The Invisible Ring

Chapter Sixteen

Barely dawn. Barely light enough to see. Didn’t matter.

Krelis drove his knife into the straw man that hung from the whipping posts. He didn’t strike between the ribs and into the heart for a fast kill, but in the belly, in the guts. Over and over again.

The straw man swung back and forth with each blow. Back and forth.

Over and over and over.

There was nothing wrong with his plan. Nothing.

Except that bitch-Queen had tricked him from the very beginning.

Except the High Priestess was becoming impatient.

That wasn’t good. It wasn’t safe.

But it wasn’t his fault that Gray-Jeweled bitch had tricked him. It wasn’t his fault that the side scheme Dorothea had arranged with another Black Widow had ruined a good ambush. It wasn’t his fault that his relatives regarded his mother as the family whore, an accommodation when a more socially powerful male deigned to visit them. It wasn’t his fault that the damn man who had sired him couldn’t keep his mouth shut, couldn’t accept that all of Terreille was slowly changing, not just the lousy little Province he lived in.

It wasn’t his fault.

Stab stab stab.

“Lord Krelis.”

And now he had to deal with that aristo bastard Maryk who must resent every breath he took because Maryk now had to yield to him when, just six months ago, Maryk had been giving him orders.

“Lord Krelis.”

Breathing hard, Krelis stepped away from the straw man and stared at his second-in-command.

Something slithered in the depths of Maryk’s eyes as he regarded the figure tied to the whipping posts.

“He was a difficult slave,” Maryk said carefully, lifting his voice at the end to make it almost a question.

Puzzled. Krelis looked at the straw man.

He saw the blood. Smelled the bowel. And couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d exchanged the straw practice figure for a living man.

“I’ll take care of it,” Maryk said quietly. “Get cleaned up.”

Krelis dropped the knife and walked away, stumbling a little now that the fury was gone. Stumbling a little, and feeling more than a little sick, because the something in Maryk’s eyes was pity.