Serpent's Lair (The Forgotten: Book 1)

CHAPTER 10

  Lord Telvani glanced around in paranoia. He was sure that everyone around him could sense the amount of strain he was under. Controlling the Council members was becoming more and more difficult, and he felt the ever-present danger of the Bricrui overtaking him. Reports from Lord Farthen indicated that the disease had worsened, growing quicker in the final stages and eventually leading to the deaths of those it touched. He had also come no closer to finding a cure. The creature who had attacked Telvani had finally succumbed, dying in slow and painful agony.

  Even with the access to every book of knowledge the Order had ever obtained, Farthen still had no idea why it had happened. Much of the knowledge of blood-magic had been lost after the Dark King had been overthrown in the book burnings that had followed. The Order had secreted away as many of the tomes as they had been able, but these accounted for only a tiny portion of the previous knowledge. Unfortunately, this oftentimes left those trying to use it today with incomplete information, and they were forced to experiment in order to recreate spells that had been used with ease long ago.

  The spell to control the minds was such a simple one, and required so little actual blood-letting, that it seemed ridiculous to him that it should have such terrible repercussions. Yet there it was, he had witnessed the atrocious effects himself, and now waited every morning for the first onset of the symptoms.

  He had decided that he would continue with the control spell until such time as symptoms did occur, if they occurred. Until then, there was simply too much to lose. He had wracked his brain for an elegant solution to the mess he found himself, everything from killing off all of the Council members to hide his guilt, to using someone else to control them. But none of the answers would work. He needed the Council to be on his side until the people were fully behind him as well and he could finally do away with the King and Queen for good.

  And even that was proving to be a chore. He had assumed that in their current states they would be vulnerable, but his mages had assured him that this wasn’t the case. They were actually fully protected against physical as well as magical attacks. It was as though they were encased in some sort of protective bubble.

  He passed a servant in the hallway. Had the man just looked at him with a disgusted expression? Was the illness showing already? He stopped and looked at his reflection in the shine of a shield hung on the wall. It reflected his face in pieces, the different angles of the metal refracting his image like a broken mirror.

  Everything was falling apart…