Page 76 of Vicious Is My Throne

“Tavion doesn’t have witch blood,” Bexley countered.

“What you saw was the cost of forging the blade which was the High Priestess’s life. The very essence of her life force—the ultimate blood magic, to bond metal and magic together.”

I stared into the flames as Tristan’s arm went around my shoulders. He had on a too small shirt and a pair of fraying breeches which were all we could find.

“From your reaction, you…saw what happened to the High Priestess?” Bex asked gently.

“I saw every minute, Bexley, and so did the Oracle. I watched her make the weapon, and I watched her die. And I know I descend from her bloodline. I know she looked exactly like me.” Or what I would look like, providing I survived another twenty years.

“Who was she?”

The flames blurred together into a smudge of light, Tristan tugging me against him. I’d used more magic today than I was used to, leaving my muscles strung out and fragile, though that deep well at my center waited quietly.

For what, I didn’t know.

“Tell us everything you know, Bex.” Cold and exhaustion turned my voice raspy. “The time of keeping secrets is over.”

“You’re right.” His shoulders slumped. “Secrets are nothing but a weight around my neck at this point. And you, of all people, deserve to know the truth.” Bex set down his armful of books and moved closer to the fire, regret written all over his thin face.

“Once, every so often, someone special is born. Sylvaria was one of those people. Like the Fae’s ancestral power, witch magic comes from the earth, and she…when she was born, she got every last drop. She became our mother, our goddess. But she never lived long enough to become our crone.” Silence ruled the room except for the crackling of the fire.

“But her magic—fearsome though it was—wasn’t what defined her. Sylvaria was tired of living like a slave, serving the beings who held this world prisoner. She made it her mission to resist, recruiting anyone with magical abilities and willing to fight to her side. She built an army to fight the Old Gods, calling them the Vanguard Conclave, and for thousands of years, they battled the Mystara, forcing them out of this realm, keeping them cordoned off in the Pale.”

My brain slowly, methodically processed each new piece of information, slotting them into all the blank spots of my knowledge.

“After the conclave fought the gods for eons, when Sylvi was intimately acquainted with how their wicked magic worked, mithirium was discovered in the mountains west of the Pale. A miracle, they said. A metal that would bind to magic, and Sylvi knew she could finally forge a weapon to kill them.” Beside me, Tristan cleared his throat and tightened his arms around me.

“The blade itself was forged by a skilled smith on Darkhold, in a forge of dragonfire. Mithirium is the most conducive material for conducting magic, besides gold which is far too soft for a weapon. No one knew how Sylvaria meant to infuse magic into the blade, and had the council discovered her plan, they would have stopped her.”

I held in my laugh. “Really? You think they could have stopped her?”

Because I’d seen her face, and I knew that look.

Nobody could have stopped Sylvaria from saving her people. I hoped if I ever had to make that choice, I had half her resolve and dedication.

Bex half smiled. “No, probably not. But they would have tried. By the time they found Sylvi, she was gone and the blade filled with her power. The conclave put together a hunting party. They were carrying the knife north to the Hammer, intending to finish our war for good, but before they reached the Pale, the Fae swarmed our shores and the realm descended into chaos. The war against the Old Gods was put aside for the survival of our kind.”

“That was the beginning of another cycle?”

Bexley nodded. “We believed so, yes. A battle to end all battles. Witches and humans against the Fae. Blood flowed on battlefields from the Foundering Sea to the Gulf of Kaerius. The only good thing to come out of that two-hundred-year-long war was the Fae managed to kill five of the gods—you five—in the mountains.”

“The Fae did not possess enough power to collapse a mountain,” Raz said quietly. “But Corvus and Gelvira did.”

“We were killed by our own kind, not the Fae army,” I explained to a shocked Bexley. “But what I don’t understand is, how did the skulls end up down in the tunnels? I know the tunnels once led to the city of Etherium, but I don’t understand why you would go to all the trouble to preserve the skulls?”

Bexley shifted his feet looking…guilty, and I watch him closer.

“Well, you know how witches can be.” He licked his lips. “Our motto is never waste anything, always wondering if we can…build a better mousetrap, so to speak.”

“We have no idea what you’re going on about, Bexley, and we’re not here to judge you for what was done in the past. Fuck, we’ve all made mistakes.” Raz banged his fist against the mantle hard enough to rattle the paintings hanging crooked on the wall. “Just tell Anaria why the skulls are down there.”

“We hid them so we could necromance them back to life.” He winced.

We all did.

“Not the brightest idea, but at the time our High Priestess was dead, her magic stored in a weapon we didn’t even know would work. The conclave was scattered, broken apart by the Fae invaders, and well…back then our magic was new and necromancy was all the rage.”

Tavion was already on his feet. “Let me get this straight. You planned to necromance five gods—your sworn enemies—back to life…for what?”

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