lifetimes ago when the Great Paragon was scattered,” Shining Talon concluded, “to remain so until such a time as it was needed.”
Rags snorted softly. “Should’ve brought it back into play before the Lost-Lands became lost. Might have turned the tides.”
Shining Talon lowered his head until his face was hidden by his dark hair. “Of this I cannot speak. After the Great Paragon was sundered and its fragments hidden, I was chosen to remain in this place until I was awoken by one worthy of command.”
“Of command,” Rags repeated.
Shining Talon lifted his eyes to Rags’s face. His shining eyes. All of him shone. Rags resisted the urge to squint but felt like a stubborn child staring directly at the sun. He’d always pictured the fae as being as ancient as they were wise, as wise as they were cruel. He’d pictured them as weapons sheathed in shadows, with less of a dazzling glow. “My lord Rags, though these are not the circumstances I might have envisioned—”
“Do you know the location of the other five?” Morien cut in.
Rags watched Shining Talon’s hands work over his thighs, the black bone tattoos shifting with every clench. What had he been about to say? Why did he care? The less Rags knew, the better his odds of survival got. He felt queasy from all the magic apples he’d eaten.
“Such knowledge could not be given to any one being. It would have been too dangerous,” Shining Talon replied.
“But you knew where the first”—One hissed menacingly at this, and Morien corrected himself—“where One could be found.”
“One knows how to find her master,” Shining Talon said. “After that, my instructions were . . . unclear. I believe that One’s master may be able to lead us to Two. Somehow.”
“Somehow.” Morien leaned closer to Rags, and Rags braced himself for the pain to begin again.
“What I know,” Shining Talon began—and did Rags detect the first note of familiar emotion in his voice, like fae could feel fear as keenly as humans?—“is that I was intended to be Master of Six. And the one who woke me would be Master of Five.”
Rags nearly choked on his own laughter, then had to pretend he’d swallowed a cobweb to explain his sudden sputtering. No one else laughed.
“But it’s not true,” Rags said, dragging them stubbornly by the nose to see the joke. “It can’t be me. I wasn’t even supposed to be here.” Suddenly, he was in shackles again, pleading his case before a magistrate. “I’m more a means to an end. . . .”
“A tool,” Morien supplied.
“I know nothing of your human arrangments,” Shining Talon said, in a tone that made perfectly clear that he also had no interest in learning. His gaze landed bluntly on Rags, without the sharp steel he reserved for Morien. “Nor does it matter what brought you to me, my lord Rags. Only that it was you who came. You alone possessed the skill to find me.”
Morien hissed. It was a sharp, unpleasant sound, and when Rags looked at him, he found the sorcerer glaring his way.
“You imply that Rags is of unexpected importance to our cause,” Morien summarized.
Did Rags imagine the way Shining Talon seemed to grow larger, filling his space more thoroughly as he straightened? Or had Rags’s mind finally snapped like a rope stretched too tight?
“He is vitally important,” Shining Talon said. The finality in his tone left no room for argument—even from a shitty, sneaky sorcerer like Morien the Last.
18
Rags
Rags had to admire how their new roles kept them both safe. Morien or Lord Faolan would want to bring the pieces of the Great Paragon together, to control such a powerful weapon for themselves. Or for the Queen.
Regardless, the sorcerer couldn’t off Rags with a wave of his hand. Not unless he wanted to wait for another Master of Five to be born and reach a useful age. A beastie master only came along once every generation.
Morien could have blindfolded Rags and Shining Talon but chose not to. A glance at One explained why. The sorcerer needed someone to stand watch between her and him.
“If you would spare two of your sorcerous cloths, Lord Rags is injured and would benefit from bandages.” Shining Talon thought he was in the position to ask for anything, when this partnership was balanced on the point of a needle.
But to Rags’s surprise, Morien handed two red blindfolds to Shining Talon, then roused the Queensguard with a twitch of his fingers.