With a sigh, he dropped his hand.
“Jeric…?”
The voice was so frail—so thin, he almost did not hear it.
“Astrid…?” He leaned closer, hopeful, and held the torch high. Still, he could not see her. “Astrid, I’m here. Talk to me.”
“Jeric, I’m scared.” Her voice trembled like that of a frightened child.
It pained him. “I know, and I am—”
“It’s everywhere…” she continued.
A beat. “What’s everywhere?”
“The darkness. Jeric, I am so cold…”
Jeric gripped one of the bars with his free hand. “Listen to me, Astrid. I am going to help you. I swear on my life. We will fight this together—”
Suddenly, black fingernails sank into his hand, breaking skin. Jeric hissed and dropped the torch. It rolled, shadows slithering on the walls.
“Your Grace!” the guards shouted behind him.
Her fingernails dug deep, drawing blood. Jeric fought to pull away as Astrid’s startlingly gaunt face appeared behind the bars. Her pupils were too dilated, her eyes too pale and pillowed by cavernous shadows, while her lips cracked and bled, stretched too far over bared gray teeth. Her hair, which had once been a shimmering blushed gold, was now dull as straw, matted and tangled with chunks missing from her scalp, as though she’d ripped it out.
Jeric pried his hand free of her iron grip and stumbled back into a guard.
And there was laughter. A dark, malignant sound that gurgled from the depths of the five hells.
“He means to save us,” she said in that voice of many, of one. A voice that would haunt him forever.
The legion.
“Let her go,” Jeric snarled.
“Let us free, and we might consider.”
“I don’t bargain with demons.”
Astrid merely stared at him with those too-pale eyes, and then she cocked her head to the side like a bird. “Tell us… How did you find your scout?”
Jeric went rigid. Behind him, the guards exchanged a glance.
Astrid’s tongue slid over her dark teeth, relishing. “He wants to know how we know. Should we tell him?” Astrid licked her lips. “No, we think not. We like watching the pretty wolf dance.”
Jeric gazed upon this creature that had once been his beautiful sister, and in that moment, his answer became painfully clear. “You will die tomorrow.”
“You cannot kill us.”
“You were cast out of this world once. It will be done again.”
She gnashed her teeth, startling Jeric back one step, and she curled long and bloodied fingers around the bars. But the moment her fingers touched skal, the etchings flared white. A brilliant, unfiltered white. Astrid shrieked and let go, whimpering like an injured pup. She cradled her hands and hunched away from the door, then sat in the middle of the floor, in the lines of torchlight. There, she swayed back and forth, back and forth, moaning lowly with her head bowed.
Jeric stood there a moment as regret settled heavily upon his chest, and then he left his sister’s cell for what he knew would be the very last time.
5
You are mine.
Imari bolted upright to a dark room. Her room, she swiftly recalled, and it took her a moment more to convince herself that she wasn’t still dreaming. The wood stove glowed innocently in the corner, and the night lay quiet. Calm. Imari inhaled deep. Just a dream. It was just a dream.
But wards.
That voice still rattled in her mind, and points of pain throbbed all over her body, where those fleshy branches had speared her skin.
Imari absently rubbed at her arms and glanced at the low table, at the three bottles of nazzat—all empty, thanks to Ricón and Kai, who had visited with her late into the night. Perhaps she shouldn’t have helped them empty those bottles. In Imari’s experience, alcohol was the worst of friends. It lied and it flattered, and then stole your integrity in the morning.
Which was why she usually used it strictly as an antiseptic.
But being with her brothers last night, after all these years, she’d lost herself to the moment. Where there were no shades and no fear of darkness, and no need for wards to protect them. The nazzat had helped dull the awkwardness those lonely years had created, and then they had laughed and joked and exchanged countless stories. Imari had joined in wholeheartedly, eager to make new memories. Ones that weren’t full of pain and horror and loneliness. She had plenty of those.
The draperies over the wood screen wall swelled like sails, and Imari went rigid.
Ricón had closed those screen doors last night. She remembered, because he’d checked the lock three times, and she had teased him for being ridiculous.
Curious, and more than a little wary, Imari climbed out of her blankets and padded toward the large screen, the travertine floor cold upon her bare feet. Even if someone had scaled the high wall of this tower, there was no way they would they have gotten past the guards…
Imari stopped cold.
Her bone flute lay beside the emptied nazzat. And beneath it lay a square piece of paper.
Imari moved the flute aside—the etchings flared at her touch—and she lifted the crisp parchment, opened the single, stiff crease to find a black feather within.
An owl feather.
Her gaze shot through the open door, to the starless sky beyond her veranda. He had been here. He had followed her all the way from Skyhold, and snuck into her room while she’d been asleep. The thought of him slinking around this space while she slept made Imari shudder.
She glanced down at the paper, picked up the feather, and read the inked words beneath, scrawled in elegant script.
You must practice.
Something moves in the shadows that I cannot See, but when it comes to light, and it will very soon, you must be ready.
No signature. Not that it needed one.
She read the note again. Rasmin and his rutting cryptic words—vague, like his attempts at explaining the Shah. She’d thought his understanding had come from years of torturing information from those who’d possessed it. She hadn’t realized his understanding had come from personal experience.
Imari strode to the wood stove and threw open the grate. Metal screamed and sleepy embers blushed within.
“Here’s what I think of your advice, Inquisitor.” She touched paper to ember. The paper ignited and flame curled the edges like ribbon, eating them up and staining them black. She tossed the paper into the stove, and the feather with it. “May you burn in the deepest hell, you rutting monster.”
Imari snatched the fire poker and stabbed at the coals, throwing sparks. She thought of all the Sol Velorians and their Liagé that Rasmin had tortured, and the Sol Velorian slaves Hagan had murdered in front of her every day she had not played.
Every day she had not given them the power they had sought.
Another thought struck her then: would it be so different here in Istraa? Once the people moved beyond the shock of her existence and learned what she could do—and they would learn, eventually. What then? With rumors of this Liagé leader rampant across Istraa, would her papa’s rois and roiesses—those who governed Istraa’s various districts—choose instead to use Imari in the same way Hagan had intended?