Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,50
even when he tossed his bantering words her way, a dark line of horror underscored everything about him.
“What’s happened to you, Sam?” she asked, her voice low. “You’ve got to tell me.”
He tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Tucking the folds of her cloak closer, he leaned in toward the fire as though he would almost cast himself into it to get warm. “Cloven sent me,” he said at last through his chattering teeth. “Or rather, that Miphato. Mage Gaspard.”
An unpleasant sensation coiled in Nelle’s gut. Her lip curled. “What’s he want? He gave me three weeks, didn’t he? I’ve still got half that time left.”
“Three weeks?” Sam tilted his head at her, his eyes shining oddly. “Nelle, don’t you know?”
That look in his eye . . . she knew what it meant as soon as she saw it. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to admit it. If she tried hard enough, maybe she could deny it, pretend stupidity even for just a few more moments. If possible, she would have stopped him from saying a single word more.
But Sam continued relentlessly. “It’s been two years. Two years since you set out for this gods-forsaken island. Gaspard’s sent five men after you, six including me. None of them’s returned. I wanted to volunteer long before now, but Cloven wouldn’t stand for it. This time I insisted, threatened to—”
“Papa.” Nelle gasped, struggling to draw breath, struggling to ask what she must ask. If she didn’t speak now she would never find the courage. She would simply shrivel up and die. “Tell me. What’s happened to my Papa?”
Sam blinked at her, his mouth opening and closing several times. “I don’t know. Gods’ truth, Nelle, I don’t know.”
She sprang up from the stool, turning her back to him. Tears filled her eyes, blinding her, and she hardly realized where she went until she was at the door. She opened it, her hands fumbling desperately to get the latch working, to escape this close dark space into fresh air.
But the cool morning wind that rushed into her face wasn’t fresh. It was strange air. Hinter air. The air of a world to which she didn’t belong.
She dashed tears from her eyes and stared out over the cliff’s edge to the horizon where the Evenspire should be visible. Though dawn ought to be well advanced by now, it was still peculiarly dark. A heavy darkness like a curtain of living shadow pulled across the world.
“Papa,” she whispered.
Gaspard had said if she did not return in three weeks, he would make her father pay for her crimes. He would take him to Master Shard in the Square of Correction. There, in front of a gawking crowd, Papa’s hands would be chopped off. The price for thievery. Even though Papa had never stolen so much as a crumb in his life.
He would never survive. He would bleed out from those wounds and die.
No, he was already dead. Years ago.
Why had she stayed? She’d known, she’d bullspitting known all along that time moved differently here in Roseward. She’d counted days when she should have been calculating months. She should have drugged the mage, stolen the book, and made her getaway ages ago. She should have . . . she should . . .
With a moan, she sank down onto the doorstep. The freezing air blew her hair and billowed her skirts, but she didn’t care. She simply stared out at that looming darkness.
“Nelle.” Sam’s footsteps approached behind her. He knelt, placing a hand on her shoulder. She lacked the strength to shrug him off. “I don’t know if it’ll make a difference,” he said, “but Gaspard sent a message with me. He said if I found you I was to tell you that the terms of your agreement still stand. He’ll still make the exchange if you’re prepared to follow through.”
Though the darkness on the horizon did not lift, Nelle felt as though light beamed suddenly across the shadows of her soul. She turned to meet Sam’s strangely serious, fear-worn face. “Don’t lie to me, Sam. Is that truly what he said?”
Sam nodded. “Snatcher’s honor, I swear it.”
Then maybe . . .
Maybe Papa was still alive after all.
Maybe Gaspard had realized or guessed at the time differences between Roseward and the rest of the world. He was a Miphato, after all. He understood more about the workings of the different worlds and realities than most men. It only made sense.