“Then how is it possible you are here, asking me to kill him for you? I thought no umagi could plot against his master.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“If you want my help, you’ll make it my business.”

She glared at him in stubborn silence.

His brows rose, and he crossed his arms. “I have nothing but time, little umagi.”

She huffed a frustrated breath, then dug a small cup from her pocket and thrust it through the cell bars. “Fine. Eat your stew, and I’ll tell you.”

Shan tilted the serving cup and shook more of the stew into his mouth. It was good. Jaffing good. The best food he’d had in years, possibly even centuries.

“So there’s a secret place in your mind where you can hide thoughts from the Mages?” he repeated as he chewed the flavorful chunks of meat. The little umagi had told him about how one day she’d discovered that she could keep secrets from the Mage, and how she’d been testing it over the last months. “So where did it come from? How did you create it? “

“I don’t know. One day it was just there. And I realized that what thoughts I keep there are private. The High Mage can’t see in. It’s like a room protected by privacy weaves, and it gets larger the more thoughts I keep there. That’s how I can have this conversation with you and know he will never learn of it.” She watched him dip his cup into the bowl again, and when he carried it to his mouth, she licked her lips.

Despite a thousand years of horrendous torture, despite a soul-deep enmity for the Eld, the Fey called Lord Death felt his heart squeeze with pity. Poor child. Those big, hungry eyes of hers had been tracking every move of the serving cup since he’d begun to eat, and even the hand pressed hard against her stomach hadn’t been able to quiet its growls. If her presence was another of Vadim Maur’s twisted games of torment, it was the best attempt of the millennia. Because, gods help him, he had fallen for it.

“Do all umagi have this secret place?” Shan drained the cup in two mouthfuls.

“I don’t think so. I think I’m the only one.”

“The stew is very good. You should have some yourself.” He offered her the serving cup and nudged the half-eaten bowl of stew towards her. “Go on. Every child deserves a treat now and again.”

Her eyes flashed up, molten silver and full of sudden ire and cynicism. “I’m no child. And treats are just bait to trap the stupid.”

“No bait here, child. Just a shared cup to seal our…” he started to say “friendship” but realized the little umagi would probably ruffle up some more, so he settled on a different word, “… agreement.” It hurt his Fey heart that any child should be so misused she suspected a trap in even the simplest kindness. “Teska. Please. It’s really quite delicious.”

The offer was too much temptation to refuse. She snatched the cup from his hand, dipped it in the bowl, and poured the still-warm stew into her mouth. Her eyes closed in bliss. Judging by the look on her face, she’d probably never tasted anything so good in her life. That realization hurt, too. His heart wept for her—almost as much as it wept for the daughter of his own blood whom he’d never seen, never held.

“In the Fading Lands, kaidina, you would have been cherished and pampered every day of your life. Not a chime would go by that you did not know how greatly you were loved. Your father would have carried you so proudly in his arms, and sung young songs from ages past to make you smile, and rocked you to sleep spinning Fey-tale weaves of beautiful shei’dalin maidens and their brave shei’tans, while fairy flies sparkled in the gardens outside your window. And every warrior of the Fey would willingly lay down his life to save you from the slightest harm.”

Rather than growing misty-eyed by his maudlin confession of fatherly dreams, the little umagi took umbrage. “I am Eld. Your warriors would have killed me on the spot and left my bones for the rats.” She handed his serving cup back through the bars. “So will you kill the Mage, or won’t you?”

Shan understood. She was an Elden umagi, brutalized since birth, suspicious of the slightest kindness. She did not need or want his useless dreams of a Fey-tale childhood. She did not need or want his friendship. Very well. He would not let his Fey heart be softened by the vulnerable appeal of too-big eyes in a too-thin face.

“I need my sorreisu kiyr,” he said. “My Soul Quest crystal. I tried to kill your Mage without it and failed. If you want me to kill him, you need to get me that crystal.”

CHAPTER THREE

Celieria ~ Dunbarrow Manor

27th day of Verados

Damn the Fey! Damn Dorian and that Fey-lover Barrial!

Grief and rage writhed like snakes in Great Lord Dervas Sebourne’s chest. He paced the confines of his study in Dunbarrow on unsteady feet. Small waves of sea-green Sorrelian quist—a highly intoxicating liquor distilled from a fermented blend of sweet sea grapes and deadly moonshade—sloshed over the rim of the crystal tumbler clenched in one fist.

Dervas lifted his glass and tossed back its contents in a single gulp, barely feeling the fiery burn as the potent liquor slid down his throat. This wasn’t his first glass of quist tonight, and it wouldn’t be his last. When a man lost his only son and saw the end of his Great House looming on the horizon, his soul craved a stronger balm than pinalle.

Dervas harbored no illusions about his future. King Dorian would not leave unpunished the Great Lord who had spat defiance and insult, then taken his men and ridden away from the coming battle with Eld. Sebourne had broken with the king, and Great House Sebourne would soon sink into disfavor and, ultimately, into obscurity.