Page 264 of Of Empires and Dust
“Well, that’s not a very nice way to greet a friend who might have just saved your life.” Belina shrugged as she always did.
“Belina, I’m not in the mood. What is it…” Dayne brushed his hand against Mera’s shoulder and squinted. “Belina… is that a hand… in your hand?”
Chapter 60
A Message
19thDay of the Blood Moon
West of Achyron’s Keep – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
“I foundhim following you after the executions.” Belina stood with her arms folded, a man kneeling at her feet with a rope tied around his throat and tethered to the trunk of a thin tree. He was awake, but barely, his head lolling. “Waited a while, watched him. Had a little conversation.”
Dayne looked down at the man, arms cleaved at the wrists, the wounds cauterised, red and raw. “Why does he have no hands?”
“I cut off one when he reached for his knife. And then… well, have you ever tried to put manacles on a one-handed man? Not easy. Impossible some might say.”
“That doesn’t explain the second hand.”
“If you think about it…”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, if I left the other hand, he could have just untied himself. I had no choice.”
Dayne pinched the bridge of his nose. “There were so many choices.”
“Look. You weren’t there. I made a decision, and I stand by it. None of that is important right now.” Belina knelt beside the man and patted his cheek. “Tell him why you were following him.”
The man grunted. “I was… I… I was sent by High Lord Loren.”
“For what purpose? To kill me while I slept?”
“No.” The man leaned his head back. “He wants you to meet him. He says if you’re not at the bank of the River Makeer tomorrow, by sunset, he will kill your brother.”
“Baren?” Dayne looked from Mera to Belina. “He’s lying. Baren is in the North. He’s in Berona.”
“No.” The man pushed himself backwards and up against the tree. “He’s not.”
“How can you expect?—”
“He’s not lying, Dayne.” Belina stared into Dayne’s eyes in a way she rarely did, and Dayne’s heart sank. She swung a small cloth sack around from her side and reached in to produce what looked to be something akin to a thick piece of parchment, its edges rough and jagged. “When I found him, he was carrying this.”
Belina reached out her hand, letting the parchment catch the moonlight. The sigil of House Ateres was marked in black ink across the centre. It was only when Dayne reached out to touch it that he realised what the parchment truly was: a patch of flesh carved from Baren’s chest where the sigil had been tattooed over his heart.
Dayne took the piece of carved flesh into his hands, the blood long dried. He drew in slow breaths, then knelt before the handless messenger. “Is my brother alive?”
The man nodded. “I only saw him the once, right before I left. That was three days ago. He was alive then.”
Dayne swallowed hard. “And Loren wants me to meet him at the River Makeer?”
“By the old fort on the east bank. Alone.”
Dayne nodded slowly. “Is this how you thought this night would go? Did you think you could just walk into this camp carrying flesh from my brother’s chest, wave it in my face, and walk away?”
“I’m just a messenger. You can’t?—”
“I can’t what? You are no messenger. A messenger comes with words. You come with a piece of my younger brother and a tongue painted with threats. No.” Dayne stood, turned to Belina, grabbed a knife from her belt, then dropped back down and drove the blade into the man’s stomach. The man gasped and grabbed at the blade with his arms, the blood flowing around the steel. “You will die here, slowly. You will feel the pain my brother felt as this sigil was carved from his chest. I have no mercy for the likes of you.”
