Naked Empire

The outer door squealed in protest as it was pulled open. This was new.

No one had opened the outer door since the day they shut her in the place.

Ann rushed to the door to her small room, to the faint square of light that was the opening in the iron door. She grabbed hold of the bars and pulled her face up close, trying to see who was out there, what they were doing.

Light blinded her. She staggered back a few steps, rubbing her eyes.

She was so used to the dark that the harsh lantern light felt as if it had burned her vision with blazing light.

Ann backed away from the door when she heard a key clattering in the lock. The bolt threw back with a reverberating clang. The door grated open.

Cool air, fresher than the stale air she was used to breathing, poured in.

Yellow light flooded around the room as the lantern was thrust into the room at the end of an arm encased in red leather. Mord-Sith.

CHAPTER 30

Ann squinted in the harsh glare as the Mord-Sith stepped over the sill and ducked in through the doorway into the room. Unaccustomed to the lantern light, Ann at first could only discern the red leather outfit and the blond braid. She didn't like to contemplate why one of the Lord Rahl's elite corps of torturers would be coming down to the dungeon to see her. She knew Richard. She could not imagine that he would allow such a practice to continue. But Richard wasn't here. Nathan seemed to be in charge.

Squinting, Ann at last realized that it was the woman she had seen before: Nyda.

Nyda, appraising Ann with a cool gaze, said nothing as she stepped to the side. Another person was following her in. A long leg wearing brown trousers stepped over the sill, followed by a bent torso folding through the opening. Rising up to full height, Ann saw with sudden surprise who it was.

"Ann!" Nathan held his arms open wide, as if expecting a hug. "How are you? Nyda gave me your message. They are treating you well, I trust?"

Ann stood her ground and scowled at the grinning face. "I'm still alive, no thanks to you, Nathan."

She of course remembered how tall Nathan was, how broad were his shoulders. Now, standing before her, the top of his full head of long gray hair nearly touching the stone chisel marks in the ceiling, he looked even taller than she remembered. His shoulders, filling up so much of the small room, looked even broader. He wore high boots over his trousers and a ruffled white shirt beneath an open vest. An elegant green velvet cape was attached at his right shoulder. At his left hip a sword in an elegant scabbard glimmered in the lamplight.

His face, his handsome face, so expressive, so unlike any other, made Ann's heart feel buoyant.

Nathan grinned as no one but a Rahl could grin, a grin like joy and hunger and power all balled together. He looked like he needed to sweep a damsel into his powerful arms and kiss her without her permission.

He waved a hand casually around at her accommodations. "But you are safe in here, my dear. No one can harm you while under our care. No one can bother you. You have fine food-even wine now and again. What more could you want?"

Fists at her side, Ann stormed forward at a pace that brought the Mord-Sith's Agiel up into her fist, even though she stayed where she was.

Nathan held his ground, held his smile, as he watched her come.

"What more could I want!" Ann screamed. "What more could I want? I want to be let out! That's what more I could want!"

Nathan's small, knowing smile cut her to her core. "Indeed," he said, a single word of quiet indictment.

Standing in the stony silence of the dungeon, she could only stare up at him, unable to bring forth an argument that he would not throw back at her.

Ann turned a glare on the Mord-Sith. "What message did you give him?"

"Nyda said that you wanted to see me," Nathan answered in her place. He spread his arms. "Here I am, as requested. What is it you wanted to see me about, my dear?"

"Don't patronize me, Nathan. You know very well what I wanted to see you about. You know why I'm here, in D'Hara-why I've come to the People's Palace."

Nathan clasped his hands behind his back. His smile had finally lost its usefulness.

"Nyda," he said, turning to the woman, "would you leave us alone for now. There's a good girl."

Nyda appraised Ann with a brief glance. No more was needed; Ann was no threat to Nathan. He was a wizard-no doubt he had told her that he was the greatest wizard of all time-and was within the ancestral home of the House of Rahl. He had no need to fear this one old sorceress-not anymore, anyway.

Nyda gave Nathan a if-you-need-me-I'll-be-right-outside kind of look before contorting her perfect limbs through the doorway with fluid grace, the way a cat went effortlessly through a hedge.

Nathan stood in the center of the cell, hands still clasped behind his upright back, waiting for Ann to say something.