Crownbreaker

Book 6: Spellslinger

by Sebastien de Castell

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy; Humorous Fantasy

Synopsis

A failed mage learns that just because he's not the chosen one it doesn't mean he can't be a hero in final book of the Spellslinger series.

Once an outlaw spellslinger, Kellen Argos has made a life for himself as the Daroman Queen's protector. A little magic and a handful of tricks are all it takes to deal with the constant threats to her reign. But when rumors of an empire-shattering war begin to stir, Kellen is asked to commit an unimaginable act to protect his queen.

Inside enemy territory, he quickly realizes something is amiss. Someone is playing a dangerous game. And to discover their secrets, Kellen will have to challenge the greatest spellcaster who's ever lived.

Kellen's misadventures concludes in Crownbreaker, the riveting finale to the adventure fantasy series that began with Spellslinger.

Release date: December 10, 2019

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 544

Sample

The old man dealt me an ace. Again. I picked it up only to let it fall face up next to the other ace and two jacks in front of me. One edge of the card landed on top a crumb of mouldy, dried-up bread stuck to the table. It lay there, tilted towards me as if pointing out the obvious.

“Two jacks, each with an ace,” I said. “That’s a pair of spear bearers.”

The old man leaned forward, long brown greasy hair and beard framing a crooked smile. He waved his arms in the air to show he’d just been swept up in unforeseeable circumstances.

“Lost again, haven’t I?”

He glanced around the room as if he were performing for an audience. The place was empty except for one drunk snoring in the corner and a bartender doing a piss-poor job of mopping the floor.

The old man turned back to me and let one hand fall into his lap while the other motioned for the bartender to pour more ale into mugs that weren’t any cleaner than the floorboards.

“You don’t seem to be too good with cards,” I observed.

My irritatingly cheerful companion smiled back at me. He had perfect teeth. Filthy hair, shabby robes, thin as a rake. His sandals reminded me of those strip shows where the dancers spin bits of cloth around their bodies as they flounce all over the stage; you couldn’t call them naked, but they’d catch a chill if they went outside. But those teeth? Straight. Clean. Perfect. One look at his hands revealed fingers free from calluses and nails that were neatly trimmed.

“Can’t help but wonder what makes a lord magus wander into a saloon and start bleeding money at cards,” I said, tapping the pile of coins on my side of the table. I’d started the night with just one.

The old man shrugged. “Perhaps I’m above such petty concerns as money.”

“Maybe,” I said, taking a swig of my beer, instantly regretting it. “Then again, maybe you don’t mind watching me slide coins from your side of the table to mine all night because you don’t plan on seeing me walk out with them.”

The mage gathered up the cards and started shuffling again. “They told me you were clever.”

“Be sure to thank them for the compliment.”

He dealt another hand of Country Holdup. Four cards each. Only face cards counted.

I picked up my hand, saw that all four cards were twos. The old man had just dealt me an eight-legged horse. Guess he wasn’t planning on letting me win this time.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” I asked.

“That’s how it’s going to be.” Just like that, the smile was gone. So was the pretence. “You’re going to die tonight, Kellen of the House of Ke.”

“Reckon you’ve got me confused with someone else, friend.”

I dropped the two of chariots on the discard pile in the centre of the table. The old man dealt me a new card, which turned out to be another two of chariots. Nice trick.

“You reckon, do you?” He chuckled. “You think that preposterous frontier drawl hides who you are?”

Now that was just mean. I’d practised my drawl all morning to get it just right.

“No running away this time, Kellen,” the mage went on. “You are who you are and I am who I am. Sure, you’ve got yourself a little magic. A few tricks. But you’re no lord magus.”

“Never claimed to be.”

The old man snorted. “No, of course not. What is it these Daroman barbarians call you? ‘The queen’s spellslinger’?”

“I believe Her Majesty prefers the title ‘royal tutor of cards,’ actually.”

I dropped the deuce of trebuchets on the pile.

“‘Her Majesty,’” the old man repeated in a mocking whine. He spat on the table, which made it neither dirtier nor cleaner. “That little bitch has pissed off the wrong people, Kellen. But she’s too well protected—politics and diplomacy, you understand. So I’ve been sent to teach her a lesson by making an example of you.” He snorted then, apparently taken unawares by his own cleverness. “Do you suppose that makes me her ‘royal tutor of manners’ now?”

“Can’t see how I’m going to serve as much of an example, friend, seeing as how, like I told you, I’m not this Kellen fellow you say you’re looking for.”

He dealt me another card, this one bearing the number two and depicting a pair of skulls. This was particularly impressive when you consider that there is no suit of skulls in a Daroman deck.

“Don’t suppose you’d consider teaching me that trick?” I asked.

“What would be the point?” His fingers twitched and the card went up in flames. “Would’ve thought someone with your reputation for outlawry would stay better hidden, but my silk spells led me right to this place. Honestly, boy, I’m so disappointed I’m tempted to kill you now and be done with it.”

I put up my hands and offered him my most winning smile. “Hey now, no need to be hasty. I just came in here for a drink and to play some cards. Now why don’t you describe this Kellen fellow to me? Maybe I’ve seen him around.”

The mage snickered. “Your height, your build.” He tossed a jack of trebuchets face up on the table. “Your smarmy mouth, your dung-coloured hair.” He flipped the card over once and now it was the jack of blades.

“That description matches any number of folks around these parts,” I said. “Besides, I don’t think you’re in any position to be disparaging other people’s hair, friend.”

“And of course—” the mage flipped the jack once more in the air. This time when it landed it was the same card, but now with an elaborate black design circling the jack’s eye—“the man I’m looking for has the same disgusting shadowblack around his left eye that you bear, Kellen of the House of Ke.”

I leaned back in my chair and gave him a round of applause. “See? Now that’s some fine magic. You sure I can’t persuade you to teach me these wonderful card tricks of yours?”

“You’re all out of tricks now, Kellen.” He wagged a finger at me. “Oh, you’ve eluded a few minor adepts, built yourself a modest reputation with what little magic you have. No doubt you’ve impressed a few of these backwater hicks. Maybe even captivated the imagination of a twelve-year-old girl who calls herself a queen. But you’ve got nothing to match up against a true lord magus, Kellen. So now you die.”

I offered up a sigh of frustration. “Like I keep telling you, friend, you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“You’re going to tell me there’s more than one man in these territories with black markings around his left eye?”

I shrugged. “Could just be make-up, you know. Like a new fashion. An… affectation?”

“An affectation? As if anyone in their right mind would willingly go around with the shadowblack staining their soul?” He clapped his hands together. “I take it back, boy. You’re almost too much fun to murder. Unfortunately you’ve killed one too many Jan’Tep mages…”

He gathered up the cards, drew a small pile of them and fanned them out on the table. Eleven cards. All kings. “If the rumours are to be believed.”

“Maybe even more?” I asked, flipping an additional card from the deck. It would have been nice if it had magically turned out to be another king, but it was the six of arrows.

“Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

“This Kellen fellow sounds awfully dangerous. Aren’t you the least bit anxious you might get hurt chasing him all over the Daroman territories?”

“No.”

I leaned my elbows on the table and peered into his eyes. “You’re that sure of yourself? You’re really that powerful?”

“I am. But unlike the fools you’ve met before, I’m also cautious. That’s why I made certain preparations in advance of our encounter, just to be sure.”

I tapped my pile of coins. “You mean like losing a lot of money at cards?”

He chuckled at that. “In a manner of speaking. The cards were just to keep you in your chair, which, as you’re about to discover, I enchanted yesterday with magic older and fouler than you can imagine.”

I looked down at my chair. “This rickety old thing? I hate to tell you, friend, but if it’s supposed to be killing me right now, it’s not working very well.”

“Kill you? Don’t be silly. I want to keep that pleasure for myself. No, the chair has a sympathetic binding spell on it, Kellen. When a mage sits down upon it, the enchantment gradually seizes hold of the magic inside him. By now, even that tiny drip of power in the breath band on your forearm is enough to hold you in a grip stronger than oak or iron.” He gestured for me to get up. “Go ahead. Try to move. The more you struggle, the stronger the spell will bind you to the chair, until eventually you’ll suffocate from the pressure.”

I considered that for a moment. “That really does sound ingenious. Can’t imagine a way out of such a fiendish trap. Almost makes me wonder why nobody ever thought to try it on this Kellen person before.”

The old man giggled. “Oh, not many can cast this spell, I assure you.”

“I’m curious, then, why the dozen or so people who sat in this chair before me today didn’t seem troubled by it at all.”

Irritation crossed the old man’s features. “As I’ve told you, the binding only works on Jan’Tep mages. I would’ve thought you’d appreciate the compliment, Kellen. At least now people will have to recognise that you weren’t entirely devoid of magical ability.”

“Right, right,” I said. “Diabolical and considerate. And yet…” I drummed my fingers on the table.

“And yet what?”

I tilted by head back to stare idly up at the ceiling. “Well, it seems risky to me, putting so much effort into something as banal as a chair, relying on the victim to sit down on the right one.”

“No risk at all. You’ve been seen here every night for the past week, sitting in that same chair each time. So I made sure to be in my chair before you got here, and the bartender ensured no one else sat there until you arrived. Besides, I picked a night when most of these barbarians are out celebrating their little queen’s birthday festival.”

“Sure, that makes sense. Still though…”

“What?”

“Well, this Kellen is supposed to be some kind of devilishly clever outlaw, isn’t he? A genius at the art of evading his enemies?”

“Genius? No. Cunning, perhaps. He keeps a few tricks up his sleeve, certainly.”

I nodded in agreement. “Right. Cunning. Tricky. So I guess what I’m asking is, wouldn’t it be just like a cunning, tricky fellow to figure out what you were up to and then come in the night before to swap the chairs? I mean, he does seem to have an uncanny knack for survival. What if he’d just happened to sneak in here after closing time last night, put your chair here, and his chair, well, right where you’re sitting now. Wouldn’t that technically mean you were in the binding spell?”

The mage’s eyes narrowed. He tried lifting his arm, only for his mouth to gape open when it didn’t move. He tore at the sleeve of his robe as if it was glued to the arm of the chair. He began shifting furiously, trying to get out of his seat, but to no avail. His gyrations grew more and more frenetic until finally he stared across the table at me, lips moving silently, helplessly, as though his chest were being crushed by an ever-increasing lead weight. His eyes fluttered closed.

The room fell silent.

Then the old man started laughing.

He rose effortlessly from the chair and patted his belly. “My, oh my. The look on your face! I swear, boy, that was priceless! Like watching a hangman at the gallows discovering the noose around his own neck!”

“Well now,” I said drily, “that was quite a performance.”

The old man bowed at the waist. “Thank you, thank you.” He sat back down and started giggling again. “I did warn you, Kellen, that I’m just a bit smarter than those other mages you’ve duelled in the past.”

“Just a bit,” I acknowledged.

“I knew there was a chance you might learn of my plans, so I took precautions. I made sure the chairs were checked first thing in the morning. So after you snuck in last night and switched them…”

“Your accomplice switched them back before I arrived.” I looked over at the bartender who had a grimy smile on his face. “Nice way to treat a regular customer,” I said.

The mage slapped his hands down on the table between us. “Now then, I’m afraid that while this has certainly been entertaining, it’s past time I collected the other half of my bounty, which means we have to conclude our business together.”

The bartender came over and placed a dusty bottle of wine and a corkscrew on the table.

“Don’t you think you should at least offer me a glass of whatever you’re celebrating with before you kill me?”

“This?” he said, holding up the bottle. “Oh no. This I’m saving for later.” He put the bottle back down on the table, pulled a white cloth from the pocket of his robe and set about cleaning the corkscrew. “This,” he said, holding it up for me, “is what I’m going to twist into that black eye of yours. Then I’m going to rip the life right out of you.”

I swallowed. “Sounds a bit barbaric for a distinguished gentleman like yourself, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“A requirement of my Daroman employers,” he explained. “Desecrating the corpses of their enemies is something of a tradition with them. Sends a more meaningful message to their little queen.”

I nodded sympathetically. “Freelance work can be so messy.”

“I don’t mind.” He turned the now gleaming corkscrew in the air. “A lord magus rarely gets his hands dirty, but twisting this into your eye? Inflicting such horrific pain while you sit there, screaming in agony yet unable to move a muscle?” He shivered. “Let’s just say it’s an idea that intrigues me. I suspect you’ll suffocate from struggling against the binding spell before you die of your wounds.”

I bit my lip. “Don’t suppose I can talk you out of this? Maybe make a deal?”

The mage shook his head. He smiled one last time, showing me those perfect teeth of his before standing up, the corkscrew gripped tightly in his right hand.

“Well, dang it,” I said. “If this is the day I meet my ancestors, reckon I’ll do it standing on my own two feet.”

“I told you, there’s—”

Whatever the old man was going to say next died when he saw me rise from the chair.

“That’s not…”

I picked up the bottle of wine and noted the vintage scrawled in grease pen. Probably the most expensive bottle in the place. Must’ve been a good fee.

“This isn’t right,” the mage said, looking very much like a confused old man discovering he’s become lost very far from home.

“Maybe the spell didn’t work?” I suggested.

“Impossible. My spells never fail me. Never.”

“Well now, that is a conundrum.” I held up a finger. “Perhaps this Kellen fellow is vastly more powerful than you’ve been led to believe.”

The old man started mumbling. “But… But everyone knows Kellen of the House of Ke is the weakest of mages. He only ever sparked his breath band. His magic is as weak as a child’s!”

I nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, even I’ve heard that. So if your spells never fail, and this Kellen fellow isn’t powerful enough to break them, then, well, that only leaves one explanation, doesn’t it?”

I picked up the white cloth from the table and began wiping the black make-up from my left eye.

“Ancestors! You tricked me! You’re not—”

I smiled innocently. “Now be fair, friend. I did try to warn you that I wasn’t this Kellen of the House of Ke you’re looking for. I mentioned it several times, if you’ll recall.”

The mage reclaimed his composure and his finger started twitching into what the Jan’Tep call somatic forms. “Whoever you are, the fact that the chair didn’t bind you means you’ve no magic to protect yourself with. So now you’ll tell me where Kellen is hiding or I’ll have you begging me for a quick death!”

“I’ll tell you for free,” I said, tossing the dirty rag over the mage’s shoulder. “He’s right behind you.”

The mage whirled around. The bartender lay unconscious on the floor. The drunk who’d been snoring in the corner was now standing behind the old man, wiping at his own left eye with the rag.

“A trick!” the mage shouted. “A filthy trick!”

Kellen Argos—at least, that’s the name he’d given when he’d hired me—smiled sympathetically at the old man. That disturbing black pattern circling his eye that we’d spent hours painting around my own was now glistening in the dim lantern light. “It’s as you said, my lord magus: I have precious little magic to work with. Tricks are all I’ve got.”

Completing my end of our contract, I smashed the wine bottle down on the back of the mage’s head as hard as I could. Glass shattered into a hundred pieces, wine spilling all over the old man’s greasy hair. He crumpled like sackcloth.

Kellen Argos knelt down next to him, listening for a heartbeat before searching the mage’s robes and pulling out a bag of coins. He fished out a few of them, which he stuffed into his own pocket before handing the rest to me.

I looked inside the bag. There was a small fortune in there; enough to buy me a minor title and a nice little mansion on the outskirts of the capital if I wanted. Enough to make me suspicious. “What’s the catch?”

Kellen grabbed one of the unconscious mage’s arms. “Give me a hand with him.”

Between us, we hefted him up and sat him back down in what had been my chair.

“That seems a little cruel,” I said.

Kellen patted the old man on the head. “No worse than what he’d had in store for me. Besides, by now his employers will be on their way here to celebrate. Maybe they’ll take pity on him and hire another mage to release him from the binding spell.”

“Why not just kill him? Aren’t you worried he’ll tell people how you pulled this off?”

“I’m counting on it.” He walked over to the bench where he’d been pretending to sleep and retrieved his coat and black frontier hat, the band above the brim inscribed with silver sigils. “Next time the queen’s enemies want to hire themselves a lord magus to do their dirty work, they’ll have to pay a lot more for the privilege.”

He headed for the saloon’s swinging half-doors.

“One more question,” I asked before he could leave. “You work for the queen, right? I mean, you’re an official of the Daroman court?”

“That’s what they keep telling me.”

“So why aren’t there a dozen royal marshals or palace guards here backing you up?”

He set the hat on his head. It was a little too big for him. Although we really did resemble one another—enough to fool strangers anyway—he was a couple of years younger than me and looked a lot more… tired.

“They also tell me I don’t play well with others.”

“What about next time?” I persisted. “You won’t be able to use this same trick twice.”

He swung the doors open, letting in the fading sounds of last night’s celebrations from the street outside. He turned back to me and a wicked grin escaped the corner of his mouth like a scavenger sneaking out the back window after stealing your supper. “Guess next time I’ll just have to come up with a new trick.”

Nothing stinks like a capital city in summer. Streets already crowded with lords and labourers begin to burst as endless caravans of merchants, diplomats and those impoverished by bad harvests or foreign raiders roll through the gates in search of profit or protection. Upon a gleaming white arch at the city’s entrance an inscription bearing the Daroman capital’s motto beckons visitors with a promise: “Emni Urbana Omna Vitaris.”

From The Imperial City Flows Prosperity.

Also, sewage.

That’s the thing about great cities: they can solve hunger with more food, security with more soldiers, and almost everything else with more money. But there’s only so much shit you can swirl around before the flagstones begin to reek.

“This place stinks,” Reichis chittered above me.

The soft flutter of fur-covered gliding flaps heralded a light thump against my shoulder as the squirrel cat made his landing. My two-foot-tall, thieving, murderous business partner sniffed at my face. “Funny, you don’t smell dead.”

“I’m fine,” I said, not eager to resume the lengthy argument begun in the early hours before dawn when I went off alone to face the mage who’d been sent to kill me. All I wanted now was a bath, some quiet and maybe a few restful hours without any attempts on my life.

Reichis sniffed at me a second time. “You smell worse than dead actually. Is that whisky?” He poked his muzzle in my hair and sounded more than a little intrigued.

A year of living in the capital city of Darome had afforded Reichis the opportunity to expand his list of unhealthy addictions, which currently consisted of butter biscuits, overpriced amber pazione liqueur, several vintages of Gitabrian wines—the expensive ones, naturally—and, of course, human flesh.

“Did you remember to bring me the mage’s eyeballs?” he inquired.

“He wasn’t dead.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

This is where having a squirrel cat perched on your shoulder perilously close to your soft, tasty human ears gets dangerous. See, squirrel cats, with their tubby feline bodies, big bushy tails, coats that change colour depending on their mood and furry flaps that stretch between their front and back limbs enabling them to glide from the treetops (or “fly as well as any gods-damned falcon” as Reichis would insist), can—if you stare at them, squinty-eyed, from a distance and preferably through a drunken haze—look almost cute. They’re not. Puppy dogs are cute. Bunny rabbits are cute. Poisonous Berabesq sand rattlers are cute to somebody. Squirrel cats, though? Not cute. Evil.

“Reichis…” I began.

His breath is surprisingly warm when it’s less than an inch from your earlobe. “Go on, say it.”

Ancestors, I thought, noting in the periphery of my vision that Reichis’s shadowblack markings were swirling. Just over a year ago he’d wound up with the same twisting black lines around his left eye as I have around mine. Unlike me, though, the possibility of one day becoming a rampaging demon terrorising the entire continent didn’t trouble him in the least. The prospect frankly delighted him.

Rescue from possibly fatal squirrel cat gnawing came in the form of a half-dozen pairs of heavy boots clomping up behind me, followed soon thereafter by the tell-tale click of a crossbow’s safety catch being released. “Kellen Argos, by order of Lieutenant Libri of the queen’s marshals service, you are under arrest.”

I sighed. “This again?”

The first tentative rasp of the crossbow’s trigger grinding against its iron housing. “Get those hands up high, spellslinger.”

I hadn’t even noticed that my fingers had drifted to the powder holsters at my sides. Reflex, I guess, though by now you’d figure I’d’ve gotten used to being arrested on an almost weekly basis.

I raised my arms and slowly turned to find the marshals wearing their customary broad hats and long grey coats, armed with the usual assortment of short-hafted maces and crossbows—all trained on me. “Would you like me to read the warrant?” Sergeant Faustus Cobb asked. Short, scrawny, narrow-shouldered and years past his prime, you’d think he’d appear comical next to his younger and more vigorous subordinates. But my experience with the Queen’s Marshals had taught me that age does nothing to diminish how dangerous they are—only how ornery they become when you resist.

Me? I was eighteen, wearier than my years ought to allow. My shirt was still soaked from the booze I’d used to disguise myself as a drunk back at the saloon, and I was feeling more than a little crabby myself. “What’s the charge this time?”

Cobb made a show of reading out the warrant. “Conspiracy to commit assault upon the person of a foreign emissary enjoying the protections afforded diplomatic representatives…”

Yep, that’s right: the old man who’d come to kill me, being a Jan’Tep lord magus, held ambassadorial status in Darome.

Cobb went on. “Grievous physical abuse…”

Not nearly grievous enough.

“Theft…”

Knew I shouldn’t have kept any of the coins.

“Acting against the vital interests of the Daroman Crown and the people it serves…”

That one they throw into almost every warrant. Spit on the sidewalk and you’ve technically “acted against the interests” of the crown.

Cobb paused. “And there’s something here about ‘unlawfully being an irritating, half-witted spellslinging card sharp who doesn’t do what he’s told,’ but I’m not sure that’s an actual crime.”

And yet, I was pretty sure it was the only crime Torian was concerned about. “Funny how she had that warrant already drawn up before anyone found the mage,” I pointed out.

Cobb grinned. “Guess the lieutenant’s got you pegged pretty good by now, Kellen.”

I was really starting to dislike Lieutenant Torian Libri. While there were no end of people in the Daroman capital intent on making my life hell, few displayed her raw determination and consistently lousy sense of humour. “You do realise that under imperial law my rank as queen’s tutor prevents you from prosecuting me for any crime without four-fifths of the court first revoking my status, don’t you?”

One of the younger deputies gave an amiable chuckle. I’d let him beat me at cards last week in the vain hope I might win over some of the marshals to my side. “Don’t say nothin’ about you bein’ arrested though.”

“Let’s go, spellslinger,” Cobb ordered, motioning for me to walk ahead of him.

Reichis gave a low growl. “You gonna take this crap, Kellen? Again? Let’s murder these skinbags. You owe me three eyeballs and this here’s an opportunity for you to pay up.”

“Three? How many eyeballs do you think that mage had?” I asked.

One of the marshals stared at me quizzically. She must’ve been new—the others were accustomed to hearing me talk to Reichis.

“Who can tell with humans?” the squirrel cat grumbled. “Your faces are all so ugly that every time I start counting, I lose track on account of needing to puke. Besides, two eyeballs was what you owed me an hour ago. The third is interest.”

Perfect. In addition to being a thief, a blackmailer and a murderer, Reichis now wanted to add loan shark to his list of criminal enterprises.

“Let’s pick up the pace,” Cobb said. “You know how the lieutenant gets when you keep her waiting.”

Several of the deputies laughed at that—not that any of them would dare cross her. Reluctantly, I trudged along the wide flagstone street en route to my thirteenth jailing since becoming the queen’s tutor of cards.

“Hey, what’s that?” Reichis asked, his nose nodding in the direction of something small and flat floating on the breeze towards us, low to the ground. A playing card settled at my feet.

“Keep walking,” Cobb ordered.

I stayed where I was, staring down at the elaborate artwork on the card depicting a magnificent city on the top half. The bottom was a sort of mirror image, distorted as if reflected by a dark, shifting pool of black water.

“You drop that?” he asked, finally noticing the card.

“Sergeant Cobb,” I began. “Before this goes any further, I need to clarify a couple of things.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“First, I had nothing to do with this card suddenly turning up.”

“So what? It’s a playing card. Not like you’re the only gambler in the capital.”

As if to contest his banal explanation, a second card drifted down to land next to the first one. Then another and another, each one rotated a little more than the previous, gradually encircling me.

“What are you playing at, spellslinger?” Cobb asked, stepping back. I heard the safety catches on several crossbows unlock.

I was now standing in a ring of elaborately painted cards, their rich metallic hues of copper, silver and gold so vibrant they made the street look drab and lifeless by comparison. I turned to the half-dozen well-armed men and women charged with escorting me to jail. “Marshals, allow me to offer my sincere apologies.”

“For what?” asked one as she raised her crossbow to train it on me.

The cards on the ground shimmered ever brighter, blinding me to everything but the coruscating play of colours that drained the light from the world around me.

“For the inconvenience of my rescue,” I replied.

I doubt anyone heard me. The city around me faded to a flat, colourless expanse; the buildings, the streets, even the marshals themselves looked as if they’d been carved out of thin sheets of pale ivory. Reichis slumped on my shoulder and began snoring. A figure walked towards me, a lone source of dazzling colour wrapped in the twisting golds of sand magic, the pale blues of breath enchantments and the glistening purple of a silk spell.

A grandiose entrance of this type is usually accompanied by the disappointed sigh of my sister Shalla—Sha’maat now, I supposed—soon followed by an extensive commentary regarding my dishevelled condition and the annoyances my recent behaviour has caused our noble and much-admired family. Occasionally, though, it’s my father who appears to inform me of the latest crime I’ve committed against our people. That latter possibility wa