Port Sin was the local sobriquet of Cadrianna’s home city of Oldport Basin. It was well known for, well, sin. In fact, Cadrianna’s family had once owned an arena down there called The Arbiter’s Axe. It was a place of blood and death. Before her entire family was killed, the entire Nightingale line cleansed by the Fallen.
“Finally, you send me to a place I deserve,” Solanine gleefully said. “Rinkhal will be pleased we are prepared to move for Ignis. Long has Rinkhal waited. Same with Ialtris. What of Bliss’ Aere? Will you now move on Kalderim? Datura waits for us, Lu Har. Or of Justice’s Aquis in the Voidlands?”
“Cadrianna.” Lu Har’s normally stoic visage turned soft as he faced her. There was a deeper bond between them, something that did, indeed, border on love.
Unless she’d miscalculated the signs. Love was a funny thing, the poets said. Why would I say that, now? Cadrianna felt her heart flutter once in confirmation. Godsdamnit. No, she loathed him, wanted to kill him. Gods, she did love him, too. Why?
“The time has come. The Gutter King would rend Drenth further if we don’t put an end to him. You know what to do.”
It was almost a question, like she was some two-bit trollop sharing his bed, not the Imperium’s most deadly scourge. All because of the blood in her veins. Nightingale blood. She wanted to scream. Strong as stone. Give nothing.
Because of Drenth, her entire existence was tied to this forsaken desert voidhole. Taunting her, as the former wife of the heir. Of Emre’s betrayal. Of her family killed. Of Brynn.
She fingered the daemon blade as the Strix began to weep in the void, a sadness filling her as it filled the blade. Why?
“Go then,” Lu Har said knowingly, pulling her from the sorrow defiling the black daemon blade. He had sown that hate; he knew what consumed her. He knew she would end him given the chance. “Wreak havoc in my name. Spill blood in my name. In our Divine’s name. The Gutter King shall weep when he sees your blade at his throat, my scourge. Do this, and Brynn will be given a week’s reprieve.”
The mere thought of Brynn’s constant pain being stayed for even the slightest amount of time steeled her, gave her purpose. A sickness where the only cure was a betraying lover’s word. O Nocturne, how she would give anything to spare her daughter. “I want to see her first.”
The liar and deceiver that was the Fallen nodded. “Done. See how merciful I can be?” She silently rose from the bed and made to leave but Lu Har held out his hand. “Come to me.”
Her entire being wanted to resist, but her feet went regardless. His large hand encircled the small of her back and pulled her into a kiss. A passionate kiss. Her mind revolted, he had just threatened her daughter, but her body, nay, her soul, couldn’t resist the desire. That repulsive desire that filled her. She felt his manhood stir behind his robe, her own lust rising. Solanine laughed softly and drank the wine.
“CAD, THIS ISN’T YOU.” The Strix was sad, an odd feeling from a sentient daemon borne of the Pit. “DON’T DO THIS. BRYNN WOULDN’T WANT IT. STAY CLEAR OF THE GUTTER KING, YOU DON’T WANT TO UNEARTH THINGS YOU CANNOT STOW AWAY ONCE LEARNED.”
I have to, Strix. For Brynn. Cadrianna smiled daemonly as she pulled away. One more kill, that’s all it was. Then she’d be with Brynn. She’d find the way. “Allow me to see her and I will kill the Gutter King with pleasure.”
“See how easy your life is when you don’t resist?”
I will kill you, Lu Har. I will kill whatever this is, this vile love.
As she donned her own robe and moved toward the door, Solanine mockingly applauded. “Thanks for the show, whore.” The blooddrake-in-humir scales dug into the cleavage of the gown, pushing away an obsidian pendant, and produced a silver quadran. The drake tossed it to Cadrianna, who snatched it out of the air. “Whores cost but a pittance these days.”
Showing the lioness she was, Cadrianna patted the blooddrake’s arm lightly. She leaned close, her robe split hauntingly low. On purpose. Solanine’ eyes went to the runes carved into her breastbone. Life and Death. Aetheurgy and blood. Savior and giver, protector and shield.
“Dearest Solanine, you may have broken me once.” The Strix appeared, pressed against the scales’ jugular. A tiny pinprick of blood welled under the sharpened tip, blackened aether accompanied the blood. Her smiled widened as Solanine scowled, “and the Fallen’s dog you may be, but call me a whore one more time and I’ll make certain you use your tongue again. Your true tongue, blooddrake.”
Cadrianna withdrew the knife.
Solanine snorted as the drake put a hand to their scales’ wounded neck. Lu Har said nothing as he watched with an arm resting on the fireplace’s mantle. There was slight amusement in his eyes. Yes, it was amusement and avidity.
“You wound my pride, daughter of the beast,” Solanine called after her as Cadrianna left Lu Har’s chambers. “Come to Oldport with me once the Gutter King is put down and I’ll show you a grand time in the City of Sin. In your old stomping grounds. I’m certain they can put you to use in the Red Moon District.”
Cadrianna, scourge of the Imperium, knew she’d have to kill Solanine. One day, she’d silence Solanine in retribution for the pain she’d been through by the blooddrake’s clawed talon.
Solanine. Ratko. Lu Har. Thestile already dead. Then her soul would be cleansed. But today was not that day. Another, more important death was waiting for her.
For Brynn.
“CAD, DON’T…”
XVII
Ashe
ASHE’S BRAIN FLUTTERED when her head smacked something hard, jarring her from her drunken stupor. That something hard was the canister of mist affixed to the belt of a female vicar.
She groaned, only to realize the lower half of her face was covered with a protective mask. Resembling a mastiff muzzle, it was inscribed with the connector runes of aether, and it cut her off from her aetheurgy by blocking her access to the mist. It also meant she couldn’t talk either, and that angered the void out of her because she had a plethora of curses ready. She reached to pull it free, but found her hands were tied behind her back. She was stuck. And her head hurt something fierce.
The vicar carried her through the streets of Drenth like a sack of grain. Her head jounced and she squinted to see where she was, and found they were nearing Bar Stock.
When she’d first come to Drenth, Ashe had figured the factories in Bar Stock might be a good starting point to discover about her past because she knew people standing in one place all day long greasing cogs or riveting plate allowed for gossiping hens to cluck. Little did she know but come to realize within a second of stepping foot into a factory constructing airgliders, there was no talk. None at all. The workers diligently did their tasks, faces forlorn and detached from one another.
She hadn’t learned a godsdamned thing about her past from the factories.
Her entire body was full of jelly as her mist-enhanced woman-carriage lugged her roughly to a heavy gate at the far end of Bar Stock, into a simple concrete building with no signage above the metal door, nor were there windows.
Drenth’s prison.
Two oafish Imperium soldiers watched as she bounced against the untainted warrior’s back. She smiled at them from behind her muzzle but then realized they probably couldn’t see it because they frowned back, their auras a simmering bluish shade of boredom. They opened the gate to the prison. Hallway after endless stone hallway, stair after winding stair, they went into the bowels of the prison.
Ashe swore the filthiest words she could think of—muffled, of course—as the vicar dropped her unceremoniously onto the rough ground. It was the curvy vicar from the Guilder’s villa.
Curves undid the magical muzzle and the binds at her wrists, and she rubbed the feeling back into them as she cursed the vicar, who ignored her. The door to her prison was pulled shut with a squeal of rusted hinges. She shouted another curse but then her pulmo burst up her lungs and she coughed for a whole two minutes before it calmed.
The prison cell left little to be desired. Solid stone on three sides, and a metal door with a small window of wrist-thick bars. A bucket to piss in, a small stool that looked like it’d break the moment she sat on it, a tray atop with a jug of water and a bowl of what smelled like porridge flavored with shit instead of spices, and a flimsy straw mattress with more lumps than an aging whore’s ass.
