Page 8 of This Dark Descent
“Wait!” Mikira lurched forward without thinking, and Damien stopped. “I can’t ride an enchanted horse. I made a bargain with Rezek.”
“So I’ve heard.” At her look of puzzlement, he added, “I make it my business to know Kelbra business, and I have a solution.”
Mikira only stared at him. Even the best enchanters couldn’t hide the gold flecks that appeared in a charmed animal’s eyes. If his solution involved any form of enchantment, Rezek would know she’d cheated with one glance.
“How?” she asked.
Damien straightened his already impeccable cuffs. “That’s not something you need to know. What matters is you’ll be able to race, and you’ll be able to win.”
Something dangerously close to hope swelled to life in Mikira’s chest. Tonight had been a fool’s errand from the start—and deep down she’d known that even if she secured a sponsor, there was no chance in all four hells she’d win the race. Now Damien was offering her not just entrance into the Illinir, but an opportunity to actually win.
“What about the prize money and the royal boon?” she asked. Jockeys and sponsors sometimes split them, but sponsors often took one or the other. The last winner of the Illinir had gotten their cousin freed from jailwith the boon and used their portion of the prize money to start a new life outside Enderlain.
“You can keep the entirety of the prize money for yourself,” he said as the crowd parted for the approaching security guards. “But if you win, the royal boon is mine.”
It was a fair trade. Mikira needed to win to protect her family, but she also needed the prize money. The royal boon was a worthwhile sacrifice in exchange for what Damien was offering. Still, her father wouldn’t forgive her if he knew Mikira was considering allying with a noble house, even a lesser one. The four greater houses alongside the king might make up the Council of Lords responsible for instating every decree from the draft to the rising land taxes that crushed people like her, but the lesser houses were the ones who executed them.
Damien gave her an artful smile. “If it helps, what I intend to do with it won’t be pleasant for Rezek. I thought that prospect might appeal to you.”
She’d heard whispers of the rivalry between House Adair and House Kelbra but knew little beyond that. It didn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that she was fairly certain Damien was using her somehow; he was her only option.
“I accept,” she said, and prayed she wouldn’t regret it.
Reid smirked, making Mikira bristle. In contrast, Damien only inclined his head, departing with Reid as the two security guards arrived. She let them walk her out.
As she stepped into the rapidly cooling evening air, she expected to feel relieved, but the tension inside her only coiled tighter. There was no turning back now. She would enter the Illinir, and if by some miracle she didn’t get killed, she still had to win.
CHAPTER 3
ARIELLE
MONSTERS RARELY LOOKlike monsters.
At least, that was what Arielle’s grandfather used to tell her. Her Saba had said that monsters came in every shape and size, and the trick was not to dismiss them for how they appeared, for they could look like anyone.
So, as a child, Ari had searched for monsters in every face, in every stunted smile and hasty whisper her family received.
She never imagined that one day, she would be the one creating them.
Wrapped in the glow of enchanted lamplight and the scent of rye from last night’s dinner, Ari worked a piece of soft clay against her worn workbench, kneading it like dough to mix in the powdered ruby and verillion stalk necessary for the behavior enchantment. It would form the final ear of the golem dog Lady Belda had commissioned. For now, the earthen beast stood motionless beside her, its back as high as her hips, nothing but a husk waiting for life.
Sometimes Ari didn’t feel much different from a husk herself. With each hour she spent twisting and molding and shaping—and with each pang of hunger in her hollow belly—life felt farther and farther away, like a dream retreating before the morning light.
She scored the underside of the ear and a spot on the golem’s head,before melding the clay into place and stepping back to evaluate her work. The ear was slightly crooked, but Lady Belda would be there shortly.
“Good enough,” she grumbled. As long as she was paid, she didn’t care if the dog’s ears were on its ass. All that mattered was that she could send her earnings back home to her family in Aversheen and keep enough to get by herself, something that was becoming increasingly difficult with the rising grain and verillion prices as more resources were diverted toward the war effort.
Ari muttered a binding spell, threading the magic of the verillion through the powdered ruby and bonding it to the clay, her intent shaping the behavior charm into one of aggression. Then she snatched up a truthstone from her workbench, the holy rock cool in her hand. It’d been taken from Sage-blessed ground—a rarity in Enderlain—and engraved with the Kinnish word for “truth.” It was also her last one.
That’s tomorrow’s problem.Today she had only to finish this dog.
Ari pressed the rock into the golem’s forehead before smoothing the clay. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the heavy black book from her workbench. Touching it always sent a shiver through her, like cold fingers trailing down her neck. The worn leather was soft and supple in her hands, the spine ribbed in pearlescent bone, and at the center lay a small, jade-green stone flecked with red.
It was a forbidden book. A book Ari wished she’d never touched. It had plagued her life with pain and misery from the moment she had.
Liar, whispered a familiar voice in the back of her mind.It brought you power.
The sort of power that made the shadows whisper and breathe. The sort that kindled life inside cold clay and could draw it screaming from warm flesh. The kind that—no! Ari nearly slammed the book shut, but she needed it. So she locked away the memories it threatened to pull free and flipped to a marked page.
