The Fall of Skullkeep by Robert M. Kerns

Author:Robert M. Kerns [Kerns, Robert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781636460246
Publisher: Knightsfall Publishing Inc

CHAPTER 18

When Jennifer brought the woman back to the Boar’s Rest, Arne sat in the corner booth where she had eaten earlier that day. He scowled at the tabletop before he noticed her, and once he did notice her… well… his disposition did not appear to improve.

“Would you care to explain to me just what in Lornithar’s Abyss you were thinking?”

Jennifer simply stopped and crossed her arms across her midriff while she lifted one eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“There’s no excuse for you! I only asked one thing of you… one thing! You were supposed to sit in a tavern—preferably this one—and do nothing until I came for you. What in all creation do you call mobilizing half the city’s Inquisitors and drawing out the Duke and his son? Because it sure as shit wasn’t nothing.”

“Somewhere along the way, you must’ve developed the mistaken impression that I somehow work for you. I saved this woman from a horrible life.”

Arne scoffed. “What… you think she matters? She’s just some guttershite. She’s nothing spec—”

“Zaenos.” His voice cut off with an urrk as Jennifer’s invocation of a Word of Enchantment caused his neck muscles to spasm. She had never felt such rage swell within her, threatening to take control. It took all her willpower not to render Arne down to his component elements. “You need a time-out, you bastard.”

Then, she did the one thing she swore she’d never do. She invoked the Word of Transmutation her dad used on the FBI SWAT team. “Uhnrys.”

Arne froze, and Jennifer bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her invocation caught him with his neck mid-spasm. Then, she turned to the woman at her side. “Don’t you believe one word of what he said. Do you understand?”

The woman stared at the floor, as she had since Arne started talking. She didn’t respond or react to Jennifer’s words. Jennifer had seen girls like her back on Earth. While she wasn’t sure the same methods she had used to draw them out of their fear would work on Drakmoor, she didn’t have anything else to try. The downside was they took some time.

“Do you mind going to that table over there and having a seat? I need to call a friend to figure out what to do with this guy.”

The woman gave the barest hint of a nod before she trudged over to the indicated table and sat with her back to the corner booth.

Jennifer kept from sighing, but only just. She didn’t like her choices at this point, and she’d made such a resonance in the ambient magic already that her dad probably knew precisely where she was and what she was doing. No help for it, then. Besides, she always preferred to do something right the first time.

She formed a clear picture of her intent in her mind, focusing all her will on it, then invoked a Word of Divination. “Klaepos.”

A scrying sphere faded into existence in front of her and revealed that Declan was about to get involved in some activities he would prefer she didn’t interrupt.

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