The Shadow Reader

Page 60

I take a swing at the fae’s head. Miss.
“He knows who I am,” I say, not knowing if I’m telling a lie or not. “He’ll turn me over to Kyol. You have to get back to Kelia. Go! Now!”
He wants to protest—I see it in his eyes—but invoking Kelia’s name does the trick.
The fae curses when Naito makes a leap for the window. I put myself between them, forcing the fae to focus on me. He parries my attack and strikes back. The sword flies from my hand and clatters against the wall.
I draw my poisoned dagger. Throw it.
The fae raises his off hand in defense and bats the dagger aside. The throw wasn’t hard or fast, but the blade is sharp and blood wells from a small cut on the top of his hand.
I don’t wait for the poison to kick in; I lunge for the window.
He catches me. I swing back with an elbow, manage to catch his chin, but his hold doesn’t loosen. He throws me to the floor, pins me there.
I shove my knee into his groin, but there’s no momentum behind it. He slips to the side. His hands tighten around my wrists.
“Be still,” he snarls in Fae.
A flash of pain bursts behind my eyes when I head-butt him. He grunts, but I’m certain I did more harm to me than to him. I can barely focus. His face wavers above me. I struggle, bucking and twisting and trying to squirm away.
He wavers again. This time, it’s not just my vision. His arms buckle and he collapses on top of me. I lie there, gasping for air, then somehow I manage to shove him away.
Rolling to my stomach, I crawl on all fours toward the window, my arms shaking beneath me. I grab the window’s edge, ignore the glass biting into my palms, and will my muscles to cooperate.
My upper torso drapes over the windowsill. Glass pricks my skin, but Raen’s cloak protects me from too much damage. The street below is empty. It’s going to hurt when I hit, but I need to get out of here. The fae are still beating on the door.
My weight is split between the room and the outside world. I’m about to slide over the edge when something grabs me. It’s a Court fae, the one with the crossbow bolt through his shoulder. He drags me back inside the room as the door bursts open and the king’s swordsmen charge inside.
I scream myself awake. Cold. Wet. Caught. My teeth clatter and someone throws a second bucket of water over my head.
I cry out again. My skin seems to freeze over my bones.
“Ah, there you are,” Radath’s voice croons just inside the reach of a hanging orb’s blue glow. He overturns his bucket at the edge of the light and sits.
I wish I could remain unconscious. Everything hurts: my ribs and stomach, my back, and especially my shoulders and arms. My hands are shackled securely to the wall. There isn’t a length of chain or anything between it and my silver manacles; I can’t adjust my position at all.
“You need to start talking,” Radath says. “You can start by explaining what you were doing last night.”
I’m so damn cold it’s a struggle to pull my thoughts together. I squeeze my eyes shut, open them, and search the shadows of my prison. How did I get here? How much does Radath know?
“Where did you get this?” Radath asks. He’s holding something in his hand. A dagger, the one Raen gave me.
“I want to talk to Taltrayn.” I try to keep my voice steady, but I’m shivering too much.
Radath laughs. “Of course you do.”
Something moves in my peripheral vision. A tiny glimmer of hope rises in me. It’s snuffed out an instant later when Micid, not Kyol, steps into the light.
Radath follows my line of sight. “I’ve brought along my ther’rothi. He asked to meet you.”
The fae’s gaze oozes over me. I’m already shivering, but a deeper tremble runs through my body.
“Micid is a rare breed,” Radath continues. “Possibly unique. Show her what you do.”
The ther’rothi’s lips stretch into a smile one moment before he disappears. I press back against the wall, afraid of what he’ll do, but he reappears a few seconds later in the exact same spot. That’s when confusion sinks in. Radath said Micid wanted to meet me, but we already met. And I already know what he can do. Why the demonstration?
Radath chuckles. “Does it bother you? Not being able to see him? I learned of his magic a few years ago and agreed to keep it secret—only the king and I know what he can do. In exchange, he works for me when I need him.”
Someone’s not keeping it a secret, but I’m not about to correct the lord general.
Radath leans forward, drops his voice to a whisper. “I also ignore his little trips to tjandel.”
Tjandel. I recognize the word. Micid said he visited there.
“Unfamiliar with the place?” Radath inquires. He wants me to ask about it. I won’t.
“It’s a . . . What do your people call it? A whorehouse. Yes. It’s a whorehouse in an unsavory district on the edge of Corrist. It’s outside the silver walls, so its clientele can fissure in and out without being seen. I know of many nobles who have tasted the delights there. All would deny it, but not Micid. Micid is addicted to the whores. Addicted, in fact, to their chaos lusters.”
It feels like Radath just dumped a third bucket of icy water over my head.
“Most of the whores are there willingly,” he says, his voice saccharine. “Some of them aren’t. They don’t all have the Sight, and Micid has a fetish for humans who scream and thrash beneath him. He likes them slightly insane, grasping and clawing at the invisible demon they believe to be inside them. Since you do have the Sight, you’ll understand what’s happening, but I’m sure he wouldn’t be opposed to breaking you in. You’d scream for him, wouldn’t you, McKenzie?”
Micid watches me with a small, sadistic smile.
Then, suddenly, Radath gets to the point. “There were two others with you last night. Who were they?”
He doesn’t know about Naito and Evan. Thank God. They must have escaped. At least I accomplished something last night. I sit straighter, trying to ease the bite of the shackles into my wrists.
Radath lifts the poisoned dagger. Carefully, he slides its blade under a damp lock of my hair, lifting it out of my face. He wants me to be scared of him—I am—but I won’t tell him about the humans. It won’t save me; it will only condemn Kyol.
Radath grips the left side of my neck in one big hand, laying the dagger flat against the other side, right over the puckered scar Aren left on my skin. His hand tightens, constricting my airway. “Who were they?”
I have to tell him something, something that will appease him and buy me time.
“Rebels,” I choke out. “I was supposed to get them inside the palace.”
Radath’s grip loosens. Micid, smirking at the edge of the orb’s glow, lifts an eyebrow. He doesn’t deny my claim, though. He really doesn’t want the lord general to know we met before.
“And what were these rebels supposed to do,” Radath asks, “once they came inside?”
I scrape up the courage to pin him with a glare. “They were supposed to kill you.”
Radath chuckles. “I’m as untouchable as the king, McKenzie.”
A door creaks open. “Lord General.”
I let out a shaky breath. Kyol’s found me.