Page 160 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Reina’s voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it when she spoke up. “Explain.”

“It drains it so they can give it to someone else.” He said it as though it should’ve been obvious. “They convinced your idiotic king that his Fae blood was corrupting him, like it has you.” His eyes moved to me and held. “Your king believed it. Started begging them to take it out of him.”

Thibault. The shadows at my feet stirred, circling like eager, bloodthirsty hounds ready to find new prey. I knew without being told that they’d been trying to get me weak and unguarded all this time so they could do the same thing to me.

“The Chancellor has been perfecting the device for years.”

So, this went all the way to the top of the Assembly. I’d known Maeron had dirty hands; this just confirmed it.

“How fucking long?” Reina demanded. “How long have they been doing this to people?”

He began to shrug, but the pain from his two broken arms halted the movement. “At least two decades.”

Reina didn’t make a sound. But when I turned, I saw that the blood had drained completely from her face. Grief over my mother had begun to overshadow the burning rage within her.

His lips were loose now. “They only realized how to make this one work well,” he said, the words coming faster now, sharpened by something that looked almost like satisfaction, “when that cursed artifact started wearing the prince of Darreth like a skin.” He swallowed.

Emrys.

When Emrys was young, he’d been kind, listened more than he spoke, and asked careful questions. He’d never bullied me even though I was younger than him and Nisien. His potential to be a strong and capable ruler was evident from a very young age.

Now he was impulsive, incredibly powerful, and dangerously violent because of an accident of fate. The most terrifying part of his situation was that the monster hadn’t taken the boy’s place. He was still in there.

“They cursed the king?” Camrick asked.

“No…” The assassin choked as he tried to laugh, half-hysterical from pain. “That artifact was what they wished they could make this device into.”

Everything became clear to me. The Assembly wanted a weapon. A god made flesh—even if it drove the recipient mad. But one thing didn’t make sense. “They told King Emrys they didn’t know what his curse was.”

The opportunity for revenge I’d just offered seemed to give the assassin strength. “They knew,” he said flatly. “Maybe not everything, but enough to recognize it and know that staying silent would benefit them. They have a library full of books on the Fae.”

So, Luna’s book wasn’t that unique after all.

“The ring he found was used to execute criminals. Every drop of magic and life was ripped out of them in an instant. The Fae believed they were stripping evil souls from the world by doing it.” His gaze held mine as if he wanted to be certain I understood. “The rings were all supposed to be destroyed once full. Thrown into the ocean or some such because of what they held, but it seems one survived.” The assassin’s smile twisted. It made me brace myself before he even spoke. “Parts of the people they drained were still in there.”

My stomach tightened. “What do you mean, still in there?”

“Parts of who they were are all stuck inside him. Murderers. Madmen. Abusers. All crowded together in a prison of flesh with no way out. Compressed into one new being of hatred and power.”

The shadows around me pulled back. Whatever had survived the stripping—the dregs of a condemned soul, still capable of rage and despair—were locked inside my friend. And Emrys had been fighting all of them, alone, since he was just a teenager. Not knowing what they were.

Gods below, he’d been living through a nightmare for years. He wasn’t cursed; he was outnumbered in his own body. Emrys had survived it by sheer will.

I had to stop moving. I stood there, staring at nothing, while the torchlight swam. I thought of every time I'd watched Emrys fight something invisible behind his eyes. Every time I'd been relieved it wasn't me. Every time I hadn't asked.

And now the Assembly wanted to make someone just like him by stripping me and my brother of our magic. They were trying to build a weapon that wouldn’t fight back like Emrys had.

I’d already guessed correctly about the assassin’s wife or daughter; now I thought I understood something else about him. “You know all this,” I said slowly, “because they used the device on you.”

He didn’t meet my eyes. There was a reason I’d thought him a low-level mage.

“How much did they take?” I asked.

“Enough.” His mouth twisted. “Magic comes back if they don’t kill you with it first. They’ve kept me drained for years.”

Reina let out a sigh that sounded relieved. She was worried about Richart.

“For money?” I asked.