Cogling by Jordan Elizabeth

Author:Jordan Elizabeth
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781620077382
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Published: 2016-01-24T16:00:00+00:00

A rendezvous lies before you.

ke stuffed his makeshift key into the pocket of his trousers. His wrists throbbed with an impression of the chains and his back stiffened. With a final glance around his cell to make sure spyders hadn’t snuck in, he eased the door open enough to peer into the hallway. A soot demon scampered by, but otherwise the corridor lay empty. He pushed the door open further and slipped through the crack. Back in Moser City, it had been easy for him to manipulate locks and steal what he needed to survive.

He closed the door and locked it, the tiny mechanisms clicking into place. Ike touched the wall and closed his eyes, opening his mind to sense movement through the stone. An ogre wandered above and children slaved in the rooms downstairs. A memory slipped to the forefront of his mind:

Mother Sambucus forced him to sit on the loveseat in her room that reeked of vanilla, the odor she added to her poisons to hide the noxious fumes.

The muscles in his arms pulsed from grinding herbs in her clay bowls. When he paused to breathe, she slapped his back.

“Get to work. You’ll never learn if you’re lazy.”

Ike fought back tears. She would hit him harder if he cried, and call him a human boy. He hated grinding herbs because she used them to hurt others. He became an instrument in her vendetta against humanity.

Mother Sambucus moved away to her table where she siphoned powders into glass vials. He wished he could use magic to alter the compounds in his herbs, to ruin their toxins. Someday, when he was older and knew how…

The door blew open. Mother Sambucus squawked as her vials and bowls slid off the table. Colored powders clouded the air.

Ike’s mother stormed into the room, her eyes flashing beneath her wild hair. “What are you doing with my son?”

Mother Sambucus folded her hands against her round stomach. “You have no right to enter in such a manner, without an invitation.”

“Leave him be.” His mother yanked the mortar and pestle from his hands to throw them across the room, where they thumped the wall. Herbs scattered.

“You aren’t a ruler here.” A muscle ticked in Mother Sambucus’s jaw. “You were not a queen for the humans either, were you?”

His mother stiffened. “If you touch Ike again—”

Mother Sambucus sniffed. “He needs to learn.”

His mother gripped his shoulder and her nails pinched his skin, but he didn’t cry out. She was angry, not vicious, like Mother Sambucus. He wanted to say he was glad he wasn’t full-blooded. Otherwise he’d be an ogre, huge-boned and thick-skinned. Now he looked like his father. Every time he glimpsed a mirror, he could remember the man he loved, and wish he hadn’t had to leave.

“He will still have magic.” Mother Sambucus stepped toward them. His mother lifted her chin. Ike wanted to run, but he reminded himself he wasn’t imaginative enough for that. He should protect his mother, not have her defend him. Shame scalded his senses.

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