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away that they were after her, meant to hunt her down,
but the reality of their threat now stared her in the face
with open jaws and reaching talons.
I can t escape this, Despiris realized, and didn t try
even as fresh fear ravaged through her and screamed at
her to flee anyway.
The live statues landed all around her, cutting off
escape. Despiris briefly wondered why she hadn t just
dived into the open manhole, where these beasts
couldn t fit, but then she remembered the gargoyle in
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Madon s Keep tearing through the very ground, and
knew it wouldn t have mattered.
Do you surrender? a gargoyle asked in a beastly
voice that was as deep as it was harsh.
Despiris hadn t expected the creatures to demonstrate
human speech, but she didn t let that surprise faze her.
I will not be imprisoned again, she declared as if she
were calling the shots.
No, the lady archangel agreed in a beautiful sultry
voice, stepping forward to be recognized. Lady
Verrikose says to tell you that your previous captors see
imprisoning you did no good the last time, and they ve
no intentions of repeating the process which was most
humiliating to them.
Despiris accepted her words with caution, not sure if
she should trust them.
They hope you will come along willingly, the
archangel informed her.
For what? If not imprisonment, then what? I heard
the things the Lord Advisor said. He wants to doom
me.
The archangel was silent in reply, eyes going
uncannily blank. She almost seemed to be standing
dead for a few moments, and then she snapped out of it.
Lady Verrikose says the Lord Advisor speaks
impulsively and rashly. The king means no harm to
come to you.
Why, Despiris repeated so forcefully it didn t sound
like a question at all.
He is drawn to you. You seem to be partial enough
to his side, agreeing with his views and alerting him to
certain persons in his service that are acting deceitfully.
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He wants to talk to you. He d like you on his side. That
is all.
Despiris didn t know what to say. As she stood there
struggling within herself, something drew her eyes up to
the dome roof. Clevwrith crouched at the edge,
watching. Where were the guards? And the other
scrawny figure who had been there when the statues
came alive? It didn t matter. Clevwrith was there now.
Over the distance and through the dark, Despiris
thought she could still make out his features. Perhaps
she only imagined his face, but what she saw only
worsened her indecisiveness. He seemed to know
somehow what she would choose, even when she hadn t
made her decision yet, and he didn t like it. His
expression was just so dismayed and knowing, making
her feel guilty. He didn t look sad, exactly, just...alone.
Oh, Clevwrith, what am I about to do? she wondered in
distress. Maybe Clevwrith did know somehow, could
read something in her she couldn t see herself. Or
maybe, it just meant something different to him. She
was so confused.
And all the while, everyone around her waited for
what she would decide, the archangel patient, the
gargoyle threatening, the other creatures unseen behind
her, Clevwrith knowing. He did know.
She felt so torn between decisions, between lives
between worlds. She had never thought of Clevwrith
like this before, but suddenly he seemed more alone
than anyone else in the world though even as pity and
guilt rose within her, the other side of this world, the one
where a king fought for things she believed in but had
long forgotten, interested her in a way that the enticing
beauty of night and the thrill of escape did not. It was
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strange. So strange. But she wanted to know more
more of something that Clevwrith did not know how to
teach her. More of something that he had never
bothered to tell her existed. Maybe he hadn t known of
it she tried to believe that, tried not to blame him, but
she couldn t help feeling he had deliberately kept it from
her.
Not everyone is invincible, Clevwrith. The children that
are caught thieving because of starvation they re not
invincible. And they get caught all the time. It isn t fair for
us to do what they can t, again and again, and play it like a
game. Like we re bragging. Then they get dragged away
while we re laughing in triumph where they failed.
Then, Despiris knew her decision too. You saved one of
them once, she thought at Clevwrith. You saved me. Now
I m going to carry on that deed and do the same. Thank you
for being my example. You really did show me the way. I m
sorry, she whispered in her mind, and then she brought
her eyes back down to earth.
Then I come willingly, Despiris gave in, the words
rolling heavily off her cruel tongue.
The gargoyle clamped her arm in a strong grasp,
black claws digging into her flesh but careful not to
puncture this time. As he led her toward the dome,
Despiris glanced up again at the roof.
But Clevwrith was gone. Somewhere out in that big
wide world, he walked the dark paths of companionable
night, with no one but the shadows for company, all by
himself now on a road that would go on, never
changing, even as the world changed around him. A
solitary figure, a legendary figure, brilliant and cunning
in the admiring eyes of the awed world, but if only they
knew...knew that his gift no longer brought him pride,
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that the infamous fame and glory had become a burden.
He could not give them up, could not leave them
behind, knowing destiny had charged him with carrying
the weight of his gift to the end. And he would.
Somewhere out there, a lonely spy stepped into a
shadow and disappeared, swallowed by the one thing
that would accept him into its arms and never let go: the
darkness of a cold night, taking him in its welcoming
embrace when the rest of the world left him more alone
than ever.
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20: Showing Favor
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