For a moment, he looked as startled to see me as I did to see him. Then his usual indifference slipped back into place. “Olivia Cartwright. Are you coming in?”
Not like I had a choice. I slipped into the room, and the door slid closed behind me. My gaze went to Mr Cobb, who sat in the only chair, tilting his head at me. “I have to admit I didn’t expect you to show your face here. Guilty conscience?”
I blinked a couple of times, thinking hard. “Guilty about what, exactly? You’re the one who sent me to my death.”
“The Death King here claims you stole from him,” said Mr Cobb, as though I hadn’t spoken. “He also claims you infiltrated his territory and attempted to fool your way past his guards.”
“Because they kept attacking me,” I said. “I wanted to return the amulet, which you told me to return yourself, I might add. You neglected to mention the person who stole it was conspiring with a thieving spirit mage.”
“Spirit mage?” he echoed. “They’re extinct.”
You have got to be kidding me. I was living proof that wasn’t true—but what the hell, maybe he didn’t know. “I heard it from someone who wouldn’t lie.”
“That fire mage friend of yours?” said Mr Cobb. “The Death King here says he’s been taken care of.”
Ice slid down my spine. “What are you talking about? Brant didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You were somewhat difficult to pin down,” said the Death King, his voice chilling despite his deceptively human face. “So much that I found myself compelled to come here to the Order’s office in person.”
He couldn’t actually be here. He must be astral projecting and using an illusion on top of it, though that didn’t explain how he’d managed to hold the door open. But that wasn’t the important bit. The bastard had taken Brant. His liches must have snatched him the instant I’d gone through the node with Judith and her friend.
I took in a breath. “If you had any idea what was really going on, you’d be looking for the real traitor in the Order, not me.”
“Excuse me?” said Mr Cobb. “Please enlighten me on what you mean.”
“There’s an insider right here,” I told him. “Someone in a position of authority, I’d wager, and someone whose motives were at odds with whoever sent me to retrieve the possessions of a thief hiding in the swamp.”
Mr Cobb arched a brow. “Really? What proof do you have of that?”
None, unfortunately. Mr Cobb had the law on his side, and the Death King had already assumed I was working with the soul thief. And now the Order had confirmed his suspicions. With the amulet gone, so was my last hope of clearing my name.
“Enough,” said the Death King. “I will take care of her myself. See to it that I am not disturbed again.”
I backed up towards Mr Cobb. He was no practitioner as far as I knew, so I had a shot at pinning him down—if I wanted to risk arrest at the Order’s hands. The Death King blocked the door. There was no other way out.
Mr Cobb’s hands gripped my shoulders. “I wouldn’t attack me, Miss Cartwright. Who do you think the upper room will believe of the pair of us?”
“Did you hear that?” I shouted at the Death King. “He’s all but admitted to being the traitor—"
The Death King stepped in front of me with dizzying speed, and a familiar rushing sensation gripped my body. A current of energy, like a node, roared through my veins, and ferried me away into darkness.
I came to alertness on the other side, finding myself standing in the swamp, in front of the Death King’s territory.
“I thought you’d take me directly into your castle,” I said to the Death King.
“I’d prefer not to allow you to breach my defences again,” he said. “Besides, I so rarely get to visit the Order.”
“You seem confident I won’t run.” I reached into my pouch for a cantrip.
“Don’t force me to hurt you again.” His tone was cold as ice, yet he still wore that oddly human face. “It’s a pity it turned out like this. You could have been one of us.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’d rather die. In the permanent sense, I mean. What the hell did you do with Brant?”
“The same as I’m going to do with you, of course,” he said. “Come with me.”
No use in running, so I walked with him through the swamplands towards the large looming shape of the castle. The liches on either side of the gates didn’t challenge us. Why would they? I was captured now, and so was Brant. I didn’t dare call for Dex. I couldn’t drag anyone else into this.
My only hope was to convince the Death King himself that we were innocent. Which we weren’t.
Fuck my life. If I hadn’t lost the amulet, I’d at least have had something to bargain with, but I had nothing but my word of a traitor in his ranks, and I wouldn’t have been able to pick the lich who’d attacked me out of a crowd. Every one of his liches looked the same. Shadowy, inhuman. Soulless in a literal sense.
The castle loomed ever closer, but the Death King led me to a smaller building made of the same impenetrable dark grey stone.
“That’s your prison?” I studied the squat dark building. “And there I was thinking you executed your enemies rather than locking them away.”
“It depends on the severity of their crime,” he said. “I think I’ll let you think on your errors before I invite you to speak with me again, Olivia.”
He halted in front of a jet-black door set into the prison wall, which opened at the hands of two other liches. Alarm blared through me at the sight of the pitch-dark space ahead of me. Liches blocked every possible escape route. There was nowhere to go but forward.
The Death King extended a hand and pushed me into the darkness.
I stumbled forward, and cold hands caught me, steering me to the left. I heard a door slam, and a brief flash of light illuminated a narrow cell. On either side of me, barred walls revealed identical cells, lit only by a dim lantern hanging overhead. I swallowed hard, the chill already seeping into my skin. The Death King hadn’t killed me outright—which was all I had going for me now. Nothing was inside the cell except for a bench to sit or lie on, and a dank hole in the corner which I assumed I was meant to use as a toilet. Maybe being turned into a lich would have been advantageous after all. Liches didn’t need to worry about food or water or other human necessities.
Movement stirred on the other side of the barred wall. In the neighbouring cell, a hunched figure sat on his own bench, his gaze fixed on his feet. The water mage. It seemed the Death King hadn’t killed him after all.
And he’d escaped jail once already.
Nothing for it. I approached the wall dividing our cells. “Hey.”
“You.” His head whipped to face me. “You’re the bitch who chased me down and got me captured.”
“You’re the bastard who stole the Death King’s soul.”
He shot an alarmed look in the direction of the door. “Don’t tell him that. I didn’t know whose soul it was. I just wanted to save my own arse.”
“Didn’t work out so well for you, huh.” I leaned closer to the bars. “Shouldn’t have allied with the soul thief, should you?”
And yet it wasn’t his face I saw when I pictured the enemy, but the falsely human face transplanted over the soul’s owner. The Death King hadn’t even wanted to listen to reason. He thought I was guilty by default, and he’d never intended to spare my life.
Where the hell is Brant? He must be somewhere in here, but I could only see the cells on either side of me, and the other was empty.
When the water mage didn’t reply, I whispered, “You escaped once before.”
“Got lucky.” He looked up. “You’re the one they were all searching the city for, aren’t you? The spirit mage.”
I pressed my mouth together. Maybe there was no point in denying it, given our captive state, but it seemed the rumours had reached even the darkest hole of the Death King’s territory. “I’m the scapegoat. Have you seen a fire mage? He’d have been br
ought in here half an hour ago at most.”
“I can’t see anyone in here,” he muttered. “It’s too dark, and cold. We’re going to die here. All of us.”
“Only if you give up.” I tensed at the sound of a door opening. Have they come back for me already?
The water mage began to tremble. “No. No…”
Several liches appeared outside his cell, their shadowy forms making the darkness even more potent. “Come with us.”
“Please no,” he whimpered. “I’m the victim here. I swear…”
I stumbled back, sinking onto the bench as the chill reached me even through the cell walls. The shadowy forms closed in, pushing the water mage out of his cell and drawing him with them into the gloomy swamp outside. The brief chink of light was dispelled as the door closed behind him.
Then I was alone.
Minutes passed, blurring into hours. Nobody else tried to speak to me. They seemed terrified into silence. Even Brant, if he was here, but I was starting to get the sinking feeling he’d never been given the chance to plead in his own defence. The Death King had taken him elsewhere. Or worse.
The Death King was as much of a monster as I’d always been led to believe. Perhaps it would be a mercy when the soul thief destroyed his amulet and took his place.
Nobody came to give us food or water, but the liches fetched another prisoner after a few hours. His screaming resounded in my ears long after they took him away. Every time the doors opened, I sat up expectantly, but the liches outright ignored my cell and left me in silence. Maybe my final punishment was to be left to die alone in the darkness. Like the criminal they thought I was.
A sob choked me, and I pressed my knuckles to my mouth. No. I wouldn’t bend. Not now. If only my spirit magic was accessible in this place, but I wouldn’t know how to begin tracking a node from here. Besides, the Death King would never have made it possible for anyone to escape, even a spirit mage.
I was dozing lightly on the bench when the door opened again. I didn’t even look up this time, at least until I heard the solid noise of footsteps. A living person. Not a lich.
The footsteps came to a halt outside my cell. I squinted through the gloom and found the Air Element watching me. “You’re not what I was expecting.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I pushed off the bench, shaking the stiffness from my limbs. “May I talk to your boss now? I deserve a chance to explain myself. And I’d really appreciate it if you let me know where my friend is.”
“The fire mage?” The cell door clinked open. “You’ll present yourself to my master. If you can answer questions to his satisfaction, perhaps he’ll let you see your friend.”
He’s alive. Brant is alive. Okay, he was in captivity, like me, but it was better than being dead.
The Air Element roughly grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the cell and to the door. The blinding sunlight stabbed me in the eyes, and it took several seconds for the world to reassert itself into the shape of the colossal castle standing alone in the swampland.
“What do I call you?” I asked the Air Element. “I mean, I assume you have a name, aside from Air Element.”
The Air Element cut me a sharp look. “You may refer to me as Air Element, and I use they/them pronouns.”
The warning bite to their tone implied they expected a derisive comment in response. “Air Element it is, then. Just so you know, you might want to invest in a nicer prison. Your master can afford that, surely.”
No response came. The fear squeezing my chest grew tighter as the Air Element led me up a set of stone stairs and through a pair of oak doors. Faced with the forbidding splendour of the castle, I was aware of my dirty, dishevelled state. I’d also lost all my weapons, but I wouldn’t stand a chance of fighting my way out of this place. The entrance hall was vast beyond measure, a high-ceilinged room marked by pillars made of what appeared to be human skulls. The Death King’s taste in décor matched his fashion sense, it seemed.
“Did those skulls used to belong to trespassers?” I asked.
“Who else?” said the Air Element. “Go on. He’s waiting for you.”
The Death King no longer wore his false human face. He cut a terrifying figure standing there on a dais at the front of the hall, like a king addressing his subjects. Around him stood the three other soldiers. The Fire Element, pale and lean with hair the colour of bark. The Water Element, a black woman with curly dark hair and a curvaceous figure. The Earth Element, a tall Asian guy who looked barely out of his teens. And finally, the man himself, without the human mask he’d worn to visit the Order, cloaked in black and wreathed in shadows.
“You may leave,” he told his soldiers. “As for you, Olivia…”
Shadowy ropes shot from his hands, wrenching my arms behind my back. Now I was in trouble.
16
I struggled against the shadowy bonds as the four Elemental Soldiers retreated from the hall, leaving me alone with their king.
“So here you are,” said the Death King. “In the flesh. So to speak.”
“I’d say the same for you, but… well.” I arched a brow at his shadowy form. “I know who has your soul amulet.”
“Yes, your fellow thieves have it,” he said. “If you think that’s news to me, then you’re mistaken.”
I blinked, disarmed by his lack of concern. “It’s your soul. Aren’t you worried someone will damage it or worse?”
“No,” he said. “They can’t do anything with it. You ought to be worried for yourself, however.”
The shadows tightened around my wrists, and a chill spread through my limbs. I squirmed, fighting panic. “I told you, it was an accident. The Order sent me to retrieve the haul of a thief hiding in the swamp, and all I found in his lair was the amulet. It isn’t like it had a nametag on it, so I hadn’t a clue it was yours when I took it back to the retrieval unit. Then the day after, someone else at the Order gave me instructions to take the amulet back here and leave it where I found it. That same someone is probably the insider in the Order who’s working for the enemy.”
“Insider, you say?” He looked down at me, his gaze pitiless. “I’ve worked with the Order for years, and I find it hard to believe one of them would seek to break the peace agreement between our realms.”
He worked with the Order. Of course he did. They were both as bad as each other.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about the Order.” I swallowed hard. “Same with me. But I do know there’s an earth mage who’s working with the soul thief, Vaughn, and he’s the one who has the amulet. He took it from me when I was on my way to bring it back. He and one of your liches.”
“One of my liches,” he repeated. “You’re not helping your case, Olivia. My liches know their very existence depends on my goodwill.”
“One of them is a traitor,” I told him. “If you don’t believe me, don’t blame me when the pair of them knock you off your pedestal.”
“It would help if you told me who the traitor is,” he said. “Then I might be more inclined to believe you.”
“All the liches look the same to me,” I said. “How the hell would I know?”
“You expect me to believe one of my own would conspire against me, but you’re completely innocent of any crimes?” he said.
“Not in the Order’s eyes,” I said. “I’m not allowed to cross a node without filing paperwork, and I’ve broken that one a dozen times. But I’m not with the soul thief, and I didn’t intentionally steal your soul amulet.”
He watched me for a moment. “I see you’re determined to be a nuisance, Olivia. I have been generous with you so far, and I would like very much to have my soul back without resorting to more… permanent methods.”
I gritted my teeth, the shadows still holding my arms behind my back. “Like sending an army into the streets and terrorising everyone in the city?”
“I thought the vampires could use a lesson in humility,” he said. “A long overdue one.”
“You’re aware s
ome of them are working with the soul thief?” I said. “They’re planning to collect the souls of elemental mages as well as yours, and I’m pretty sure their intention is to topple you from your throne.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “It seems I’m mistaken in the level of knowledge you were allowed access to.”
My mouth dropped open. “You know their plan?”
“Of course I know,” he said. “Audacious though it might be for them to steal my soul, I don’t need my amulet at my side to access my powers, and I certainly don’t see the need to act as though my reign were in peril.”
I had it wrong. He wasn’t afraid of the soul thief at all. “He’s a spirit mage. Does that make a difference?”
“I was told you were the spirit mage.” He studied me, and shivers ran down my spine at the sensation as though his gaze pierced through me to my very soul.
“Whatever I am, I’m not the scheming mastermind you’re looking for.” I dropped my gaze, my shoulders aching, my throat parched. “What’re you going to do, then? Rip out my soul and then turn my skull into one of your decorations?”
“Not quite.” A moment passed. “I think my only option is to conscript you into my lich army. It’s more than you deserve, and far more generous than I usually offer those who betray me. You won’t want for anything, for liches have nothing to want.”
Horror choked me. “Your Air Element told me you’d let me see Brant. He didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t—”
I recoiled as shadows washed through the hall, surrounding me on all sides. Liches, stripped of their souls. Any one of them might have been the traitor, but I’d never be able to tell which one it was.
The shadows parted, revealing a newcomer, and my breath stopped. The shadowy figure almost looked like Brant, but a more faded version, cloaked in black. Without any life in his eyes.
The Death King had stripped out his soul.
Thief of Souls Page 16
