Despite its best efforts, the Empire had never discovered this temple. Why the Prince Bishop thought that she could manage it, with her limited magical talent and resources, was beyond her. Nonetheless, it was in her best interest to be seen to be doing everything she could, so that was what she would do.
She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Dal Drezony had told her she was free of the shackles life had placed on her mind. Her thoughts were hers, and hers alone, to control. Nothing outside existed. And there it was. Clarity. Focus. It was such a pure moment, she felt giddy.
As quickly as it had come, as perfectly controlled as it had felt, it disappeared. Her excitement at having achieved it had destroyed it. That didn’t worry her, however. The novelty would wear off quickly. Eventually she might even be able to do it when surrounded by distraction.
She tried again, and this time held that single focussed thought: the enlightened. She waited, the concept hovering in her mind’s eye like a hummingbird. But nothing happened. Realising she had been holding her breath, she let it out with a sigh, losing the pure thought. It was the most precise piece of magic she had ever shaped, but nothing had come of it. She wished dal Drezony had been there to see it.
Solène couldn’t help but feel that her lack of results meant there was nothing to find. The first time, she had located what she was looking for with far clumsier magic. Perhaps her shaping had not been as precise as she had thought? No, it couldn’t have been that—she could tell she’d achieved everything she had been trying to do. Yet no book had fallen from the shelf. No sensation was drawing her toward a section of the archive. Either she had failed, or there was nothing to be found.
She tried again, holding the thought, and allowing her body to continue breathing. She applied more of herself, desiring the enlightened with the force of someone dying of thirst and yearning for one last drink of water. Still nothing. Exasperated, she let out another sharp breath.
A wave of dizziness swept over her. Once it had subsided, Solène considered other searches, such as material on Amatus. That seemed unhelpfuclass="underline" in an Imperial archive as large as this one, there would likely be countless mentions of him. How to refine the search? The only thing she could think of was holding two ideas together, something she hadn’t even come close to trying yet. Perhaps if she could blend them somehow?
Her first effort lasted less than the blink of an eye. Her second was not much better. She tried again and again, until she was finally able to hold a merged thought in her mind long enough to shape magic with it.
At last she stopped, exhausted. There was no way to tell what time it was in the archive, deep below Mirabay’s cathedral, but she knew she’d been down there for hours. Her tiredness was nothing that a good night of sleep wouldn’t fix—she knew what it felt like when she was on the verge of burning out, and this wasn’t it.
She stood and took a look around, wandering up and down the rows of shelves, listening to her footfalls on the stone flags echo and hoping that she might have moved something without noticing. However, she was disappointed. Nothing appeared to be out of place; all the dust remained undisturbed. It was time to call it a day.
Banneret-Commander Yves Dorant moved through the city like a spectre. People got out of his way. They all knew what his black robes meant—Intelligencier. Most had nothing to fear from him, for the number of people who fell afoul of him and his was small, yet it was enough to perpetuate their legend.
There was an air of tension in Mirabay unlike anything Dorant had felt in all his years in the city. First dragons, now sorcerers. Benevolent mages, if the Prince Bishop was to be believed. Dorant had never come across benevolent magic, not once in his career as a mage hunter. The concept that the Prince Bishop was peddling was preposterous. The man had always been arrogant and ambitious, but this time he had seriously overreached himself. Nonetheless, Dorant was genuinely worried. If the Prince Bishop had the king’s support on this, there could be very big problems ahead. How could any civilised monarch consider such a thing?
As soon as he had caught wind of the Prince Bishop’s announcement, he had sent word across the country, calling back all his men. His senior officers were in the city, so he had ordered them to the commandery for a meeting. This was the greatest threat he had ever faced, the crisis that would likely define his career. It might also become a battle for survival, and try as he might, Dorant struggled to find any enthusiasm for that prospect.
The Intelligenciers were not a democratic organisation. They were a rigid hierarchy with a dual leadership—the ruler of the land in which they were based, and the Grand Commander, elected from one of the national commanders. In Mirabaya, the king commanded in all things of national concern, while in matters relating to magic, the Grand Commander—currently a Ventishman living in Voorn, far to the north—held sway. There was rarely a conflict between the two, as magic was ordinarily a minor headache that the Intelligenciers policed in addition to the clandestine duties they carried out for their state. It was a strange dichotomy, left over from the time of their founding, before the Imperial provinces broke into independent states. On the rare occasion when there was a conflict, the national commander was to be guided by his conscience in determining how to best carry out his duty. That was what Dorant was trying to do.
They gathered in the great hall of the commandery building, an austere structure tucked away in an unremarkable street behind Mirabay’s cathedral. The room was illuminated by the coloured light coming through the stained-glass windows that lined the space. Dorant’s senior officers were dressed in their uniform black, punctuated with the silver sigil that struck fear into the hearts of all who saw it—the staff, skull, and sword. They all knew why they were here. They had all seen or heard the Prince Bishop’s proclamation. They all knew that for the first time in a millennium, the threat for which they had been established had come to pass.
“Gentlemen,” Dorant said, when they were all seated. It was unusual for them to all be in the same room at the same time, but none seemed inclined to take the opportunity to renew professional friendships or make pointless conversation, so they came to order quickly. “I realise some of our brethren haven’t yet been able to get here, but all things considered, I feel we must move ahead. In light of recent events, I am invoking our founding oath, that our duty lies first and foremost in preventing the scourge of sorcery from rearing its head once more. It appears our king is in league with sorcerers, and this has absolved us of our oath to him. We must do whatever it takes to ensure his plans for magic proceed no farther.”
He waited a moment to see how they reacted to his invoking the oath, but none showed any sign of surprise. They must all have known it was coming.
“It will take time for word to reach the Grand Commander and for his orders to reach us,” Dorant said. “That is time I fear we don’t have. If we don’t act now, we may be too late. As this is an unprecedented act, I ask for your agreement in invoking the oath, and your support in the orders I shall have to give until we hear from the Grand Commander.”