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.
“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
Chained to the wall was one of them. Having a white-robed, wide-eyed goblin lady staring at me like I was one of the dragons downstairs was not.
As my vision cleared from the head clobbering I’d gotten, I realized that she wasn’t wearing a white robe. It was a white gown, shimmering with tiny pearls and what appeared to be diamonds.
I did the math: white gown, young, beautiful, bejeweled. I was going to take a big leap here and guess.
“Princess Mirabai?” I said, then winced at the pain in my skull.
She was startled that I knew her, but she didn’t jump back. Though I couldn’t exactly jump forward since I was attached to an iron ring set in the floor by a three-foot chain linked through my manacles. The area around where I was chained had absolutely nothing within reach, not even a chair to sit on. I felt like an unruly dog that had done something extra naughty. I guess elbowing Sarad Nukpana in the gut in front of his lackeys qualified. And to top it off, I couldn’t stand up; the chain was just long enough to let me get to my knees. I didn’t even have to wonder if Nukpana had done that on purpose.
“You’re Raine Benares.” Princess Mirabai’s voice was rich and cultured—and surprisingly calm. Her eyes told me she was no longer afraid of me, but was still cautious. Smart lady.
I nodded and immediately regretted that, too. “Right now, I wish I weren’t.”
“Right now, I would gladly trade places with you.” The girl sounded sincere enough; maybe she’d been hit on the noggin, too. “You get to die tonight. I’m to be married and mated to a monster.”
“When you put it that way, I do have it better, don’t I?” I didn’t mention that her monster groom was also technically a reanimated corpse. The poor girl had enough problems.
I took a good look around at what Sarad Nukpana called his quarters. The room was filled with sensual comforts. There was a low bed covered with silken pillows. A plush chaise upholstered with fabric that looked too soft to be real. An elaborately carved and inlaid table with two chairs, set with the remnants of a meal, mostly uneaten. The floor was covered in rugs, mostly of thick, soft fur. Except where I was, of course. I got to sit on cold stone.
It was familiar.
It took me a minute, but I remembered. Soon after I’d arrived on Mid, I’d done something well-intentioned that turned out to be well-intentioned but ill-advised, and had gotten my soul temporarily dragged into the Saghred, where I’d had a nasty encounter with Sarad Nukpana’s newly disembodied soul. The goblin had used magic to shape his prison more to his liking. From what I was seeing now, it looked like he had turned the inside of the Saghred into his own personal version of Home Sweet Home.
“Have you seen Prince Chigaru?” Princess Mirabai was asking.
I blinked a few times to refocus my eyes on her. Jeez, even blinking hurt. “Uh, not for a while.”
“But you have seen him?”
“Yes.”
“He was unharmed?”
“He was the last time I saw him.” I didn’t mention that the last time I’d seen him was also the same time that Khrynsani black mages were thundering down the stairs at our backs.
Tension visibly drained out of her. “Thank you.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not being hunted. It’s just unlikely he’s been caught.” I decided to keep “yet” to myself.
“When they brought you, Sarad told me that there would be more new prisoners before sundown—”
“Sundown? It’s morning already?”
