Last Song Before Night by Myer Ilana C

Author:Myer, Ilana C. [Myer, Ilana C.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Adult, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781466861039
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2015-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

20

MARLEN awoke to sunlight and the vertical blackness of a figure in the midst of it. Groaning, he lifted his head from the desk, even as the voice intruded on his dreaming once again.

“What is it, Marilla?” he said. As his eyes adjusted, her face no longer seemed black against the sun. Her curls brushed his face as she bent over him, her nails cold and smooth against his cheek as claws. As he gained consciousness, another thought occurred to him. “And where have you been lately, anyway?” She could at least pretend to love him, if she wished to keep enjoying his generosity.

Marilla brushed his forehead with her lips. “Out and about. As you must be today, if you are not to miss important events.”

He shook his head. His mind was only now catching up to his body, the memories rushing back to him. “You know what’s happened?”

“I know the version that has been put about in the streets,” said Marilla. “The proclamation and the announcement of a public funeral. Which you of course know nothing about.”

“Funeral?”

“For Hassen Styr,” said Marilla. “Apparently, Darien Aldemoor killed him.”

Marlen jumped to his feet. “Show me the proclamation.”

“It’s in the Court Plaza,” Marilla said. Her uptilted chin and trailing skirts gave her a regal appearance as she swept toward the door. “Come see.”

He had no choice but to follow her, though he resented that she couldn’t just tell him what the proclamation said. Was it more jewels she wanted—had he outlived his use for her? The thought made his fists clench, aroused his fury and his desire simultaneously. And then he thought: Playing into her hands. She has trained me well, it seems. The anger drained from him. If he had allowed her to cause anger and lust to run together in his mind, he had only himself to blame. And what difference did it make? Perhaps she had corrupted him, but he had been flawed from the beginning, metal damaged already in the crucible.

The proclamation hung at the palace gates. It announced the discovery of Hassen Styr’s body. He had been slain with a knife to the throat, Marlen read. As no blood was found, it was assumed that Darien Aldemoor had killed Hassen in one of the darkest of the old magics: divination by blood.

Divination by blood. This stopped Marlen dead for a moment, his head swimming. He had read of this. A practice employed only by a few, usually with the blood of animals. Some used their own blood. To slay another human—or a mortal, as the texts spoke of it—in the practice of divination was the darkest possible venture into the art, punishable by death. He had thought it a legend. Along with the rest, he thought. He had thought it all a legend. And would that it were.

He continued to read. There would be an official funeral held for Hassen today, since the Crown saw him as the victim of a larger terror to the land. The reward for Darien Aldemoor’s capture, alive or dead, had been doubled.

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