Free Warrior Everlasting by Wendy Knight Page B

of a challenge, Scout.” He stopped, tipping his head to the side as he watched her. “What is it my brother is so fascinated by?”
    “Tell him you’re a dancer!” Lil Bit begged.
    “Take her soul. But tear it apart. Let her sister watch. Maybe that will bring her down where I can reach her.” Ariston spoke, dropping the glowing orb of the scepter until it touched the ground. The soul stealers swarmed from behind him, shrieking, screaming, bloody claws outstretched.
    Let her sister watch.
    Scout couldn’t put Lil Bit through that. She couldn’t let them kill her in front of her baby sister. “I’m a dancer!” she yelled.
    The soul stealers didn’t care. She thought she caught just a gasp of Ashra’s voice in her head as the claws reached her, and she threw her hands over her face. “I’m sorry.”
    “Stop!”
    Ariston’s voice seemed to freeze them all. Several of them already had their claws on her soul, tearing through her skin, her muscle. But none made a move to rip her soul out.
    “I’m a dancer,” she gasped through the pain. “I’m a dancer.”
    “Leave her.”
    The claws retracted, which was nearly as painful as them going in. Scout bit back a scream, nearly breaking her teeth in the effort not to make a sound.
    Ariston came closer again. “Do you soothe when you dance? Or do you merely dance? Young people in your world have absolutely horrid definitions of dance.”
    “I soothe,” Scout answered, praying it was the right thing to say.
    “Very well. Dance for me.”
    “What?” she asked dumbly, staring at him in complete bewilderment.
    “You said you’re a dancer. Dance for me.” He stepped back several paces and spread his arms wide. “Is this not enough room for you?”
    For the first time, Scout looked beyond him to the castle surrounding them. It was dark — not as in the absence of light, for there were many candles hanging from the black chandeliers. The floors were black, the sparse furniture was all dark, twisted wood. The walls weren’t painted, but whatever the castle was made of — it was black as well. She couldn’t see the ceiling. It disappeared far beyond her view, obliterated by the mass of writhing soul stealers. The room itself stretched wide, nearly the size of a football field. But she saw no cage of unicorn bones holding thousands of souls.
    “Where are you keeping my sister — my family?”
    He raised an eyebrow. “In the throne room, of course. They keep me company.”
    She stared at him. What, exactly, did she do now? She hurt, she was terrified, and there was no way she could fight this creature in front of her. She didn’t even dare demand she see her sister. Where was Ashra’s strength when she needed it?
    Oh right. I left her outside fighting. I abandoned them to throw myself into a trap.
    “This way.” Ariston turned sharply, snapping his fingers at her like she was some sort of servant. She opened and closed her mouth like a lost sea creature, but as soon as the orb from his scepter faded, the soul stealers swarmed in. With a screech rivaling any banshee, Scout bolted after him — after the protective glow of the orb.
    At the far end of the room, a normal-size arch was nearly hidden in the darkness. Everything else in the castle was so wide, so sweeping, that the regular-ness of the doorway confused Scout.
    “Are you coming, or did you want to play with my pets?” Ariston sounded exasperated. Not cruel, not evil. This human aspect of him threw Scout off. Everyone talked about him like he was larger than life and completely evil. She expected him to have horns and be thirty feet tall. It was harder to hate him when he sounded like any guy she might meet on a boat to Greece.
    Until she saw the cage.
    She came through the archway into another large room, although not as large as the first. The ceiling above her seemed to be alive, until she looked closer and realized it was roiling with soul stealers so thick it was impossible to see through