Tris cried out as a dagger buried itself deep in his left arm. He wheeled, blade raised, as the soldier he had fought slumped to the ground, dead, his objective accomplished. Already, Tris could feel the wormroot tingle as warm blood spilled down his arm. From the initial jolt, he knew the dose was sizeable. He chewed harder on the rope vine wad in his mouth, hoping that the anise-flavored juice would buy him a few precious moments of control.
Winded, Theron joined him. The six "soldiers" lay still on the floor. Tris knew that they were golems animated by magic, but the detail, down to the blood that flowed from their death wounds, made the simulation deathly real.
"Welcome home," a voice said from the shadows of the far corner. A chill went down Tris's spine.
The voice was a flawless imitation of Arontala's. A thin red-robed figure stepped forward, and Tris felt his mage sense tingle a warning.
Something was very wrong, Tris thought as the figure approached. A crystal pendant around the mage's throat burned a bright red, and the fire captured within that small orb seemed to seek Tris, glowing more brightly as it fixed on him. He knew the imprint of the power that radiated from the figure just as surely as he knew the danger of the fire's red glow.
"Theron—shield!" Tris cried out in warning, snapping his own shields up in defense. A blast of red fire streamed from the robed figure's hands, sizzling against Tris's shields and catching Theron unprotected. Before Tris could move in defense, the fire hit Theron squarely in the chest, slamming her back into the wall. Tris heard Theron cry out in pain, smelled the stench of burning flesh, and saw Theron slump to the floor, dead.
Behind him, Tris felt a sudden, wrenching shift in the wardings that protected the training room, and he knew with a sick feeling that a death warding had been set. Tris turned to face an avatar that had suddenly become dangerously real.
“Something's wrong." Taru's head snapped up abruptly from where she and Carina waited in a parlor near the encounter room.
Carina looked worried as Taru sprinted for the door, and ran to catch up. "What do you mean—wrong?"
"I mean the magic is wrong," said Taru.
"But you said Landis was running the trial—that you trusted Landis," Carina countered, needing to run faster to catch up with Taru.
"I do trust Landis. But it's not Landis's power— not any more."
Taru and Carina burst into the room where the training simulation was controlled. Landis lay in a pool of blood with a dagger in her back.
Carina gasped and dropped to her knees beside the mage. "She's been dosed with almost enough wormroot to kill," Carina diagnosed, "and she's lost a lot of blood. She's barely breathing."
"Can you help her?"
Carina was already digging in her pouch for powdered rope vine. She grabbed a pitcher and a glass from the table nearby, then dissolved the powder in a glassful of water. Taru held Landis upright while Carina carefully dripped the liquid into Landis's mouth so that she would not gag. Carina bandaged the wound to stop the bleeding as Taru carefully set Landis back down on the floor.
"It's all I can do. The knife didn't hit anything vital—thank the Lady. There's no real cure but time for either the wormroot or the blood loss." Carina wiped Landis's blood off her hands and onto her robes. "We can't leave her alone."
"I'll get help," Taru replied, disappearing for a few minutes and returning with one of the other sisters, a plain-faced woman Carina knew was one of the citadel healers. They moved Landis to a couch near the fire, and Carina gave terse instructions to the healer. Once Landis was safely settled, Carina looked back at Taru.
"If Landis isn't running the trial—who is?"
They headed out at a dead run for the encounter room, but at the doors, Taru stopped abruptly. She raised her hands, palms out, and slid them above the doors, a hands' breadth away from the wood, and then swore.
"What's wrong?" Carina asked.
"The wardings are wrong," Taru replied. "Landis promised me she wasn't going to set death wardings. Not yet. But that's what's in place—and they weren't set by Landis." She paused. "This warding is tainted with blood magic."
"Arontala," Carina breathed. "Could he be here—within the citadel?"
Taru shook her head. "Unlikely. The citadel is warded against magical intrusion—we can't just 'pop' in and out, even if such a thing were easily possible." She closed her eyes, stretching out one hand toward the encounter room doors. "There is no avatar. And only two mages are alive inside."
"Theron's the traitor?" Carina asked. Taru began to stride down the corridor.
"Unlikely. Although she had the skill to set the spell that killed Elam, she didn't have an opportunity. She was with me, and went directly to train with Tris—remember? And she was with Tris again just now, when Landis was attacked. Landis couldn't have been stabbed long before we arrived, or she would have been dead." Taru slammed open the doors to a small library, lighting the torches around the room with a word. She strode over to a large crystal basin filled with water that sat on a bronze pedestal.
Carina caught up to Taru, breathless, as the Sister raised her hands over the scrying basin and held them, palms toward the water. Gradually, a mist appeared within the basin. As the mist cleared, an image emerged, as if from a distance, shrouded in fog. Carina gasped. "It's Alaine."
"It is Alaine's body—but not Alaine's power," Taru said. "We've made a grave mistake."
"What do you mean?" Carina asked, unable to take her eyes off the image unfolding within the scrying basin.
"Alaine was hand-picked by Landis, and her loyalty was absolute," Taru said quietly. "But a few months ago, Landis sent Alaine to one of the other citadels within Margolan, before we understood the extent of Jared's treachery. While Alaine was at that citadel, Jared's troops attacked. She was the only survivor." Taru sighed. "We were relieved that she came back to us—now I see it was a trap. Arontala must have broken her and embedded his own triggers, hoping that she might encounter Tris. Maybe he has spies in each of our citadels, on the chance that you'd seek sanctuary."
"What's that around Alaine's throat?" Carina asked as the image wavered in the scrying bowl.
"That must be the portal for Arontala's power," Taru said. "It's not something easily made."
Carina cried out as fire streamed from the red gem, blasting against Tris's shielding. "We've got to help him!"
Taru shook her head. "No one can enter or leave until one of the mages within the room is dead. The warding cannot be broken. Tris is on his own."
Within the encounter room, Tris bit down hard on the rope vine, clenching his teeth as he struggled to hold his shielding against the blast of mage fire that burst from the red-robed figure's talisman. The hood fell back, revealing not Arontala's face, but Alaine's, her features twisted in an agonized grimace, her eyes desperate.
Tris knew the power of the red fire, and the searching presence that accompanied it. That fire had nearly killed Kiara in the scrying at Westmarch, and it had sought and found him when he had attempted a scrying with the caravan.
The fire battered his shielding, draining his strength as he struggled to hold his protections in place. Tris felt the presence find him. The glow in the talisman at Alaine's throat pulsed a deep carnelian.
"See your future," a voice rasped from Alaine's throat, contorting her features. Images flooded into Tris's mind, searingly clear. Within Shekerishet's corridors Tris saw Vahanian lying dead in a pool of blood, pierced through the chest by a crossbow bolt. The image flickered, and Tris saw a courtyard of gibbets, and hanging lifeless, Carroway and Carina, their faces blackened, their bodies twisting. Another image replaced that, of a forest of pikes set into the ground. Fixed on the stakes, impaled alive, Tris saw Soterius, Gabriel, and Mikhail, saw the dawn break and saw the agony of the vayash morn as the daylight burned them, saw Soterius writhe in pain that did not end with the light of day. Once more the sending pulsed and the image shifted. This time Tris saw Kiara, battered and drugged, given to Jared for his pleasure.