Pieces of Eight (The Frey Saga, #2)(52)

Before I knew what was happening, I was stepping forward. Steed, caught off guard, struggled to stop me but I was determined, and I was the first to speak.

"You," I growled directly to the beast, who seemed for a fraction of a second as shocked as the rest of the room. He did not respond verbally, but quickly recovered and straightened his shoulders to stand proud. He might have been twice my size.

I could feel Chevelle and Steed as they tried to pull me back, force me behind them, but I stood fast. I saw the symbol of the guard on his chest and wanted to burn him. "You killed Fannie?" I demanded, not recognizing my own voice.

He did not answer and my hand came up to punish him. The others moved quickly to stop me, my own guard protecting me from my ignorance. I couldn't feel ashamed.

Asher's barking laugh caught everyone's attention. He seemed to find the incident very amusing. I glared at him and his hand tightened on his staff. "You forget your place, Elfreda."

I was speaking before I realized my intention. "She was your daughter."

He shook his head calmly. "No longer. She had turned against me." It was a warning. A clear, sincere warning.

Chevelle's voice was low in my ear as he pulled me back once more to plead, "No, Freya."

Asher's gaze flicked to Chevelle then. "Ah, still whispering in her ear, Vattier." He spoke with such distaste I couldn't stop myself from looking back to see Chevelle's response. It was cold and hostile.

"She will learn," Asher continued and I noticed something behind him, a movement of his cloak. I glanced down to see that it was not his own, but a second cloak of the same material, a small figure huddled on the floor behind him. With horror, I recognized what it was by the feel of its mind.

My face met Asher's in a moment of disgust and loathing and he suddenly smiled as if he had just received the greatest of pleasures. "So it is true," he whispered.

And the wind was knocked out of me at my own stupidity. How long I had spent fearing his knowledge and I had just given him my last secret, without a scrap of resistance.

I felt all eyes in the room on me as Asher watched my features rearrange with open delight. He must have been eager to share with them his new awareness, because he stepped slightly to the side to allow a partial view of the woman behind him. There was an intake of breath as they all registered what I had already seen. Human. And then, part of them looked back at me appraisingly, now understanding the exchange.

"You'll not have her," Chevelle warned, unexpectedly stirring the entire room back to readiness.

Asher laughed again. "You'll not stop me."

He raised his staff a fraction of an inch and the whole room ceased movement. Everyone.

I had no idea what he was doing, but I couldn't take my eyes off the human behind him. Her eyes were on me, too, wide and terrified, and I saw that they were nearly the same soft brown as her hair, which could be seen beneath the large hood of her cloak. Her skin was pale and she was unquestionably weary but there was something else, something that didn't seem right, I just couldn't place exactly what. Humans were so odd, but this one seemed... wrong.

I felt Asher's eyes on me and I glanced up to see that he was still smiling as the room remained motionless, and it was as if, for once, the world was working at the same pace as my mind. I was trying to understand what was happening around me, how this would turn out, what I should do, if I would scream when they burned me - and then my eyes were back on the human. The woman. She was clutching her stomach, holding herself protectively, the mass beneath her cloak. She was swollen with child.

Flames flew from my hands before I could stop them, my eyes bored into Asher's, focused on my strike, and he remained smiling a confident, unpleasant smile.

The fire I'd thrown at him might have been the strongest I'd ever produced, but it fell short. He had barely twitched to deflect it and I could already feel the drain it had caused me. The anger waned and I suddenly understood the graveness of the situation. I understood everything as it fell together perfectly, horribly, absolutely.

I knew why Fannie's body lay on the ground before us. She'd been the animal that had mutilated the bodies of the human and the elf they had named Deimos. He'd been Asher's guard and he'd been minding the human. A broodmare, just as the unfortunate woman who was now cowering behind Asher was. Her eyes were still on me, beseeching, as I bathed in the knowledge. Asher had killed his own daughter for slaughtering his children, his half-bred offspring that she'd thought a perversion. I couldn't place my feelings for Fannie now. She’d had a cruel life and, though she'd been instrumental in my mother's death, I couldn't say it was her fault. She'd tried then to prevent the horror she knew was coming, and this time, she'd stood alone against her father to end what all of us abhorred. Now she was gone, at his hand.

And I knew that he'd planned it, the slaughter of council by my guard. He'd wanted it not merely because they intended to stop him, he'd had another agenda, and now I understood. I could see him there at the battle, the spellcaster whispering chants at the edge of notice until Junnie pursued him. I recognized why Ruby had owned a book on magic, remembered how she had spoke of stealing one's power by taking their life, releasing their energy to use as your own. All of this in his quest for power.

But that wasn't all, and I knew that, too. I recalled Grey's words and it sickened me further, that they had all known. They had known there would only be one outcome, they had known that every move they made would bring us all here, to this one moment, that I would never be released without meeting this eventuality. Merely one more to release my bonds. It was Asher. He was the final remaining captor of my mind, and he had no intention of freeing me.