Hazoth shrugged. “Even I, however, have difficulty understanding how magic changes over time. It is an unpredictable force even in the short term, and I did not know that the enchantment on the crown would only grow stronger with every passing year. The soul in the crown maintained Juring’s brilliance, but its hold on those who wore it made them weaker. The brain is like a muscle of the body. If it does not get proper exercise, it atrophies and eventually dies. Each successive Burgrave was a bigger fool than his father had been. Juring, inside the crown, had to exert more and more control over them, and more and more often had to block out their own misbegotten thoughts and replace them with his own. His character, his intelligence, was imposed on them more frequently, and they suffered for it. Now they can barely speak or count on their fingers without his consultations.” The sneer on the sorcerer’s face showed how little pity he had for the House of Tarness.

“For a very long time there has been only one Burgrave in this city, and that has been Juring Tarness. It is an unnatural situation, and one some people would like to see changed. Juring was my good friend, and I have always been pleased that he, like myself, survived when so many of our contemporaries grew old and died. But now, perhaps, it is time for new blood to rule this place.”

“You betrayed him,” Malden said, forgetting himself.

Hazoth seemed not to notice this rudeness. “You speak of loyalty? The man I knew has been corrupted by eight hundred years of stealing someone else’s body. He was never meant to live that long. No man was meant to live in that fashion. The enchantment I placed on that crown was meant to last for one generation only. Say instead I am fixing a mistake I made when I was young and foolish.”

Malden stared at the sorcerer. He could scarcely credit what he’d heard.

Yet . . . the crown had spoken to him. And he did not doubt it had used Juring Tarness’s voice when it did so.

It must be as Hazoth had described. And yet, that meant—

He was not allowed to finish his thought.