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Chapter 266: A servant in distress:
“You cannot.”“I can do anything I please. That is the nature of what you bought.”“I have an agreement with the Hand.”“The Hand has an agreement with you. I have an agreement with no one.” She smiled, thin and cold. “I came here out of curiosity. Curiosity is easily satisfied. Shall I show you how easily?”She turned toward the door.“Wait.”The word was sharp, almost a command. Melissa stopped, her back to him, one hand resting on the carved frame.“Wait,” Darius said again, more quietly. He drew a long breath through his nose. His face had gone pale, and a muscle was jumping in his cheek. “You are asking a very great deal.”“I am asking for a very small thing. Respect.”“Respect is not given at sword’s point.”“It is only given at sword’s point. I learned that long ago.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Will you call him?”For a long moment, Darius stood motionless, caught between the cold calculus of power and the hot pride of a man who had never been commanded in his own house. E
Chapter 265: The Invisible Roads:
“Has she.” Darius’s eyes flicked to Melissa, then back. “How very thorough.”“I do not harm children,” Melissa said. “And I do not leave hostages in the hands of a man who would use them.”“You presume a great deal.”“I presume nothing. I know exactly what threats are made in this palace, and who makes them.”Darius turned away. He walked slowly to the hearth and stood with his back to the room, one hand braced against the marble mantel, his shoulders stiff beneath the crimson robe. The firelight threw his shadow, long and black, across the carpet toward the bed. Lady Ismene watched him, her blue eyes huge and glistening, and then, very carefully, she drew her knees up beneath the coverlet and wrapped her arms around them, making herself small.“Ismene,” Darius said, without turning. “Leave us.”“My lord—”“Now.”She slipped from the bed in a rustle of silk, snatched a shawl from the chair, and hurried across the room, keeping as far from Melissa as the walls allowed. At the door, she
Chapter 264:The Razor and the Apology:
The words hung in the firelit bedchamber like smoke after a gunshot. Nobody moved. Lady Ismene’s fingers tightened on the silk coverlet until her knuckles went the color of bone. In the doorway, Elvyn kept her head bowed and her hands folded, and did not breathe.Lord Darius stared at Melissa. For three long heartbeats, nothing at all passed across his face. Then, slowly, like a mask settling back into place, the rage drained out of it and something far more careful rose to take its place.“Varek,” he said.“Yes.”“You accuse my chief counselor of setting a spy upon you.”“I do not accuse. I report.” Melissa’s hand remained clamped on Pell’s collar, and the man swayed between her fingers like a rag on a nail. “This one has confessed. He was posted behind the tapestry in my chamber on the orders of a Captain Garrow Thane, who received those orders from Lord Varek himself. He was told to listen, to report every word, and to deliver a message if he was caught.”“What message?”“That I sh
Chapter 263: Open the gates or die:
He did.The bronze doors swung wide, revealing a long, torchlit corridor beyond, lined with plush crimson carpet and flanked by tall, narrow windows. At its far end, perhaps sixty paces away, stood a pair of massive doors of carved dark wood, bound in gold and guarded by two more soldiers in black and gold livery. These two had evidently heard the commotion, for both had drawn their swords.“Halt!” one of them shouted. “Who goes there?”“The Sorceress Melissa,” she called back. “I demand an audience with your master.”“Lord Darius has retired for the night!”“Then wake him.”“We cannot!”“Then I will.”She did not hurry. She walked down the long crimson carpet with Pell at her side and Elvyn a pace behind, her gown whispering against the floor, her staff tapping a slow, steady rhythm. The guards watched her come, their swords trembling. When she was twenty paces away, the taller of the two, a thick-necked man with a scar on his chin, stepped forward.“That is far enough,” he said hoar
Chapter 262: I demand to see Lord Darius:
“Yes, Sorceress.”“Good.”They passed down the long, dim corridor, their footsteps muffled by thick carpet. Torches burned in iron brackets at intervals, throwing long, wavering shadows across the portraits of Lord Darius that lined the walls. Pell stumbled along between the two women, blood drying on his face, his breath coming in short, shuddering gasps. Every few paces, he glanced over his shoulder, as though expecting a knife in the dark.“Do not look back,” Melissa said. “It makes you look guilty.”“I am guilty.”“You are a pawn. There is a difference.” She did not slow. “Keep walking.”The palace at night was a different creature from the palace at midday. The great halls were deserted, their marble floors reflecting the torchlight in long, pale streaks. The tapestries hung motionless on the walls. Somewhere far above, a clock struck the half hour, a slow, deep note that echoed through the stone. They passed an alcove where a servant girl was polishing a candlestick, and she too
Chapter 261: The servant they feared:
Alice blinked. “I know her. Dessa. She is a sweet child.”“Fetch her. Quietly. Bring her to this room. Tell no one, and tell the laundry-mistress she is wanted by the Sorceress.”“At once.” Alice glanced at Pell, and a flicker of something, pity, perhaps, or understanding, crossed her face. “Is he—”“He will live. If he behaves.”“I will go.”“Alice.”The servant paused in the doorway.“Thank you,” Melissa said.A brief, startled silence. Then Alice bowed her head, very slightly, and hurried off down the corridor.Elvyn stared at her sister. “You said thank you.”“I did.”“You never say thank you.”“I never had reason to.” Melissa bent, seized Pell by the collar, and hauled him upright with a strength that belied her thin frame. He stumbled, nearly falling, and she steadied him with a hand under his elbow. “Can you walk?”“I think so.”“You had better. I have no intention of carrying you.”“Where are we going?” Pell whispered.“To see the one man in this palace who can still be reason
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