Page 70 of Acolyte (Tempris #2)

-From the personal notes of Ivain Castaro, Marquess of Tempris

My wife is dead.

My daughter too, gone before she took her first breath.

I still have their blood on my hands, and the healers keep asking me questions. They keep saying that it was an accident. That there was nothing anyone could’ve done. Both mother and child were healthy—up until they weren’t.

They just took my daughter away, wrapped in a black cloth. My wife is still in our bed. I can feel Sarina watching me, like she’s afraid of what I might do .

She’s right to be worried. Because I think I know a way to bring them back.

You’re a hypocrite.

How many years had it been since Breena spat those words at him?

You think I don’t know what you did?

Ivain knelt on the floor, staring into the old trunk.

The basement vault was dark. He’d only bothered to turn on a single light overhead, knowing exactly where to go in the maze of boxes and trunks, all dusty with age.

He had bought the townhouse originally for Sarina and her new husband, but after Madoc died, taken during the Schism, it was mostly used for storage.

For pictures and books and old clothes, things they didn’t need but couldn’t force themselves to throw out.

And in a forgotten corner, Ivain had hidden those things he wished he could forget.

Notebooks speckled with blood, manuscripts written in his own hand, each one filled with forbidden spells he had refused to relinquish even when the Genesis Council had given the order.

It might have been safer to bury them away behind magical seals and locks, but that would have been too conspicuous.

It would have only taken one moderately intelligent shadow mage to see the traces of aether and wonder what exactly he was trying to protect.

Better to hide the forbidden in plain sight.

Although, if Breena had ever found these… she’d have never let him live it down.

Because she had been right .

He was a hypocrite.

He had warned her against the dangers of bloodcraft, chastised her and turned his back when she had used illegal magic to win a tourney in front of the full assembled Council.

And yet when his wife and child had died only a few years prior, he’d convinced himself he could overcome death.

That he could take the horrors he had witnessed during the Shade Rebellion and turn them into a force for good.

Thank the Shards Sarina stopped him before he went too far. Both his sisters—they brought him back from the brink, though they hadn’t been able to help him save Breena from herself.

And now here he was again, with another student lured in by the seductive power of bloodcraft. It was pain and passion that compelled one to take these sorts of risks; the folly of those blinded by their own desperation.

Ivain reached into the trunk, already knowing which books he would need.

The humans had a saying: history is doomed to repeat itself.

And he believed that—to an extent.

Breena had been desperate in her need to prove herself in a family of mages that had already accomplished great things.

And now Skye—he was also desperate . To find Taly. To rescue her. His bondmate.

History was doomed to repeat itself. But only if they kept making the same mistakes.

“Come here,” Ivain said, sensing the boy standing at the door to the vault.

Skye stepped further into the light. His expression was carefully blank, and Ivain mourned the trust that had been lost between them.

He should have believed him. After everything he’d seen in his too-long life, he should’ve just believed the boy when he said that Taly was still alive.

He shouldn’t have been so afraid to embrace that spark of hope.

Ivain rose to his feet, a stack of books in hand.

“I saw in your notes that you’ve been dabbling with simulacrums.” He waited for Skye to nod before continuing, “I know they don’t seem dangerous, but they will continue to draw on your aether until you dismiss them, even tapping into your anima.

It’s a passive spell, one you must monitor constantly. ”

Navigating the stacks of boxes and junk, Ivain made his way to the door, placing a hesitant hand on Skye’s shoulder.

He had grown to love all his students in some way, but Skye had been different.

So smart but so quiet—when he first came to them, it had taken months to get the boy to open up.

To finally understand how his family had kept him sequestered with only nannies and tutors in the place of friends.

People who believed that children should remain silent and unseen.

Watching that quiet, lonely boy grow into a man, teaching him, seeing the light he and a little human girl had brought back to a house that had experienced so much death—it had been one of the greatest joys of his life.

And he wasn’t ready for it to be over.

So, he would do better. Be better. This time, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes. If this was the path Skye was meant to take, he wouldn’t be traveling it alone.

“Show me what you’ve learned so far,” Ivain said as he pushed Skye towards the door. “We’ll go from there.”

The townhouse armory was on the first underground floor, and it was here that Ivain found himself just before dawn, preparing for the day ahead.

Skye was sleeping. Or should’ve been. Instinct told him the boy was likely still awake, practicing the spells they’d spent the early morning hours rehearsing.

He had a natural talent for bloodcraft, and a curiosity to rival even Breena’s.

He still needed to learn moderation, but that would come with time.

Ivain scanned the arsenal of steel lining the wall. He couldn’t fault Skye for his restlessness. There was still so much to do before they could mount a proper rescue and very little time to do it. Although, he supposed, time had suddenly become a very tenuous construct.

They actually didn’t know when Taly had projected— when she had managed to shove her soul outside of her body, following the bond to Skye.

Time mages were tricky, and novices were even worse, sometimes shifting through the Weave at random.

The image they had seen that evening—that had just been the destination.

Where and when she was coming from was another matter entirely.

It was impossible to know if she had been moving backwards or forwards through the Weave, or if that projection had been months or minutes out-of-sync .

For now, it was easier to let everyone think that Taly was still alive. That the projection was irrefutable proof. Hope was a powerful thing, after all.

Footsteps approached from down the hall, and Ivain didn’t need to glance over to know who had come looking for him. He had expected her to find him eventually.

Crossing her arms, Sarina leaned against the doorframe, watching as he moved between the racks lining the walls, pulling swords and daggers and piling them on the long table that split the room.

Though her face was lined from lack of sleep and worry, she had changed out of that awful black into straight gray trousers and a green silk tunic.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one who had seized on to this new hope, and he had no doubt she had been making her own preparations.

Taly was a time mage, and while it was his job to get her back inside the city, his baby sister had likely already started thinking through just how they would keep her concealed.

“What are you doing?” Sarina finally asked.

“Exactly what it looks like,” Ivain replied gruffly. He held up a dagger for inspection, then replaced it on the wall. They had better weapons. “I’m preparing to leave the city.”

“That’s illogical,” she said tiredly. “You know you can’t do that.”

“I can, and I will.” He lifted a long broadsword from the wall. The wiring was rusted, but it was a quick repair. This one would go. “Even if we manage to hold this city, that won’t mean a damned thing if we can’t get the Aion Gate to open. We need a time mage. Desperately. ”

Sarina gave a sad sigh, looking down then back at him. “We need you more,” she insisted. “I want to find Taly as much as you do, but if you leave, you’re risking the entire city.”

Yes, he knew that. And yes, he had been over the variables. But at this point, he was allowed a bit of selfishness. Until now, he had held himself back, but with this new information— “Taly is Breena’s daughter.”

“I’m aware.”

Ivain threw her a glance.

She shrugged. “The resemblance is there, and there’s only one bloodline that produces that color of eyes.

The age is correct as well. Taly was six years old when she came to us.

The healers confirmed that, and it still holds despite whatever kind of magic was used to conceal her appearance.

And then if we consider how few Highborn children are being born now—there were less than twenty during Taly’s birth year.

Only one didn’t survive to adulthood. A girl with blonde hair and gray eyes, whose mother kept her sequestered and away from the public eye.

Breena’s first and only child.” Another shrug.

“Our sister was a powerful time mage, and Breena was her granddaughter. It’s no surprise Taly is what she is. ”

He closed his eyes, gripping the sword in his hands a bit tighter. “Taly is Breena’s child,” he said again, still not quite believing it. “And if we know that much, we can begin making other assumptions.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” he said, grabbing tools and wiring from the bins along the wall, “Breena never announced the sire, but at the time, her household wasn’t enforcing the use of breeders. That leaves only one viable candidate. Her husband.”

Ivain figured only he knew his sister well enough to see the slight widening of her eyes before it was immediately concealed. It seemed this was one variable she hadn’t yet considered. Or its consequences.