The fae female waves a hand. ‘Take him down to the lower cells. The beasts can entertain us with him later.’
‘No, my lady. Not the games,’ Tally whimpers, but Fiana doesn’t even look at him again as he’s dragged from the room by two of her guards.
Then, the fae female beckons me, and I reluctantly crawl out from under the table.
‘Well, well, Warrior. She is what we were told. How shall I reward you?’
Warrior’s narrow eyes are watching me intently, a pensive look playing on his face.
'You promised that I could have her first when I brought her,' he answers, finally looking away from me and plucking at an invisible piece of fluff on his black tunic.
‘Not that, I’m afraid.’ Fiana rolls her eyes. 'If you had done what I had asked you before, I might have allowed it. But, instead, you played games and tried to take her for yourself. Delays cost me and you know the rare ones are for me first.’ She stamps her foot. ‘And you know why I need this one in particular.’
‘I do, Fiana,’ Warrior answers coolly, seemingly unruffled by his mistress’ ire.
‘Then why do you thwart me?’ she pouts, turning away from me to give him her full attention. 'I still haven't found my lake.Tell me, Warrior, how is it possible that Varrik, the bumbling fool that he was, was able to find it, and I cannot?'
The black lake from my dreams? The same one that the mage wanted my father to find?
‘Luck?’ Warrior questions facetiously, leaning nonchalantly against the wall.
Fiana chuckles and eyes me. ‘Or Fate, perhaps.’
‘But Varrik didn’t have a Kismet,’ Warrior argues.
Fiana tuts. ‘There’s more than one way of finding it, it’s just that this one is now within my grasp. Come here, my Kismet.’
She crooks a finger and takes an open book from her desk, turning it around to show me. On the page is a drawing I recognize. It is the lake from my dreams, complete with the boulders and rocks surrounding it. There’s writing on the parchment as well.
‘What does that say?’ she asks me.
I shake my head. ‘I cannot read.’
‘Pity.’ Fiana leans in close to me. ‘Well, my little Fate Touched slave, this is one of the only books in existence that tells of your kind, the rare Kismet, descended of the first who came from the lake’s power. I know that because Varrik, in his wisdom, had every single tome he could find in every Realm and Circle that mentioned the Fate Touched destroyed bar this one which was in his personal library for his eyes alone. What do you say to that?’
I glance at her. ‘Varrik sounds as if he was a powerful mage, mistress.’
Fiana’s brow rises incrementally. ‘The fool was powerful, I’ll give him that. Because he found the lake. It says here,’ she taps the page with one long nail, ‘that you will be able to find it too.’
I stare at the picture, my mind working.
‘So I was told,’ I say airily, and I hope that she isn’t one of those fae who can sense lies as I continue. ‘I told the Underhillas much, but they didn’t believe me. They said the lake should remain lost, that it was too powerful.’
‘The Underhill.’ She sneers as she says it. ‘Wanting all the fae to dance to their tune. They think themselves so mighty, so clever. But I’ll tell you…’
She leans closer to me, her lips turning upward. ‘I knew they’d found out about my little plan for Kitore weeks ago, so, instead of taking the free folk from the First City, I took them from their precious village instead.'
Her fingers trail lightly up my arm. ‘And it was so very easy.’
She lets out another little laugh.
'But perhaps you can help me,' she says, her nails trailing across my collarbone, as if I’m some treasured pet.
‘Perhaps I can,' I say, looking at her.
She snorts. 'You’re cleverer than you look.’ Her caresses quicken. ‘But I’m cleverer. Bring him.’
My eyes flit to the doorway and I pale as Locke enters. They must have come for me. My spirits sink. Have they all been caught?
