Philippa Ballantine - Wrayth

Zofiya, despite her beautiful form, was not so blind. Her eyes, clear gray against the darkness of her skin, fixed on him. “What is it, Merrick? Do you know this man? Is he a danger?”

The Deacon opened his Center. Once again he could feel nothing in the air. It was more terrifying than anything. A blind Sensitive was worth nothing.

“Not here,” he whispered to her. Now he was the one to take her hands and pull her away. Together, they moved as quickly as they could back deeper into the palace where hopefully even Sensitive ears could not overhear them.

The Rossin was whispering in Raed’s ear. Cruel, unpleasant things. Things about his sister, and how she would not turn from her path. They would have to kill her. Ahead he could hear the echo of familiar laughter. His mother had laughed like that once. Long ago.

You cannot trust her, you know that. You’ll just give her another chance to kill you. The Beast growled into the back of his skull. She’ll succeed this time and then the Empire will be ripped apart.

Raed did not answer—mainly because he had no answers to give. All he had was the now, and this eerie puzzle box of a fortress. The Young Pretender did not like the fact that this palace had no windows and no guards on these deeper levels.

He would have given anything to have Aachon, or Merrick, or most especially Sorcha at his back.

“Instead all I have is you,” he impotently whispered to the Rossin, “and a rather piss-poor companion you are.”

The minute he spoke, Raed realized that it had been a bad choice to do so. His voice slithered and echoed in these corridors for far too long. He came to a halt, his heart racing in his chest until the reverberations stopped. Only then did he move, treading as fast and silently as he could.

Reaching a dead-end corridor Raed paused—but now in confusion. He could still hear the laughter, but there was no door or window it could be coming through. Dropping to his knees he discerned that there was a grate in the floor, where the faint breeze and the laughter emanated from. The Rossin sensed something else though. It was not any sound that caused the beast in his head to rage; it was a smell.

Kill them. Break them. Take what is theirs.

The words sounded so loud in his skull that Raed had to stop and draw in several long deep breaths with the kind of concentration that probably only should have belonged to a Deacon. Then, slotting his fingers into the grate, he pulled it loose and stared down into the vent. It was going to be a tight fit.

He was not frightened of narrow spaces—years of living on a ship saw to that—but he was a little nervous about being down there if the Rossin should break loose. Still, it was not like he had a choice. Luckily, months of harsh travel had whittled his frame down considerably, and he was able, with a significant amount of wriggling, to get himself into the shaft.

This was the most curious of palaces for a Pretender to the throne to find himself. The air was warm and uncomfortable as he tried his best to keep his breathing low and quiet. Raed passed three junctions, and at each of them paused to listen for the sound of laughter. It didn’t take long to locate the source.

It was Fraine, but she was most definitely not alone. Raed peered down through a grate into another level of the fortress and saw a most strangely beautiful scene. Below, three women were lounging on reclined benches, while another three stood nearby. He recognized two of them immediately—his sister and his old friend Tangyre Greene. His instant reaction was to feel a flare of unreasonable happiness, though both of them had passed him into the hands of a geistlord that wanted to kill both him and the Rossin. Hastily, he quashed those feelings. He reminded himself that they had also ordered the destruction of the small portion of his crew that had followed him. The Young Pretender forced himself to recall the hard look in his sister’s eyes when she had done it.

Yet all his struggles to get from Orinthal to here were suddenly worth it. Raed had, in truth, feared that he would never find them. They looked to be well, and no different from when he had last seen them, as he was held in the sand and his crew was massacred.

Next he examined the other women in the room with his sister. The Shin women were creatures of beauty—Raed had read about that before—but nothing had prepared him for the aura of strange lethargy around two of them. He was, however, the only one to remain calm; the Rossin was almost apoplectic with rage on seeing them. The Beast flooded the Young Pretender’s brain with images of slaughter.

It was, perhaps, because the women were still laughing. Certainly their appearance would have been enjoyed by a huge number of men in the Empire, even if the geistlord was raging about it.

The pair reclining were pale to the point of eeriness, their white hair spread out on their couch. The hair was however the only covering they wore. Their breasts were exposed, nipples painted with ocher, and around their waists were looped strings of pearls and lapis lazuli. It had been months since Raed had seen any kind of naked woman, but he found no excitement stirring in his trousers. He had seen napeth users in the islands, and those empty-eyed beauties left him as cold as these Shin women.

Sorcha, all flame and passion, leapt up in his recollection in contrast to these chill beauties.

Behind the supine two were another pair, also white blonde in coloring, but they were more clothed. Flowing silks were bunched around their waists, but their breasts were bare, and there was nothing lethargic about them; they had the coiled power of a jungle cat, and they paced backward and forward. These were the two that the Rossin was focused on, particularly when he noticed their nails. Curved sheaths of bronze extended them out far beyond normal length, and gave them the unsettling appearance of claws. Upon seeing these two, the Rossin flooded the Young Pretender’s brain with images of slaughter.

Now the Rossin’s rage crystallized into actual words.

Enemies. Blood drinker. The Wrayth. Kill them all.

Raed let his breath out slowly and carefully. Yet the Rossin’s constantly running thoughts were bleeding into his own. It was warm in this narrow space and he could not afford to panic now.

“So, Fraine Rossin,” one of the standing women said, taking a seat at the feet of her supine companion, “have you had a chance to consider our terms?”

Raed’s stomach clenched. It appeared he was too late. The Empire was about to come undone.

Below, his sister shifted on her chair, and glanced up at the silent Tangyre. “Lady Iuhmee, if you join our rebellion there will be plenty of benefits to the Shin and Ensomn itself. I don’t understand why you need—”

“If you don’t understand,” the second woman broke in, “then our business is done here. Your rebellion will founder without us and you know that very well.”

Above, in the vent, Raed frowned. He knew the Shin were influential among the Princes, but not so that they could have such a deciding vote.

They have moved while you slept, foolish mortal. They are more stealthy than you can possibly imagine.

Raed was beginning to feel his own anger rise. He had most certainly not been sleeping while tracking down his sister. Also he was suspicious that the great Beast in him knew something it was not yet sharing. Raed had only felt rage this great twice before, in the ossuary and in the desert of Chioma. He could only conclude one thing: the Shin were in league with a geistlord.

His sister glanced back at Tangyre. “I will not become your peon.” She waved her hand at the pale-haired women, still reclining on the couch and about as noticed as a piece of furniture.