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

mistaken the light for flame, sun, or even more innocent magic—not the way it squirmed.

Branwyn didn’t know what else might be beyond the doors, but the room was full of Gizath’s power. It leered at her from around the wood, only light but capable of knowing her, of remembering.

Despite her gift, and although she was looking directly at the doors, it almost caught her completely off guard when they opened, and it was a genuine relief to see two human figures come out.

One was a young woman in high-necked, long-sleeved white, likely one of Zelen’s sisters. The other was a tall man in dark clothing who drew a broad-bladed shortsword with admirable speed when he spotted Branwyn.

He clearly knew what he was doing and had the strength to back it up. The sword would be more useful in close quarters than Yathana was, and Branwyn had used all of her enchanted knives on the demons at the ball. The sorceress would be a complication too.

Still, Branwyn did feel relief, not only because they were mortal. In an instant she thought of the filth she’d crept through and the windowless room where the Verengirs had kept Tanya bound. She remembered the Rognozis, murdered in their own home, and gods knew how many children taken for sacrifice. Then she added Zelen’s pain and the wounds that had left her nearly dead. Branwyn gazed at the figures and the light behind them, and felt a grin stretch her lips as the transformation came over her.

“Stay well behind me,” she told Tanya, “and stay watchful.”

The man charged. Branwyn stepped forward to meet him, practically with a song in her throat.

Sneaking was over for the night.

Chapter 37

Without letting go of Zelen’s hand, Nislar pressed the point of a small knife right against his carotid artery. “Hold very still,” he said tonelessly, leaving off any title.

“I assume you’ll kill me if I don’t,” Zelen said dryly. All the same, he didn’t move. He had the usual foolish mortal combination: the body’s reluctance to move against a certain threat, and the mind’s speck of idiotically persistent hope that death would become less certain if he waited.

Searching him and taking him to the lake would also take longer than simply killing him, and that would give Branwyn and Tanya more opportunity to flee. He wished that more of his obedience had been that selfless but, really, the other factors flooded over his will.

The new guard pulled Zelen’s sword from its sheath and tossed it to the floor. It clattered loudly. Obviously none of them were worried about discovery, and why should they be? Nobody would come to Zelen’s aid.

“Won’t it look odd if I drown myself with an empty sheath?” he asked.

“We’ll give you the sword back,” said Nislar. “After.”

“Good thinking. Very well planned. Whatever my brother’s paying you, he should double it, especially since he’s damned you.”

“Shut up,” said Nislar, but without any anger in it. His voice, like his gaze, stayed flat.

The other guard searched Zelen with a probing, efficient thoroughness, starting at the feet and working upward. Two boot daggers joined the sword on the floor. Zelen guessed they wouldn’t bother replacing those, or the knives in his sleeves, though they’d likely put back his eating knife.

Suddenly he saw an image of himself: cold, blue, and beginning to be waxy, as drowning victims generally were, with the guards sliding weapons back onto his unresisting corpse. Zelen’s throat closed up. If it hadn’t, he might have started begging then, knowing that it wouldn’t help at all.

Then the new guard, patting Zelen’s chest, slapped his palm against the teardrop amulet. “Here, what’s—” he began, and pulled it out by its silver chain. The onyx and rubies glimmered up at him, brighter than they should have been in the dim room.

The flicker that had been in his eyes earlier returned and stayed. “Nislar,” he said, glancing back toward the closed door. Suddenly he was confused, hesitant, and yet more there than he’d been before, like a sleepwalker roused. “What’s…”

“Best drop it, Hidath,” said Nislar. He stayed less emotional, less present, but even he hesitated. “It’s probably not important. Leave it.”

The amulet thumped back against Zelen’s chest. The guards became almost as they were, but now Zelen realized how little of that state had come from training, payment, or a natural lack of morals.

“Binding spell, hmm?” he asked, as Hidath stepped back. “The Traitor and his servants do have interesting definitions of loyalty. Here I always thought it didn’t count if you forced it, but…” Zelen shrugged. “Clearly I haven’t heard from the right sources.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” said Nislar. Lacking the passion that would have made it a threat, it was only a statement of fact. What Zelen thought didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. “Come on, Hidath. We have our orders.”

Hidath took one of Zelen’s wrists again. Nislar was too much of a professional to lower the knife as he went for the other, but Zelen, watching him with all the focus he’d learned from drawing and healing, glimpsed the slight relaxation there, the dropping of his guard, if only minutely. The prisoner was disarmed. Whatever he tried would be little use against two armed men.

If Zelen had a chance, this was it.

“Can I wipe my face?” he asked, looking between the guards. “I give you my word, by all of the four gods, that I won’t try and hurt you.” Now he tried to reverse all the arrogance he’d displayed on his way in and to sound humble, shaken, and fearful. It wasn’t nearly as difficult. “I–I don’t want to die with blood running down my chin. Please.”

Nislar took in Zelen’s split lip and swelling eye, then Hidath’s grip on his other wrist. “Fine. Be quick.”

And Zelen was.

His strength was only human, but the chain around his neck was ornamental. One desperate yank and it broke, releasing the pendant into his hand. He was spinning as he pulled, going toward Hidath, which neither of the guards