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power he’d witnessed this night. He was coming to understand the true nature of an arch mage’s power. Now he knew that the stories of old were not exaggerated myths and legends. They were true and literal. For the first time since he was a child, Jataan P’Tal felt a chill run up his spine.
    Kludge flew to the zombie demon inhabiting the corpse of the unfortunate soldier and seized him. An inky darkness grew to engulf them both followed by a thump that expanded outward like a shockwave. When it passed through Jataan, he felt an unearthly chill course through him, then the inky darkness faded like smoke and both Kludge and the demon were gone.
    “That ought to do it,” Phane said and started whistling to himself while he worked the cork loose from another bottle of wine.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
     
     
     
     
    Alexander’s mind kept skipping from one catastrophe to the next as he burst out of the room and past the guard at the door. He didn’t think about where he was going, he just went.
    Darius was dead. His big brother. His best friend. His protector. His confidant. His captain. It just didn’t make sense. How could he be dead? They were shooting at wolves just this morning.
    Phane was loose. Until an hour ago Phane was just a story about a long-dead and unspeakable evil, but the warning spell had changed all that. Now Alexander had a firm picture in his mind’s eye of the Reishi Prince and understood the dark nature of his character with a clarity that he frankly didn’t want. Alexander could only imagine the suffering Phane might cause. He was an arch mage from the time of the Reishi War. There was no one in all the Seven Isles as powerful as Prince Phane Reishi.
    Alexander could still feel the dull ache of the brand on his neck. He was marked by a curse. He’d been chosen by another long-dead arch mage to lead the Seven Isles against Phane … and Prince Phane, the only living arch mage in the whole world, knew it.
    Alexander couldn’t make his mind settle on any one of the three. The enormity of each was just too much to bear. He pushed it all away and focused on quieting his mind. He cleared it the way Lucky had taught him, this time not to explore or develop his limited understanding of magic but to keep his mind from considering the matters pressing in on him.
    He found himself standing on the turret of the watchtower. Alexander had always liked high places and often came here to think. This time he’d made his way here without even knowing where he was going. He stood resting his hands flat on the low stone wall of the turret.
    He stared up at the stars and let the cold air wash over him as he took slow deep breaths. Winter was half over. It would be time to start early planting in a few months. Alexander wondered if his world would ever be the same again.
    “I knew I should have come here first,” Abigail said softly as she silently glided up beside him. His sister was his best friend. She was a couple of years younger than him but she had enough self-assurance to hold her own with anyone. Abigail was also strikingly beautiful, a fact that worried Alexander when he saw how the ranch hands looked at her. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than him, had long silvery blond hair and pale blue eyes that seemed to see right through people. She wore a cloak to ward against the cold and looked sidelong at his shivering. “Come inside, you’ve got to be freezing.”
    He didn’t move.
    “Fine, I’ll just go get you a cloak then.” Abigail punctuated her statement with a look that said “I’ll show you,” then turned and strode off without so much as a rustle.
    Alexander stood there for a while just breathing and staring at the stars. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he assumed it was Abigail. No one else was likely to sneak up on him and he hadn’t heard anything.
    “I guess I am a little cold,” Alexander said as he turned to face his sister. What he saw was something else