Page 219 of Brimstone

Below, a thrumming mass jostled and shouted. Thousands of people were gathered beneath my head, and from their raised voices and the way they were throwing their fists in the air, they were celebrating something monumental.

Khydan.

Where the fuck was my mate?

I couldn’t spin. Couldn’t turn. Open space stretched out around me, eventually giving way to darkness. My arms hung loosely over my head. Pain sang along every nerve I possessed as I tried to reach down to my hips. My short swords. My knives. Were they still there?

Relief exploded in my chest as my hand found hot metal. The hilts of my god swords were almost too hot to touch, but theywerethere. And so was Khydan. When I’d moved my arms, I’d turned a fraction—just enough to see him hanging upside down in the air next to me. His chest plate was still strapped tight,Nimerelle still in her scabbard. Khy’s face was pale and running with sweat. His eyes were closed, eyelashes stark, midnight-black against his skin. Even passed out, he looked troubled, a small frown drawing his brows together as if he were hammering at the door of his consciousness, demanding to be let back into his body.

A thick chain, pitted orange with flaking rust, looped around his ankles, suspending him. The same kind of chain cinched around my own feet, cutting off my circulation. Above, a huge statue of a robed figure clasped the ends of the lengths of chain in its huge stone hand. There were other lengths of chain dangling from the statue’s grasp, some longer than the ones we were suspended from. Some shorter. All were vacant bar one.

A corpse hung from a chain dangling from the statue’s other hand. The body—or what was left of it—was rotting, its skin swollen and purple, its tongue fat and protruding through its teeth. The remains of a shredded white cape hung from its shoulders, partially shrouding its head from view. A huge black spear with a vicious, serrated razor head lanced through the body’s torso—a very clear cause of death.

The cheering below surged, reaching a fever pitch of excitement.

Khydan?Why the hell was I whispering? I wasn’t speaking out loud.Khy!

Nothing. He couldn’t hear me. Couldn’t answer.

A maelstrom of energy whipped and whirled behind my breastplate, begging to be unleashed. The magic tied to my quicksilver rune was awake here. Alert. It would answer if I called, there was no doubt about that. But who the fuck was I supposed to attack? There were thousands of people—

“Silence.”

The noise stopped. My uneven breath was all I could hear.

Below, the mass of bodies was so quiet it felt as though they’d suddenly disappeared. They hadn’t. They stood stock-still, their arms by their sides, staring straight ahead, none of them looking up at their new captives.

The voice that had ordered silence spoke again, the sound reverberating and inhumane. No creature—human, Fae, or otherwise—had a voicethatlow. “Bring them down,” it intoned.

No one on the hall floor stirred. There must have been others lurking in the shadows, because a moment passed and then the thick chains clanked, jerked, and dropped us. We only fell a foot before the tension returned to the chain, but terror still turned my blood to ice. I didn’t scream. It was damned near impossible to trap the cry behind my teeth, but somehow, I managed it.

With more clanking and jerking, the chains slowly began to descend toward the hall floor.

Cursed Fae eyesight. I’d already been able to see what was going on below perfectly, but with every inch we lowered, more details came into view.

The sickly pale cast of the people’s faces.

Their cold, oddly flashing eyes.

Their threadbare clothes and worn leathers, and the weapons strapped to their chests, hips, and backs.

The crowd was an even split of males and females, from what I could tell. Some had pointed ears, some rounded—both human and Fae.

“Khydan?” I spoke loud now.“Khy!”Speaking into his mind hadn’t worked. Maybe the sound of my voice would help wake him. “Shit’s getting weird out here. I couldreallyuse you right now.”

He didn’t stir. Damp waves of hair hung in his face. He might have been unconscious, but the ink on the backs of his hands was not; it swirled wildly, forming shapes and geometric patterns that I didn’t recognize.

We were almost two thirds of the way to the ground now.

“Khydan!”I let my fear slip in this time. I could not navigate whatever was about to happen alone. Ineededhim. “Please, Khy.Wake. Up.”

In an instant, eyes the color of the tall grasses that grew around Ballard met mine. Silver rimmed the pupil of his right eye, constricting the pool of black with a band of solid quicksilver. It didn’t move. Didn’t shift. I could feel it bristling, attention sharp, reading the situation. “Saeris,” Khy whispered. We were hanging upside down in a strange new place. Danger waited for us below, but my mate’s gaze didn’t waver from mine. “Breathe,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Only once he’d said this did he glance away to assess our surroundings. His mouth flattened into a taut line as he took it all in.

There was no dais here. A circle had formed in the middle of the crowd, at the center of which stood two figures. As the ground approached, I braced, tucking my shoulders up as best I could to protect my head and neck. It didn’t do much good. The top of my head cracked against the stone as I struck the ground, and then I toppled, landing hard on my side.

Boots and filthy bare feet: That was all I could see for a split second. I tried to sit up, to kick my feet free of the chains, but no sooner had I touched down than there were hands under my arms, dragging me . . . dragging me upright.