Page 3 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Another couple followed them into the room—a tall man with sharp dark eyes and fair hair neatly slicked back, and a petite woman with enormous blue eyes and golden curls who looked like she could be a porcelain doll. They wore fine silk clothes. All white, of course. One glance told me they were Threllian power.

Farimov’s smile faded, eyes widening.

“Lord and Lady Zorokov. What a… surprise.”

I nearly dropped the pitcher. I was not prepared for the unwelcome deluge of memories.

The smell of rotting flesh. The sight of a box of severed hands at my doorstep. The sound of the death screams the monster bearing it had given me.

The Zorokov family, the monster had whispered,does not like being lied to.

The Zorokovs had murdered hundreds of slaves. And all because of me.

I righted the pitcher quickly, my knuckles so tight around the handle that they were white. No one noticed my fumble except for Lady Zorokov, whose doe-like stare fell to me.

“Goodness. Are you alright?”

If I didn’t know better, I might mistake that for genuine concern.

“Yes, my lady,” I murmured. “My greatest apologies.”

She cocked her head and smiled.

“Oh, look at that. You do have the most beautiful eyes, don’t you?”

I lowered my gaze immediately. “Thank you, my lady.”

There were no fewer than eight freshly sharpened dinner knives at the table right now. My fingers itched for them. Seconds, and I could kill them both. I didn’t even need my magic to do it.

“A welcome surprise, of course.” Lord Farimov was in the process of quickly correcting his less-than-overjoyed reaction. “It is always a pleasure to receive a visit from you.”

“A discovery like this deserves to be seen firsthand,” Lord Zorokov said.

Farimov put his shock away for good and grinned. “Wonderful. There is more than enough food! Come, sit, eat, and we shall—”

“We have no time for such comforts, I fear,” Iajqa said. “King Caduan is quite impatient. Given the acceleration of Aran aggression, you must understand that time is of the essence.”

“But what a shame to—”

“Ourdeepestapologies, Lord Farimov,” the dark-haired Fey—Nessiath—said, not looking particularly apologetic at all.

Farimov sighed, failing to hide his disappointment. “Very well. Of course I understand.” He gestured to one of the slaves, who crossed the room and returned with a polished mahogany box with a gold latch. It was modestly sized, smaller in length and width than the dinner plate Farimov moved aside to place it on the table. The carvings on its surface had been partially eaten by time, despite its obvious, careful restoration.

Utter silence. The breath seemed to have left everyone in the room at once.

“This is it?” Iajqa said, quietly.

“It is. My collections of artifacts are quite extensive, you see. It took months of searching to locate this. But alas…”

He unclasped the box and opened it.

There, in a bed of black silk, sat a glass orb. Mist swirled within it like storm clouds, subtle and yet eerily unsettling. The hairs stood on the back of my neck, a strange sensation nagging deep inside of me. It was the sort of gut feeling I hadn’t gotten in months—not since my magic eluded me after the Aran war.

“So this is the thing that King Caduan lays so many hopes upon,” Lord Zorokov murmured, transfixed.

Iajqa said nothing. She reached out to touch the orb, and sparks and clouds collected under the glass beneath her fingertips.

I tried not to let my interest show, turning away as I swallowed my uncertainty. This thing did not look like a weapon. A magical curiosity, perhaps, but not a weapon.

---