A thick chain, pitted orange with flaking rust, looped around his ankles, suspending him.
The same kind of chain cinched around my own feet, cutting off my circulation.
Above, a huge statue of a robed figure clasped the ends of the lengths of chain in its huge stone hand.
There were other lengths of chain dangling from the statue’s grasp, some longer than the ones we were suspended from. Some shorter. All were vacant bar one.
A corpse hung from a chain dangling from the statue’s other hand.
The body—or what was left of it—was rotting, its skin swollen and purple, its tongue fat and protruding through its teeth.
The remains of a shredded white cape hung from its shoulders, partially shrouding its head from view.
A huge black spear with a vicious, serrated razor head lanced through the body’s torso—a very clear cause of death.
The cheering below surged, reaching a fever pitch of excitement.
Khydan? Why the hell was I whispering? I wasn’t speaking out loud. Khy!
Nothing. He couldn’t hear me. Couldn’t answer.
A maelstrom of energy whipped and whirled behind my breastplate, begging to be unleashed. The magic tied to my quicksilver rune was awake here. Alert. It would answer if I called, there was no doubt about that. But who the fuck was I supposed to attack? There were thousands of people—
“Silence.”
The noise stopped. My uneven breath was all I could hear.
Below, the mass of bodies was so quiet it felt as though they’d suddenly disappeared. They hadn’t. They stood stock-still, their arms by their sides, staring straight ahead, none of them looking up at their new captives.
The voice that had ordered silence spoke again, the sound reverberating and inhumane. No creature—human, Fae, or otherwise—had a voice that low. “Bring them down,” it intoned.
No one on the hall floor stirred. There must have been others lurking in the shadows, because a moment passed and then the thick chains clanked, jerked, and dropped us.
We only fell a foot before the tension returned to the chain, but terror still turned my blood to ice.
I didn’t scream. It was damned near impossible to trap the cry behind my teeth, but somehow, I managed it.
With more clanking and jerking, the chains slowly began to descend toward the hall floor.
Cursed Fae eyesight. I’d already been able to see what was going on below perfectly, but with every inch we lowered, more details came into view.
The sickly pale cast of the people’s faces.
Their cold, oddly flashing eyes.
Their threadbare clothes and worn leathers, and the weapons strapped to their chests, hips, and backs.
The crowd was an even split of males and females, from what I could tell. Some had pointed ears, some rounded—both human and Fae.
“Khydan?” I spoke loud now. “Khy!” Speaking into his mind hadn’t worked. Maybe the sound of my voice would help wake him. “Shit’s getting weird out here. I could really use you right now.”
He didn’t stir. Damp waves of hair hung in his face. He might have been unconscious, but the ink on the backs of his hands was not; it swirled wildly, forming shapes and geometric patterns that I didn’t recognize.
We were almost two thirds of the way to the ground now.
“Khydan!” I let my fear slip in this time. I could not navigate whatever was about to happen alone. I needed him. “Please, Khy. Wake. Up.”
In an instant, eyes the color of the tall grasses that grew around Ballard met mine.
Silver rimmed the pupil of his right eye, constricting the pool of black with a band of solid quicksilver.
It didn’t move. Didn’t shift. I could feel it bristling, attention sharp, reading the situation.
“Saeris,” Khy whispered. We were hanging upside down in a strange new place.
Danger waited for us below, but my mate’s gaze didn’t waver from mine.
“Breathe,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Only once he’d said this did he glance away to assess our surroundings. His mouth flattened into a taut line as he took it all in.
There was no dais here. A circle had formed in the middle of the crowd, at the center of which stood two figures.
As the ground approached, I braced, tucking my shoulders up as best I could to protect my head and neck.
It didn’t do much good. The top of my head cracked against the stone as I struck the ground, and then I toppled, landing hard on my side.
Boots and filthy bare feet: That was all I could see for a split second. I tried to sit up, to kick my feet free of the chains, but no sooner had I touched down than there were hands under my arms, dragging me . . . dragging me upright.
A trail of black smoke slashed through the air to my left.
A male had been standing there. Now he was three wet pieces of meat, smoking on the floor.
The female standing on my right stepped forward, gritting her teeth, her hand still gripping my shoulder, but a second later her whole arm was thumping to the floor.
Khydan swept Nimerelle through the air, both male and sword flowing like liquid smoke.
He moved too fast to see, but I knew what was coming next.
The female who had lost her arm was about to find herself headless. But . . .
“Enough.” A different voice this time. Slightly higher in pitch, but no less commanding.
My knees buckled.
I dropped, agony exploding in my kneecaps as they struck stone.
Khydan hissed as he, too, fell to his knees next to me.
I couldn’t move. Invisible pressure encapsulated my body, rendering me immobile.
My hands wouldn’t respond. My arms hung pinned to my sides.
My chest was so tight I could only expand my ribs an inch, barely allowing me to breathe.
I didn’t need to move to speak to Khy. What the fuck is going on?
It’s okay. Don’t panic. Just try to stay calm.
Are you calm? You just killed someone and disarmed someone else!
Despite everything, Khydan’s mouth twitched. Disarmed? You’ve been spending too much time with Swift, Osha. You’re cracking jokes now?
I’m being serious! You just attacked two people.
Slowly, his hint of a smile faded, leaving behind cold, hard fury as he scowled up at the strangers who surrounded us. Well. They shouldn’t have touched you if they’d wanted to live, should they?
The male hadn’t made a peep when he’d died.
The female, who was still on her feet next to me, hadn’t made a sound when Khydan had taken her arm, either.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that she was suffering.
As she held her bleeding stump, she shook violently, tears tracking down her cheeks, but her jaw was clenched shut as if she didn’t dare cry out.
Legs came into view. A torso. A tall, thin male with sunken black pits for eyes.
A moment later, he was followed by another tall male, almost identical in features and stature, except that his eyes were glowing red coals.
Long black hair hung down their backs, knotted into the most elaborate war braids I had ever seen. They were dressed for battle.
On the right, the male with the black eyes spoke first, revealing himself as the owner of the deeper voice. “Look, Githrand. The old one has brought us some new toys to play with. Warm bloods. Yvelians.”
The red-eyed male sniffed, his upper lip curling in disgust. “That one isn’t Yvelian.”
“Oh? Really?” The male regarded me with a curiosity at war with Githrand’s distaste. Gods, but their features were strikingly similar. Surely they had to be brothers. “And what might she be, then?” he pondered.
“I know not, Crave. But there’s a scent on her that I dislike.”
“It’s called soap. Maybe you ought to try it.” Khydan had warned me not to say anything, and then he came out with that? He wasn’t that stupid. This was something else. A tactic designed to . . . what?
The males didn’t look at either of us, didn’t even acknowledge that Khydan had spoken, but the look they shared implied that he had just made our situation significantly worse. A laughable thought, really, considering how bad our situation already was.
Next to me, Khydan tensed, his back stiffening as he straightened.
Nimerelle was still in his hand, the end of the blade resting on the ground.
The god sword rattled, as if the piece of Mirelle’s soul that lived inside it was doing her best to shatter the magic holding us in place and get back to the business of killing.
Red, burning eyes drifted slowly down to look at the sword.
“Where did you get that, pet?” Crave might have asked in a disinterested way, but damn, was he interested.
He cocked his head to one side, narrowing his gaze as he studied the sword, even going so far as to take a step toward the god sword.
As he came forward, the female with the bleeding stump let out a tiny whimper.
She took a step back, away from Crave, and scores of eyes widened as the crowd realized what she’d done.
Some of the strangers gathered around us even looked down at the ground, as if they didn’t have the stomach to watch what would happen next.
Crave just smirked coldly at the female, then ever so slowly crouched down and turned his head so that he was eye-to-eye with Khydan. “I repeat,” he said icily. “Where did you get the sword, pet?”
Anger roiled in my mate’s eyes, plain as day. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he spoke through gritted teeth. “It was a gift from the gods.” He still couldn’t lie, even here. He had no choice but to tell the truth.