Page 4 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams
The question beats a tattoo against my brain. It’s all I’ve asked myself every minute since I found the safehouse ransacked by strange magic. Everyone else was dead, and Ana and the codex were gone. There was only one explanation—the Temple set a trap, and now they have her.
It took every shred of persuasion my soldiers and the rebels had to stop me going to Qimorna and ripping the city apart street by street, until nothing was left but a crater filled with rubble. I’ve seen the way they look at me these days—like they’re waiting for the last threads of my self-control to snap. In truth, not having Ana beside me, not knowing where she is or if she’s even alive, has me dangerously close to the edge.
No. She has to be alive.
I won’t entertain any other option. Ican’t. It risks tearing something up inside me so vital I won’t be able to go on. Because I love her, and I won’t accept a world where I never get to tell her that.
“He has company,” Harman murmurs. The cleric we’re trailing stops in front of a building with a low doorway and blacked-out windows. Two of his colleagues—a man and a woman—emerge, followed by a waft of thick smoke. Even from here, the clerics’ pupils look swollen. A drug den, then. Unsurprising, not just because the Temple are filthy hypocrites but because I saw in Bastion how they make their acolytes inhale opios daily. Some of them probably spend the rest of their lives chasing that high.
“This is good,” I whisper to Harman. “We can cover more ground this way.”
My soldiers are searching other neighborhoods of Hallowbane, anywhere we think clerics might be indulging themselves. But Harman and I may have found the winning prize. It’s a fact I learned in the war—three men are always easier to break than one, because you can demonstrate quite clearly the consequences of not giving you what you want.
“I’ll take the one on the right, then follow us into that alley there,” I say.
Harman shakes his head. “You’re being reckless. There’s no point forcing an opening when we can follow them and just wait for one to present itself.”
“I’m done waiting, Sandale,” I growl. “And we’ll take every risk we have to, unless you don’t think it’s worth it to find your sister?”
Harman instinctively lifts his hand to touch the deep purple bruise under his left eye. He was injured after the fight at Bastion, and the rebels took him to a different location. I gave him that bruise when we both returned from Kestis and I told him that his mission for the codex, the one he persuaded Ana to get involved in, had resulted in the murder of his people and mine, as well as Ana’s disappearance.
Needless to say, I let him know who I blamed.
“Of course, I think it’s worth it,” Harman snaps, dropping his hand. “You know I’d swap places with her in an instant if I could. I was a fool, and I hate that we’re all paying the price for it.”
I turn back toward the clerics, satisfied by his remorse. It was the only thing that had kept me from killing him when we returned to Tread. That, and the fact that I need the Hand’s network and resources to find Ana. It’s an uneasy alliance, but it only has to last as long as our search.
“Then I’ll go in first and you follow,” I repeat.
This time he nods. “Alright, let’s get the bastards.”
I’m on the clerics before they even hear my footfalls, grabbing the shorter one and pressing my blade against his throat. I drag him backward toward the nearest alleyway. His colleagues turn, outraged, and automatically lift their hands to conjure their magic, but I’m using the cleric as a shield, and they hesitate.
“Where’s the princess?” I ask the man in my hold.
“What?” he gasps, eyes looking wildly around. I suspect he’s searching for something to use with his magic, his fingers twitching.
“You think you can strike faster than me?” I murmur, pricking his skin with the edge of my sword. “Go on. Try it.”
He stops struggling just as his colleagues realize they’ll have follow us down here if they’re going to save him.
“Tell me where the Temple is keeping Morgana Angevire,” I ask again.
“He doesn’t know anything!” the woman says, following a few yards behind. “He was only anointed two months ago.”
Which means he was just an acolyte when Caledon’s trap was being laid.
“Thank you for sharing that,” I say, and cut the young cleric’s throat. The woman cries out in shock and dismay, and she and the male cleric lift their hands. A wall of hard air barrels toward me while sparks begin to form between the man’s fingertips.
I plant my feet to weather the aesteri’s small hurricane, watching Harman sneak up behind the two and knock the man to the ground before the sparks can leave his hands. The woman glances back. That’s when I charge at her, wrenching her hands behind her back and pushing her feet out from under her with a swipe of my leg.
Harman’s vines sprout from the earth, wrapping around the male cleric’s hands. He tries to fight them, but they’re too thick and fast-growing, quickly fixing him in place. I nod approvingly and continue my questioning.
“Your friend might not have known anything, but I bet you do,” I tell the woman, twisting her arms to force her lower to the ground.
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell rebel scum like you,” she says through gritted teeth, her voice full of venom. Her colleague glances up at her, a questioning look in his eyes.
“You’ll all rot in the Gloamlands for this,” she continues.
