“You’re mad,” Miranda said, regaining her composure. “Anything Gregorn conquered as a wizard died with him long ago. What treasure could he have left you?”
“The only kind that matters,” Renaud said calmly. “A spirit.”
“Nonsense,” Miranda scoffed. “No bond between human and spirit, not even an enslavement, can last past the wizard’s death.”
“Ah, but you see,” Renaud said as the pillar ate another inch of him, “Gregorn’s not dead.”
It took Miranda a few moments to find her voice after that pronouncement. Fortunately, Eli spoke for both of them.
“What do you mean ‘not dead’? It’s been four hundred years. You’re kidding yourself if you think anything human can hold on that long.”
“The human will is the greatest force in this world,” Renaud said. “It can conquer any spirit, any natural force, even time, if only the wizard can master himself. Gregorn’s will conquered a spirit powerful enough to raise Mellinor from the inland sea. A spirit so strong, so dangerous, that nations trembled at Gregorn’s feet for three months before the strain of controlling the spirit finally destroyed his body.”
“As it should,” Miranda spat. “I hope that spirit crushed—”
“His body,” Renaud said, cutting her off, “not his will. Our bodies, our shells are fragile. They age and die, but while we have will, we have life. Gregorn understood this in a way your Spirit Court, with all its self-censorship in the name of arbitrary balance, never could. When his flesh began to fail him, my ancestor used the last of his power to enslave the only human soul a wizard can control, his own.”
“Impossible,” Miranda said grimly. “You can’t enslave yourself any more than you could lift yourself off the ground by grabbing your own shoulders.”
“That is the blindness of your discipline,” Renaud sneered. “You Spiritualists are so quick to dismiss things, aren’t you? So quick to say this is impossible, or that is impossible, and so, when the impossible happens in front of you, you’re as blind and deaf as any human.” He looked up at the pillar triumphantly. “Gregorn mastered himself and turned his own dying body into a pillar of salt, binding his spirit to this world. He left only one decree to his followers: form a kingdom around him and never let another wizard within its borders so that their spirits could not interfere with the delicate balance of his control.”
Renaud leaned into the gaping, black blot that had now consumed over half of the pillar’s surface, caressing it like a lover. “That’s the real reason behind Mellinor’s wizard ban,” he whispered. “The reason why I was forced to grow up as a stranger in my own home, the reason I was banished, and the reason I returned. Everything in Mellinor grew from that one purpose: to protect Gregorn’s control. Everything in this kingdom still serves her first king. Everything here exists so that this spirit who raised kingdoms and frightened nations, the spirit Gregorn gave up rebirth to gain, could never, ever escape him.
“That, Spiritualist,” Renaud said, grinning cruelly, “is the true power of the human spirit, which you, with your rings and your self-limitations, will never reach.”
Miranda trembled with rage, but before she could speak, Eli stepped forward.
“If you’re so impressed by all this,” he said casually, “why are you even here? If everything in Mellinor is in service to Gregorn, what are you doing to that pillar except undermining a greater wizard’s work?”
“Taking what is mine,” Renaud hissed. “I am Gregorn’s heir, the first wizard in the Allaze family since Gregorn himself.” He thrust his hands deeper into the pillar, which shuddered and ate. “It is time for a new wizard king in Mellinor. Time for me to receive at last what my ancestor has held in trust for me for all these years. Together, we shall finish what Gregorn started. We will crush the trembling world into submission until every spirit waits on my demands and every wizard depends on my whim.”
“Don’t fool yourself!” Miranda cried, her voice shaking with barely restrained anger. “Gregorn isn’t holding anything for you. A man who was willing to give up rebirth and sleep in a salt pillar for eternity just to keep a stranglehold on a spirit isn’t the type to quietly pass on his legacy to a new generation. Even if that pillar eats you whole, Gregorn will never give that spirit to you!”
“Any other time you would be right, Spiritualist,” Renaud said. “But what you don’t realize is that, at this point, he doesn’t have a choice.” The enslaver looked at the place where his arms met the pillar, and his haughty smile became a mad grin. “After four hundred years, his soul has degraded so far past human, he’s no better than the salt he’s trapped in.”