Blood Runner: Book Three of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER TWO

Krayson appreciated the water given to him. The food as well, spare as it was. The surgeon had brought him an end of bread and a steaming mug of chicken broth. Krayson downed it all, uncaring of how it burned his throat. It was the first meal he'd had since returning to the City of Althandor.

"Severe dehydration," the surgeon was saying, as if Krayson wasn't there, or laying on a slab to await a pyre. "He was kept without water for weeks. Your Highness, he should not be alive."

Of course I am alive, Krayson thought. I am a blood runner.

Princess Maya didn't respond. She stood in the doorway of the surgeon's infirmary. Watching. Her cowled eyes were making him itch between the shoulder blades. Unpleasant.

The surgeon must have shared Krayson's opinion. He glanced sidelong at the princess before resuming his list of Krayson's injuries. Malnourishment. Internal bleeding. Fractured bones. Nothing unexpected, and all easily remedied by bread, broth, and the alchemical potions he kept. He, of course, also made mention of Krayson's eyes. They always did. Krayson had red irises that marked him as surely as Maya's marked her. Not for elder blood, but for blood magic.

Krayson was a blood mage— a sanctioned blood mage— and a brother of the Sanguine Fraternal Order. A misnomer. Women joined the Order also, yet they were still called brothers. The master blood runners had a fragile masculinity that wouldn't survive an hour in the scarlet steppes of Teularon.

As he finished his meager meal, Krayson cast quick and unnoticed glances at his hosts. Maya remained unsettling. The surgeon had black hair, dark and narrow eyes. Slim and of middling height. Unassuming and easily overlooked until he opened his mouth. Then, he was filled with self-righteous thunder. He was typical Althandi.

The surgeon might have been noble born. It was even probable. The Highest King was unlikely to take a commoner into his service. Whatever house he belonged to would remain a mystery. His coat bore the royal colors, silver and cerulean. "In the service" they called it, signing one's life away to a power greater than themselves.

Krayson held back a derisive laugh. The once enslaved perpetrated much that harkened to the tyranny of Shan Alee, yet they refused to acknowledge the fact that, while the players might change, the game always remained the same.

Those with power ruled those without.

Changing that would take a miracle. Krayson had seen more of the world than most. He'd studied the texts of hierarchs and foreign magisters. Powers arcane were his to command. The truth of the secret history had been taught to him by the Order. And in all that knowledge, he'd learned a truth just as absolute as the truth of power, that miracles did not exist.

Some things came close. His healed jaw, courtesy of Her Exalted Highness' elder magic, might have been one of them. However, he knew it was not a gift of kindness, but a means to an end. Her ends, specifically. He was to speak, because Maya Algara wished to hear what he had to say. No other reason. Kindness was as unfamiliar to House Algara as...

As...

Krayson frowned. He'd started that simile with confidence, and now he was drawing a blank. He blamed his time in the dungeon and took another drink of broth.

Maya had no fear of him, and she had no reason to. Krayson's healed jaw would allow him to speak his incantations, the method used by witches to cast spells, but Maya could kill him if he uttered a single syllable in the Aeldenn Tones. She wouldn't even blink.

Captain Falar arrived at the infirmary. Ceremonial armor polished and crested helm in place, she looked fit to stand her post at King Cathis' side. She gave Maya a salute before speaking. "His Grace asks again for the prisoner. Your father demands he be brought to the throne room at once."