Mage Slayer: Book Four of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Krayson was pushed to his knees. He snapped his teeth at the hand gripping his shoulder and received a backhanded blow to the face for his trouble. Agony swept through his broken jaw. Thunders, but he could've done without experiencing a fractured mandible for an extended period again.

His wrists and ankles were in manacles. His jaw was fractured. His ether was sealed by sorcery. Krayson was as powerless as he'd ever been, but that didn't stop him from making as much of a nuisance of himself as he could.

At least they'd returned him his robe. He just wished he knew where Moon was if she wasn't wearing it anymore. Krayson didn't find himself offering prayers to the gods often, but he beseeched any of them who might listen to keep Moon safe.

The woman who'd brought him here, the royal assassin named Esra, shook the hand Krayson had gotten his teeth on and glared down at him. She was a rather nondescript woman, black-haired and pale-skinned as most Algaras, and approaching her middle years. If she hadn't been wearing her armor and instead wore a dress, Krayson wouldn't have thought her anything but your standard sort of Althandi courtier.

She'd brought him from the dungeon where he'd spent the last— Two days? Three?— the last span of time. Few in the palace corridors gave comment as he was hauled across a skybridge to one of the towers. Krayson had lost all sense of direction and could hardly think straight for the pain, so he wasn't entirely sure which one it was. They all looked the same when his eyes were all but swollen shut from the frequent beatings.

Through his blurry vision, Krayson saw a modestly appointed solar. The floor was polished marble, the walls were granite. Black and white were predominant, a monochrome decor for an uninspired domicile. Boring, lacking any flair of decoration. Spartan and sterile.

Vintus sat at a dark wood desk and peered over steepled fingers at Krayson. That leer made Krayson feel as if his blood was turning to ice in his veins.

"What've you done with Moon?" Krayson demanded. It hurt to speak around his fractured jaw, and his parched throat felt like it was tearing itself to shreds with each word.

"I take it you refer to your pet freg," Vintus said in a bored voice. "I promised you, did I not? I've arranged that she will be well looked after."

"Thunders crash on your head!" Krayson shouted. "You've no right to detain us. I completed my contract. The king granted me clemency."

Vintus shrugged. "That was never made official," he said lightly. "Time and again, my brother used my son's talents to attempt to contact you through your dreams. He found you a broken wretch after the Sanguine Tower and declared your efforts wasted. As far as the Highest Court is concerned, you completed nothing."

Krayson hissed. "You're a bastard."

"Am I? I know who my father was, and I was never abandoned by him, either. A pity you cannot say the same." He leaned forward on his elbows and smirked. "Or will you now claim to have left the Jak'm by your own will?"

If Vintus thought he could needle Krayson with that, he was sorely mistaken. Krayson had put his banishment from the Horde in the past where it belonged. It couldn't hurt him anymore.

"Where is Moon?" Krayson growled.

Vintus smiled pleasantly and held his hands out wide. "On her way to be reunited with you," he said. "I anticipate a touching lover's reunion, so please don't disappoint. I've always been a secret romantic at heart." He rose to his feet and came around his desk. "But a freg? Really? As pleased as I am to have your offspring join my endeavors, I have to wonder. What ever possessed a man born of noble blood to rut with an animal?"