"If Heaven's eye is on the sparrow, should not Hell's be on the raven?"
The Magistrate sat on his chair of stone and spike. A skinny dagger flipped back and forth in his gaunt hands, twisting between his bony fingers. It drew blood, but he continued the motion, amused. It made Faolan feel something between irritation and disgust. Blood was nothing to him, and he'd seen death walk before. But this man, for whatever unholy reason, left a vile taste on the murderer's tongue.
"Oh, what a pleasure it is to be worshipped. It's not all prayers and devotion. It's fear. Toil brings reverence, you surely know that. Who worships you? Not the girl. She's mine at the moment," the Magistrate gloated. "You thought you could escape my gaze, as a bird? The gods of the trees are easily fooled, I'll give you that."
"Again, with your gods, Julius. You're not one," Faolan quipped. "Your obsession with parallels annoys me. I can only guess your fixation is due to inadequacy."
Faolan's gaze was transfixed on the man in the mask. It never wavered, emotion contained in the dry, fiery pit behind his eyes. He could manipulate without opening his mouth, yet with Julius, his talents were pointlessly matched. The Magistrate's chin lowered.
"Inadequacy didn't rip you from the trees in which you hid. I told you to leave my land," he jeered.
"So, I did," the younger one snarked.
"Only your skull is thick enough to think I wouldn't include the sky."
The Magistrate's neck was hinging to the side. He took his bloodied hands and moved his head back in place, centering it with a sickening crack. Hell would be a mercy for this twisted creature. It was enough to make the most dispassionate nihilist believe in evil. Julius extended the knife, turning it hilt-side, handing it to Faolan.
"Cease your games," he remarked, taking the dagger. "I'm not so 'thick skulled,' that I've forgotten the look of a corpse. I know the knife has no power over you."
"Ha – so you do. This isn't a test, my friend. It's a gift. A mercy, if you will. She's softened you. If you're ever to regain your power, you need to sever the bond while you can. Use it while she sleeps, or use it in vain to defend her. Fight alongside the peasants, while you're at it. Entertain yourself with blood."
"We are not bound," Faolan hissed in return. He hid growing concern behind a cool façade.
"So, you say. I'm no fool. I know the ways of the Amari kings. You creatures are bloody swans, the way you mate for life! Filled with the Darkness, yet so soft you wither when the woman dies. I rule my women the way I rule my empire. I take as many as I like, keep them as my slaves, and pay no mind when they stop breathing. Love is weakness."
"Something we agree on," Faolan replied, playing with the knife similarly. The steel of the blade was like ice in his hands, the hilt carved with snarling wolves. It didn't reek of enchantment, only death. "Do you take me for my brother? Do I lose myself over the first woman that fate brings me? Do I bind myself to her, that I may weep every time she pricks her finger?"
"'Pricks her finger.' What an interesting notion..." Julius mused. "So passionate about something you care so little. I tell you the truth, shapeshifter. You're more like your brother than you know. I know your weakness. It's in the girl's blood, mixed with the fae you Amar always bring to your beds."
"She's no fae, and I'm not my brother!"
"My words haven't flustered you, have they? Oh no..." the King mocked. "I knew she did something to your heart, but I didn't know you've become her advocate. I can assure you, I'm not leaving her alone, now."
"She's a lamb, for Plateau's sake! I care nothing for her. Just let her be, and I'll leave your land."
"You care nothing of her, yet when a man looks at her with lust you turn his hand into a claw. She's no innocent, young king. Didn't you say the same, once? 'Innocence is born of ignorance. She can no longer call herself ignorant in this – so why should I spare her?'"
"Briar has seen nothing. She knows nothing of my true nature," he lied.
"She's seen a raven grow into a phoenix. That's good enough."
He clutched the wolfish handle. With each word the Magistrate uttered, he bore down on it harder. One of the etched teeth caught his thumb. The blood came out red, then black. The Magistrate stood up, dragging the sides of his dead, bony feet.
"I may not be a god, but there are many, many devils."
Faolan lunged at him in anger, but the corpse disappeared before the knife touched flesh. He was back on the moors, in his weakened, half-form. The Magistrate's cackle howled with the wind. His guise floated into a passing carriage. He watched the girl shivering inside. He remained with her as a ghost.
She left the cloth over her eyes for hours, numb and shaking, moist air coming in through holes in the canvas. Summer rains chilled her, slowing the carriage. It gave Briar a brief hope that the downpour would trap the wheels, offering a chance for escape. There was no such luck. The sound beneath them was of pebbles, not mud. The vehicle continued smoothly, a new road in the bogs for the Magistrate's men. There was a welt on her neck that haunted him.
"An eye for her eye, a tooth for her tooth," he muttered. "The Darkness couldn't dream such perfect revenge for my crimes."
He manifested himself just enough to touch her forehead. She shuddered when he did, believing the feeling was a hallucination. He saw inside her troubled mind, into pain and terror. His grasp was fading, the ghostly state overtaking him once more. Damn the Magistrate, he seethed. He uttered words in Amari that Briar heard as a cadence of raindrops.
"Tek ma losh-nya..." he whispered in her ear. The words didn't come with the sinister seduction they once did. "Sleep, my keep."
She rested her feverish head on wooden slats, holding her knees as the drowsiness grew. Every motion of the wagon jolted her, but she became used to the throbbing. The wheels clacked with the maddening repetition of the spinning machines. Briar tuned it out, eyes open to the blackness of the blindfold until it engulfed her.
If he couldn't touch her in waking, he could still touch her dreams.