at their leisure.
But that was exactly what she had done.
Chandra stared at the smirking girl in the doorway. “How can you eat someone you’ve talked to? Someone you’ve given food to?”
“I fed him because his skin looked a little too loose when you got here. A well-fed goblin is juicier.”
Chandra was aghast that she had slept in the same small hut with this revolting, sneering, deceitful child! “I think I’m going to be sick.”
She was so angry she felt dizzy. She also thought she felt a sudden headache coming on. There was a pounding in her ears, a harsh, uneven drumming that echoed around her…
Chandra frowned, realizing the sound wasn’t inside her head. And it was, she realized with a creeping chill, familiar.
“If you plan to vomit, get it over with.” The girl’s voice was hard. Her eyes were narrow and her lips tight with loathing. “The riders are coming for you.”
“What?” Chandra breathed.
“The Fog Riders are coming to take you to Prince Velrav.” Falia’s tone dripped with dark satisfaction.
Chandra heard the echoing beat of approaching horses, their hooves thundering against the ground. “Me?” Chandra felt the hut closing in on her. “But… why? I mean, how do they know I’m here?”
“Because I summoned them.”
“You?”
“I told you, people thrill him. Power thrills him. Why do you suppose he has not fed on me?”
“Power,” Chandra murmured. “Power.” She tried to call on mana. Any amount. Any feeble flow that she could use to power her fire.
“Because I trade with him for my life.” Falia looked much older than she had before. Perhaps even older than her true age. In that moment, she looked hard, ruthless, and casually cruel. “I find special things for him. A fire mage, such as you… Oh, my. Very exotic, Chandra.”
She looked at the girl sharply. “Did you drag that out of Jurl with your skinning and roasting tools?” She knew Falia hadn’t heard it from her or Gideon.
“He traded the information for his life. But goblins are stupid. He was still caged when he gave up your secret, you see. He didn’t even realize there was no reason not to kill him once he’d told us. If only more goblins were merchants.”
“So you’re one of the takers,” Chandra said, calling on her fury, calling on fire… and scarcely even able to feel her chilled blood warm a little bit.
“This is Diraden.” The girl’s voice was flat. “Everyone is a taker. Some of us are just better at it than others.”
Chandra decided they had chatted long enough. Fire magic wouldn’t work. Velrav had seen to that. She’d have to evade those Fog Riders the old-fashioned way-by running, hiding, and finding a means to fight them even without her power. And the first step was to get out of this hut and away from this smirking brat.
Chandra ran, straight into Falia, driving the flat of her palm against the girl’s face and striking upward. Falia shrieked in pain and fell backward. Chandra dashed past her… and found herself running straight into about a dozen spears.
She barely managed to stop her headlong rush into the ambush without skewering herself on the sharp metal points. She stood, frozen on the spot, looking down at the spear blades pressed against the vulnerable flesh of her throat, her breasts, and her belly.
The hoof beats were getting closer. The riders would be here in moments.
Falia arose from her sprawled position on the ground. Her nose was gushing blood. It flowed down her face and into her mouth, coating her teeth with red as she snarled at Chandra. Her dark eyes blazing with fury, the girl walked over, spat in Chandra’s face, and then slapped her, hard.
Chandra gave very serious though to retaliating… but she didn’t favor dying of a dozen spear wounds in exchange for the pleasure of hitting the brat. Instead, she demanded, “What have you done with Gideon, you warped little bitch?”
“Gideon is where I told you he was.”
“Is he alive?”
“Of course!”
Chandra studied her. “Ah, I see. You got him out of the way so you could have me carried off without his interference.”
“When he returns, I’ll tell him you disappeared. I’ll be very convincing.” Falia wiped her bloody face with her sleeve, but this only succeeded in smearing the blood all over her skin. “He’ll never know what happened to you. And he’ll forget about leaving here. Once you’re gone, he’ll stop thinking about going back to wherever you came from.”
“And, of course, you’ll comfort him tenderly while he grieves for me?” Chandra said.
“He will forget you,” the girl said with malicious satisfaction. “You are nothing.”
“I thought I was special enough to be a life-saving treat for your dark prince?” Chandra shrugged. “Listen, you sickly, demented, venomous child, if you think Gideon will ever notice you, then you’re even sillier than I thought you were.”
“He has already noticed me. I have more at my disposal than you may think. He will be mine,” the girl said furiously, her blood-smeared, sallow face going an unbecoming shade of puce. “If I am ever to be allowed to live, and better, to die, I need to produce a healthy successor. Gideon will help me do that.”
In that moment Chandra understood. Falia was as trapped as she was, perhaps even more so.
The noise of galloping hooves became too loud for further conversation, which was something of a relief.
The first thing Chandra saw was that fast-moving cloud of white fog traveling across the ground, glowing in the moonlight. Then she was able to see the riders, their looming black shapes rising out of the fog as they raced toward her.
They looked so terrifying that, for a moment, she couldn’t move. It was like being trapped in one of her nightmares. She wanted to scream, to flee, to weep, and she couldn’t do any of these things.
Then her wits came back to her in a welcome rush.
Spears! she thought. That ought to be an effective weapon against a rider.
And fire. Gideon had said that blood drinkers didn’t like it.
The four riders entered this part of the village and cantered around Chandra and her captors, circling them like a pack of predators. The thick mist swirled around the villagers and amongst them. Chandra felt as if icy snakes were twining around her knees when the fog reached her.
Perpetual nighttime worked in her favor on this occasion. Several of the men surrounding her were carrying torches.
She simulated terrified hysteria-which wasn’t that big of a leap-and staggered to her right, feigning confusion and panic as she shrieked. The men broke position, some of them falling back, others stepping to one side. She found her opening and seized a torch from one of them. She swung it around like a club, using the fire to keep her captors away.
“Seize her!” Falia shouted.
Chandra shoved the torch into the face of one of the men. He staggered backwards, lost his footing, and dropped his spear. Chandra caught it with her foot and kicked it up to her other hand. Warding off her captors with the spear, she used the torch to set fire to thatched roofs of two nearby huts. With the light wind, there as a good chance the fire would spread to more huts. Meanwhile, it was already distracting the villagers and sparking some panic among them. She hoped that, beneath the dark pall that covered Diraden, a big enough fire would be visible from far away. It would alert Gideon, if he saw it.
She had never used a spear before, but she assumed that sticking the pointy end into soft flesh would be effective. Turning suddenly, she dashed toward one of the riders and shoved the spear into his guts.
The force of her blow almost unseated him, but he was a skilled rider and clung to his mount. She could see the rider’s face as he moved away, the spear lodged in his belly. It was a bony and ghastly white visage, with black eyes, and lips so dark they looked black, too.
