The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

For a second, Branwyn could see darkness overlaying the whole hallway—not the shadows that had been transparent to her since her reforging but the grime of old filth, spreading and clinging to wood and rock. She shuddered, and had the mission not been so urgent, would have paused before opening the next door, perhaps found a cloth to wrap her hand in. The handle felt as though it crawled underneath her palm.

She pushed it open regardless.

“Mmmmmmfffff!”

The muffled, desperate, angry sound came from one corner of a small bare room, not much more than another closet with the linen taken out. There was a shape there, a small version of the comma human beings became with their limbs tied together. As she hurried over, Branwyn recognized the face that she’d dimly seen through her injuries. It was bruised now, with a large purple lump near one temple.

“Easy,” she hissed. “Be still, be quiet. I’m going to get you out.”

Tanya looked in her direction but didn’t focus on her, and it took a moment for Branwyn to realize why. Mortals didn’t have the Sentinels’ vision in the dark. She’d been navigating fine, but there was no light in the hallway, and none in the room.

The girl had been in there for a few hours, and that was bad enough.

How long had they kept the other children in darkness? It seemed almost worse than what had followed. Should Branwyn let them live long enough—which she had no intention of doing—a cultist could perhaps argue that the sacrifice itself was necessary from some twisted viewpoint, but the bonds and the darkness spoke of either cruelty or horrible indifference.

Tanya flinched at the sound of Branwyn drawing her belt knife, and her body was rigid until Branwyn cut the rope binding her ankles to her wrists. Then her sigh of relief mingled with a muffled yelp of pain as feeling began to return to her limbs. The girl did her best, but there was another yelp when Branwyn freed her arms and legs individually.

“Shh,” said Branwyn before she untied the gag. “We’re going to wait here until you can walk again. Then I’m going to lead you out and put you on a horse. Can you ride?”

Tanya shook her head.

“Then just hang on to it. If I’ve pleased the gods lately, Zelen and I will be there the whole time. If not, climb onto the saddle, hang on, and nudge the beast in the sides. Don’t kick. It should take you to a safer place than this, at any rate.” Branwyn passed her knife over, hilt-first. “If anybody who isn’t me, Zelen, or one of Tinival’s knights lays a hand on you, cut them and run. Run first, if you can.”

“But Zelen…” the girl croak-whispered. Branwyn wished she had water, but there was none. “His men were the ones what did this.”

“His family’s men. He didn’t know, I swear it.”

Tanya hesitated, and Branwyn let her. The girl would have to get the feeling back into her hands and feet before they could go forward. She could get it back into her mind as well, as Branwyn would have had to after such an experience—as she had done, when she’d found out what had really happened in the Rognozis’ house—and decide whether she trusted Branwyn and Zelen, or at least whether she figured they were the best she was going to get.

Meanwhile, Branwyn asked. “When was the last time you saw another person?”

“A–a while ago. Hard to tell time. They dumped me in here, and then a woman in white came in and looked at me like I was a cut of meat from a butcher. Did everything but ask to see my teeth.” Tanya managed a weak grin. “I showed ’em to her anyway.”

“Good.”

“I guess that wasn’t too long ago. I haven’t gotten hungry yet, or had to piss, though I’ve been sweating enough that maybe that doesn’t matter.”

“Hunger might not either,” Branwyn said absently, “if you’re scared enough.”

“I’m scared, all right.”

“Sensible.”

Tanya rubbed at her wrists. “What’d they bring me here for? I thought maybe”—she shrugged—“men, you know, bad ones, but nobody’s touched me except to grab me and tie me up, and one of ’em belted me for biting, and there was the lady in white.”

“Human sacrifice, probably, to keep a demon under a modicum of control,” said Branwyn, listening with her gift. There were people coming down the hallway from the main part of the house, at least four of them, but they were far away yet. She pushed the door closed, in the vague hope that they’d be on other business and walk right past. “It seems that Zelen’s the only member of his family who doesn’t worship Gizath. It’s a complicated situation.”

“You’re not bloody kidding!” said Tanya, wide-eyed.

* * *

“Master Zelen,” said the footman, as disapprovingly as the difference in their rank allowed. “Are you well?”

“I am,” he said, flinging off his cloak in a dramatic gesture that also spattered the walls with rain. “There’s much else I can’t say the same about.”

He was cribbing wildly now, drawing from every play he’d ever caught glimpses of on a drunken evening, and there was no time to tell if it worked. Zelen had the notion that he might lose his nerve if he tried, as though he raced across a bridge and dared not let his weight rest long enough to look down. “I must see my brother now. Lives are at stake, do you hear me?”

“I—”

“Tell him that. Tell him that I’ve been about his business and discovered a darker secret than either of us had ever dreamed existed. Tell him I’ll await him in his study,” Zelen finished, feeling that was considerably anticlimactic.

To make up for that, he stalked down the hall and was glad that his boots weren’t too wet to rap on the stone floor.

The study wasn’t locked. The study was never locked. The servants knew what would happen if they went in the family’s rooms without orders. As