The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,25
away.
She focused instead on Serovek whose features had gone so pale, he fairly glowed in the dark. His nostrils flared, reminding her of an angry bull, and his hand clenched on the pommel of his sword as if he were tempted to draw it.
“Why is your brother’s body in one of your barns with the livestock instead of in the house?” He bit out each word from between clenched teeth, his tone quiet but no less menacing for its lack of volume.
Pluro blanched. Anhuset took a quick step back just in case the man’s fright twisted his guts enough that he retched up his stomach’s contents. He crossed his arms, not in confrontation but in defense, as if the pose might somehow save him should Serovek decide to split him from throat to bollocks with his blade. His explanation came out in a long, stuttering string of words sprayed into the cold air.
“It wasn’t always so, Lord Pangion. Megiddo was in the house for a time. We had no choice but to move him here. Strange things happened when we kept him there. Voices whispering when no one was in the room. Odd lights without fire or candle to birth them.” He shivered, and not from the cold. “All of us dreamed terrible dreams, nightmares to wake you in a sweat. Our servants refused to sleep in their rooms any longer, and some refused to work inside. My wife needs the help, so I thought it best to move Megiddo here. I didn’t see the harm. After all, he’s unaware of his surroundings. He wouldn’t know or care. Once I did so, everything returned to normal. No voices, no nightmares, no lights.”
His description sent a splinter of unease down Anhuset’s back. She recalled her conversation with Ildiko about Brishen’s nightmares, had seen herself the shimmer of sorcerous blue that had edged his eye, as if the dark magic that had turned him eidolon still lingered inside him, tied somehow to the deathless warrior lying motionless before her.
What Pluro described wouldn’t have been enough to convince her Megiddo belonged in an isolated barn, forgotten. Unlike the vassal, however, she hadn’t seen the galla firsthand. He had, and from her observations of her own countrymen who’d fled Haradis before the galla horde, the experience left the lingering stain of terror on the soul and the mind. She didn’t approve of his actions, considering them weak, but she didn’t condemn him for them either.
Serovek wasn’t as forgiving. He glared at Pluro so hard, the man should have caught fire. “You deserve a thrashing,” he said in those same quiet, seething tones. “Get out of my sight before I decide to give you one.”
Pluro fled without a word, nearly falling over his own feet to escape the barn. Anhuset watched him go before turning back to Serovek who stared at Megiddo’s still form with an expression both furious and haunted.
“His brother saved him twice, and this is how Pluro repays him,” he said. “Megiddo should have let the galla have him.”
She touched his arm with one claw tip. “Strength isn’t always a gift shared between blood. The gods gifted one man with the courage of two. Your vassal’s failing isn’t that he’s evil; it’s that he’s craven.”
Serovek stared at her for a moment, his flinty expression softening a little. “You never cease to surprise me, Anhuset. You’re far more lenient about this than I am. History has proven more than a few times that evil is often the spawn of cowardice.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be forgiving toward Cermak. Megiddo rode beside you into battle, suffered through the bloodletting required by the ancient spellwork just as you did. You saw firsthand what happened to him. In your place, I might not have held back from carving Pluro into pieces at the knowledge he put Megiddo here.”
His mouth quirked a little. “Saw that, did you?”
“You were hardly subtle.” She moved closer to the bier. “He looks peaceful. You all did once the spell that made you eidolon took hold. Do you think he suffers pain?”
Serovek shrugged. “His body? No. His soul? I wish I could say no to that as well, but I think it otherwise.” Guilt and regret seeped into his words.
She turned fully to meet his eyes, so dark against his winter-pale skin. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He went rigid once more. “I never said it was.”
“You didn’t have to. Many who escaped the razing of Haradis are eaten alive with guilt over their