Empire of Storms

Elide opened her mouth. Then the screaming started.

Lorcan didn’t know why the hell he was in Marion’s ridiculous little oracle’s tent. He needed to wash, needed to clean away the sweat and oil and feel of all those ogling eyes on him.

But he’d spotted Marion in the crowd while he’d finished up his piss-poor performance. He hadn’t seen her earlier in the evening before she’d put on that headdress and those robes, but … maybe it was the cosmetics, the heavy kohl around her eyes, the way the red-painted lips made her mouth look like a fresh piece of fruit, but … he’d noticed her.

Noticed the way the men had spotted her, too. Some had outright gawked, wonder and lust written across their bodies, as Marion lingered, oblivious, at the edge of the crowd and watched Lorcan instead.

Beautiful. After a few weeks of eating, of safety, the terrified, gaunt young woman had somehow gone from pretty to beautiful. He’d ended his performance sooner than he’d intended, and by the time he looked up again, Marion was gone.

Like a gods-damned dog, he’d picked up her scent among the crowd and followed her back to this tent.

In the shadows and glowing lights within, with the headdress and dangling beads and dark red robes … the oracle incarnate. Serene, exquisite … and utterly forbidden.

And he’d been so focused on cursing himself for staring at that ripe, sinful mouth while she admitted she was still untouched, that he hadn’t detected anything amiss until the screaming started.

No, he’d been too busy contemplating what sounds might come from that full mouth if he slowly, gently, taught her the art of the bedroom.

The attack, Lorcan supposed, was Hellas’s way of telling him to keep his cock in his pants and mind out of the gutter.

“Get under a wagon and stay there,” he snapped before hurtling out of the tent. He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed. Marion was smart—she knew she’d stand a better chance at survival if she listened to him and found shelter.

Lorcan loosed his gift through the panicking carnival site—a wave of dark, terrible power sweeping out in a ripple, then rushing back to tell him what it sensed. His power was gleeful, breathless in a way he knew too well: death.

At one end of the field lay the outskirts of the little town. At the other, a copse of trees and endless night—and wings.

Towering, sinewy forms plunged down from the skies—his magic picked up four. Four ilken as they landed, claws out and baring those flesh-shredding teeth. The leathery wings, it seemed, marked them as some slight variation of the ones who had tracked them in Oakwald. A variation—or a refining of an already ruthless hunter.

People ran, screaming—toward the town, toward the cover of the dark fields beyond.

Those distant fires had not been set by farmers to burn their idle fields.

They had been set to cloud the skies, to hide the scent of these beasts. From him. Or any other gifted warriors.

Marion. They were hunting Marion.

The carnival was in chaos, the horses were shrieking and bucking. Lorcan plunged toward where the four ilken had landed in the heart of the camp, right where he’d been performing minutes before, in time to see one land atop a fleeing young man and flip him onto his back.

The young man was still screaming for gods who would not answer as the ilken leaned down, flicking free a long talon, and opened up his belly in a smooth swipe. He was still screaming when the ilken lowered his mutilated face and feasted.

“What in burning hell are those beasts?” It was Ombriel, a long-sword out—and gripped in a way that told him she knew how to wield it. Nik came thundering up behind her, two rough, near-rusted blades in his meaty hands.

“Soldiers from Morath,” was all Lorcan supplied. Nik was eyeing the blade and hatchet Lorcan had drawn, and he didn’t think to pretend to not know how to use either, to be a simple man from the wilds, as he said with cold precision, “They’re naturally able to cut through most magic—and only beheading will keep them down.”

“They’re nearly eight feet,” Ombriel said, face pale.

Lorcan left them to their assessments and fear, stepping into the ring of light in the heart of the camp as the four ilken finished playing with the young man. The human was still alive, silently mouthing pleas for help.

Lorcan lashed out with his power and could have sworn the young man had gratitude in his eyes as death kissed him in greeting.

The ilken looked up as one, hissing softly. Blood slid from their teeth.

Lorcan tunneled into his power, preparing to distract and addle them, if their resistance to magic held true. Perhaps Marion would have time to run. The ilken who had ripped open the belly of the young man said to him, laughter dancing on its gray tongue, “Are you the one in charge?”

Lorcan simply said, “Yes.”

It told him enough. They did not know who he was, his role in Marion’s escape.

The four ilken smiled. “We seek a girl. She murdered our kin—and several others.”

They blamed her for the ilken’s death those weeks ago? Or was it an excuse to further their own ends? “We tracked her to the Acanthus crossing … She may be hiding here, among your people.” A sneer.

Lorcan willed Nik and Ombriel to keep their mouths shut. If they so much as started to reveal them, the hatchet in his hands would move.

“Check another carnival. We’ve had this crew for months.”

“She is small,” it went on, those too-human eyes flickering. “Crippled on one leg.”

“We don’t know anyone like that.”

They’d hunt her to the ends of the earth.

“Then line up your crew so we might … inspect them.”

Make them walk. Look them over. Look for a dark-haired young woman with a limp and whatever other markers her uncle had provided.

“You’ve scared them all away. It might be days before they return. And, again,” Lorcan said, hatchet flicking a bit higher, “there is no one in my caravan who matches such a description.” Behind him, Nik and Ombriel were silent, their terror a reek that shoved itself up his nose. Lorcan willed Marion to remain hidden.

The ilken smiled—the most hideous smile Lorcan had beheld in all his centuries. “We have gold.” Indeed, the ilken beside it had a hip-pouch sagging with it. “Her name is Elide Lochan. Her uncle is Lord of Perranth. He will reward you handsomely to turn her over.”

The words hit Lorcan like stones. Marion—Elide had … lied. Had managed to keep him from even sniffing the lie on her, had used enough truths and her own general fear to keep the scent of it hidden—

“We know no one by such a name,” Lorcan said again.

“Pity,” the sentinel crooned. “For if you had her in your company, we would have taken her and left. But now…” The ilken smiled at its three companions, and their dark wings rustled. “Now it seems we have flown a very long way for nothing. And we are very hungry.”

41

Elide had squeezed herself into a hidden floor compartment in the largest of the wagons and prayed that no one discovered her. Or began burning things. Her frantic breathing was the only sound. The air grew tight and hot, her legs trembled and cramped from staying curled in a ball, but still she waited, still she kept hidden.

Lorcan had run out—he’d just run into the fray. She’d fled the tent in time to see four ilken—winged ilken—descend upon the camp. She had not lingered long enough to see what happened after.

Time passed—minutes or perhaps hours, she couldn’t tell.

She had done this. She had brought these things here, to these people, to the caravan…

The screaming grew louder, then faded. Then nothing.

Lorcan might be dead. Everyone might be dead.

Her ears strained, and she tried to quiet her breathing to listen for any sounds of life, of action beyond her small, hot hiding space. No doubt, it was usually reserved for smuggling contraband—not at all intended for a human being.

She couldn’t stay hidden much longer. If the ilken slaughtered them all, they’d search for any survivors. Could likely sniff her out.

She would have to make a run for it. Have to break out, observe what she could, and sprint for the dark fields and pray no others waited out there. Her feet and calves had gone numb minutes before and now tingled incessantly. She might very well not even be able to walk, and her stupid, useless leg—