Home > Ashes of the Sun (Burningblade & Silvereye #1)(5)

Ashes of the Sun (Burningblade & Silvereye #1)(5)
Author: Django Wexler

She had barely a flicker of warning as the long tongue of the largest creature lashed out again, this time for her throat. Maya ducked, swiping upward and missing, the tongue vanishing beyond the curtain of fire. She closed her fist, and the flames died, revealing the creature gathering itself for another strike. Maya didn’t give it the chance; she charged through the burning, shattered corpses and dodged when the tongue slashed again. Her haken licked out, a horizontal cut that severed one of the thing’s legs and sliced the hanging ropes of guts, spraying the ground with vile fluids. The plaguespawn staggered, eyes rolling wildly, and Maya delivered another blow to its head, slicing the dog’s muzzle in two. It retreated, wobbling like a drunk, and she sent a wash of fire boiling over it. Eyeballs exploded in the heat, and after a few moments the increasingly blackened plaguespawn collapsed, settling down to burn with an awful stench.

For a moment, nothing moved, and the only sound was the crackle of dying fires. Maya straightened up from her fighting crouch, haken still held in front of her. Her free hand touched the Thing, just for a moment, and she let out a long breath.

“I did it.”

Her heart was hammering in her chest, the adrenaline of the fight rapidly turning to euphoria. Not that she hadn’t fought plaguespawn before, of course. But never without Jaedia looking over my shoulder. She’d been telling her mentor for months now that she could handle things on her own. Maya felt a wide grin spread across her face.

“I fucking did it!”

Someone hit her very hard from behind.

*

She didn’t pass out, in the normal sense. The panoply belt was Chosen arcana like the haken, a tool that used deiat, albeit a far more specialized one. It drew power from the user to protect them, heedless of how much energy the user actually had to offer. This drain, rather than the actual impact, was what made her lose consciousness, and so when she awoke it was not to a pain in her skull but rather with the trembling, sore-muscle sensation of deiat exhaustion. After suffering that kind of abuse, her connection to her power would take hours before it could be used again.

Okay. Maya shook her head, trying to clear the lingering muzziness, and looked around. So where am I?

A single torch burned in a wall bracket, illuminating a circular brick room she guessed had once been a cistern. The open ends of pipes protruded from the walls at irregular intervals, some capped off, others broken and jagged. Maya herself was propped against one wall, her hands tied to a pipe above her head with rough hemp rope. Her ankles were bound as well, and a few brief tugs assured her that whoever had done the binding knew their business.

Her haken was nowhere in sight, though she could sense that it was still nearby. They hadn’t stripped her of her panoply belt, but without a connection to deiat it was just so much silvery fabric.

All in all, it doesn’t look great, does it?

On the other hand, she wasn’t dead. Not being dead always opens up possibilities.

She took a moment to berate herself for letting her excitement get the better of her, but only a moment. Maya tried standing up a little straighter, putting some slack into the rope at her wrists, and was craning her head back to see if this could give her any advantage when a door in the side of the cistern opened.

She knew the man who came in by sight, though they’d never met. Tall, pale-skinned, with a bald dome of a skull. He wore a leather coat with a high fur lining, too hot by far for this time of year, and there was no mistaking that bulbous nose and those bushy eyebrows.

“Hollis Plaguetouch,” she said, settling back down.

“They still call”—he paused for a fraction of a second, then tilted his head and continued in a slightly different intonation—“call me that, do they?”

“I am seizing you on the authority of the Twilight Order,” Maya said. “You stand accused of practicing dhaka. You will have an opportunity to present evidence in your defense.”

Hollis laughed, loud and sudden. Maya set her jaw, waiting stoically until he’d finished.

“You are a bold-bold little thing, aren’t you?” His voice was a rich baritone, but he had a strange nervous tic—not an ordinary stutter, but an odd pause that made him sound like a machine with a broken cog. Hollis stepped closer, bushy eyebrows rising as he studied her. “Shall I untie you and submit, then?”

“That would be a good start,” Maya said. “Though I can’t promise leniency.”

“What a pity-pity.” Hollis raised an eyebrow. “Let me offer a counterproposal. You tell me how the Order found me and how many of you they have looking.”

“And what?” Maya said. “You’ll let me live?”

“No, I’m afraid not-not. But I can promise you won’t be conscious as I tear your body into pieces for spare parts.”

“Tempting.” A drop of sweat rolled down Maya’s forehead.

“You will refuse, of course-course. Such a brave girl.” He rested two fingers on her cheek, and Maya fought the urge to lean away. “Fortunately, your cooperation is not necessary. I can change-change you until you want to tell me. Memory and desire are only matters of the flesh-flesh, after all.”

“That’s a bluff.” Maya swallowed hard. “You may be dhakim, but you’re not a ghoul.”

“Do not presume to tell me what-what I am.” Hollis’ fingers moved in a line down her chin, forcing her head up and tracing the hollow of her throat down to her collarbone. There was no crude lust in his touch, only a cold evaluation, a butcher turning a cut of meat and deciding how to carve the first steak. “You’ll find out soon-soon enough.”

Maya’s heart was slamming against her ribs, so hard she thought it might tear free. He can’t do it. He can’t. She could face the prospect of pain, even death, as inevitable risks of service to the Order. But what Hollis described—being turned into something else, something that was her but not—

Would I remember? Would I still be inside somewhere, the real me, screaming?

Peasants invoked the Chosen as though they were gods, begging them for favor and protection. The Twilight Order knew better. The Chosen, powerful as they had been, were gone, and there were no gods to answer. But at that moment Maya understood the impulse. Help me. Someone. Jaedia, Marn, anyone, just don’t let him do this.

Gyre …

The dhakim stopped, his finger in the center of her chest, resting against the Thing.

“Interesting.” A cold smile spread across his face. “Very inter-interesting.”

There was a long silence. Maya tried to think of something to say, some last defiance to spit in his face, but her throat seemed to have swollen shut.

“I think …” His hand fell to his side, and he stepped back. “I think it is not-not worth risking a disruption. Not now, when we have come so far.” The dhakim shrugged. “I will see you again, never-never fear. And perhaps we will have a more … thorough conversation.” He tilted his head, as though listening to something Maya couldn’t hear. “It appears that our time here is nearly up in any event. Until next time, sha’deia.”

Next time? Maya stared, uncomprehending, as Hollis spread his arms and smiled beatifically.

There was a crunch, like breaking bone. Hollis stood stock-still, but something moved behind his head, hidden in his high collar at first, then scaling the top of the dhakim’s bald skull. It was black, spiderlike, with four spindly legs, muscles exposed like a plaguespawn but bones that looked like dark iron. A long bundle of thin tendrils, their barbed tips dripping blood, rapidly retracted into its underside.

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