Free The Brush of Black Wings by Grace Draven Page A

logic to her flight, no destination she tried to reach—only
the terrified instinct of prey escaping predator.
    Her shallow pants sounded thunderous in her
ears, the only noise in a place drowned in silence as she ran. And
she ran for naught.
    Megiddo Anastas suddenly appeared out of thin
air in front of her, once again enrobed in fabric made of shadow
and the souls of the damned. Martise yelped, almost cannoning into
him before she veered to the side and fled in another
direction.
    They played this diabolical game for several
minutes until Martise, whose frustration began to eclipse her fear,
stopped and glared at her captor. A foul wind rose from the gods
only knew where, whipping dust into small whirlwinds that danced
across the barren landscape. Neither cold nor hot, it whipped her
loose hair across her face, obscuring her vision until she tucked
it behind her ear. She and the demon king stared at each other as
the wind keened around them.
    “ You can run forever, and you will
find no end.” He still spoke in Glimming and as someone who once
tried fleeing as she did and discovered an unavoidable truth.
Martise shuddered. “Where will you go?” he asked, head cocked in
puzzlement, as if she were the most interesting thing he’d come
across in a long time.
    “ Away from you,” she
snapped.
    He smiled, and the hairs on her arms rose in
warning. If he were representative of his brethren, then the five
Wraith Kings were aptly named. Megiddo might be handsome were he
human. He possessed an elegant face with a high forehead and long,
patrician nose accentuated by the way he wore his hair-scraped back
at the top and sides. The slight upturn to his rigid mouth hinted
at humor, though considering the smile’s wearer, Martise wasn’t
inclined to return it. His features were younger, more refined than
Silhara’s. Not nearly so harsh and so much more dead.
    Leached of color, his skin was a ghastly
marmoreal in both shade and texture. No human, no matter how fair,
sported so pallid or smooth a complexion and still breathed. Even
the lead paints the Calderes aristo women wore on high holy days or
during festivals didn’t bleach their faces like this. His strange
eyes crackled with the same lightning that washed down the sword
blade he’d carried in her dream vision. Instead of round, his
pupils were horizontal and slit-shaped like those of a goat. The
wind lifted his hair as it did hers, but the strands didn’t move as
hers did. They were like his robes, living tendrils of smoke that
seemed to move of their own free will. Tenebrous locks drifted over
his shoulders, coiled and uncoiled around his neck or melded with
the robes.
    His grip on her hand had been cold as a burial
slab but solid, real. His appearance belied his touch. Spectral,
eerie and strange. Almost incorporeal. Wraith.
    “ What is your name?” Even his
voice, precise in its articulation, sounded hollowed
out.
    Surely he didn’t think her that stupid.
“Kashaptu.” She stumbled back with a gasp when suddenly he winked
out of sight only to appear so close in front of her that he
threatened to step on her toes.
    “ Clever,” he said. His eyebrows
rode lower on his brow than Silhara’s did. One slid upward as he
scrutinized her.
    She glared at him, scared and tired of his
antics. “What do you want from me?”
    Megiddo shrugged and spun away. Martise swore
for a moment he walked on air instead of ground. “I should think
that’s obvious, don’t you?” He held up a finger to forestall
whatever else she might say. “First, I’d have you meet someone.
She’s been waiting for you almost as long as I have.”
    He didn’t let her wonder at that enigmatic
statement, appearing next to her once more with that same unnatural
speed. His hand on her arm froze the blood in her veins. The ground
didn’t shift beneath her feet or her surroundings move, but
suddenly she stood with her captor before the door of a small
cottage set incongruously in the same bleak