The Warlord by Gena Showalter (free ebook reader for pc .txt) 📕

A bar he’d visited before, during one of his preliminary visits. The place once brimmed with harpies. Now, no bodies. Tables and chairs were pushed aside. At the edge of the dance floor, an embodied phantom trudged a continuous circle inside a prison of trinite.

Swaying from side to side, she droned, “Get inside, embody, walk around, tell Roc. Get inside, embody, walk around, tell Roc.”

Orders from her master. Whatever Erebus commanded of his creations, they repeated over and over as they obeyed. A checklist.

The phantom had pallid and waxen skin with no distinguishing marks and eyes of milky white that stared at nothing. She wore an ill-fitting gown. Widow’s weeds, of course.

Erebus always sent his phantoms in widow’s weeds. A reminder of the worst day of Roc’s life.

Black lines branched from her eye sockets, a sure sign of hunger. How long since she’d fed? Years, he would guess. Until she completed her master’s mission, she couldn’t eat.

A single meal powered most phantoms for months. Erebus preferred to keep his puppets starved for decades, however. When they finally had a chance to eat, they gorged.

“She never approached the wall,” Halo said, stroking his strong jaw. “Erebus must have flashed her in.”

Roc gripped the hilt of his three-blade. Like the Astra, Erebus didn’t need a key to enter a realm: he was a key. But he left telltale signs of his presence. A glaze of frost everywhere he stepped. Ice crystals in the air. The stench of death.

“He can’t enter the realm without alerting us.” A possibility: Erebus flashed the phantom without needing to touch her. A skill Roc had once believed only Ian possessed.

She hadn’t dwelled here before the wall. He’d found no trace of phantoms, embodied or otherwise, during his many trips.

“Get inside, embody, walk around, tell Roc.”

Seemed Erebus wished to pass along a message.

He looked to Silver. “I’ll deal with the phantom. I’d like you to—” Don’t say it. “—make and deliver a set of lightweight chains to my room. Within the hour. For the bed.” Well, you said it.

The warrior blinked with surprise. “I see.”

“The cuffs aren’t meant to cause pain.” He said no more. With Taliyah, Roc must be prepared for anything. The thrill meant nothing.

Silver nodded, a stiff incline of his head. He flashed from the bar.

Let’s get this over with. Roc strode to the cage, appearing before the phantom.

She whizzed up to the bars, her foggy gaze locked on him. An arctic chill seeped from her, frost spreading over his alevala. A phenomenon caused by all phantoms.

“Tell me your message,” he ordered.

Words spilled out. “You know what she is to you, but you don’t know who or why she is. You don’t know what.” No longer did she mumble. Her monotone voice proved as chilling as her temperature. “Allow me to tell you. She is a Skyhawk, a harpy, a snake...and a phantom. You wed one of mine, Commander, but you can’t kill her until the required time. Do you know what she’ll do before then, Roc? Whatever I tell her. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

That fake, mocking laugh... Roc struck, shoving the three-blade deep into her chest. Black blood poured from the wound as she collapsed. As seconds ticked by, she evaporated into nothing. His disgust for her remained.

Rooted in place, he snapped, “She lied.” No way Taliyah was a phantom.

“As if we didn’t already know that,” Ian replied. “We’ve never iced over in her presence.”

“More than that, Erebus always lies,” Halo assured him.

“He sows doubt, nothing more,” Ian added.

“Yes.” Absolutely. Which meant the god had known Taliyah was Roc’s gravita before Roc.

You know what she is to you...

Erebus mixed truth with lie to incite panic, nothing more. Taliyah wasn’t a phantom. She was cold-blooded, yes, but he warmed her. An impossibility with phantoms. Her irises were clear. No black lines smudged the skin around her eyes, indicating hunger. She was smart. No phantom possessed the skill to fake such intelligence.

Unless Erebus had figured out how to make others like himself.

16

“Mother,” Taliyah called, hurrying through the fortress. Nothing had changed in the Realm of the Forgotten. Lavish, unsullied by dirt, debris or time, and vacant. Where were her loved ones? She planned to check on Tabitha and talk to Neeka, then finish off the immortals stored in the dungeon. They’d still had a little life in them, last time she’d been here. The perfect appetizer. Soon, Roc’s army would become her all-you-can-eat buffet.

Maybe Neeka knew what Roc did to her skin? In select places, she glittered. Where she glittered, she burned. Where she burned, she ached. Where she ached, she wanted.

Taliyah wanted so bad.

For Neeka, she flipped every switch, flickering the lights. “Mom. Momma. Mooom. Mother!”

Taliyah quickened her step, entering the library—Whoa! She ground to a halt. Her nape grew real cold, real fast.

Confused, she reached behind to pat the area. Frost? On the brand Neeka had given her two thousand years ago? Or yesterday or whatever.

“Hello, daughter.”

The craggy voice came from behind the desk, where a huge leather chair swirled around, revealing a man with pale skin, black eyes and a hooked nose. Curly blond hair hung over a prominent brow. A thick beard with a wealth of braids covered an equally prominent jawline. Across his lap rested a blade with jagged edges. The extraordinary hilt seemed to swirl, as if he held a small piece of a universe.

Erebus. Here. Heart thumping, Taliyah palmed two daggers. A thousand thoughts, questions and emotions bubbled up at once. At the forefront: anger.

“You know I exist,” she said, doing her best to remain conversational. For centuries, she’d wondered about the man despised by everyone who’d ever met him. A villain willing to murder his own daughter to ruin Roc. Hadn’t her hubby warned her of this? “Where are my mother and my friend?”

“I did nothing to them, I assure you. They were gone when I arrived. I’ve no plans to harm you, either.”

Truth or lie? For Neeka, she suspected he spoke true.