Page 102 of House of Dusk
“You should go back,” Yeneris whispered. They stood at the threshold of the open gate, confronted by the shadows of the corridor. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not leaving you.” Sinoe squared her shoulders, then gave Yeneris a teasing smile. “Besides, you’re my bodyguard. You can’t send me back to my room. What if I was attacked?”
“By what? Lady Alcis and her headache tonic?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever tried it.” Sinoe made a face.
“Does it taste worse than your half-rotted fish sauce?”
“It’s not rotted, it’sfermented. And it’s a delicacy. And you should know by now that I’m not going to agree to run away, so why stand around wasting more time when we could be spying on the Ember King?” She spoke the title with a twist of bitterness, shaking her head. “Fates.Fates. Why? Why let Father believe it’s him?”
Yeneris chewed the inside of her cheek. She’d been asking herself the same question. There were several possible answers. “When someone wants something desperately, it makes them easier to manipulate. And it’s a sort of shield, too. Lacheron can stay in the shadows, doing what he wants. Whatever this is,” she added, gesturing ahead.
There was just enough of the queasy light to see their path, to avoid bumping into the walls.
“Do you hear voices?” Sinoe asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Yeneris nodded grimly. She couldn’t make them out, but one sounded like Lacheron. The other was barely a whisper. Even so, it set a host of spiders crawling over her skin.
They edged further along the passage, the light brightening, until they reached the threshold of another chamber, larger than the outer workshop, but windowless, with low, oppressive ceilings. A handful of braziers provided a sullen veil of light. The air was heavy, thick with incense and a fouler scent beneath. It nearly made Yeneris gag. Sinoe made a face, pressing one of her silky sleeves to her nose.
Six waist-high stone plinths stood in neat rows, filling the center of the room. On three of them lay a still form wrapped in linen. Corpses. Presumably some of the six Melita had arranged to have delivered to Lacheron. But where were the other three?
Swallowing a swell of unease, Yeneris edged through the doorway. The plinths would be good cover, so long as the bodies didn’t rise up and try to chew her face off. Warily, she slid into the shadow of the nearest stone table. Beneath the shroud she could just make out the suggestion of a nose, a chin. But no movement. She counted five breaths to be sure, then waved for Sinoe to join her.
The princess looked pale and ill and furious. “This isn’t a workshop,” she whispered. “It’s a tomb.”
Yeneris grimaced. “In a tomb the bodies would be treated with respect. These are...something else.”
Lacheron spoke again, somewhere deeper in the chamber. He sounded frustrated, angry. “—no business luring her into the underworld. I told you I would take care of her! All you had to do was kill the agia.”
Yeneris peered past the plinth, finding the Heron on the far side of the room. He stood with his back to them, some twenty feet away, speaking to a shrouded figure. Another of the stolen corpses. But this one was not silent or still. It shifted restlessly, pinpricks of purple light gleaming from its rotting, misshapen face.
A slithering whisper came from the dead body. From the ghoul that now inhabited it. Horror crawled over Yeneris’s skin like a host of spiders.
She is too dangerous. You would be foolish to let her live. We will consume her utterly, and ensure she can never againbetray you.
“It’s not your place to question me,” snapped Lacheron. “Not if you wish to remain free of your old master.”
A ghost of rosewater tickled her nose. Sinoe leaned close, not speaking, but her eyes were wide dark pools in the shadowlight. She pointed toward the wall to their left. Yeneris followed the gesture, and saw a long worktable, lumpy with glassware and scrolls and other tools she did not recognize. Sinoe arched her brows, twisting her hand, as if turning a key in a lock.
The key. According to the Fates, the key was here, somewhere. And this was their best chance to claim it, while Lacheron was distracted. Yeneris nodded. Together, they crept over to the table.
Lacheron’s ghoul spoke on.She comes to us. And she brings the seeker with her. Once they pass into the labyrinth, they will not leave again.
Who were they talking about? A woman. Maybe one of the ashdancers? It couldn’t be the old agia. She was dead.
Yeneris netted her thoughts, tugging them back from the sea of speculation. The key was what mattered most. Freeing Sinoe from the Heron’s cursed bangle. It must be here, somewhere.
The worktable was cluttered with oddities. Strange devices of metal and shimmering black stone, bundles of feathers, baskets of claws. A jar of liquid that spun sluggishly by unseen currents, gleaming blue. But nothing that looked remotely like the red clay amulet she’d seen Lacheron give to Hierax. Her pulse skittered, beating a warning. They’d need time to escape.
“How close is he?” Lacheron was saying. “How many has he managed to find?”
We have stolen those we could, came the corpse-voice.But he has many. Already he changes. You must keep your promise,EmberKing. Give us the abyssal blade. We will end him.
“No. I have need of it. And I’ve given you more than enough already. You’ve feasted well. Grown strong.”
A feast. Cold fury shook Yeneris, as she considered what that might be. A war? An entire city, fallen in the sweep of one day?Later, she told herself. She could be angry later. Right now she had a job to do.
