The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22), Christopher Nuttall [books to read romance TXT] 📗

Whitehall - or whoever had worked out what she’d done to take control of the nexus point - had done an astonishing job. Nearly a thousand years later, Whitehall’s control of its nexus point was still unrivalled. Only Heart’s Eye came close.

“Emily,” Void said. She could sense him now, a steady presence far too close to the pillars for comfort. His voice was eerily calm, somehow audible over the roaring in her ears; his power seemed to blur into the storm until it was hard to see where one ended and the other began. “Come. Step into the light.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

EMILY STARED AT HER MENTOR AS her legs moved forward, seemingly of their own accord.

Void looked... taller, more there, than ever before. He wore a simple black robe, with an amulet dangling around his neck, his dark hair blurring into the robe until he looked like a hooded ghost. His sharp face was carefully bland, despite the magic crackling through the air. He was wrapped in spells, each linked to the nexus point... somehow bypassing the protections she’d installed, years ago. She could sense endless stratas of power roaring past her, climbing to infinity.

She stopped on the edge of the chamber and stared, a wellspring of emotions bubbling up within. She wanted to believe that it was just another test, that he’d pushed her to the limits to teach her a lesson, but... she couldn’t make herself believe it. Void had taken the school and everyone inside, from the students to the grandees, almost effortlessly. Sweat prickled on her back as she looked at him, all too aware it was real. Whatever he was doing was real. And...

A hundred questions welled up in her mind. She wanted to scream and shout, to demand to know what the hell he was doing, to make him feel the pain of betrayal... the pain he’d heaped on her. He’d cared about her. He’d treated her like a daughter as well as an apprentice. He’d... she’d thought he’d cared. He’d saved her life, introduced her to a whole new world, given her power and insight and something she was good at... had it all been a lie? The questions died on her tongue. She could only force out a single word.

“Why?”

Void met her eyes evenly. “Why what?”

Emily felt a hot flash of anger that burned through her pain. “Why” - she waved a hand at the nexus point, and the band of spells surrounding it - “why this? Why... everything? Why...?”

She gritted her teeth. “You betrayed me,” she managed. The words threatened to catch in her throat, as if she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around everything that had happened. “Why?”

I thought you cared, her thoughts added. Her legs shook, as if she wanted to fall to her knees and cry. I thought you cared about me.

She forced herself to think straight. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking over,” Void said. His voice was very calm, but she thought she heard a hint of relief. “By the time dawn rises, the Allied Lands will have a single ruler. Me.”

“Why?” Emily scrabbled for fragments of memory. “I thought you didn’t care to rule.”

“I don’t,” Void said. “But someone has to do it.”

He waved his hand, conjuring a pair of chairs. “You may as well sit down,” he said. “I have a lot to say.”

“I’d rather stand,” Emily said. She tried not to show how shaken she was by the display of power. He was tapping into the nexus point directly, rather than using his own magic to produce the chairs. “Why... why are you doing this? What possible justification can you offer for... for everything?”

Void didn’t seem bothered by her tone. “Let me tell you a story,” he said. He sat, trying not to look threatening. “My brothers and I - half-brothers, technically - were experiments. We were supposed to push the limits of magic, but instead... two of us died and the third wound up blind. He went into education and eventually became Grandmaster of Whitehall. Me? I did my duty. I defended the Allied Lands.”

His face hardened, just for a second. “I’ve been cleaning up their messes for a long time. Kings who thought they could experiment with forbidden magics and get away with it. Princes so desperate to inherit that they summoned creatures from the Darkness that inevitably got out of control. Queens and princesses so sick of being treated like brood mares that they called on the deepest and darkest magics in hopes of building a better life for themselves. Aristocrats who did the same, who used dark spells or sparked wars for their own enhancement. And commoners, too, who were so sick of being unable to rise they sought to remove the topmost layer.

“You have no idea how much I’ve done, over the years. The madman who thought he could transplant himself into every living soul, the king who believed he could make the entire kingdom swear a binding oath to himself, the border lords who started wars in hopes of making a name for themselves... when the Mediators failed, it was me they called. I cleaned up their messes, Emily. And they hated me for it.”

Emily found her voice as she leaned on a chair. “Why?”

“The alliance is built on a lie,” Void told her. “The Allied Lands are supposed to stand united against the necromancers. But the necromancers were on the far side of the mountains, unable to break through and lay waste to the north. They played their petty political games, each one risking an outbreak that might allow the necromancers to get into our land or summon something worse. They put their desire for power ahead of everything else, including bare survival. If the necromancers had had the ability to play politics, they would have played the kingdoms against each other until the Allied Lands had completely destroyed their ability to resist.

“They hated me because they needed me. And because I kept telling them the truth.

“We had