The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,36

any meaningful sense of the word, and that death, that transformation, will be bought at the cost of the lives your friend values most. Tell me where your friends are, and I will confirm my suspicions.”

Severn understood. “No.”

“They will die anyway, boy. And if they do—”

“No.”

“If I kill them, they will not be used against your friend. They cannot be used against your friend. It is the act of dying that defines the sacrifice. And the pain of that dying, the length of it. If you give them to me, the deaths will be swift and painless. If you do not—and we do not find them, cannot follow you—they will be long and torturous. It might happen now. It might happen tomorrow. You are running out of time.”

“If they die,” he finally said, “if you kill them, will my friend with the marks be safe?”

“From me?” The fieflord smiled.

“From them.”

“As I said, I do not understand the magic well—it is, or would have been, a theoretical discussion, a possibility. But if I understand what little information you have been willing to part with, yes. If there are no others, if your friend forms no similar attachments in the fiefs, then yes. For now—and now is all mortals truly have—your friend will be safe. As you can imagine, it is not the fate of your friend that concerns me. It is the fate of my fief.

“Tell me, boy, and I will make certain your friends cannot be made into weapons.”

“And the person with the marks?”

“They have shown, by weakness, by vulnerability, that they cannot safely contain the marks bestowed upon them. Yes,” he added, to the question that would not leave Severn’s lips, “I will execute them. And if you are somehow considering flight from the fiefs, if you believe, somehow, that the law across the bridge will save your friend, you do not understand the threat they pose.

“The Eternal Emperor would no more suffer your friend to live than I. The danger to the Empire is too great. Have you other questions?”

Severn said nothing.

“You want to believe I am lying. You cannot. I will offer another alternative. Bring your friends to the well. To this well. Bring them in the daylight, so they will not be suspicious. I will see to them. Choose for them: swift death, or terrible slow death. They are, by your reckoning, children; they are not capable of making that choice for themselves. They will believe, of course, that they can avoid either death, no matter how terrified they are.

“I have not lied tonight. I believe you understand this. Bring the children here, and I will give them the painless, swift death.” When Severn did not speak, the fieflord’s voice gentled. “It is clear to me that the marked child is of great import to you. Were they not, you would not have risked both your life and theirs by coming to me.

“You are unwilling to risk their life now. You believe that I will kill your friend. I believe that I might, but it is not guaranteed. Even that, however, you will not risk.”

“I don’t want to lose the others, either.”

“No. But Severn, you will. You will.” Blue-black eyes narrowed, but even so, they filled his vision. The distant howls of hunting Ferals were harmless in comparison. “Imagine,” the fieflord whispered. “Imagine their deaths. You did not see the corpses of the victims. I did. I have. The deaths were slow and painful; they mutilated the children while they lived. Slowly, and slowly, allowing them to inch toward death without achieving the peace of it for some time. I imagine, in the end, death was relief; it was their only escape.” And as he spoke, Severn could imagine it. He could see it. He could hear it. The screams of the dying. The loss—ah, of eyes, of hearing; the loss of fingers, of toes. Of teeth.

“Imagine it,” Lord Nightshade said again. “That is what awaits them. I am not known for mercy, but it is mercy I offer. To you. To them.”

Severn closed his eyes, but that did not break the spell—if a spell had even been cast. When he opened them—and he did—the fieflord was no longer directly in front of him.

Lord Nightshade lifted a hand, and his guards once again fell back. “We will go. Do what you know you must, if you are capable of it.”

* * *

Severn did not wait. The Ferals were too close, and the rains plentiful enough that