Queen of Shadows - Maas Sarah J. - Страница 15

Usually though, especially in these wretched meetings, the duke’s attention was fixed upon the beautiful, raven-haired woman who was never far from his side, as though tethered to him by an invisible chain.

It was to her that Manon now looked while the duke pointed out the areas on the map he wanted Ironteeth scouts to survey. Kaltain—that was her name.

She never said anything, never looked at anyone. A dark collar was clasped around her moon-white throat, a collar that made Manon keep her distance. Such a wrong scent around all these people. Human, but also not human. And on this woman, the scent was strongest and strangest. Like the dark, forgotten places of the world. Like tilled soil in a graveyard.

“By next week I want reports on what the wild men of the Fangs are up to,” the duke said. His well-groomed rust-colored mustache seemed so at odds with his dark, brutal armor. A man equally comfortable battling in council rooms or on killing fields.

“Anything in particular to look for?” Manon said flatly, already bored. It was an honor to be Wing Leader, she reminded herself; an honor to lead the Ironteeth host. Even if being here felt like a punishment, and even if she hadn’t yet received word from her grandmother, the High Witch of the Blackbeak Clan, about what their next move was to be. They were allies with Adarlan—not lackeys at the king’s beck and call.

The duke stroked an idle hand down Kaltain’s thin arm, its white flesh marred with too many bruises to be accidental.

And then there was the thick red scar just before the dip of her elbow, two inches long, slightly raised. It had to be recent.

But the woman didn’t flinch at the duke’s intimate touch, didn’t show a flicker of pain as his thick fingers caressed the violent scar. “I want an up-to-date list of their settlements,” the duke said. “Their numbers, the major paths they use to cross the mountains. Stay invisible, and do not engage.”

Manon might have tolerated everything about being stuck in Morath—except for that last order. Do not engage. No killing, no fighting, no bleeding men.

The council chamber had only one tall, narrow window, its view cut off by one of the many stone towers of Morath. Not enough open space in this room, not with the duke and his broken woman beside him. Manon lifted her chin and stood. “As you will it.”

“Your Grace,” the duke said.

Manon paused, half turning.

The duke’s dark eyes weren’t wholly human. “You will address me as ‘Your Grace,’ Wing Leader.”

It was an effort to keep her iron teeth from snapping down from the slits in her gums. “You’re not my duke,” she said. “Nor are you my grace.”

Asterin had gone still.

Duke Perrington boomed out a laugh. Kaltain showed no indication that she’d heard any of it. “The White Demon,” the duke mused, looking Manon over with eyes that roved too freely. Had he been anyone else, she would have gouged those eyes out with her iron nails—and let him scream for a bit before she ripped out his throat with her iron teeth. “I wonder if you won’t seize the host for yourself and snatch up my empire.”

“I have no use for human lands.” It was the truth.

Only the Western Wastes, home of the once-glorious Witch Kingdom. But until they fought in the King of Adarlan’s war, until his enemies were defeated, they would not be allowed to reclaim it. Besides, the Crochan curse that denied them true possession of the land held firm—and they were no closer to breaking it than Manon’s elders had been five hundred years ago, when the last Crochan Queen damned them with her dying breath.

“And for that, I thank the gods every day.” He waved a hand. “Dismissed.”

Manon stared him down, again debating the merits of slaughtering him right at the table, if only to see how Kaltain would react to that, but Asterin shifted her foot against the stone—as good as a pointed cough.

So Manon turned from the duke and his silent bride and walked out.

Manon stalked down the narrow halls of Morath Keep, Asterin flanking her, Sorrel a step behind, Vesta and Lin bringing up the rear.

Through every slitted window they passed, roars and wings and shouts burst in along with the final rays of the setting sun—and beyond them, the relentless striking of hammers on steel and iron.

They passed a cluster of guards outside the entrance to the duke’s private tower—one of the few places where they weren’t allowed. The smells that leaked from behind the door of dark, glittering stone raked claws down Manon’s spine, and she and her Second and Third kept a wary distance. Asterin even went so far as to bare her teeth at the guards posted in front of that door, her golden hair and the rough leather band she wore across her brow glinting in the torchlight.

The men didn’t so much as blink, and their breathing didn’t hitch. She knew their training had nothing to do with it—they had a reek to them, too.

Manon glanced over her shoulder at Vesta, who was smirking at every guard and trembling servant they passed. Her red hair, creamy skin, and black-and-gold eyes were enough to stop most men in their tracks—to keep them distracted while she used them for pleasure, and then let them bleed out for amusement. But these guards yielded no reaction to her, either.

Vesta noticed Manon’s attention and lifted her auburn brows.

“Get the others,” Manon ordered her. “It’s time for a hunt.” Vesta nodded and peeled away down a darkened hallway. She jerked her chin at Lin, who gave Manon a wicked little grin and faded into the shadows on Vesta’s heels.

Manon and her Second and Third were silent as they ascended the half-crumbling tower that housed the Thirteen’s private aerie. By day, their wyverns perched on the massive posts jutting out from the tower’s side to get some fresh air and to watch the war camp far, far below; by night, they hauled themselves into the aerie to sleep, chained in their assigned areas.

It was far easier than locking them in the reeking cells in the belly of the mountain with the rest of the host’s wyverns, where they would only rip each other to shreds and get cramps in their wings. They’d tried housing them there—just once, upon arriving. Abraxos had gone berserk and taken out half his pen, rousing the other mounts until they, too, were bucking and roaring and threatening to bring the Keep down around them. An hour later, Manon had commandeered this tower for the Thirteen. It seemed that the strange scent riled Abraxos, too.

But in the aerie, the reek of the animals was familiar, welcoming. Blood and shit and hay and leather. Hardly a whiff of that off smell—perhaps because they were so high up that the wind blew it away.

The straw-coated floor crunched beneath their boots, a cool breeze sweeping in from where the roof had been ripped half off thanks to Sorrel’s bull. To keep the wyverns from feeling less caged—and so Abraxos could watch the stars, as he liked to do.

Manon ran an eye over the feeding troughs in the center of the chamber. None of the mounts touched the meat and grain provided by the mortal men who maintained the aerie. One of those men was laying down fresh hay, and a flash of Manon’s iron teeth had him scurrying down the stairs, the tang of his fear lingering in the air like a smear of oil.

“Four weeks,” Asterin said, glancing at her pale-blue wyvern, visible on her perch through one of the many open archways. “Four weeks, and no action. What are we even doing here? When will we move?”

Indeed, the restrictions were grating on them all. Limiting flying to nighttime to keep the host mostly undetected, the stench of these men, the stone, the forges, the winding passages of the endless Keep—they took little bites out of Manon’s patience every day. Even the small mountain range in which the Keep was nestled was dense, made only of bare rock, with few signs of the spring that had now blanketed most of the land. A dead, festering place.