61. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
Talyn shifted into the form of Magdalene before she walked around the corner of the dungeon.
The syphon was small, and Talyn could only shrink herself so far, but she was counting on the guard not being familiar enough with Magdalene to tell that she was maybe an inch or two taller than the woman should be.
She’d debated shifting into Sandrian himself. The man was averaged-sized, and she probably could’ve gotten close to imitating him, but the guards would likely know him better than Magdalene, so this was safer.
“I need to see the prisoner,” she told the guard on duty.
He eyed her up and down, and Talyn’s chin went up a notch.
“I was told no one was supposed to see him,” the guard said.
“No one but King Sandrian or myself,” she corrected. She made sure to use Sandrian’s title to lend gravitas to the statement.
The guard gave her a hard look, and she stared right back at him, daring him to challenge her. She’d knock him out if she had to, but that would be difficult to explain later.
“This way,” the guard said finally, and Talyn tried not to show relief as she followed him down the hallway to the cells.
The guard stopped in front of one, and Talyn saw the Lord of Hiraeth laying on a cot inside.
“Give me the key and leave us,” Talyn told him.
The guard looked at her incredulously. “I can’t do that, my lady.”
She gave him a steely look. “You can and you will.”
“My lady, I-”
“Do you want to know what it feels like to have your heart freeze in your chest?” she asked, and the guard went still. “However unpleasant you imagine it might be, I promise it’s worse.”
Talyn held out her hand for the keys, and the guard hesitated only a moment more before handing them over.
“Now leave,” she said.
The guard opened his mouth to argue, but Talyn raised a hand toward his heart as if she meant to do some sort of magic. He gave her a quick bow and retreated.
Talyn waited until he’d climbed the stairs and closed the door behind him before she called out softly.
“Lord Bressen. I need to speak with you.”
The lord lay on his back but didn’t move.
“Lord Bressen,” she called a little louder. Still he didn’t move.
Talyn sighed heavily. She suspected he could hear her and was just ignoring her, but she couldn’t raise her voice any further to be sure.
Talyn unlocked the cell and stepped in. He was probably hoping she’d do just that, but she was ready for him if he moved.
She felt her magic leave her as she stepped inside, and her body shifted back into her true form.
She prayed the guard stayed away until she could get out of the cell and shift back into Magdalene.
She tucked the key down the wrap that bound her breasts and stepped forward, but still the lord didn’t move from his cot.
“Lord Bressen, we don’t have time for you to play possum,” she said. “I only have a few minutes, and I need to speak with you. It’s in your best interest to hear me out.”
The lord’s head twitched slightly at her voice, and she wondered if he recognized the change from Magdalene’s voice to her own.
He turned his head slowly to look at her, and Talyn gasped.
His face was covered in bruises. Both of his eyes were blackened, and one was nearly swollen shut.
His lips were cracked and bleeding in several places, and dried blood crusted below both of his nostrils.
She strongly suspected his nose was broken and that he’d reset it himself.
“Fuck!” she swore. “Who did this to you?”
His less swollen eye narrowed. He sat up slowly and gingerly, as if every movement pained him, and Talyn vowed she’d slit the throat of everyone who’d touched him.
She had no love for the lord himself, but he meant something to Samhail.
Moreover, she’d told Sandrian and Magdalene that Bressen was her prisoner and wasn’t to be touched, yet they’d clearly ignored her. She didn’t appreciate being ignored.
“Who beat you?” she asked again when he didn’t answer.
Bressen’s brows rose, and he huffed a laugh. His shoulders slumped as he hung his head, and Talyn took an unconscious step toward him.
It was a mistake.
Bressen moved faster than she could’ve expected, especially injured. One second he was on the cot, and the next he had her pinned against the wall as his hands closed over her throat.
Talyn cursed herself for not seeing the ruse for what it was. Nemesis take her, she’d used the same ploy on Samhail only a little while ago.
Talyn clawed at Bressen’s hands, but his grip was like iron. The lord might not have his powers, and he might be injured, but he was still a warrior and damn strong. She began to see stars and knew she had only seconds before she passed out or he crushed her neck.
Talyn raised her arms over her head and turned her body to the side.
The movement loosened the lord’s grip on her neck just enough that she could bring her elbow down hard onto his forearm.
She dislodged one of his hands from around her throat, and he was pulled forward from the blow.
She immediately thrust a knee up into his stomach, and he cried out in pain before letting go of her.
Talyn tried to pull him forward to crack his head into the stone wall, but he recovered too fast. He grabbed her arms and threw her across the room as if she were no more than a rag doll.
She fell to the floor and yelled out as she landed on her tailbone.
Her teeth cracked together, and she flexed her jaw quickly before she was on her feet again and reaching for the daggers at her thighs.
Bressen had already started toward her again, but she launched herself forward and met him halfway.
Surprise bloomed on his face, more so when she used his own momentum to vault herself up and hook a knee around his neck.
As she fell back down, her weight pulled him forward, and she used that to flip him onto the floor.
The lord grunted loudly as the air punched out of his lungs, and Talyn gave silent thanks to the Protector that Bressen wasn’t as big as Samhail. If she tried that on Samhail, her knee would probably still be hanging around his neck while he wore her as a necklace.
Talyn didn’t wait to congratulate herself. She straddled Bressen’s torso and pressed one dagger to his neck while the other dug into the inside of his thigh, and he went still.
“My daggers are currently pressed against two major arteries in your body,” she warned him quietly. “You can listen to what I have to say, or you can bleed out on this floor. You don’t want to test my reflexes.”
Bressen’s open eye narrowed again. “What do you want?” he asked.
Talyn pulled back the dagger from his leg, but she continued to hold the other to his throat until she got to her feet. Finally, she pulled that one up as well and backed quickly away from him.
Bressen got to his feet again. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” he said. “Pray to the Protector I never get my powers back.”
“Actually,” she said, twirling one of the daggers in her hand. “I was hoping to ask you a favor, one that you’ll need your powers for.”
His half-swollen eye flew open wide this time. “What?”
“I’m sorry I dragged you here, Lord Bressen,” Talyn said. “It was never my intention to harm you, but I didn’t know what else to do. You’re the only person aside from Lady Cyra who can help me, and it was easier to get you here than her because of the caronium cuff.”
Bressen tried to cross his arms over his chest, but he winced and lowered them again.
As bad as his face looked, Talyn couldn’t imagine the bruises that must lay beneath his shirt.
He’d pulled the crossbow bolt from his shoulder at some point during the battle, but she doubted the wound had been treated.
For that matter, she’d need to find out if the tip of the bolt was still in him, as it had been with Samhail.
She’d need to get it out for him to use his power.
“Your decision to take me instead of Cyra may be the only thing that keeps you alive if I ever get out of here,” Bressen said.
Talyn gave a mirthless laugh. “If you don’t kill me, Samhail will. I’m on borrowed time, and I knew that the second I chose to bring you here.”
“Then why did you do it?” he asked.
“I think I might’ve made a huge mistake years ago, and I need your help to fix it.”
He frowned. “And why would I do that?”
“Because if I’m right in what I suspect, it will ultimately benefit you.”
He looked unimpressed.
“And because I tried to help Cyra against Magdalene,” she offered.
Bressen stiffened, but he considered this before he finally nodded and eased himself back down onto the cot. “I’m listening,” he said.
Talyn leaned back against the wall, but she kept her daggers ready.
“Twelve years ago,” she said, “my older sister was kidnapped by a man who held her for a week before he strangled her to death. During that time, he raped her repeatedly, beat her, and cut her dozens of times before he dumped her into the river. She was pulled out by some fishermen when her body snagged one of their lines.”
Talyn couldn’t tell what the look on Bressen’s face was under all the bruising, but she at least had his attention, so she went on.
“I was thirteen at the time, and I snuck in to see my sister’s bloated, ruined corpse.
My childhood ended that day, and I vowed to find the man responsible for her murder and kill him.
It took me almost two years to track him down, but when I found him, I did to him everything he’d done to my sister and more.
He screamed for mercy, but I had none. He pleaded with me, swore to me he wasn’t the one who killed her, but I didn’t believe him. ”
“I’m very sorry to hear about your sister,” Bressen said, “but what does this have to do with me?”
“Before I killed him, I shifted into my sister. It’s something I do now before I assassinate someone. Her face is always the last thing my victims see, but when I put on my sister’s face just before I disemboweled him…”