left hand, gently tipping her chin to study her face more closely.
“Does that matter?” Thorn forced herself not to flinch at his touch. His fingers seemed feverishly warm, and the stone in her neck pounded in time with her heartbeat. And what does his mark do? she wondered.
“No. You’re not alone in that, among our company. We care nothing for the circumstances of your birth. When you come to us, you become part of a new family.” The Son of Khyber turned her head slowly from side to side. The lines running across his left eye pulsed faintly.
“Is there something you’re looking for?” Thorn said. “Not that I’ve got immediate plans for my chin, but perhaps I could save you some time.”
He released her hand and her head at the same time. The throbbing in Thorn’s neck faded, though not entirely. “My apologies,” he said. “I just wanted to examine your mark more closely.”
It was a reasonable explanation, all the more so because Thorn’s mark was a fraud. But she didn’t believe him. He was looking for something else-something he was expecting to find. Then she remembered Fileon’s reaction, back when he’d first examined her. The stones. He had wanted to see the shard in my neck. Why?
“Fileon told me that you wanted me here,” she said. “That you needed my skills. I’d like to hear more about that.”
“And you will, sister. We have many things to discuss. But this is neither the time nor the place. We met here for a reason, and we must resolve this matter quickly.” He turned his mark-stained gaze away from Thorn, and it seemed that a weight had been lifted from her-a pressure she only noticed in its absence. He glanced at Dreck. “Show me what you have brought.”
Thorn placed the sack on the ground. Dreck reached inside, and a moment later, both bodies were forcibly ejected from the bag. The Cannith boy was beginning to stir, shifting against his bonds. Fileon lay next to him, his shriveled arm pulled tight against his chest. The Son of Khyber shook his head as he examined the dead halfling.
“A shame,” he said. “I’d hoped he could change.”
“He was Shaper of the Young,” Dreck said. “He could not be allowed to follow a different path. Had he not opposed you directly, he would still have poured poison in the ears of his students.”
“I know,” Daine said. “But I still hate to see any of us fall. Halas would have found a better way.”
Dreck said nothing.
“And the brooch?”
Dreck drew the pin from his robes and handed it to the Son of Khyber. Daine held it in his palm and studied it, and as he did, his aberrant dragonmark moved. The lines along his arm twisted and flowed, crimson snakes flailing against his skin.
Aureon’s Shadow! What was that? Thorn had seen dragonmarks before-aberrant and otherwise-but she’d never seen one come alive. She wanted to draw Steel, to get his analysis of the mystical forces at work in the chamber. But even as she let her hand drift toward Steel’s hilt, she saw the drow woman watching her. The dark elf held her bone wheel in a throwing grip, and the threat was plain. Not the best time to draw a weapon.
Daine’s mark had fallen still. He pinned the brooch to his dark cloak, replacing the plain pin he’d been wearing before.
“Why did you want that?” Thorn asked. Why would an aberrant leader wear a Deneith sigil? When he glanced her way, she shrugged. “I risked my life for the thing. It would be nice to know why.”
Dreck turned as if to reprimand her, but Daine raised his hand. “A fair question, and you’ve earned the answer. It’s no weapon, and it holds no hidden power. It’s just a family heirloom, forged for my father. We parted with harsh words, and I wished to have it back.”
She didn’t need Steel to tell her he was lying. She’d seen the brooch. It was hundreds of years old, and the sigil hadn’t been used for centuries. But she was here to learn about the Son of Khyber, and even the lie could hold a trace of truth. “So you were born into House Deneith?”
Daine nodded. “Yes, and driven out by my kin. Just like poor Fileon. But there will be a better time to share stories, Thorn. Let us finish what you began.”
He knelt beside the Cannith boy. The child’s eyes were wide with fear, and he twisted in his bonds. Blessed Boldrei, I hope that you can forgive me if any harm comes to this boy, Thorn thought. But I have to know what Daine’s capable of.
“Be still, little one,” Daine said. His voice was surprisingly gentle. He took hold of the boy’s shirt, and with one sharp move, he rent the garment asunder.
Thorn was surprised by the action, but what it revealed was stranger still. There was a dark object embedded in the center of the child’s chest: black metal, a spark of red light. Daine grasped the object and pulled it free.
The boy convulsed, his feet kicking against the ground. And then he was still.
“Is he dead?” Thorn asked, curiosity warring with horror.
“He was never alive,” Daine said as he stood. “Not as we understand it. Behold the child of Ilena and Merrix.”
There was a sphere of dark metal in Daine’s hand, its polished surface marked with a single red circle. It reminded Thorn of Steel.
Daine’s mark came to life, crawling across his flesh. The crimson lines glowed, and the light grew ever brighter with each passing moment. Suddenly the dragonmark stretched out from his arm, a pack of blazing serpents lashing at the air. The web of light wrapped around the dark sphere and then pulled back, and for a brief instant Thorn saw a ball of shimmering blue light trapped within the ruby net. Then the mark was back against Daine’s skin, and whatever Thorn had seen within was gone.
Daine rose to his feet. His eyes were closed, and his lips were moving, though he made no sound. The burning light of the dragonmark had faded, but there were erratic pulses every few seconds. Dreck and the dark elf said nothing and made no sound, and disturbed as she was by the scene, Thorn thought it wise to follow suit.
At last Daine opened his eyes. The lines across his left eye gleamed, and Thorn was certain that the patterns across his face were in a different configuration than when she’d first seen him.
“You may return to your duties, Dreck,” he said. He looked at the dark elf. “Xu’sasar, dispose of the bodies and take Thorn below.”
“You will be alone,” the drow woman Xu’sasar said. Clearly she disapproved.
“I am never alone,” he replied. A glimmer of light passed through his dragonmark, and the lines along his arm rose up from his flesh once more. These glowing tendrils were an inch from his flesh when they froze. Daine clenched his fist and grimaced, and the mark settled back down against his skin. “Nothing in this place will hurt me. Now do as I say. I will address the house when I am ready.”
Dreck inclined his head. The drow woman clicked her tongue against her teeth.
Daine looked back at Thorn. He was gritting his teeth, and it was clear he was in pain. But he still smiled slightly as he met her eyes. And there was that same look in his eyes, that sense of recognition. “Welcome to House Tarkanan, Lady Thorn. Steel yourself. We have much to do in the days ahead.”
Before she could speak, he turned away and strode out of the room.
There was a change in the air when the Son of Khyber left the room-the sense that a charge had dissipated. Thorn realized that the stone at the base of her spine had been ice-cold for the past few minutes, chilling the flesh around it. She’d been so distracted by the stranger that she hadn’t noticed, and now it was the fading chill that caught her attention.
Fileon’s corpse and the body of the Cannith boy were still stretched out on the floor. Beetles and other insects were crawling across their skin. Thorn examined Merrix’s son, trying to make sense of what she’d seen. The boy’s skin was smooth and pale, and he wasn’t breathing. There were no obvious injuries, save for the hole at the center of his chest-the socket that had once held the metal sphere.
“Explain this,” she said to Dreck.
“It is just what it seems, beloved. A vessel of flesh grown to house the consciousness held within the sphere. The original child died seven years ago, and Lady Ilena could not conceive again. But Lord Merrix was determined to produce an heir, even if he had to produce that heir.”
Thorn ran her fingers over the corpse, feeling its cooling skin. Studying the boy’s face, there was nothing to suggest that he was anything but human. “How many more of these are there?” she said. “Can he make them to
