As they arrived at the Den, Nina couldn't help but look past it to the speck in the distance where the Gods’ Villa and her friends were.
Before Nina had gone to garden that morning, the Death List had been issued from yesterday’s trial—Winderlyn’s trial. Zeri and Ezra, both marked as penalty kills.
It was such news that prompted the immediate need to feel the dirt on her skin.
Nina gently pulled Kahaida to a stop a healthy distance from the gate, knowing the mare was more sensitive to Jinn presence than even she was. Gaven did the same with his stallion. He looked up at the building, constructed of onyx and laced with violet streams.
“This place never gets easier to come to.”
Nina eyed the wards—Jeriyah’s enchantments—shimmering around the walls and knobless door. “It truly doesn't.”
Even the trees and grassland surrounding the place were dull and brittle, as if the very life was replaced with the Jinn’s endless death. Usually, guards would greet them at the main door. The lack of any made Gaven and Nina glance at each other with heightened caution.
Wordlessly, Gaven retrieved his sword from his belt and took the lead, Nina behind him with a sense of unease in the pit of her stomach. It never made sense to her why the King harbored these creatures within the wall that's meant to keep them out, nor why the wall did not extend along the coast when the Jinn mostly swam to land from their isle.
“Semmena didn't say what exactly to ask it,” Gaven whispered. “Only to see what it said.”
Nina tightened the grip on her daggers. Mind Slayers within Rimemere couldn't mean anything good.
As they reached the door, Gaven knocked a series of sounds on it with the hilt of his sword, a code that would signal the keepers to open.
Nina had a sudden wave of dread that perhaps they were also missing, but after a few moments, the door creaked open—no guards in sight.
It was a single hall they stepped into, the door snapping shut behind them and leaving them engulfed in total darkness. Slowly, a blue glow seeped from beneath the many doors flanking them, stretching into the abyss beyond. Nina looked from door to door and fidgeted with the hilt of her daggers.
Each door was solid, bolted, and warded with enchantments that predated Jeriyah’s position. Nina didn’t trust the ancient magic at all, but it seemed to be doing its job.
The doors were adorned with individual carvings, depicting different classes of Jinn. To her right was the portrait of a giant, birdlike creature with feathered wings and talons stretching from its lanky fingers. Where the beak should have been there was a gaping hole filled with long teeth and a pointed tongue. Its eyes were huge, bulging, and set on either side of its head—A Middle-Level Jinn, more sentient than the Lowers.
“Where in the world are the guards,” Nina whispered, pressing her back to Gaven’s to keep a full range of surveillance. Her breath came in puffs of cool mist, the temperature within the place a permanent winter.
“I’ve never seen the place unguarded,” Gaven responded. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Your little soldiers were called away about an hour ago, Wind Dancer.”
Nina knew the voice of a Mind Slayer. They had a distinct sort of timbre, one that made their victims drawn to them, all part of their manipulation. It came from the end of the lone corridor, highlighted by a soft, baby-blue light.
She and Gaven exchanged glances.
He shrugged. “Your call. We can come back with reinforcements.”
The Mind Slayer cackled. “Oh, no need to fear little old me. Come. Come here, Earth Caller—I can smell the land on you.”
If they left now, Nina doubted she would get the opportunity again to see what made Semmena so interested in the creature. Maybe the King would somehow drag Sawyer here for whatever sick reason.
No, Nina wouldn’t risk that.
She nodded in a silent order forward.
Gaven obliged.
The thing was…fatally mesmerizing. It sat on the floor, back against the wall and knees folded beneath it. Unlike the Lowers, Mind Slayers were typically more humanoid, making them even more unsettling. Its entire being was covered with radiant blue skin. Its hands were casually draped over its knees. Where its fingers should be, there were only thin, needlelike rods. It had no hair, no semblance of humanity.
Their eyes met.
Its depthless black eyes flashed white as it stood. It had no nose, only slits where one should be. Its eyes dimmed as it walked toward them, so slowly it could have been floating.
“Ninanette Amana Lochar,” the thing hissed, its voice wrapping around her in a slither. “What a treat.”
