“I had a family once,” Alida spat, the serene countenance she always seemed to carry twisting into something filled with hate and an old kind of grief. “They died in Rixham. I’ll see Vanya bury all of his before he dies.”
Soren wanted so badly to shoot her, pistol twitching in his hand, but he never got the chance. What felt like a straight-lined windstorm slammed into him with enough force to lift him off his feet and send him crashing against the wall at his back. He hit hard enough to drive all the air from his lungs, head cracking sharp and painfully hard against smooth stone.
His teeth clacked together, catching the edge of his tongue, and copper flooded his mouth. His vision didn’t fade, but it constricted at the edges from the blow to his head. By the time he managed to force his lungs to draw in air, someone was kneeling over him, sliding a needle into his wrist. It took two blinks for him to focus on Alida’s face, struggling to sit up, feeling as if he was about to vomit.
“I’d let the Blades kill you if you weren’t worth more alive.VezirJoelle has questions about what happened in the quarry, and you will answer them,” Alida said.
She stepped back before Soren could grab her, someone else taking her place. Soren lashed out at them, the world tilting from the head wound he’d taken. Whatever Alida had given him wasn’t poison, but he could feelsomethingcreeping through his veins that made his limbs less coordinated.
Drugs were something his body could handle—no one ever medicated correctly for a warden’s resistance to toxins and poisons. But a bone-bruising concussion was something else. Pain throbbed down his neck and jaw, a splitting headache already creeping through his skull. It made fighting back difficult when two men—Blades or others, he couldn’t tell—sought to secure him.
Someone grabbed him by the arms, another by the feet. Soren twisted in their grip, trying to get free. He slammed a hand against someone’s chest, fingers curling over fabric and a thin chain. He lost his grip on the robe when someone punched him in the face. The world blurred, going dark at the edges as spots erupted across his vision, but he managed to keep hold of the necklace, the chain breaking. He spat blood to clear his mouth, not letting go of whatever was tangled around his fingers.
“Why isn’t he unconscious yet?” Alida asked from somewhere he couldn’t see.
“He’s a warden. Your drugs won’t work on him,” Witten said.
Soren bared his teeth, snarling, but there were enough people to hold him down, keep him still, that he had no chance to escape. Another prick of a needle, this time in his neck, had him trying to kick out. A tiredness washed through him almost immediately, making it difficult to concentrate. He couldn’t even focus well enough to call up starfire, feeling as if his skull was ready to split apart when he tried.
“Let’s get below. We need to set the charges and clear out before anyone knows we’ve been here,” Witten said.
“We need the warden alive,” Alida said.
“We can’t walk out with him when he’s like this and has seen you. We’ll keep him below until it’s safe to retrieve him after the revenants are freed.”
Soren drew in a breath, icy fear making his breath stutter in his throat. He couldn’t find the words to protest as he was hauled up between two Blades and half dragged, half carried out of the side chamber and into the sanctuary of the star temple itself.
He watched, almost as if from a distance, as the intricately mosaiced floor was opened with the high priestess’ staff. He could feel the thrumming of gears through where his knees rested against the floor. The new iron door that had been specially created to seal the entranceway beneath the floor was opened with the key Alida had handed over.
Then he was dragged down into the cold darkness of the royal crypt, filled with its iron tombs and the dead that scratched inside of them, always looking for a way out.
Soren’s breath came out of his mouth in ragged little gasps as they hauled him far into the crypt, to the alcoves with empty coffins, plaques carrying no names of the dead. He was stripped of his weapons and manhandled into a cold grave, head glancing off the edge of the coffin, the blow enough to send bright streaks of light cutting across his eyes. He went limp, gritting his teeth against the pain, eyes squeezed shut as he struggled to stay conscious.
When he could see again, he found himself weaponless and in near total darkness, the iron coffin lid settled above, with only a sliver of space open near his head to let in air. The space was growing warmer, and he realized why after a long, agonizing moment as he clawed his focus back into place.
They were welding the lid in place.
Soren pressed his hands against the coffin lid, fingers scraping against warming metal, his breathing frantic and ragged in his ears. “Let me out.”
They either didn’t hear him or didn’t listen.
They only left him there in the dark, buried in the crypt, with the dead for company.
Three
VANYA
“This isn’t how I thought my marriage would end,” Malia, of the House of Vikandir, said with a grief Vanya could see etched into her face.
The older woman was dressed grandly for the gathering set to start later in the day before sunset, but there was no joy in the way she carried herself. Vanya had invited Amir’s wife to the midday meal because that House, for all the damage done to it, was still loyal. A magician whose skill in mind magic was unparalleled had confirmed that.
Amir had been relegated to a suite in the House of Vikandir’s estate in Calhames, under round-the-clock guard by legionnaires assigned to that House’svasilyet. Amir was himself in all the ways that mattered, an eerie puppet mimicking the man who had given Vanya so much advice and support since his parents’ passing. But he could no longer be trusted and would remain a prisoner within his household until he could be saved—if that was even possible—or until he died.
Sometime after Chu Hua had set up the spell detector devices in his office and during the Conclave, Amir had been turned into arionetka. No one could pinpoint the exact moment it had occurred, though Vanya had his suspicions. Malia did, too, ones which Taisiya had no qualms about giving voice to.
“What will you say to the House of Kimathi?” Taisiya asked.
Malia folded her hands together over the edge of the table, having barely touched the platters of food on offer. Her plate was mostly empty, and not because she’d eaten. “My spies have informed me Joelle has fled the city, returning to Bellingham. Her actions speak of guilt.”
