The undead sorcerer got to his feet as Chap circled around behind him. Vordana moved cautiously as he pulled a pole torch from the ground and walked toward the cavern's center. Magiere backed away to keep him in sight, and Vordana shoved the torch head into the wood piled beneath the iron vat. Wild flames ignited.
"I can allow you to speak with her," Ubad suggested, "let her show you who you are."
Magiere's heart pounded. To speak with a mother she'd never known, to hear Magelia even for a moment was something she had never imagined possible. This gift came from the hands of a death-monger like Ubad. Still, she couldn't turn away.
"Only her and me?" she asked.
Ubad nodded. "She will be in you. She will show you anything you ask."
"Do it. Do what you have to."
"Magiere!" Leesil snapped. "No."
Torchlight flickered across Ubad's mask. Magiere wondered at the expression hidden beneath it. Her revulsion grew past hatred.
"Quiet, Leesil," she said. "I'll know if it's a trick, if it isn't her."
Ubad drew a narrow dagger from inside his robe and picked up one of the loose bones on the slab. The sight of this creature touching her mother's remains made Magiere tense against the urge to cut him down. The dark liquid in the large vat was boiling, and it began dribbling over the side to hiss in the raging flames.
Ubad held the bone over the vat and scraped it with the dagger's edge. White flecks fell from the blade into the roiling liquid. He set the bone on the floor and reached out his hand to Magiere.
"You share blood and bone. Give me your hand."
Magiere kept her falchion up and held out her other hand. He sliced her smallest finger and squeezed it, until a drop of her blood followed the bone shavings into the vat.
Ubad began to chant.
The ghosts in the cavern vanished, and Vordana stepped back.
Magiere had one moment to see Leesil's concerned face and Wynn's frightened eyes as the sage crept forward.
The liquid in vat rose, spilling freely over the sides until its sizzle in the flames sent up a cloud of vapor mat nearly blotted out the tripod. An image formed in the mist.
She was young and lovely and could easily have passed as Magiere's sister. Her skin wasn't as pale as Magiere's, and her black hair showed no glints of bloodred, but the resemblance was clear: a high, smooth forehead over thin arched eyebrows and a long, straight nose. She was tall and slender, wearing a blue dress that Magiere herself had worn on several occasions. Her brown eyes filled with confusion-and then her gaze fell upon Magiere.
Ubad's chant grew louder.
The young woman dropped lightly from the air to the granite floor. Her eyes locked with Magiere's, and she held out a hand. Magiere hesitated a moment, then took it. She felt no pain as the darkness of the cavern vanished.
She stood upon a grassy hill in a forest, and through the trees she saw the low huts of Chemestuk. It was early fall, and in the nearby fields cut out of the forest were villagers at harvest, clearing weeds or pulling fat pumpkins and squashes from their vines. One woman caught Magiere's attention. At first she thought it might be the same one she'd seen in the cavern, but this one was shorter and stout of frame, dressed in purple. She stood from her labors and wiped perspiration from her face.
It was Aunt Bieja, but younger, without the years weighing upon her.
Magiere heard the cloth rustle in the low breeze and turned to find the woman in her blue dress standing beside her.
"Mother?" she asked. "Magelia?"
The woman settled a hand upon Magiere's cheek. "Daughter. I know you."
"Magiere," she said back. "I'm Magiere. Aunt Bieja named me for you."
Tears slid down Magelia's face. "You grew up with Bieja? You have been happy?"
Magiere didn't know how to respond. She wanted to touch her mother's tears, to comfort her, but she couldn't seem to move.
"He took you that night," Magelia whispered. "The night you were born, but he promised to protect you. I remember your soft hair. You were born with a head full of black hair, and those dark eyes, not blue like most babies."
"Mother." The word was difficult to even say. "I must know what happened. How… I happened."
"Is that why you call me now?" Magelia's face darkened before Magiere, and it was like looking at her own angered reflection in a mirror. "You want to know your father?"
"I need to know."
Magelia's expression softened again. "I don't care, as long as I can see you, touch you. " Magelia's fingers dropped from Magiere's cheek to grip her hand. "Come with me, back to the keep."
The grassy hill faded along with the autumn sky.
Magelia had been moved to an upper-floor room of the keep, one without windows. She examined the door from top to bottom, but the lock was solid. The door would not even budge when pulled, and likely was barred on the outside.
She was alone.
For all her fear, she couldn't stop thinking of Bieja, how frightened she'd been the night of the abduction and how worried her sister must be. Wild thoughts of bribing servants to deliver messages ran through Magelia's mind, but she saw no one except the guards delivering her meals. Two always came. One remained in the passage while the other set her bowl upon the floor inside the door. She'd given up trying to goad or question them, as neither spoke a word to her.
The only other person she'd seen was Welstiel, the noble with white patches at his temples, coldly polite. He had been the one to move her to this room.
The room was chill and bare, with a thin mattress on the floor and a washbasin beside it. There was no other furniture.
Her thoughts were broken by the sound of the door's bar drawing back. The door opened, and Lord Massing stepped in, the one called Bryen.
He was tall and used his imposing stature to cow those around him. Looking at his dark hair and pale skin, she thought he might be handsome were it not for the blankness of his expression. The only quality she ever saw flicker upon his face was arrogance.
Magelia hated the sight of him.
Tonight, he was beautifully dressed in black breeches, a tan shirt, and a chocolate brown tunic, with his hair carefully combed back. Behind him stood a young serving girl, clearly terrified of her lord. Magelia didn't recognize the girl, so she hadn't come from Chemestiik. The girl carried a silk gown, a hairbrush, and pins. The gown's color was somewhere between ivory and pale pink.
'Take off that rag you're wearing," Lord Massing ordered. "This girl will dress you properly."
"Not until you get out," Magelia replied. She would not show him any fear.
"You will not speak alone to anyone," he said. 'Take off that dress, or I will do it for you."
It was not a threat. She could see that he was simply informing her of the consequences and waited for her to decide which indignity she chose. Magelia began unlacing her blue dress, and the girl hurried to assist her.
Magelia turned away from Lord Massing to stand in nothing but her shift while the serving girl helped her into the silk gown and laced it tightly. The girl then brushed out her hair and pinned part of it atop her head, leaving enough free to curl down her shoulders and the back of her neck.
"Sir?" the girl asked when she had finished.
Bryen nodded. "Yes, much better."
Before Magelia turned around, he grasped her forearm. She didn't bother to fight, as it would do no good. He pulled her from the room and down the passage to another chamber.
Through its open door she saw a large four-poster bed. Upon a small table, a globe rested in an iron pedestal. Lights flickered within its frosted glass. As she stepped inside, a movement caught her attention. Magelia saw herself in a long mirror on the wall by the table.