Hunger Read online

whether they were being duped into letting a witch into their midst.

  Finding him lacking the answers, they held him. He tried to convince them he was innocent, that he had just been trying to keep her safe.

  She’d be here in mere days, and he had done nothing except alert them to her presence. He was furious with himself and the church. For the first time in his life, Felswen questioned his faith. In fact, he was beginning to detest it. He found the dogma of continuing the Fiendwar ridiculous after four centuries.

  He was beginning to question his charade. Perhaps he should have not chosen to be a priest after all.

  There was a scent in the air. It was laden with meaning, symbolic and sensual. It was the scent of love, and it was terribly, frighteningly familiar to Psamathe as she woke. She started, and glanced around for any nearby people. She looked down, prompted by a strange, sticky sensation. Her chest, her hands, even her neck were dark and glistening in the moonlight. She screamed.

  As she washed her hands and face desperately in the small, rocky pool nearby, she recalled vague memories of washing by moonlight last night as well. Her stomach lurched and she felt ill. It was too much of a coincidence.

  Her fingers ached, her wrists were sore, and there were tiny fragments of bone lodged under her perfect fingernails, but she felt fine. She wasn’t even hungry.

  She cried.

  When the jailer found the door to the dungeon burst open from the inside, his first thought was that something had exploded from below. Not being a smart man, he wondered idly if someone had let a lamp go too long down by the grain. He was contemplating the cost to repair the thick oak door when a fist hammered into his helmet so hard as to knock him to the floor, unconscious, in one blow. He never knew what hit him, and when he woke in the infirmary, he asked if there had been a second explosion.

  Investigators were drawn from lands spread wide. Word was out that a heretic was on the loose inside the Holy City. To save face, and also to cover for their own deceptions, the High Council called for a which hunt, gathering the best they could find.

  He hid in the crevasses and between crenellations as they amassed and searched the city. He waited in the shadows, his body glistening with sweat on his hard silvery scales. He could kill all of them if he wanted, but he didn’t want that reputation.

  He wondered briefly at how he had gotten himself into this mess. Plenty of trouble had happened to him in four centuries, wars had been fought, the Empire had crumbled, nations had risen and fallen, but he had never, ever, walked into such a trap before. He was wondering what was happening to him in his modest age.

  A young assassin came to the call. Impressed, Karnyn watched, unseen even in the High Tower of Duronon. He watched as the High Heirophant gave him orders to eliminate the priest Felswen and his lover, the witch called Psamathe. He’d have to bide his time to escape without being forced to kill a priest. It was the ones at the top who were corrupt, not the clergy. He needn’t blame them. He just needed to get out and after the assassin fast.

  Karnyn Sivi contemplated simply flying.

  The next morning, she had neither the bliss in her steps, nor the crowd that followed it. She took her bag and walked away from the pool as fast as she could without appearing ridiculous. The hunger was back, gnawing like a beast at her stomach, making her knees weak. She thought about trying to go back to Thaeox for food, but they might be looking for someone by now.

  Afraid, lonely, confused, she walked on, her worn shirt still mildly damp. She aired it out while walking, hoping no one would take an interest. She kept a sharp eye out for other travelers as she walked, deeply disturbed by her reflection in that moonlit pond last night. She had looked into her own eyes and had seen only gory joy.

  A band of travelers joined her on the road after lunch. One of them was a young man similar looking to her love, Felswen. She watched him trying to understand, and he caught her watching. He rode over as she averted her eyes, acting in the manner of a peasant.

  “Why do you bear your eyes down, young one?” he inquired, in a voice smooth as silk and deep like thunder. She was beguiled by it, slightly.

  “Because I feel I ought not stare as I did, my lord.”

  “And why not? Are we not all on a path that would make most people call us insane?” he asked, in his seductive voice. His words were mundane, but his saying of them held volumes.

  “Why should we be called insane for walking into Skystone, my lord?” she asked, still playing at being common folk. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she was. She rationalize that she wasn’t lying that way.

  “Because Skystone is full of hazardous magics and horrible monsters. You should take care to watch yourself as we journey to Duronon, lest you lose the group of us. In fact, a lady should never walk when a man has a horse,” he said, sweetly offering his horse to her. She rode, the man leading the animal, for a while of silence before he offered her his hand.

  He introduced himself, “I am Ralvered, a knight of the land.” When she looked at him curiously, he explained, “A knight of the land is a knight with no lord. A man with no home. I wander here and there, looking to fix things and protect people.”

  “I am Psamathe,” she said simply, hoping to sound uninteresting enough that he would not press her background.

  “¡KOf course you are,” he replied, drifting off a bit, forgetting himself. There was something in his words she didn’t like.

  He knew something she didn’t.

  By the time he had managed to leave the Holy City, Karnyn had left in his wake seven unconscious men, three frightened nurses, a dozen confused guards, and no casualties, except a button he had tossed as a distraction. He was rather pleased with his stealth these days. He had seen the assassin change his guise to look like Felswen, who shared the face of Karnyn, but he had not been able to determine when he left or where he went. He assumed he went south, after the one assured mark, probably planning to have her as bait for the other.

  He’d be damned if he harmed her. After almost four centuries, she had finally come back to The Realm, and he had found her. He was not about to loose her to this inadequate fool of a thug hired by a corrupt church official. He’d be speaking to Iain personally about this, when he found time.

  He stole across the landscape, aided by spells of great speed, guided by divinations of surging power. He paused only every few hours to check whether or not he was being followed. Many inhabitants of Skystone ought to be interested to see such a sight as a half-dragon of wondrous pedigree stealthily stalking across the open hills of the Land of Fallen Empires. He might lose valuable time if he was forced to dispatch them.

  Ralvered was an astounding man. Psamathe had not allowed herself the luxury of trust for many days, and this time, she felt herself slip into it easily. This knight was a man of courage and nobility, that much was sure. Her initial reaction must have been tainted by her fear and worry. She brushed those aside now, allowing him to enthrall her with epic tales of his adventures in Suncloak, freeing slaves and thwarting evil magicians. She lay on her belly in his tent with him as he sat cross legged, a strange habit he picked up in his time in the exotic East, and rested her head in her hands as he spun his yarns.

  She listened to his stories of incredible battles, imagining how he might measure against the quiet and honest Felswen. She rather preferred the idea of a man who enjoyed adventures, but she was still desperate to be with Felswen to whom she owed her heart. She missed him so, even listening to Ralvered in his tent. She dare not tell him so, but she imagined Felswen in Ralvered’s place, questing and exploring, whisking her away to countless exotic and dangerous locales.

  After a time, she worried that perhaps she was blending the two men together too much. Perhaps she should simply choose. Ralvered was headed west at the next road, and so she would need to decide whether to follow him on his adventures or to continue on to Athon, a place of terrible magics and dangers that would not be so enjoyable to face.

  She found herself l
aying next to Ralvered, his arm across her waist, contemplating. Awkwardly, she maneuvered away from him, still deeply conflicted. He caressed her back and neck gently, speaking of romantic places and passionate, star-crossed lovers. His speech and touch were alluring. He reached around and pulled her close to him, enveloping her small body in his massive shoulders.

  Karnyn stood before a great beast, a relic of ages past. When his friend Scripto had created them, the creature standing before him had looked something like a hybrid lion and an angel. Now, centuries later, Scripto’s precious warriors had become twisted arcane abominations that feasted on the magic of travelers in Suncloak. He smirked at the semi-intelligent beast.

  Intending to unnerve him, its two companions stalked out of the shadows around him. They had him from all sides. He was trapped. He would have to fight his way out.

  Karnyn Sivi smiled at them a cold and terrible smile, a smile he had learned from a lover long ago. He walked calmly towards the one in front of him and raised his hand. Expecting him to begin casting a spell, the beast stalked back and forth, ready to absorb the magic. Instead, he lunghed forward like a clap of silver thunder, the ground below his feet crumbling as he launched himself at his adversary. Before the other two creatures had time to