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ELEVEN
Alys
The tables and gurney rattled, along with my bones. My ears rang. The scalpel cut another line of fire into my throat as I swallowed blood. Nerves jangled when I did that, from the teeth she’d pulled.
Rope. The Judge who handled executions, along with Frost. I saw him once, wearing the black robe and hood, when I was sentenced. Tall and broad, but I’d seen no other details of his appearance. A battlemage would know him.
The mage-Ridden had just called Walker Rope.
The man I loved was one of the five who hung me on the tree, who sentenced me to be Indentured.
My chest hurt as I let go of the fantasies I’d been babying against cold reality. The hopes of living with him in Kalderon with Dmitri. The dream of a life together. Even while he said he cared, even when I could feel the tenderness when we made love, he’d somehow been lying to me.
To get close to Dmitri? To fool me into being a broodmare for another baby of Stormdust blood for the Guild to use?
Walker had never been mine. My eyes burned and memories soured as humiliation buried me like a blanket of mud.
Walker’s—Rope’s—face bore no expression, but the black flicker of the magic around him was visible to the naked eye. The aura radiated a chill that ate into me, and Annabelle pressed her scalpel deeper into my skin as the edges brushed close to her. Blood trickled down my neck. I tried to press back and away, but the chair had no give to it.
“Stop it,” she snarled. “Unless you want your little friend dead.” Her focus settled on Walker, ignoring the others who followed him.
The mage’s shrieks pierced my skull. Why was he screaming? The sound of it hurt my brain, and then I heard answering shrieks, coming from outside. Or maybe my mind and talent heard them, not my ears. My thoughts were getting muddled by pain and blood loss.
Kara took a tiny step forward into the room. Annabelle’s eyes flicked back to Walker as Chance snagged Kara with his right arm, pinning her to his side.
Out of the corner of my vision, I saw a red pulse as Chance’s left hand flickered in a subtle gesture. Force slammed into Annabelle in two distinct parts.
The scalpel-holding hand remained unmoving on my throat while the rest of her body smashed into the opposite wall. Bones crunched.
My vision grayed as I drew a painful breath. People’s positions flickered, like a school of fish, resolving into Chance crouched next to me. I must have passed out for a moment.
Chance breathed a curse, his sound vicious, as his hand hovered over my torso, trying to find the worst injury. The healing art had never come easily to him, but he’d have lots of opportunities to practice on me this time. Another giggle tried to force itself up from my chest.
Thank goodness that he was here and I didn’t have to have Walker touch me or heal me. I’d take the lesser talent before I’d let Walker anywhere near me. The betrayal hurt as much as the wounds Anabelle had left.
Kara crouched under a different gurney, rummaging in the gigantic purse she’d been carrying. The bag shook with her hands.
The mage, wreathed in a shield of power, stood next to me and Chance, still shrieking. The answering screams had grown louder. Maybe one of them could shut him up?
The leashed power behind my mental door surged against it in answer. “They’re coming,” I tried to whisper. It came out too slurred to understand.
“Don’t try to talk, Alys,” Chance murmured. The physical pain eased as he focused his power in the deep cut across my lower belly. “You’ll be fine, just don’t try to fight. Everything’s fine.”
He was repeating himself and apparently thought my brain had stopped functioning. Still, I couldn’t do much just lying here.
Despite my best efforts, my gaze returned to Walker, no, Rope. His face was a cold mask, no warmth or humanity in it. The black flicker of power wreathed him, and he held Cohen by the neck with one arm. Since he was half a foot taller than Cohen, the other man’s feet dangled in the air and he clutched Rope’s arm, trying to get enough slack to breathe. Even though the hurt, I felt a vindictive pleasure at Cohen’s pain. Not so bored now, was he?
“They’re coming,” babbled Cohen. “All the possessed. They’ll listen to me when I tell them what to do. Even you can’t stand before twenty Ridden mages and live, Rope. Compromise. Live, and I promise you a better place in the new administration.”
Rope’s profile could have been carved from granite. Distant, cold, unyielding: nothing like the man I knew. Walker was funny and tender, protective and warm. My heart cracked further, and a sob forced its way out. Was Walker all a lie? Was I anassignmentof Rope’s? Death would be kinder than this feeling of humiliation and loss.
“Alys, you’ll be fine. This is nothing that can’t be fixed. I’ll get you home. Your son’s with the foster parents, but I have a line on grabbing him and getting him to Kalderon too. Just don’t die on me. ” Chance spoke in a low, quick voice, projecting calm and sleep at me.
Wow, he was really worried. He didn’t squeeze my hand, which was good, since I was missing fingers and thumb. He settled for patting my side, next to the wound he’d just laboriously closed.
Oh, he thought the sob was from what he was doing. Silly Chance.
“Annabelle exceeded orders, but the girl can be fixed! You can’t sentence me for no crime! I haven’t done anything!” Cohen gasped the words.
