The Saghred had completely healed him.
He was studying me as well, his dark eyes shining. “You are a constant source of surprises, little seeker. Or since you seem to have lost the use of your magic, that title is no longer appropriate.” He cast an amused glance at Kesyn. “And my revered teacher, who endlessly professed that the best magic was no magic. How is that working for you, sir?” Nukpana stepped aside and, with a courtly bow, gestured for me to precede him. “Shall we?”
I was looking for a way out, any way out.
Not that it was easy to see where I was and where I was going while surrounded by a ridiculously large and heavily armed escort. We were going up a lot of stairs, which I took to mean up into the main part of the temple.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” I told Nukpana, indicating the guards.
“You should be flattered, Raine. Not every guest of mine warrants such careful attention.”
I raised my manacled hands. “Or this much magic-sapping steel.”
All traces of humor vanished. “I have not reached this night by taking chances. You have talents beyond magic. I am merely guarding against any and all of them.”
The main level of the temple was full of robed Khrynsani—robed and silent. They moved quickly and with purpose. Their boss had a big night planned.
These Khrynsani were different from any I’d seen before. Each of them—whether mages or guards—wore a long silver chain with a red, glowing gem. Down the long and wide corridor, the black-garbed goblins blended with the shadows. The only way I could tell that some of them were there was that the gems glowed like mutant fireflies. Carnades was sporting one exactly like them.
Nukpana noticed where I was looking. “My brethren all wear lifestones when inside the temple. Each is calibrated to that individual to ensure their safe passage through the areas they are permitted to enter, and to deny entrance where they are not authorized to go.”
“So you don’t trust Carnades here enough to give him the run of the place?”
“It is for his own protection,” Nukpana replied mildly. “He is unfamiliar with our temple; it is merely a preventative measure to keep him from dangerous areas.”
“And if he does go astray, he gets a chastising zap?”
“My other mages would be alerted to his location, and would politely redirect his steps. Magus Silvanus has not and will not abuse my hospitality. He has been a most generous and accommodating guest.”
“So I hear.” I paused. “So, how does it feel to be on the verge of getting everything you want? Carnades has already told me his feelings.”
If Nukpana had been a cat, he’d have been purring. “It’s a sensation I most highly recommend. It’s a pity you won’t be experiencing it.”
“I’ll just have to live vicariously.”
A pair of armed Khrynsani standing guard on either side of an open doorway spotted Sarad Nukpana and instantly snapped to attention as we approached. I casually glanced in just in case it was a way out.
It wasn’t.
No. Oh no.
Deidre Nathrach stood just inside the room; Nath was beside her. It was a cell, empty except for a bench bolted to the far wall. Barrett was sitting on the bench. All of them were wearing long, pristinely white robes. Sarad Nukpana was a fastidious psycho; he’d want his sacrifices neat and tidy.
Sacrifices. He was going to kill Tam’s mother and brother first, then the elderly butler Tam thought of, and loved, as family.
I stopped breathing, paralyzed with a dread so sharp that it staked me to the stone where I stood.
Nath saw me and ran for the door, stopping short of the opening. There must have been a ward. When he spotted Nukpana, his lips pulled back from his fangs in a feral snarl. I knew Nath, and I still had to force myself not to reach for a weapon.
A weapon I no longer had.
No sound could escape that cell and neither could they.
Sarad Nukpana stood impassively as Nath followed his snarl by screaming a few physically impossible and fatal things he wanted to inflict upon Nukpana’s person. I couldn’t hear him through the ward, but no sound was needed. It was in Goblin, it was emphatic, and all of it was perfectly clear.
Sarad Nukpana’s hand against the small of my back pushed me forward again, but not before Deidre and I locked eyes.
Her large, dark eyes said it all. If I had been captured, then so had Tam, or he would be soon. Her entire family was in the hands of a madman. Her only consolation was that she wouldn’t have to watch them die. She would be the first to fall under Sarad Nukpana’s sacrificial knife. Deidre Nathrach wasn’t chained, just caged, but just as helpless to do anything about it. We were her last hope, and now her hope had failed her.
Nukpana’s voice was crisp and formal. “We prefer to give our sacrifices as much freedom as possible in the time remaining to them, hence the lack of restraints and an unobstructed view of open spaces.”
A dimly lit corridor, lined in light-sucking black granite, would be their last view, before the altar and Sarad Nukpana’s face, as his hand brought the dagger down.
“My first official act as king will be to execute the assassin of my honored predecessor,” he continued.
“And the mother of your lifelong nemesis,” Kesyn called from behind us where he was surrounded by his own guards. “Come, now, boy. At least admit the real reason.”
“Merely taking the opportunity given to me to settle scores. An opportunity passed is an opportunity wasted. You taught me that, and I learned it well. Uncommonly wise words, sir.”
“And you always twisted my words to suit your own purpose.”
Nukpana’s lips curled in a smirk. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“You don’t want an opportunity,” Kesyn spat. “You want an excuse.”
“After tonight I’ll no longer need either.” Nukpana’s smile was relaxed and genuinely happy. It was creepy as hell. “You’re an old man who is content to live in the past and reject progress. Both are burdens you will not have to bear for much longer.” His smile grew. “Guards, prepare him for the altar.”
I didn’t scream or struggle. Instead I viciously embedded my elbow as far as I could in Sarad Nukpana’s gut. I gave it everything I had, and a lot that I didn’t. I was a dead woman walking anyway, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to take as many pieces of Nukpana as I could with me. The Khrynsani guards had been careless enough to chain my hands in front of me and I was only too glad to make their leader pay.
My elbow earned me the reward of a pained gasp from the goblin.
An instant later, I was on the bottom of a pile of Khrynsani. Now I couldn’t breathe, either, but knocking some of the hot air out of a baby demigod was worth it.
Nukpana wouldn’t kill me. Not yet. He also wouldn’t let his goons beat the crap out of me. Hopefully. He wanted me able to stand up next to that altar, or chained to it, and he wanted me fully aware and whole when it happened. Then he’d carve my heart out with a spoon. But until then, he wouldn’t want a mark on me.
“Raine, no!”
It was Kesyn.
“When you see it—” The old goblin’s last word was stopped by a fist. Nukpana wouldn’t care if his teacher got roughed up before his turn on the altar.
I knew what he’d tried to say. A chance. When I see it, take it. I hadn’t forgotten. I didn’t have either the breath or a lack of sense to respond. Kesyn knew I’d heard him. Though Deidre had taken a chance when she saw it, and look what it’d gotten her.
Nukpana straightened up with a ragged hiss. “Take her to my quarters.”
One of the guards in the pile decided clubbing me on the head was an appropriate response to that order.
Everything went black.
Chapter 18
I had certain expectations to waking up in Sarad Nukpana’s bedroom.