10. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
Talyn knew she was in trouble as soon as she walked into the room. She’d expected to face the Lord of Hiraeth and maybe Cyra when she’d been called up to Bressen’s study after dinner, but she hadn’t expected to see Samhail and both of Cyra’s new bodyguards as well.
Lord Bressen was standing in front of his desk, leaning casually against it while Cyra stood close by, but their easy demeanors were belied by the three other warriors in the room.
Samhail was even wearing his leather armor and his two swords, while the two bodyguards each carried a shortsword and dagger at their hips.
If they needed this many people with this much weaponry to question her, they were expecting trouble.
Luckily fear was a natural reaction to facing such a group, so Talyn didn’t bother to hide her panic.
“My lady?” she asked from just barely inside the door.
Cyra smiled at her. “Leeda, please come in. We need to speak with you a moment.”
“About what?” Talyn asked. She stepped farther into the room, and the guard in the hallway closed the door behind her. A key turned in the lock with a click that echoed in her ears.
Fuck.
Talyn scanned the room for possible exits, and that’s when she noticed the sixth person in the room.
The merman stood next to the door she’d just entered.
He’d been behind it when she came in, and she hadn’t immediately noticed him when the door shut, but his shock of red hair caught in her peripheral vision as she took in the room.
A quick glance told her he was armed with a sword as well.
Talyn weighed her escape routes again. She could port to the other side of the door into the hallway if things went bad, but she wanted to have other options.
The most obvious exit was the balcony to her left, but it was also the most improbable.
While the balcony doors were half open, Samhail stood sentinel next to them.
If she needed to go that way, she’d have to get by him first. It wouldn’t be impossible, just risky.
She could port right by him if she needed to, but it would put her in closer proximity to him than she wanted to be, and then she’d need to climb down the side of the house.
Talyn was careful not to catch Samhail’s eye as her gaze swept past him.
A lady’s maid would never be so daring as to look someone like him in the eye, and she was afraid he might see something in her face that would help him make the connection between her and his supposed encounter with Cyra a few days ago.
Talyn nearly did a double take as her gaze passed over him, though. There was a large purpling bruise on his jaw as well as a couple cuts on his face. She wondered where he’d gotten them and why he hadn’t had someone heal them.
She’d noticed Samhail had kept his distance from Cyra and Bressen the last few days, but the fact they were all here now and armed to the teeth likely meant they’d figured out they had a masque in their midst.
It had clearly been a mistake to try and seduce Samhail.
She hadn’t expected him to confront Cyra about what happened, but he obviously had.
Cyra, of course, would’ve denied everything.
Talyn had been sloppy in testing Samhail, and now she’d have to convince these people she was who she said she was, all without lying.
“Come have a seat,” Cyra said, beckoning her forward, and Talyn was instantly suspicious. She didn’t like this. There was something off about the whole situation, even beyond the four heavily armed guards.
She took a deep breath and stepped further into the room.
Her eyes swept the space again, but the balcony was still the only logical escape route other than the main door.
All the windows were closed, and the two bodyguards stood near them anyway.
There was a door to the sitting room at the far end of the study, but she guessed that was locked as well.
Her best bet was still just to port back outside the main door. That the door was locked didn’t matter, and once in the hall, she could simply run for it. The guards on the other side would be too surprised to do anything in time to stop her.
Talyn felt the tendrils creep into her mind then.
She had her mind shield up as always, but someone was trying to break past it.
No, not just one someone, but two someones.
Both the Lord and Lady of Hiraeth were working together to slip past her shield.
It was a subtle enough attempt that most people wouldn’t have noticed, but the nature of her work had made Talyn sensitive to such attempts at incursion.
Double fuck.
Talyn had worked hard to develop a strong mind shield so her thoughts would never give her away when she took on the appearance of another, but she wouldn’t be able to hold off two mind wraiths for long.
In truth, she was already in trouble for even having the shield up to start.
It might have bought her a little time, but Cyra and Bressen were likely wondering not only why she had the shield up at all, but how a simple lady’s maid had developed such a strong one.
That fear was realized a moment later when Cyra spoke.
“Leeda, do you have a mind shield up?”
The question was asked kindly enough, but Samhail, the merman, and the two bodyguards all shifted. They’d been relatively at ease before, but all four looked ready to move if she so much as glanced at them wrong.
“Did I do something wrong, my lady?” Talyn asked, ignoring her.
Talyn’s hands grabbed at the sides of her skirt in a seemingly nervous gesture, but she felt the daggers strapped to each of her thighs. Both were there and ready if needed.
“That’s what we need to find out,” Cyra said. “I just need to know one thing.”
“Anything, my lady,” Talyn said, her voice overly eager.
Cyra stepped forward, and Talyn took the opportunity to shift her own stance in case she needed to flee. She was well aware just how much power the Lady of Hiraeth had, and she wasn’t going to give Cyra the opportunity to use it.
That’s when Talyn felt it. Cyra was about fifteen feet from her when Talyn’s power simply died out, like a torch doused in a barrel of cold water.
She felt a wave of nausea as the magic that always thrummed through her body vanished, as if half the blood had suddenly stilled in her veins.
She hadn’t realized just how much she took the feel of that magic for granted, and she sucked in a ragged breath as she felt herself begin to change, to transform back into her true self.
Horror crept through Talyn as her fingers lengthened and her copper-blonde hair spilled down her back to her waist. Her eyes flew to Cyra’s, and she saw the heartbreak in them as the lady beheld what she really looked like.
Negation powers. She hadn’t seen that coming.
Movement and the sound of steel being unsheathed drew her eyes to Samhail and the two blades now in his hands. She did meet his eyes then, and a moment of understanding sparked between them. Talyn winked at him, and his face darkened in rage.
A quick glance to the other side of the room showed the two bodyguards had also drawn their weapons, and she didn’t need to look behind her to know that the merman had as well.
Next to Cyra, Bressen pushed off his desk, and Talyn realized she had bigger problems than she’d first thought.
Not only could she no longer shift, but she likely couldn’t port either.
She tried just to be sure, but her body didn’t budge, and she felt the hollowness in the pit of her stomach anew.
She had no way to get out into the hall, and if the balcony was now her only way out, getting past Samhail had just gotten infinitely harder.
“Who are you?” Bressen asked, speaking for the first time. His voice was deep and full of authority, a voice accustomed to being answered.
Only one set of tendrils was still probing at her mind shield now. She assumed they were his and that Cyra had dropped her attempt to break through the shield when she’d discovered the woman who’d been attending her wasn’t who she thought she was.
Talyn locked eyes with the Lord of Hiraeth. She’d never looked into them before, and she realized now just how piercing they were.
She smiled sweetly at him. “I’m sorry, but you haven’t earned that answer yet, my lord,” she said and bolted for the balcony.
Samhail moved to block her, but she’d been expecting him to. She might not have her powers anymore, but she still had speed and agility.
Her powers had died when Cyra got close to her, and she wondered if there was a critical range under which the negation powers worked.
It was a long shot, and if she was wrong, she’d end up splattered on the ground below, but it was her only option.
She needed to get far enough from Cyra to regain her ability to port.
Talyn made for the side of the balcony farthest away from Samhail.
She was counting on him to lunge for her, and he did.
Instead, she pivoted and whirled around him the other way as his momentum carried him past her to the spot where he thought she’d be.
She shouldered open the partially closed doors, then ran for the edge of the balcony.
She lifted her skirt in front of her to step up onto the balcony railing and launched herself off it.
She didn’t have time to second-guess before she was out over open air, her legs kicking out in a full stride.
For one glorious second, she felt a spark of her power return, but it died again quickly as something vice-like closed over her wrist. Talyn cried out as her body jerked to a halt in mid-air, and she swung back toward the balcony.
The force of the jolt turned her around, and she saw that Samhail had grabbed her wrist as she leapt.