Page 15 of Silvercloak

Because in a world built on pain and pleasure, there were always going to be those who pushed the very outer limits of it—who exploited the fact that magic could not exist without those twin pillars. Street gangs who peddled narcotics to mages desperate for pleasure, Compellers who manipulated other mages into intimacy and submission, torturers who tried to siphon the potency of their victims’ pain for themselves.

Enter the Silvercloaks.

How could enchantments be used to gather forensic evidence, so that the trial process was more robust, less reliant on hearsay? How could truth elixirs be built into the country’s constitution, so that itwas impossible to lie in a court of law? How could the Order develop powerful tracing spells to follow a killing curse back to its origin?

The latter was still a work in progress, and the Grand Arbiter had repeatedly voted down any motions to bring truth elixir into the courtroom (purportedly under the guise of protecting state secrets). But the Order did what they could regardless.

The air in the hospital wing shifted as Detective Tenébo Jebat—a fierce-faced, middle-aged mage with an utter mastery of enchantments—swept into the room, silver cloak billowing behind him like smoke. Hailing from Sinyo, a lush country of mountains and rainforests, he had deep brown skin and an arc of gold-and-ruby jewelry hanging from his septum.

“Step aside,” said Jebat, his accent kissed with the gentle lisp of Cape Fala, Sinyo’s capital.

The wall of Healers parted as he pushed toward the stone rubble of Auria. In the last few hours, they’d only reassembled part of an arm and the rippled folds of her cloak.

Jebat rubbed his temples. “The ineptitude is astounding, frankly.”

He raised his palm-wood wand, closing his eyes and swaying to the orchestral music. A velvine leapt from the sill to his shoulder, purple eyes flaring, caressing his throat with cool, potent breath. Pleasure washed over him, and his skin glowed brighter from within.

“Ané-akouventa.”

Though Jebat spoke perfect Vallish, magic was always strongest cast in one’s mother tongue.

The jagged debris leapt at the command, scurrying into a sensible order like soldiers into formation, and in moments Auria’s full form reassembled—all except her left ear.

Curse words rippled around the Healers.

“Find the ear,” said Jebat, tucking his wand inside his cloak with a satisfied grimace.

As he stalked back out of the hospital wing, several Enchanters followed, heads bowed.

“So what happened in the assessment?” Tiernan asked Saffron, leaning back in the cushioned armchair with a sigh. He couldn’t tear his eyes from Auria’s statuesque form. “After I ‘died.’”

Saffron scanned the room, but after Jebat’s whirlwind, there were only a couple of Healers left behind, tending to another patient in a faraway bed.

So she told Tiernan everything.

Everything,except for her magical immunity. That card had to be kept close to her chest.

But he listened, enthralled, as she described the battle, thepraegelosspell, the relic wand she’d found not in its original compartment but tucked into a Bloodmoon’s waistband.

At this, Tiernan groaned. “You were right. To think of thewhy.I should’ve listened to you and Auria.”

Tiernan was the most self-chastising person Saffron had ever met. She understood why—with a father like Kesven, he was so excruciatingly aware of his every flaw—but it became quite boring after a while.

“Obviously. But there’s something else,” she muttered lowly, before she could talk herself out of it. “When I touched that wand, I saw something. A prophecy, I think? And I don’t know if it was real or not.”

A small part of her twitched nervously. Should she be sharing all of this with Tiernan? He was a good person, and a good friend. She trusted him implicitly. And yet there was always the threat that he might share sensitive information about his cohort to win favor with his father. There was no precedent for this—as far as Saff was aware, he hadn’t shared so much as Auria’s tea preferences. But the staunch cynic tucked in the back of Saffron’s mind always wondered what it would take for Tiernan to betray her trust.

Surely he wouldn’t. Not after she’d switched envelopes with him in the assessment.

Tiernan blinked, pushing his owlish glasses up the bridge of his nose. “What kind of prophecy?”

“It was about me, and it was bad.” She pressed her lips together. “Do you think it could’ve been a genuine vision? I’m no Foreseer.”

Tiernan’s brow furrowed. “Auria’s the one with the comprehensive knowledge of such things. If anyone’s going to know about a relic in Augur Amuilly’s temple, it’s her. But I do know that genuine prophecies are rare, these days. Other than the King’s Prophet, there aren’tmany legitimate Foreseers left in Vallin. Although you know as well as I do that frauds abound.”

The streets of Atherin were rife with wheeled carts decked in flowers, where shawled old mages charged four ascens for a fate. But most of them were known nonsense, and it was mostly tourists and Ludders who fell into their trap.

“Say itwasa real vision.” Saff’s thoughts pirouetted as she tried to make sense of them. “Once a prophecy is cast … is it guaranteed to come to pass? Or is it more of a warning? Is it saying,If you continue down this path, this will happen?Or will it happen no matter what you do to try and stop it? No matter how hard you try to shift onto a different path?”