Page 27 of Angel in Absentia
Everyone in the room seemed to notice her concerned silence a moment before the force yanked her so hard that she fell back. She thrashed through another world, realizing that the dark tether wasn’t completely broken. For a second, she was in the icy coils of that dead kingdom once again, prostate under a massive body and icy blue eyes. Its jaws sank down over her, layers of infected teeth slicing through the light of her body. To save herself and perhaps kill this horrid monster, she released all of the light through that wound like a broken vase spilling water. Her mind spiraled into blankness, her soul swirling loose from the tether like a rampant, spinning top. Her connection to her body snapped, and all at once, she felt her heart explode.
CHAPTER 9
MOONLIGHT
HE APPARENTLY ESTEEMED and terrifying Alkerrai al Shambelin lay in a fortified and heavily cursed prison. He rested on his back, plated boots crossed at the ankles against the corroded stone walls. He watched the moonlight glint faintly off the scuffed metallic toes of the boots, blackened fingers interlaced behind his head.
It was peaceful here, with the grace of a small cut window through which the night air carried the faint bluster of a distant celebration. The deeper prisons were brimming with other victims, and the Lord of the Belgear Kingdom had seen fit to display The Warlord of Shambelin’s prison high and tall to the rest of the world.
“I hope he’s wearing that coat, the one with the fur around the collar that he so firmly believes is grand and spectacular,” Ryson said to the air, fixated in deep thought. “The Belgears cultivated such an impressive reputation. Just so impressive. You know, I had a tremendous amount of hope that they’d truly be spectacular.”
A small spindle of white smoke materialized in the room, churning and then filling the shape of a mask until a complete face with small eyes for the slit and mouth hung against the stone wall.
Alkerrai. He’s had four and a half cups of Veilin blood.
Ryson paused, looking over at the mask.
“What?”
He’s had four and a half cups of Veilin blood.
“What does that have to do with his coat?”
I’ve been gone for an hour.
“Gods, my cien was distracting me again.” Ryson rubbed his hand through his hair, reflecting back on Prince’s original statement. “Four and a half cups. I guess he’s well drunk by now. That was rather quick, wasn’t it? I just got comfortable,” Ryson complained softly.
I believe he was rather put at ease by the undignified display of your torture.
“Did I wail enough?” Ryson asked with a laugh.
The crying was especially convincing. I imagine his dream of true power is void of the indignity you displayed so expertly. By now, he thinks himself entirely above you. A rather spectacular illusion, I must say.
“And thus, my weapon. I suppose it is time to celebrate, isn’t it?” Ryson sighed, whipping his legs from the wall and turning as he peeled the ragged shirt loose from his body.
He flexed his darkened fingers, curses wrapping into spires around his fingertips and protruding like knives before he drew a deep cut along his ribs. Hot blood poured down his side. He slid his hand beneath his ribs and removed a silver dagger, synched in its scabbard. It was cursed silver and one of thefew weapons capable of killing a powerful Venennin in a single stroke.
The wound healed as he removed the weapon from his skin. He felt the slightest sensation, but little beyond that. His sifting had returned, his entire body so wrought with past wounds that pain was nothing more than a hum in the back of his mind.
He laid the dagger near the bars of the cell before planting a curse over his chest that raced over his body, transforming him into a silver-eyed black cat that promptly slid through the cursed bars and shifted back into a man.
Naked, he leaned through the bars, took the knife, and then stretched for his clothes. Prince watched in the corner as Ryson’s fingers came just short of his clothes and he paused.
Ryson sat with his legs crossed, reaching through a second set of bars as if it might give him an advantage.
Do you want me to—?
“No,” Ryson said before pausing and reaching again, barely hooking a piece of cloth with his fingers before it fell loose again.
You should really just use a curse.
“I don’t need curses for everything,” Ryson replied obstinately, dragging his clothes a couple of inches closer.
I doubt many refuse to use curses on account of mastering them.
“Got it,” he replied, snaking his clothes through the bars before dressing again in the darkness. “Mastering anything completelyis quite akin to killing it. I refuse to say I’ve mastered curses. My hobbies are dwindling enough as they are.”
Brandishing his dagger, he stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down in the darkness. Much like the pain of his sifting, the darkness was a sea of consistency, akin to the silence of death. He felt that silence through his body, much like he felt it through the darkness of the forest. He had once longed for that, receded into that slumber, hoping to never be disturbed. Things were different now.
