Forged in Blood I ee-6
Page 39
Still following the women’s route of origin, he turned into a dead-end corridor. He’d seen a few of those dead ends twenty years earlier, in those ancient tunnels, and he knew there could be doors even in spots where they weren’t apparent. He touched the wall when he reached it, and symbols flared to life. He’d seen them before, too-had watched Professor Komitopis open numerous doors. Though years had passed, many of those events from that strange mission were indelibly imprinted on his mind, and he found the right combination on the first try.
It wasn’t a door, but a lift, and the floor rose, carrying him to a new level. He waited in a ready stance, a dagger in each hand, but the room he entered was empty of the living. The air smelled of charred flesh and blood, though, and he stepped off the lift and around the bodies of guards. Another body lay facedown on the floor on the opposite side of a room, the skin and clothing burned off, features seared past the point of recognition, though it was a feminine form. Something under its torso glinted, and a sick sense of dread made Sicarius’s belly quiver as he glanced at his own raw arm, remembering the shaman’s power. What if Amaranthe had been trying to control the vessel and that woman with the shaman… had been determined that she not?
Sicarius sheathed his daggers, or maybe he dropped them-he was barely thinking-and walked forward. Slowly. If the craft was about to explode, he wasn’t sure he cared.
He tried to kneel by the form, but his legs gave out-whether from his injures or loss of blood or frostbite, he didn’t know-and he tumbled to the floor. From his knees, he rolled over the body. The flesh was still warm, blood and pus oozing from cracks, but the eyes and face had been burned away, and the chest no longer rose and fell. The garments, too, had fallen to ashes, and the only thing that remained was a silver chain and medallion, the slitted eyes of a Kendorian lizard staring up at him. The medallion Amaranthe had been wearing as part of her costume.
Sicarius didn’t know how long he sat there, but his blood was pooling on the floor, a lot of it. If he wanted to live, he ought to bandage his wounds. He rubbed his face with a shaking hand, not sure he cared any more. About living. For so long Sespian had given him purpose, something to work to protect, a reason to be in the world. And then Amaranthe, though he’d done so little to encourage her, had insinuated herself into his life, and he’d had another reason to be, another reason to think the world might grow more interesting later on. And now…?
He found himself lying on his back, moisture-blood-seeping through his shirt as he stared at the black ceiling high above. He’d long suspected the world would be a better place without him in it. Maybe this was some sort of cosmic fate, finally catching up with him for all he’d done.
A soft whisper of sound reached his ears. More out of reflex than because it mattered, Sicarius turned his head toward the lift. He was too numb to react with surprise or fear or pain when a solitary man walked onto the floor.
Hands clasped behind his back, the silver-haired Nurian practitioner strode across the room, his vibrant robes flowing about him, his weathered face grim. He stopped a few feet away and stared down at Sicarius.
A fitting end, Sicarius thought. His wounds might not have been enough to finish him, but the practitioner could ensure his death.
“You have been nettlesome,” the man said in his native tongue.
Yes, Sicarius thought, I have. “Then end it,” he whispered in Nurian.
A single silver eyebrow rose. “Oh, I don’t think so. You’ve robbed me of my bodyguard and my beast of burden when my mission here is far from complete. I will need another to fill those roles.”
The words percolated slowly through Sicarius’s battered mind, and it wasn’t until the wizard removed his hands from behind his back that their meaning sank in. He lifted an exotic opal between thumb and forefinger, its black, orange, and greens arresting even before he murmured something under his breath, and the stone began to glow. The practitioner lowered it to Sicarius’s temple, pressing it against the skin. It was warm. More, it caused a strange tingle to run straight into his brain.
Sicarius should have lifted his arm, should have knocked that stone away, but either the practitioner or the loss of blood kept his limbs from responding. Instead the tingle grew hotter and more intense, as if the opal were burning its way into the side of his head. Abruptly the fire went out, and a quenching relief flared from the stone.
“It is done.” The practitioner nodded. “You are mine now.”
Through no intent of his own, Sicarius felt his gaze being pulled to the side until he stared into the other man’s deep brown eyes, eyes as dark and inscrutable as his own.
“You will obey me,” the practitioner said. “Understood?”
Against his wishes, Sicarius whispered, “I will obey.”
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-4edf72-892f-b140-21b8-145a-fb55-ffaa63
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 12.08.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.43, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Buroker, Lindsay
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