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“Regain your place?” she asked in confusion. “Is this about your curse?”
“No,” he said forlornly. “I’m not who you think I am, Kerrigan.”
“You’re exactly who I think you are, Ford. I’ve spent the last month with you. I know precisely who you are.”
“I lied.”
“About what? You cannot lie with actions.” She forced him to look at her. “I know who you are.”
“I was exiled,” Fordham bit out. “That’s why I came to get a dragon and join the Society. I’m no longer welcome in the House of Shadows, and I should never have brought you into this with me.”
Exiled. Gods!
“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, the hurt seeping into her voice despite everything.
His face went dark. “Why should I have told you?”
She took a step back at the viciousness in his voice. “Ford…”
“It was a mistake to invite you to join the House of Shadows, and if you come home with me… I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“Guarantee my safety? Since when have you ever been able to do that?” she snapped back. “I’m the one who has been running straight into danger. How is this any different?”
He met her own hardened gaze. “Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. We’ll leave tomorrow at dawn..”
Then, he strode away from her, leaving her standing before the opening to the mouth of the cave with more questions than answers. She had never dreamed that she would be able to join the Dragon Society, and now, here she was. She had done the impossible. She could survive Fordham’s exile and the House of Shadows and Society training with the same perseverance.
Nothing was going to hold her back now.
55
The Red Mask
Isa
Isa slunk through the deepest, darkest shadows of Draco Mountain. She curled into those shadows, and they claimed her as their own. She passed the sleeping guard. The nightshade draught she had given them all had worked wonders, but she wasn’t careless, and she wanted to make sure that no one else had come down to see why the screams had ceased. The dungeons were a playroom for the depraved.
She snatched the large brass keys off the guard and then moved silently down the path through the reeking corridors. Finally, she stopped before the last door, the most recently occupied. The man who had once held such esteem was nothing more than a disgrace.
Basem Nix was bolted upright to the dungeon wall. His arms hung limp from where his hands were secured high above his head in magicked manacles. He could barely hold his weight after the beating he’d received from the Guard as they tried to extract his secrets. He’d even pissed himself in the process.
“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk,” Isa crooned.
Basem jolted at the sound of her voice. “Who’s there?”
“A phantom,” she breathed as she came into the light, her black mask covering her face.
He shuddered. “So… he sent you after all?”
“My father is nothing if not thorough.”
“He’s a bastard.”
She wagged her finger at him. Though she detested the man who had raised her and was doing everything in her power to escape this wretched hellhole, no one else could speak ill of him in her presence. “That’s not nice, Basem. I could get you out of here.”
She held the keys up as bait. He greedily lunged forward, as she had known he would.
“Then get me out of here!”
“First, I want to know everything you told the Society about our little organization. What did you spill other than your own piss?”
He glared at her. It would have been more formidable if he weren’t chained and one eye wasn’t swollen shut. “I didn’t tell them shit.”
“Persuade me.”
“They beat me near to death, and I didn’t tell them anything. I let them think that I was the leader of the Red Masks. I didn’t even give them information on the cache of weapons.”
“That’s good. What about my identity?”
“As if they’d be able to find you.”
She grinned devilishly. “True. What about headquarters?”
“No.”
“Our numbers?”
“No!”
“Our plans for the future?” Not that she thought Basem was high enough up to actually know future plans, but she let him think he did.
“No! I’m a Red Mask through and through. I swore a blood oath to the Father.”
“Then I believe it is time for that to be called in,” another voice joined in.
Isa slowly disappeared back into the shadows at the sound of her father. Terror shot through her, as it always did when he seemed to materialize out of nothing but thin air. But Basem… Basem was now shaking. A putrid smell came from him, and it was clear that he was pissing himself again in fear. He was utterly broken. There was no redemption in him.
Her father appeared then in the dark black robes with red stitching for the highest-ranking members of their organization. Covering his face was the original red mask. A metal alloy that molded to his face when worn and could only be removed by the wearer. So, even in death, his identity would be obscured.
