Gravity's Revenge by A.E. Marling Read Free Book Online Page B

her away. A thought jarred Hiresha. This is Janny’s daughter. I don’t want to have to hurt her.
    Minna looked down at Hiresha. The girl now appeared to be a tall woman, unblemished in features, voluptuous and full of deadly assurance. Minna swept a hand adorned with red nails to the weeping Alyla. Only Minna’s voice was less than magnificent.
    “Won’t you help her? I shouldn’t be here. I’ll go back to my room now.”
    “No.” Hiresha forced herself to meet the Feaster’s gaze. “I know what you are, Minna.”
    Panic flickered over the Feaster’s face. Then her expression hardened, and she showed all her teeth in her smile. “My name is Minara. And something’s wrong with your face.”
    The mirror swung upward. A flash of light. Hiresha blinked and saw herself. Cracks lined her face. She was far older looking than she thought, her skin sagging, dripping downward in creasing jowls and flaps of greying skin.
    It’s illusion, Hiresha told herself. Though she could not look away from the sight of her face disintegrating into old age, her hands fumbled within the folds of her gowns. Her fingers caught on a sash lined with small pockets. I have to stop Minna, stop the Feaster from casting.
    The sash held jewels. Gems holding impact enchantments of which the chancellor did not in any form approve. As Hiresha scrounged for a diamond, she wondered if the magic inside would be enough. Her Attraction enchantments had immobilized packs of men trying to strangle her. But a Feaster?
    Hiresha’s face shriveled against her cheek bones and pointed jaw. She was a corpse, fit to be buried. Her fingers trembled, a numbness spreading from them and up her arms so she felt nothing.
    The darkness behind Minna parted around a man. He rested a hand on the Feaster’s shoulder, his fingers crooked, one locked in the position of a hook, another stuck out straight. Yet they all cast curved shadows that ended in wicked points like fangs.
    “My daughter,” the Lord of the Feast said, “what did I tell you about minding your appetite?”
    The woman shrank, dropped her mirror in fright. The glass shattered then dissolved into slithering blackness. Minna was a girl again, cowering with arms around knees, her nose dribbling. Her birthmark had returned, a blotch on her quivering face.
    “I didn’t…I didn’t….”
    “Know I was here? None of your brothers or sisters do either.” The Lord of the Feast released the girl from his grasp. “Yet I’m always watching. Now go.”
    She ran down the hall.
    Hiresha touched her own cheek to reassure herself that her skin was supple and healthy. Alyla’s face too no longer showed a trace of spiders.
    “To bed, my young dainty,” he said to Alyla. “No shadows will harm you, as long as you never open your door at night.”
    Alyla’s mouth opened as if to answer. Her eyes unfocused, and her head rolled to the side as she slumped. The Lord of the Feast caught her before she could smack against the tiles in her faint.
    The enchantress helped drag Alyla into her room. Hiresha tucked the girl into her bed, smoothed the hair from her brow, then shut her away safe.
    In the hall, Hiresha glanced in the direction that Minna had retreated. “I must have her locked in her room as well.”
    “To her room she goes, and her own fear will lock her in.” The Lord of the Feast bowed to Hiresha. He clasped her gloved hand as best as his stiff fingers allowed and brushed her gloved knuckles against his lips. “The time away from you is ever too long, my heart, the time with you ever too short.”
    His touch sent jangling pulses of heat and chill up her arm. All at once her stomach felt hollow and achy. She had to swallow twice before she could speak through her dry mouth. “Being locked in a room seems to have done you no good.”
    “Oh, did the spellswords mean to lock me up? They must have made the critical mistake of believing what they saw.” The illusionist grinned.
    The Lord of the Feast