head. He had moved too soon and lost.
She called her guards to take him to his cell, speaking with perfect indifference. “You will fight in the Qatilah tonight. I will send Arian to watch you.”
Daniyar risked another question, knowing he had nothing to lose. “What of my blood, Lania? Why do you collect it for the Authoritan? What use does he make of it?”
She moved to stand before him, raising her hand to his chin to tilt down his head. She gazed into his eyes, focusing her attention on the silver pinpoints. “Yes,” she murmured. “You have the birthright of the Silver Mage, just as the Black Khan shares the mark of the Dark Mage. I have often wondered how a Mage is chosen and marked. Your eyes give your birthright away. They are remarkable. They gift you with your powers. They keep you alive in the Qatilah.”
But that was only part of it, and Daniyar knew better than to share with her the rest. How he too had some small knowledge of the Claim to aid him in unobtrusive ways.
She smiled a secret smile suggesting she already knew. “Your blood is magic,” she said to Daniyar. “And you are magic, my lord.”
Though he needed to know how his blood was usurped, she told him nothing else.
How beautiful and lost she was, he thought.
As he had nearly lost himself.
THE TECHNOLOGIST EXAMINED THE SUBJECT ON THE TABLE. SHE HAD passed out, her exquisitely dark limbs lying limp. Some of his men had asked to use her, but she was not a prize to be squandered on the base desires of rabble.
There was something about this Companion.
Though she craved the needle, the gas affected her differently than it did the others. When he gave her a respite, she thrashed with all her strength against her restraints, her liquid-dark eyes sharp with rage. She became clearer, more powerful, more certain of who she was. And though she couldn’t speak, her eyes promised him a savage revenge.
It was intriguing. It was exciting.
He bent over her, his barbed fingers tracing the thin white circles the mask had outlined on her tautened flesh. She was nothing like the women of the Tilla Kari, cosseted and indulged. Her limbs were lean and muscular, capable and well formed. A delicious sense of possibility curled through his awareness. What use could he make of this creature? How could he bend her to his will? How long would it take to wrench the beauty of the Claim from her throat?
He pressed his thumbs against her larynx. How easy it would be to silence her for good. He very much wanted to, but there was more to learn from the gifts of this Companion from the Negus. To her credit, between her screams she’d tried to calm herself by murmuring verses of the Claim. He’d increased the volume of the gas, and her voice had fallen silent, but it still preserved the strength the Companion contained within.
But perhaps this was too much too soon. He wanted to see everything the gas could achieve. He wanted her to know what she was losing.
He wanted to take from her, but he also wanted her to surrender everything she had to him. Everything she was, this remarkable, undamaged creature. He felt intoxicated by the thought.
He reached behind him for the tray, collecting an instrument he’d designed especially for members of the Salikhate. A generation ago, this had been the name taken by Salikh’s compatriots. The Basmachi were a far cry from what the Salikhate had once been, illiterate and ill schooled in the Claim. This Companion was different. He could feel the Claim shivering through her, its flavor musky and sweet. A frisson of pleasure spiraled through his body.
How excellent it had been to have both Salikh’s daughters under his care. How much he missed them now! Larisa he’d taken more easily than planned, but Elena—ah, Elena had resisted with a rare and beautiful fire. The memory of her impotent fury warmed his thoughts, just as her loss was like a winter of the soul.
But now he had another young woman under his care, a woman from the lands of the Negus, a Companion such as he’d never known, and he felt reborn, fire lighting his blood. If he could keep the Companion alive, and if the Khanum would send the First Oralist to Jaslyk, he would be able to use them against each other, just as he had used the sisters Salikh.
The Technologist held a peculiar double-pronged instrument up to the light in the room. His men shifted a step or two away from him—they knew the Malleus would reduce the Companion to a frothing mess of blood. They knew what the Technologist was capable of.
This Companion would soon be at his mercy. He bent closer to Sinnia’s head and applied the curved blades of the Malleus to her ear.
“You will learn,” he whispered.
THE HOWLS OF THE DOGS HAD SUBSIDED, THOUGH ELENA COULD HAVE wished now for their barking to cover the sound of their bodies wriggling through the tunnel. The space was narrower than she remembered, or perhaps it was only that she was better fed, fitter, and stronger than the last time she’d used the tunnel for safe passage.
Larisa found the end of the tunnel, pulling her sister up and out into the darkness of the prison block’s silent wing. The sisters worked without light, feeling their way along the walls. There would be a pair of guards at the end of the wing, but the guards would have grown lax in the absence of resistance. They knew the inmates the wing housed were too drugged to be capable of rebellion. Elena held her bow in her hands, a knife strapped to her leg. She anticipated using both. She passed ahead of her sister, using a hand signal to mark Larisa’s palm. The tunnel had led them a level or two below the place the screams originated from. Those screams had fallen silent now, and both women feared the reason for it. They had to find the stairs, quickly.
Elena brushed by the window of a cell. A prisoner within murmured at her. It was too dark for him to see her, but somehow he’d sensed her presence. His calls became more insistent, drawing the attention of the Ahdath.
Cursing to herself, Elena crossed to the ward with Larisa, and waited for the Ahdath to approach the cell. Both drew their bows, but only one man came. The sisters exchanged another signal. Larisa slid to the head of the ward while Elena put away her bow to use her knife. When the Ahdath rattled the door of the prisoner’s cell, Elena slipped up behind him and slit his throat. Before his body could fall, Larisa had loosed her arrow on the guard at the head of the ward.
A prisoner’s face showed at the bars of the cell. “Free me,” he begged.
A grim anger invaded Elena’s thoughts at the pitiless nature of her choices. She shook her head. “Not yet. Wait and be quiet.”
He sobbed to himself as they left him.
Pain struck her hard and deep. Were she here for any other reason, she would not have been able to bear leaving the prisoner behind.
This Companion had best be worth it.
Elena slipped after her sister, helping her drag the Ahdath to join his friend. Another signal passed between the sisters to indicate the passage to the stairs. They were careful with the heavy door, climbing the stairs in the dark.
They had reached the prison’s upper level, and now they could see the torches lit at the watchtowers. The ward was periodically swept with minzars, modified starscopes angled to face the upper levels of Jaslyk. They were stationed along the ramparts that linked the towers. This was the Technologist’s Wing. Sinnia’s screams had come from here. Elena’s thoughts flew to the Companion.
You must bear this. You must survive until we reach you. Else I risked my sister for nothing.
The guard was doubled on this ward, two members of the Crimson Watch positioned at either end. Two more were guards stationed outside a door in the center of the ward. The Salikh sisters crouched