Page 35 of Vicious Is My Throne

Anaria seemed to consider that before she asked, “Why do you think the palace isn’t affected?” She nibbled on the bread. “The blight stretches north as far as I could see, and we’re right in its path.”

Bexley measured me and Tavion up, then took a seat a healthy distance away. “There have long been rumors about this place, ever since the palace was built. About who the Wynters really were. Where they came from. I took a chance those rumors were accurate.”

“That’s not an answer, Bexley,” Anaria said quietly, setting down her cup.

“We do not have a lot of time, which means we cannot afford to play our usual games,” she explained, not unkindly. “Normally, I wouldn’t mind dancing around the truth for a few hours, but we’ve been traveling for days, and we have a long journey ahead of us. What do you know about the Wynters?”

“Answer her,” Tavion growled from the back of the room. “She’s far more patient than either of us.”

“That their blood ran black.” He shifted anxiously in his chair, hands clutching his robe. “That they came from a long line of witches banished to the High Barrens, but their bloodline runs further back than that, all the way to the Vanguard Conclave.”

Anaria was nodding like she actually knew what the fuck the mage was talking about. “To the first organized council of witches.”

I went still and couldn’t stop my eyes from flicking up to Tavion’s, his face schooled into a disinterested mask. The first council of witches was a bedtime story told to scare children, filled with boogeymen and dark magic powerful enough to warp time itself.

“How does that power protect this place?” Her pale eyes glowed in the firelight, picking up every flicker of the light as she stared intently at the old mage. “What qualities does witch magic possess that makes it impervious to this corrosive blight?”

“Witch magic is rooted in the earth. At its very core, this magic is elemental. Yes, such power can be corrupted and twisted and even mutated, but there is always one constant. The magic issues from the earth itself, and because it does, witch magic will always protect its source.”

Some green flashed in the mage’s dull brown eyes. “And that source will always protect a witch. Always.”

“So the blight can’t infect anything touched or created by a witch?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“I have another question for you.” Anaria took a bite of the bread and chewed thoughtfully. “Totally unrelated, but how long, theoretically, could a blood circle contain a powerful entity?”

Bexley considered this for a moment, curiosity flickering in his eyes. “That depends. Whose blood was it, and who drew the blood in the first place?”

“Mine, and the imprisoned entity. She cut me with a piece of obsidian.”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see anything except red. Blood pounded in my ears, fury coursing through me. Anaria had been trapped inside the Oracle’s dream…that part I knew. But that bitch had hurt her. Drew her blood.

Hurt her in a place where I couldn’t reach her.

Wasn’t able to protect her.

When Anaria had disappeared—because I knew no other way to describe what happened that night in the alley—I’d fought off every threat, guarded her the only way I knew how, with my body and my magic and my knives, but this revelation proved how helpless I really was.

Her hand crept around my arm, fingers digging in enough to let me know she sensed my distress.

I didn’t fucking deserve her, not when I offered so little in return.

Anaria was a queen. A queen of two realms, of two people in deed and in name, and I was a fucking slave. You could put as much shine on the truth as you wanted, but there it was. A slave with no prospects, and a bastard besides.

“That certainly gives the circle more power.” Bexley leaned forward eagerly, his thin neck bobbing. “How long did it take to create the circle, and under what circumstances?”

“Under duress and about five minutes, give or take.”

His eyes narrowed as he made some quick calculations, then he nodded gravely. “I’d say a few days at most, then, since I am assuming this entity was…very powerful. Godlike, perhaps?”

Maybe Bexley knew what we were going up against.

Fuck knew what he’d overheard that night when Anaria had been half dead and Bexley had been our only hope. Gods knew my magic hadn’t helped her a fucking bit.

“What if this entire scenario occurred inside this entity’s dream?” Anaria finished off her bread while I went and sorted through the basket to find her the best apple and some grapes. “Again, this is all theoretical, of course.”

“Hmmmm.” Bexley was curious, no matter how disinterested he acted. “There are dream walkers, of course, but you are not one of those. Did this scenario take place in a setting of the entity’s creation?”

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