The Priestess and the Thief Kindred Tales 30 - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,16

Tenebrians and their grand palace.

“It’s beautiful,” Elli said honestly. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well, good luck gettin’ into it,” Tully told her. “It ain’t like they let just anybody who wants to waltz in there. Still…” She eyed Elli stained white robe. “Maybe they’ll make an exception for you—you bein’ a priestess and all.”

“Hopefully,” Elli said. “Well, thank you for the r—”

The words died on her lips. Directly across the street from them, in front of a store selling some kind of ripe, red fruit, was a Tenebrian rider dressed in a rich blue velvet cloak with silver lace at his slender neck.

But it wasn’t his rich clothing that drew Elli’s eye—it was the gorgeous zorel he was riding. It was a purebred steamer—white everywhere except for the feathery socks at its front claws and back hooves and its mane and tail, which were all midnight black.

It was a beautiful animal but what got Elli’s blood boiling was the fact that the Tenebrian rider was beating it, as hard as he could with a stiff leather crop.

“No!” Elli gasped. The sight of an animal being abused had never been something she could tolerate. Before she knew what she was doing, she had launched herself off the moving wagon and was darting across the street.

Ten

Now where in the Seven Hells was the little priestess, anyway?

Roke had searched the whole damn city twice and he had yet to find her. He had gotten several suspicious looks from the humanoids from Torl Prime. The few Kindred they’d had interbreed with them were the blond-haired, blue-eyed Blood Kindred. Though Roke himself was half Blood Kindred, he looked more like his Sire, who had been a Havoc. The result being that he was as dark as a Beast Kindred, though without the golden eyes. That difference was apparently enough to engender distrust.

The tall, skinny Tenebrians, on the other hand, mostly ignored him, which suited Roke fine. They were a strange people with even stranger customs and he wanted nothing to do with them.

He was just rounding a bend to enter the fruit and vegetable part of the market district for the third time, when he heard some kind of commotion going on. Looking across the street, he stared in surprise at the scene playing out.

A tall, pale blue Tenebrian rider was gripping the reins of one of those beasts they liked to ride here—a zorel, Roke thought they were called. They were strange looking animals—a mixture of a horse and a dragon—both Earth animals, though one of them was mythical. (Roke couldn’t remember which was the imaginary one, but he thought it was the horse.)

At any rate, the zorel was bucking and hot steam was coming from its flaring nostrils. The rider was attempting to get control of it by beating it with a crop and sawing on the reins.

“Be still, Sir!” he was shouting at the top of his voice, sounding like an offended gentleman who couldn’t believe he was being affronted by an underling who had failed to do what he was told. “I say, be still!”

Suddenly, there was a blur of motion and Roke saw a girl in a white robe jump from a moving cart and dash across the street. She grasped the tall Tenebrian’s arm on the downswing and ripped the riding crop out of his elegantly gloved hand.

The rider had been leaning to one side in the saddle. As the zorel chose that moment to buck again, he overbalanced and went flying out of his saddle and into the mud at the side of the road.

“You beast!” the girl shouted in a high, sweet voice like a little bird and Roke realized that she was talking to the rider, who was looking up at her with a dazed expression. “How dare you beat him?” she raged and threw the riding crop at the rider’s head. Then she turned back to the bucking, rearing, snorting zorel and somehow managed to catch it by the bridle.

The zorel was huge compared to the girl—the top of her head barely reached its shoulder. Roke started forward, afraid she would be clawed by the silver-shod front talons or trampled by the back hooves. But somehow she managed to dodge the flailing limbs of the great creature and pull down its bridle to catch its eye.

The moment she looked into the great, slitted silver eye, the beast stopped rearing and snorting and actually seemed to listen to her. Roke couldn’t hear what she was