Sovereign - The Dark Sorcerers: Book 2

Chapter 16: Outsiders

Kenna

The Elf's sapphire eyes—I called her an Elf, for there was no better way to describe her dream-like appearance—narrowed while they took in my features, my clothes, the dark shadows thrashing underneath my skin, eager to attack. I held my breath, told my Darkness to take it easy. One wrong move and this woman would pin me on her spear like she would pick her teeth for a breadcrumb.

Unlike Dominic, I hadn't undergone the Purging, so my chances of healing myself before bleeding out were precariously slim.

"Yatké ni esu?" The woman's voice was soft yet harsh, demanding. When I didn't answer, she bent forward, prodding the tender skin of my throat with the spear's sharp, gleaming head. She repeated the question, a bit louder this time.

All Sister Clementine's lessons about Old Speech and its many varieties seemed to have slipped my mind; I could only stare at the Elf, my thoughts racing to remember the right verb conjugations, the cases, hell, even the correct vocabulary. She had asked me who I was, yet I felt she expected more than just my name.

"Ni yatsé Kenna," I stuttered, flashing a wobbly smile. My grin faltered when she increased the pressure on my throat, her lips pulled up into a snarl that raised the hair on my arms.

"Wait, let's all take a moment to calm down," Dominic's half-panicked voice cut through my fear. Despite the nasty position I currently found myself in, I raised an incredulous eyebrow. The Sorcerer's Old Speech was far better than mine, even on a good day. Which this clearly wasn't.

Careful not to slice open my flesh on the spear, I turned my head to look at him. Dominic stood surrounded by four more Khuriannwa, his hands thrown up in a disarming manner as they all pointed their spears at various body parts. His eyes flicked to mine for just a moment, but I had seen the message in them: Stay calm and let me handle this.

Fine. If I must.

The woman towering over me, whom I suspected to be the leader of the gang, looked up at Dominic in a way that reminded me of a tigress spotting a delicious snack not too far away. "And you are?"

"My name is Dominic," he replied, soothing, reassuring. "My partner and I come in peace."

She laughed. Her low chuckle sounded like two rocks scraping against each other. "I doubt that, given I could sense your foul mágica from many a stone's throw away."

Such discrimination. How unfair. I reached out with a sliver of my magic, poking around the Khuriannwa woman's aura. I felt latent power, for sure, but it was much different from a Sorcerer's magic. It was the same kind of magic that lingered in the essence of the Khuriannwa's rodamantium spears: Light nor Dark, but a perfect convergence of both.

She must have sensed my curiosity, because she planted a foot on my stomach and pressed down hard, breaking my concentration. I gasped when the pain shot through my upper body. "If you do that again, I will end you here and now."

I gritted my teeth, but refrained from retorting with a snide remark. Even my Darkness knew when it should shut its mouth to live a little longer.

"What are you doing here?" another Khurianní asked, a tall man with a skin as dark as ebony. "How did you get past the Veil?"

I was about to ask what the Veil was when my mouth snapped closed again. They meant the magical barrier around the mountains. Then I frowned again. "What do you mean 'get past the Veil'? We just walked through."

The woman above me inhaled a sharp breath. "That's not possible. We reinforced the Veil hundreds of lifetimes ago; no one should be able to trespass it. No one, unless ..." She paused, inspecting me with renewed interest. A shudder crept down my spine.