous liquids. Brass scales balanced on a neat stack of thick tomes, weighed down by a lump of black rock Gray couldn’t identify and tools were laid out on a leather roll; pincers, knives, and a thin, spiralling spoon.
Gray tilted his head to see the work the king was doing at the pot - he was doing something to the alchemic mixture, he was using his wand, muttering a string of words in the mage tongue.
The king spared Gray half a glance. He made a small movement with his free hand, the same movement Gray recognised from the mage guild courtyard, how the king had called Killian back. ‘You’re done here, boy. That’s all I needed. My servant will take you back to the prison.’
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Gray stepped back.
When the servant didn’t immediately come through the office doors, Gray found his gaze dragged back over to the alchemic pot.
The king glanced at Gray again. ’You can’t tell yet,’ he said.
Gray accidentally made eye contact and hurriedly dropped it. He swallowed, uncertain if he was meant to speak, or bow, or-
‘It’s not ready,’ said the king. ’The transformation test.’
‘Oh,’ said Gray, forcing himself to talk. ‘No, sir, I … I know. Seven weeks, you said …’
He trailed off awkwardly, the sound of the pot bubbling filling the silence.
‘You like alchemy?’ the king said coolly.
Gray’s throat was dry. He should say no. Gray didn’t want to give the king anything of himself, especially not his love of alchemy.
But, the king probably already knew what the answer was. And Gray was wary of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, heck, breathing wrong. The image of the king slicing Darcy’s throat was burned into Gray’s mind.
‘Very much,’ Gray said, honestly.
The king was leaning over the pot. Distractedly, he felt around on his workbench with his free hand until he clapped his palm on a small book.
‘Here,’ he said, offering it to Gray without glancing away from the pot.
Gray hesitated and then took the book. His fingers curled around the hardcover.
It was small and well-worn, with splatterings of something blue on the front. Harnessing The Elements of Alchemy by Alira Fickle, Gray read.
The king had to be joking.
He knew - surely - he knew Gray’s background. What he’d done in Krydon. In Sirentown.
Absolutely this had to be the king’s version of a twisted joke.
Perhaps it was a reprimand.
The king seemed to have sensed Gray's panicked confusion because he said, as cold as ever, ‘You must be bored in that prison. Take it with you.'
This man had almost chopped his head off three days ago.
Had Gray just been collected? Was that what the damn alchemy book was? Perhaps that's how this whole thing worked, perhaps this was what Killian had talked about.
Or, perhaps, it wasn't that deep, perhaps Gray was freaking out over nothing.
Staring open-mouthed at the king, Gray waited for him to turn around with his mouth contorted in a sneer, or burst out laughing, or even burst into a raving rage like how he’d done to Killian. But, there was none of this. There was just the king with his back to Gray, moving with complete and utter confidence as he worked over the alchemy pot, while Gray was within close reach of knives.
Gray was still standing there, shell-shocked, when the servant opened the office door.
‘Yes, Your Majesty?’ said the servant.
‘Take him to the prison. You may use a carriage if no mages are available to fahren,’ said the king. ‘And I want no interruptions here for the next hour.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
The king was adding a white powder into the alchemy pot. ‘Gray, in the south,’ he said, ‘this is when we say thank you.’
Gray clutched the alchemy book. His pulse beat hard in his ears. He dropped his gaze to the book. Could a book burst into flame or curse a person? Maybe this was some kind of test.
Gray swallowed, his voice dropping. ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’
The king stirred the pot, waving a cool hand at Gray.
The servant bowed out and Gray got the hell out of there, too.
-
Posters lined the streets as Gray made his way back to the prison in a gilded carriage.
There was enough traffic for the carriage to slow so that Gray got a really good look at them.
Wanted! Conor Griffin.
The image of Conor Griffin on the wanted poster was achingly like Ryan Griffin. His long and messy dark hair hung in his eyes. His thick eyebrows were furrowed in a fierce frown. Sharp jawed. Determined mouth.
Gray’s stomach dropped. He turned to the servant and the guard travelling in the carriage with him.
'But,' Gray burst out, 'they caught Conor. The General has him, he's bringing him south.'
The servant and the guard exchanged glances. They'd been travelling in silence, the three of them inside the rattling carriage, and Gray digging his fingers into the plush velvet of his seat as they drew nearer to the prison.
The guard’s face was concealed behind her gold mask, but the servant was a middle-aged man with very open face. Fear crossed it, as easy to read as those large wanted posters.
The servant fidgeted with his marriage ring on his finger. Shifted his weight uneasily. 'They caught Conor? They keeping you in solitary or something?'
'Er,' said Gray, 'no - no, I ...'
The servant and the guard exchanged glances again.
'Yeah,' said the servant. 'They caught Conor Griffin. And then Conor killed the General.’
Gray's insides turned to ice. Killed the General.
‘He escaped,' said the servant, 'as soon as he crossed the Lismere border.’
But, the king had seemed so composed.
So unbothered.
Gray dropped his gaze to the king's alchemy text in his lap, his mouth suddenly dry.
‘Not only that,’ said the servant, leaning forward. ‘He killed the entire team escorting him. A lot of our top officers and soldiers are gone.’
Gray let out a cold breath. 'What?'
‘And to think,’ said the servant, ‘many of us were celebrating at having found him. We thought he was going to fight for us. We thought we were going to have an unbeatable mage - half-sorcerer - on our side.’
'I don't like you talking about this,' said the guard, shuddering, and her brown eyes wide behind her gold mask. 'Not with ... this prisoner.'
An uncomfortable silence settled over the carriage.
Running a hand through his hair, Gray stared back out at the posters lining the streets.
At the face of Conor Griffin.
Gray’s heart thudded.
The guard followed his gaze. 'You look like him a bit.'
Her tone was not casual. It was a warning.
‘He’s in Lismere?’ said Gray.
‘Yeah,’ said the servant, his voice wobbling, when the guard didn't answer. ‘He’s in Lismere.’
-
Now that Gray knew there was tension in the air - rippling through the whole city - he couldn’t stop noticing it.
It was there as he paced in his cell, as he overheard his neighbours talking about how vulnerable Lismere was now.
It was there as he lay, curled up on his bed, and read the offered news scroll claiming that more sorcerers were coming out of the woodwork, that they were beginning to wreak havoc in the kingdom once again.
Just like they’d done, nine years ago.
And it was there when the guards handed Gray his dinner, and asked him if he’d heard from his cousin, the sorcerer.
Cousin.
Gray had no damn idea if Conor Griffin was his cousin.
And he had no damn idea of what to think.
If he could just meet him, talk with him, perhaps they could sort everything out. Perhaps this was all some huge, epic, misunderstanding.
A misunderstanding where Conor Griffin had killed a bunch of people, and had seemed to have engineered getting captured, just to get inside the Lismere border…
As days passed, things only grew more thickly tense.
‘Conor Griffin,’ one of Gray’s neighbours said - a boy with a shock of red hair and tattoos on his knuckles, ‘wiped out an entire team of elite mage soldiers. The higher-ups are running fucking scared. They can't catch him. Can't fight him. He'll break the border wards, he'll let in Wilde and Krupin.’
Conor Griffin, Gray read in one of the news scrolls, blew up the tower bridge in Brinny City. The people there won’t have supplies for a week, until they can repair things.
Conor Griffin is working in tandem with other sorcerers of unknown origins.
Conor Griffin destroyed a fleet of ships bringing military relief from Unnor.
‘Your cousin,’ said one of the prison guards to Gray, handing him his dinner (oats), ‘was sighted in Reviness.’
The guards started calling Gray 'Wynn's son' and wouldn't stop even when Gray wouldn't respond to it.
The first week passed. It was as though Gray’s stomach was twisted in knots. He’d wake at night, damp with sweat, and his skin too hot and bright. There was too much time, too much thinking, inside the prison. Gray devoured the king's alchemy book, cover to cover. It was filled with the king's handwritten notes in the margins.
But it wasn't enough to distract him for long.
Gray didn’t think he could stand to be there for much longer.
-
Prisoners were allowed letters, and Gray got his first part way through the second week.
You do what I want, and I’ll do what you want.
There was no signature, but Gray had a creeping sensation that he knew who it was from, anyway.
The guard who’d delivered the letter through the bars of Gray’s cell watched him read it.
‘He’s passing through security now,’ said the guard.
Gray glanced up, clutching the letter in his hand. Icy cold was creeping through him. ‘What?’
The guard turned his head at the sound of footsteps coming up the narrow hall. ‘Here he comes.’
Codder came to a halt outside Gray’s cell, ignoring the calls and hoots from the prisoners, holding a brown paper parcel by the twine string. He dangled it from his fingers like he was holding a cigarette.
His shadowed gaze swept over Gray, taking in the grey prison clothes and the dragon scale vest.
Codder wasn’t dressed in his uniform. There were no mud-crusted army-issue boots. Only simple cotton trousers and an expensive-looking leather jacket in the dark tones so favoured by the locals in Dierne.
Gray stared at him like it wasn’t costing him everything he had within him, like the sight of Codder didn’t wind him.
Codder sucked his bottom lip and stepped closer to the bars.
But not close enough for Gray to reach out and grab him by the throat like he wanted.