King's Folly (Book 2) (53 page)

“We do not want anything to do with this filth!” Lucas spat.

“Silence!” Marsais snapped with flashing fingers, hurling a tongue bind on the indignant paladin. His eyes burned into Acacia with warning.

Another spine-chilling laugh echoed in the chamber. “O, Marsais,” she moaned. “You are in deep waters, as the saying goes.” She turned and sauntered over, ignoring her audience, trailing a clawed finger down his cheek. “But then, you always were.”

“Some things never change.”

“And others do.” A hint of sadness melted the ice, but only for a moment, before the cool tone returned. “My help comes with a price.”

“Taken only from me, whatever it may be, but only after.”

“You might be dead.”

“If I fail—a lack of payment will be the least of your worries.”

“Still, a price is a price, therefore I’ll name my terms.” She dragged a claw down his bottom lip, drawing blood. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something suitable. What do you need?”

Marsais wiped the blood away. “A portal to Mearcentia.”

“Marsais,” Captain Mael growled in protest, stepping forward, but he held up a hand.

“Don’t silence our noble paladin. I am enjoying this little show.”

“We don’t have time for your amusement,” Marsais snapped.

“You always amused me before,” Saavedra batted her scaly lids.

Isiilde pressed her lips together, willing the fiend’s wings to catch fire.

“Let me see if I understand you correctly,” Saavedra mused, circling the seer, wrapping her tail around his waist. “You want me to open a Blood Portal to Mearcentia, so you and your company of paladins can walk through.”

“We will have no part in this,” Acacia protested.

Marsais ignored her, speaking only to the fiend. “Yes.”

“As much as I’d love to fulfill your request. I’m afraid it’s impossible. A portal to Mearcentia would take at least a thousand head of cattle. While the Crimson are tolerant of Bloodmagic, someone would surely have an issue when an entire quarter was emptied of occupants.”

“Leave it to me, Vedra.” The fiend opened her mouth. “No questions.” She closed it with a thoughtful click.

“I admit, I’m intrigued, but not near enough to waive my price.” She tapped a claw on her stark chin. “I’ll have to blind-fold all of you. I can’t have your shiny paladins tattling on an enclave of Bloodmagi. It’s bad for business.”

“Understandable.”

“And as for my payment,” she let the words linger in the air. “If I was a whore, my dear godling, then so shall you be too.”

BEFORE
THE
WORDS
had registered, Saavedra clacked her claws together with a snap.

“This is madness,” Acacia said.

Isiilde bristled, her fingers flashed, weaving a bolt. With a shout, she hurled it at the fiend.

Saavedra waved a bored hand, deflecting the jolt, which hit Rivan, searing his skin with a scream. He dropped to the floor, stunned and twitching. Isiilde looked at the wounded paladin with horror.

“You have a lot to learn, little faerie,” Saavedra said with a wink. “Don’t worry, Mars is sturdier than he looks. I’m sure he’ll last the night.”

The alcoves opened, and guards stepped in with weapons readied. Saavedra wrapped her tail around Marsais’ neck, and yanked. He stumbled, but kept his feet, as the two disappeared into an alcove.

The door swung shut. Pain sliced through their bond, and Isiilde staggered. Before the next slice came, Marsais dropped a heavy curtain between their spirits, cutting her off from his light.

❧

The others, save for Rivan, struggled as they were dragged away; however, Isiilde barely noticed the hand on her arm. They were taken to a chamber of cells, and each was shoved into a separate cubicle.

“If you want your chains off, back against the bars.”

No one turned down the offer. The guard who dragged Rivan into his prison, pressed a vial to the paladin’s lips.

As far as cages went, hers was not bad. Isiilde ignored the plush pillows and gurgling fountain, along with the soft rug underfoot. She paced in misery, mind churning over the unknown.

“Are you all right, Rivan?” Acacia asked.

“I think I can feel my fingers again,” the young man groaned. “I’m just a bit raw. Whatever the guard made me drink, helped.”

Acacia nodded with relief and called across the circle, “Can you break these cells, Oenghus?”

The Nuthaanian eyed the Kilnish steel bars, the waiting wards, and the witchwood underfoot. The pinprick holes in the ceiling were the most ominous of all. “Marsais made a deal.”

“I’ll have nothing to do with his pact.”

“We don’t have much choice, Acacia.”

She clenched her jaw, speaking through her teeth. “Can you get us out of here, or not?”

“This cage is built for a mage,” Oenghus admitted. “And even if I could break the bars, I’m not sure I would.”

“But thousands of lives will be sacrificed, sir,” Rivan said with a grimace.

“The Scarecrow said he has another way.”

“Blood Portals require sacrifices,” Acacia pressed. “Marsais said leave it to me—not that he had another way.”

“He wouldn’t,” Oenghus defended.

“Are you so sure?”

Oenghus gripped the bars. He did not reply.

“They know each other—how?”

The Nuthaanian shifted from foot to foot under the weight of the captain’s gaze. “Not really my place to say,” he muttered.

“Isiilde, do you know what he’s planning?”

Isiilde stopped pacing. She looked at her companions, from Lucas whose tongue was stilled, to Rivan and Kasja and Elam, and finally the captain. She shook her head.

The captain looked to Oenghus. “He has a history with the fiend. What do you know of it?”

“Not my place to say.”

“Another notch in his belt?” Isiilde asked.

Sapphire eyes dimmed, and his shoulders slumped. “I tried to warn you.”

“
Exotic
is a bit of an understatement, Oen.”

Pinned between two hard stares from opposite sides, the Nuthaanian shifted uncomfortably.

Rivan finally caught on. “That’s
disgusting
.”

“You knew Marsais had consorted with—no bedded a
fiend
, and yet you said nothing.”

“He’s bedded a fish woman, too,” Oenghus defended. “And no, I didn’t bloody say anything. What he does with who, is his own business.”

“There must be limits,” Acacia argued. “By the gods, she’s a fiend from the Nine Halls. There are laws against such—unions.”

“I’m sure your Order could find a loophole to excuse such things,” Isiilde remarked. “You could just deem fiends as property.”

“My Order is far from perfect, Isiilde, but at the very least, we try to defend this realm against the Void. We do not plow Voidspawn.”

“Fiends aren’t Voidspawn,” Isiilde corrected.

“Where you find one, you often find the other.”

“Or in bed with the Scarecrow,” Oenghus muttered.

The nymph shot her guardian a withering glare. Acacia looked heavenward, turned, and walked to the fountain on the wall, splashing her face with water to cool her rising temper.

“Look,” Oenghus relented. “He told you he was going to meet an old acquaintance in Vlarthane.”

“If I knew it was a fiend, I would have objected.”

“Which is probably why he didn’t confide in you.”

“Did he plan this, too?” Acacia gestured at the cages. And Isiilde frowned. Circles upon circles of runes spun in her mind, shifting cycles and endless strategies. Had Marsais maneuvered and manipulated her and the others to this point?

Oenghus ran a hand over his beard. “Maybe,” he grunted.

Silence settled between the cages. Isiilde stood, hands on the bars, chewing on her lip in thought and moving events around like rune pieces. Had it all been a carefully constructed strategy to get them here, in these cages, unable to resist? Had Marsais instructed Luccub to find Saavedra and misled Oenghus on purpose? But then she thought back to Marsais’ reaction when she was taken, when he found her, and even to this morning, when he paced in front of the window. There had been sincerity in his eyes, and yet—he had whispered the same things to Saavedra once upon a time.

Marsais was an excellent liar.

Isiilde poked at the heavy barrier between their spirits, wondering what was going on behind the blackness. Pain, or pleasure; fear or rapture? And suddenly, what had been a black curtain, became a chasm of gaping darkness.

The nymph’s sun was gone, her bond fluttered loosely, unattached, incomplete. Without the sun, her heart turned cold, and the nymph was left all alone with past horrors. Her hands clutched the bars, and her body trembled with memory of Stievin’s touch and his lust between her legs. She shut her eyes, but memory persisted, until she felt the stone digging into her back and the merciless power of her attacker’s thrusts.

Darkness converged, and another memory sang a song of sweet allure, of fire and heat and cleansing breath. Its power roared through her veins, burning away memory. A serpent of fire lashed at the darkness, burning bright in her mind, and with a flare of power, the serpent latched onto its own tail, binding itself to fire.

Her bond no longer fluttered loosely.

Isiilde’s eyes blazed with emerald fire, fed by the ouroboros serpent on her back.

“You all right, Sprite?” Oenghus’ rumble pierced the currents of power flowing through her veins.

“I’m fine.” Her voice was distant.

“What happened after you were taken?”

She met his gaze through the bars. “I killed them all.”

“N’Jalss?” Oenghus asked with surprise.

“Yes,” she said, dispassionately. “And all the Ardmoor. It was beautiful—the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

Isiilde did not notice the worried glances that followed. And she did not answer anymore questions. The nymph curled up on a pile of cushions and pondered the man to whom she was no longer bonded.

IT
MIGHT
HAVE
been dawn, it might have been dusk. Isiilde did not know when the guards came next, but eventually they did.

“Your rags were filthy,” a guard explained as attendants filed in, placing a fresh set of clothes in the slot of each cage. Isiilde dressed without care, barely registering the fine wool and linen and leather garments hugging her body. The clothes were fit for kings and queens, but none of the party felt like royalty.

When they were dressed, the paladins stood defiant in the center, and Oenghus looked distrustful.

“Backs to the cage, please,” a jackal-masked guard ordered. No one moved. “Allow me to explain. Your clothes are coated with poison—a delayed poison that has already seeped into your skin. When you walk through the Portal, you will be given the antidote. Drink it then, but not before, or die—the choice is yours.”

“A paranoid bunch, aren’t you?” Oenghus growled.

“We are accustomed to dealing with dangerous guests. If our Mistress wished you harmed, you would have already been dead. As agreed, the nymph will not be bound or gagged. Backs to the bars, please.”

There was little choice. All did, save Isiilde, who stood in her cage watching the guards chain her companions. Taking no chances, the guards took them first. And then one returned, swinging her cage door open. It appeared that Saavedra was a fiend of her word.

Isiilde was taken by a different route, one that ended in a ritual chamber. Oenghus, the paladins, Elam and Kasja waited on the opposite side. Isiilde stood alone.

The stone walls were polished to an obsidian sheen. Gargoyles perched in front of slabs on a circular walk, tongues lolled, dropping towards the pit of pristine sand. A maze of deep grooves twisted through the sand, gathering like a whirlwind in the center. Cage doors covered the back wall of numerous alcoves. There was no torch or flame, only runes, glowing dimly in the space.

A donkey laden with supplies and packs was brought in, waiting on the walkway beside Oenghus.

“Your gear,” the masked guard explained. “When the Portal is opened, you will be blind-folded, and led through. The waiting enclave will lead you away. They will give each of you a vial. I suggest you drink the antidote at once. Your chains will be removed and you will be free to go on your way. I strongly suggest silence during the ritual, or you will be silenced permanently.”

The eyes behind the mask looked at each in turn. When no one said a word, she turned to the guard at her side. “Inform the Jackal that her guests await her leisure.”

Saavedra’s leisure was not overly long. The fiend sauntered from an arch. She paused on the edge of the sand beside Isiilde, and stretched her wings languidly.

Marsais was hauled out by two guards, and dropped on the floor. He was naked, battered, and bleeding from numerous cuts. A guard dumped a pile of clothes on the ground.

Isiilde rushed to his side.

“O, he’s fine.” Saavedra’s eyes slid sideways, smirking down at the nymph. “Don’t feel too humiliated, Marsais, at least you command a princely sum.”

Marsais coughed and raised himself up stiffly. Isiilde helped him find his feet, and he steadied himself on her shoulder. “I enjoyed every second,” he rasped, wiping his mouth.

“That’s what all the good little whores say,” Saavedra smiled, and lashed her tail against his backside, he grunted and nearly fell forward, but kept his feet.

Isiilde seethed. The fiend turned, looming over the furious nymph.

“Try it, little nymphling,” Saavedra hissed. “Break his word, and I will break every last one of you.”

“Isiilde,” Marsais winced. She looked at his pale, drawn face, and the lines of pain tugging at his mouth. He shook his head, ever so slightly, grey eyes beseeching.

“One day,” she said to Saavedra instead. “One day I will gut you.”

Saavedra’s tail lashed with pleasure. “Until that day.” The fiend spread her wings and stirred a wind with their strength, leaping off the walkway and landing softly in the center of the ritual pit.

“Now, my dear old master,” the fiend turned, studying her lines in the sand. “What surprise do you have for me today?”