Serpent's Lair (The Forgotten: Book 1)

CHAPTER 8

  Lord Telvani arranged the candles around the pattern drawn on the floor. He withdrew a dagger from his cloak and held it against his palm. Steeling himself for the pain, he whipped it quickly across his flesh, parting it with a quick stinging sensation. Blood welled up in the wound slowly and he dipped his finger from his other hand into it.

  He pressed the red-tipped finger onto a necklace that he picked up from a basket on the table next to him and placed it into the first point of the six-sided star that was drawn in black chalk on the floor.

  It glowed for a moment and then dulled. He picked up the next item from the basket, this time a handkerchief, repeating the blooding process and adding it to the next point. He did this four more times, one item for each of the Council members and took a step back when he placed the last item. Instead of just the one lighting up as has happened with the rest, the entire pattern blazed and fire sprang to life on the lines.

  Telvani smiled. He waved a hand for the girl to be brought forward and the young woman that Lord Morven had discovered was escorted by two of his guards towards him. Her eyes were slightly unfocused, a side-effect of the drugs they had given her to keep her complacent.

  They guided her hand onto the candle and her fingers wrapped around it obediently. The candle was a bright red, dyed that way from the blood of those Telvani had already spilled for the doing of this spell. She lifted it from the table and started chanting as she dripped the hot wax onto her already scarred arm, burning the flesh beneath it. She hardly batted an eye now, though the first experiences had been more unpleasant to watch. Contrary to Lord Farthen’s sadistic fascination with pain, Telvani did not revel in this necessity, but did enjoy the benefits he could reap from it.

  He felt the power flowing into him immediately. The spell had been years in the making, stemming from the slave collars they had been experimenting with to control the specimen within the order – those who were talented and marked as the bloodline of the Dark King. Only now, instead of the spell being bound to an object that the subject had to wear, the spell would be bound to the person themselves, the focus object able to be hidden away, making it that much harder to detect and break.

  The personal items from each of the Council members gave him the link he needed to find his way into their minds. He found the first with ease and forcibly thrust the spell into her subconscious. Her mind writhed and tried to repel him, but he drew more strength from the chanting girl and subdued her.

  It was exhilarating. He moved on to the next, getting this one under control much faster. Then the third, fourth, fifth…on the sixth he drew the process out a bit longer. The man had been a particular nuisance, a thorn in Telvani’s side, and he teased him a while so that the man knew he was being overtaken but could do nothing about it.

  Suddenly there was a peculiar twinge and a surge of power entered Telvani. He glanced over at the girl, but there was no change in her posture. He shrugged and went back to his task. Once the final mind was under control, Telvani took another candle from the table and systematically poured wax onto each of the items, sealing the blood onto them.

  When he was done, he blew out the candle and motioned for the guards to do the same to the girl’s. She instantly collapsed and the guards carried her limp form from the room. When he was alone, Telvani gathered each of the items carefully and put them into a wooden box.

  He hurried to complete the rest of the process, eager to try out the effectiveness. His first order of business would be to officially place himself as interim ruler. He had decided that the people weren’t quite ready yet to have their beloved King and Queen die, so it would be easier to convince them that it was simply important to have someone nominated to fill their role while they were incapacitated and unable to perform their duties as they needed to. He could even say that their illness had progressed to a state where it was making them delirious and they could no longer be trusted to make sound decisions. So there was a need to appoint him to make them for them.

  Farthen stood waiting in a corner of the room, watching the proceedings with lines of worry across his face. Telvani strode over and clapped him on the back.

  “You see?” he congratulated the man. “There was nothing to worry about. And you thought you couldn’t do it in time.”

  “Indeed,” was Farthen’s only answer, but his look of concern persisted.

  Telvani refused to be brought down by the man’s glum mood. He felt ecstatic. The minds of the Council members felt like dull hums in the back of his own mind, and they seemed to radiate energy into him.

  He fairly skipped out of the room, barely containing the urge to sprint down the stone hallways. Not soon enough he was seated back in his carriage to make his way to the palace to meet with the Council.

  Almost there…