Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

few hours, yes.”
    “It would have driven me mad.”
    Annaïg shrugged, still feeling angry and helpless, and now trying not to cry. What was wrong with her?
    “I’m not so convinced you’re sane as it is,” she said.
    Slyr chuckled harshly. “I soiled myself,” she said.
    “I didn’t need to know that,” Annaïg replied.
    “I guess not.” Her eyes dropped down. “Toel doesn’t carewhat happens to me. No one does. No one would have even reprimanded you—”
    “I’m not like you, Slyr,” Annaïg said.
    Slyr shakily came to her feet and gathered her clothing around her.
    “Maybe not,” she said. “But you’re closer than you were.”
    And then she left. Annaïg almost thought the woman had a faint look of triumph on her face.
    When Slyr was gone, Annaïg’s tears came.
    For a long time after being trapped on Umbriel, she hadn’t cried. She watched the city she grew up in destroyed, and although she hadn’t seen it, in her heart she knew her father was dead, and Hecua, and every other soul she had ever known before coming to this place, to Umbriel—which was responsible for all of that murder. She had kept it all in, bound up with hope and purpose, freighted by the need to survive to get from one day to the next—and yes, at times by wonder, by the sheer alien assault on the senses that was Umbriel.
    But after Slyr poisoned her, those bands began to fray, and when at last she was ready to escape, to leave Umbriel, they had broken, because she wouldn’t have to live each day in fear any longer, because she didn’t need such unnatural control. And then she and Mere-Glim had flown out across the night to where Prince Attrebus was waiting, with
his
strength, his courage to sustain her.
    But Umbriel hadn’t let them go, and now …
    “You cry far too much,” a soft voice said behind her.
    She closed her eyes, but he knew, so she didn’t bother to wipe them. It would only show further weakness.
    She turned with her cheeks still glistening and stood up from her stool.
    “Chef Toel,” she said.
    When she first met Toel, she’d thought him darkly, devilishlyhandsome, and his unbelievably blue eyes had absorbed her. Now he only seemed dangerous, like a viper.
    He looked meaningfully at the purplish substance in the crystal cone.
    “What have you there?” he asked
    “Terror, Chef.”
    “Well, give us a taste, then.”
    She hesitated. “It’s quite strong, Chef.”
    “I’ll take care, then.”
    She doled him out a bit and watched as he carried it to his lips and let it touch his tongue. His eyes widened dreamily and he hissed before taking several shuddering breaths. Little sparks danced on his skin, and she felt the tiny hairs on her face pull toward him.
    Then he looked down at her, his gaze still a little strange.
    “Exquisite,” he murmured. “You have so much talent, little one. Such beautiful ideas. If only you had—well, a little drive. A bit of ambition.”
    He smiled slightly. “I saw Slyr. She looked as if she’d seen the worst thing in the world.”
    “She tasted it, Chef.”
    “You let her?”
    “I did.”
    “Well, well. An improvement. But why is she still walking? She hasn’t a constitution for such things, as I do. I think it should have destroyed her mind.”
    “I gave her an antidote,” Annaïg admitted.
    He stared at her a moment, then made a slight tsking sound beneath his breath. His eyes—which had held her with a certain sparkle—dulled and shifted.
    “Very well, then,” he said. “Bring that around. I’ve a mind to use it in seasoning the suspiration of hare and sulfur I’m preparing for Lord Irrel’s thirty-third course. A little something differentfor him. And perhaps, if you could, also make me a bit of remorse?”
    “I’m not certain a horse can feel remorse, Chef.”
    “Very well,” he said. “Kohnu was badly burned this morning distilling phlogiston. I shall send his brain over.”
    “But if he’s still alive—”
    “Healing him would