– A Statement Made by Zander, Patriarch of House Viper, Overheard and Recorded by an Acolyte by the name of Selenda, Former Member of House Avus, 1898
Iawoke in a room I'd never seen before.
I had vague recollections of being moved, of being dragged through sand, of scales beneath me and sky above. Hazy memories of the wind whipping through my hair as the ground spiraled away below flitted through my subconscious but drifted away if I turned too much of my focus onto them. I remembered a girl, a voice, a threat. A loud tavern and grizzled veterans. Anger and night. Then nothing. Until this room.
Made entirely of stone, there was no furniture inside of it except for the chair I was in. My wrists and ankles were bound to the arms and legs of the thing. My neck ached from the way I'd been hanging my head while unconscious and it cracked when I moved my head from side to side, trying to get a better view of my surroundings. It was dark here and damp. Moisture seemedto leak through the stones themselves making the room almost humid. Candles flickered in sconces set at regular intervals along the walls, the only light for me to see by. I wasn’t sure how long I'd been unconscious but I was certain of one thing; I wasn’t inPavosanymore.
“—don’t know why theGeistwanted them,” someone said from the other side of the door directly across from me. I raised my head and craned my neck to hear them better through the thick stone. “But I heard what they said about the pair of them. They’reafraidof them, Leo. I’ve never known theGeistto fear anything besides theZver. So if they’re afraid of him, that makes him worth the risk, does it not?”
“He’s one of them,Nia,” a man argued. “He’s spent his whole life being brainwashed to believe they're his gods. They branded him with their magic. He cannot be trusted.”
“I didn’t say we should trust him, Roman,” the woman snapped. “I said we should use him.”
“And you’re so sure he would allow himself to be used.”
“I suppose we won’t know the answer to that until we tell him the truth.”
“He won’t believe you.”
“We have to try. Leo, tell him—”
“That’s enough, both of you,” a third male voice snapped. “We believe in the power of choice here, Roman. It’s what separates us from theGeist. If we start choosing the fate of all men, we're no better than the beings who propped themselves up as our gods. AndKsenia, don’t think bringing him to us gets you out of the punishment you can expect for disobeying orders.”
“But—”
“I told you not to return toPavos. You went against a direct order from your prince. You will be punished.”
“Yes, my prince,” the woman grumbled.
“What do we do with him?” Roman asked, voice gruffer than before.
“Give him the truth,” the man they called Leo answered after a moment. “Let him decide whether or not to believe it.”
I heard the sound of retreating footsteps a moment later and then silence descended within the hallway beyond the door. They'd left me, all of them. I'd been kidnapped and brought gods knew where and left to rot in this cell without the decency of a proper explanation.
Roaring in frustration, I pulled fiercely against my bonds only to realize they seemed to repel every bit of magic I attempted to use against them. I couldn’t phase out of them or break through them with my enhanced strength. I raised the manacles and gazed at them in wonder. What material was this that could restrict magic in such a way? Did theGeistknow our enemy had it? Whatelsedid they know that they weren’t telling us?
I yanked again on the chain but my frenzy was interrupted by a low growl emanating suddenly from the corner of the room. I raised my gaze to find a massive beast emerging from the shadows. It prowled forward on giant white glistening paws, licking hungrily at the poisonous saliva dripping from its maw. I froze as those glowing red eyes devoured me slowly.
“Enough, Phantom,” a familiar female voice barked as the door of my cell clanged open. “We don’t want to scare him. Yet.”
Reluctantly, I pulled my gaze from the enormous beast now slinking back into the shadows from whence it came. I recognized the woman now standing a few feet before me, arms crossed and brow raised, immediately. Hers was the last face I’d seen inPavosas she knelt over me, waiting for her poison to take effect.
I snarled, straining against my bonds as I made a doomed attempt to lunge for her. She justtsked, shaking her head back and forth as she strode across the room, prowling just as her pethad done. Her shoulder length brown hair shifted back and forth as she walked, warm coppery tones catching in the flickering candlelight. A curtain of it fell toward her chocolate eyes and she tossed her head to clear it. She was small, very much so. I doubted she stood hardly more than five feet tall. And she was thin as well, barely more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, I was willing to bet. And yet she carried an air of confidence, of self-assurance, that I hadn’t seen in many of the grown men I’d fought with inPavos.
“It won’t work,” she informed me. “Whatever magic you might think to use against your bonds. And frankly,Verdunn, you aren’t strong enough to break them either.”
I paused at the wordVerdunn, surprised she seemed to know who, or what, I was.
“Ah, there we are,” she cooed. “Ready to have a listen, then?”
“Who are you?” I growled. “Why have you brought me here?”
“More importantly,Verdunn, is who areyou?” she asked, turning toward me and stopping her pacing long enough to glare in my direction.
“You should know. You seemed to think me important enough to risk your life sneaking intoPavosto kidnap me.”
“Sneaking intoPavosis hardly a risk for someone like me,” she answered with a dismissive wave of her hand that had me wanting to know what she meant bysomeone like me.“But you, well, you threw theGeistinto quite a tizzy with your arrival.Pavoswas peaceful before, as peaceful as a city surrounded by war and ruled by cruelty can be at least, but then you came along. So tell me what aboutyouis so important that twoGeistwere executed for not foreseeing your arrival?”
