Hound by Caleb James

Author:Caleb James [James, Caleb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy
ISBN: 978-1-63533-922-2
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

MAY FUMED in her new cell. She reeled from the revelations, both those made explicit by the Hound and by what she’d reasoned out with her handsome, albeit nosey, doctor. He is of some use… and I will kill the Hound. The pain of his betrayal both then and now had shifted to things more familiar and comfortable… rage and bloodlust. What will his magic taste like?

Though even that brought memories. The feel of his flesh against hers, the stroke of his fingers, the certainty of their lovemaking. The oblivion and rapture of being in his arms. Lies! It was all lies. Unfaithful dog. They played me. And even still their magics cloud my thoughts. Damn them.

At least now she had the truth and the cause of her prior failures. How could I not have seen this? A central tenet of the Unsee is that to rule you must be whole, and she was not. And not in the manner she’d earlier thought. It was them all along. Like ripping through dense layers of webbing, the truth emerged. She tilted her head and spotted tiny filaments of shattered blue-and-pink magic. Her mouth twisted in disgust. “My sisters. My sisters.” She spat fire to the floor and immolated a footstool. “They conspired against me.” I can believe nothing and no one. I am alone. His love was false. The Mist…. Goddess protect me, how could I have believed her? It was all a fairy tale. The Mist that just appeared, that took our parents. It was her. It was her all along. It is she who wants to rule. Moves and countermoves from the distant past returned, and she realized that all the times when she’d thought she’d been the one in control, her sisters had been steps ahead of her, dropping crumbs that she had followed.

“Enough,” she said aloud, hating the maudlin cling of self-pity. “I may not be whole, but I know what needs doing. I am Queen May. I will make them pay. They shall taste my fire. They will burn. They will all burn. But first….” She looked around her cell and then to the heavily bolted and warded door. “Help me,” she cried out loud enough to be heard by the guards on the other side. “Something’s wrong!”

“Tell the problem,” an ogre grunted back.

“I must see the doctor. Please, bring me Dr. Fall.”

“Tell me the problem,” the ogre demanded.

Morons. She tossed a glamour over the two of them, uncertain if it would penetrate through the cell door. “I can’t tell you, but I can show you.”

“We’re not supposed to enter.”

“I’m in pain.” She pressed her magic. They are warded. She doubled her efforts. “I am helpless against ones as strong as you.” She twisted the glamour and played with their testosterone-riddled egos.

She heard them argue on the other side, and like a fisherman playing out the line, she let the shimmer and want of her glamour reel them in. The lock turned.

And as she readied her escape, she thought to stop and thank the doctor.

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