Reign Shadowfell's Arc

Chapter 10 of 29

Two days of walking put the manor in front of them at dusk. The road bent out of the trees and there it stood, black stone stacked into towers, purple spires cutting the sky. A raven was carved above the gate, an ouroboros in its beak. Reign stopped at the tree line without meaning to. Vixen stopped with him. Lyla halted a half step behind his shoulder. The imp crouched by his boot and watched the gate the way a dog watches a door it knows how to open. Two guards stood at the gate in dark mail. Reign felt them before they saw him. His senses had been sharpening for days, and now the two of them registered like heat against his skin, cold and thin and lesser. He put his hand on the amulet under his shirt. He did not draw it out. He wanted to know what would happen if he did not. He walked. Vixen at his left, Lyla at his right, the imp trotting ahead. When he was ten paces from the gate the taller guard's head snapped up. The shorter one made a small sound in his throat. Both went to one knee at the same moment, heads down, hands flat against the stone. Neither had seen the stone at his chest. They had felt what wore it. Reign kept walking. He did not look down at them as he passed. He heard Vixen let out a breath she had been holding since the reeds. The courtyard opened wide. Torches were already lit along the inner wall. A man waited at the foot of the steps with his hands folded in front of him. He was tall and thin, hair the color of iron, a long dark coat buttoned to the throat. He did not kneel. He watched Reign cross the stones toward him and his face did not change, but Reign saw the pupils widen, saw the small shift in the shoulders as the man's own senses answered the pressure coming off him. "My lord," the man said. His voice was even. "I am Jackson. I keep this house." He looked past Reign to Vixen, then to Lyla, then down at the imp. He did not ask about them. He looked back at Reign. "May I see it." Reign pulled the chain from under his shirt. The red stone caught the torchlight, the silver serpent and the raven bright against it. Jackson looked at the amulet for a long moment. Then he stepped aside and turned toward the open doors. "Your father's study is as he left it," he said. "There are papers you should read tonight. Some of them concern your mother. Some of them concern the ones still looking for you." He did not wait for an answer. He walked into the house, expecting Reign to follow.