Page 136 of The Mask Falling

Thuban was on me before I could so much as gasp. His gloved hands locked around my throat, lifted me right off my feet, and slammed me against a painting. He choked off my cry.

“I could kill you now,” he said against my ear. My eyes streamed, and a tortured sound escaped the burning pinhole of my throat. “You say I prey on the helpless. You are not. Your spirit is a weapon. Yet now we are here, which of us has true power? Is it you, with your wayfaring spirit—or is it me, with enough strength in a finger to snap you in two?”

He spends his time pulling the wings off mayflies, Kornephoros had said. I prefer prey that fights back.

The taste of blood was in my mouth. I pushed with my spirit as hard as I could, but Thuban Sargas was a Rephaite—a god without gifts, but a god nonetheless. I could feel my face turning puce for want of air, my hands beating of their own accord at his chest, my boots scuffing the columns of his legs. His hands turned me into a trapped moth, brittle and fluttering. He could crush my windpipe on a whim.

When he finally released my throat, I coughed until I almost retched. As my head dropped, I spotted them.

Keys. An iron ring of them, attached to his belt.

“I will soon find the concubine,” Thuban whispered, “and when I do, I will keep you together somewhere for a time, before I present you to the Suzerain.” I turned my head in disgust. “You can watch each other writhe in agony.”

Heat filled my eyes as he drew my aura toward him. Red branched through his irises.

“Exquisite,” he said, soft as velvet. “But no. The blood-sovereign would be very angry if I damaged your aura.”

Tenderly, like a lover, he peeled the brace off my left hand.

“This happened in the first colony.” He curled his own hand around my wrist. “Can it truly still pain you?”

“Not as much as your fucking voice,” I bit out.

He tightened his grip until I felt the drumbeat of blood through my arm. His thumb dug into the middle of my palm, and fingers vised the back of my wrist. Like a child discovering a toy, he began to turn my wrist clockwise, as if to find the point at which a light would come on.

Unlike a child, he knew exactly what he was doing. What he wanted to know was how I differed from the other humans he had tortured. What dialect of pain my body spoke.

My palm now faced my shoulder. My face scrunched up as he forced it farther, and a warning ache radiated into my palm, my fingers.

“Such delicate bones,” Thuban breathed into my damp hair, his eyes so close they tripled in number. I could smell the blood on his gloves. My skin was smeared with it, my whole frame trembling in revulsion. “Scream, now. Scream for the flesh-traitor who dares to call himself a Rephaite.”

Cheeks streaked with blood, I clenched my teeth and steeled myself, even as the fine bones ignited. I would not cry out when my wrist broke again. I would not give him the satisfaction.

“Thuban,” a voice barked.

The pressure lifted. I gasped in relief. As if he was tossing a rag aside, Thuban hurled me across the hall. I crashed to the floor, rolled over, and slewed along the marble, throat on fire, until a pillar stopped my slide. Coughing, I looked up to see Arcturus, his sword bright in the gloom.

Without even knowing it, I had summoned him to my side.

“Concubine.” Thuban let out a chuckle. “I knew you would come for the human. Like a hound to its master.”

“I have come foryou.” Arcturus held his gaze. “Let us end this, Thuban.”

“Do you not consider this rotting meat capable of fighting its own battles?” Thuban sneered, while I used the pillar to drag myself up. My wrist throbbed with each brutal cough. “Do you admit now that they are the inferior species?”

“I did not come here to answer your questions,” Arcturus said. “I came for the song of swords.”

Gone was the temperate musician who had fashioned me a music box. The mere sight of a Sargas—his enemy—had transfigured him into a metal soldier, a soulless giant. Even to me, in that moment, he was chilling.

One step took him over the threshold, into the hall where Scion commemorated its battles. Thuban swept back his cloak and drew his own sword with a sound like ice being cut. With all the mental clout I could muster, I called a word to Arcturus.

Keys.

His gaze flicked to me, then to Thuban. To his belt. When he looked back up, his eyes kindled, and I followed his line of sight. Four figures had emerged, like specters, from the darkness at my back.

A deathlike cold stole over my flesh as the silent Rephaim strode toward us, each holding a sword. Leading them was Situla Mesarthim, who I remembered well from the first colony. She was a ruthless mercenary, and resembled Arcturus so strongly it was unnerving. The other three were unfamiliar. I was caught between the newcomers and Thuban.

Arcturus could beat one Rephaite. Maybe two. Five against one was a death sentence.

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