Page 32 of Mistress of Bones
“You mean to drag me back to Valanje?”
Enjul crossed his arms. “I meant what I said in Diel. You may come willingly, or I’ll bring your corpse. Which will it be, Miss Del Arroyo?”
“We are no longer in Diel. You have no authority here.”
His smile was slow, alluring—a trap. “The Lord Death has authority everywhere. Who will stop me? Not you, not your companion. You already tried. None but your court would dare stop an emissary, and who are you to them? No one—they showed as much back in Diel. Accept your fate. You are young; your life need not end so soon.”
Azul suppressed a shiver at the hard glint in his eyes and held her hands tight against her ill-fitting waistcoat. “Once you have me in Valanje, what will become of me?”
“What you become will depend entirely on yourself. Help me understand the nature of your malady or…” There was a certain relish in the way he said those last words, the satisfaction of someone looking forward to her failing whatever test he had planned.
Azul welcomed the reminder of her fate. “Capitulation or death, is that it? Like some Divinadian play?”
“If that is how you choose to see it.”
“That’s quite hypocritical, isn’t it?”
Enjul tilted his head. “Is it?”
“I want to speak with Sirese Zenjiel.”
“If you hope to plead your case, know that not even the ambassador has authority over me. Zenjiel cannot help you.”
Azul fumbled behind her back until she found the handle of the door. “I don’t need his help. I just need you to answer for your hypocrisy.”
“Miss Del Arroyo—”
She finally got the door open. Zenjiel and the guard still stood outside, turning to stare at her.
Azul looked at Enjul over her shoulder. He waited, clearly amused.
“Explain to me, Emissary, why you direct your disgust at me when you are happy to allow Sirese Zenjiel his freedom,” she said with ill-contained anger as she reached for Zenjiel’s hand.
Their fingers met.
And Silvo Zenjiel promptly turned into a corpse.
Azul stared in shock as the mass of decayed flesh and bone dropped to the floor. Shouts rose in the air; the stench of rotting meat slammed into her nostrils. Azul gagged, then was wrenched backward.
Enjul loomed over her, his teeth bared in an enraged snarl. He shook her shoulders. “What did you do?!”
Her teeth clattered. She gripped his wrists. “Nothing! It wasn’t me!”
Enjul stilled, returned his gaze to the remains of Zenjiel scattered halfway into the room. The bone of Zenjiel’s skull peeked through the putrefied flesh; white showed on bony fingertips. The guard bent in half and heaved on the precious tiled floor.
The mask concealed most of Enjul’s expression, but his shock was obvious.
Zenjiel’s body had been dead awhile, that much was clear. Dead well before Azul had been brought into the house. Dead well before she had touched his hand.
And then the gleam of shrewdness returned to the emissary’s eyes as he arrived to the same shocking conclusion she had back when Zenjiel first stepped into the inn:
“There is another one of you.”
XIISECOND CHANCES
DAYS EARLIER
Virel Enjul, Emissary of the Lord Death, opened his eyes, and Azul del Arroyo’s face filled his vision.
