Page 44 of To Save a Kingdom

Aliya’s heart leaped into her throat. She stepped forward, craning her neck as if that would provide enough of a change in her vantage point to let her see what Zadé had kicked.

Zadé bent, picking up a familiar silver cylinder.

A Whisperer.

Aliya’s blood froze. No.

Her gaze drifted over the two hundred slabs in the cavern, each holding a corpse.

Brooks had been here, and he’d used one of his stolen Whisperers to wipe out the entire population of Brisimin.

Aliya’s thoughts dissolved into white noise as the possible repercussions assailed her from every direction. The elves and the dwarves, when they found out, would consider this an act of war. The discovery of the Whisperer’s loss would shred their fragile alliances to ribbons and plunge them back into yet another conflict. There was no way the humans would survive. But she’d never be able to keep something this huge under wraps.

Two hundred elven prisoners, massacred in a war crime.

“How long have they been dead?” Her voice was frail and she hated its tremble.

“Can’t be more’n a day or so,” Zadé said, nudging one stiff body with her boot. “Rigor hasn’t faded.”

Aliya wasn’t sure what that meant, other than… “So, Brooks could still be close by.”

Zadé chewed the inside of her cheek. “Maybe, though yeh were pretty loud when we got here, what with callin’ ‘hello’ and ‘anyone here?’ an’ all. If he were nearby, he’d ‘a heard us.”

And he’d have activated another Whisperer and they’d both be dead.

Reaching into her pocket, she brought out the ball of wax and, splitting it in half, plugged her ears. It would put them at risk, not being able to hear someone approaching, but it would provide protection against the use of another Whisperer, which seemed far more likely at this point.

Zadé tipped her head in approval before doing the same. Glancing at Aliya, she pantomimed checking the rest of the bodies.

Aliya nodded, her twisting heart forcing an acidic taste into the back of her throat. Zadé was here to find her missing friend, after all. Aliya didn’t know if she hoped they found him or not.

Her gaze dropped to the corpse with the hollowed-out eyes and sunken cheeks as she swallowed.

Several minutes later, Zadé cried out loud enough it penetrated Aliya’s earplugs. Falling to her knees, she buried her face against the sternum of a male who, had he been human, Aliya would’ve bet was over a century old.

Licking her lips, Aliya crept closer. The man’s eyes were shriveled, and deep wrinkles lined his forehead, temples and mouth.

With a groan, Zadé heaved, trying to separate his torso from the table. Tear tracks poured down her cheeks.

The iridescent goop suctioned to his back as though it was refusing to release its prize.

Frowning through her tears, Zadé pulled harder.

Aliya tilted her head and bent down. The material was thinning and stretching from the elf’s threadbare tunic and the table. “Hang on,” she said, forgetting that with the earplugs, Zadé couldn’t hear her.

Pulling her dagger from her belt, she fit the tip at the seam between the shirt and the multicolored substance and sliced.

Something in her core snapped, like her insides had been whipped with a riding crop. Dropping her blade, Aliya stumbled back until she collided with the platform behind her. Reflexively, her hands slammed against the surface on either side of her hips to steady herself.

The seat of her magic thinned, stretching as though Malkov was above her yet again, wrenching her power from her very soul. Only this time, she didn’t have the benefit of whatever he’d used to sedate her.

Cold that burned more than the hottest flames crawled up her arms, marching to her shoulders and down her torso. When it encountered her magic, it suctioned fine filaments into the slimy substance entrapping her hands.

Aliya screamed as the edges of her vision turned black from the pain. Dropping her jaw, she gasped at the sensation of self being torn from her body.

This was so much worse than when Malkov had tried to rip her magic from her soul.

Something grabbed her, hauling her forward and against a muscular chest. The smell of pine trees after a rainstorm invaded her senses.