Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [40]
Daine rose to his feet. His eyes were closed, and his lips were moving, though he made no sound. The burning light of the dragonmark had faded, but there were erratic pulses every few seconds. Dreck and the dark elf said nothing and made no sound, and disturbed as she was by the scene, Thorn thought it wise to follow suit.
At last Daine opened his eyes. The lines across his left eye gleamed, and Thorn was certain that the patterns across his face were in a different configuration than when she’d first seen him.
“You may return to your duties, Dreck,” he said. He looked at the dark elf. “Xu’sasar, dispose of the bodies and take Thorn below.”
“You will be alone,” the drow woman Xu’sasar said. Clearly she disapproved.
“I am never alone,” he replied. A glimmer of light passed through his dragonmark, and the lines along his arm rose up from his flesh once more. These glowing tendrils were an inch from his flesh when they froze. Daine clenched his fist and grimaced, and the mark settled back down against his skin. “Nothing in this place will hurt me. Now do as I say. I will address the house when I am ready.”
Dreck inclined his head. The drow woman clicked her tongue against her teeth.
Daine looked back at Thorn. He was gritting his teeth, and it was clear he was in pain. But he still smiled slightly as he met her eyes. And there was that same look in his eyes, that sense of recognition. “Welcome to House Tarkanan, Lady Thorn. Steel yourself. We have much to do in the days ahead.”
Before she could speak, he turned away and strode out of the room.
There was a change in the air when the Son of Khyber left the room—the sense that a charge had dissipated. Thorn realized that the stone at the base of her spine had been ice-cold for the past few minutes, chilling the flesh around it. She’d been so distracted by the stranger that she hadn’t noticed, and now it was the fading chill that caught her attention.
Fileon’s corpse and the body of the Cannith boy were still stretched out on the floor. Beetles and other insects were crawling across their skin. Thorn examined Merrix’s son, trying to make sense of what she’d seen. The boy’s skin was smooth and pale, and he wasn’t breathing. There were no obvious injuries, save for the hole at the center of his chest—the socket that had once held the metal sphere.
“Explain this,” she said to Dreck.
“It is just what it seems, beloved. A vessel of flesh grown to house the consciousness held within the sphere. The original child died seven years ago, and Lady Ilena could not conceive again. But Lord Merrix was determined to produce an heir, even if he had to produce that heir.”
Thorn ran her fingers over the corpse, feeling its cooling skin. Studying the boy’s face, there was nothing to suggest that he was anything but human. “How many more of these are there?” she said. “Can he make them to look like specific people?”
“I do not know, beloved. I served in Lord Merrix’s household, and he forged my form with his hands. I learned of the boy before I fled. I know that he was first of his kind, and that the sphere that held his soul was something Merrix acquired, not his creation. But it has been a year since I parted ways with my maker, and I know nothing of his recent work.”
The mere thought that Cannith could produce people brought bile to her throat. And yet … the love of a parent was a powerful thing. Perhaps the boy was unique, created solely to fill the gap in Ilena’s wounded heart. She needed more information.
“Enough.” If the drow Xu’sasar felt any remorse or sympathy for the dead, she didn’t show it. She pushed the bodies into the chasm in the center