Page 37 of Enthralled

Lir looks from me to Sis to Khas. Her naturally alabaster skin is gray in the dim light of the hall. She presses her lips into a hard line, then says only, “I will speak to Anj.”

“Rok!”Anj growls the harsh word accompanied by a vehement shake of his head. I don’t need to know troldish to understand his meaning. Standing in the courtyard just beyond the temple entrance, he looks fierce and dangerous by the low moonfire light. His eyes flash as he stares down Lir, and I momentarily wonder if I was mistaken about the nature of his feelings for her.

Then he turns to me, speaking common Eledrian but with that same rough, growling accent. “I cannot risk the safety of our people. We have so few defenses against these foes. We need everygubdagoglirhere, guarding our barriers.”

Sis lets out a little shriek and stamps her foot, tears rolling down her cheeks. She’s already boldly declared that she will go, with or without permission. Thankfully Har and Calx stepped from the shadows to restrain her. Har is, as Calx mentioned, taller than his brother. He’s absolutely massive, even by troll standards. The sight of him fills my heart with pride. He shoots me a shy smile, more reserved than his brother and sister at our reunion.

I turn to Anj, putting my shoulders back as I meet his ferocious gaze. “I agree. And I don’t need agubdagoglir. I will go alone.”

“No,Mar!”Sis cries. It nearly breaks my heart in half to hear her use that name for me again. Perhaps I’ve not been wholly replaced in her affections. Calx joins his sister, saying, “It’s dangerous,kurs Mar.”

“Yes,” I answer. “And Dig is in the thick of it.”

“He knew the risks,” Anj says. “He is no child; he is a guard of Valthurg. He made a choice when he volunteered.”

“Yes,” I agree, “and now I am making a choice. He is my boy. I am his chosen mother. It is my responsibility to save him.”

“You are not his only mother,” Lir says softly. “Not anymore.”

“What?” Anj turns sharply, slipping back into a stream of angry troldish.

Lir lifts her chin, her eyes shining with reflected fire. “I am a weaver ofgubdagogs, trained by the low priestess herself. I am more than prepared. I will go with Clara Darlington to saveourson.”

Anj lunges, grabbing her wrist and dragging her toward him. Their faces are mere inches apart, his fierce with desperate anger, hers serene and strong and unyielding. In that moment I’m not certain if he’s going to kiss her or bite her or some combination of the two. Lir never flinches. At last Anj growls,“Guthakug!”through bared teeth. Lir’s lips twist in a smile. She responds softly, reaches up to trail a finger along his cheek.

Then she wrenches her arm free of his grasp and turns to me. “Let’s go, Mistress,” she says.

“So,” I say as casually as I can manage, following Lir through the snarl ofgubdagogssurrounding the temple yard. “You and Anj?”

Lir casts a cool glance over her shoulder. “Hmmm?”

“You seem . . .” I stop. I was going to sayfriendlybut that is decidedly not the right word to describe the scene I just witnessed. “You seem to have a dynamic.”

She sniffs and shrugs prettily. “Anj is head of theHrorark.Since the gates broke, and Vespre was cast out into the Hinter, he stepped up as leader of the whole city, under the low priestess’s eye, of course. As both Mixael and Andreas were quite caught up in the cares of the library, they needed a troll to serve as go-between for the palace and the city folk. That became my role. Anj and I have learned to work together.”

She says it all so easily, as though it was perfectly natural for an orphaned outcast and former housemaid to take on such a vital position. I give her a narrow look. “You do remember he tried to kill us, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t pay to hold grudges in Vespre,” Lir retorts, shifting agubdagogthread just enough to allow us room to pass under. “Besides he could have killed me many times during that altercation and didn’t. Which was rather gentlemanly of him if you think about it.”

None of that so-called gentlemanliness was directed my way. Anj absolutely would have crushed my skull if he’d gotten close enough. But under the circumstances I probably shouldn’t hold it against him.

Lir guides us smoothly through the snarl ofgubdagogs, rescuing me from becoming hopelessly entangled numerous times. My satchel weighs heavily on my shoulder and against my hip, supplies borrowed from Mixael and Andreas’s stash. It’s good to have something more substantial than Oscar’s notebook to write in, but I don’t know if they will be enough against the nightmares I will face. “Who created thisgubdagog?”I ask as we skirt a captured Noswraith, which eyes us menacingly through the winding threads.

“All of us,” Lir answers. “Me, Sis, the priestesses of the low temple. Even Umog Grush herself.Gubdagogsgain strength the more people work on them together. We’ve spent the better part of these last three days creating this one.”

I wish I could say something, express my wonder at the extent of Lir’s skill. Mere words don’t seem sufficient, not for a creation understood outside of words. Words are the domain of librarians, and they are incredibly powerful, but this is something more. Something even Noswraiths cannot breach. Well, most Noswraiths.

We come to a portion of the barrier where something large has ripped right through. Threads strung between two buildings hang black and broken, and the buildings themselves are crumbled ruins. A cluster of priestesses work to restore it, retying the threads and reestablishing the spell of protection. Lir catches my eye. “It was a Greater Noswraith,” she says to my unanswered question. “It broke through those threads like they were nothing. The only reason it did not destroy the entiregubdagogwas that it seemed to be distracted, intent on some other goal.”

“Which one?” I ask.

“I did not recognize it. Granted I do not know all the Noswraiths, but my adopted parents trained me to recognize all the Greater Wraiths. This one I have never seen before, never heard of. It was tall, like a giant, with a great hole in its chest. You could see the broken ribs. And its eyes were full of living shadows.”

My blood runs cold. The Hollow Man. That’s what she’s describing. Of course she does not recognize it; no one in Vespre has seen this nightmare before. No one is prepared to face it, not the priestesses, not the librarians. Maybe if the Prince were here we’d have a chance, but without its true name, we’re helpless.

Lir continues silently, and I follow her from the shelter of thegubdagoginto the open streets. We progress like furtive shadows, alert to the slightest movement or sound. Here and there whirling nightmare shadows erupt in dark corners, driving us to change our route. The journey from the low temple to the palace is long already, but the circuitous route we are obliged to take adds precious minutes. I feel the time keenly. Every moment puts Dig at greater risk. I can only hope he managed to find some safe haven within the infested palace.

With a little hiss of breath, Lir puts up an arm. Something is coming toward us down the shadowed road. The starlight isn’t bright enough for me to get a clear view, but Lir grabs my arm and drags me around a corner. We press our backs against a stone wall. My heart races. “What is it?” I whisper.

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