Warriors of Wind and Ash - Page 81

I wait, but no one exclaims at my presence, and there’s no sound from within.

Slowly I push the door wider, slip through the aperture, and close it quietly as I look around.

Someone has definitely been using this room. The fireplace has been recently fed. A bit odd, since it’s springtime and sunny outside, but then again, the room does feel chilly. I remember it feeling cold during my last visit as well. A side effect, perhaps, of some spell gone awry.

Despite the firelight, the room is as morose and forbidding as ever. Unlit lanterns on long chains hang from a domed ceiling painted with yellow constellations on a deep blue background. Heavy, dark bookshelves stretch all the way up to the point where the ceiling starts to curve. Two ponderous tables stand in the center of the room, with an area of flat, slate-gray tile between them—the spot where the Supreme Sorcerer would draw the circles and symbols for his magic. Beside the fireplace is an oven with a flat top, and on the hearth rest two unlit dyre-stones.

The sight of them pierces my heart like a dagger. Kyreagan and I spent so many days in his cave during the Mordvorren, with dyre-stones as our only light. We cooked meals over them together. He traced Dragonish symbols on my bare skin in their warm glow.

How dare the Supreme Sorcerer have dyre-stones here? Where did he get them? What was his connection to the dragons, to the voratrix, to Ouroskelle?

I’m striding toward the dyre-stones when I see it. Slung over the big leather chair, its fringe trailing on the floor. Its bright, embroidered flowers contrast starkly with brown leather, the dark bookshelves, and the array of smoky amber jars on the table.

The shawl of the healer. Lady Cathrain.

I approach it skittishly, as if it’s a living thing that might leap out and bite me. Directly in front of the chair on which it lies is a polished wooden tray, and on that tray are vials of blood, locks of hair, and nail clippings arranged in neat rows, with tiny labels beneath them. I spot an extremely long, shiny black hair, and I know whose it is even before I read the cramped script on the label: The Dragon Prince.

Near it lies a scrap of blood-soaked cloth marked Serylla. It’s part of the dress Cathrain had to cut off me after the beating.

Fury snakes through my belly up into my chest, where it swells hot and molten.

She had the nerve to be kind to me. To pretend she was helping me solve the mystery of my poisoner, when all along it was her. And I even suspected Parma, my sweet maid, if only for a moment.

Surging through my anger is a golden wave of triumph, because I figured it out. I found her, Rahzien’s royal poisoner.

I almost pick up the shawl and fling it into the fire. But I can’t touch anything, can’t leave any sign that I entered this room. And I need to find a good hiding spot, because if my guess is correct, she’ll be back soon. Now that they’ve captured Kyreagan, she’ll probably want more samples from him. He’s an oddity to her, a creature worthy of study, so she’ll bring the samples here to catalog and store them.

The enormity of what she’s done to me, to Kyreagan, to the dragons—it rivals the Supreme Sorcerer’s wickedness. I can barely grasp the idea that the rest of the dragons might be dead, and I can’t even imagine how Kyreagan must feel. Surely they can’t all be gone. It would be impossible to ensure that every single one of them would consume prey from the Middenwold Isles. Maybe Rahzien plans to send hunters to the island to ensure that any survivors are destroyed. It’s what I’d expect from him. He’s not one to leave anything to chance, or to leave a job half done. If the rebels hadn’t been irritating him so effectively and the people hadn’t proven to be so resistant to his rule, maybe he would have already sent men to Ouroskelle to finish off the clan.

Whatever the truth may be, I still need this woman. I have to make her set me free of Rahzien and unlock Ky’s dragon form again.

I choose a dark corner between two bookshelves where I can stand comfortably yet be all but invisible in the shadows until I decide to dart out. My palms are sweating, so I switch the letter opener to my other hand, and wipe my right palm carefully before grasping the weapon again. Much as I’d like to use the long chopping knife lying on one of the tables, the healer might notice its absence the moment she enters. I can’t give her any warning.

I need to take her by surprise.

Tilting my head back against the wall, clutching the slim pearl-handled blade, I wait. And while I wait, I compose a ballad of vengeance in my mind.

25

I’m on my knees in a stone cell, breathing through blood and bruises. My wrists are shackled to chains hanging from the ceiling, and two more chains are wrapped around my body for good measure. A few moments ago, some of Rahzien’s men held me still while the healer Cathrain drew some of my blood, took a shaving of my skin, and chopped off a lock of my hair. She’s still there when Rahzien arrives, and she doesn’t leave immediately—she withdraws into the hallway and stands there quietly, watching.

Rahzien walks right up to me and punches me in the side. At the last moment I twist slightly and his knuckle rams into the chain around my body. He swears harshly, and I’m grimly satisfied that I managed to injure him, even though I cannot touch the fire I possess, or do anything except wrench my arms vainly against the chains.

Rahzien inspects the knuckles of his right hand, sucks the blood from a cut, and releases a sour laugh. “Well played.”

“This is not a game,” I reply.

“Tell me about the spell the Supreme Sorcerer’s daughter performed. How did she do it? Is she still on Ouroskelle?”

“I wasn’t present for the spell. And I’ve been absent from Ouroskelle for days—how am I supposed to know where she is?”

“Where was she when you last saw her? What does she look like? What supplies did she have available when she performed the spell?”

I clench my teeth and stare him down, defiant. No matter how simple or seemingly harmless his questions might be, I refuse to give him anything.

“You’ll talk,” Rahzien says. “You think you’re in pain now, but we’ve only just begun. You and Serylla and I will have some very interesting times together before you die. And you’ll be dying as a human. No little dragon spirit wafting up to the stars, no dragon bones laid upon the fields of Ouroskelle, no ‘bone-tribute.’” He says the phrase with such scorn that I growl and yank at my chains again.

“Dragons have such a primitive belief system,” Rahzien muses. “What do you call your god—the ‘Bone-Builder?’ Fuck, that’s a juvenile term if I ever heard one. You’re a swarm of pathetic animals, blinking wide-eyed at the stars, revering each other’s bleached skeletons after death, clinging to your bits of bone.”