“Postern?” Damien chuckled. “If I ask, feel free to use the dagger on me.”
She scowled. “You cut into yourself all the time.”
“Oh, that’s right, I do, don’t I?” He chucked her under the chin. “Now, wipe off that look and at least pretend to be pleased, or I’ll be forced to make you that way.” His hand snaked down to her low back again, tickling as it went and breaking her of the pout.
He guided her toward another merchant selling leathers and clothing. They both sifted through the wares, replacing the garments and armor they’d ruined traveling across Eiren, and Amma even managed to find a tunic dyed a pale enough shade of red to be considered pink. It wasn’t for wearing at Yvlcon though, Damien reminded her.
“That’s fine, I’m getting used to this,” she said, turning from him and stretching arms overhead as she cocked a hip, but then her eyes fell on an overflowing table across the hall and the broad-shouldered and stick-thin forms of Anomalous Craven and Mudryth behind it. She grabbed Damien’s wrist and hauled him through the crowd.
“If it isn’t my favorite demon spawn!” Anomalous threw his huge hands into the air, standing and knocking into the table. Mudryth’s eyes went white, a shadow bursting into existence to keep the hodgepodge upon it from crashing to the ground.
“That’s the third time today.” She smacked him, and he tiptoed backward.
A third lumbering figure shifted out of the shadows carryingthree plates of food. The man limped slightly, head permanently cocked to the side, but when he saw Damien and Amma, opened his mouth and let out a startling noise that fell somewhere between elation and fear.
“Oh, look, Vick remembers you.” Anomalous clapped as the amalgam of a man rounded the table and went right for Amma, throwing arms around her middle and lifting her off the ground.
Unable to breathe, Amma went lax under the incredibly tight embrace, staggering backward when she was finally released, but then the strange being clapped, and she saw the finger of liathau wood made from the trinket she’d found in the alchemist’s tower. “You’re”—she panted—“from the goo?”
“Sure is!” Mudryth patted his shoulder and eased him back into a chair that creaked under his weight. She plied him with food, and he happily began chomping down. “Lasted way longer than any of the others. I think he’s a keeper.” Then she gestured between Damien and Amma. “This certainly escalated.”
“It is a long and arduous story.” Damien cut off Anomalous’s attempt to embrace him, taking his hand instead and giving it a shake. “Anything interesting?”
Anomalous excitedly pointed out a number of strange things, and Damien appeared to be listening, but when he lifted a small bottle and sniffed at it, he immediately corked it back up and dropped it on the table.
“What isthat?”
“They call this Elixir Eternea, say it’s arcane and sends you temporarily to the afterlife, but it’s actually just a neat, little tincture that slows the heart to an imperceptible degree, impedes respiration so it becomes unnecessary, and presents the body, for all intents and purposes, as dead.”
Damien turned his lip up. “Are you certain? I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it smells familiar. And nauseating.”
Anomalous shrugged. “Muddie took a dose for me to test itout, and after a couple of hours, I almost chopped her up for parts.”
“Woke up with a hatchet in my face,” she squawked, and even Vick laughed at that, mouth full.
Damien ushered Amma off again when he checked the time, stating they would be late. He guided her out of the more populated halls to a smaller chamber where matching, plush seats had been positioned in rows facing a platform. The room was similar to a very small theater with thick draperies on the walls, though it was just as dark as any of the other spaces, no windows to be seen and only candlelight set into the walls.
Most of the seats were taken, and Damien maneuvered the two of them through the chamber, explaining quietly that she may find herself bored in the coming few hours, but then cut himself off and stopped short. She followed his gaze to a dark figure at the head of the room, and while most of the Yvlcon attendees were ominous and frightening in their own right, this one carried an aura about them, face totally obscured by a hooded robe, and Amma’s stomach was immediately unsettled.
Damien straightened, and his gentle touch on her waist shifted to a grip on her arm. A coldness passed through him and to her, and he tugged her roughly to one of the few empty seats on the far side of the chamber. He fell into one with a huff and glared at her. “On your knees.”
CHAPTER 5
IT IS THE TORTURED WHO TURN INTO TORTURERS
Amma’s gaze flicked to the ground, then to the others seated around them. None of the villains or the few companions there seemed to be paying much attention, especially under the low lighting, but she was still hesitant to follow Damien’s command. “You mean, like, right here? Now?”
But he had told her she would do exactly as he said, and, apparently, did not intend to repeat himself. He reached up, and his fingers laced into her hair. With a tug, Amma was brought to her knees, landing on the floor just between his thighs.
Damien’s brutal gaze swept out over the room, lingering on the place where the frightening figure had been, but from Amma’s spot on the floor, she could only see him. His grasp on her hair was too tight for her to even swivel her head, drawing her toward him as he continued to take stock of the room. She pressed forward onto her hands and knees, letting her gaze travel down his body—one that had been clad in sleek, black clothing—to land on the bulge only a few inches from her face. She had come dangerously close to knowing what he looked like completely disrobed, what was under his breeches the only mystery left. Amma bit her lip—was she supposed to…
A pillow was thrust into her face, and, bewildered for only a moment, Amma took it when Damien more urgently gestured with the thing. She quickly slipped it under her while no one else was looking, though it seemed no bother to anyone else that he’d forced her to the ground between his legs.
A voice rose from the front of the room, a womanexplaining that she would be presenting on a “new enthralled state” that had been, of all things, “in use by divine mages in temples devoted to the Empyrean gods.” Amma half-listened as Damien’s fingers continued to hold her still, the dim light in the room fading even darker.
A second presenter joined in, and the two droned on about enchanted wine and zealous devotion and all-consuming grief, about the immense power and intriguing longevity of this holy technique to enthrall. It required a relic, something fragile that, if broken, would bring the spell state to an intense and bitter halt, but they had yet to figure out how to leave the thrall entirely with its own mind. The two states were counter, the presenters said—having control of oneself and being controlled—but Amma knew that was untrue: Damien had done it to her. The vampire dame Lycoris and the witches in the Innomina Wildwood agreed that Amma’s mind had not been permanently altered by the talisman inside her, yet he could command her to do anything.
But there were moments when Amma wondered if Bloodthorne’s Talisman of Enthrallment actually had done something permanent to her, something to allow a darkness to creep inside. She didn’t necessarily feel different, but when his fingers had ensnared themselves in her locks and brought her to the ground, she wanted to go. She knew she shouldn’t allow it, and she definitely shouldn’t like it, not when she had detested the last person who treated her like an object and reveled in her pain. So why would her heart flutter when Damien’s features went cold? And why did she get a thrill when he whispered threats into her ear?
