The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,85

meaningful way, but she had to try. “Where are you taking us? Why did you beat the margrave?”

He chuckled, rubbing his hands together like a child anticipating a treat. “You'll see. As to your second question, the margrave refused to tell us how to break the enchantment protecting the monk. We used a little persuasion. He's much more stubborn than he is intelligent.”

He couldn't have been more wrong in his assumption. Serovek's intelligence far outstripped his obstinacy. “He won't tell you because he can't. He doesn't know how to break it. Only the Khaskem does. If you'd asked me instead, I could have told you and saved your men the trouble of trying to beat it out of Lord Pangion.”

Chamtivos gave a blithe shrug. “A few lessons in humility either builds character or breaks it. We'll see which it is for his lordship once he wakes.”

Talking while draped across a horse made her stomach roil. Her skull began to throb. She tried another tack. “He'd make just as valuable a hostage as the monk. The Beladine king will pay generously to have one of his military governors returned to him alive and mostly unharmed.”

“Maybe. But someone else has already paid me a king's ransom to capture him, and I'll gain something even better—power—if I dispose of him. A certain steward rises in the world if the margrave doesn't make it back to High Salure. Pangion isn't nearly as valuable alive as he is dead.”

The shock of his words left her almost as speechless as the ice water dousing she'd endured the day before. Bryzant had planned all this? Serovek's steward who'd stood on a kitchen prep table holding a skillet like a shield while she chased an angry scarpatine around the scullery? Her thoughts reeled. Why? And what did Ogran hope to gain from the alliance and the betrayal?

A cascade of grim possibilities made her scowl. He was one of the four sent back to High Salure and Saggara with messages. Had only Ogran made the journey back alive, and if so, what message did he deliver?

Her neck hurt from keeping it arched so she could look into Chamtivos's deceptively innocent features. “Why haven't you killed him already? And me as well?”

“As I told you before, you're entertainment.” He smiled. “I like a challenge and am fond of the hunt. The Kai have a reputation for being strong, fierce fighters. I'm told you're equal to three men in a fight. You'll make for challenging prey.”

There it was again, the comparison between her and specifically three humans—an echo of what Serovek had told Ogran while they decided how to split up their party and who would return and who would continue to the monastery. Karulin had referenced it first, and even had he not mentioned Ogran's name, she would have known it was him.

Chamtivos's revelation of his plans for them was anticlimactic, at least for her. Anhuset had imagined something far worse than being hunted by him and his minions, though she wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating their prowess, especially with Karulin in their party. Every instinct she possessed told her that despite his kindness toward her, he was likely the most dangerous adversary in this group.

Done with conversation, Chamtivos left her to issue more orders and soon a party of twelve, along with her and a now unconscious Serovek rode out of the camp. Her sense of time told her they hadn't traveled more than an hour before they halted again, but her balking stomach and pounding head protested it was a lifetime. The smell of water teased her nose, and she heard the sound of gently lapping waves tumbling against a shore.

She was afforded a better view of her surroundings once they hauled her off the horse and dropped her in a heap onto a pebbled beach. She struggled to her knees before managing to stand. A lake, with an opposite shore in the far distance and an island rising from its center lay before her. She recalled Serovek's map. There'd been a body of water marked on the map whose location was parallel to the path they'd planned to take to the monastery. If her sense of direction was correct, this lake was that body of water.

Were Chamtivos and his men planning to drown her and Serovek? She discarded the idea. The warlord had stated he planned to hunt them. She eyed the island in the lake's center, noting its shape like a hump with a significant