Page 101 of Lady for Embers

“And if we take you as our prisoner?” Azrael snarled, his grip tightening around her arm.

Nuri looked up at him, batting her lashes. “Your queen is so lost without you, plant prince.”

Azrael’s eyes shuttered for a moment before they became hard and unreadable once more.

“He has some sort of insurance in place on her,” Cassius said, answering Azrael’s question. “What is it?”

His arms were crossed, a dagger in one hand. He’d pulled his hood back, brown hair framing his face, patch over his eye.

Nuri sighed in her usual dramatic fashion. “If you try to keep me, I have to kill myself. You know, Blood Bond and all that.”

Scarlett and Cassius stared back at her.

“Why would that be insurance?” Azrael asked. “You are bound to the enemy? What will we care if you can no longer serve him?”

But as Scarlett held Nuri’s gaze, she knew exactly why this was insurance. Even with everything Nuri had done—the betrayal, the hurt—Scarlett wouldn’t kill her. Couldn’t kill her. And she wouldn’t be able to watch her kill herself either. It was why she had never answered Auberon when he demanded to know what she planned to do with Nuri.

Because she had no idea.

“What were your orders?” she asked quietly.

And something on Nuri’s face softened a fraction, as if she had been holding her breath to see what Scarlett would say to Alaric’s collateral.

“Leave you alive. Do not attempt to secure you. Kill any of the others I can. Report back everything I see and hear. Figure out what you’ve been doing in Pyry and what you are looking for here,” Nuri answered, her usual arrogance gone from her voice.

Scarlett nodded once, reaching for the hem of her cloak. ­Cassius passed her the dagger he was holding, and she cut a long strip off the bottom. He took it, moving behind Nuri and reaching around her to tie it in place over her eyes. Nuri almost seemed to sigh in relief.

“What did you see?” Scarlett asked, reaching down to scoop some dirt into her hand.

“Not much. I heard you speaking of the past royal line, and... I saw the man in the mirror.”

Sorin went rigid beside her. “The Lord of Night?”

Scarlett shook her head, bringing her ?nger to her lips. They couldn’t speak of anything important now. It would all be reported back to the Maraans. Water pooled in her palm, mixing with the dirt to create mud.

She stepped up to Nuri. “Without the keys, we cannot get into Avonleya. We are trying to ?nd another way in. I found a book that spoke of hidden portals on the continents. We found one in Pyry, but I can’t ?gure out how to activate it. There were rumors of another here.”

Nuri swallowed. “And the man?”

“I do not know who he is,” Scarlett answered truthfully. “Perhaps on another continent? Perhaps in Avonleya? I do not know.” Nuri nodded. “Anything else?”

Nuri shook her head, understanding what Scarlett was asking. Was there anything else Scarlett needed to say to cover her tracks?

“Thank you, Scarlett,” Nuri said, her voice barely above a ­whisper.

“The children are safe and doing well,” Scarlett replied, as she brought the mud to Nuri’s ears. Her ?re hardened it into soft clay that she molded into Nuri’s ears before hardening it further. She tapped her ear when she was ?nished, and Nuri shook her head in con?rmation that she could hear nothing.

“Let’s get this done and get the hell out of here,” Scarlett said. “Azrael, keep a hold of her.”

The Earth Prince nodded, escorting Nuri off to the side, while the rest of them moved to the center of the chamber. A stone table stood there, the gods’ symbols carved along the edges. Six in the center formed a circle. At the top were three-interlocked triangles. It looked like Arius’s symbol only in reverse. Instead of being inverted, these triangles pointed up. Two on the bottom, one on top. Scarlett knew the other symbols in the circle: Falein, goddess of wisdom and cleverness; Celeste, goddess of the sky and moon; Arius, god of endings; Sera?na, goddess of the stars and dreams; and Anala, goddess of day, ?re, and the sun.

“There were six Firsts,” Scarlett murmured, running her ?ngers along the circle of symbols. She paused at the set of triangles at the top, looking up at Sorin. “Achaz?”

“That would be my guess,” he replied, studying the symbols as well. Something to ponder later, she supposed.

Scarlett patted the top of the table for Cassius to sit. “Take your pants off, Cass,” she purred sensually.

Cassius rolled his eyes at her, removing his boots and shucking his pants down his legs. Cyrus reached to take them from him as her Guardian hopped onto the table in the exact center of the continent. The center of the cardinal directions exactly as the spell book instructed.

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