The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,125
longer with my decision and do as you suggested, summon a Nazim monk or two and have them bring Chamtivos's head. Until then, you are a prisoner of the crown.” He gestured again, and this time the guards behind Serovek hauled him to his feet. “Take him to the Zela. Prison accommodations won't be as fine those in the palace guest wing, but you're a soldier. You've quartered in worse.”
Dismissed without further word, Serovek was escorted from the audience room and greeted by a sea of curious onlookers. This, he thought, would be his fate if he ever wanted to take the throne. Every door opening to a mob like this. He didn't know which was worse, the cell waiting for him in the Zela because the king considered him a traitor, or the cell constructed by the very nature of the kingship he didn't seek. In that moment, and for the first time, he truly pitied Brishen Khaskem.
Chapter Fifteen
Lover of thorns.
Anhuset was afraid she'd have to sling Erostis over her shoulders the way she had done with Serovek on the island, but he managed to keep up with her as they raced behind the monk leading them to the stables. There they found Magas and the horse she'd ridden on their journey saddled and ready. With only a wince and a short expletive, Erostis swung into the saddle on Anhuset's gelding and guided it into the stable yard, leaving Anhuset and Magas to eye each other.
“Now isn't the time to play the spoiled princess, Magas,” she said. “I'd leave you behind for convenience's sake and take a more agreeable horse, but your master has asked me to do otherwise. Don't make me regret agreeing to his request.”
Whether it was the tone of her voice or even if the stallion actually understood what she said, Anhuset could only guess, but Magas snorted once and stepped forward of his own accord to wait for her to mount, docile as a sheep. Anhuset swung into the saddle and followed Erostis into the stableyard.
The monk who led them there stood closest to Erostis. “Have you heard of the old trader way?”
She shook her head, but Erostis nodded. “I have. All the caravans used it before they built the bridges across the river to reach the valley. It takes twice as long to get anywhere.” His scowl matched Anhuset's.
“Only if you're pulling a wagon,” the monk argued. “Go that way. You won't cross Rodan's troops. They came here from the main route and will return that way to head north for the better mountain passes.”
That was good enough for Anhuset. “Let's go.”
The back gate the abbot described was actually a tunnel carved through the hillside into which the monastery was built. It looked even older and more mysterious than the monastery itself, its rock walls lit from within by an unknown luminescence. Strange murals and sigils decorated its ceiling. Whoever had carved out the tunnel expected a great deal of traffic to pass through it at one time. The passage was wide and the ceiling high, with a dry floor on which the horses' hooves clopped dully with every step. It went farther than she anticipated, and they moved slower than she wanted, but they dare not risk laming a horse that had lost its footing on the rock floor. A sheer wall greeted them at the tunnel's end. If not for the faint draft and scent of outside air reaching her nostrils, Anhuset would have thought it was a dead end. They turned almost at the wall, discovering a natural cave with a short ascent onto flat ground.
“How is it no one's discovered this entrance?” Erostis wondered aloud.
He had his answer as soon as his horse set down the first hoof onto the cave's wetter, more uneven floor. A visible ripple of air stirred around him as if he and the gelding had parted a veil and stepped through. From Anhuset's vantage point in the back, they disappeared only to reappear on the other side of the shifting curtain. Magic, she thought. Either the monks' or the Elder race's.
She coaxed Magas through after Erostis, skin prickling with the otherness passing over and around her. Her soul clenched for a moment, grieving the loss of her own meager magic. This sorcery didn't belong to the human monks. It was far older, definitely Elder, much like the remnants the Kai once possessed.
Erostis had paused to watch her pass through the invisible wall. “Look behind you,”