Elliana Morris's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Elliana sat on the coins where Silas had pointed. The metal was cold through her clothes. He stayed on his feet in front of the throne of bones, hands folded, waiting for her answer. She tried to think of one that would keep her alive. "I moved into the house six weeks ago," she said. "The cellar went cold. I found the archway behind the crates. I came down because I wanted to know what was under my own floor." "Who owned the house before you." "I don't know. The sale went through a bank." Silas tilted his skull. The orange in his eye sockets narrowed. "Someone unsealed that door from your side. Not you." "I know. The bricks were stacked in a pile. Whoever did it meant to come back." He was quiet. Somewhere behind her, past the guards at the archway, a sound started. A dry scrape, like a chair pulled across stone. Then a wail, thin and climbing. Elliana turned her head. A shape came fast out of the dark between the columns. It was not a skeleton. It had no bones at all. It was a smear of grey air with a face pulled long, and it came straight at her across the coins, arms out. She threw herself sideways. The thing's fingers passed through her shoulder and the cold went into her chest like a swallowed nail. She hit the gold and rolled. It turned in the air to come back. Silas moved. He lifted a gold staff she had not seen him holding, crowned with a blue stone, and struck the butt of it once against the stone floor. The sound was small. The result was not. Blue flame burst around the grey shape, wrapped it, and ate it in one breath. The wail cut off. Ash drifted down onto the coins and went out. The two skeleton guards were already at the archway. A third figure struggled between them, another grey shape, this one bound in a loop of pale light one of the guards had cast around it. They dragged it back into the dark corridor without a word from Silas. Their boots clicked and faded. Elliana stayed on her hands and knees. Her shoulder still burned cold. Silas lowered the staff. He looked at the place where the soul had been, then at her. For the first time his voice was not level. "That should not have happened," he said. "Nothing in this hall moves without my say." "It came for me." "I saw." He was quiet a long moment. "I don't know why." He stepped down off the pile of coins and stopped an arm's length from her. The crown caught the lantern light. "Stand up," he said. "The interrogation is finished. We have a worse question now. Something in my hall wants you dead, and it did not ask me first."