“The girl won’t be harmed by your death,” the mage assured him impatiently. “I don’t pursue the deaths of innocents.”
Karah reached the prisoning circle and stopped, trying to decide how to enter it.
“Don’t touch it—it will burn through all your bones,” Prince Tepres warned her in a low voice, and put out a hand almost but not quite to the circle. Karah bit her lip and matched his gesture from her side.
“How many innocents do you think will die if the Seriantes are destroyed?” the foreigner inquired of Ankennes, his tone of academic inquiry underlain with contempt. “That is your intent, is it not? To use the prince’s death as a wedge against the family entire? And when the Seriantes are destroyed, what then? Do you care nothing for Lirionne?”
Ankennes waved a dismissive hand. “I hardly expected a Kalchesene to be dismayed at disorder in Lirionne. In any case, the side effects will be unfortunate, but they are unavoidable. Negative effects must sometimes be accepted to accomplish a great good.”
“How comforting to us all,” Leilis said tartly, “that a great man such as yourself should see so clearly the path we should all be compelled to take. I’m sure that the survivors of the wars and riots will sing praises to your name.”
The mage glanced her way and said simply, “I do not care for the opinions of the ignorant.” His tone was perfectly matter-of-fact. He was not trying to insult Leilis, Nemienne realized. He genuinely did not care about her opinion, no more than if she had been a horse or dog.
Prince Tepres said sharply, “How can you think it right to do what you are about to do? Are you not a man of Lonne? What has my family done that is so terrible that you would wreak vengeance on your own country?”
Ankennes, harassed, snapped, “Vengeance is not my aim—nations and families are all ephemeral—I do not expect a Seriantes scion to understand greater necessities that overwhelm the transient welfare of his own small country.” He added, to Karah, “Join your young prince, then. You may have a moment to make your farewells.” At his gesture, the circle of light around Prince Tepres suddenly flickered and expanded to encompass Karah. She gasped and shrank back, and the kitten hissed, but the movement of the circle had been very quick and was finished almost before either of them had time to be frightened.
The prince put a hand out toward Karah, but then hesitated, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. He drew a breath, but then let it out again without speaking. But, though she did not say anything either, Karah took a step toward Prince Tepres, looking both shy and somehow confident at the same time. She took his hand in hers, turning to face Mage Ankennes at the prince’s side in a mute declaration of support and alliance. For what good that might do, which they both probably believed would be none at all.
Actually, Nemienne had some hope the gesture might prove more than merely symbolic. She herself walked slowly across the cavern to join the mage.
“Well?” he said to her.
Nemienne tried not to flinch under his severe gaze. “I had to come,” she repeated. Even to her own ears this sounded weak. She added, trying for a firm tone but not able to tell whether she managed it, “I dreamed of the Dragon.” This was even almost true; she felt in a way that she’d seen nothing else, waking or sleeping, since she’d first gazed upon its long sinuous form in this cavern. She added, which was not true at all, “And of the other Dragon,” and glanced significantly at Prince Tepres.
“And found your own way here.” The mage sounded thoughtful. “I would not have expected that. Well… well, very well. Perhaps it’s as well you came to this place, since evidently you were so strongly drawn. And as you were drawn to be here, I am interested in your further impulses. However, now that you are here, you may do nothing without my permission, no matter how strongly you feel drawn to do it. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes,” Nemienne assured him earnestly. She felt ill, and didn’t even know whether this was due to generalized terror of what would happen in this place, or because she lied so easily and yet she didn’t even know—not even yet—what if Ankennes was right, had been right about everything? What if Prince Tepres and all the Seriantes were irrevocably corrupt, and the stone Dragon of Lonne the creature of darkness and evil that had corrupted them? She did not know, even now that this wasn’t so—how could she dare do anything to stop Mage Ankennes when she didn’t even know—
“Very well,” said the mage, and turned back toward his Kalchesene prisoner.