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“Don’t throw your anger at me just yet,” Ryon tells her, voice hoarse. “It was not my story to tell.”

“A story?” Dawsyn repeats, her teeth gritted. She turns toward Baltisse. “How nice. Do tell it, witch.”

“And leave our guest out in the forest, waiting to be introduced?” Baltisse asks, and Dawsyn notices the shift in the mage’s expression, the evasiveness of her tone.

Her suspicions darken further. “Why the delay, mage?” she asks, the words pinning the woman in place. “Surely this secret is not more terrible than the ones you’ve already revealed.”

“I believe she delays,” Ryon offers, a thread of dark, deadly warning in his tone, “to avoid your… reaction.”

The mage’s chin lifts, and she looks directly to Dawsyn, ignoring Ryon altogether. “Fine,” she relents. “The story first, then. Though I’d have preferred to live another century never telling it again.”

Dawsyn sits. An unnameable weight is settling on her, threatening the bone and muscle and will that she is made of. “If I must know it,” she says, “then your preference is no fucking concern of mine.”

Baltisse’s shoulders curve inward, as though she feels the weight too, and then, “Have you ever wondered where the Pool of Iskra came from?”

Dawsyn does not respond. Of course she has wondered. She waits for Baltisse to continue, growing impatient.

“Centuries ago, long before histories were written, the King of this valley was an ordinary man… his name was Vasteel.”

Dawsyn blanches. Her head swings to Ryon. “That can’t be,” she asks of him, but Ryon is nodding.

“It was,” Baltisse remarks. “Vasteel was rather different to the monarchs who preceded him – kings who admonished anything that threatened their power, namely, the existence of mages.” Here Baltisse’s eyes whirl viciously. “But Vasteel saw the way mage power could become useful to him. Far from having us hunted, he welcomed us into the fold of his advisors, and treated us like nobility. Me, two others by the names of Roznier and Grigori, and my mother, Indriss.” Baltisse pauses, as though the name brings with it a bad taste. Dawsyn recalls the last time the mage spoke of her mother, thisIndriss.Her demeanour had lacked tenderness then as well.

“Vasteel wanted small things from us at first, and we gladly gave it. Good weather. Healthy crops. Quite a task for just one mage, but there were four of us and we were strong. We practised our magic daily, free from the aspersions of the public. We grew stronger. We became cocky, I think. We thought ourselves indestructible. But the laws of magic have always been the same: you do not ask for more than what nature will readily give, or you will invite destruction.

“But we were free, you see? For the first time in our lives, we could wield the kind of power we’d been forced to hide. It was… intoxicating.” Baltisse’s lips turn down. “So intoxicating that when King Vasteel asked for more, we barely thought it through before we complied. Perhaps just to find out if wecoulddo it, if we could achieve such sorcery, suchcontrol.My mother was fixated. She began to think of magic as something to be leashed and unleashed. To be bidden and unbidden. But magic has never behaved that way. It is intuitive. It has its own will. It knows its own bounds.

“Vasteel was fascinated with the life span of a mage. We are notimmortal, of course. But we barely age. So when he bade us to make him immortal, I was unsurprised. What else could a man want when he already has power, wealth, an adoring populace?” Baltisse scoffs weakly. “There is nothing else, butmoreof it – an endless, bottomless supply. Vasteel asked for an eternity.”

Dawsyn’s teeth clamp so tightly they ache. She has begun to piece together the finer details of this story, the path that leads to its end.

“It is the ultimate act of sorcery, harnessing nature itself. My mother, Roznier, and Grigori were drunk with the idea of that kind of power, a feat so large. And I’m sorry to say, I was too. It took years. Years of honing the craft, of theorising and trial. But almost a decade after Vasteel had asked for immortality, we gave it to him in the form of a pool.”

“You…” Dawsyn can’t finish the sentence. The words sit on her tongue, but nothing is said. She feels the iskra rearing its head and tries to ease the sickness unfurling inside her. Tries to sequester it again.

“We believed ourselves the cleverest beings to have ever lived, of course,” Baltisse continues, and there is shame in her voice. “But magic gives and takes in equal share, and we realisedwhatit would take before one could be given immortality.

“Human souls,” Dawsyn says blankly.

The mage nods, watching her closely. “A life for a life. When we explained the magic to Vasteel, he said, ‘their spark.’ Eventually, he coined it with a word from the old forgotten language: ‘Iskra.’

“At first, Vasteel refused the magic he’d asked us to conjure. ‘I cannot take another’s iskra,’ he told us. And for a time, he put the entire idea of eternity aside.

“It was my mother who convinced him otherwise,” Baltisse says icily. “The dungeons were overflowing at the time – anarchists who believed that we mages were corrupting the palace. They were rioting. Vasteel had them locked away until they saw sense. It was a useless endeavour, of course. It is difficult to dispel hate. But suddenly my mother had a fine solution. ‘Give them to the pool,’ she told Vasteel, ‘and rid the world of their prejudice.’ It took some persuasion, but eventually, the King did just that.

“At first it was only the criminals that went into the pool. They were meant for the gallows anyway. Violent men and women – best to put their iskra to better use. Put that spark in a man who knows how to serve his populace. That’s what he told himself. It’s whatwetold him.

“King Vasteel was teeming with life. The iskra healed any sickness or injury that ailed him. Soon, he began to allow his most esteemed noblemen and women to reap the benefits of the pool too. A select few who he believed would bring Terrsaw to a better future. It was the highest of honours to be let in on the secret, to be granted life. But the more Vasteel shared the pool, the drier it ran. Those who drink iskra must do so frequently before mortality sets back in. The dungeons were empty of thugs, and suddenly Vasteel was naming lowly crimes punishable by death. First it was petty theft, evading taxes, brawling. Terrsaw was the most law-abiding city you’d ever seen. The wrong insult said too loudly would have you arrested. And still, it wasn’t enough to keep the pool filled.

“The King was changing at the same time. His skin was pale and cold. He was strong and virile, but he resembled a statue more so than a human. His hair turned an astonishing shade of white. He had become addicted to the iskra, and so had many of his inner circle.

“Years went by, and after a time, they barely looked for reasons to take people from the street and throw them to the pool. When they ran out of bad people, they made do with the good. They took orphans, beggars, widows, and the sick. Those who lived on the fringe were the most vulnerable. Vasteel was evolving before our eyes. A benevolent king became a callous one. A threat to his people.

“That was when I began to regret it all. Notsooner, mind you,” the mage admits stiffly. “No, I’m no saint – far from it. But I could see how bending nature had produced something unnatural. Something that ought not exist.

“There were rumours abounding. Some thought the land had been cursed, but others questioned the King’s unnatural pallor, his apparent good health despite his age. They wondered if he’d been possessed. They guessed correctly that he was using the people of Terrsaw for his own ends.

“When the speculation came too close to the truth, Vasteel became paranoid. He was sure that all in Terrsaw would try to take the pool if they knew of it. He ordered his mages to move it.”