She noticed the way his people shrank back against the walls, their faces paling, as she gave orders to one of the most powerful leaders of Skyll.
But she wasn’t afraid of him. He didn’t give off an unkind or cruel vibe. And even if he had meant her harm…
She shot out her claws, her long, silver, deadly claws, and dropped her fangs.
“God,” she groaned, “that feels good.”
He smiled.
It was then it really sunk in.
She wasn’t rotting. She wasn’t sick.
And her monster was back.
Lex would be having a worse time than Rune had.
If she was still alive.
She pulled in her claws. “I have to hurry.”
He beckoned to a woman standing at the dais, her hands behind her back. She was dressed in a suit as well. “Request that he join us in the red room.”
“Another thing,” Rune said, as Brasque took her arm and led her from the hall. “I have a small group of people following me here. They should have already arrived.”
He frowned. “My dear. Did they not inform you that the Flesh Shimmer is protected from outsiders? I must keep Damascus and her army from my lands. No one can get in without my doctors dropping our walls.”
She pulled away from him but continued walking at his side. “Obviously there’s a weak spot in your defense. I got in. And the bird who flew me here got in.”
“Yes,” he said, to her surprise. “He’s one of mine. I don’t ask how my doctors do it, but certain people are tagged as exceptions to the lock out. And certainly you can get in. You’re the fate of Skyll.”
“My friends?”
“I will notify the doctors to watch for them and to allow them inside.”
“Thanks.”
“Come,” he said, and urged her into the red room. “I’ll have food and drink brought for you while we wait. Unless you’d rather I summon someone from whom you might feed?”
“Coffee. Just coffee.”
But then, the hand entered the room.
“Ah,” Brasque said. “Rune, allow me to introduce you to my incomparable hand.”
Rune turned to find the boy standing just inside the wide doorway, the suited woman at his back.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
The hand of the Flesh Shimmer was Matthew Matheson.
The berserker’s son.
Chapter Eighteen
Matthew wasn’t Strad’s son by blood, but the berserker had raised him. He had loved him. He was the boy’s dad.
“We meet again,” Matthew said, smiling.
He hadn’t grown physically, at least not much, but his face was older and the look in his eyes was ancient.
“Matthew,” she said. “I…are you okay?”
He smiled. “I am as I should be, Princess. Thank you.”
She stared for another moment, almost unable to believe he was standing there talking to her. That he was the Flesh hand. Despite the fact that she had seen Blood and Fire take his…spirit, or whatever it was, away from the hospital. “Your mother?”
His lip trembled, and for a moment he almost looked like a child again. “My mother did not come to Skyll.”
And that was just too bad. Matthew’s death had killed her.
She stepped closer to him, but didn’t touch him. “Matthew, I need to know where I can find the antidote to the rotting sickness. Can you help me?”
He blinked, glanced at Brasque, then frowned. “Are you not cured?”
“I am. Your lord’s sorcerers healed me.”
He tilted his head, then gave her look made up of equal parts disdain and disapproval. “Princess,” he scolded.
She frowned. “It feels like you’re telling me the rotting sickness was created here, in the Flesh Shimmer.” She looked at Brasque. “By your shimmer lord. And if that’s true, I’m going to be very, very angry.”
He spread his hands. “We have our reasons for everything we do. You are but part of a plan which—”
“Matthew,” Brasque said, interrupting the boy. “She is the plan.”
He inclined his head, the child who was not a child. “Perhaps. But she would like to possess all the pieces to her particular puzzle.” He looked at her. “Correct?”
“Of course,” she said. God, no. “But more than anything, I want the cure to the rotting disease. My people are dying. Give me the fucking cure. No more delays.”
He laughed, and the sound was like sunshine appearing suddenly on a dark, cold winter day. “There will be many delays, and there is nothing any of us can do about that.”
She pressed her fingers into her temples. “Where is it? Where is the antidote?”
“It’s inside you. You have only to return to your world and the antidote will spread through the very air.” He waved his