Page 88 of Death of the Glass Angel
Looks like he’d found the missing stormborn men. Only twelve were accounted for, hunched over workbenches laboring on what looked like hunks of ore.
The guard hurried Talon through the room. Trying to figure out what they were doing, he studied every detail. Sparks flew from the fingertips, magic that appeared challenging for them. Though there were two forges present, no one was using them.
That was why the torturer wanted to know if he was trained—that was no ordinary ore. It was anmarite. A notoriously useless metal, both difficult to mine and impossible to shape. Only lightning, natural or magic, could dent the stuff.
Driving Talon down another hall, the guard dragged him into an infirmary. A handful of rickety cots rested against the wall with a single shelf lined with gauze and a few vials of poultices. Forcing Talon into a stone chair, the guard shackled him to it and departed.
Nothing about this place was what he expected. Shifting to watch the door, Talon tried to move his arm in hopes he could extract another of his hidden lockpicks.
The torturer entered the room instead. She snatched a vial from the shelf and popped it open. A sickly sweet smell wafted out.
Her cold eyes met his. She needn’t speak her threat; so long as they held Des, Talon was in no position to resist.
Grimacing, he choked on the foul-tasting liquid as she forced it down his throat. The woman walked away, her outline blurring as Talon’s vision darkened.
Biting his lip, he strained to stay conscious, to no avail. The edges of his vision blurred within minutes.
What could have been five minutes or five hours passed in the blink of an eye. True unconsciousness did not wrap Talon, but rather a dulled awareness. He could faintly monitor the woman standing beside him, a bloodied tool in her hand. But he felt nothing.
Burning pain steadily grew on his arm as Talon’s senses slowly returned. The woman swam into view again, taut gray bun gaining clarity as individual stands took shape.
The door flew open, and the woman whirled around. A horrible crash and the crack of bones followed. Her head snapped back, and her body crumpled. A new figure drifted into view—a man with black hair whose eyes shone like bright beacons amongst the haze—gold, like metal ingots.
“Talon?” A voice called, though it sounded several miles away.
The click of metal alerted Talon to his freedom, and he tried to stand but quickly failed. He melted to the ground and was only saved from smashing his face into the stone by someone grabbing his arms and yanking him up.
“By the ancestors.” Felsin cursed.
Oh, his tone of voice didn’t sound good. The burning in Talon’s arm sharpened until it felt like fire. Turning his head, he saw a mass of red and a stream of blood flowing from the chair across the floor.
Not quite cognizant, Talon held his trembling arm above his lap, watching blood drip onto his pants. Felsin returned with a gauze roll, hastily wrapping Talon’s arm, the white staining red with every loop of the cloth.
With an agonizing tug, Felsin fastened a tourniquet above his elbow. Talon found his voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I followed your evoker.”
Talon’s evoker? He stared at Felsin, not understanding.
“The mirage in the rain.” Felsin hastily explained. “From the inn.”
Right. Just before they had been separated, he and Des had seen its reflections on the floor. But it had not deigned to appear.
Felsin tensed as a guard ran down the hall and burst through the open door. Seeing the corpse on the floor and the intruder standing beside Talon, the man drew his axe, shouting for backup before brandishing his weapon in Felsin’s direction.
Felsin pushed Talon to the right before diving left, a moment before the axe struck a cot with a metallic clang. Talon’s body felt like it weighed several tons as he spilled across the stone floors. A ringing incessantly buzzed in his ears, concealing all other sounds.
Gritting his teeth, Talon tried to pull himself up, raising his head in time to see the armored man turning his attention on the defenseless idiot sprawled on the floor. The axe swung above the guards’ steel helm, prepared to cleave Talon in half, but then his head snapped forward with a loud clang, and he froze. His axe slipped from his loosened grip, and it clattered to the floor as he dropped to his knees and fell to his side, dazed or dead.
Felsin stood behind him, fist raised and covered in hardened rock that crumbled away as he shook his hand in pain. Racing to Talon’s side, he pulled him to his feet.
“You,” Talon panted, “Look like you’ve done that before.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Felsin wrapped one of Talon’s arms around his shoulder, supporting his weight. “Where’s Des?”
“She’s-” Talon paused, tasting sweet liquid and blood. “How do you know that name?”
“Where is she?” Felsin repeated, ignoring the question.
