45. Fenric #2
It was only now that he stood with the head of Lord Mire in the middle of the study that he realized he couldn’t hear Lirion’s drumming. Even the sounds of fighting had fallen off, and silence dominated the giant manor, other than the occasional joyous shout from Rain or Bel.
“Fine. Guards are dead or have escaped. Lirion and Malfas are keeping Puppy distracted while Rain and Belstrom hunt down the last of Mire’s family. The guards said there’s just the lord’s brother and his illegitimate son. A real bastard by all definitions of the word.”
“Which one?”
“Both, if what the surrendering guards are saying is to be believed.”
Fenric grunted. It was for the best. Maxie needed to learn more about the world, but he didn’t need to see all the messy parts at once.
He handed off the head to Hapi, who worked his dark magic. The sharp, clear eyes slowly blinked, and the mouth moved even as blood dripped out of the neck.
“What…what happened? Everything went black for a second,” Lord Mire mumbled.
“You died,” Hapi said sharply. He turned the head so Lord Mire could see his cooling corpse on the floor, blood soaking into the carpet. “Look. There’s your body. Now tell us what you know about the treasure he’s looking for.”
A horrific wail erupted from Lord Mire’s mouth, piercing their ears and leaving Fenric cringing. He’d never heard a man make such a high-pitched noise.
“No! My body! You can’t leave me like this. How will I live without a body? Please, you must fix me. Don’t let me die! I need my body. I’ll be good. I’ll give you anything you want!” He continued to bargain and whine.
“Where’s the treasure box of the saintess?” Fenric roared, losing the temporary hold he’d had on his temper.
“I-if I tell you, you’ll fix me?”
Hapi made another irritated noise. “Yes, yes. We’ll fix you. Now spill what you know before I take away your consciousness and leave you as a zombie.”
“Up-upstairs. End of the hall on the left. M-master bedroom. Behind my portrait, there’s a wall safe. Com-combination is sixteen, twenty-five, three.”
“Any booby traps?” Fenric snapped.
“No. You’ll fix me now, right?”
Fenric lifted his eyes and nodded. “Fix him.”
The necromancer shrugged and pulled back the magic that had briefly animated Lord Mire, returning him to death. “Just remember, I can only raise him one or two more times before he becomes too stupid to be useful.”
He gave Hapi a brief salute as he raced out of the room and back toward the main staircase in the manor’s foyer, adrenaline singing in his veins at being so close, so close, so close.
With any luck, Lord Mire had told the truth and Hapi wouldn’t need to wake the dead a second time.
Lirion ran to him as Fenric reached the stairs.
“Did you find it?” Lirion demanded, grabbing his arm.
He flashed the incubus a smile, not slowing his pace but instead dragging Lirion along. “Lord Mire coughed up his secret safe combination. I’m going to see if he told the truth now. Come with me?”
Lirion returned the grin and raced up the stairs at Fenric’s side.
It took only a minute to run down the length of the hallway to a decadent bedroom draped in luxurious furnishings, expensive fabrics, and beautiful works of art.
Quite a contradiction when you considered the overall poverty of Dunley.
Fenric was mostly blind to his surroundings as he raced to the massive portrait of an idealized Lord Mire seated on a rearing white stallion, looking more heroic than the man ever was in his entire life.
He ripped it off the wall and was greeted with the sight of a steel safe with a combination wheel.
His fingers trembled as he spun the dial, carefully selecting each number until a final click echoed through the silent room.
He stepped back and even pushed Lirion behind him as he cautiously opened the door, his heart pounding with a mix of anticipation and caution.
The bastard might have said there was no booby trap, but Fenric wasn’t willing to risk Lirion’s safety on that liar’s word.
A squeal split the air as the hinges whined at being used. They waited, breath held, but nothing happened.
Fenric peeked around the door into the dark opening of the safe, and his heart stopped as his eyes immediately landed on it.
Resting on a pile of jewel cases and slender gold bars was his mother’s treasure box—the retirement gift given to each and every saintess after she completed her time as voice of The Box.
It was exactly as Fenric remembered it. Barely longer than his hand and half as wide, the dark cherrywood box was inlaid with pearl, gold, and gems, with the symbol of the constellation god Mineas on the top.
There was a little tongue that fit over a hoop for a lock, but the gold lock had long since been destroyed and lost.
His hands shook as he lifted it from the safe and hugged it close to his chest, stumbling backward and then landing on his ass in the middle of the bedroom.
Old pain warred in his chest with fresh relief, swelling his throat almost shut.
It wasn’t until Lirion knelt beside him and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, pulling him against his chest, that Fenric realized tears were slipping down his cheeks.
Finally.
For too long, he’d searched, bribed, threatened, and killed for just a sliver of news about this precious box. His mother’s most prized possession and the symbol of the greatest moment in her life—the time when all the kingdom had listened to this one common woman.
When he’d been little, she’d taken the box out countless times and talked about what each gem and carving symbolized. She’d told him about how the kingdom cherished and honored each saintess. How she’d been honored to serve The Box and the people of Moorwood.
As he grew older, her talks had changed to words of warning.
How it would be his job to protect this precious treasure after she died.
He was never to show it to another soul, and he must guard all the secrets it held.
Not that he knew of any secrets within it.
As far as he knew, the interior of the box had always been empty.