“Langorian,” Lareth hissed, way too close; the spit flying off his lips hit the back of my neck as he spoke. “Identify yourself.”
“My apologies,” Malaq responded, voice and eyes equally impassive. “I did attempt introductions, but the Shinree wasn’t interested. Not that I’m surprised.” Malaq waved a dismissive hand in my direction. Nonchalantly brushing his cloak back, he rested a hand on the hilt of the sword belted on his left hip. “I believe we came here for the same reason, Arullan. Shall we get on with it?”
Lareth hesitated. “You’re here for the witch as well?”
Malaq pulled his sword. The scabbard was elaborately etched. The blade was incredibly shiny and elegant, but it was far from flimsy. I could see exactly how strong the steel was as he pointed it at my face. “I certainly didn’t come for the food.”
“Fine,” Lareth grumbled. I will allow you the kill. But the body is mine.”
Malaq’s Kaelish lilt turned serious. “My kill, my body.”
“All but the head,” Lareth countered. “I came a long way for it.”
“I don’t know,” Malaq grimaced. “Why not take the heart instead? That’s always a bold statement.”
Stuck between them and their swords, as they continued to argue over who got which pieces of me, my muscles were twitching. I couldn’t see Lareth, but Malaq’s sword arm wasn’t wavering in the least. There was zero tension in him. His face betrayed nothing of what he intended. He had yet to give me any clear signal to indicate if we were on the same side, or that he cared in the least whether I lived or died.
Still, I wasn’t worried. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but Malaq had an undefined way about him that wanted me at ease. Maybe it was the lack of malice or threat coming off him. More likely, it was how dangerously close I was standing to the end of his sword. It gave me a vantage point Lareth didn’t have. One that I hoped explained exactly what Malaq was up to.
“Nice weapon,” I said, disrupting their exchange. “Very fancy.”
Malaq’s sharp eyes snapped to mine. “Yes, it is.”
“Custom made?”
“My own design.”
“It’s very,” I gave him a deliberate look, “subtle.”
Malaq didn’t reply. His expression, which was a complete lack of expression, stayed the same. Nevertheless, I sensed he understood my meaning and knew that I’d noticed the secret his sword held; a well-concealed second blade that rode discreetly along the underside of the first. Made to rest perfectly in the furrow of the main blade, the slender, miniature sword was practically invisible at anything but a fatally close range. It appeared to be activated by a trigger woven into the folds of an elaborate basket hilt, so detailed and intricate, it provided the perfect camouflage.
“Bet it cost you,” I said. “Mind if I get a closer look?” Malaq extended the weapon. As the tip nearly touched my left eye, I fought against moving. “Do you know how to use it?”
He chuckled as he lowered the blade to my neck. “I am an expert swordsman.”
“Just because you carry a sword, Langorian, doesn’t make you an expert.”
“Then I suppose I should give you a demonstration.”
“Anytime,” I told him.
With that, Malaq pulled the trigger. He activated the hidden blade and it popped out so fast, by the time I dropped to the floor and looked up, steel was already penetrating the dark flesh of Lareth’s throat. Just as quick, Malaq retracted the weapon. Grasping the hilt in both hands, with a furious swing, he slashed the main blade across Lareth’s stomach, splitting the Arullan near in half and sending out a sweeping burst of blood to shower the air. Bits fell like hail. The corpse hit the dirt floor beside me and a warm, wet cloud rose up, covering me in enough dust and gore to change my skin tone.
“What the hell?” I coughed out. I gave Malaq a hostile glare. “How about a little warning the next time you’re about to drop a body on top of me?”
“You’re welcome.” Already cleaning off his blade, he gave me a distracted, cursory glance. “I suppose you are a little gruesome. But it’s nothing a bath won’t cure.”
Using a sleeve to wipe my face, I got to my feet. “All right. Let’s do it.”
“Do what?” His tone said I confused him. The matching expression wasn’t on his face though (nothing was), so I couldn’t tell if it was real or not.
“You really didn’t come here to fight me?”
“Why would I do that? I just went to a lot of trouble to save your life.”
I grunted. “I don’t have time to pull the truth out of you, Langorian, so do us both a favor and go. Take the stairs. Last room on your right has an exit to the roof. There’s a hay cart that comes through most nights about this time. It’ll cushion your jump.”
Still tending his blade, Malaq’s eyebrow lifted again. “While I’d love to hear the no doubt, nefarious, story as to how you know all that,” he glanced up and smiled thinly at me, “the front door is really more my style.”
“Go right ahead.” I motioned to the exit. Danyon’s mob looked considerably less organized, but they were still blocking it. “Maybe they’ll step aside if you ask nicely.” When Malaq didn’t reply, or make like he was leaving. I got blunt. “Having a Langorian at my back in a fight doesn’t sit well,” I told him.
“I see.” He gave no outward indication of disapproval, but I could feel it. “Well, if you’re planning on using that,” his eyes wandered to the obsidian, “you might want to reconsider. Things could get out of control fast.”
Suspicion sent my hand to the shard. “You know what this is? Where it comes from?” I didn’t wait for his answer. “Who the hell are you?”
“Kael’s new Peace Envoy.” Malaq slid his sword away. He discarded another bloody rag on another body. “Newly appointed by King Sarin not a week past.”
“An ambassador,” I said, not overly surprised. “So that’s what you were doing when you killed Danyon? Promoting peace?”
“I was trying to keep you in one piece. Not that you seem to appreciate it.” Almost imperceptibly, Malaq’s eyes tightened. He turned toward the closest window and peered out at the night. He seemed distracted. “You hear that?”
I listened a moment. The wind was picking up. “It’s just a storm.” But in the time it took for me to say that, the breeze outside had evolved into persistent, long, violent gusts. Increasingly intense, they roared over the building. Shutters started clattering. They banged open and clouds of debris smacked against the closed windows. Cracks formed in the panes, crawling like web across the glass.
The entire building rumbled and shook. The wood bowed. The door quivered on its hinges and flung open just as every window in the place exploded inward. Glass flew, and the raging gale rushed unfettered into the Wounded Owl. It swept the tavern with such force that anything lacking weight immediately went airborne. Shelves were cleaned of their contents and ripped off the walls. Chairs and tables were whisked across the floor. Dust swirled up from the ground and everyone that wasn’t already hiding took cover.
I fought to stand against the onslaught, to keep track of where my enemies were scurrying off to, but one by one, the candles were going out. Then the fire in the hearth went cold and the room sunk into blackness.
The door slammed shut and I jumped. All at once the wind disappeared, the walls stopped quaking, and the wood stopped groaning. Everything that was being tossed fell with a crash and the only sound remaining was the whispered murmurings of fear.
“Troy…” Malaq said cautiously. I turned toward his voice, squinting into the gloom, and a glow flared up between us. It took form and became a small sphere of yellow light.
Suspended in mid-air, about the size of a wagon wheel, the sphere was hot and hard to look at, but it wasn’t anything close to fire. It wasn’t solid either. The edges were running, dripping light like a candle drips wax.
Malaq came around the object to stand next to me. “Tell me this is you.”
“Wish I could.�
�� I stepped toward the glowing ball. “This is something elemental. Something I’ve never seen before. Something I definitely can’t do.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Elemental magic usually is. But influencing nature like this can have massive consequences. It’s not even supposed to be done without a King’s permission.”
“I’m betting Sarin didn’t order a small sun to be delivered to the Wounded Owl.”
I grunted at his jest and we watched the undulating rays in silence as they swelled and brightened, expanded and intensified. Fiery waves rippled out from the core.
They rushed over us and Malaq gasped in surprise. “There’s no heat.”
The blinding surge left no one untouched. Once every shadow was chased from every corner of the room, the billowing light passed through the walls and vanished, leaving an abrupt lack of brightness that played with my eyes.
Rubbing them, I heard the fire in the hearth crackle back to life, then movement and voices. By the time I stopped seeing spots, the noise had devolved into shouts of alarm. Then thumping sounds that I knew all too well were people falling to the floor. One of them was Malaq. He was wheezing and grabbing his throat. So were a lot of other people.
It wasn’t affecting me as severely, but I could feel it. The air in the tavern was thinning. It was getting hot—real hot, real fast.
“Hang on,” I told him, “I’ll get us out of here.” But I wasn’t sure how. The broken windows were too small to fit through and the door had been magically fastened shut so tight it was glowing. So were the walls and the empty space in front of the stairwell. We were trapped.
I was locked in a room full of so much power I was choking on it. We all were. And we were dying.
TEN
Down on one knee, ripping at the neckline of my linen shirt, I scanned the room. My thought was that after such a glitzy performance, the caster would be vain enough to stick around and admire his work. But my reasoning was flawed, or just plain wrong, because no one was left standing.
Then a voice penetrated the haze in my head. “You will not find me with your eyes.” It was unfamiliar, soft and overtly feminine, and I was shocked. After what happened with Taren Roe, I expected my Shinree enemy to be a man. “We are not enemies,” she assured me. “This spell was not meant for you.”
Her words were gentle, her voice soothing and breathy. I would have enjoyed the sound if I weren’t suffocating. “Air,” I gasped.
“You are angry.”
“Air…?”
“Of course.”
A second later my lungs filled, so harsh and abrupt it knocked me to the floor. “Better?” she asked.
“No,” I croaked out.
Through the spell I felt her bristle. “You’re injured. Let me heal you.” She didn’t wait for my consent. Before I could get a word out, a soft blanket of healing magic rippled across my skin, heavy and warm like wool. It was calming. I could feel it lulling me to sleep. I could hear her voice willing me to close my eyes, telling me that the pain would be gone when I woke.
But when I woke, Malaq and everyone else would be dead.
“Stop,” I said, fighting the grogginess. “Him first.” I tossed my aching head toward Malaq.
“He’s Langorian.”
“I know what he is. And I want him alive. I want them all alive.”
“You would save those that try to kill you?”
“Not all of these people were a part of that.”
“Those without weapons would have stood by and watched you die without a moment’s guilt. I see no difference.”
“I do.”
After a small delay her healing spell lifted and I felt awful again. I crawled the short distance to Malaq’s side and struggled to pull him up onto my lap. Weak, strangled sounds were coming out of him. Very little air was going in.
“What are you waiting for?” I shouted at her. “I swear woman, if he dies, you die. Make your choice.”
There was no response. I was hoping the silence didn’t mean she was going to call my bluff. Unmistakably, the woman owned a magical stamina that far surpassed mine. If I went after her with a spell and failed, I’d be at her mercy. If I went after her with my new-found access to the Crown of Stones I wouldn’t fail, but my conscious was full enough without adding a tavern full of deaths to the tally.
There was only one other way I could think of to handle her. It was desperate and foolish. It was something I shouldn’t even consider.
Carefully, I slid Malaq to the floor. I stood up and addressed the woman in Shinree. “Kay’ta Roona, areen’a. Do you hear me? Kay’ta Roona!” I took a deep breath and said, “An oath for a life,” translating the words into Rellan to remind myself what a completely horrible idea it was. “Grant my request. Save these people, and I offer you gratitude. Two fold,” I threw in.
“As in the ways of the Empire? For their lives you would bind yourself to me in such a manner? Why?”
“My own reasons.”
“And you will do for me without question?” Anticipation overrode the sensual nature of her voice. “Twice?”
I didn’t like how happy she was at the prospect, but Malaq was turning blue.
“Yes,” I vowed. “Two debts to repay as you see fit.”
“An oath made in the old ways is governed by them as well. If I come to you and you deny me, I have the right to compensation. Your life could be forfeit, if I so choose.”
“I understand how the oath works. I won’t refuse you.”
“You cannot refuse me.”
“I cannot,” I echoed her, and the words left a cold chill on my skin. Immediately, I wished for a way to take them back. My pledge to her was irrational and thoughtless. It was a mistake that I had no doubt would hunt me down and bleed me later on.
But it worked. Already Malaq and the others were sucking in great gulps of air and I couldn’t sense the woman’s presence anymore. She had taken my offer and ran.
I looked down at Malaq. “You better be worth it.”
Coming around, he squinted at me and groaned some unintelligible response. I didn’t bother asking him to repeat it. I was so exhausted and sore I just fell down where I was and went to work adding up the bodies I’d been too late to save. I felt a little better watching the ones that made it stumble to their feet. A few stumbled all the way to the bar. Most fled into the growing darkness outside.
The staff, or what remained of it, diligently started the unenviable task of cleaning up. One of them lit the hearth and I could see the color creeping back into Malaq’s face. He was still drawing in deep, fractured breaths and his hands were shaking like it was mid-winter, causing the multiple rings on his fingers to clack out a nervous rhythm. Thick and gold, the rings were all similar, but for one.
A black pearl, cut in half and set in the middle of a plain band of deep blue coral, its design was simple for a nobleman. Understated even, if black and blue weren’t the colors of the Rellan flag, and if black pearls (due to their worth and scarcity) weren’t a trinket afforded only by members of the Rellan royal family.
My interest in his identity piqued, I was still studying the pearl when Malaq moved his hand up the front of his cloak. His fingers stopped. They closed on the pin holding the cloth together at his neck with a kind of desperate relief that seemed out of character. Malaq must have thought it was too, as his regal features held the expression so briefly that by the time he dropped his hand, the outward manifestation of his anxiety was gone. Mine was all over me.
Seeing the clasp wasn’t a normal circle as I’d first thought, but a golden serpent swallowing its own tale, my pulse started racing.
Like the pearl ring, the pin was a symbol of royalty. But it wasn’t Rellan in origin. The serpent was a sign of Langor. Handed down from father to son, I’d last seen the clasp on the cloak of King Draken, the morning of our last battle, just hours before I unleashed the magic of the Crown of Stones.
I glanced down at the ring, then up at the serpe
nt again. I looked at Malaq’s finely crafted Kaelish sword, his expensive Rellan boots, and wondered, thief?
But that didn’t sit right.
“Why do they bother with walls if they have no floor?” Malaq grumbled, slapping at the dirt on his cloak as he stood. He reached an absent hand down to help me up and I stared at it. When he realized I had no intention of taking his offer, he pulled his arm back with a hiss. Yanking the nearest chair upright, Malaq sat down and began furiously dusting the floor from his trousers. “Ungrateful fool,” he murmured.
“I’m not ungrateful. I’m skeptical.” I winced as I sat up and leaned against the bench behind me. “I haven’t met a Langorian yet that hasn’t tried to kill me.”
“Perhaps it’s because you’re always trying to kill them.”
His remark pulled a shaky grin out of me. “I’d get it if the Owl was a Rellan tavern, but the Kaelish generally don’t give a damn about me. And the Arullans, after all this time, looking for revenge, allying with a Langorian…it doesn’t make sense.”
“So you’re ill-mannered and skittish? Wonderful.”
“No offense, Nef’areen, but skittish doesn’t come close. With your dialect, your clothes, and your face, I have no idea where we stand right now.”
Malaq stared down the sharp angle of his nose. “Did you just insult me?”
I recalled my words. “Possibly.”
“What is that, then? Nef’areen?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t speak Shinree with a Kaelish accent and shove it out of a Langorian mouth. It sounds wrong.”
“Remind me why I rescued you?”
“I have no idea. And it isn’t an insult. Nef’areen is a title, a way of addressing a nobleman, like a lord or a Prince.”
Malaq’s eyes grabbed mine. “You believe me royalty? Why?”
“That fancy, Kaelish sword, for one. King Sarin has a weapon of the same craftsmanship. Though his is without that special, second blade.” I glanced at Malaq’s hand. “The ring makes you a possible heir to Rella.” Then up at his neck. “The snake pinned at your throat says you’re currently ruling the fine realm of Langor. Except, Draken’s sister, Jillyan, is Queen there. And she has no husband.”
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Page 9