The Amulet Of Nicmir (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 1)

Chapter 37

Sam snapped to lucidity at the sound of a scream. His heart convulsed.

That was Crynia.

No.

He bolted around the corner, shivering, just in time to see a man in black clothing, his hair and eyes pale, duck around the corner. A body was slung limply over his shoulder, a dark braid trailing down the back of her head.

Sam looked down at himself. He was unarmed, and he hadn't even bothered putting his shoes on before coming outside. A direct attack was out of the question.

He heard the inn door open, and put his fingers in his mouth and whistled as loud as he could in case it was Lillian or Nyle. And then he stalked after Crynia's kidnapper and hoped he wasn't about to get himself killed.

***

It was the cold that finally woke Crynia up. It seeped into her bones and tugged her back into consciousness with a rough hand, forcing out the blissful sleep and letting in a throbbing headache.

On an attempt to lift her hand to her head, she realized she was bound hand and foot to a chair. The rag stuffed in her mouth tasted like dirt.

It was still dark when she opened her eyes. Slowly, hazily, she lifted her head and looked around at the doubling image of sandstone walls and a single staircase leading up along the wall. Distantly, she recognized it as the building on which Sam had found Nyle.

Her vision corrected itself when she shook her head. Something warm trickled from a sharp point of pain by her hairline. Blood.

A lamp flickered to life. Crynia caught only a glimpse of cruel blue eyes and sharp features on a narrow face before the man in the chair across from her arrested her attention. She couldn't breathe. Pushing the rag out from between her teeth with her tongue, she spit it on the ground.

"Dad?" she choked, voice hoarse.

It hurt to look at him. He had bruises on his arms and his face, and his shirt was threadbare and stained with dried blood. When he breathed, Crynia could hear it rattle and wheeze in his chest.

"What did they do to you?" she breathed, squeezing the words through her closing throat. "Who did this?"

"Raindrop." Karlon's voice grated from his vocal cords. His kind grey eyes looked tired; defeated. His filthy blond hair hung over his knitted eyebrows. "Don't do what they ask. Please."

A bony hand gripped him by the hair and forced his head back, and he winced. Crynia looked up into her kidnapper's face, glaring into his eyes. "What do you want?" she hissed, straining against her bonds.

"This is not about what I want," he said evenly. His voice was low and smooth like sanded wood; the voice of a diplomat. "It is about what the man I serve wants. Your father is..." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Leverage. Incentive."

Crynia lifted her chin, defiant. "You serve Agnir."

A ghost of a smile twitched at the corners of the man's thin lips, and his icy eyes glittered. "Roddin said you were sharp."

Swallowing back bile, Crynia clenched her jaw. Apparently, Roddin was closer to Agnir than she'd thought.

"But that is beside the point," continued the man, releasing his grip on her father's hair. "My leader wishes that you return what was stolen from him. If you do not..."

The point of a knife was suddenly at Karlon's throat. Crynia understood the message a little too clearly.

The pale-eyed man smiled. It was cold. "Excellent. I've heard that you are a rather accomplished thief, so I suspect that the procurement of the object will be no trouble, when the time comes." His smile vanished with the knife. "When you reach Agnir's castle, I will be waiting. For your father's sake, I suggest you keep this from your companio—" With a tilt of his head, the man cut off abruptly, watching something behind her carefully.