‘You mean he didn’t choose to serve the Dark King?’ Will’s heart was pounding strangely. ‘He was forced to do it? Under some kind of spell?’
Will’s eyes swung to James in shock, and for a moment James was utterly exposed by the truth, his blue eyes wide and vulnerable, and in that single look Will could glimpse the pure youth he might have been, before the Dark King had warped and twisted him.
‘That is the power of the Collar! It takes the will of the Betrayer and replaces it with your own. Put it on him and you can make him yours … you can make him do anything. That’s how Sarcean kept him as a plaything in his bed at night, and by day sent him out to kill his own people.’
‘Please,’ said James. ‘Don’t give it to my father.’
The words seemed forced out of his throat. He looked stripped down to the bone, like a man taken apart, with nothing left. He was soaked with sweat, his damp hair falling into his face, his shirt wet.
‘Your father’s dead,’ said Will.
There was a flash of incomprehension on James’s face. ‘What?’
‘You didn’t know?’ Cyprian said bitterly. It was as if the spell of Gauthier’s words was broken, the smaller hurts of their own history intruding. ‘Did you think he escaped when the shadow came?’
‘The shadow?’ said James, and then, eyes widening, ‘Marcus turned?’
Hearing James say his brother’s name was too much for Cyprian, and he discarded his sword and dragged James to his feet.
‘Betrayer,’ said Cyprian, holding a fistful of James’s shirt. ‘You didn’t need a Collar. You served Simon of your own free will. You know exactly what happened in the Hall. You were there.’ And then, revolted: ‘Did you hear them die? Did you watch? Did it make you happy to kill your own family?’
‘I wasn’t there,’ James returned. ‘Emery let me out.’
Emery? Will thought of the shy, curly-haired novitiate who had been one of the first to be kind to him in the Hall. It seemed so unlikely, Will’s mind couldn’t make sense of it. But when he looked at James for any sign of subterfuge, he found none.
Cyprian’s grip tightened. ‘Why would Emery ever do that?’
‘Because he’s been in love with me since we were eleven. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.’
After a long, violent silence, Cyprian’s face twisted. He released James with a shove, sending him sprawling across the floor. Cyprian stalked off to the mantel and stood gathering himself, his back to them taut with tension, his arm braced on the wall.
‘Well, he’s dead,’ said Cyprian, after a long silence. ‘They’re all dead. Because of you.’
‘Because of me?’ James’s voice taunted him. ‘Because of Marcus. He’s the one who drank from the Cup.’
Cyprian turned. Will saw the knife of James’s smile and stepped hastily between them, remembering James in the Hall of the Stewards, inciting violence with just his words. He had to hold Cyprian bodily back. ‘Stop it. Stop. He wants this. He’s baiting you. Stop.’
Cyprian wrenched away, breathing hard. James was watching with a dangerously provocative expression, even sprawled as he was on his elbows, his hands manacled awkwardly behind him. Cyprian’s shove had pushed James a couple of feet further away from Will and the Collar, which perhaps had been the entire point.
Will turned to Gauthier. ‘You’re saying this Collar has the power to control a person.’
‘Not any person,’ said Gauthier. ‘Only him.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Plenty of fools have tried to put it on others. Some who crave submission have tried to put it on themselves. It doesn’t work. It was made for one person. To close around one throat.’
Weighing the Collar in his hand, Will looked right at James, who was staring back at him, eyes wide, though his gaze couldn’t help dropping to the Collar, his breathing shallow.
‘But it does have power,’ said Gauthier. ‘Men want it. The control it promises … The mastery … The command. Like dragons hoarding jewels, all who touch the Collar crave to possess it … Because they crave to possess him. And Simon … Simon wants it to secure his dominion. Simon has hunted me all these many years, seeking what is mine until there was no refuge and no rest.’
Will thought about Gauthier, driven to this dead, empty farmhouse. He could see it in Gauthier’s needy, grasping quality – the way he was almost hollowed out, as if his time with the Collar had sucked him dry of anything but the desire to take and to hold. The Collar was all he could think about, the one image burned in his mind.