Maybe if my throat hadn’t closed up from screaming I would have complied. But then again, maybe if my throat hadn’t closed up from screaming it would have closed up from fear. Not the nameless fear for myself that had troubled me so only moments ago, but directed, heart-wrenching fear for all that I loved.

“Ah, children. How undereducated you are. This is the Empirebane, Destroyer of Cities, also called Farsonsbane. The greatest mage ever known, Farson Whitehair, took the blood of three dragons and concentrated it into this small stone—an experiment. Years later it was stolen and enemies of the Empire used it to bring down the stone buildings and walls of the great cities and crumbled them to ashes. Farson recovered it and hid it, vowing that no one would use it again.”

I’d heard that the Last Emperor, a boy of twelve, had stolen it and hidden it until he could recover it. But he and his remaining bodyguards were found. They died without revealing where it was. Either way, it made a good story.

“Farsonsbane?” Jade Eye’s voice was incredulous, but not doubting—the power of the thing was palpable. “I thought it would be made of gold, and the gem was supposed to be the size of my fist. My servant has gems more impressive.”

The magic gathering around the bane wasn’t growing, I finally realized, it was exploring. I shuddered as the rich darkness slipped through my defenses and tasted my magic greedily. How ironic that Jade Eyes would mistake Oreg for some sort of sentient magic, and not recognize this. I’d felt magic like this before, on Menogue and at Hurog.

“Your servant’s gem couldn’t flatten a city the size of Estian with a word. Show some respect.” The king removed the staff head from my sight but the magic stayed.

“Too bad you can’t use it,” said Jade Eyes. “It must be fed with dragon’s blood, and there are no more dragons.”

The king’s stool creaked and he said, “There is an interesting thing I ran into while doing my research. It was something so insignificant, I almost didn’t pay attention to it. How old is Hurog keep?”

I could almost hear the shrug in Jade Eye’s voice. “It’s old, maybe the fifth century after Empire? That would make it eight hundred years.”

Earlier than that,I thought.Far earlier .