She awoke facedown on a pallet.
Her eyes blinked open, her mind snared in a haze of fog. A scratchy wool blanket chafed her face. Stretching her limbs, she discovered she was not bound in ropes or chains. She pushed herself up and discovered the small rectangular pallet where she lay was inset on a series of bed beams and poles. Light streamed in from a tall, narrow window, the glass so thick and treated that it distorted the view outside.
Hearing a subtle cough, she turned her head and found her kishion sitting on a stool near the window, using gut thread to sew a knife wound on his upper arm. His shirt was stripped down past his waist, and his muscled back was riddled with scars. He jabbed a needle through his own skin without even a flinch and continued to work. A bluish paste was in a grist bowl next to him, and a pestle lay beside it on the windowsill.
Maia sat up, her heart shuddering as she tried to remember how she had gotten there. It was a small cell, sparsely furnished. There was a wooden bench with several trays containing vials and powders. An executioner’s axe hung on a peg on the wall near the only door.
When the kishion finished stitching the wound, he bit off the thread end with his teeth and then cleaned his hands on a rag. He turned and finally noticed her staring at him.
His cheekbone was puffy and bruised. His lip was split with an angry red slash, but the blood had already been mopped up. His nose was a little crooked, and one of his eyes was swollen.
Her heart reached out to him as she realized he had once again saved her life.
“Where is Corriveaux?” she asked, but it came out as a croak. She coughed and tried to swallow, earning a familiar mocking smile from her protector. He grabbed a leather flask from nearby and tossed it to her.
“Across the river by now,” the kishion said curtly. “I almost went after him and finished it, but I could not leave you there unprotected.” He quickly donned his shirt, stretching his wounded arm and wincing slightly.
Maia stared at him, her feelings conflicted. How many times had he saved her? She had tried to banish him, to rid him from her kingdom, but he was as elusive as smoke.
“Where . . . are we?” she asked, looking around the isolated chamber.
“A secret place.” He nodded to the door. “It is pretty thick. It would take a large axe to break that one down. I needed to bring you somewhere safe until you woke.” He gave her a pointed look. “Did you . . . dream?”
She knew what he was asking her. During their journeys together, she had become possessed by the Myriad Ones at nightfall and would often do or say things she could not remember in the morning.
Maia could almost smell the burning stones of the abbey. “Yes,” she answered guiltily. “I did.”
He shrugged his unconcern and then fetched a bloodied rag to dab his split bottom lip. “I killed the kishion who was trying to murder you. I did not have time to move his bulk, so he bloodied up the corridor. My apologies for the mess.”
“An apology is hardly necessary,” she said. “Are we still on the castle grounds?” she persisted, seeking an answer.
He nodded subtly. “But nowhere your people will look. Lady Maia, the spiders are crawling all across the webs, and you do not even see them. The kishion I killed for you? He murdered your spymaster on Flax Street. They sent three others to kill me, you know. I have dealt with the first, but there are two more. If you stay here, they will murder you. You have no idea what is truly happening.”
Maia suppressed another shudder as she stared into the eyes of her menacing companion. The look she saw there frightened her . . . yet she knew she somehow had power over this man. “Then tell me,” she offered, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Before I killed the first man who tried to murder me, I kept him alive and . . . gained some information from him. Corriveaux is intent on unleashing a Void on Comoros. You remember that little village in the mountains?”
“Argus,” she said, nodding curtly. Her heart panged her as she remembered the faithful boarhound from which the town had taken its name.
“He and the Victus plan on doing that and worse in Comoros. They wish to make it uninhabitable. Your people are going to die. All of them.”
Maia frowned, but she did not look away from him. “We will fight him.”
He snorted with laughter. “It would take the combined strength of all the kingdoms to prevent it. No one will leave their own land undefended to come help a pretty young lass new to her throne.” His voice was deadly earnest when he continued. “I will not allow them to destroy you.”
The look he gave her was suddenly . . . tortured. Clenching his jaw, he glanced away from her and hurled the rag onto the windowsill by the pestle. “You need to leave the city, Maia. The spiders are crawling everywhere now. They have been sneaking in for days.”