Page 68 of Vicious Is My Throne

Oh, she was pissed. Which meant she hadn’t been in control at the end, which meant…that moment between me and the witch had been real.

“I saw enough,” I told her evenly. “Not very pleasant, is it, to have someone take control?”

Her fury was hot enough to flay the skin off a Howler. “I suppose you released me for some reason other than to judge me by your outdated moral standards?”

“I did, as a matter of fact. I want to make you a deal.”

She knew how to hurt me in the worst ways, but I knew what she wanted.

And I was the only one in this entire world who could give it to her.

“I will release the magic in Varitus if you tell me how to stop your brother. You might be able to exist on the dredges of magic of another dead world, but I don’t think that’s what you really want, is it?”

28

ZORANDER

The northern peaks of the Taranth Mountains were stunning, the crisp air untouched by the blight that crept through the foothills below us, a river of black snaking across the flat, unremarkable desolation of the Pale to the west.

“I’ve never been this far up in the mountains before. Never even knew anything like this existed.”

Cosimo and I scaled the final steps leading to the small stone fortress hanging from the side of Mount Lancer, my thighs trembling with fatigue by the time we reached the top.

I’d flown us to the base of the steps, which were too steep to land us both on safely, and without knowing the layout of the fortress—more of a rustic stone house carved into the side of the cliff—I might have killed us both trying to land directly inside.

From here, the spread of the blight was sobering. Everywhere I looked was corrupted, even the bottom of the deep crevasse separating us from the next mountain.

“Gods. I haven’t been here in three hundred years.” Cosimo doubled over when we reached the top, hands braced on his knees as he caught his breath. “Forgot how many fucking steps there were.”

The wooden front doors were so weather swollen they wouldn’t budge, the iron hinges corroded so badly the astrologer used magic to blast a hole through the center while I searched the skies for any sign of Reapers. None came, and I wondered if Corvus was too busy devouring this world to make any new ones.

From the thick layer of dust coating everything, I would have pegged Cosimo’s absence to be more like five hundred years. Picking at the moth-eaten drapes on our way past, the thick fabric fell to pieces the moment I touched them.

There was something at my workshop in the mountains, he’d told me earlier in a hush hush voice with a sideways look at Torin. Something that might allow us to retrieve the pendant, undamaged.

I’d flown him here, no questions asked.

“I used to spend most of my time up here. Except when I went into the city, when I spent every last minute with Tor, Zeph, and Simon,” Coz explained as we descended a particularly perilous set of circular steps to the bottom floor.

“I’m not sure I’d ever leave,” I murmured, letting the quiet sink into me. Between the thick stone walls and the mountains soaring over our heads, this place was the very definition of solitude.

“When Carex summoned me, I had no choice but to answer.” Cosimo gave me a twisted smile. “Being his royal astrologer had its perks, but I’d be a fucking liar if I said I enjoyed working for the bastard.”

He halted at the base of the steps, surveying the chaotic room.

Stone walls, thick enough to shut out the sound of the wind outside and broken windows that let that very same wind howl unhindered through the room. The place smelled abandoned, a mix of mold and dust and rot that had nothing to do with the blight and everything to do with its master spending centuries trapped inside an amulet.

“Perks like what?” I asked, trying to take in the absolute chaos.

And there was a lot to take in.

A huge table took up the center of the high-ceilinged room, heavy iron restraints on every corner. Lining every wall were long tables filled with various glass containers, some of them broken from the weather, some with brown, crystallized remnants dried inside the bulbous beakers.

Books lay in moldering piles amongst celestial globes, darkened oil lamps, telescopes, crystals, and hand-drawn diagrams on curled, brown parchment. An ornate astrolabe took up the center of one table, brass finish tarnished beneath the layers of dust.

“Perks like access to every trader who came through Tempeste. First dibs on precious metals and stones and any rare herbs or new information that came to light. All ancient artifacts that were dug up came to me before anyone else.” He grinned, but there was a brittleness in his voice when he added, “Those sorts of perks.”

I crossed to the window, swallowing when I peered straight down into a pit of black. But Cosimo didn’t care that we were surrounded by an ocean of blight.

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