I felt about as wanted as something that came in the house on the bottom of someone’s boots.
It wasn’t disgust exactly, more like they saw me as something useful, but something that no one wanted to be anywhere near. Kind of like a having a rat problem and being forced to get a really big snake.
“Ain’t it grand to feel wanted,” I muttered.
“Pay them no mind, Raine,” Imala said. “It’s your power that frightens them. You’ve become quite legendary, you know.”
I snorted. “If only they did know.”
“And they can’t,” Imala whispered back while smiling reassuringly to an older gentleman who looked ill at ease in his armor. He had a single long dagger tucked into his belt. Probably the only weapon they trusted him to have. Others looked much the same: all armed, all scared, but all determined to topple their king.
It was a mass suicide waiting to happen.
They were probably hoping that I’d go first.
Deidre Nathrach ushered us into what she and Tam called the dining room. I would have called it a banquet hall, albeit a banquet hall that’d had a rough time of it recently: shredded wallpaper; most of the gilt trim hacked off; and holes either punched, kicked, cut, or chopped into the walls.
However, the dining room had the benefit of being in the back of the house. The windows were boarded up from the outside and the curtains were drawn on the inside. We could light candles, but couldn’t have a fire in the fireplace and risk smoke from the chimney giving us away. The table was intact. I guess it’d been too big for Sarad Nukpana to get it out the door, and he decided not to have it chopped to bits. The thing was big enough to seat at least two dozen people. The Khrynsani had left enough chairs so that we all could sit down. My feet and back had never been so grateful. Our supply packs were necessary, and they weren’t particularly heavy—for the first couple of miles. After that, I’d started wondering how much I actually needed food and weapons.
“Tell me what happened to Father,” Tam asked his mother.
“He had taken a team to intercept a shipment of weapons going from the harbor to the Gate construction site. Your father knew we needed those weapons.” Force of will kept any emotion from her face. “They were ambushed.”
I remembered the old goblin with the one dagger. Perhaps it was all they’d had to give him.
Imala scowled. “Betrayed.”
Deidre nodded once. “The Khrynsani were waiting for them. Four were killed; the other four captured. Cyran was among those captured.”
“Do you have proof that he’s still alive?” Tam asked.
“One of our lookouts witnessed the attack. They saw Cyran loaded into a prison wagon. He’d been wounded, but not fatally.”
Tam shifted uneasily. “I take it he knows where all the cells are based.”
“Yes,” she said tightly.
That one word said a lot. It implied another word. Torture.
“We’ll be in another location before tomorrow night,” she added.
As the leader of the Resistance, Cyran Nathrach would know where their bases of operation were, their plans, the names and cover identities of their agents. Everything. He would definitely know about this house. Tam’s father would probably be more valuable to Sarad Nukpana alive than dead, but with Nukpana, “alive” covered a lot of ground. It didn’t matter how strong you thought you were; everyone had a breaking point. And if anyone could torture you to that point quickly, it’d be Sarad Nukpana. Deidre was Cyran’s wife, but now she had to be a practical leader.
“When was he taken?” Tam asked.
“Two nights ago.”
Damn.
Tam’s expression darkened. “Nath said he’s in the temple dungeons—and that Sandrina Ghalfari was with those who ambushed him.”
“She was. Word we have received said that it was she who knew where our people were going to be that night. Sandrina was always a bright girl. A narcissistic, conniving, overdressed and underbred murderess, but bright.”
If those weren’t catfighting words, I didn’t know what were.
“Sarad and Sandrina have been locking away anyone capable of opposing him,” Deidre continued, “either directly or by their influence. Our most powerful mages and best military minds are locked in those temple dungeons.” Growing anger made her voice sharper. “We had a team trained and ready to destroy that Gate Sarad’s building outside the city. They were captured the same night as Cyran. Every last one of them are in those dungeons.”
“Do you have someone on the inside?” Imala asked.
Deidre shook her head. “Not among the dungeon guards.”
“I have two agents who—”
“Dalit and Airan?”
“Yes.”
“They’re already working with us,” Deidre said. “Airan has told me which of our people are in the general dungeon population, but the high-ranking prisoners are being kept apart from the others. That is all he was able to find out.”
“I know where those cells are,” Imala said.
“So do some of our most gifted people, both mage and mundane,” Deidre countered. “They can’t get anywhere near them.”
Tam’s smile was chilling. “They didn’t spend five years at the queen’s side and live to tell about it.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“Hiding and hearing, Mother. I know several passageways around the palace and the temple. Many a night I stood between the walls listening to my enemies—both court and Khrynsani—plot my death. I’m alive, most of them are not.”
“I also know of several ways into the temple,” Imala said.
“How many guards are around the Saghred?” Mychael asked.
“I can answer that one, Paladin,” Jash Masloc said. “Fifty guards around the clock since it arrived. However, those are just the ones in the temple and within sight of the altar. Unfortunately for anyone’s long-term health and survival, those fifty Khrynsani weren’t taking their eyes off of the Saghred. Though I believe the Khrynsani refer to it as worship.”
Those boys definitely weren’t going to like what we wanted to do to their newest deity. Stabbing and shattering weren’t going to go over well at all. I didn’t harbor any illusions that yelling, “Hey, look! Something shiny!” would get them all to look the other way while we got destructive on their precious.
Mychael told her the plan—Kesyn Badru, the Reapers, the rock, and us. When he finished, the room was silent again, this time with shock and a healthy heaping of disbelief.
Deidre glanced at Tam, a trace of amusement in her eyes. “I must say, my darling boy, that you and your friends are taking our family’s reputation of adventurousness to the point of insanity.”
“Someone has to take the big chances.”
Deidre closed her eyes and let out a resigned sigh. Then she opened her eyes and regarded Mychael. “Paladin Eiliesor—”
“Mychael, please.”
Deidre smiled slightly. “Mychael. Isn’t there any way to avoid unleashing Armageddon? Sarad seems to have already taken care of that. Wouldn’t your plan be unnecessarily redundant?”
“If there was any other way, we would do it,” he assured her.
“And Tamnais, you believe that Kesyn Badru, the teacher you publically turned your back on and whose career you unwittingly ruined, will help you summon these Reapers.”
“He always hated Sarad, and the feeling was more than mutual,” Tam said. “A chance to ruin Sarad’s dream of world domination? Kesyn would never forgive me if I didn’t let him have a piece of that.”
Jash spoke. “Mistress Benares, I take it that you will be using your unique skill set to clear a way to the altar once we’re in the temple?”
Tam raised a brow. “We?”
“Of course, ‘we.’ I’d never forgive you, either, if you didn’t let me have a piece of Sarad Nukpana.” Jash looked at me, waiting for his answer.
I looked back at Jash.
Silence.
“Is there something I should know?” While Jash’s question was directed at those of us who’d come from Mid, his eyes were on me.