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

Chapter 64

It was later than expected when Crynia and Chad finally made it back to the inn, three fresh shirts and a clay jar of raisins for Sam in hand. Weary from shopping for so long and half-starved from skipping dinner, Crynia pulled the door open.

And froze.

Chad was sitting at the table, talking to Lillian about something, his hands mobile in animated gestures. Chad was also standing beside her, eyes wide, breath bated and face pale as he stared.

The doppelganger at the table looked up and caught Crynia's eye. His irises rippled, hazel fading to blue as a strange look crept onto his face. It was the same look, she realized, that Naru had worn when he'd come for her three days prior.

Pity.

Then she saw. Saw that Sam wasn't anywhere in the fairly vacant lamplit room. Saw the slow panic slide onto Nyle's expression. And she knew, deep down, exactly what'd happened.

No.

Naru vanished in a haze of amber dust. Lillian bolted from her seat.

And Crynia asked, in a very quiet, very choked voice, the question to which she already knew the answer. The terrible, terrible answer.

"Where's Sam?"

***

We thought he was with you.

Where?

In the stables.

She'd dropped the raisins with a crash of broken crockery and run, praying to the gods she was wrong even when she knew she wasn't. Then she'd found the note among trampled, stinking hay--and the blood.

And everything, everything had come to a stop in that moment.

You know the drill, thief.

Those words had sent her world into the ground. They were lazy, looping scrawls of splotchy ink on cheap paper, but they told a devastating truth.

They had him.

They had Sam.

And if she didn't bend to their will, they'd kill him.

***

Sleep was elusive without him there. Just out of reach, hovering in the veil of her memory. Unreachable. Crynia stared at the pale, shadowed ceiling, her fingers knotted in the sheets where he'd been only a few hours earlier, her knuckles numb and white. It even still smelled like Sam in the bed: lye soap and that faint, smoky aroma he'd told her he could never seem to shake, like pine trees purged by fire and sand baked in sunlight.

Her pillow was damp beneath her--she had no will left to cry, but the tears would still dribble down her temples and hit the stained cloth. Her head ached, a dull throb behind her eyes, and she could scarcely breathe through her nose any longer.

He's alive. The thought kept echoing, and she clung to it. He was. He had to be. The very thought of losing him put a cold weight on her heart and pressed until she couldn't breathe at all.

Closing her eyes, Crynia crushed the note to her heart. You know the drill. She did. She knew exactly how Agnir played his game: with ruthless cruelty. Simply taking the amulet wasn't enough--oh no. He wanted to toy with the situation, play the card of their ignorance against them. Because they didn't know what they were doing, not really. Not even Chad. She'd known he was clueless the moment he'd hesitated before speaking in the mountains, and that...that scared her. Because without knowledge, they were helpless.

Agnir was invincible, and he knew it.

Something moved by the end of the bed, the subtle shift of loose cloth stirring the air. Crynia shot up, hand going to her side and drawing the dagger there in a split-second. The hilt was warm from her body, the new leather rough on the calluses of her fingers and palm.