Free The Brush of Black Wings by Grace Draven Page B

landscape, only now the
mountain spires rose from a different direction.
    She didn’t know what was east or west, north
or south. There was no sun or moon and no stars, only a flat,
lifeless sky the same shade as the equally flat and lifeless
ground.
    Martise caught a brief glimpse of the
cottage’s exterior before Megiddo opened the door and hauled her
inside. “Damkiana,” he said, and her eyes widened at the term as
well as the sudden change in his tone. So brief she might not have
caught it were she not so close to him, the softer modulation
disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. “I’ve brought someone
for you to meet,” he said. “This is the kashaptu with no
name.” He kicked the door closed behind him and crossed his arms
with a pleased smile. Martise fervently prayed she’d not just been
delivered as someone’s main course for supper.
    Light steps sounded from the depths of a
hallway off one side of the main room. Martise couldn’t have been
more surprised if her erstwhile master, Cumbria of Conclave, had
suddenly appeared before her.
    This was no old and haughty bishop but a
woman. Young, probably close in age to Martise, and there the
similarity ended. To the person who mattered most to her, Martise
was beautiful. To others and to herself, she was plain. The woman
who watched her with the same intense scrutiny as Megiddo did was
the antithesis of plain. The antithesis of wraith for that
matter.
    Long, curly hair the color of strong-brewed
tea and skin burnished brown by heritage instead of the sun, she
had a soft, round face and dark eyes framed by thick lashes.
Megiddo had addressed her as “Damkiana,” an old Makkadian word that
meant “mistress of earth and heaven.” Whether her true name or a
term of endearment, it fit.
    She glanced at Megiddo, her features
expressionless, before she walked slowly around Martise and paused
behind her. “You have blood on your skirts.” She spoke in Glimming
as well, and her voice was cool, except for the thread of
disapproval Martise sensed was reserved for the Wraith
King.
    “ My dog accidentally bit me.” The
reminder of her wound caused the pain to return, and Martise
shifted her weight and resisted the urge to bend down and massage
her throbbing calf.
    Megiddo’s voice, tinged with that enigmatic
humor Martise had spotted in his smile was less hollow. “Not me.
Magehound. Who doesn’t attack those with magic. Will wonders never
cease?”
    The woman circled to stand in front of Martise
again. “He bit her. Sounds like an attack to me.”
    Martise shook her head. “He was trying to save
me.” She glanced over her shoulder to scowl at Megiddo. “I have no
magic.”
    “ And that force throwing me back
through the portal was simply a strong breeze. Clever and a
liar.”
    She was stopped from arguing by the sight of
Damkiana pouring water from a pitcher into a bowl. She dropped a
cloth into the water, rang out the excess and handed it to Martise.
“Here. To wash your leg. The wound won’t heal, but it won’t worsen
either. You can at least wash the blood off before it dries and
starts to itch.”
    Confused by such a mundane action paired with
such a strange statement, Martise offered a startled “Thank you.”
She held the cloth but waited, determined to get an explanation for
her abduction. She turned fully to Megiddo. “Why have you taken me?
I am no witch, no mage. I have no magic.”
    Every one of those statements could be defined
as either the truth or a lie, depending on who knew her and who
interpreted them. Martise had no intention of verifying her Gift
even to the most harmless human, much less a king of demons. The
fact that her Gift had chosen not to fight him off a second time
frightened her.
    She still felt it inside her, a presence, a
weight, but it had retreated for some reason—burrowed itself deep,
no longer her aggressive protector.
    Megiddo leaned against the door. At some
point, between their time outside and when her