“Do not encourage her,” he growled, pointing at Dhenea.
“Aw, that’s so sweet! I love that. Rema, I want skulls. I wonder how long it would take to bedazzle them?”
Running a hand down his face to keep her from seeing him smile, he groaned, his shoulders dropping in defeat. “Fine, wife. I will get you your skulls.”
“You are a weak willed male, Rema,” Dhena teased.
He shot her a glare which she only smiled at and then they were both shooed aside by the healer, who ran a metal wand over Patty. The metal glowed white, and the healer took a step back, her gray wings fluffing in satisfaction. “She is fine. No lingeringeffects. Whatever poison it was, it required her to consume it. Bring me the muffin later and we will discover exactly what it was and who would have been able to provide it.”
He thanked the female before gathering Patty into his arms again.
“I do still have two functioning legs, you know. My muscles are sore, not broken,” she grumbled at him, but her wigging closer to him belayed her complaints.
“Quiet, wife.”
She snickered, snuggling in closer.
When he exited the room and started walking down the hallway, Dhenea followed, coming to walk next to him.
“Are you going to the holding cells?”
“Yes,” he growled, his fangs flashing.
Dhenea nodded, her wing brushing his. “Good. I will accompany you. If Imma is there she will want to help and someone will have to distract her. I suppose I must volunteer myself as tribute.”
Patty laughed as they stepped off a balcony at the end of the hall, spiraling down to the lowest floor. He loved Dhenea, and her attempt at humor was admirable, but the closer they got to the cells, the more the boiling pressure built inside him, seething with the need to rend.
They landed on a narrow outcropping, barely more than a meter across, where a small steel door was set into the pale stone of the mountainside. The wind whipped at them, tearing at his feathers and making their placement upon solid ground unsteady. Dhenea approached the door quickly, waving her hand over it and a grinding clicking noise sounded. The door swung open, revealing the lower portion of Immainthe’s black leather clad body.
The Queen bent down to stare at them from inside the room. “Well? Are you coming in or not?”
They went inside, the door closing with a final clang behind them, and followed Imma down a narrow pale stone stairwell lit with glowing stones set into the ceiling. It was narrow enough that Patty had to walk in front of him, as he wouldn’t have fit carrying her, and even then his shoulders scraped along the walls. Imma, being several feet taller than him, had to duck the entire way down, her grumbling growing in irritation the further they descended, until they at last came to the bottom.
The room they entered made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was a cave, massive and dark, the air smelling of damp and desperation, with too many cells to count carved into the rock walls. The floor was slick and uneven, and he could hear the dripping of water under the whimpering of so many prisoners. Narrow metal walkways rose above them, crisscrossing back and forth over them until they disappeared into the dark void that made up the ceiling.
“How far up does it go?” Patty asked, her tone subdued.
“A few stories. We don’t bother lighting the upper portions. The ones who are in those cells have earned rotting in the darkness,” Immainthe said, gesturing for them to follow her.
“Not scary, my perky pale ass cheeks,” Patty grumbled under her breath, low enough that had he not been standing directly behind her, he’d have missed it.
This female really could bring a smile to his face even in the most inopportune moments, like when he was lost to a killing rage and anticipating the slaughter of his kin.
Immainthe led them across the uneven ground floor, all the way to the back of the cavern, where the cells appeared older, smaller, and darker than the rest. The bars here were of a metal he had not seen anywhere else except for in museums. It was even rusted.
Inside the smallest cell, directly in the center of the others, was his aunt and her two daughters. Immainthe stopped when shewas a foot away, her red feathers fluffing, before she turned to give him a look of begrudging acceptance.
“It goes against my nature, but since you are my child in everything but blood, and theydidattack your wife, I will let you have the honor of killing them.” Imma scowled, turning to look at Patty. “And since you seem to be unable to keep yourself out of trouble, this is for you,” she said, handing Patty a curved dagger in a leather scabbard. It wasn’t ornate, but plain, a killing weapon.
Patty took the dagger, grinning at it then up at Imma. “Thanks, scary mama, I’ll treasure it forever.”
Imma narrowed her eyes at Patty, mirth twinkling in their amber depths before returning her attention back to Rema. “But Rema, do question them first. We need to know if they have others working for them, ones who will continue to play out their little scheme even after they are dead.”
He dipped his chin when she stepped aside. When he stepped forward, Patty did too, her hand coming to hold his lower hand. She squeezed it when he looked down at her, and his heart ached at her gentle reminder that she was here to support him. That ache soon turned into an inferno of rage that she very nearly wasn’t here to give it.
When he turned his gaze to his aunt, she was watching him with wide, frightened eyes. Their liquid depths spilling over her gaunt cheeks as if she had anyone else to blame but herself for being here.
Sira and her daughters were filthy. Someone had torn from them their rich clothing and jewels and dressed them instead in brown sacks of cloth that fell to their ankles in a limp, dirty curtain. Their long hair had been sheared and badly, patches of red showing on their heads where they’d been clipped.
