by Lisa Shearin
I risked moving my head and looked around for something, anything we could use as a weapon. The dungeon was lit by lightglobes, not torches, so there was no handy fire on a stick. Nothing on the wall or on the floor . . . wait a minute. A metal tray with the remains of a meal sat outside of a cell door. It was a pathetic excuse for a weapon, but if you didn’t have what you needed, you made do with what you had.
I carefully backed up and bent down for the tray without taking my eyes off the snapping claws. I had no idea why the thing hadn’t rushed us by now, but I wasn’t going to look a gift werecrab in the mandibles.
The tray wasn’t heavy, which was good for a seeker with numb arms. The metal caught the light and I damned near blinded myself. Crap it. What kind of dungeon had fancy, shiny metal . . .
Shiny?
That could work . . . only one way to find out. I carefully stepped forward. I didn’t have to be close, just close enough.
Phaelan caught a glimpse of light reflecting off the tray, and a slow grin spread over his face. “Can you make the thing back up past the armory door?”
“That’s the plan.”
“We arm ourselves and then have some crab shish kebob.”
I could be in the mood for crab.
I caught the reflection of a lightglobe just behind the werecrab, and carefully angled the tray toward its eyestalks. I got a reflection, bright and blinding.
On the freaking wall.
At that moment, the werecrab got tired of waiting.
The crab scuttled at me faster than something that should be served with melted butter had a right to. I squealed before I could stop myself, thrust the tray out in front of me, and scurried backward, Phaelan right there with me. The only thing between us and being pinched and picked to death was a flimsy, shiny tray.
The werecrab stopped, eyestalks flinching backward in what would have been surprise or fear on something that didn’t have eight legs. Then it backed up, virtually tripping over those spindly legs trying to get away from that tray. What the hell was it—
Its reflection.
It was probably the thing’s first look at itself, and it clearly didn’t like what it saw. We weren’t the only ones scared of that crab—it was afraid of itself.
“That’s it, you ugly beastie,” Phaelan murmured from beside me. “Back up.”
The werecrab did.
“Nice and slow,” Phaelan told me. “Too fast and he might fight back.”
I shot Phaelan the mother of all shut-up looks.
“Sorry, that was obvious, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
We continued walking forward and the werecrab continued cooperating. For now. Scary things had a tendency to be less scary if they didn’t immediately try to bite your face off. A werecrab probably had a tiny brain, but I didn’t want to find out how long it’d take him to figure out what he saw in that tray wasn’t a scary thing and that he was running from himself—or worse, decided to kill his reflection.
“Just a little farther,” Phaelan murmured.
I risked a quick glance beyond the werecrab and saw blades, blessed blades hanging on the wall of a room with the miracle of an unlocked and open door. If Lady Luck wasn’t speaking to me, maybe she at least wanted to leave Phaelan alive long enough for a chat.
The werecrab backed up past the door, and Phaelan darted inside. After a few seconds of clanging and commotion, my cousin came out of that room with enough steel to start his own war. He slipped a long dagger through my belt at the small of my back, and I swear my heart rate dropped by half at the weight of some good, sharp steel.
Phaelan didn’t waste time making use of what he’d pilfered. He clutched a huge elven broadsword in both hands and lunged.
The crab’s claw shot out and snapped it in half.
The blade clattered loudly to the floor. Tempered steel cut like paper with scissors.
That was bad.
Phaelan dropped what was left of the sword, drew a pair of short swords, and rethought his strategy.
The long dagger Phaelan had given me wasn’t long enough for me to risk my arm by getting inside that thing’s snipping-in-half distance.
Phaelan and I immediately went with a tactic that had served us well in the past—distract and destroy. I made use of the tray for the distraction part, but unless I got my magic back—or my hands on a really long spear—the destruction was up to Phaelan.
I didn’t think crustaceans had tactics. I was wrong. The crab had two pincers and poisonous shell edges, and was doing its best to pin one or both of us against the wall so it could use any of the above. The werecrab maneuvered with amazing agility, darting in to attack with its pincers, and quickly scuttling back when Phaelan lunged with his short swords. He didn’t want to try his luck stabbing anywhere on that armored shell. He needed to get a blade in its belly, without getting his hands snipped off.
The damn thing’s eyes could swivel on those stalks, and nothing we did caught it off guard.
Wait a minute.
Eyes. On stalks.
Saghred-induced exhaustion must have made me dimwitted.
“The eyestalks,” I told Phaelan.
“Yeah, the damn thing sees me just fine,” Phaelan growled.
“Cut them off!”
The crab could still kill us if it couldn’t see us, but blinding it would at least give one of us a chance to get the heel of a boot under its shell and flip it on its back. Then Phaelan could drive a blade into its vitals. Of course severing its eyestalks and flipping it onto its back meant going in between its pincers. Distract with the tray, take out the eyestalks with the blade, then kick and flip. Sounded simple. It also sounded like something we’d better get right the first time.
I feinted to the right with the tray, and the werecrab slammed a claw dead into the center of the tray, just like a boxer’s punch. At the same time, Phaelan lunged for the eyestalks.
And the crab’s other claw neatly clipped the short sword in half.
The blade clattered to the floor to join the other. I used the tray like a combo of a shield and club, beating the claw back and hitting any other part of it that I could. Phaelan was still moving, and a split second later had sliced through both eyestalks using his other blade with a yell that sounded more like a terrified girly scream. I caught the bottom edge of the crab’s shell with the toe of my boot and kicked with everything I had left.
The crab was a lot lighter than it looked and flipped right over. Only now its legs and pinchers were flailing madly over its vulnerable underside. Phaelan did some evasive darting and weaving, and when he saw an opening, drove his sword in up to the hilt. The legs slowed their flailing, and the pincers faltered in mid pinch mere inches from his face. Phaelan jumped back, pulling his blade back with him. It was coated with something icky that bubbled and sizzled on the steel. He dropped the sword before the bubbling reached his hand.
The werecrab twitched twice then was still. I wasn’t about to turn my back on it, dead or not.
I stared at the tray. It was almost bent in half and in the center was a jagged hole where the claw’s edge had punched through the metal.
I slumped against the wall, breathing hard. Apparently pounding a werecrab with a tray took it out of a girl. “Gimme a minute,” I panted.
Phaelan ran into the armory and replenished his weapons, and got a sword for me. “We don’t have a minute.”
“How ’bout a second?”
“How about I carry you?”
I made myself stand up. “How about you just find the way out of here.”
Phaelan looked down the hall beyond the dead crab. He wasn’t seeing the hall; he was remembering what was on Tanik’s blueprint. At least I hoped he was remembering.
“Follow me,” he said.
For once, I was happy to do what he said, no questions asked.
Turned out I should have asked questions.
“How much farther?” I asked after we’d gone up one floor and through anothe
r ten minutes.
I was more than a little uneasy. Not that I wanted to find out that the werecrab had backup, or all of the guards were waiting for us in the dark just ahead, but a dungeon without any guards—while nice—wasn’t right, and I didn’t trust our good fortune or believe it for a second.
“Uh . . . I’m not exactly sure,” Phaelan admitted.
I blinked. “What do you mean you’re not sure? Where are we?”
“I’m not sure of that, either.”
Phaelan looked slightly embarrassed. It wasn’t a look I’d seen on him often, and considering what it implied, I didn’t want to see it on him now.
I gaped at him. “We’re lost?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. You don’t know where we are. That’s called lost.”
“The blueprints didn’t include this floor. Besides, I prefer to think of it as temporarily misplaced.”
I took a breath and let it out slowly. I told myself we were fine and we were going to stay that way. At the moment no one was trying to kill us or clip us in half. So it was all good. It still didn’t alter the fact that we were lost with an exit hopefully still somewhere ahead of us. It also didn’t change the spooky silence behind us—silence I didn’t trust.
The silence didn’t stay silent for long.
At the pounding of heavy boots on the stone floor, Phaelan and I ran like hell for the first open doorway we could find. Thankfully, the room was not only empty, but dark.
A trio of embassy guards ran past us. I adjusted my grip on my sword, held my breath, tried to think invisible thoughts, and hoped Phaelan was doing the same. While I didn’t want to go in the same direction as a bunch of elven guards, they appeared to be going up to the embassy’s main floor. Coincidentally, up for them happened to be out for us. We trailed them at a safe distance.
The embassy’s entry hall was packed. Mostly with embassy employees, but I gave a silent cheer when I caught a glimpse of burnished steel Guardian battle armor just inside the massive embassy doors. I wasn’t close enough to see who they were, but the fact that they were here was enough.
No one had seen me and Phaelan, and for now, we wanted to keep it that way. We ducked behind one of the absurdly big columns around the edge of the room. We were far enough away from the crowd of curious onlookers not to be found, but close enough to hear what was going on.
A man was speaking. Loudly. He wanted everyone to hear every word he had to say. I knew that voice. I only heard the last part of what he was saying, but those words made my day, week, and life.
“Ambassador Giles Keril, in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Lisara Ambrosiel, I relieve you of your post and place you under arrest for aiding and abetting the kidnapping and torture of elven subjects, obstructing justice, and treason against the elven government.”
I grinned like I hadn’t grinned in weeks. It wasn’t just that Giles Keril, patsy to Taltek Balmorlan, was about to be locked up in his own embassy. It was the beautiful sound of a voice from beyond the grave.
Duke Markus Sevelien picked himself one hell of a time to return from the dead.
Chapter 21
Duke Markus Sevelien was the chief of elven intelligence. For the past few weeks, Markus had been officially—though not actually—dead. Taltek Balmorlan had arranged for his boss to have the kind of housewarming present that really warmed the house—by blowing it up then burning down what was left. As a result, Markus had found it advantageous to let Balmorlan and his allies inside the agency continue to believe that he’d died in that explosion. He thought he could better clean his agency of rats if they thought he was dead and came crawling out of the woodwork to take over the house.
As always, Markus’s timing was impeccable.
Markus wore his usual black, looking unusually elegant for a man who had been considered by most to be dearly departed until mere minutes ago. Though to ex-ambassador Giles Keril, the elven duke probably looked like Death himself with a newfound sense of style.
As the chief of elven intelligence, even one newly back from the dead, Markus had the right to take over the embassy and everyone in it. And with a grim-faced Vegard and at least four dozen Guardians armed to the teeth and beyond at his back, he was not only exercising his rights, but daring anyone to say or try to do anything about it. No one looked inclined to do either.
Vegard looked like he really wanted someone to try.
Giles Keril’s mouth hung open in shock. “Your Grace,” he managed. “I protest these charges.”
Markus gave him a chilly smile. “You deny that Raine and Phaelan Benares are at this moment imprisoned in the dungeons of this embassy with the intent of torture and death?”
The little man drew himself up to what little height he had. “I not only deny the charges, I demand to know the identity of my accusers. It is my right.”
If that wasn’t an entry line, I didn’t know what was. I looked at Phaelan. “Are my eyes still glowing?”
“Not as much as they were, but you still look scary as hell.”
“Bet you say that to all the girls.”
I walked and the guards parted. I even heard a sword drop. I gave them what I hoped was an evil glare. I hoped it wasn’t what I felt like, the grimace of a woman who was about to throw up on her own boots. Throwing up on myself wouldn’t exactly be intimidating. Phaelan stayed right by my side, his swagger telling every guard or embassy official we passed that “We’re wanted fugitives and you can’t do a damned thing about it.” I glanced at Phaelan, half expecting to see him sticking his tongue out.
Once the last of the gawking embassy bystanders parted and there was nothing between me and Giles Keril but a gratifyingly small section of empty floor, I got the satisfaction of seeing a man literally shake in his boots. I didn’t know if it was the shock of just seeing me upright and breathing, or the terror of seeing me upright, breathing, and with glowing eyes. It didn’t matter; I enjoyed it anyway.
“Good to see you, Raine.” Markus’s smooth greeting would have been right at home at an embassy cocktail party. He graciously inclined his head to Phaelan. “Captain Benares.”
“Good to be alive to be seen.” I stopped when I got close enough to Giles Keril to make him start to hyperventilate. I didn’t think Markus wanted him to faint quite yet. “Where’s Mychael?”
“The citadel, ma’am,” Vegard said. “We have a situation there.”
I felt a little sicker than I already was. “The Saghred?”
“The rock’s still where it’s supposed to be, but we have a thief in the house. The boss is trying to find him before he makes a try for it.”
“That thief’s a master glamourer.”
“He knows.”
I blinked. “How did—”
Vegard cleared his throat awkwardly. “He got a message from . . . uh, a mutual acquaintance of yours.”
Rache Kai.
First he killed Balmorlan’s mages, and then he warned Mychael about the goblin thief. If he thought that meant we owed him, he had another thing . . .
I stopped and smiled. Yeah, we did owe him. I was sure Rache had a reason for doing what he did, and there was even a remote possibility that reason didn’t have anything to do with Rache. He could have merely been thinking about someone else besides himself for a change. Yeah, and he probably had some mountain property to sell me in the Daith Swamp. I chuckled, and instantly three pairs of eyes were on me. Worried eyes.
I held up my hands. “I just thought of something funny; I haven’t gone over the edge.”
Markus stepped in close and kept his face neutral. Vegard was right behind him. “You don’t look well,” Markus murmured without moving his lips.
“Flirt,” I told him.
“Raine.”
Nothing like a joke you didn’t feel like making falling flat. “I . . . ate a mage.”
Markus didn’t so much as bat an eye. “I see.”
A master of understatement, my erstwhile emplo
yer. Truth was, if I let myself so much as think about what did happen and what nearly had happened, I’d want a cozy padded room all my own that I could curl up in the corner of.
“You might say I have a bit of indigestion right now that I’m trying really hard not to dwell on.”
“Understood.”
I was also trying really hard not to look at Vegard. I knew I’d see every flavor of pain and guilt in my big Guardian’s big blues. If I saw that, I just might lose what little grip I had. I think he knew.
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice tight. “This wouldn’t have happened if I—”
I raised my hand to stop him from finishing. If he finished, my grip on sanity might be the same. “Nothing you could have done. Shit happens.”
“Not to you and not on my watch,” Vegard growled. He paused uncomfortably. “Are you . . .”
Vegard wanted to know, but didn’t want to ask. Was I still in my right mind? Considering everything that’d happened since the Saghred had latched on to me like a soul-sucking leach, sanity was relative.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m still sane, whatever that means. And if I don’t think about the alternative, I won’t go skipping down that path.”
“In that case, you didn’t hear me ask.”
I gave him a curt nod. Denial has always worked great for me. It’d never made a problem go away, but I was in denial about that, too.
“You saved me the exertion of looking for you,” Markus said. “Though I confess I was rather looking forward to releasing these gentlemen to find you by any means possible.”
The men behind him didn’t look gentle in the least. They looked a bit disappointed, too.
“They can go collect Taltek Balmorlan, if they’d like,” I said. “That way their trip won’t be a complete waste.”
Markus’s dark eyes gleamed. “And where is my wayward and also soon-to-be-ex employee?”
Phaelan spoke up. “Special-built cell, Level Twelve wards, chained to the wall in magic-sapping manacles.” He glanced at me. “Did I get it right, cousin?”
