Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) Read Free Page B

believe me when I say that I do not want any of you. Tell me that even with your low level reasoning skills you comprehend the implied threat."
    Was he fucking kidding?
    "My oath," she said, "that I will not speak of this to The Unmoved, nor will I speak of it in his presence." She was so far removed she could barely hear herself form the words. Tian held her breath, wondering if the Oracle would accept an oath with so many blatant omissions.
    "Was that so difficult?"
    Anyone with less of an ego would have ripped her apart.
    "Not if it pleases you, Oracle."
    He speared a cloud of yellow smoke corkscrewing through the humid air and inhaled slowly, savoring the taste where it mingled with the remnants of her blood left splattered on the metal. The grace in his movement struck Tian as forced.
    "They all think I'm mad, you know."
    The change of subject was abrupt, but the statement was hardly news. She agreed, but he wasn't asking, so she kept her mouth shut. The Oracle's madness had been the rumor for centuries.
    "Answer me," he said. He appeared unaware that he hadn't asked a question.
    "I believe that we are all slave to something, Oracle," Tian said. She leaned over and covered her molars with the palm of her hand, unwilling to leave them behind and hoping he wouldn't notice.
    He barked out a sharp burst of brittle amusement before his face closed in on itself. He worked the filigree pipe between two fingers. His shoulders hunched around his ears and he leaned towards her with a feral snarl. The Oracle snapped the fingers of his free hand, expecting her to crawl to the base of the tree where he was perched. Little to her credit she did.
    "I am slave to none, mongrel, least of all Her."
    He was referring to their errant Goddess. The one that had forsaken them so long ago she was more myth than reality. Tian had been born after the abandonment and found it difficult to muster up anything other than ambivalence. The highborn Sidhe, especially the older ones, still mourned the loss. Supposedly Faerie had been on the decline ever since, not that anyone would admit it.
    "As it pleases you, Oracle. What of the cup you would have me retain?"
    Easier to fall back to ritualistic answers as she struggled to get the conversation back on track. The faster he told her what he wanted, the faster she could get the hell away from him.
    "That was not my fault." The vehemence in his response spewed loose strands of spit down his jaw and at her face.
    Whoa, now.
    "No Oracle."
    Any other half-breed would have handled this cocksucker better, but her brain didn't churn out the kinds of platitudes that would get the job done. She used to grovel better than this. Now she just died and hoped like hell she stayed that way. It never worked.
    "They're using it against me," he said. "Taking what is mine."
    "Who is?"
    "If I knew that, obviously I'd have little use for you. JUST GET ME MY FORSAKEN CHALICE!"
    Tian felt herself pale.
    Goddess turned.
    He'd lost the Sidhe Chalice. No wonder he'd required her oath of silence. She was screwed. Totally, utterly, unfailingly screwed.

Chapter 3
A Blind Eye
     
    Sio shoved back from his desk. There was a stack of paperwork covered in his handwriting with notes in the margins that he had no recollection of making. A flick of the cordless mouse next to his right hand, and a halfhearted glance at the digital read-out at the bottom of the monitor caused him to curse out loud. He should have been gone nearly an hour ago. Instead he'd been chasing stray thoughts around his skull that had no business being there in the first place. Overthinking his life had never managed to do him any favors and yet here he was doing it at work of all places.
    Textbook definition of a glutton for punishment, son.
    He was still obsessing over the three hour stretch he'd spent in the shower after getting home. He'd scrubbed Gray Dress's phone number off of his chest until the water had run cold and his torso looked like it would be better