Chapter 35 Trouble #2
She released a breathy laugh. “Such a worrywart. I am aware you two have a history. Should I care that you do? You’re a grown man. I am not naive enough to think you are coming to me unbesmirched.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Is it in the past?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “But her father—”
She cut him off by placing a gentle finger on his lips. “That sounds very much like his burden to deal with then, doesn’t it?”
“All right then.” Cedric kissed the pad of her finger, then nodded sharply—once, twice.
As if settling something in his own mind.
“In that case, I just want to make it clear that there is no such thing as settling scores anymore, do you hear me?” His voice was low, strained.
“No such thing as an even slate between you and me. In fact, if I have my way, the slate will be very, very uneven—forever.”
Elyria smirked. “But I thought you liked it when I have my way, Ric.”
Cedric’s answering grin was almost feral. “And you can have it again, but only after I’m done with you.”
Elyria wanted to laugh, that strange sluggishness all but gone, any lingering discomfort all but dissipated. She bent to retrieve her staff from where it had fallen and rolled halfway under the bed. Pulling it out, she said, “As you wish, Sir—”
She stopped mid-sentence. Froze. Dropped the staff again, not missing the way it clattered against the wooden planks this time.
“Elle, what—”
Elyria’s brow creased as she stared at her hand.
At the traces of red streaking her palm.
“Ric?” she said, and he was immediately at her side, crouching and snapping his fingers so that a low flame danced in his palm.
Elyria sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes going from her own hand to the staff now laying once again at her feet.
And the blood smeared across both.
She grabbed Cedric’s hand, drawing his fire closer to the bed so that it could illuminate what lay underneath.
That deep, unsettling chill was back in full force, piercing through Elyria as she stood suddenly, shoving against the bed and pushing it aside.
Sid hopped off with a hiss, hackles raised.
Because there it was. Carved into the wooden planks was a single circle, interlocked with four additional half-moons, an eight-pointed star dug into the center. And filling the divots of that star was . . .
“What the fuck is this?” Cedric’s voice was a harsh whisper against Elyria’s neck, but she preferred the feel of that to the ice-cold prickle that followed. “Is that blood?”
“Yes, it fucking is.” She darted over to the bed, snatching her staff off the ground and using part of the bedsheet to wipe the blood from it—and from her palm—before snagging her clothing from where it hung over the end of the footboard.
Cedric was tense, his hands patting his waist as though he was looking for Ashrender’s hilt. “What does it—”
“It’s a sanguinagi rune, meant for . . .
” Elyria’s eyes narrowed on the symbol as she pulled on her breeches, the wheels of her mind turning through everything she knew about the workings of blood magic.
“I think it’s a variation of a containment spell.
Meant to subdue. Limit power. No wonder I’ve felt so fucking off in here. ”
Now that the bed had been moved away, the coppery scent of the blood finally cut through the heavy layer of lavender oil. The realization was an arrow shooting through her mind. “The innkeeper—”
Cedric was already in motion, flinging the door open. She heard the sound of scraping wood and the grunt of effort, but by the time Elyria had pulled her boots on, snatched up her staff, and carved a line through the middle of the blood rune to help undo its effects, he was back.
Ashrender’s scabbard slung around his waist, Cedric shook his head as he took a knee to finish pulling his boots up. “No runes under my bed.” His tone was dark, menacing. “This was only meant for you.”
Sid hissed again.
“We need to wake the others, get out of here now.” Elyria said, shadows leaking from her skin, holding tight to her. She darted out of the room, grabbing at the handle of the door to the alcove that separated Cedric’s and Elyria’s rooms from the rest of the inn.
It didn’t turn.
“That motherfucker locked us in.” She slammed her fist against the door hard enough to shake the entire wall, then rammed her shoulder into it. It didn’t budge.
“Elle, look.” Cedric pointed to the doorframe, where tiny symbols were carved into the wood, each one dotted with a single red fingerprint—more runes sealed in blood. “Why would they—”
“Because they clearly do not want us knowing whatever the fuck might be going on out there. This”—she pointed to the first symbol—“is a silencing ward. This one, reinforcement. There could be an entire fucking war happening on the other side of this door as we speak and we wouldn’t know.”
Sid bristled as Elyria tried to pull her shadows forward and step into them, to step beyond the room. She didn’t go anywhere.
“What is it?” Cedric asked.
“I can’t shadowstep out either,” Elyria sneered, looking over the runes once again. “Fuck this, we’ll go out the window.”
“Out the—what?” Cedric blanched, the color draining from his face, but neither of them had time to deal with his fears right now.
Elyria ran to the window in her room, looked outside, and promptly swore again. “Cedric,” she said, voice tight.
He was already behind her, staring down at the villagers gathered below, torches in hand or planted in the dirt, casting the entire village in a menacing orange glow.
There were so many of them. At least two dozen, perhaps more.
Some donned hoods of deepest red, some wore black masks that covered their noses and mouths.
Some wore nothing of note at all, though the bloody gashes lining their arms told Elyria everything she needed to know.
And if they hadn’t, the wolven medallions hanging from their chests would have.
Every single fucking one of them was sanguinagi.
She was looking for the stars-damned Cult of Malakar?
She found it.
Elyria noted the innkeeper, as well as the pepper-haired man from the bar.
The two women from earlier as well. And though she didn’t want to get too close to the window for fear of drawing their attention, she could just see the boy, Avery, cowering over by the stables, where Fjaethe and Polonius stamped nervously at the ground.
But all of that wasn’t what had Elyria’s blood curdling in her veins, her shadows tightening around her.
It was seeing Jocelyn, Ollie, Thraigg, Sephone, and Young Shep, on their knees, hands bound, on the ground in front of them.
“Where is Tris? Hargrave? Thibault?” Cedric whispered, panic lacing his words.
His fear spidered through Elyria’s veins. Had they been left alone because they were human? Were they already dead? How had the others been taken without them knowing? She didn’t know much about the two guards, but she had no doubt in her mind that Tristan would never have allowed this.
The room was still quiet as a grave, the silencing rune in full effect, so Elyria couldn’t make out a single sound.
But she saw the pepper-haired man arguing with the innkeeper.
Saw the way her friends struggled against their restraints in reaction to whatever was being said.
Then, she saw the man point at the building, the innkeeper turning with precision, brandishing a dagger as he headed back inside.
Elyria had a pretty solid guess who that was meant for.
“Quick,” she said. “Run back into your room. Close the door. Pretend you’re sleeping.”
“Like there’s a single chance in all four hells I’m leaving you,” Cedric seethed.
“This is no time to be noble,” she urged, gently pushing him toward the door, even as ribbons of shadow shot from her hand, tugging the bed back into place, hiding the blood-laced rune from sight once more. “I have this under control.”
“Not. Fucking. Happening.”
Elyria sighed, darting a ribbon of night into the hall to shut Cedric’s door, then drawing her own door closed as it returned to her.
“Fine,” she hissed. “Hide then. And when he gets here, when he unlocks the door and breaks through the runes, that will be your chance to slip out and help our friends.”
Cedric opened his mouth as if to protest, but Elyria simply pushed him back against the wall, simultaneously lengthening the shadows there until they obscured him from view entirely. She tilted her chin, looking down to where Sid prowled across the floor, eyes on the door. “You too, Sid.”
The cat yowled her displeasure but disappeared into the ether a moment later.
Elyria turned back to the mass of darkness that hid Cedric. “Now,” she said, half her mouth tilting up in a lopsided smirk, “Let’s get some answers, shall we?”