Malak spins back to us, his smile vanishing.
Thoren is nearly tall enough to meet him eye to eye and my brother doesn’t look away.
“Our humans will celebrate too of course,” Malak replies, peering at Thoren in the same way a predator might study his prey. “Because they live in our homes. They belong to us. They are our property. Just as you now are.”
Thoren’s lips draw back from his teeth, an expression that mirrors Skirra’s. “Believe what you want to believe, Blacksmith.”
Malak’s gaze merely flicks to me. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. I could happily killyouright now and be done with you. It’s what Vandawolf chooses that matters.”
Malak raises his right palm, emphasizing the presence of his black medallion. “What do you choose, Vandawolf? Do you wish for your brother to live despite his insolence?”
I reach for Thoren’s arm, closing my hand around it in a hard and deliberately painful grip that forces him to look at me.
I don’t say anything to him because I can’t deny him his anger. But he must know that to die here, right now, inhaling the honeyed scent of Blacksmith power with our last breaths, would be fucking pointless.
Thoren wrenches out of my hold. His shoulders don’t slump, his head remains high, but he takes a step back from Malak.
“Very well,” Malak says, turning to the path once more. “This way.”
Up ahead, still some distance away, a massive castle rises up out of the wash of buildings and structures, sitting at what could be the very center of the city.
It’s a looming collection of towers along with battlements, but unlike at the wall around the city, I don’t see guards patrolling them. Only one on the battlement above the gate and two more on either side of the gate down here at ground level.
Malak heads toward the castle before he veers to the left and takes us along the path around it.
Before long, we come to another stone wall, although this one is only about ten feet high.
Blacksmith guards wearing bronze armor stand guard at intervals along it. Each stone is inky black and the wall extends left and right, curving in a way that indicates it could surround a roughly circular place.
When Malak approaches the guards, one of them steps forward.
Like his brethren, he has bronze hair, but his eyes are dark brown.
“Lord Ironmeld?” There’s a question in his voice as he greets Malak, briskly bowing his head before his brow furrows at Thoren, Skirra, and me.
“These are my guests, Jadiel,” Malak says. “They will accompany me inside the garden today.”
Jadiel’s eyes widen a little. “But humans are never allowed?—”
“In this case, I will make an exception,” Malak says, reaching out to place his right hand, medallion and all, on Jadiel’s shoulder.
Jadiel immediately freezes.
Malak lowers his voice, but not so much that we can’t hear him. “These humans still have hope,” he says. “I will show them that hope is futile.”
Chapter 25
Malak lets go of Jadiel’s shoulder and the guard quickly steps aside.
Moving forward, Malak presses on one of the central stones, a smaller one, at which the stones in front of him start to move.
The sound of whirring metal reaches me a moment before part of the wall slides back and to the side, creating an opening.
Malak beckons us through.
I expected to find a dark and damaged landscape, similar to the ashen field on the northern side of the city, but instead, a vast orchard sits ahead of us.
Trees bearing red fruit rise up at intervals, their branches spreading across the air so far that they touch each other and form a canopy overhead.
