Page 12 of A Touch of Poison
Courtiers and servants scattered from my path. Good. I hadn’t softened into a pathetic mess, then—at least not outwardly.
How did that damn woman make me so weak?
When I swept into my offices, Brynan widened his eyes at me. His throat bobbed and he opened his mouth.
“Don’t.” I dragged in a breath, halfway to my own office door. “Not right now. Have Rose come. Thanks.”
Before I could slam the door and sink against it, I caught the other scent in the room.
“Orpha is here for you,” Brynan called through, an apologetic tone in his voice.
That’s what he’d been trying to tell me. Of course. I’d asked her to report on her return.
Saddlebags lay heaped on the floor, and my gaze skipped past the chair in front of my desk—a symptom of Orpha’s half wraith blood. She wasn’t so much invisible as… hard to look at. Literally. Wraith magic made your eye skip right past her as though there was no one there.
It made her a useful operative, but it meant I had to stand still and draw a long breath before I could force my eyes in her direction. The fact I could do that much was only thanks to years of practice.
Grinning up at me, sharp teeth on display, Orpha sat back in the armchair and tossed a hazelnut in her mouth. Her pale eyes were a few shades lighter than my own, though not as light as her white hair. She might’ve been beautiful, but looking at her directly made my eyeballs itch.
“Brynan said you were waylaid.” She shrugged and scooped up a handful of berries and nuts from the bowl on my desk.
“I see he ensured you were looked after, though.” Thank the gods for Brynan. I’d completely lost track of time with Kat. I needed to watch out for that. Gaze skipping away from Orpha, I sank into the wingback chair behind my desk. Another deep breath and I shoved my attention back to her. “Well?”
“I swept the area. No sign of…” She shrugged and wriggled her fingers through the air. “Well, the power coalescing or anything like that. In fact, it seems to have dissipated almost entirely.”
Exhaling, I nodded. “Good.” The last thing we needed on top of Hydra Ascendant was a repeat of that situation.
“But—”
I stiffened.
“—there was one significant change. The time disturbance around the house has faded, so I was able to get into the ruins without being gone for months.”
Rather than craning forward, like I wanted to, I forced my elbow onto the arm of my chair and leant my chin on my fist. Orpha would ask for an astronomical bonus if she got a whiff of my interest in what she found. “And?”
“Dust and rubble, mostly. It was like centuries had passed rather than just a couple of years. No fabric or wood remains, only crumbled stone.”
I nodded, encouraging her to hurry along while I buried my disappointment. With the age of the place, I’d hoped it might contain lost relics, but it sounded as though it and its contents were utterly destroyed.
“But Rose said there was a library, right?”
I raised one eyebrow. “She did.”
“I found it. I had to move some hunks of rock and wade through dust up to my knees.” She rolled her shoulders as if remembering the weight. I didn’t doubt they were significant chunks—her wraith blood also made her stronger than her slight frame appeared. “With the state of the place, I wasn’t hoping for much, but beneath it all, I found some books that…” She shook her head. “They were pristine. And chained up.”
Pulse speeding, I gave up fighting and sat forward. “And you brought them back. Show me.”
She grinned and popped a berry in her mouth before standing and rummaging through the bags. If these books were what I suspected, she was welcome to the bonus.
A couple of years ago Faolán and Rose had found themselves trapped in an ancient mansion hosted by a woman who only called herself Granny. If anyone else had given me the report of what happened there, I’d have called them mad, but Faolán wasn’t the type for flights of fancy. He was as solid as the stone beneath this palace and almost as talkative. For him to spout that story—it had to be true. And Rose backed up every word. She’d even offered to takearianmêlto prove it was true.
Dark things had happened in that house. Sacrifice and blood drinking. The kinds of things people accused the unseelie of doing. Through that forbidden magic, the place had gathered immense power over the span of centuries, and when it fell, thanks to Faolán and Rose, we ran the risk of that power falling into the wrong hands.
Hence the regular visits from my operatives and obscuring the location from all maps. Thank the Stars, the magic had dissipated harmlessly over time.
Where I’d hoped for artefacts, perhaps the house was going to give me secrets instead.
And weren’t secrets power?
