Amaskan's Blood, Raven Oak [read me a book .TXT] 📗

The Boahim Senate couldn’t touch the Magistrate. Something about his uncle. The fools. Not-so-delicate snorts and grunts from one sleeping with a head cold issued forth. Probably from taking too much Vrint. While the herb would certainly help him with his particular proclivities, it often led to congestion if used too often. Adelei smirked but allowed no laugh to escape her thin lips.

His door opened readily enough, and once inside, she casually observed him and the room for a moment. A doll collection rested in the corner, which he claimed had been passed down through the family.

Only if his particular avocation was a family hobby as well. Adelei slid a small dagger from its sheath at her waist. Three more blades adorned her body—two throwing knives hidden in the bound sleeves of her tunic and another dagger tucked into the top of her boot. She easily could have used the throwing knives—quick and efficient in their entrance through his more than ample body—but her orders were to make it slow.

"Make sure he knows he’s dying." Her orders from the King himself. "What he did to my niece—make him hurt, Master Adelei."

She shouldn’t relish his fear, but he was a monster. This deserved justice. She gripped the plain dagger’s hilt, sliding his bed sheet away from his face to expose a chest of curly red hair. From the small pouch at her waist, Adelei removed a pinch of Ysbane and sprinkled it on his naked flesh. Boiled, the drug released a potent toxin that caused the body’s muscles to relax.

Adelei swallowed against the bile in her throat. It wasn’t the job—she’d outgrown that phase long ago—but the vile concoction she’d swallowed to counteract any Ysbane was pitching her stomach about. Standing over him, she sent a silent prayer that the man was stupid enough not to have taken the same measures. His frame sank a touch more heavily into the feather stuffed mattress, and she leaned over him, one hand holding the dagger while the other clamped strong fingers over his fat-lipped mouth. His sea-blue eyes popped open, and he twitched. Many of his muscles were unresponsive to his brain’s commands. With a huff, the Magistrate tried screaming, but her hand muffled it.

He spotted the simple circle tattoo that marked where her jaw met her ear, and the muffled screams multiplied. “Shhhhh…” she whispered, and she tightened her grip as he tried in vain to turn his head. “Moving won’t help you now.”

Magistrate Meserre’s gaze moved across her body—a solid sheet of black from head to toe. Her tanned skin was revealed only on her fingertips, which were still pressed against his mouth. The whites of his eyes stood out against the rosy tinge of his cheeks. He tried to roll his body away from her, the veins across his neck and forehead bulging with the effort. Sweat beads peppered his forehead as he caught sight of her dagger, and an acrid odor hit the air as he wet his own bed.

“I hear you like little girls.” Her voice scratched the air like gravel beneath her horse’s hooves as she spoke. What few muscles worked twitched in response, and his eyes blinked in a rush. The Magistrate slid his gaze across the flat chest and narrow hips before him. When he tried to smile, the Ysbane twisted his lips into a half-snarl, and she forced a laugh at the grotesque expression. He gargled something incoherent before his body shook, the movement more of a convulsion.

Adelei’s stomach churned at his reaction, but she played her part as she studied him. “Or maybe you only like little girls of the blood. Like Ereina Lhordei.”

Despite the Ysbane, a slight bulge rose beneath the sheet for a moment before it, too, relaxed. His reaction was enough. His jerky twitches stilled as the realization swept across him. Adelei leaned closer, her skin inches from his. “By the Order of His Hand, King Monsine of Sadai, you are hereby sentenced to death for crimes of… oh hell, being a sick, perverted bastard who likes to break little girls like Ereina.”

Magistrate Meserre floundered in his sheets as the drug reached his internal organs. His breaths came in muffled gasps as he struggled like a fish buried in sand, and Adelei leaned away from the sight of his efforts. No sign of guilt crossed his bloated features, just fear. Not that it mattered. He was a monster. He deserved it. If he were repentant, he’d get on with it already and die.

“I am Justice: Amaskan judge in the face of your crimes. I seek justice for all those harmed by your sins,” she whispered the words from the Book of Ja’ahr. He smiled at her, though how he managed through the drugs, she didn’t know, and she placed a hand on his hardening stomach. “You laugh, Magistrate, but today is special. Today, I am also Vengeance. Did you know it was the King’s own niece you broke?”

A gargle and then a hiss issued forth from his throat. “Yes, His Majesty sent me personally to ensure that your death is slow. Painful. Well, not that slow by the look of things. Maybe I used too much.” She laughed at him, but inside she wanted to flee.

It wasn’t right. Amaskans weren’t murderers; they weren’t common assassins seeking vengeance. Watching him fight for each gasp of air was difficult, and her stomach heaved, leaving behind the putrid smell of bile to tickle her nostrils. Magistrate Meserre watched helplessly as her knife moved across his skin, marking his body with the sigils of the Thirteen. Whoever found him would know his crimes and know justice had prevailed. The release of blood heralded the release of his bowels, and after too short a time, the release of his soul.

If the bastard even had one. Adelei wiped the blood clean from her dagger with the Magistrate’s own white silk sheets. Bastard had died too quickly.

She’d been ordered to make it