“But if you’re unwilling to do it the easy way, I won’t hesitate to lock you in there with it,” I added.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Zara cut in. “Maybe there’s a way we can all help each other?”
Caelen was silent, and I knew even that wouldn’t be enough to convince him. “In order for the king of Mistral to know that creature is here, there must have been a spy, because word hasn’tspread beyond the mountain. I tend not to notice servants, like everyone else, which makes your position here perfect for gathering intel.” I leaned toward him. “I may not be very observant of servants, but I remember seeing you. You were the one who retrieved the emperor’s journal. I’m sure you read it before the head steward and I came upon you. You positioned yourself close to the emperor this whole time. You wanted to be close by when your king sent word.”
Caelen’s gaze shifted to Zara’s and back to mine. “I am a servant, as you see, Commander. If I were a spy, then I’d be put to death by the emperor the moment I revealed myself.”
I didn’t let his words sway me. There could be other servants who had features similar to his, but then I remembered his reaction to what was in the west wing, and I knew I was right. I pushed on. “You have my word as an Eagle Rider you won’t be executed. We will need your help if the emperor is to accomplish the impossible task your king has given him.”
Caelen looked at Zara again, and she nodded in encouragement. “You have my word as First Daughter—however helpful that may be,” she said, “for your protection.”
At last, Caelen said, “I have been here six months now. I was sent originally to assess the war between the empire and the Children of Earth, and I was there in the throne room the day Emperor Altair brought the Devourer to the palace. It was clear the emperor had no idea what devastating evil he’d unleashed.”
I held very still. He’d used the same name we did. So the people of Mistral still remembered—the knowledge lived on. Perhaps that was why they still feared it. “Your people call it the Devourer.”
“Yes, for that is what the creature does. It is drawn to the darkness in a person’s heart, and when it finds someone who hassuccumbed to the shadows, someone who has given in to despair, then it grows in power alongside that person.”
Zara was watching me closely, but I couldn’t spare her a glance. I had suspected from the moment I first saw the creature that it was the one from legend, but hearing Caelen call it this made it real. Real enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Zara and I shared a look. I knew she thought of the conversation we had just had about Altair murdering his father. “It goes by Ozul to the emperor.”
“It goes by many names,” Caelen said, “but none know its true name.”
“But even as far as Mistral you know it by the Devourer?” Zara asked, her face pale and worried. “Has the creature ventured so far abroad?”
Caelen was quiet before saying, “Our king knows many things about this land, and the Devourer is one of many he is versed in.”
“Then he should know that freeing ourselves of the creature now is nearly impossible,” I said.
Caelen shrugged as though it wasn’t his problem. “Rest assured the king meant every word of his letter.”
“Your king seems to know a lot about the Devourer,” Zara said. “Do you have the same knowledge?”
“I am well versed in everything having to do with that creature, yes, in order to know what signs to look for.”
“All right,” Zara said in more patient a tone than I could have managed, “then why don’t you tell us what we can do to weaken it?”
“I would take away its food source, for one thing,” Caelen said, a hint of a scoff to his tone, lighting a spark of irritation through me like a match.
“It’s a little late for that—many have already been sacrificed tothis creature,” I said with an edge to my voice. “How does the sorcerer devour souls?”
“It feeds off the energy from a soul, but in its current form, that’s barely enough to sustain it. Make no mistake, though, it’s building its power. Eventually it will have enough energy to build an army of walking corpses. It is the Devourer. Of souls. Of armies. Of whole civilizations.”
“How can we stop it?” Talon asked.
“The creature was at its weakest when your future emperor first sought him out,” Caelen said. “Now is your last chance. If it should gain the soul of someone more powerful than a servant—like the First Daughter,” he said with a glance my way, “then your chances of defeating it shrink to nil. The emperor, too, has made sure it has a steady diet of souls by sending servants down to the dungeon regularly.”
Zara and I exchanged a grim look. After Raven’s attack, we didn’t need Caelen’s confirmation—we already knew it was true. “Those orders may not have come from the emperor himself,” I said, though the words felt thinner each time I repeated them. “Lord Heron is involved in this, too.”
“Regardless of who’s giving the orders, many servants have been sacrificed already,” Caelen said grimly.
“Those poor people,” Zara whispered. Her voice trembled, thick with unshed tears, and she pressed a hand to her mouth as if trying to hold in the weight of it.
“What are its weaknesses?” I asked.
“Before it amasses its army, it can be killed like a mortal man. Once it becomes powerful enough to form its army of the walking dead, it can only be destroyed after each soul it consumed is released.”
“Are you saying that however many souls it has consumed is how many times we have to deliver a killing blow?”
“Correct. When it’s at full strength.”
