Apologies for the huge delay in updating. I've been trying to figure out how to write the story right enough to tell you what happens. I'm trying to get it to move faster and I don't want to end up writing fillers because I know there's a lot of information to tell.
SpectralLady: Glad you liked Eel's last line. He knows a lot about the Lady of the Thieves.
On top of Cloud 9: The Lady of Thieves is a very powerful figure. She comes from a long time ago, Rispah was in her line. It just felt natural that Serrina should rise to the challenge for such a prestigious place.
Zerring of the Wind: Glad you liked the description of the secret passageway. It's a strange place down there, with a very high meaning, with a lot of the Conte history hidden there. And don't worry, the Lady of the Thieves has a big part to play in saving Kyra's soul.
Angelchild: Apologies again for the huge delay. I should be able to write more, now that I know my new structure of life here at uni.
Chapter 13
"You are a traitor to my family," he said, not watchingSerrina as he sat in the faded brown winged armchair. His shape was outlined brightly by the fire whose flames fought to reach higher. When she sniffed, the reek of animal fat reached her nose: such a sour, high smell that shewas forcedto breathe from her mouth. "How could you have got it so wrong? I tried to guide you. I tried to advise you. I taught you everything I knew, and you have failed disastrously!"
"I've tried," she whispered, kneeling on the carpet like a small child. "I've tried to guide her, I've tried to find out what will happen. But I don't know where to go! I've offered myself up as the sacrificial lamb to hide her, but no one's taken the bait."
"Oh, in that you were correct," he said scornfully. "Don't you worry, some will come after you, and they'll forget all about the child of Conte. But now you've twisted the future, and so you'll be helpless when the girl needs you: you'll be lying bruised and battered at the foot of some stairs, you will be dead."
Serrina jerked and breathed in a short sharp burst. "No! I shan't!"
"There is nothing you can do," he said severely and turned his head slightly, showing her his sharp profile, with the bone-straight nose, the jutted chin and the heavy eyebrows. "You have failed me. You have failed our family."
Serrina, her eyes lowered, stared at the floor, hating this lucid, mystical dream. She pressed her hand to her knee and pushed herself up to her feet: the air moved sloppily around her like syrup. "You were never this harsh," she accused and strode forward to the winged armchair.
"Sit back down, you pestilent child," the man said sharply, jerking back around to face the fire.
"You have never called me pestilent," Serrina said sharply and strode faster, hooked her foot around the chair's leg, drawing the chair towards herself. She stared hatefully into her father's face. "Who are you?" she demanded.
The man's form rippled. What sat there wasa far more sallow man than her father. His eyes burned fiery, his nose had been proud but decay had eaten it to a stump. His lips were pressed tight but couldn't hide the reek of decaying flesh. His limbs were draped in tattered red robes and his feet had yellow nails. He glared at her, his breath hissing up his throat with a harsh sound. The smell that she'd thought was animal fat, swirled around him.
"You are…" Serrina felt dizzy with betrayal, terror, and she stepped back, unwilling to be near enough for him to touch her. "You intrude on my grief, you…you monster! You leech to feast on my love of my father!"
His lips parted and he laughed creakily. "Like for like, Serrina. You steal my daughter. I steal your dreams."
She hissed through her teeth, livid. "You shan't touch your daughter. There is nothing of you that I fear. You are a dark, dark, lying ghost. You wouldn't be alive if your daughter hadn't been born. You stole her mother's mind, didn't you?" she challenged.
"She was always a powerful conduit," Roger said, smiling thinly at her as he got to his gawky, death-eaten feet. "Any man with my power would have been attracted to her: a sweet thing with a mind as succulent as fruit, and just as sweet a body. It was even better to know there was a child born from our union. I've looked forward to her being brought here, for such a long time." He smiled into Serrina's eyes. "I see such anger there. It's a lovely emotion, anger, but it's not my favourite. Fear is." Then he swiped his skeletal hand at her, grasping her by the throat. She choked and kicked at him, trying to get free, but his grip was relentless.
His rotting breath whirled faster around her; she gagged, vomit burning up her throat and she struggled harder, rolling her eyes up to the black ceiling. She jerked like a fish out of water, a thin sound keening from her throat as oxygen tried to seep down her throat. Bright lights danced sickly in her eyes and when she shut her eyes, jerking her head, she still couldn't chase those nauseous lights away. "You can't--" she choked.
He laughed victoriously and then dropped her: she crashed to the floor, clawing the carpet as she fought to stay conscious, blinking slowly.
"I only wish I could have been there," Roger said in a deathly hiss. "I could only feel her sanity flowing in throughmy fingertips. I could feel her vibrant mind fading to a shroud."
"You tortured your own daughter," Serrina choked, "doing that to her mother. I'll see you die for that!" Her limbs trembling, she pushed herself up to her feet, staggering slightly. "You hooked your fingers into Kyra's mother's mind as soon as you felt death creeping up on you." She straightened from a stoop, trembling. "You have manipulated me many times, Roger. Making me bring Kyra here under the thought that my father was guiding me. But now I see what you are!" Her amber eyes shone with fury and she raised her head, the perfect image of the Lady of the Thieves.
"What are you going to do?" Roger wanted to know, amused. "Make everyone forget that you told them that there is a daughter of Conte?" He laughed and then left her dream like a stalking tiger, leaving her standing in the empty room. The heavy fire in the fireplace guttered, sank and then went black. Far too quickly, the cold crept back to wrap around her.
She shuddered, wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes, losing her proudcomposure, "I wish you could speak to me, Lasha," she whispered, missing her twin sister.
Warmbillowed throughthe room: the fire flared up again, reaching up high with joyous red flames, red as silk. She went to the fire and stretched her hands out, intending to warm her hands but the flames reached out and snatched her forward like a pair of hands.
She'd have been frightened but from the flames came a giggle that she knew perfectly. "Lasha!" she yelled, grinning and went into the flames fearlessly, emerging into Lasha's bedroom.
"Oh, you!" Lasha laughed and hugged her hard. "You silly-billy. I've missed you."
"What, you've not been watching me like an angel?" Serrina retorted, mock-wounded and put a hand to her heart, fighting to hidehow shetrembled. "You disillusion me, sister darling."
"I've got enough to do," Lasha snorted, and turned back to her room, began sorting through her tidied belongings. "Oh, where did I put the darn things?" She lifted the bed mattress and peered underneath and huffed in exasperation. "There it is. Reach it for me, thief of a sister. You've got longer arms from stretching your hands inside windows and doors where you don't belong."
Obediently Serrina reached in. "What am I trying to reach?"
"You'll know what it is when you find it," Lasha said. "It's the lock that you have the key to."
"That rusty old thing?" Serrina muttered and worried that her hand would be cut up by some rusty-sharp lock of some kind.
"I sanded it as soon as Dora brought it to me," Lasha assured her. "The problem is that only the right person can turn the key into the lock. And…you're not the right person."
"Who is it?" Serrina said with exaggerated patience.
Lasha laughed and Serrina bolted up in bed, breathing hard in anger and frustration. Her jaw clenched and she leapt from bed, stripping her night clothes and pulling on black breeches and a black shirt, then tying on her scarlet cloak. She left the house as fast as a whirlwind, running to the stable, grabbing down Amara's saddle and bridle. Whistling through her teeth she entered the mare's stall, approaching her mare, her head bowed respectfully. "C'mon girl," she requested and the mare tossed her head, following Serrina from the stable. Serrina fetched a bag of black cloths from a shelf and tied them onto Amara's hooves. As she reached one foot into the stirrup, she jerked her head around.
Amara sidestepped and Serrina overbalanced with a curse, rolling up to her feet as a sword blade drove down into the concrete.
Her ankle hurting savagely from the stirrup, Serrina kicked her feet up at her attacker's chest, her eyes fixing on the red eyes that she remembered. "There is nothing you can take from me," she promised through gritted teeth and leapt up, swung her foot out and kicked him back before she reached down and fished a blade from her boot…
"Damn!" she hissed, her hand rubbing along her bare ankle. Her boots with their hidden knives were in her room: when had she been so absent-minded! She jerked her head at the man's vicious, starved grin and she lunged at him wishing she was better at wrestling.
Whipping off her cloak, she caught it around his throat, twisted it and untwisted it deftly, sending him spinning against the wall loudly. He didn't curse, he didn't groan, he just rolled his head back on his neck: it cracked into place loudly.
"Mithros blast it!" Serrina hissed furiously. A demon, it must be a demon. She'd heard tales but had never dreamed it would come up against her. She crouched lower, her fingers curved into claws, and she waited for the thing. Its eyes bulged and it staggered up to its feet then charged.
She leapt back, moving into a fighter's circling, and she jabbed her stiff fingers at his red eyes, to blind him.
With a grin he drove his head in and her fingers went straight into his eyes, sinking deep into his skull. His grin widened.