Chills ran up my spine.‘Well, it must take a toll on him. All magic has a cost.’
‘Yes, but this man is very smart. All he has to do is push a thought that someone should be loyal to him. Obedient. Then they would do anything he asked without question.’
Oh crap.
I looked up at Godric. “He’s got control of people’s minds?”
Godric nodded. “And his army is ten times bigger than ours. After Kaelric’s father died, a lot of people loyal to his father fled the city. They became farmers and started families. Now our army is small.”
I frowned. ‘Well, is every person in the city loyal to this imposter? Every single one? That would take a lot of power.’
Godric nodded. ‘It would. Power he has, being part Elite, from the house of Solvaris.’
Nausea twisted in my gut. “No way.”
I knew he was part Elite. I didn’t know he was from the House of Solvaris.
Godric’s jaw tightened. “Corvessa had a powerful sister. This is her son. Corvessa disowned the sister after she lay with a wolfkin and had a child.”
Shock tore through me. “I thought wolfkin couldn’t have children with humans.”
Godric nodded. “They can’t. But an Elite isn’t fully human, are they? Not with magic running through their veins. Still, the pairing is not without repercussions. Catalina Solvaris lay one night with her wolfkin lover. By morning, he was dead, but the baby inside her grew. He has both wolfkin and powerful Elite magic.”
“So he can push a thought to an entire city and not be too weak,” I guessed.
“Yes. They say every Sunday he makes his rounds through the city, thanking people for their loyalty and reinforcing their obedience.”
Yikes. This went deeper than I expected. What Kaelric said last night was making more sense.
“Your woman on the inside… what if this imposter king gets to them?”
Godric exhaled heavily. “It may only be a matter of time. We’ve told her to avoid contact with the king at all costs. She seems to have some resistance to his magic, able to break away at times and do what she wants. At those times, she will write us a letter or follow an instruction we’ve given her, but then she will go weeks where she is under his spell. We aren’t sure if he needs to touch you, or if listening to his voice is enough, or eye contact. We don’t know how the magic works.”
My stomach tightened, and I chewed a fingernail, pacing
“What if I could get in there? Avoid the king, break out Elia’s mom?”
He shook his head. “Too risky. The king has over a thousand loyal soldiers and four thousand loyal citizens. If any one of them saw you escaping with Maelis, you’d be done for. Imagine a city with five thousand eyes all reporting to the king.”
I frowned. “Well, I could disguise her and myself and strike in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. He won’t even know I’m there.”
Godric’s jaw clenched, and something wild flashed across his face. I stepped back at the sudden, fierce anger radiating off him.
“It will never work, Brynn,” he snapped.
The sharpness of his tone startled me. I froze, heart tripping.
His face softened immediately, regret flickering there. He reached for me, voice low.
“I’m sorry. I’m not upset with you. As a brother, this is… hard for me.”
‘He’s not telling you something. Ask him why it wouldn’t work, because I think we can do it. In and out in one night. We will never see the king.’
“Val says we can be in and out. The king will never see us.”
Godric closed his eyes briefly. “It will never work because I’m told that the king sleeps with Maelis in his bed almost every night. She’s his favorite.”
The world seemed to tilt.
