work is finished, I will come looking for you. If I find you, do not expect me to show you any mercy.”
Usurient laughed aloud. “You tell me this and still expect me to set you free? Why in the world would I even consider doing so after such a bold statement?”
The little man’s grin was wicked and sly. “You wouldn’t have come here in the first place if you had any other choice. Whatever I say or do at this point, you will free me. You want Arcannen dead as much as Mallich does, that much is clear. Now let me out.”
“Tomorrow, at sunrise,” Mallich interrupted. “I will bring you all the weapons and gear you need. We leave for the coast from here.” He paused. “But let this be a warning. No tricks while we’re out there alone. I’ll have you tied to a crince, Bael. You even look the wrong way and it will rip out your throat.” He smiled. “Just in case you were thinking of trying to rip out mine.”
Then he reached for the sliding steel door and slammed it shut.
In the underground refuge of Arcannen, beneath the ruins of Arbrox, Reyn Frosch stumbled muddle-headed and sleepy-eyed from his bedroom into the central living quarters of Arcannen to find Lariana already busy preparing breakfast. Or was it lunch? He wondered suddenly what time it was. How long he had slept?
“Good morning,” the girl greeted him from the kitchen area. Her strange, exotic features brightened as she caught sight of him.
“Is it morning?” he asked, his voice rough and oddly strange to him.
“You are asking the wrong question. You should be asking what day it is. You’ve been asleep for two days.”
He stopped where he was. “Two days? How could I have slept that long?”
She walked away from what she was doing to bring him a cup of steaming tea. “I gave you a little something to help you sleep. You were in need of rest. Are you hungry?”
He nodded, still in a daze. She took his arm, led him to a small table, and sat him down. A moment later he was eating fry bread, smoked meat, dried fruit, and cheese. He had never been so hungry.
She sat down across from him, watching. He was aware of the whiteness of her skin, its flawless surface radiant. Her green eyes stayed on him as he looked at her, locking with his own. He remembered she had slept with him that first night, but he could not remember her leaving. In fact, he could not remember anything after falling asleep save the warmth of her body pressed close against his.
When he was finished, he cleared his throat in the ensuing silence. “I guess whatever you gave me worked. I didn’t wake once. Two days?” He shook his head and smiled. “Best sleep I ever had.”
“Most snoring, too, probably,” she added. “I had to leave you to it pretty soon after you drifted off.
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. It’s worth it to see you looking so much better.”
She cleared his dishes, and he wondered again at how much he had come to like her in the short time they had been together. He had found her intriguing from the first, but most of that was because of her unusual looks. By now, what he was feeling ran much deeper. He felt happier and more settled than he could remember ever being before.
She came back to the table, walked to his side and bent down to kiss him on the cheek. “I liked sleeping next to you. Being with you made me feel happy.”
Reyn grinned. “I felt like that, too.”
“Do you want to go outside, take a short walk?”
“Through the bones of the dead? Charming.”
“No, there’s another choice. Wash and dress, and I’ll show you.”
When he was ready, she took him through the sorcerer’s quarters down the back hall to a second door. This door was ironbound and heavily warded by locks, but she opened it easily and took him out into a stone passageway, up several sets of stairs, and outside into the open air. The day was overcast and windy, the clouds scudding along from south to north, and the taste and smell of the sea filled Reyn’s nostrils.
They were standing on a promontory above the ruins, looking down on the crumbling walls and collapsed roofs, the bones of the dead clearly visible in gray patches within the courtyards and open chambers. Seaward, waves crashed below them against the