AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The Sun Prince and the power of Lôt. Although, his power seemed brighter, it wasn’t that muted sensation I had felt from all the other Requisites. It was bright, and somehow tasted of blood.
Odd.
“Do not speak to me with such irreverence, boy. You are not Ramal, yet and even then it is only by my good graces that you will be so.” A voice like ice slithered through the tent as two shapes came into view, the sharp feeling of ice and death following right behind.
The first I knew even before I saw her face, the pale skin and icy blonde hair matching the feel of her. Dalyah.
But the other, the other was pure death. Whoever the queen had towed into the tent was bent over, their body covered in filthy rags and blankets. I only knew they were a female from the bits of red hair that fell around a soft jaw, from the delicate bow of a lip that turned up as I watched.
Nothing about this person matched the sensation of rotten endings that was rattling its way through me. The sensation was familiar, but in a way I could not place, as though it was lingering in a memory I had long forgotten.
“You sent for me, mother,” Bastian snarled as I continued to stare at the woman, trying to get a look at her and figure out what exactly I was feeling, and what was so familiar about it. “I left Father alone with that thief, but when I got here you were gone. I do not want to know what they will do without me there to guard them.”
“You left Silas?” Dalyah asked, dragging the woman behind her before throwing her into a chair behind the desk.
“I did.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry, he is my most loyal snake. This one on the other hand.” Dalyah rounded on the woman, pulling back the blankets to reveal what once had been a beautiful woman. She still was stunning, even with the long deep scars that covered one side of her face, her left eye milky and lifeless beneath the zig zagged marks that looked as though someone had cut out lines of flesh and refused to let them heal. She looked at Dalyah with her good eye, her jaw set in fury even as The Queen grabbed her head and pulled her toward the desk, forcing her to look at the surface.
“I found her sulking about in the dark. Looking for him, most likely.” Dalyah bent over her, hissing in her face in disgust before shoving her closer to the surface of the desk.
“I can paint his back again if needs be, make her watch if you would think it would teach her a lesson.” Batian laughed, flexing his fingers as though he was longing to do just that. It made my skin crawl.
I was no stranger to violence, but there was something about deliberately bringing someone to pain, in taking a person to the edge of life simply for the sake of seeing them hurt that was beyond even my depravities. Not for this man, however.
Not this Prince.
So, he was the same as his mother then. Made sense seeing as she was the one to raise him.
“No. I have something better planned. But first.” Dalyah was grinning as she held the woman over the table, her nose less than a hair from the surface of that desk that I could not see from where I lay. “Draw.”
At first, the woman did nothing, she glared at the surface of the table, her eyes darting from Batian to Dalyah, and then, suddenly, to me. Those eyes, one milky, one a blazing green stared right at me, at the sliver of a gap between dirt and canvas where I hid.
My muscles tightened, my magic roaring to the surface as my fingers burned for a different reason. She had seen me, she had looked right at me. But how? I made no noise, I was barely breathing, I had been trained in stealth, but she saw.
Almost as though she knew I was there.
The corner of her lips curled, that slithering hand of death winding its way over my shoulders. My hands dragged forward, almost as though she was controlling it. I nearly recoiled, ran from the tent and back to the Lightens, but there was something in that gaze, something that froze me more than the sensation of the queen’s magic. More than the death that was holding me there.
“Your skills answer to me, you old bat. Draw.” Dalyah snarled, pushing the woman even closer to the table.
She didn’t look away from me.
My arms curled and bent as though they were being forced forward under that gaze. The scarred woman made a sound near a croak as her hands moved over the table in frantic motions. Her fingers twisted and bent, moving something over the surface of the table, an odd hissing exploding from her before Dalyah stepped back in shock at something I couldn’t see, her dress pooling around her ankles and pulling my focus back to the unguarded Queen that was my target, not that old woman.
I needed to focus.
Dalyah carried no weapon, she had no guard, save her son. She stood there, in a tent. She was fully exposed. I hadn’t stolen time yet, but no matter, I could take some from her precious son.
It was now.
I would end her now.
“Show me where,” Dalyah said, any trace of her earlier shock swallowed by the ice in her voice.
My arms moved freely as I shifted to grip my blades, slowly pulling one from the sheathe, the leather silent after so many years of use. The woman began her furious movements again, even as the queen turned, all of their eyes going right to me.
Shit.
