Trading into Darkness by C M Simpson & Michael Anderle

Author:C M Simpson & Michael Anderle [Simpson, C M & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642021493
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-03-12T22:00:00+00:00

14

Madame Monetti

Once they’d taken her weapons, gagged her, and bound her hands, Marsh was led into a plush office lined with display cases filled with teapots. Some looked like they’d been bought recently from local sources, but others…Marsh stared. They looked really old, and not just because they were dented or missing a handle. No, there was something about their designs that felt unfamiliar.

Why teapots? she wondered, tripping over the edge of a mottled gray-and-brown rug. It dragged her attention back to the present, and she swallowed a feeling of revulsion. The rug looked like someone had skinned a hoshkat and laid it on the floor. Seeing the head still attached made her stomach roll, and she willed it to be calm.

Marsh shivered, glad Mordan hadn’t come with her. She’d have hated to see her friend decorating the floor in another part of the office. She stumbled and was jerked upright by the shadow mage walking to her right.

“Watch where you’re going,” he snapped, giving her a none-too-gentle shake.

Marsh wanted to tell him to watch where he was going, himself, except that it would have been childish…and she wouldn’t have gotten the words past the cloth covering her mouth. She also wanted to take her sword and run it through his middle, but this wasn’t possible either, given that her hands were bound and her sword had been taken and handed to someone else for safekeeping. It wasn’t’ safe to try to pull a shadow blade here.

This was not how Marsh had envisioned meeting Madame Monetti, but she drew a deep breath and kept moving forward. At least she would be seeing the lady. For a long moment, she hadn’t been sure she’d live to make it through the door. Some of the mages had wanted revenge for fallen comrades.

Some of the soldiers, too. Apparently, they’d had brothers and friends out on those raids. The gag had been their leader’s decision when she’d told one man his brother might have lived if he hadn’t been picking on little children and had been gutted like the pig he was. There was a good reason that man was still outside guarding the door.

Marsh started smirking.

If Roeglin hadn’t been so busy trying to catch up with her, he would have been appalled…but only if she let him into her head, again. It was almost fun being able to keep him out at will. She’d have to ask him how that worked. Mirth bubbled up inside her, followed by an instant of crushing despair. She would tell him if she ever got the chance. For all she knew, this could be the last room she’d ever see.

Sucking in another breath to steady her pitching emotions, Marsh focused on putting one foot in front of the other and concentrated, trying to calm her mind. She really couldn’t afford to offend Madame Monetti like she’d offended the guard outside, not if she wanted to discover what happened to the people they took.

And she did want to know what they were doing with those people; she really did.

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