Page 52 of A Whisper in the Walls

He let his fingers tangle through Cath’s as they navigated the busy streets. He did not bother pointing out the man and woman who both neatly folded the papers they were reading and began following them some fifty paces back. Cath still spotted them.

“He’s afraid you’ll win,” she whispered. “If he’s watching you this closely.”

“Very few people win,” he corrected. “Because he watches this closely.”

The two of them turned a corner, skirting a few of the larger markets. Darling’s spies could follow him every hour of the day, but there was some pleasure in knowing they could not unearth the only secret of his that mattered: the tattoos. All of that hidden magic pooled in his veins. They were his only advantage in what was coming.

They arrived at the cleansing house. Cath set a hand on the small of his back. She was giving him the lightest of pushes. “Go ahead and lie down. I’ll be in in a minute.”

The stone table waited for him. The spell had not been activated. Not yet. Dahvid moved inside the room and began undressing. He was on the table, towel covering in place, when the magic began the way it always did. He felt it digging down—half pain and half pleasure—into his skin.

And then the lights flickered.

Every muscle tightened. Dahvid’s eyes snapped open. He was not alone in the room.

“Hello again.”

The beautiful Darling strode out of the shadows. He looked even more eerie in the strange white glow of the cleansing room. Every feature slightly askew. A perfect mockery of beauty. Dahvid saw the chain trailing from his wrist, winding over the stones, and vanishing through a door in the dark. He’d had no idea there was a second entry to this room. Darling paused at the edge of the stone table, eyes boldly wandering Dahvid’s length. Even hooded and bound, he had not felt so vulnerable before the warlord as he did now.

“Hello, Darling.”

“That was so very clever of you,” Darling replied—and Dahvid could just barely hear the scraping voice echoing from the shadows. “The other night. Acting before I could announce the match with Ockley. My own mistake, really. I shouldn’t have given you the chance. It was clever and daring and very much on the verge of rudeness.”

“I thought it was gracious of you to accept the challenge.”

Darling snorted. “As if you gave me a choice. You knew what the rules were. Alas, here we are. The gauntlet is set. I will make nearly as much money on that event as I would have on the other one. Still, gauntlets are nerve-racking. There’s always the potential cost of losing, isn’t there? That tantalizing prize. A single wish. Ask anything and I will grant it. Gauntlets are especially worrisome when a mysterious little creature like yourself is involved.…”

His eyes roamed again, gliding from tattoo to tattoo.

“I’ll admit I find it titillating. I’ve hosted hundreds of gauntlets, dear boy. I began hosting them before you were born. And I have predicted—with absolute certainty—which challengers would win… and which would lose.” He leaned forward, hands pressed to the stone mere inches from Dahvid’s bare feet. “But you are the first real mystery of the last few decades. It is going to be so delightful to see how it all unfolds. Before we get to that, however, we need to have a discussion.”

Dahvid wished he could sit up. He wished he had clothes on. He wished he knew how many guards were waiting in the dark behind that empty doorway—ready to intervene.

“A discussion?”

Darling nodded. “I need to know what your request will be.”

Dahvid couldn’t hide his surprise. In all their research, he’d never heard of challengers being asked to make their request in advance. He’d always imagined it more like a scene in a play. The victor heaving a great breath, wiping blood from their hands, bellowing out a demand.

“What if I haven’t decided?”

Darling shook his head. The chain attached to his wrist rattled slightly. “That will not work for me, and it will not work for you. We are beginning a negotiation. You can have anything—within reason. The conversation starts here and now, because I need to make sure that we can actually come to terms before the gauntlet occurs. You will tell me what you want, right now, or I will make sure there is no possible chance for you to survive the fights to come.”

Dahvid’s surprise edged into shock. He stood for a long moment, unsure what to say. In the silence, he heard the slightest hiss. The sound was impossible to ignore. On the ground, the chain linking the two Darlings was beginning to smoke. Dahvid realized the white magic in the room was attempting—and failing—to cleanse the spell written in those chains. A dark passage of souls, an unholy conquering. It was a small reminder that this man did not operate within any set of rules besides his own. Dahvid would do well not to challenge that now.

“Fine. I want an army.”

Darling’s eyes narrowed. “An army. How many soldiers, exactly?”

“I want a thousand men. Your third and fourth company would be my preference. We watched all of their training sessions—down by the beach. Those are your best soldiers. Good generals too. I would like to borrow them for one month. Not so long that you’ll be exposed without them.”

Now the warlord’s eyes glittered.

“That is a very interesting request. Would it have anything to do with House Brood?”

Dahvid shrugged. “I just like the sound of boots marching.”

That earned a rare laugh from both Darlings. Both the musical and the guttural, weaving in and out of each other. Dahvid watched as the warlord began to pace.

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