He had an iron collar around his neck, with a short iron bar coming out from the front of it. His hands were shackled to the end of the iron bar. His ankles were hobbled with a length of chain short enough to prevent him from running.

Blood ran down the side of his face. He looked groggy.

Magda focused her rage. It didn’t take an effort.

“You are surrounded,” she said in a loud, clear, commanding voice. “Let the prisoner go or you will all die.”

One of the men stepped forward. In the light coming from the open door of her lantern, she could see that he was not a soldier. He wore simple robes. She could see the deep scowl twisting his features. Even though it was dark, she thought that she could see the gift in his eyes.

When he lifted his hand and fire ignited in the air above his palm, Magda knew.

It was a wizard.

“Magda Searus?” he said. “Magda Searus, is that you?”

Chapter 85

The man in the robes was not half a dozen strides from her. Magda had seen him before. He worked in the lower regions of the Keep. She didn’t know the wizard’s name, but he knew hers. Most likely because when she had been with Baraccus he had stopped briefly to talk to the man a few times, as he had talked to a number of wizards. A lot of people knew her because she was Baraccus’s wife and they saw her with him, but she hadn’t known the names of all those people he spoke to.

“Let him go and your lives will be spared,” she said. “You are surrounded. Do as I say or you will all die. I’ll not warn you again.”

Worried, the soldiers peered around into the darkness.

There was a brief moment of silence, and then the grim-faced wizard spoke.

“I sense no one but you,” he said in a surly voice. “You are all alone out here. There is no one with you.”

In the lantern light she could see the soldiers grin.

Almost without thought, Magda slipped her hand inside her cloak, tightly wrapping her fingers around the hilt of the sword. The word Truth pressed into her palm. Through that connection, she could feel something stir and seem to come alive. It seemed to be coming neither from the sword nor from her, but came alive through that connection.

She felt the promise of something powerful and merciless in the connection.

Without warning, the wizard flicked his hand toward her. In the lantern light Magda could see the air waver.

The bolt of power just missed, flicking her hair as she dove aside and drew the sword.

The clear ring of its blade filled the night air with a haunting threat of violence.