Page 31 of Silver & Gold

The barb thunked into the gold-filigreed breastplate of the female warrior, the freshly donned armor saying she was ready for a fight. Seth yanked her off her feet and into the cell, but she came in swinging. Her sword swiped at the line but tangled in it as the tension turned slack.

Seth charged into her, catching her around the middle and driving her back out of the cell to slam her into the hallway wall. She head butted him so hard that it sent him reeling back. Arcane light and pale stone walls spun. Then she kicked him full in the chest and sent him flying back into the cell.

As Seth rolled to his feet, he saw Raider, quicksilver gleaming down his left arm, leave the cell. The woman warrior had withdrawn down the hallway, and Raider turned in her direction.

By the time Seth got out into the hallway, Raider was halfway down it. A handful of figures had appeared at the end. It was more of the Hammer and also the black-robed arcanist that had interrogated Seth.

With Raider wearing only his silk pants, Seth saw clearly how the quicksilver speared from his right shoulder, cascading down his arm and extending from his hand like a sword. He let out a terrible sound. Rage. Horror. Pain.

As Raider charged toward the company gathered at the end of the hallway, something whistled through the air toward him.

Seth was racing after him, but when Raider stumbled then pitched sideways, it was the female warrior who reached him first. She caught Raider before he hit ground—and set a knife to his throat.

Seth skidded to a stop.

The quicksilver was retracting into Raider’s body with a soft shhhkkt. Seth couldn’t see his eyes because his head was flopped back, his throat exposed to the gleaming blade, but the limpness of his body said he was unconscious. A dart with a red-feathered end was sticking out of his neck.

Seth stood frozen. “If you hurt him,” he warned, “I will do everything I can to kill you before you kill me.” He barely recognized his own voice, shaky with fear.

“Perhaps we can talk instead.”

The words, delivered in a refined, unruffled voice, came from beyond the hallway turn. The empress emerged and walked past her Hammer and Hand. Like earlier, she wore her pronged golden headdress with its looped chains and gold fringe. Her dark blue gown was stiff with embroidery and rendered her small figure nearly shapeless. Diamond-crusted sandals flashed at the hem as she walked. She looked entirely out of place in the bleak, barren hallway with utilitarian arcane lights on one side and bars on the other.

She stopped beside the woman warrior, who held her knife steady at Raider’s throat. The warrior made a sharp contrast to the empress. She was taller than Zarina and though powerfully built, her shape was strongly feminine. Below the edge of the skirt of leather strips, her thighs and calves were curvy with muscle. Gold rings banded each leg below the knee. Her strong arms were a display of power and smooth, feminine brown skin. Her long dark hair was tightly and intricately braided.

Under different circumstances, Seth would respect two such powerful women, but with Raider at their mercy, threatened, Seth could only hate them.

The empress looked down at Raider’s limp form. She reached out a hand and ran her fingers through Raider’s hair.

When Seth growled at that, the empress looked up, but she didn’t remove her hand. “Nasrin, it seems, was right. With the tool we left at your disposal”—Seth’s breath caught—“you could have escaped. You went to him instead. You love him. You would die for him?”

“Yes.”

The empress looked thoughtful. “I wonder … what else might you do?”

“What the hell do you want from me?”

“Your skill, Curator, and your time. There’s something I want, and if anyone can find it for me, I think it’s you. You and him. The two of you are a unique combination of assets.” She stroked Raider’s hair again. “Let me tell you a story—”

“Stop touching him.”

“You’re very possessive.”

“Stop touching him and I’ll listen.”

“I think you’ll listen regardless, but …” The empress removed her hand from Raider’s hair and plucked the dart from his neck. “If it means so much to you.”

Seth didn’t feel relieved exactly, not with the warrior—Nasrin, yes, he’d heard the empress use the name earlier—holding Raider’s limp form with a knife at his throat, but at least he could focus now.

The empress fiddled with the dart. “I assume a Curator knows of the Alchemist’s Stone?”

Seth frowned, caught off guard by the unexpected topic. Few arcanists took it seriously anymore, though there were plenty of stories of arcanists who had wasted their lives trying to create the Alchemist’s Stone. The idea was that with the perfect formula, one could create a divine embodiment of the arcane, one with godlike power that could transform death into life.

“A myth,” Seth said. “A fool’s pursuit.”

“Only if that fool is pursing the creation of such a stone—rather than seeking the Stone that inspired the myth to begin with.”

“I’ve never heard of such a stone actually existing.”