AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“To help me with a diversion—one that might save more lives than the three in the dungeon.”
Irithys sniffed. “You are Rigelus’s pet.” She waved with a burning hand to the mystics slumbering in their tanks. “No better than them, obeying him in all things. They would lie if he commanded them to. Would drown themselves, if he so much as breathed the word.”
“I can explain later. Right now I only have”—she choked on the word—“trust to offer.”
“What of the cameras?” Irithys glanced to the ever-watchful eyes mounted throughout the space.
“I have people in my employ who have ensured that they are looking elsewhere right now,” Lidia said, praying that it was true.
And with an appeal to Luna, she tapped the crystal ball, dissolving it. She still had the access Rigelus had granted in her blood to open the ball—she could still make this happen.
She’d intended to use the Sprite Queen to attempt to melt the gorsian shackles off Ruhn, Baxian, and Athalar, but things had changed. She needed Irithys for something far bigger.
Irithys stood in the open air, arms crossed, now a familiar, wary orange shade. “And this?” She gestured to the ink on her neck.
Lidia said quietly, as calmly as she could, “I made a bargain with Hilde for her freedom. She need only do one favor for me when the time comes, and she’ll walk free.”
Irithys angled her head again. “And the part about me torturing you …?”
“Will come after that. To make it believable.”
“Make what believable?”
Lidia checked her watch. Not much time. “I need to know if you’re in or out.”
To her credit, the Sprite Queen didn’t waste time. Lidia held her stare, and let the queen see all that lay beneath it. Surprise lit Irithys’s face … but she nodded slowly, turning a determined hue of ruby.
“Get the hag,” the queen said.
* * *
It was a matter of a few minutes to get Hilde brought down. The guards didn’t question the Hind, and her luck had held—the mistress was still off complaining to Rigelus.
Hilde glared at Lidia as she stood before the sprite, the queen free of her crystal and burning a bright bloodred. “And I walk free as soon as I do this favor for you?”
“No one shall stop you.”
Hilde weighed Lidia’s expression. “What is it, then?”
Lidia nodded toward Irithys. “Undo what you did years ago. Remove the tattoo from her neck.”
Hilde showed no shock, not even a glimmer. Instead, she again glanced between Lidia and the sprite, who remained silent and watchful. “Won’t your master punish you for that?”
Lidia said, “All I do is in service of Rigelus’s will, even if he cannot always see it.” A pretty lie.
But Hilde nodded slowly, her wispy silver hair gleaming with the red of Irithys’s flame. “I shall seek shelter in my House until you have officially cleared my name, then.”
Lidia produced a key to the hag’s gorsian shackles. Irithys simmered beside her, now a tense violet, as the lock clicked.
The hag’s shackles fell free.
Before they could hit the floor, Hilde whirled toward Lidia, mouth opening in a scream of fury—
Lidia drew her gun faster than the eye could follow and pressed it against the side of the hag’s head. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re a traitorous pile of filth. Rigelus will reward me handsomely when I tell him about this.”
Lidia pushed the barrel of the gun into the hag’s temple. “Free the queen now, or this bullet goes into your brain. And the shackles go back on.”
