Erin Evans - The God Catcher

Tennora nodded. "More or less. Maybe you just have to try it."

Nestrix wrapped her arms around her shoulders. "Every time I pick up one of those tools, all I see are her memories. It's as if she's taking me over."

"I thought you said she was you."

"I don't know!" Nestrix shouted. "I don't know, and I don't like her changing things!"

"All right." Tennora blew out a long breath. "If you can't do it, we have to get the key."

"How do you possibly think you're going to manage that?" Nestrix said.

"I haven't thought of how yet." Her brow puckered. "We'll have to kill him, I think." "Really? You?"

Tennora gave her a withering look. "I took care of the two guards when I had to."

"I noticed," Nestrix said. "Why the change of heart?"

"They hurt you, hurt me. He's going to do something to undermine the city. We can't let that happen."

"Then they don't count."

Tennora shuddered a little. "Agreed. I wish we knew what exactly he planned to do. If we could stop him…"

Nestrix shook her head. "It's folly to guess at a taaldarax's end goal, but whatever he plans, there's a child involved." She told Tennora what Dareun had said.

"Mystra's bones," Tennora said. "Whose child?"

Nestrix shrugged. "He didn't say."

"Well, could you guess? Were there clues?"

Nestrix shook her head. "Remember, I can count the number of dokaal I know and recognize on one claw. He could have painted a portrait and it would mean nothing. But… he said, 'I feel as if I could unmask a hundred lords tonight' after he put on your collar." She gave Tennora what she thought might be a sympathetic look. "It was a good try, by the way," she said, even though it wasn't. But Tennora couldn't have known she had to think two steps beyond a taaldarax, even a brash, inexperienced one such as Dareun.

But for some reason, Tennora's face broke into a grin. "No, it's not-"

Something prickled at Nestrix's spine. "Hush."

There was a low clank from the tunnel that led into the lair. Andareunarthex was returning.

"Get behind the crates," she hissed at Tennora. To her credit, the girl jumped to her feet without asking questions and squeezed alongside the cage, behind the boxes that had transported Dareun's treasure.

Nestrix slipped the lockpicks into the pocket of her apron, brushed off her skirts, and stood, staring directly down the tunnel as her opponent came into view. Behind him, a half-elf wyrmling-a child, she corrected herself-struggled in his grip. Nestrix was startled to realize she'd seen him before-he was the boy in the boot shop, whose feet had grown too much. Trailing them came Ferremo and two more minions.

Dareun halted and looked around, marking the absence of each guard in turn. His eyes fell on Nestrix sitting calmly on the empty box in her cage, her cape arrayed over her shoulders like folded wings. He stormed across the room, dragging the little boy behind him.

Oh you henich achuakosj, she thought. I will revel in your fall.

"What have you done with my men?" he said.

Nestrix shrugged. "They ran off. One would think you'd better inure your pieces to the dragonfear, taaldarax." She gave him an insolent smile. "And me not even at my strongest."

He narrowed his eyes and stood closer to the bars of the cage, but he didn't break away from her gaze. "You're lying."

Nestrix smirked at him. "Dragon Queen, but you're addled. What do you think I did? Managed to escape long enough to kill your men and dispose of the bodies, only to climb back into my cage? I guarantee you, no matter how stupid you'd like to think I am, if I could get out, I'd be glad to leave your lovacs' bloody bodies behind and you wouldn't ever see me again."

He stood a moment longer, staring her down. Nestrix didn't flinch.

A low growl thrummed in Dareun's throat. He turned away, pulling a key from his pocket and unlocking the door to the cage. Quicker than Nestrix could move, he twisted the little boy's arm, forcing him into the cage with her. He slammed the door.

"Do quit your crying, young Master Mrays," Dareun said in dulcet tones. "This woman is a very fierce dragon, and she might just gobble you up if you don't."

The boy looked up at Nestrix with alarm in his eyes and bit his trembling lip. A bruised and swelling cut on his cheekbone oozed blood and, judging by the dark streaks, had been for some time. The little boy pulled his legs up to his chest with a whimper. Fear nudged at Nestrix's heart-he looked so like a wyrmling hiding in a hole.

Dareun turned and caught Nestrix's eye. He gave her a cruel grin. "Don't worry," he whispered as he passed the cage. "Even if you leave him be, the blindfin will have him soon enough."

Tennora pressed herself into the shadowy crevice between two crates, hardly daring to breathe as Dareun stormed into the cavern, dragging a small boy. Ferremo and a pair of men she hadn't seen before sauntered in behind him.

She listened as Dareun accosted Nestrix, demanding to know what she'd done with the two guards. All the while she stared in the direction of their bodies hidden behind the crates just beyond her feet. The feeling of her dagger slicing through the first one's trachea-the sound of the blood spraying-turned her stomach. Her hand was resting on the dagger.

What had her mother thought the first time she'd had to kill an attacker? She didn't wonder any longer if she had-even the easy world Tennora had grown accustomed to was rife with dangers. Merely stepping to one side of it had left her with two men's blood on her hands and the intention of adding more. If she didn't die first.

Dareun opened the door of the cage and swung the little boy in. He warned him that Nestrix was a dragon who might eat him. "Don't worry," he whispered. "Even if you leave him be, the blindfin will have him soon enough."

Tennora closed her eyes and fought back the shudder that threatened to rack her at the thought of the blindfin, their sucker-mouths gnawing away at her skin. And poor Veron… Despite their cross-purposes, she did hope he'd made it out. Preferably out to the tunnel that led to the lair, his crossbow intact and ready.

Nestrix squatted down beside the little boy. "You were the boy in the boot shop," she said gently and too softly to be heard much farther than where Tennora sat. "Master Mrays?" He nodded, his eyes still wide. "Is your mother safe?" Nestrix asked.

"I… I think so. Saer." He swallowed as if it hurt him, and added in hardly more than a squeak, "Please don't eat me!"

"I do not eat little boys," Nestrix said. "They taste bad. Especially when they live in cities. Did the man tell you what he means to do?"

"He… he said to the man who took me from my bed that he thinks my mother will give him what he wants."

"And did he say what that was?"

The boy shook his head. "He said… he said she would not want to give it up, but she would have no choice. And the man with the…" He started to cry a little. "The man with the knives said they should get insur-insur-"

"Insurance?" Nestrix said, setting a hand on the boy's shoulder.

He nodded. "Then he took one of his knives and poked me in the armpit and asked if I knew where Mama keeps the staff."

Cold horror flooded Tennora's body. I could unmask a hundred lords tonight, Dareun had said.

"What's the staff?" Nestrix asked.

"It's a secret," the boy said. "It's a special staff. I only saw it once. I wasn't supposed to. The Lord Dagger and the wizard who died gave it to Mama, and she hid it. With magic."

The Open Lord, the Blackstaff, and Goodwoman Mrays. And a staff that had to be hidden. By a lord in a mask. That a dragon dearly wanted.

The lodestone is the first lord's gift.

Blood of Mystra, she thought.

Dareun meant to take the dragonstaff of Ahghairon.