Reign Shadowfell's Arc

Chapter 24 of 29

The two dead men would not stay hidden long. Reign heard a shutter open two streets over. Somewhere a dog barked and stopped. He looked at Vixen with the prisoner still bent under her claws, and at Lyla in the doorway wiping her knife on her sleeve. First light was hours off. If the watch came before then, the audience with his grandfather ended before it began. He pointed down the street to the shape of an old mill against the sky. "Behind that. Now." Vixen moved first. She took a dead man by the collar and dragged him low through the gutter, quick and quiet on her heels. Lyla took the other by the boots. Reign kept his hand on the prisoner's shoulder and walked him ahead of them at a normal pace, like a drunk being led home. Behind the mill they found a dry water trough set against the wall, split at one end and full of leaves. Vixen tipped the first body in. Lyla rolled the second on top. They pulled the leaves back over and kicked dirt across the drag marks in the alley. It took less than a minute. Reign was already turning to the man on his knees. He crouched and took the prisoner's jaw in one hand. The man tried to look away. Reign turned the face back to his own and held the eyes. The amulet warmed under his shirt. He let the hunger rise into his voice, low and even. "You will walk with me," he said. "You will not shout. You will not run. When we reach my room you will sit where I tell you and answer what I ask." He watched the man's pupils widen and slack. The fight went out of the shoulders. When Reign stood, the prisoner stood with him and followed at his heel like a hound. They climbed the back stair the same way they had come down. Reign went first, the prisoner behind, Vixen and Lyla last. He turned the key soft and pushed the door open. Lux came off the bed in a blur of teeth and claws, a snarl already in his throat, small horns down. The imp lunged at the stranger's leg. Then he saw Reign step in behind, and stopped mid-air, and dropped to the floor with his tail curled tight. "You left," Lux said. His voice cracked. "You left me." "You earned the sleep," Reign said. He shut the door and drew the bolt. He pushed the prisoner into the chair by the window and stood over him. The man sat where he was put and folded his hands in his lap. Reign looked at the slack, waiting face and thought of the name the man had spoken in the street. Merida. "Now," he said. "Tell me how you knew my mother."