Lisa Shearin - Armed & Magical

I recognized him. He had been one of Banan Ryce’s boys. A Nightshade.

He’d literally been sliced to ribbons.

The first cut hadn’t killed him, and neither had the next dozen or so. I thought it was a safe assumption that the slit throat had done the trick. From the angle of the cuts, the blade had been razor sharp and curved. Someone liked to play with their prey first. I increased the globe’s glow. Farther down was another corpse.

The lightglobe would announce us to what was down here, if it hadn’t already. Dousing it would leave us fumbling in the dark; and the dark would just make the things that’d killed the Nightshades more comfortable while they killed us.

I exhaled. We’d probably be safer back in the embassy. Taltek Balmorlan was the lesser of the evil that was down here with us.

Playful, sadistic bastards with curved blades.

Khrynsani.

Piaras swallowed hard and stared at the body. He didn’t know what had killed the Nightshade, and I was going to tell him. He needed to know. From talking to Tanik, I knew there were two ways into, and out of, the embassy basements— through the embassy itself or through the harbor tunnel.

Khrynsani goblins certainly hadn’t strolled in through the front door of the elven embassy. That meant there was an undetermined number of Khrynsani between us and our only way out.

I had plenty of questions, no answers. One question rudely elbowed its way to the front of my mind. What the hell were Khrynsani doing under the elven embassy?

Piaras started to say or ask something.

I shook my head with the least motion possible. Piaras remained absolutely still, his dark eyes intent on shadows where there could be anything or nothing.

I dimmed the lightglobe and motioned for Piaras to follow me. There were two crates stacked on top of each other that would give us some cover but still let us see anything coming at us. Maybe. Goblins were fast, especially these goblins.

I stood on tiptoe, my lips next to his ear. “Khrynsani.” I said it in a whisper so light that I barely heard it.

Piaras’s only sign that he’d heard was a single nod. I was impressed. Though after being arrested, kidnapped, imprisoned, charged with murder, and interrogated, and escaping in the span of just a few hours, being told there were murderous goblins in the basement couldn’t come as that big of a shock.

Time for a brilliant plan, Raine. Problem was, the bad guys were sitting back with the good cards and a heaping pile of chips. We were stuck with a really crappy hand and were down to our last, lousy chip.

I was at the top of the Khrynsani’s most-wanted list, and worse yet, their boss wanted me alive. Rudra Muralin had used Piaras to attack Justinius, but I didn’t know if he had an interest in Piaras beyond that, though Muralin knew that gifted spellsingers like Piaras were rare and highly prized.

Highly prized for their voices—the sweet magic.

Oh hell.

I knew why the Nightshades were down here.

I knew why the Khrynsani were down here killing Nightshades.

I knew Piaras and I didn’t need to be anywhere near here.

Sarad Nukpana said Muralin had come to Mid to reclaim what my father had stolen from him. Muralin had no use for the pitiful efforts of a starved Saghred. He needed it at full power, and for that he needed sacrifices. And the Saghred liked nothing better than spellsingers. Banan Ryce and his Nightshades had been gathering spellsingers. Tonight they’d captured three more. What better place for the Nightshades to keep their growing collection than under the one building on the island that Mychael, his Guardians, and the city watch couldn’t legally search.

Banan Ryce had done the work; Rudra Muralin was moving in to reap the benefits. When the Nightshades had stormed the dressing rooms at Sirens, Muralin had said that once again elves were unknowingly doing his work for him.

Ugly didn’t begin to describe how bad this was going to get. Bloodbath sounded about right. Me, Piaras, and those spellsingers were going to be caught in the middle.

Piaras’s eyes were intent on my face, noting every change in my expression. I hadn’t bothered to keep what I was thinking from showing on my face.

“Tell me.” He kept his voice down, but his tone told me he wanted to know. Now.

Piaras knew about the first three spellsingers. He didn’t know who had been taken this evening—and that Katelyn Valerian was one of them.

“The spellsingers may be down here. I need to check.”

Tanik had told me the basic layout of what lay beneath the elven embassy. Piaras and I were in the main basement, directly beneath the embassy building. More than likely the dead Nightshades had been trying to get upstairs for help. They obviously hadn’t made it. If they had, Giles Keril would have been looking for a place to hide, not for his specs.

Beyond this room were storerooms of various sizes on several levels. Naturally, it wasn’t a straight shot from where we were to the tunnel. We had to go through some of those storerooms, and down three levels. Tanik hadn’t mentioned any rooms with prison cells. But from Piaras’s encounter tonight with elven government hospitality, I’d be willing to bet there was a prison block tucked away down here somewhere. A place where inquisitors wouldn’t have to worry about screams disturbing the nice bureaucrats upstairs.

I didn’t have Megan’s brush or Ailia’s locket with me, but I’d linked with both girls a few times. If they were close by, finding them shouldn’t be a problem.

“Keep watch,” I mouthed silently to Piaras.

He nodded.

Seeking was quiet. If Muralin or Ryce were down here, they wouldn’t hear what I was about to do.

I didn’t close my eyes, but stared instead at the side of the crate. I clasped my hands loosely together as if I actually held Megan’s hairbrush. I remembered the sharpness of the bristles against my bare palm, the cool smoothness of the silver, the feel of the intricate scrollwork.

I linked and I saw.

Khrynsani shamans had the spellsingers, and they were all in one cell. Katelyn was kneeling next to an unconscious Ronan Cayle, wrapping what looked like a strip of fabric from her gown to bind a nasty gash on the maestro’s head. Talon was pacing in feline fury. I had been able to hear the spellsingers before, but not now. Was Rudra Muralin using stronger wards? He’d been sacrificing spellsingers for a long time. If anyone knew how to protect himself from terrified spellsingers who knew they were going to die, it would be Muralin.

I couldn’t see Rudra Muralin.

That could be good—or that could be really bad. He had to be somewhere, and just because I couldn’t see him in that cell block didn’t mean he wasn’t down here.

And down here was dark. Really scary dark.

The spellsingers were somewhere below us. There was no doubt in my mind. The link pulled at me through the soles of my feet like weights attached to my ankles, dragging me down.

I didn’t want to go down; I wanted to get out. But no one had asked me what I wanted.

No one had asked those kids or Ronan what they wanted, either.

I unclasped my hands and broke the link. “All six spellsingers are down here.” I sounded about as enthused as I felt.

Piaras looked confused. “Six? I thought you said there were—”

“There were three; now there are six.” I really didn’t want to tell him, but he needed to know. “After you were arrested, three more were taken from Sirens: Talon Tandu, Maestro Cayle… and Katelyn.”

Piaras’s face drained of all color. It wasn’t from fear. It was all rage, cold and focused.

“Now the Khrynsani have taken them from the Nightshades,” I said. “A goblin named Rudra Muralin is their leader.” I didn’t mention that Muralin was ancient and psychotic. I was holding on to the slim hope that Piaras wouldn’t be finding that out. “He’s a shaman and a spellsinger. He used to wield the Saghred, and now he wants it back.” I paused. “He’s also the goblin who used your song against the archmagus.”