Page 147 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
They needed to know.
“Today, you only watch and listen,” I said, for their ears alone. “Pay attention to each leader, the cadence of their words, what they wear, when they interject and who they dare talk over. Xamor, even the direction they point their toes in.”
They nodded, twin looks of apprehensive determination on their faces.
“You stick to the edge of the circle, near the exit,” I went on, gaze not letting them go. “At the first hint of trouble or once the full hour passes, whichever might come first, you run back to Vylkor. And don’t stop running until you reach the fortress. Is that clear?”
They nodded, Geryll with another gulp, Nadya tilting her chin up. Perhaps she’d been spendingtoomuch time around The Huntress.
“One more thing,” I said as I steeled my spine and turned. “Whatever you hear today stays between us.”
“Obviously.” Nadya grimaced. “But try telling Mrs. Thornbrew nothing.”
Honestly, I was more concerned about The Huntress asking too many questions. It was hard to refuse those green eyes. “Leave Mrs. Thornbrew to me. And pay attention.”
I faced the entrance with all the courage which had been trained into me. Even now, after all the battles and enemies I’d faced, more than twenty years since I’d walked through it, a spike of fear still slashed through me.
I remember clinging to my mother’s soft hand while trying to keep my face as stoic as any five-year-old could. The journey had tired me, the clouds had unnerved me, but nothing–absolutely nothing–had compared with the creature which had slid forward from the arch.
That same rattle of bones beat against me now, clinking from the darkness and coming closer.
“Do not react,” I said as the rattle drew nearer. “He will not harm you.”
As long as I was alive, nothing would.
From the darkness, a bony hand rose, wisps of shadows curling around it. But that wasn’t the worst part.
Chimes made out of bones had been sewn onto his dark robe, each note a whisper of the dead, announcing his arrival.
Us mortals only knew him as the Warden of the Silence.
His other hand breached the shadows, grasping the arch as if trying to crawl out of the underworld. His long nails scratched the bone, leaving behind red marks that vanished as soon as they appeared, as he emerged in all his upsetting might.
“Are thosechildrenbones?” Geryll whispered, horrified.
In front of the Warden, I still felt like that five year-old youngling not understanding what monster he was facing.
Only the gods knew where this creature had come from or if he’d ever been human. He stood over seven feet tall, face hidden behind a bone mask with dark slits for eyes.
“Mortals,” he greeted us with that voice that hissed and sang at the same time, an eternity hidden within its depths. It made my skin crawl. “No. Children are innocent. My bones belong only to those who have wronged, now forced to sit with me in the shadows for eternity.”
Geryll yelped, but said nothing more.
“No weapons,” the Warden commanded.
My baldric had been empty since the day I’d returned home after Sanctua Sirena and would stay the same until Calyx uncovered the dagger’s secrets.
Plus, I didn’t need one with the gifts my mother’s blood had allowed me to claim.
Geryll dropped his shield and daggers, the metal clinking horribly in the eerie silence.
Nadya parted with Francisca much slower, not taking her narrowed eyes off the Guardian as she placed it gingerly on the ground.
“You may pass,” the Warden said.
“One request before we do.” I forced my legs to step toward the creature which had haunted too many of my nightmares. “If anything happens in the Sky Summit, you will allow the two of them to leave without incident.”
The Warden tilted his humongous head. Nothing but voids for eyes, but I felt his stare sinking into me and latching onto parts of me nobody should have seen.
