Empire of Storms
Page 24

Doubt still danced in its eyes—along with real fear. A lucky guess, those words and phrases, based on what she’d overheard. She didn’t let herself consider what had been done to make such a creature quake at the mention.
Elide was five paces from the creature, keenly aware that her spine was now vulnerable to those shredding claws and teeth, when it asked, “Why did you flee at our approach?”
She said without turning, in that cold, vicious voice of Manon Blackbeak, “I do not tolerate the questions of underlings. You have already disrupted my hunt and injured my ankle with your useless attack. Pray that I do not remember your face when I return to the Keep.”
She knew her mistake the moment it sucked in a hissing breath.
Still, she kept her legs moving, back straight.
“What a coincidence,” it mused, “that our prey is similarly lamed.”
Anneith save her. Perhaps it had not noticed the limp until then. Fool. Fool.
Running would do her no good—running would proclaim the creature had won, that it was right. She halted, as if her temper had yanked on its leash, and snapped her face toward the creature. “What is that you’re hissing about?”
Utter conviction, utter rage.
Again the creature paused. One chance—just one chance. It’d learn soon enough that it had been duped.
Elide held its gaze. It was like staring a dead snake in the eyes.
She said with that lethal quiet the witches liked to use, “Do not make me reveal what His Dark Majesty put inside me on that table.”
As if in response, the stone in her hand throbbed, and she could have sworn darkness flickered.
The creature shuddered, backing away a step.
Elide didn’t consider what she held as she sneered one last time and stalked away.
She made it perhaps half a mile before the forest was again full of chittering life.
She fell to her knees and vomited.
Nothing but bile and water came out. She was so busy hurling up her guts with stupid fear and relief that she didn’t notice anyone’s approach until it was too late.
A broad hand clamped on her shoulder, whirling her around.
She drew her dagger, but too slowly. The same hand released her to slap the blade to the grass.
Elide found herself staring into the dirt-splattered face of the man from the stream. No, not dirt. Blood that reeked—black blood.
“How?” she said, stumbling away a step.
“You first,” he snarled, but whipped his head toward the forest behind them. She followed his gaze. Saw nothing.
When she looked at his harsh face, a sword lay against her throat.
She tried to fall back, but he gripped her arm, holding her as steel bit into her skin. “Why do you smell of one of them? Why do they chase you?”
She’d pocketed the stone, or else she might have shown him. But movement might cause him to strike—and that small voice whispered to keep the stone concealed.
She offered another truth. “Because I have spent the past several months in Morath, living amongst that scent. They seek me because I managed to get free. I flee north—to safety.”
Faster than she could see, he lowered his blade—only to slice it across her arm. A scratch, barely more than a whisper of pain.
They both watched as her red blood surged and dribbled.
It seemed answer enough for him.
“You can call me Lorcan,” he said, though she hadn’t asked. And with that, he hauled her over his broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes and ran.
Elide knew two things within seconds:
That the remaining creatures—however many there were—had to be on their trail and closing in fast. Had to have realized she’d bluffed her way free.
And that the man, moving swift as a wind between the oaks, was demi-Fae.
 
 
Lorcan ran and ran, his lungs gobbling down great gulps of the forest’s stifling air. Slung over his shoulder, the girl didn’t even whimper as the miles passed. He’d carried packs heavier than her over entire mountain ranges.
Lorcan slowed when his strength at last began to flag, spent quicker thanks to the magic he’d used to get those three beasts into a stranglehold, battering past their natural-born immunity to it, then kill two while he pinned the other long enough to sprint for the girl.
He’d been lucky.
The girl, it seemed, had been smart.
He jogged into a stop, setting her down hard enough that she winced—winced and hopped a bit on that hurt ankle. Her blood had flowed red instead of the reeking black that implied Valg possession, but it still didn’t explain how she’d been able to intimidate that ilken into submission.
“Where are we going?” she said, swinging her pack to pull out her canteen. He waited for the tears and prayers and begging. She just unscrewed the cap of the leather-coated container and swigged deep. Then, to his surprise, offered him some.
Lorcan didn’t take it. She merely drank again.
“We’re going to the edge of the forest—to the Acanthus River.”
“Where—where are we?” The hesitation said enough: she’d calculated the risk of revealing how vulnerable she was with that question … and decided she was too desperate for the answer.
“What is your name?”
“Marion.” She held his gaze with a sort of unflinching steel that had him angling his head.
An answer for an answer. He said, “We’re in the middle of Adarlan. You were about a day’s hike from the Avery River.”
Marion blinked. He wondered if she even knew that—or had considered how she’d cross the mighty body of water that had claimed ships captained by the most seasoned of men and women.
She said, “Are we running, or can I sit for a moment?”
He listened to the sounds of the forest for any hint of danger, then jerked his chin.
Marion sighed as she sat on the moss and roots. She surveyed him. “I thought all the Fae were dead. Even the demi-Fae.”
“I’m from Wendlyn. And you,” he said, brows rising slightly, “are from Morath.”
“Not from. Escaping from.”
“Why—and how.”
Her narrowed eyes told him enough: she knew he still didn’t believe her, not entirely, red blood or no. Yet she didn’t answer, instead leaning over her legs to unlace a boot. Her fingers trembled a bit, but she got through the laces, yanking off the boot, removing the sock, and rolling up her leather pant leg to reveal—
Shit. He’d seen plenty of ruined bodies in his day, had done plenty of ruining himself, but rarely were they left so untreated. Marion’s leg was a mess of scar tissue and twisted bone. And right above her misshapen ankle lay still-healing wounds where shackles had unmistakably been.
She said quietly, “Allies of Morath are usually whole. Their dark magic could surely cure a cripple—and they surely would have no use for one.”
That was why she’d managed so well with the limp. She’d had years to master it, from the coloring of the scar tissue.
Marion rolled her pant leg back down but left her foot bare, massaging it. She hissed through her teeth.
He sat on a fallen log a few feet away, taking off his own pack to rifle through it. “Tell me what you know of Morath,” he said, and chucked her a tin of salve straight from Doranelle.