Free Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion) by James A. West Page B

king … in front of the entire realm … even in front of you, mother!
    Hard, that’d be, his mother snickered, as I was naught but bones an’ dust by then. You mus’ remember that, don’t you, m’sweet boy—
    Leave me!
    For a wonder, she did go, though he sensed her mirth waiting to bubble to the surface. Most times, she refused to leave him in peace, choosing instead to squat in the back of his mind like some humpbacked fiend, endlessly prodding him, endlessly belittling him. He hated her, wanted to kill her again, a thousand more times and in a thousand different ways—
    Behind the door, Nesaea let out a soft cry of pleasure. Guts churning, Algar edged back, his face knotted like a fist.
    As a child in various flesh-houses of Onareth, Algar had had no choice but to listen to his mother’s false cries as strangers labored between her legs. Sometimes after those men spilled their seed, they would then defile him. A shiver of remembered pain and humiliation gripped Algar’s lean frame, for that was not the entire truth. Rather, his mother had coaxed a few more coppers from the purses of those men by offering up her son to use as they wished.
    Sneaking footsteps coming up the stairs dragged a startled hiss through Algar’s teeth. Still cloaked within shadows, he wheeled in absolute silence and merged with the natural shadows farther down the hallway.
    He squatted on his heels, the fingers of one hand parting the collar of his tunic to touch the source of his power, a cloudy gray gemstone the size of his fist, sunk deep into the raw meat and knitted to the fractured bones of his chest. A necromancer living amongst the highest crags of the Mountains of Arakas had placed it there at great cost, but Algar had never considered the price anything less than a bargain.
    Marking the approaching footsteps, he muttered arcane words he had engraved upon his heart and mind. The hue of the Spirit Stone changed to charcoal shot through with veins of red and gold. It grew warm within his breast, then hot, then blistering. He felt himself changing, becoming less than flesh and blood, less even than air.
    A scream of torment clogged the back of his throat as the searing fires spread, filling him up until he thought he must soon burst into flame. When the agony had stretched him to the limits of endurance, the stone went as cold and gray as a chunk of dirty ice. He let out a panting gasp and lifted his head.
    The details of the hallway remained unchanged, but all was darker to his eyes, as if a thunderhead had blotted out the light of day.
    And he was no longer alone.
    Hidden as he was between two worlds, he saw spirits flitting through the walls, floor, and ceiling. The gossamer figures, their distorted features smudgy and smoke-gray, ignored him as always. In this place between life and death, what the necromancer had named the Zanar-Sariit, Algar was not truly dead, nor was he truly alive, yet he could pass through the worlds of each, as if he were both. The necromancer had warned him that the Zanar-Sariit was a dangerous place to visit often, unless you fancied losing your soul. Yet Algar had never felt threatened here. If anything, the between realm was the only place he had ever know true peace.
    Invisible and untouchable to the dead and to the living alike, Algar watched a pair of shave-headed men in thick brown cloaks creep up the stairs, unaware of the roving spirits passing through them.
    Algar instantly recognized the fellow who had named himself Edrik. He had been waiting for Rathe when Algar came out of the Zanar-Sariit earlier. Edrik had babbled some nonsense tale about needing help. When Rathe denied him, the fool had drawn a dagger. Rathe had easily disarmed the youth. If Edrik was a bounty hunter, Algar judged that no man had ever been more ill-suited to the task. Instead of cutting Edrik’s throat, Rathe had let him go. During his years of hunting the man, Algar had seen his rival slaughter many foes without