hen why not kill me, Excellency?” Noret sneered.

“I’m not impressed by vulgar offers of blood money, Noret. For all their pretended subterfuge, the Topaz Sparrow is about as subtle as a cavalry charge, and I’ve seen finer gemwork left behind by drunken card players on the wharf,” Reina took hold of her staff with her other hand and leaned confidently. “I have no trouble whatsoever finding people so desperate to be found.”

“If everything is so easy for you, Excellency, why wait so long for your vengeance?” Noret spat.

The cowled woman did not respond.

“The truth you find so hard to face is that you need me,” Noret said haughtily. Then he directed his words at Cici again. “The choice remains, orphan. Relinquish the Lantern and your friends live.”

Cici looked back and forth between Reina and Noret, unsure who to trust.

“Have you had that scar long?” Reina asked. Cici noticed one of the spectacularly expensive-looking rings on Reina’s right hand suddenly darken to a pitch black color. Instinctively, Noret moved his hand towards his left side.

“It’s been healed since I was but a lad.” As he spoke the last word, he sucked in a sharp breath and clutched his side. He stumbled forward and the club slipped from his grasp.

“How very fortunate,” Reina said sarcastically as the ring’s silvery color returned.

Noret dropped to his knees, eyes wide, clutching his side with whitened fingers.

“She’s a sorceress!” Clenick shouted.

“By all that lives!” Phileo wailed. “Flee for your lives!”

The other men dropped everything and scattered. The fat man crashed through a small pile of supplies and fell before scrambling to his feet and chugging his way down an alley between two warehouses. An act of heroic stumbling luck narrowly prevented Clenick from pitching off the dock into the water. He disappeared into the mist.

Reina ignored them. She patiently watched as Noret gasped for air, then planted her staff next to his shoulder and reached down slowly. She gathered the collar of his greasy shirt in her slender gray-skinned hand and slowly lifted him up. As she pulled his weight up to her eye level he sucked in one more breath. He held his eyes closed for a moment, then blinked through the beads of sweat. He tried to focus as Reina’s face leaned within inches of his own.

“It’s a pity to see such healthy vermin sicken,” Reina hissed through clenched teeth, then yanked his collar, pulling him closer. The bird opened its beak with a challenging frown as the interloper’s nose infringed on its space.

Noret became dizzy and closed his eyes to avoid the nauseating illusion of the ship’s ropes slowly circling the dock. He tried to focus on the golden irises of the Vicereine’s eyes, but the burning sensation around the fresh open wound in his side was becoming unbearable. Reina’s voice made Noret shiver.

“You must be the last human survivor of Rotensha Nox.”

“Nobody survived that battle!” Noret cried, then he winced and groaned again at a fresh wave of agony.

Reina paused for a moment, then dropped him in a heap on the dock. As he gasped for breath she turned away.

“I have sought the destinies of a thousand crowns and where does it lead me?” Reina asked rhetorically. “To a liar washed up like so much pirated cloth on a Gacenar dock. I suppose you mean to sweep into the bazaar like some drunken fop and trade your ransom for trinkets and beads?”

“I was tricked!” the man snapped. Then he sucked in a sharp breath and leaned back, clutching his side and grimacing. “My reward was nothing but poisoned land. I would have done anything to escape.”

Reina’s shoulders trembled with a barely suppressed rage.

“Escape if that is your wish,” she sighed finally. “Take whatever you believe is yours and flee. Flee to the Rift. Flee to the Shales. Flee to the swamps and dig yourself a sanctuary in the bog. Perhaps you are clever enough to mislead a Legion Cryptic for a time.”

Noret’s face paled as Reina turned.

“But none of your craven schemes will save you on the day I discover you have twice betrayed me.” The blank shadow of her cowl absorbed the gaze of Noret’s horrified face as she loomed over him and spoke with a cold and deliberate hostility.

“There are fates in Aventar worse than death.”

The Vicereine’s words cut through Noret’s heart like needles of ice. He felt as if his feet were ten times their normal weight but somehow he managed to crawl out from under Reina’s accusing gaze and scramble towards the night. Moments later, the last sounds of his escape faded into the gloom.

It was then Reina noticed that Cici had fled with the Chronicler’s Lantern.

Continue to Chapter Thirteen

hideous darkness fell over the dock as Reina’s robes and face faded to a savage, deathly black. The temperature plummeted. Sheets of painful frost instantly formed over Kenesh’s jerkin, boots and gloves. Sharp splinters of ice began to form in the air and float to the ground. He felt his spine freeze as the Vicereine’s narrow eyes became visible from under her cowl, slowly brightening to the enraged color of glowing blood.

Kenesh saw fangs emerge as she began to speak. The words seemed to be alternately miles away and right next to Kenesh’s ears. Her many voices formed an ocean of shadows beneath them and the edges of the warehouse and wooden platform began to warp and shift.

Whispers slithered into his mind. They spoke of cold and friendless places. A sound like a faraway fight between vicious dogs infiltrated his hearing and pain began to thrum down his neck like a spiderweb of tiny rivers. Voices pried into his consciousness muttering foulness he could have scarcely imagined in his most craven avarice. His throat tightened and he scrambled to escape, but his body refused to obey.

Hidden corners of his being began to drip with shadow. Something alarmingly tall and gangling loomed over the Vicereine. Then it moved. It’s unnatural gaze reached into Kenesh’s throat and began to drain the light from his vision. He turned to run. Raw, desperate, clawing fear locked his joints and the last gulp of air drained from his lungs.

The sound of an open grave groaned through the frosty air as Kenesh Drun scrambled back up the dock. He felt and heard the thumps of huge footsteps. From the deepest pit of his subconscious animal mind, cold claws reached for him. His frozen blood slowed his weakening legs. He couldn’t escape. His life force began to drain through his eyes. He could feel it strengthening the Arcanist. He could feel her satisfaction as she reached deeper, slashing at his thoughts and feeding on the fear that bled from his injured mind. His hair turned white and instantly rotted, falling from his head and taking the skin off his skull with it. He put his hands up to his face and screamed forever.

Nako wheezed and reached up with both hands to pull at Reina’s grip as she lifted him off the ground by the throat. His face bulged with the pain of strangulation. Reina held Shadebane to one side and whispered words of such power that each syllable threatened to weaken the supports of the dock. The skin of Nako’s arms and face began to darken and still the Vicereine tightened her grip. Her voice lowered to a hiss as Nako’s eyes fell back into his rotting head and his hands fell limply to his sides.

Reina flung the skeletal remains of Kenesh’s defeated henchman against the dingy wooden wall, shattering his brittle bones into dozens of pieces, each of which continued to decay as she turned back to Kenesh. He lay on the dock, his body tense with the primal throes of escape, staring directly into the sky. His ghostly face remained frozen as the screams continued to echo through his rapidly deteriorating mind.

Kenesh seemed to notice Reina suddenly and scrabbled backwards. He was unarmed and there was nowhere to run. Reina picked up the broken blade of Kenesh’s knife from the dock, then continued approaching him, robes dragging, as she examined it. Kenesh pushed back, his shoulders scraping the warehouse door as he got to his feet. The dull numbing ache of the bitter air grew with each of her approaching steps.

Reina stopped inches away. Her hands were covered in the poison from the blade. Kenesh watched by the scarce light of the flickering overhead lamp. Her slender, pale hands seemed to heal themselves just as quickly as the poison ate through the skin.

Continue to Chapter Ten