Page 80 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
Fond of knives I may be, but I’ve only fought training dummies or cut into passive subjects. The horror of my inadequacy chills my bones.
I need to learn how to fight a living opponent.
Again the creature scurries along the rocky ceiling, impossibly fast. I stab and slash, and somehow manage to strike its poison pod. Acidic bile spills out, glowing yellow, steaming on the floor while I jump back with a panicked yell. The creature squeals in agony and races away.
More cries echo down the passage—male roars of panic.
“Ducayne!” I scream. I’m not sure whether I’m trying to summon him or save him. I pelt along the stone corridor, breaking into a large chamber with a statue at one end—columns, incense burners—I barely notice any of it because my thrall is in the center of the room, fighting for his life.
His cloak has been shredded, showing his vulnerable bare skin through the holes. Two of the poisonous scorpion-creatures lie crushed beneath chunks of rock, but there are more swarming over him. He’s whirling, tearing at them, yelling. One jabs its tail at his spine, but it happens to pierce one of its fellow creatures instead. They both fall away, but two more scuttle up his legs, jabbing at the thick leather of his boots.
I dash in, kick one of them off him, and stamp on it. Its exoskeleton crunches under my boot. I rake a blade through another creature and knock two more off, crushing their poison pods.
Ducayne is clear of them now. I hand him a knife, and he and I swing back to back, ready in case more of the monsters show up.
A few more enter from a side passage, and we kill them, shouting our panic and disgust. Then Ducayne finds a lever to activate a heavy stone door and close off that passage, leaving only the route to the exit. I inspect the walls and ceiling carefully, but I can’t see any other cracks or entry points for the monsters.
My thrall turns and glares at me, his torn cloak hanging off his bare chest, his skin pricked and bleeding from the creatures’ sharp feet.
“I didn’t know the place would be infested,” I mutter.
“This is why you bring bodyguards.”
“You’re fine. Stop whining.” After wiping and sheathing my knives, I stalk down the exit passage to retrieve my satchel.
When I return, he has divested himself of the ruined cloak, and other than his black pants, he’s wearing only a series of looping gold chains, linked in the scant semblance of a shirt. It’s a different pattern than the one he wore last night—this one has a gold bar along his breastbone, and the chains sweep outward, highlighting the curves of his pecs and shoulders. I hate how sexy he looks in it, especially with the scratches and cuts all over his chiseled torso. He wears gold chains at his hips, too, as he did on the night the servant first brought him to me.
“You’re staring, Princess.” He gives me a wry smile.
Scoffing, I open my satchel and remove the packets of incense. I packed everything this morning, before breakfast, while he was washing, shaving his face, and oiling himself. The lunch is nothing more than a tin of cookies I asked Meldare to bring me. I couldn’t ask for a full meal to be packed up, or someone would have guessed I was planning a dangerous excursion into the storm.
Even with all my precautions, I suspect we don’t have long before my bodyguards come after us. An hour, perhaps, if the stable boy told of our escape immediately. Maybe two hours if he didn’t.
Ducayne kicks the carcasses of the monsters into a pile at the side of the chamber, while I advance toward the green jade statue of Arawn. The sculptor made the death-god beautiful—high cheekbones, full lips with a saucy tilt, long wavy hair, a body as muscular as my thrall’s. Two horns sweep upward from his brow, while two more curl backward, toward his skull.
“In Yurstin, Arawn is depicted with a deer-skull mask and antlers.” Ducayne stands at my side, arms crossed.
“Most of our shrines display him like that, too. I’ve never seen a statue of him unmasked, though I’ve seen similar images in books of lore.”
“Does he have a story?” Ducayne asks. “Most of the gods do, but I’ve never heard his.”
“Help me prepare the burners, and maybe I’ll tell you.”
Half a dozen incense burners hang from tall, branched stands along the walls of the shrine. Ducayne brings me three of them, and I hand him a packet of incense. I fill the other two burners and light all three with the flint I brought. Then I arrange the burners as the points of an equal triangle before Arawn’s statue.
“Is there anything you need to say for this ritual?” My thrall’s tone is subdued, almost dark.
I cut a glance at him. “Ritual? This is just for remembrance. To ease the passage of their souls to Arawn’s realm.”
“So this isn’t a death ritual? A rite to give you power, fortune, and protection?”
“No, it isn’t.” I frown at him. “For that, I would have had to kill each of the people myself—” I stop, staring at him. “Wait—did you think that I—”
“No,” he says, too quickly.
“You thought I murdered Keb, Lombard, and Jilleen?”
He scrunches up his face, ruffling a hand through his hair. “I—I don’t know you that well. You like to hurt people, so I thought maybe—gods, Ruelle, don’t look at me like that.”
