Page 17 of This Dark Descent
The words drove straight through her. She calculated if she could get back up the stairs and down the hall fast enough. Would the guard outside stop her? Shoot her? What if—she silenced her rising panic, forcing her expression to remain carefully neutral.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
His soft laugh prickled along her skin. “I know you practice Kinnish magic.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she bit out.
Damien’s eyes came alight, as if finally seeing something he’d expected to find all along.Calm down calm down calm down.This was getting out of control. She needed to breathe, to get away from him, to—
“The enchant I tracked—to anyone else, it might have looked like nothing, but I’ve seen golems before.”
The words carved a line of fire through her. A line of fear, and pain, and dark, bloody memories. Her mother telling her not to meddle with things she didn’t understand. Her Saba begging her not to go looking for the book again.
She hadn’t listened. Oh, how she wished she’d listened.
Blood on her hands. Blood on the walls.
Be silent. Be careful. Don’t draw their attention.
But she had more than Damien’s attention; she had his interest. He watched her like a hunter before a trap, waiting to see if his prey would be caught. She could see it in the lift of his brow, the question in his eyes.
Will you run?they asked.
Part of her wanted to, but that morning’s attack had shaken something loose inside her. She’d been so very careful with her work, so very careful with her customers, and still her secret had slipped, still those men hadfound her. Still they’d stolen everything she’d worked so arduously to collect and left their handprints around her neck like vicious tattoos.
Promise me you will be fearless, a’huvati.
“If you tell a soul what you know, I’ll send a golem to tear you apart.” She felt a sparking thrill with each word she spoke, a lightness she hadn’t known for years, like a beast stretching its legs after a lifetime of confinement.
To her surprise, he laughed. A short, booming sound that echoed in the chamber. “Not afraid of me, not afraid of the law, not afraid of magic. What are you afraid of, little lion?”
She flinched at the nickname, at the true meaning behind her Kinnish name. A lion was courage, a lion was strong. Like Aslir, the Bright Star, a lion was not consumed by fear. She could not remember a time she’d ever felt worthy of her name.
“I have no intention of telling anyone about your abilities,” Damien said in Kinnish. “You have complete freedom to practice your magic however you wish here. I promised you access to information, and I’ll ensure you get both Enderlish and Kinnish texts on enchanting. You can even build the golem here.”
Ari stared at him. The idea that she might be able to work her magic openly and unafraid was so foreign, she struggled to accept it. But despite that, she believed him. Beneath his reticence, there was an earnestness to this boy, a sincerity that put weight behind his words.
“You know what I’ll need to create it, then?” she asked. “This horse.”
“Dirt from holy ground, and water that has never before been poured into a vessel,” he said. “The materials are already on their way.”
He hung the jacket on a hook in the stone wall, before removing the holster from his chest and setting the guns down with reverent care on a stool. Each movement was methodical, almost ritualistic. Undoing his waistcoat, he hung it atop the jacket, leaving him in just his shirtsleeves. Then he carefully unbuttoned the cuffs at his wrists and rolled hissleeves up bit by bit, baring forearms corded with lean muscle beneath olive skin.
“I brought you here for another matter, however.” His eyes dropped again to the bruises at her neck, and this time she didn’t cover them.
He stepped toward the cell in the back, and she followed, drawn by an invisible lure. The faded lamplight barely illuminated two ragged forms suspended from the ceiling by their wrists. A strange, wild feeling crept over Ari as Damien unlocked the cell door. Her eyes never left the bodies as she stepped into the full glow of the lamplight.
Pale and bruised, their heads lolling against their chests, were the two men who had attacked her.
They looked like animals hung for the slaughter. Both blinked dazedly at her, before one of them—the one whose handprints she wore—finally recognized her and cursed.
Something glinted in the dim light, and Ari tore her gaze from the men. Dangling from Damien’s fingers like a star in the sky was her Saba’s necklace.He got it back.She held out her hand, and he placed it gently in her open palm, the fang cool against her skin. Her fingers curled against it, and she pulled her fist to her chest.
Then he offered her a set of brass knuckles.
“I thought you might like to return the favor,” he said.
A shiver dripped down Ari’s spine, something dangerously close to anticipation. Some dark, quiet part of her wanted this. Wanted to make them feel the fear that had immobilized her, the pain that still plagued her.
