Page 4 of Davoren
"Being sold." Thank goodness, she hadn’t seen the obsidian shard. She flushed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't—"
"It's not selling." The words tasted like ash. "It's a marriage alliance. Perfectly civilized. My family gains trade concessions and debt relief. Lord Solmar gains a bride with bloodlines stretching back to the Third Dynasty. Everyone benefits."
"But you've never even met him."
"I've seen his portrait." Painted to flatter, naturally, but even the artist couldn't soften those calculating eyes. "He looked . . .controlled. Like someone who arranges everything in neat lines and despises deviation."
What the portrait had really shown was a man who smiled like a blade. I thought about his previous wives. One dead, one mad, and now me—the third acquisition for his catalog.
The marriage contract had been extensive. Thirty pages of subclauses and conditions, signed in my father's careful script. My signature had been shakier, forced between two guards who smelled of leather and impatience. The ink had barely dried before they'd produced the ceremonial chains.
"My cousin married without meeting her husband," Mira offered. "It worked out well. He was kind."
"And did he keep his previous wives locked in mountain estates?"
She had no answer for that.
The passage narrowed further, volcanic walls rising like the throat of some ancient beast. Shadows pooled in crevices despite the afternoon sun. Perfect killing ground. I found myself calculating angles, distances, escape routes—a useless exercise with the restraints binding my wrists, but old habits died hard.
"Tell me about your home," I said to distract us both. "What will you miss most?"
She launched into descriptions of market days and festival dances, her sister's new baby, the way morning fog rolled off the river. Normal things. Free things.
"Do you think—" Mira started.
The world exploded in sound. Not near us—further up the pass. The rumble of falling rock, the crash of tons of volcanic stone cascading down ancient slopes. Avalanche.
Everyone froze. Guards half-drawing swords. Horses snorting and stamping. My hand tightening on the glass shard until I felt it bite through fabric into flesh.
Silence descended like a shroud.
The kind of silence that came before screaming.
I peered through the gap in the curtains, saw a guard riding beside us on his mount.
"Natural slide," he called out. "Happens sometimes. The heat—"
An arrow sprouted from his throat, cutting off whatever reassurance he'd meant to offer. He toppled from his horse with a wet gurgle that seemed impossibly loud in the stillness.
Then the crossing came to life, and death came to the crossing.
Arrows punched through silk like it wasn’t there, their razor heads gleaming with reflected firelight as the supply wagon erupted in flames behind us. The delicate curtains offered no more protection than cobwebs against the barrage. I grabbed Mira and pulled her down as a shaft whistled through the space where her head had been.
Outside, chaos painted itself in blood and screaming. Guards bellowed orders that no one could follow. Horses shrieked and reared, adding their panic to the maelstrom. The acrid stench of burning supplies mixed with the iron tang of spilled blood and the ever-present sulfur of the Wastes.
"Stay down!" I pressed Mira flat against the floor, feeling splinters dig into my palms. Another volley of arrows turned our elegant prison into a sieve. Through the holes, I glimpsed fragments of nightmare—a guard clutching his throat as crimson spilled between his fingers, a bandit vaulting from horseback with practiced ease, the supply wagon collapsing in a shower of sparks.
The caravan door exploded inward. A bandit filled the opening, wild-eyed and eager, his blade still dripping from whatever horror he'd just committed. His clothes hung off him like rags on a scarecrow, torn and dirty from a life spent in the unforgiving wilderness. Scars crisscrossed his exposed skin, telling tales of battles won and lost, of survival at any cost. Hiseyes burned with a feral intensity, darting around the interior of the caravan, searching for valuables, searching for victims.
That gaze locked onto my pearl necklace, my golden bangles, all the wealth I wore like armor.
"Well, well. The prize herself." His reach was greedy, fingers grasping for gems that could feed a family for a year.
The volcanic glass bit deep into my palm as I slashed upward. It wasn’t a strong blow—my shackles made sure of that—but it was unexpected. The edge, sharper than any civilized blade, opened his reaching hand from palm to wrist. He reeled back with a howl that was more surprise than pain—men like him never expected the merchandise to bite back.
I kicked out with both feet. The impact sent him tumbling backward through the door, but the violent motion did something unexpected. The decorative chain linking my wrists—that wedding jewelry—snapped like spun sugar under the strain.
Poor craftsmanship disguised as ornate metalwork. My father had paid for appearance, not quality. For once, his corner-cutting saved me.
