Page 140 of A Drop of Corruption

I walked to her, took her by the arm, and guided her to her seat at the little table.

“Now, please—veil the lights in here a little,” she said. “It is too bright! I can see the luminescence through my blindfold.”

I did so, casting cloths over the mai-lanterns. Soon the chamber was quite dark, the corners swimming with deep shadows.

With a slight clearing of her throat, Ana squared up to the table, unwrapped the livers, and placed the black, gleaming nuggets of flesh in the bowl. Then she began violently cutting them to ribbons with her knife and fork. “Now sit,” she said as she worked. “Sit across from me, child, and give me a moment.”

I did so, repulsed by her mangling of the innards. Then she unceremoniously dumped all the kizkil mushrooms on top of the raw livers and began to mix them.

“Isn’t that dosage dangerous for you, ma’am?” I asked.

“You need not speak, Din,” she said archly. “For I shall be unable to respond soon.”

“Because…”

A wry smile. “Because my mouth will be quite full, of course.” She then gobbled down the awful dish, bite by bite. The sight was so horrid I had to turn away. She even lifted the bowl to her lips andfeverishly scooped the dregs into her mouth. Finally she lowered the bowl and sat back with a satisfied sigh, her chin and lips now dark and bloodied.

“Another meal,” I said softly, “like the Empire of old.”

Her blindfolded head snapped to attention. “What?” she said.

“The last time you ate, ma’am. You said such banquets were a common sight in the ages of the first and second emperors.”

She remained totally silent, appearing to wait for more. A drop of blood gathered at her chin and dropped into her lap.

“And you made many proper deductions then,” I said nervously. “So…perhaps the same shall happen now?”

“Hm. That is true, Din,” she murmured. “And I thank you for your indulgence. Now…I shall reflect on our quarry’s nature, and desires. Then, perhaps, I can spy his last, most hidden works, and decide how we will proceed this black night.”

Ana fell silent once more. She sat back in the darkness, her pale form dappled with blood, her blindfold still tight about her eyes. I worried that the mood reagents might sicken her, and she’d topple over at any moment.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” I ventured.

“Be still, child!” she answered softly. “I am thinking.”

I waited. Minute after minute passed in the stinking dark of that place.

And then Ana seemed to undergo a change.

It was one of the strangest things I’d ever seen; thoughseenwas not the right word, for it was so dark in the chamber that I sensed it more than anything. Ana’s body remained still, her blindfolded head bowed at an angle, yet I became aware of ligaments tensing at the edge of her face, or about her neck, a curious coiling that somehow reshaped the whole of her visage.

Then I smelled it: a strange, acrid, shivering musk, slowly suffusing the air. It leaked into my nostrils and tickled the backs of my eyes, as if I’d accidentally punctured some chamber of fume in the earth. My heart raced, and my pulse quickened. I began to feel a deep,unnatural sense of threat, like I was not sitting with my commanding officer at her table, but rather trapped in this place with a predator, stalking me in the dark.

I stared at her then and saw not the Ana I knew, but a skeletal thing, draped in shadow, with bloodied cheeks like corded leather and her snowy scalp pulled far back from her brow. Her neck appeared elongated, and her long, pale fingers twitched in her lap. Her grin no longer seemed to have any trace of humor in it but was enormous and savage, and though I felt it had to be my imagination, her smile suddenly seemed to have far more teeth than I’d recalled before.

Then Ana spoke, yet her voice was once more queerly deep and resonant, like it emanated from some glottal chamber in her chest: “Why has he not yet attacked the Shroud? Why not strike when we are vulnerable? Still I think upon this…Why not yet?” A wet click from the back of her throat. She cocked her head, and I saw the glint of bloodied teeth in a wide grin. “What does his heart desire, this man who has no nation, no kingdom…nor even a face?”

She shivered and sat back, moving past the penumbra of the lantern light. More minutes passed, and when she spoke again her voice was even deeper than before; not the voice of a man, but a voice distorted and warped, so much so it was difficult for me to parse her words.

“How was he there that night?” she murmured.

“P-pardon, ma’am?”

“How did he poison that cup without anyone ever noticing it?” she whispered. “Did he do it before it ever touched the king’s hands? And how did he fell Gorthaus without anyone spying him and seeing he was a stranger to this court? Or…was healwaysthere?” Her pale fingers reached forward, as if grasping an invisible arm. “Tell me…the king had a twin, did he not?”

My eyes fluttered as I recovered the memory. “So Darhi said, yes.”

“And Pavitar had a twin, born dead. And Darhi was a survivor of three.”