Shadowborn

Chapter 107: The Other Shoe

Chapter 107: The Other Shoe

The next few days passed without any real incident. House Nocht officially opened its doors to any adventurers that wanted to work for my house. There weren’t any takers the first day, but it wasn’t long before we had our first takers. A group of all women adventurers that had apparently undergone a pretty shit string of luck and were at the end of their ropes. Their leader was understandably suspicious of such a good deal, but we anticipated that. Hopefully in a week or two, once her party had had time to recuperate and prepare for their next mission, those doubts would be dispelled. Until then I didn’t anticipate any great flood of adventurers coming through the doors.

Things with my harem were also progressing wonderfully. I could tell Serena was still a little upset by the whole ‘planning for my death’ thing, but she’d made a point to admit she understood the need. Still, the thought of me dying had left her with more than a few nightmares the last couple of nights. Nightmares I knew she was terrified were premonitions and not just a product of her fears.

Karina and Jayme had officially moved into the big room. Karina still wasn’t a fan of the dark, but she seemed less bothered when she was surrounded by all of us. Either way, after not getting too much sleep her first night I came in to find the canopy of the bed enchanted with pinpricks of light that looked like the night sky. Karina was shocked to the point of tears at Rhallani’s thoughtfulness, though she wasn’t the only one who loved the change.

The first night we slept under the artificial stars Allie slept practically glued to my side. She kept looking up and smiling at the faint lights, eventually falling asleep with her head on my chest and the most content expression I’d seen on her face since we’d met in Karn’s facility. With her and Serena on one side and Karina wrapped around Jayme on the other, all the other girls sleeping softly spread out across the pit, I felt something in me settle.

It was two days after that I was woken by the wards. I woke with a start, already reaching to pull a weapon from my storage before I recognized the magical signature. I extracted myself from my women and pulled on some basic clothes, though not carefully enough to avoid waking Serena and Allie.

Serena had been too entangled with me last night for me to even hope of slipping out without waking her and Allie had been an even lighter sleeper than usual as of late. I couldn’t really blame her. She wasn’t the only one who felt things were going too well. We were both waiting for the other shoe to drop with bated breath.

Allie was keyed in to the wards just like I was, so she didn’t say a word as she sleepily dressed. She threw on her clothes, topping her outfit off with one of my long coats (son of a bitch), then she pulled me down for a deep kiss. Serena was just opening her mouth to ask what was wrong when Allie, still half asleep, pulled her in for just as deep a kiss.

Serena seemed more surprised than I was, though her cheeks pinkened and I felt a sense of surprised satisfaction through the bond. Allie patted her chest and strode out of the room, stretching her arms over her head.

I arched a brow at Serena as she touched two fingers to her lips with a soft smile and her blush deepened. I thought I’d noticed them getting closer since Allie and I had finally resolved things, but now wasn’t the time to have that discussion. Not with Sandrel waiting at the front door. I pressed a kiss to her temple and squeezed her in a quick hug.

Sandrel was waiting for us down in the foyer with a steaming cup of tea in his hand. His body language was casual, but I knew him well enough that my sphincter clenched. Whatever the reason behind his visit, we were in for some shit.

“You know,” he said, tipping his tea towards us, “I never understood why none of the rich twats in the city understood that the best servants are happy ones.” He took a sip and smacked his lips. “Already getting a position in your household is becoming talked about in wistful voices.”

“Amazing what the bare minimum will get you sometimes,” I grunted. “Don’t beat around the bush, Sandrel. Tell me what you came here to tell me.”

He sighed, then he threw back the rest of his tea like a shot. “It’s not inherently bad news,” he started.

I bit back a groan. “How many shit days have we had that started with those exact words?”

He grinned ruefully. “Too damn many. We found a vault.”

Allie crossed her arms. “In Nairn’s place?”

“Yep.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Took us a few days to crack the wards, but we’re in. We haven’t touched anything for reasons I’ll get into, but I’d like your priestess to take a look at something.”

Serena tensed. “Why?”

Sandrel scratched his beard. “Best I not tell you too much. I’ve got some theories on what we’ve found, but I’d rather not influence you. Got time now?”

I exchanged a quick, cursory glance with the other two, then nodded. “We won’t be able to think about anything else until we know, so might as well head out now.”

“Right-o.” He glanced to Allie and held a hand out. “Not sure we’ve met. Sandrel Therefel.”

“Allisandre Luce,” She answered back. “Zaren tells me you’re the best bad influence he’s ever had.”

Sandrel threw his head back and let out a booming laugh. “That I was, kiddo. That I was. Shall we?”

Nairn’s mansion was about as far from my manor as it could be, but luckily this early in the morning there wasn’t anyone around to hinder us. “So,” I said eventually, “other than whatever it is that’s got you spooked, what have you found so far.”

Sandrel grunted. “Exactly what we expected to. Plenty of incriminating evidence, though only against Nairn and his underlings. Information on a slaver ring we’ve already dismantled. Finances. Bribes.”

Before I could cross its threshold, I felt a painful yank in my gut. Allie’s face was the last thing I saw before the world dissolved around me and I felt myself falling.

I slammed into the unmistakable floor of a metal cage. I jammed my eyes shut for a second and took a few deep breaths, pushing down the bile and disorientation of such a sudden teleportation. As soon as I’d recovered a little I pushed myself onto my knees and took stock of my surroundings.

It was pitch black, but that worked in my favor. I rapped my knuckles on the floor of my new cage and listened to the echoes. The cage that held me was just tall enough to stand in and maybe five feet wide in either direction. The room wasn’t too much larger, only big enough to hold five more cages with a path in the middle.

The other cages were unoccupied, and the stale smell in the air and the dust I’d kicked up with my arrival told me this room hadn’t been used in some time. I wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or not.

I climbed unsteadily to my feet. Allie was probably freaking out, and I knew Serena was going to be livid with herself. I wished I could tell her that whatever magic had enthralled her wasn’t something she had a chance of resisting, but right now I needed to focus on getting back to her.

I pushed down any thoughts of what my family might be going through right now. There was nothing I could do for them past surviving whatever trap I’d sprung. My only solace was that I’d managed to screw up their trap at least a little.

I was far from an expert on divine magics, but I had to assume something about the enchantment and the essence itself is what they used to take control of Serena’s body. No doubt the essence had been the conduit for the spell. The trap was one that would have only worked on a priestess whose magic came from Allura—assuming, of course, that it was a jar of her essence—which meant that hopefully they weren’t expecting me to have been caught up in it.

Granted, a jar of essence that size meant it was essentially a certainty that our enemy had Allura held captive somewhere, but that was just one more thing I could consider after I’d escaped.

Luckily, that meant this cage was meant to hold a priestess. Not me. I pressed a palm to the lock and summoned my shadows. My magic wasn’t dampened in the slightest, so it was child’s play to flood the mechanism with my shadows and shatter it. The door creaked something awful when I pushed it open, but there was little I could do about that.

I looked over the other cages and thought to what Sandrel had said about snares. Did that mean there were five more jars of Allura’s divinity out there somewhere? Or were there other kinds of bait? Just how many contingencies did our enemy have? I didn’t like this. Not one bit. I hated feeling like my enemy had the upper hand on me, yet that’s exactly what had happened.

The door to the room was locked as well, but I just repeated the same trick from a moment ago. I stepped into an equally dark hallway full of doors. I knew from the heaviness of the cool air that I was underground, which once again had bile rising in the back of my throat.

The last time I’d been underground I’d at least had Serena, Rhallani, and Noelle at my back. Now I was alone, and that left me feeling vulnerable and exposed in ways I hadn’t encountered in a long, long time.

But I’d been through worse. I’d survived it then, and I’d survive it now.

I crept through the hall as quickly and quietly as I could. The other doors called to me, but I was in an unknown and almost certainly hostile environment. I needed to figure out where they hell that teleporter spell had taken me, and I needed to find out fast. Especially if they’d brought me to a base of some sort. If I was lucky I could slip out before they even realized I’d been ported in.

My hope that I could escape unnoticed didn’t last long.

I’d just entered a large, circular room when one of the walls lit up. A door of blue light carved itself into the weathered stone. One that was much larger than the one Kevran Arthal had come through when Karina and Tiana had been taken.

It swung open and Arthal himself walked through. He wore a cloak that hid the arm Noelle had severed, so I couldn’t tell if it had been healed or not. As soon as he stepped foot outside the door, torches along the top of the walls lit up all throughout the room and the hallway I’d come from. He took another step in and paused with a surprised look on his face while armed men filed into the room behind him.

“Well well, isn’t this a surprise,” he said in a smooth, controlled voice.

I summoned two blades and fell into a stance with a grimace. “Arthal. Gotta say, I think I’d have preferred an invite in the mail.”

He smiled wide. “In all fairness that was the original plan. Snatch up that pretty little priestess and use her to bring you right to my doorstep. I do so appreciate you cutting out the middleman. You always were efficient.”

Something about the way he said that made my skin crawl. “Let me guess: I give you the sword and you’ll let me live?”

He laughed darkly. “I see you’ve developed a sense of humor.” His smile was wide and oily. “No, there will be no deals. No compromises. You and I both know that you’ll never surrender the Jailer’s Blade to me, just as we both know you’re too much of a problem child to be left to your own devices, even chained and collared.”

Alarm bells were ringing in my head, but I couldn’t afford to get distracted by his words. Not with how many men were currently lining up to box me in. Especially not with the Eldritch Beasts that were now shouldering their way into the room.

I glanced at the men and women all leveling their blades at me and a prickle of apprehension wormed its way up my spine. They wore no insignias. No markers. Their weapons were well cared for and their armor had seen combat. Worse, they seemed completely unbothered by the giant, otherworldly monsters that stalked past them.

These weren’t guards or mercenaries. They weren’t hired hands. These were soldiers, plain and simple.

“Incapacitate him and bring him to me,” Arthal ordered. Then his smile widened. “And under no circumstances are you to underestimate him.”