Hollow Palace (Wattpad Exclusive)

Chapter Fifteen

Fifteen

 Eli forgot her own pains and rushed to Jena. Kneeling in front of her, Eli pushed back the tangles of blood-stained hair from Jena’s face. She was warm and breathing. Bruises like ink stains marked her pale skin. Small, raw cuts showed where she had been hit especially hard—they no longer bled, but had not been cleaned. A whitish liquid dribbled from the corner of Jena’s mouth. Eli wiped it away with her finger and lifted her finger to her nose—sickly sweet.

She turned. Darshan was standing just inside the door of the tiny stone room, Syon lingering in the shadows behind him. A torch was lit on each wall, empty jute bags were heaped in one corner by the door and dried packing moss was strewn around signaling that the room had once been used for storage. Otherwise, it might as well have been a prison.

She held up her finger. “Madu?”

He put his hands on his hips. “A temporary stupor. A kindness truly. I might have simply had them killed.”

“Why didn’t you?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “When pleasure’s to be had, I prefer to work slowly.”

Eli’s stomach clenched. She looked at Kiran. His chest was rising and falling. A wave of relief flooded her. Then she was annoyed. She shouldn’t have felt relieved. Kiran deserved to die. He should’ve been dead all along.

“Actually,” Darshan continued, “I was curious. I couldn’t understand why Jena would be attacking a vamin. I had heard that you had killed Vami Jay, not that I ever believed it. Then Jena arrived and”—he ran his fingers over his chin thoughtfully—“I knew there was something much more to this than was widely understood. I had planned to take them to the vitra, after I had questioned them—thoroughly. When you spoke of a viprashan, you weren’t lying, were you?”

Eli bit her lip, glaring at the smooth gray stones of the floor. Darshan strode over to her and seized her twisted bun of hair, yanking it back so she was staring up at his vehement face. His soft and smooth fingers ran down her throat.

“Time is running out for you, padaka. Rumors are that someone in your family is willing to pay quite a price should you fail to appear and should the votes swing in her direction. It would seem you are worth much more dead than alive.” His hand clamped down on her throat, digging his fingers into her skin painfully. “But information is more valuable than gold. Tell me everything you know about this one”—he jerked his head towards Kiran—“and I will take you to the Hollow Palace myself.”

She could see the pieces moving in Darshan’s eyes as he tried to position himself in this game. He was hoping there was some way to use Kiran and Jena to his benefit. All he needed was to understand their purpose. Once he knew what they wanted, he would find a way to manipulate them. He was vamin through and through.

“I told you what I know,” she said, now wishing she hadn’t. If anyone could think of a means to turn his potential assassins into assets it was a vamin.

Darshan pushed her down by her throat. She hit the ground gagging, catching herself on her elbows and then nearly screaming as the impact jarred through her shoulder in splintering sunbursts of pain. Gritting her teeth, she kept the scream to a growl, but slumped over to her left side, facing the door. Through the tears in her eyes, Syon was like a wavering ghost half-obscured by shadows.

“Yes. You say he’s a viprashan returned from the dead. That’s an interesting story, if not far-fetched.” Darshan squatted down in front of her, tilting his head to look at her. “If you’re lying, I don’t like your chances for opening the kosha.”