“Holy shit,” Layla spoke, glancing up at all that glittering opulence and feeling like the hand of death was suspended above her now.
“Nothing I do is whimsy,” Arini spoke darkly, his gaze intent upon her. “Not on the battlefield, and not in my home. All those luminous barriers you see shoring up my fortress contain spells of destruction for anyone not invited. Every feather fetish and mobile contains blasting-power to char an enemy. Spells researched, practiced, and incanted by me over thousands of years. Phoenix are the most talenteddrachansspell-masters outside of Blood Dragons. And I use that talent, to its utmost degree.”
“So how can Hunter get in your fortress?” Layla asked, curious as to where all this was going. “If it’s so well fortified with magical spells, how does he dodge them?”
“Because he doesn’t need to dodge them.” Arini sighed sadly, smoothing his talons over the nest again. “Hunter is the ultimate mimic of faces, irises, even scents. And not only that. When he kills someone… he can mimic their magic.”
“What?” Layla breathed. Inside, her Dragon roared up in anger, though it was still stifled by Reginald’s pearls. And yet, though King Arini’s revelation was shocking, it also made sense. Hunter had killed Adam Rhakvir as a child, and had been able to mimic Adam’s magic to such a degree that not even his own clan had suspected the imposter.
Only Heathren Merkami had suspected, though he’d never been able to prove anything.
“I do not know how his magical mimicry is done, for such a thing is thought impossible.” Arini spoke again, a hard set to his lean shoulders as he gripped one taloned hand into the feathered nest. “Whether Hunter is some anomaly of magic or simply a great study, he has found a way. When he kills someone, he learns the vibrational imprint of their magic to such a degree that he can mimic it with near-perfect precision. And he once used that mimicry to gain invitation to my fortress. From which we have subsequently never been able to block him.”
“How?” Layla asked, breathless with interest, though a dark trepidation writhed in her. “If he killed one of your Phoenix and mimicked them, wouldn’t you have been able to find a body and figure it out eventually? Or discover Hunter through questioning or something?”
“No. Because the person he killed – was me.” Arini spoke softly.
Layla gave a slow out-breath, seeing the depth of the problem and how much it destabilized the Aviary. “He can mimic you. He can wear other faces but mimic your magic when he comes in here, or just simplybe you… and the wards in the Aviary don’t know the difference. No matter how much you change them, those wards are imprinted to you. To your magic.”
“And to Hunter’s magic, when he takes my imprint.” Arini spoke darkly, his gaze digging into Layla. “Though my wards keep the rest of my enemies out and keep the fortress hidden, my efforts are useless against Hunter.”
“But how did he kill you?” Layla asked. “And how are you not actually dead?”
“That is a long tale.” King Arini gave a wry smile, adjusting his lounging posture in the nest. “It was on the battlefield during the War of Five Giants, over a thousand years ago. I was leading the Phoenix army with my most trusted against the Blue Giants of inner Mesopotamia. We were in the middle of a vicious battle, when one of my generals turned on me. He tore into me with beak and talons, his eyes bled to a dark hunter-green from their usual gold. I didn’t understand the change at the time, though I do now. We plummeted to the earth out of the sky as we fought, and at the last moment, Hunter released me to crash upon the serrated rocks below.”
“He broke you, but it wasn’t enough to kill you,” Layla breathed.
“Oh, but it was.” Arini eyed her darkly. “I was crushed, my insides pulped and my flesh rent from Hunter’s talons. He flew down to my side as I died, placing his beak over mine and inhaling. I felt like my very essence was being ripped away. All the deepest parts of myself twisted, screaming in a way I’d never felt before. I’d died over the years, but this was something else – a dark magic I had never faced. As he ripped my Phoenix-essence away, devouring it, the last spark of my magic resisted. I burst into flame, charring into ash. He couldn’t inhale me any longer, but the damage was done.”
“He had mimicked your magic.”
“Yes.” Arini nodded. “By devouring and digesting it, I believe.”
“But why did he want your magic? Was this when you were a Bind?” Layla asked.
“No. This was before I ever became a Bind. I don’t know why Hunter wanted my magic; he did not act upon his new abilities right away. Centuries later, when I did resurrect with Bind powers, he finally used my resonance. He was able to get inside my fortress, simply by becoming me and walking right in. Every feather on his body pointed the way; every resonance inside him allowed him to cross my barriers. And then he killed, and hid the bodies, and took their faces. And so it went – a madhouse of mimicry that decimated all those closest to me at that time, as he tried to convince me to partner with him in his aims.”
“But…” Layla’s mind spun, trying to process all this information and store it to tell the Intercessoria later. She pushed up from the nest, sitting cross-legged as she chewed her lower lip, thinking. “How could Hunter imitate Adrian’s magic to kill Sylvania? Adrian’s not dead. Hunter never killed him.”
“Adrian believes it was Hunter who killed his mother.” Arini’s glance was pointed as he replied. “Adrian and Juliette had very similar powers. Hunter was powerful when I knew him centuries ago, to be able to imitate the magic of someone he’d murdered. But now… I believe his power has matured, to be able to imitate the magic of thefamilyof those he kills. Killing Juliette would have given him Royal Desert Dragon magic very similar to Adrian’s, and an ability to make a deeply educated guess at the imprint of Adrian’s magic – if he’d been allowed access to Adrian for a long enough time.”
“Hunter took the form of Adrian’s cousin Adam since they were kids,” Layla spoke quietly, horrified as a black pit of fear and rage opened up inside her. “We thought he’d taken a person close to the Rhakvir family just to learn Adrian’s secrets and business dealings. But what if… what if he did it so he could stay close to Adrian, long enough to mimic Adrian’s magic? And kill using Adrian’s face? Or maybe even Dusk’s?”
That last thought sent shivers through Layla, her whole world feeling like it had suddenly turned upside-down.
“It seems likely,” Arini spoke darkly. “Hunter is a cunning creature, Layla. I would put nothing past him, not even such a long-con as growing up for one hundred and fifty years as a Desert Dragon in order to study Adrian and become able to kill like him. Or anyone else he had significant contact with during that time. Dusk Arlohaim lost his father during the Egyptian-Tunisian Crystal War. We have no proof that it was not Hunter who killed Dusk’s father Omar Arlohaim during that conflict – perhaps learning Arlohaim family abilities also.”
“My god.” Layla breathed, glancing up at Arini. “When Dusk examined Sylvania’s body, he said it had beenvibrated apartfrom within. It held Adrian’s magical imprint and scent, but Adrian professed up and down that his power couldn’t do such a thing.”
“But Dusk’s power can.” King Arini took a deep inhalation. “Dusk can vibrate someone apart from deep inside; I know, because he has confessed this to me. He is afraid of his Crystal King learning the extent of his abilities and coming after him. He wanted me as an ally, if that ever came to pass. And yet, we may be comforted that Hunter cannot be in two places at once. We know one of his most recent aliases as Adam Rhakvir. Anywhere that you or I have seen Adam around company, we can be reasonably certain that that company was not Hunter.”
“But just because we saw someone in Adam’s company once doesn’t mean Hunter hasn’t killed them and stolen their magic since.” Layla countered. “Or killed one of their family and become able to imitate them.”
“True.” King Arini’s words were soft, his gaze tired now as he pushed up from his lounging position into a cross-legged seat like Layla. “Why do you think I am so cagey, Layla Price? It’s not because I fear the world. I don’t. It’s because I don’t know whom I can trust, and I can only make guesses these days as to who really is whom they say they are, and who is not.”
“Can your scenting of the winds still pick out Hunter?”
“Yes.” King Arini spoke, a fierce glitter in his gold eyes now. “I still smell the void-shadow when he changes faces. At least he has not been able to hide that, not completely.”
