Fear those who do not fear the gods.
—ROTHDAR:AHISTORY, VOL. 1
Chapter Eleven
Is she awake yet?” a deep, irritated voice rumbles, piercing the thickened haze in my brain like the gong of a forge hammer.
Sands, is it morning already?
I want to lift my hands, clap them to my ears, and whine for my father to give me five more minutes of peace before I’m to go work in the tavern, but my limbs won’t cooperate. Frustrated, I groan and then recoil as the sound I make reverberates in my skull.
I hear the slight thud of footsteps on stone, followed by a garbled, low-toned response. I crack open eyelids that are heavier than the anvil in my workshop and wince at the blinding light. With an inaudible moan, I squeeze them shut immediately. Sands on fire, what in the pits of Droon did I do last night?
I’ll bet anything it has to do with Laleh. Any time I’m in trouble, it’s her fault.
As I take slow stock of my body, I feel like I’ve been dragged across the desert naked by a flock of wild camels, then tossed off a cliff into a mine shaft, then thrown down a sand dune inside a barrel. Everything aches. And burns. And aches some more. I have no pressing desire to open my eyes again, but I force myself to when that furious baritone that I definitely do not recognize assaults my eardrums.
By the maker, did Laleh... didI... bring someone back home last night?
I bolt upright and nearly vomit from the effort as flickering spots of light and dark in my vision play havoc with my disoriented brain.
“Breathe,” someone cautions softly. It’s not the first haughty, stern voice that had instantly raised my hackles, but a much kinder one. I blink, my speckled vision taking in a weathered face, russet skin, light brown hair.
“Here, sip some of this slowly.” The cool rim of a cup presses to my lips, and I let the refreshing water slide over my swollen tongue and parched throat. I swallow with a whimper. It feels like I’ve consumed needles, and I nearly faint from the pain. “Easy now,” the voice says gently. “A little more. It will get better, I promise. You were poisoned.”
Poisoned?That doesn’t sound right.
When the fog of pain finally clears, I slowly let my gaze acclimatize... and freeze.
I’m not in my workshop. There’s no forge, no table, no cot. My mother’s painting is nowhere in sight, and there’s no shelf with my tools. There are other shelves, but they’re cluttered with carefully labeled bottles and vials filled with liquids, powders, and various substances like an apothecary. A handful of other empty beds line the floor in a neat row.
My confused gaze flicks to the large bright window, and I squint in disbelief. Deep green foliage is visible just beyond the frame, instead of the miles and miles of desert sand thatwouldbe the typical view.
Sands, I’m not in Coban.
I’m in a strange room with... My vision wobbles between the kind healer and... the angry giant.Twostrange men.
I scoot backward on the bed, my aching spine crashing into the bed frame, because I most definitely donotknow the tall, foreboding figure on the other side of the room, seething like some kind of silver-haired eldritch creature. Something strange unfurls in the pit of my belly... a primal tug when thatveryunfriendly gaze crashes into mine.
“Who are you?” I ask in a shaky voice.
His cruel mouth curls into a cold smile. “I think the better question is, who areyou? And why are you here in my kingdom?” His deep voice is like honey and burning ash, the velvet roughness of it sending a shiver dancing over my skin. It commands instant compliance and, for some reason, rings curiously familiar, though I’m certain I’ve never met him before in my life. I’d remember a man who looks like he could crush my bones with a flick of his little finger or eviscerate me with that cutting stare alone. “Are you a spy? An assassin? Who sent you?”
I flinch at the rapid-fire questions that make absolutely no sense. “Do Ilooklike an assassin?”
“Death hides in many forms.”
I suppress my shudder as he prowls closer, his fingers gripping the footrail of my bed. It takes an eternity before I drag my eyes from those lethal-looking hands up to the rest of him. From my low vantage point, he towers above me, garbed in black and with not a strand of that shiny hair daring to be out of place; everything about him is unrelentingly immaculate.
Those extraordinary locks are shaved at the sides and drape like silk across inhumanly broad shoulders. One wouldn’t expect silver hair to pair so well with black eyebrows and eyelashes, but it does. The combination is... magnetic. Rich bronze-brown skin, an aquiline blade of a nose, stern lips, and a cleft chin come together to make my jaw sag. If only the soulless burn of those unblinking midnight eyes didn’t ruin it all.
Inky markings peep from beneath his armor, twining up his corded neck and creeping down his big hands to his knuckles, wherever any skin is visible. Are those arcane symbols or runes of some kind? For a moment, I swear the ones on his neck ripple, but that could be from the irritated flexing of his throat. The stranger’s face would be flawless, stunning even, if it weren’t for the ferocious scowl marring it.
“Why have you come here?” he growls, black-as-pitch irises boring into the depths of my soul. “Did your cowardly king sendyouto spy on me? Do you mean my people harm?”
“No... what... wait... I’m not...” I gulp, unable to speak properly, because I have no sound recollection of anything recent. My mind is a fraught jumble of places, faces, and images that don’t seem to fit anywhere, while my emotions roil like a chaotic sea, leaving me awash in confusion. Anger and pain are a lingering violent cocktail in my blood.
Buthow? Andwhy?
