Stranger Skies (The Borderlands Saga #1)

25. Broken Words

22nd Rew, 709 years after Landfall

Deep in the dungeons of Daetus castle, their prisoner was chained up, still in human form.

Shailn knew she was a wolf. He'd smelled it on her when they brought her in. Why he'd missed her when she worked at the castle, he didn't know. He was getting old. He missed too much.

She still refused to change forms, but that wouldn't last. It never did.

"State your rank and your mission," he said calmly, picking up the brand from the fire.

The naked woman's head came up, and she looked him directly in the eyes, fear gracing her decidedly Minae features. "I told you. I'm just a stablehand. I have no rank. I don't even know what you're talking about!" She screamed the last, and tears came to her eyes.

She was very good, he gave her that.

But not good enough to fool him. He'd spent his life in Min working to eradicate the wolves. He could smell them, sense them, no matter what form they took.

He pressed the brand into her thigh and she screamed.

"You will tell me. I have much time, and more patience. It may take you a month to crack, but you will break," he said, putting the brand back in the fireplace. "In the end, they all do."

He left her then, and returned to the Duchess' quarters. She had not left her room since the messenger had brought the news of her cousin. She had not been reachable by any save him.

That was fine. He ruled the country anyway, though he'd never tell her that. All he needed to tell her was that everything was going according to plan. They'd almost caught her cousin's murderer, he said. Wasn't she happy?

She cried more and buried herself under her blankets. He sighed. He tried to warn the royal family that they should spread the genes around, but they didn't always listen. Duchess Innis was the inevitable result: half-mad and completely unable to rule.

He paused on his way out of her quarters. How did he know about genes?

He did not remember much of anything of his life before Min. He barely remembered the early days of his life here. He'd been here for so long. He was so tired. So ready for death.

All he remembered was the wolves were the cause of his misfortune, and he would make them pay.

It was only in the dead silence of the night while he slept and dreamt that he remembered anything at all; only while wandering the dreamroads that he recalled her with fondness. Dawn's light would chase away the dreams, and in the morning he would forget that he once loved the mother of all wolves.

"Silva," his lips whispered into the night. A murmur filled with longing, filled with sorrow, filled with promise. "Silva."