Page 114 of Master of Storms
Someone had painstakingly carved Sumerian letters in the walls. He trailed his fingers over several of them, wishing he’d paid more attention to his tutors.
“They say, ‘Treachery is a rot that eats away at a clan. Those who deal it, must be silenced,’” Elin read.
Marduk’s steps began to slow. “I suppose your father taught you to read Sumerian?”
She laughed under her breath. “My father taught me many things, yes.”
“You’re lucky,” he murmured, “to have a father that loves you so much. Mine did too, and I miss him every day. I wish I’d been there when my mother died. I wish I could have looked her in the eye and wished her to Hel.”
Silence answered him, and then…. “That’s not a very nice thing to say. She did give you life, after all. She chose to let you live when Ishtar’s Chaos-warped form was revealed. You must have loved her once.”
Marduk ducked beneath a lintel and eased down a small flight of stairs, into a circular chamber.
There was nothing in front of him but a dead end.
No sign of Andri.
His heart started to race. Maybe that was a good thing, because it left him free to confront his mother, without any potential hostages.
Chaos-warped form.
He turned to face her, certain now. “Did I love my mother? How does one love a monster?”
Elin hovered in the archway, a mere slip of shadows with a hint of smoldering green in her eyes. “Even a monster deserves to be loved.”
“I asked your father once for help with my Sumerian, and he told me it wasn’t a language he was fluent in.”
She paused.
“And Andri can’t have come this way. There’s no sign of footprints in the dust, no break in the cobwebs.” He tilted his head toward the thin strip of wool she held. “Solveig found Andri’s cloak in Klara’s hut. I noticed then that it was missing a piece. You slipped up.”
“You’re right,” she purred. Taking the stairs one by one, she sauntered toward him, her shadow seeming to stretch across the floor. “The Loremaster of the clan doesn’t speak very good Sumerian. And Andri no longer has his cloak. I stole it from his room.”
He stared at her face. Her cheeks looked almost gaunt in the torchlight. She didn’t look like Elin. There was something almost vulpine about her expression, but the look in her eyes was familiar. Oh, so familiar.
“Mother.” Even breathing the word felt like he gave life to a ghost. “It was you. All along it was you.”
“I was hoping you’d be more surprised. I was looking forward to seeing the shock on your face.”
He breathed the fire in his veins as he watched her advance.
He wasdreki, and even if she had managed to wield Chaos, she wasn’t impervious to his flames. “Maybe I just wanted to get you alone.”
“No matter.” Elin laughed, her voice turning smoky. “One last little spell, Marduk, in order to save my soul into the necklace I wore. And poor little Elin couldn’t help but put it on. It was so pretty, you see, and she’d never worn anything like it.
“I was wondering how long it would take you. You’re so pathetic, all of you.” Running her hands down her hips, she gave him a girlish smile. “All I have to do is bat these pretty blonde lashes and everydrekiin the vicinity thinks I’m some precious virgin who needs to be protected. It’s been almost too easy.”
“What have you done with Andri?” he demanded, because his hopes of finding his cousin here were vanishing.
“I didn’t kill the little bitch, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’d guessed, and so he had to be dealt with.”
That little conversation Andri had wanted to have with him…. “Where is he?”
Elin drew a dagger from the sheath at her hip, light sparkling deep within the heart of the ruby in its hilt. She kissed the ruby. “You were the one who gave me the perfect idea to dispose of Andri. I found this locked away in a little chamber beneath Draco’s tower. The third beacon of Chaos magic you could sense.”
The heat drained out of his face.
“Draco doesn’t strike me as the kind of king to keep one trick up his sleeve. If he had one of thekunuk la’atzuknives, then he was bound to have the other,” she said. “They were a matched set, created thousands of years ago in Sumer in order to worship the goddess, my mother once told me. The old king had them locked away in his vault. And so, I just had to find the other one.”
