Dark Flame by Kat Silver

Author:Kat Silver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kat Silver
Published: 2020-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

17

After changing into his hard leather vest, Flanagan fastens a chain between my wrist manacles, leaving my ankle manacles free. As he guides me to his door with a hand resting just below my collar, I can’t help feeling like a dog on a leash.

The look I level him could crumble concrete, but I keep my words in check.

Best-behavior plan, Blakeley. Best-behavior plan.

We leave his room and follow a long corridor with plush red carpet and fancy paintings—more portraits and battle scenes. Outside the windows, at the far end of the mansion, the Old Keep stands like a turreted castle, dominating the cultivated lawns beneath its towers.

Beyond the garden rises the tangled trees of the Border Woods. The warped branches of the dark impenetrable mass reach out across the lawn like gnarled fingers. The Flame flares through my limbs, wanting to tug me closer. I shudder.

As we pass through a set of double doors, shouts and the ring of metal on metal cut through from outside. The gardens change from rosebushes and topiary to a row of dirt-laid rectangular enclosures. Within them plays a scene from a kung fu movie. Groups of soldiers in the tight Guardian leathers clash in practice pairs while a trainer bellows instructions from the sideline. Others practice with swords and knives.

On the last terrace, young men and women of every size and color follow their trainer with moves similar to Qigong. They all wear loose-fitting clothes in the same gray fabric as my shirt—students, I assume. Silver-white Flame sparks around their hands. Some hold small balls of light as they move through the graceful changes.

When trainers and students spot their commander passing inside the house, they stop to salute him with a sharp nod. Flanagan nods back. They stare at me with open curiosity.

As we enter the main building, we pass more groups of Guardians. All greet Flanagan with straight backs and stiff nods but study me with a mixture of fear and hostility. My chains rattle like thunder in the hushed silence. A gaggle of young girls in the corner titter and bat their eyes as I pass, but I’m relieved when Flanagan leads me through more doors into a wide, empty corridor.

“Do they all know?” I ask him.

“I’ve only informed Seonu’s team and the head trainer that you are part Anlu’kyr. The rest know you as the former Blood Servant who put eight Guardians in the infirmary.” He glances sideways at me. “Your smell and your looks will confuse them. They’ll be wary of you, but it’s preferable to the alternative. The Shifter families have been at war with the Anlu’kyr for four centuries. A converted servant they can accept. A mixed-breed Anlu’kyr, they will consider an enemy.”

“Great. Friendly lot, these Shifters.”

Flanagan shrugs. “The Anlu’kyr kept the Shifter species as slaves for more than a thousand years. Bloodlines lived and died, knowing nothing else. It was only after the Warlock years, when so many Shifters had been slaughtered on the front lines, that they rebelled and broke away.

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