Blessed be the Wicked by Kel Carpenter

Author:Kel Carpenter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kel Carpenter

Dungeon of Deception

“If it looks like a rat and talks like a rat—it’s a rat.”

— Quinn Darkova, vassal of House Fierté, fear twister, mistaken assassin

* * *

Quinn paced the confines of the cell, tilting her head and cracking her neck as she silently fumed. She had only been with Imogen for a short while. How had she been poisoned in that time? Quinn stopped in front of the stone wall of her prison and growled as she punched again. Her knuckles were already bruised, the skin scraped raw, but that was only a slight pain compared to the panic slowly setting in at being caged. She had to keep her wits, and her temper, about her if she wanted to make it out of here alive.

What would Lazarus do? she wondered. What would he think? Dust rained down on her, and Quinn shook her head, flinging it away from her hair as she turned and continued her pacing.

It didn’t matter what Lazarus would do or think, Quinn decided. She wasn’t even sure if they would inform him of her arrest or not. If they did, then he should understand that she let herself be arrested. Her innocence—at least in this—was evident.

What mattered now was what she was going to do.

“Perhaps I could be of assistance?” Neiss said, coming forth from her inner mind.

Quinn stumbled a bit at the feeling of his body—a tattoo on her skin—as he moved from her back to her front, sliding around under her flesh. Quinn shivered. It wasn’t painful, but it was unsettling.

“What are you offering?” Quinn asked aloud.

Quinn stared down at the skin of her forearm as Neiss’ head slithered forth and solidified, growing heavier as he detached himself from her and dropped down to the ground. Neiss hissed at the coldness of the stone and coiled tight, lifting his head.

“I offer my senses,” he said. “My eyes.” The end of his dark mauve tail flicked back and forth. “While you remain here, I do not have to.”

Quinn considered this. “You could go see the Queen,” she stated. “And inform Lazarus of what’s happened, if he hasn’t already been told?” Neiss nodded, his slender, arrow-shaped skull bobbing with the movement.

“I can show you.”

“Show me?” Quinn asked.

Neiss’ dark black tongue flicked out, tasting the air before he rose up, his head expanding as his dark, sable eyes bore into hers. It was like staring straight into the abyss . . . until a fuzzy image began to form in her mind. One of her, as she was in that moment, in her blood-stained tunic and frazzled hair. The image was distorted, the colors too muted and the angles too sharp. Her face was white—paler than she’d ever seen it. Her hair a darkened gray. The blood on her skin appeared black. There were no colors in the ashen lens the snake looked upon the world with.

“You can see as I see, master,” Neiss said. “We are one soul, you and I.”

“Yet, you call me master.”

The creature tilted its head, almost like it was thoughtful.

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