Page 61 of Brimstone

The statement rocked me a little. It undid me at the same time. “You believe that we were made by the gods? Put here by them, as part of some grand design?”

Taladaius snorted. “No, I don’t. I think that one day a magician folded some paper and created these birds.” He let his head drop back, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as he watched the silent birds swooping and wheeling high above our heads. “I think it took a curious mind to combine the ingredients it took to make us, too. But that’s all. Where any kind of life exists,magicproliferates, Saeris. We create all the wonders of this realm just by being present to witness them, and it’s always magic that lights the way. That is whatIbelieve.”

“He speaks like he knows what he’s talking about,” a dry voice observed from the shadows. It was the same voice that had demanded we close the door.

Tal’s smile became rueful as he turned to face the female who hobbled out of the stacks. She was stooped double, her back hunched, shoulders hiked up around her ears. Deep wrinkles lined her face. The puff of hair floating around her head was as white as the fresh snow that capped Omnamerrin. I had only seen her once before, at my coronation.

Algat’s eyes were shrunken into her head, black and glassy as the obsidian walls of the palace. They skipped over Taladaius asif she found nothing of import where he was sitting and homed in on me with startling intensity. Hobbling, she descended the stairs and crossed the library, then gripped the back of a chair as, slowly and grumbling openly, she sank to her knees in front of me. “What anhonorthis is, my queen,” she rasped. “A visit from our new regent. And so finely dressed, too.”

She didn’t hide her sarcasm; it was an artless jab. My fighting leathers were in poor taste, apparently. My boots were mud-spattered and worn. But this was the Lord of Midnight who had made me feed from Fisher in front of the entire court. She was also the one my mate had told me to be most wary of. I didn’t give a flying fuck what she thought about my clothes or the state of my boots. She was lucky I didn’t make her clean them while she was down there.

She grinned up at me, displaying yellowed, blunt canines. “I knew you’d find your way up here eventually. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Is that so?” Ice hardened my words. I liked very little about the old female. I especially didn’t like the way she eyed me as she scratched the back of her hand.

“Indeed, indeed. Might I get up now, child? These old bones of mine don’t like the draft down here.”

It would have been petty to say no. Reluctantly, I gave her a stiff nod. “You may rise.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. You have mydeepestgratitude.” The crone didn’t even flinch as she popped up from the floor and sprang away, suddenly as nimble as a newborn lamb. “As I was saying, I have been waiting for your arrival. After all, youarehungry.”

The accusation made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “No, I’m not.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, you are. I feel your hunger beating like a pulse all the time.”

“I don’t need to feed,” I told her in a clipped tone, but she shook her head, her jowls wobbling.

“Not for blood, King Killer. For information. For home. Forrelease.” She cackled as she spoke that last word, like it was something lewd, to be ashamed of. “I feel you hungering at all hours,” she continued. “Insatiable, you are. Alwayswanting.”

I rounded on Tal. “This is what you brought me here for?Thisis how you thought you were going to help me?”

The vampire splayed his hands wide, sighing. “Sometimes the medicine tastes bad, Saeris.”

“How isshethe medicine?”

“I am the Keeper of Records, child,” Algat sniffed. “I know them all better than they know themselves. There are books within this room that you would like to meet. It’s withinmypower to facilitate an introduction.”

My spine stiffened. “This library doesn’t have any books on Alchemy,” I said.

Algat’s eyebrows had ceased to exist a long time ago, it seemed, but the patch of skin where they had once been rose high up her forehead. “Is that so?”

“Yes. Belikon wiped the whole realm clean of any information pertaining to the Alchemists and their power.”

The ancient female aimed a very serious expression at me, nodding her head sagely, but she couldn’t keep it up; she burst out laughing before I was finished speaking. “Oh, child. Youarewet behind the ears. Did you finish suckling at your mother’s teat yesterday?”

“Algat,” Tal said in a warning tone. “Remember who you’re speaking to.”

The female scowled at the silver-haired Lord. “My memory is as sharp as yours and then some, wraith. I know exactly to whom I speak. King Killer. Day’s End. The Last Tide. Namebreaker—”

“Enough!” Tal brought his fist crashing down onto the table. The ancient female cut off her tirade, a rope of spittle dangling from her top lip. She stared at Tal for a second, her face expressionless, but the air was suddenly still, thick with a prickling tension.

Tal kept her locked in his sights. He didnotlook away.

“All right, then!” Algat clapped her hands together, suddenly standing on the other side of the table. Where the hell had shecomefrom? I hadn’t seen her move. As she swung around, her body moved in a jerky, unnatural way that made my skin crawl. “Belikon De Barra! Belikon De Barra!” she chanted in a childish, high-pitched voice that was nothing like her earlier croak. “The king of the Yvelian Fae has never stepped foot across the threshold of your domain,my queen,” she said mockingly. “My father forbade it. That poisonous old toad has never sought an audience withmybooks. They are intact.”

I didn’t want her to know what kind of an effect this news was having on me, but I wasn’t quick enough. The stooped female heard my pulse quicken, and a rotten smile slowly crept across her face.

“My father was a patron of the Alchemists. He supported their crafts. Nurtured them. Where others saw only danger, Malcolm of Sanasroth saw power.”