Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (20 page)

"I'm
not actually sure that's possible."

"Pancras."
Delilah put her book down, leaning it against the chair leg. "What can it
hurt?"

The minotaur
fingered the tips of his horns, lost in thought. "Perhaps… my dreams have
been dark of late. Very well." He smiled and nodded at Delilah. "I
will remove them from now on."

"Good,
we'll see if any more undead crop up here in 'civilization.' As nasty as some
of the humans behave, I have to admit this is nicer than that grumpy minotaur's
inn, huh?"

"The
Sleeping Viper was adequate, but yes, this is nicer."

"When
do you think—"

Knocking at
the doors echoed through the parlor. Delilah sighed and hopped off her chair.

She heard
Kale shout from the bedroom. "Can someone else get that?"

Delilah
shook her head and opened the doors. The orange-scaled drak from the jail stood
before her and held in her hands a spherical glass vessel with elongated
downward-pointing spout used in alchemy called a retort and crucible.

"You!
How'd you get here?"

"I have
a delivery for Pancras. Some of the equipment you requested." She smiled
and pushed Delilah out of the way to enter the room.

"Just
put it over there." Pancras waved in the general direction of the table.
"Where's the alembic?"

Delilah
didn't give her a chance to reply. She shut the door and grabbed Kali by the
shoulder. "I didn't know you worked here in the palace."

"Oh, I
don't. But you'd be surprised how easily servants will abandon their duties to
the first volunteer to come along when they resent their job." She put the
equipment on the table and dusted off her hands. "Draks and minotaurs
aren't very popular among the nobility."

"We've
noticed."

Pancras
leaned around the back of his chair. "How did you get into the palace if you
don't work here, then?"

The drak
smiled and shrugged. "It wasn't easy, but there are secret ways in and out
of most of these old buildings if you're small, don't mind getting a little
dirty, and don't want to be seen."

"So,
either you're very odd and like to take over random delivery jobs, or you want
something." Delilah put her hands on her hips and tilted her head.
"So, what do you want?" She didn't think for a moment this was a
social call.

"Where's
Kale?"

Delilah
moved to put herself between Kali and the bedroom door. Her eyes flicked to her
staff on the floor near the armchair and then back to the other drak.
"What do you want with him?"
Pancras better back me up here.

"You're
the older sibling, aren't you?" Kali smiled and turned her back to Delilah.
She approached the hearth. "I'm not going to hurt him. I just want to talk
to him."

"About?"
Pancras watched from his chair as she knelt and warmed her hands in front of
the fire.

"Who's
here? Oh, hi Kali!" Kale came out of the bedroom, turning the puzzle box
over in his hands, looking at it instead of where he was going. Delilah put her
hand out to keep him from plowing into her.

Dammit,
Kale.
"She was just leaving."

"I
wasn't, actually. I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh."
Kale felt his face grow warmer. "What's going on? Why is everyone so
tense? I can't have friends visit?"

Kali cut off
Delilah's reply. "They don't trust me. They think I'm some criminal
mastermind here to abduct or murder you."

"Pancras!"

The minotaur
snorted and grinned at Kale. "Not me." He rose from his chair to
check his soup.

"Deli?"

She felt
Kale's eyes on her. Turning to face him, she put on her best innocent
expression, clasping her hands in front of her chest. "We've had nothing
but trouble since we arrived, Kale. I just want to keep us all safe."

Her brother
scowled and held the bedroom door open, gesturing for Kali to come over to him.
"You always get uptight when a female wants to talk to me, Deli. Kali is
my friend, and we're going to talk. In private!" He punctuated his statement
by slamming the bedroom door.

Pancras blew
on his soup, sipping gingerly at the spoon. He raised his eyebrows and regarded
her over the steaming bowl. Delilah stomped across the room and flopped down in
the chair.

"Stupid
Kale. You weren't supposed to notice."

* * *

"Your
sister doesn't seem to like me much." Kali sat in one of the chairs at the
side table. Kale tossed his puzzle box on the bed and took the seat across from
her.

"She's
worried about me getting hurt. That's all. Back home, most draks only talk to
us when they want something. We're the ones they don't trust." Kale was
used to the derision he and Delilah received from the draks in Drak-Anor. It
was the main reason they spent most of their time with Sarvesh and Pancras.

"Why is
that? You both have stripes. I would have thought they would revere you."

"Yeah,
well, they think because we hatched from the same egg, our curse is stronger
than any special destiny we might have. We were cast out of Clan Windsinger as
soon as we were old enough to fend for ourselves." The twins were barely
ten years old when they were ousted. They wandered into the mountains and found
the city now known as Drak-Anor. It was the same year Pancras arrived, although
they didn't know him at the time. It seemed like a lifetime ago to Kale.

"Twins?"
Kali sat back in her chair. "They would have left you to die from exposure
if you didn't have stripes."

"Yeah,
that's what everyone kept telling us." Kale suspected were it not for
their parents, the elders would have left them to die at birth anyway. Once
they were old enough to fend for themselves, even their parents couldn't sway
the elders from their decision. "Deli got to be good with sorcery, so we
did okay for ourselves. We have better friends now than we would have if we'd
stayed in that village."

Kali nodded
and pulled a small box out of her pouch. She set it on the table. "I have
something I need help with." She smiled and looked down at her hands.
"I seem to have lost the key."

Laughing,
Kale pulled the box across the table and examined it. It was made of some type
of lightweight metal. He didn't see any hinges, but there was a seam that
traveled the circumference of the box. On one side was a keyhole just large
enough for Kale's claw. "Lost it, huh?"

He didn't
believe for a moment she lost the key. "With all the draks in that secret
tavern of yours, there aren't any who can pick a lock?"

She reached
over and stroked his arm, causing him to shudder. "Sure. But I want you to
do this one."

Kale pushed
the box away. "I could. It looks pretty easy. Why should I? I'm not as
naïve as my sister thinks I am. I just get excited."

Kali pulled
her hand back and grinned. "I knew I liked you for a reason."

"I'm not
saying I'm not going to open it, but I just want to know what you really
want."

"Fair
enough." Kali leaned forward, folding her hands together on top of the
table. "Despite the name of our tavern, we're not assassins. We just
ensure that the draks and minotaurs of Almeria get the things they need.
Sometimes, humans aren't keen on letting us bring that stuff into town, or they
don't want to sell to us. So, we use alternate methods of acquisition."

"So,
you're thieves and smugglers?" Kale remembered what life was like before
the foundation of Drak-Anor. Draks, minotaurs, oroqs, and goblins all vied for
the same limited resources. You were either strong or sneaky to get what you
needed. Kale didn't always have his sister's magic to back him up, so he often
resorted to sneaking around.

"Well."
Kali pursed her lips and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. "If you want
to be crass about it."

Kale grabbed
the box and pulled tools out of his pouch. Peering into the lock, he saw a few
mechanisms inside that did not seem to affect the locking mechanism.
A
needle? I wonder if she trapped this on purpose.
He knew what to do to
avoid it of course, and within a minute, the lock clicked and the top of the
box popped open.

"Easy."
He slid the box across the table to Kali. "Would I have been poisoned if I
set off that needle in the lock?"

Kali smiled
and plucked out a pearl ring from the box. She slid it onto her finger and
closed the container. "That would have been rude. Want some work? Think
your sister might be willing to help us out?"

Kale thought
about it for a moment. He wasn't sure he could do anything to help Pancras,
other than fetch things for him. Whatever Kali wanted him to do would
undoubtedly be more exciting than that, but he wasn't sure Delilah would be
game. "I don't mind helping out, but I don't want to get involved in
anything too serious. We're leaving for Muncifer as soon as it's safe to travel
again. The prince says we're not allowed to leave the palace, so that sort of
limits what I can do."

"There
are ways around that. I can show you tonight, if you like."

The
temptation was strong. Kale almost agreed but then shook his head. "I'd
better talk things over with Pancras and Delilah first. Pancras made some kind
of deal to get us out of jail and in here. I think he's trying to get us
permission to go into the city. I don't want to mess things up." He
chuckled and scratched at a nick on the table. "This is much nicer than
the jail or that inn we were staying at."

Kali stood
up and sashayed past him, nuzzling his neck as she went. "Suit yourself.
If you get a chance to wander around, you know how to find me. And if you want
me to come back and show you how to get out on your own, I guess you'll have to
ask your sister to send me one of those glowing, blue things."

Kale rubbed
his neck where she nuzzled it and watched her leave. Her touch warmed him
inside. It almost made him forget about the pain in his back. He stretched and
winced as Delilah entered the room.

* * *

"Well?"
Delilah tapped her foot as Kale finished stretching. The other drak hadn't said
a word either to her or to Pancras as she left, and Delilah was sure Kale was
at the center of some nefarious plot.

"Well
what?" Kale flopped down on the bed, grabbing his puzzle box.

"Are
you going to run away with her and leave us?" Delilah clamped her hands
over her mouth as soon as the words were spoken.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
She
knew it was ridiculous, and she hated when her anxieties about Kale made her
speak without thinking.

Kale rolled
over on the bed to look at her. He scooted to the end, hopped off, and hugged
Delilah. "I'm not leaving, Deli. I promise. Even if she and I… if
something—no, if anything like that happened, I'd make her come with us."

Delilah pushed
Kale away. He stumbled and fell back onto the bed. "Fine then. What did
she want?"

"She
asked if we wanted to help her smuggle stuff for the draks and minotaurs in
town. The humans don't treat them well, you know."

"I
noticed." Delilah sat on the edge of the bed. "What did you tell
her?"

"I said
I'd have to talk it over with Pancras and you. I don't want to do anything to
mess up the deal Pancras made, and I don't want to go back to the Grumpy
Minotaur Inn."

Delilah
nudged her brother and leaned on him. "I shouldn't have doubted you."

Kale pushed
her away and laid back. "You're right. You shouldn't have. I'm not
dumb."

A wave of
guilt rushed over Delilah. He had a point. She treated him like a child.
"I'm sorry, Kale. I worry about you, about us. This whole thing…" She
waved her arms in the air and sighed. "There's so much that could go
wrong, so many bad things that can happen, and you're still affected by that
chaos rift thing." She lay back on the bed next to her brother.

"Between
you and Pancras, you'll figure out all this magical stuff." Kale turned
his head to look at her. "I'm just trying not to be bored while we're
stuck here for the winter, you know?"

"I
understand. I hope Pancras gets permission to leave the palace." Delilah
rolled over and reached for her grimoire and then remembered she left it in the
great room. "I don't think he's going to let us help with his little favor
for the prince."

"Kali
offered to show me the secret way she used to get in."

Delilah's
eyes lit up. She rolled over to look at her brother. "If Pancras doesn't
have something for us to do by dinner tomorrow, we'll contact her."

* * *

The shadow
invaded Pancras's dreams once again as he slept. Like a cold blanket of sodden
wool, it enveloped and suffocated him. He fought to keep it at bay but could
not summon his powers, for in his dream, he was naked. This vulnerability
served to further enrage the shadow, and it pummeled Pancras with the sum of
its fury until the light of dawn encroached, beating it back with its warm, life-giving
light.