Page 15 of Angel in Absentia
“You will target the Belgears next, then,” he said, his eyes flickering back at hers. The glow was eerie beneath the darkness of his hair and the dancing of the torchlight nearby. “They won’t fall as easily as the Iscads.”
Clea crossed her arms slowly. “They run all of the Dark Markets. They’re the wealthiest of the kingdoms. I wouldn’t expect the same of them. The Iscads had fallen to greed and overextended themselves outside of their territory. They put their necks out. We only had to chop off the head,” she explained if only to assure Myken that they knew what they were getting into and that he should be more concerned about himself.
“You certainly have learned a lot,” Myken said emptily as if still digesting the news of the Iscads’ fall. “The Iscads overextended themselves because someone promised to deliver Virday into their hands. They were tempted into overextending themselves.”
Clea didn’t respond, taking note of the information but not wanting to show Myken she was interested in it. He continued on.
“And there is one more thing you should know about the Belgears,” he said, eyes locked with hers. “They have an object of indescribable power that makes them nearly unmatched. The Deadlock Medallion.”
Clea almost groaned aloud, and certainly groaned within, turning away from him and walking back toward the door. This was a joke.
“I don’t know what you destroyed,” he said hurriedly after her as if assuming she would leave. “It wasn’t the Deadlock. I’ve witnessed the true object myself, and laying a single hand on it would peel the very flesh off your bones.”
“If the Belgears are so unmatched,” Clea said, turning back to him and gesturing out at the room, “why are they considering an alliance? You understand everything you’re saying seems ridiculous. You’re a liar and a schemer. I’m honestly insulted by the lack of effort.”
Silence settled between them for a long while, until Myken at last glanced at her again, tired, grave, with a foreign look in his eyes. It was strange, seeing him chained when the last time they met, she had been chained.
Myken seemed to read her mind. His eyes flickered off to the side, and his pride appeared to deflate for a moment. He then said the words she’d feared since arriving back at Loda.
“You do not understand what is coming,” he said.
Not enough.
It echoed through her.
“The curse of silver eyes I now bear is like a plague,” Myken said. “It seeps into your body and brain and then you are robbed of your will. When the conversion is complete, I will be host to the Insednian will. It is a byproduct of touching the Insednian cursed silver, which carries this curse.”
Clea remembered Ryson’s daggers, her eyes narrowing. A curse of such magnitude and permanence seemed impossible, but so did many other curses these days.
“A slave,” Clea said, and Myken nodded once as if he’d already acknowledged the irony of it.
“If that’s true, wouldn’t there be many more Insednians? I’ve touched cursed silver.”
“It hasn’t been true for a long time,” Myken replied, shifting in his chains and taking a breath. He looked suddenly depleted and vulnerable. The image of him in such a state was jarring.
She tried to read him for deception, used her ansra to reach out to him and scan his intent. She could find no dishonesty, no malintent swirling around that dark cut of his soul, and that worried her even more than the lies she expected. Myken did not seem to resist the exploration, but visibly relaxed beneath it.
“Something has resurrected the curses that have been dormant for years. Not long after our paths crossed, the properties of their infection activated again. An Insednian talisman that we hadn’t known was in the carriage touched my skin, and the conversion started there. An Insednian with a broken mask, as if sensing the plight, ambushed us. It killed my remaining comrades, crushing their bones with chains affixed on his wrists, and I managed to get away when other Belgearian Venennin interrupted the attack. There are other stories muchlike mine with other victims of the Insednian curses. Something has reawakened them in the land, Insednian silver infecting hosts through pendants and daggers once thought to be proud trophies. I know because I once sold them.”
Something has resurrected the curses.The words hung between them. Clea’s mind repeated the story, vividly recalling the Insednian with shackles on his body, tossing the Insednian talisman up in his hand before catching it again. It had been an eerie picture before being shoved into the carriage with Ryson. She’d never forgotten it.
Clea remembered the Insednian talisman and Ryson’s strong aversion to keeping it anywhere near them. She remembered the symbol on the talisman, a silver eye spilling tears of chains to enslave the people beneath it. At last, she understood his distaste for the talisman. If it had been a different time, she could have been ensnared and converted by it as well. A curse that affixed itself to someone’s will was an extremely powerful one. A curse with such power that was infectious was nearly unfathomable. It was as unfathomable as a curse that could make an entire city forget, or kill an entire royal family of Veilin from afar, or curse an entire forest to change from night to day. These curses spoke of Venennin who were of a completely different caliber than what they knew.
Myken and Clea studied each other for a long time, the torchlight burning low and dancing passively through the room.
“They said you came here with a message for me,” Clea reminded him, growing progressively more uncomfortable with the information he shared and how it made her feel in her own skin.
“I needed to warn someone who would listen,” he said, and she hoped for signs of deception, prayed for it, but his words were empty of everything but that plea.
“You’ve become awfully invested in the affairs of the people you once sought only to sell,” she challenged from across the room.
“If we aren’t careful,” Myken replied, his tone measured and calm, “in a matter of months, there will be no seller and no one to be sold. We’re talking about the survival of the entire system. Negotiate a deal with the Belgears for mutual survival or neither of us will survive.”
Clea was so startled by the declaration that she couldn’t help but laugh. “Negotiate a deal with our slavers?” Her eyes narrowed, hands landing now on her hips. “Why not partner with any of the other Venennin and use the Deadlock Medallion like you say? Aren’t there others? The Virads? The Ashanas?” she prodded, though she knew both kingdoms had been long silent.
The silence settled again, deepening this time. The flickering torchlight suddenly seemed ominous against Myken’s face where he kneeled in the earth. The red line in his eyes, the last evidence of his original identity, seemed to struggle forth in his gaze like the message he kept trying to share.
“You don’t know what happened in the old war, do you? What the Warlord of Shambelin did to them?” he asked.
