Calmer, she steadied her thoughts, pushing anything that was not in the here and now far to the back of her mind. She felt the Fount start to flow into her as she willed her magic to grow stronger. She furrowed her brow and squeezed her eyes shut, holding on to that single thought. The danger was that desiring to maintain only one, pure thought often led to thinking about the act of thinking, which in itself was a distraction. She gave it one last effort, then stopped. She wished healing could be as simple as killing. If it were, surely the world would be a much better place.
She opened her eyes to take in her work. Dal Sason’s colour was back to normal and he slept peacefully, with an expression of great comfort on his face.
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” Guillot said.
She jumped in fright but managed not to shriek. “You startled me,” she said. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, until near the end. You looked so focussed on the task I didn’t want to cause you to make a mistake.” He chuckled. “I was almost afraid to breathe. He looks well, though. Better than he has since before the cave. To my eye it seems as though it worked.”
“I think it has,” Solène said. “I hope. His body’s been through a lot of trauma though, so he’ll still need rest. I daren’t do any more for fear of undoing what I’ve managed. I’m too new to all this to chance my luck.”
“A sound view,” Guillot said. “Why don’t we leave him to it and get some breakfast. I’m starving, and I dare say you are too.”
They ate in silence until Guillot felt the rumble in his belly start to give way to a feeling of contentment. The food in the Black Drake was good, and he realised he was tending to overeat. A few more days at the Black Drake, and he would need to let his belt out a notch or two.
“I was hoping that there might be more help coming from the city to deal with the dragon,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “I assume that won’t be coming now?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I’ll have to make do then.”
“You’re going to go after it again?” she said.
“What choice do I have? I’m sure Nicholas will help when he’s better. We know what to expect now. It might go better for us this time.”
“The Cup,” she said. “With everything that’s happened, I’d almost forgotten. Leverre said you found a cup in the dragon’s cave.”
“Yyyeeessss…” Guillot said. First Leverre’s interest in it, now hers. His suspicion was reaching its boiling point.
“Do you still have it?”
“I do,” Guillot said reluctantly. Having found the statues in the chambers beneath his ruined manor, he was doubly suspicious of the Order’s interest in the cup. “Why are you all so interested in a little Telastrian steel pot?”
“It’s much more than that,” she said. “At least I think it is. If it’s what I’ve read about.”
He studied her for a moment, then decided he could trust her as much as anyone. She had killed people on his behalf, after all. He took the cup out of his purse and set it on the table, next to the salt and pepper shakers, where it looked much like a sugar bowl.
A look of intense concentration spread across Solène’s face before she let out a gasp. “That’s it,” she said. “Just as Leverre described—like a knot of threads in a sheet of silk.”
“I would very much like to know why Leverre was so interested in it, and why you know about it at all,” Guillot said.
“It’s a very ancient artefact. The histories say it’s what gave mankind true magical power. It’s called the Amatus Cup, after—”
“Yes, I know who Amatus was. You’re saying this was his?”
“No. The histories say he was the one to discover it, that it’s how he got his power and ushered in the golden age of magic.”
“And it got to a dragon’s cave how, exactly?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. What I do know is that it was used in the Silver Circle’s initiation ritual. I found a book of letters between an Imperial official and the Imperial court, requesting that it be made available to help them fight dragons. In the ritual, a mage placed a drop of water on the tongue of the initiate, did something to focus the Fount in a particular way, and created a magically enhanced, dragon-slaying Chevalier of the Silver Circle.”
“I know,” Guillot said.
Solène frowned. “How?”
“Well, I suspected as much.” He described the rooms he had found under his old manor house, the paintings, the statues, watching closely to see what she made of it all. He watched her chew her lip, then realised he had left something out entirely. “There was old writing. I expect I’ll need to find a schol—”
“I can read it,” she said. “From what you’ve said, that might be where the ceremony happened. The inscription might tell me how the ceremony was conducted—what was said. That’s the key. The drop from the Cup will give you power, but I don’t know what kind. It could be anything. Improved speed, strength, intelligence, the ability to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time.
“In the ritual, the mages channelled it toward something specific, and that’s the key. They knew what was needed to fight a dragon—they’d been trying and failing for some time. There’s no reason why I can’t shape the power in the same way.”
“For me?”
“Of course you,” she said. “Who else? I can’t cast it on myself. At least, I don’t think I can, and I barely know one end of a sword from the other.”
“Maybe it was magic that did it, not a sword.”
“Surely then it would have been Magisters of the Silver Circle, not Chevaliers?”
“Good point.”
“We need to go there. I need to see the inscriptions.”
“Should we wait for dal Sason?” Guillot said, hoping she would say no.
“I suppose we should.”
He groaned inwardly. “When he’s awake then.”
CHAPTER 43
Nicholas lay in bed, thinking. He had overheard some of what Solène and Guillot had whispered to one another while they thought him asleep. In reality, he had gone from a tormented half sleep of feverish nightmares to feeling perfectly well in the blink of an eye. He had too much experience of how the world worked to reveal to anyone that he was healthy again, until he was ready.
Leverre had returned to the city and was now dead. Neither he nor the dragon had killed Guillot, which meant the task fell to him. It was disappointing that Leverre hadn’t managed it; Nicholas had hoped that he wouldn’t be called on to do it, for the simple reason that he liked Gill. Assassination wasn’t a good way for a man like Guillot to go, but Nicholas knew that his job might not always tally with what he found tasteful. Still, there were many things in life he found distasteful that he could do nothing about, and if he didn’t look out for himself, no one else would. He had said he would do it, had taken the money, and desperately wanted what that money would bring—the return of his family’s estates and status. That meant he would do it.
Moral quandaries dealt with, he returned to trying to make sense of what was going on and how best to proceed with his task. Nicholas had expected two things to happen after they returned to Trelain. First, Leverre would kill Guillot, leaving the way open for the Prince Bishop to announce the Order as the saviours of Mirabaya. Then he had expected a combat-strength detachment of Spurriers to arrive, to heal him so he could lead them to the dragon. They would kill it and fulfill the Prince Bishop’s promise to the people.