Starborn. Katie MacAlister

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      Chapter 3

      Deosin Langton was bored almost to the point of insensibility. Racin’s yammering didn’t help matters.

      “Your death will mean nothing to me. Nothing to my queen. It will be completely trivial.”

      Not a man who was at all comfortable with inactivity, Deo yawned, and idly scratched a spot on his left pectoral. He wondered if something had bitten him under the silver harness that crossed his torso, tried to remember if he had seen signs of fleas on the rat that rode on the shoulder of the guard who delivered his meals, but decided that of the two, the rat was likely the cleaner.

      “I grow tired of asking you questions. Give me one reason why I should not gut you where you stand. Er…lie.”

      Now there was an itch on his back. He shifted a little on the cot, making a mental note to ask the woman who brought him water and took out his chamber pot to arrange for his bedding to be washed. No doubt the guard was the one with fleas.

      “You think your silence will save you, but it will not!” The man who stood at the door raised his voice until it echoed around the stone cell in which Deo had lived for almost an entire year. Deo paused at that thought, distracted, and glanced over to the opposite wall, where he’d used a sharp piece of flint to scratch out a tally of weeks spent imprisoned. He counted. “Kiriah blast it, I forgot last week!”

      “Nothing can save you, not your silence, not my queen’s pleas, not even your beloved twin goddesses,” ranted Racin, the captain of the Harborym, watching him with black eyes that were now tinted red, a color that almost perfectly matched his skin. “You will die as surely as the rest of your kind.”

      Deo made a neat mark next to a row that closed out that month and decided that his boredom warranted a little reward. He turned and gave Racin a long look. Nothing had changed about Racin in the last almost-year. He stood a good two heads taller than Deo; his body bound by leather and steel, his face twisted with anger. Long black hair slithered across shoulders bulging with muscles that were grotesque, a parody of mankind. Deo knew well how the use of chaos magic changed the body—he, himself, showed the signs of consuming chaos—but the changes wrought to Racin were extreme to the point of making him an abomination.

      He certainly had the personality of a body louse. Deo opted for a raised eyebrow to express his disdain. “Ah. Was that you speaking? I wasn’t paying attention.”

      Racin’s lips drew back in a snarl, giving Deo much satisfaction. There were few things he liked more than baiting Racin, although his mother had begged him to cease doing so after the last time.

      The last time was delicious. And look what it got you! A new domicile, new attendants, and the respect of the Speaker.

      Deo frowned to himself even as Racin ranted in front of him.

      Speaker? What did that mean? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask the chaos magic that spoke in his mind just what it meant, but in time he remembered his promise to Dasa. There would be no more deaths of innocents. Not at his hands, anyway.

      He eyed Racin, who was now gesticulating with one hand, little flecks of spittle flying as the monstrous man heaped verbal abuse upon Deo’s head. “Who is the Speaker?” he asked.

      “—just as soon as I learn how it is you have mastered that which eludes me—what?” For the time it took to count to six Racin stared at Deo, his eyes glowing hot with ire as he narrowed them. “I am the Speaker!”

      “Of what?” Deo thought for a moment; then, aware of the scars on his back from numerous whippings made by countless tutors who believed the only way to teach was to beat facts into him, he made a face and corrected himself. “Rather, to whom?”

      Racin seemed to swell. His chest puffed out until Deo was concerned the leather bands crossing it might snap, sending the steel rivets ricocheting around his small cell. “I am the Speaker of the Unseen Shadow, the Master of the Dark.”

      “I have not heard of this,” Deo said, frowning. He disliked it when people had knowledge that they withheld from him. “Who is this master?”

      Nezu, the chaos magic whispered СКАЧАТЬ