He would need to sift fact from theatrical exaggeration. He would need prime sources, including first-person, eye-witness reports, as well as the most trustworthy scholarly assessments he could find to rule on their authenticity.
Even so, Malefic felt a manic excitement begin to overtake him.
Perhaps this development would not be such tragic news.
Perhaps it was not bad news at all.
What other family could shepherd such a powerful entity to his full potential?
What other father could turn a supposed curse into unprecedented greatness? If successful, he, Malefic, would secure his own name in the Bones historical annals as one of their absolute greatest. Perhaps eventhegreatest, at least since the time of the Pharaohs.
He would secure their family legacy forever.
More to the point, if Malefic could make use of the child in the way he hoped, it might finally mark the true end to the Age of Shadows. He, alone, might finally end the plague that hung over both worlds since the time of the earliest recorded histories of either.
Whatever Rontu believed, that level of power could never beonlyprofane. For those too weak to wield it, of course it appeared a curse. For those who dared, it was something else.
A challenge? Perhaps.
A cross to bear, particularly in times of strife? Quite probably.
But a curse? No. Malefic would not believe it.
It would not be a curse to him. It would not be so for any withBonesblood pumping through their veins, and the will to create a better world from sheer will.
Malefic had sworn his life to a cause greater than even that of the family, which the gods themselves well knew. They would only ever gift him such a child for one purpose, that the Great Rend might finally be healed.
If Malefic gavethatto his people, his name would surpass that of Eustacia Morwormer Bones herself. It would surpass the Pharaohs and all their servants. It would make Malefic a Pharaoh himself. He would be the greatest Magical to have ever lived.
He would usher in a New Golden Age.
A smile began to grow on Malefic’s lips as he loosened his fingers from Rontu’s throat, then removed them altogether. He watched the eyes of the rat-faced Obeah blink as his face sagged in visible relief. Rontu sucked in breaths as subtly as he could, even as his face remained red and slightly puffy.
Malefic felt some slight regret for what must come next.
Rontu was no warrior. He was not even a Magical, not truly, although he had been birthed by Magical parents. Obeah were, ironically enough, a different kind of genetic aberration, but Rontu and those like him were still widely perceived as assets to the race. It’s why all the great Magical nations contributed to the upkeep of the Sanctum, and why they compensated the Obeah well for their contributions. Obeah remained servants,like Warlocks and Oracles, and like the other two lower castes, they generally knew and understood their place.
Therefore, it was unfortunate to lose one with talent.
It was unfortunate to lose one so experienced and highly trained.
It never felt good to destroy anything useful, whether Magical or beast or something between. Rontu’s loss would be felt.
Perhaps for the same reason, Malefic didn’t use his considerable abilities at mind-reading to know what the other male was thinking right then.
It no longer mattered.
Whether the Representative planned to tell another about Malefic’s newborn son already, or if he schemed to hold the information over the Bones family for favors, or if he habitually talked in his sleep, or talked unwisely when he drank too much, or when he bedded whoever consented to bed an Obeah, even a well-respected one like Rontu… none of that mattered now.
The Representative may not be thinking those things at this very moment, with Malefic standing in front of him, but it would occur to him atsomepoint to think them, and Malefic had not gotten where he was by taking risks.
He drew a knife from his belt, one encrusted in emeralds and sapphires that had belonged to his grandfather, Andreas Neverloch Noxious Bones. He didn’t pause even a breath, but angled it precisely as soon as it had cleared the golden sheath.
He struck without any change in his heart rate.
He drew the sharpest part of the blade once, precisely, across the Senior Inquisitor’s throat. Malefic moved so quickly, the other did not seem to see the blade before it made its cut.
As it should be. Unnecessary suffering in the course of dispensing of one’s useful beast was the mark of a brute and abarbarian. Suffering, pain, even torture, all had their place, but that place was not here.
