Yet it wasn’t the Straken Lord that had crossed over into her world in response to the magic that had brought her here, but another demon, one she still knew nothing about.

Why hadn’t the Straken Lord gone itself? Was the real purpose of the exchange to bring her in or to send the other demon out? The key to understanding everything was buried in the answer to that question.

At the bottom of the stairs, Hobstull turned back along a row of thick wooden doors into which tiny eye slits had been cut. As they passed those slits, she heard sounds emanating from within. Once or twice, blackened digits poked out tentatively, as if sampling her taste on the air she stirred in passing. Torches burned on the walls, creating a thick, smoky haze all along the corridor. Fresh air wafted down stone vents from somewhere above, but not enough to dispel the haze. The flames flickered and sputtered from the pitch-coated heads of the torches, casting her shadow against the stone walls as she passed. Not a place from which many escape, she thought.

She looked down at the chains she wore and saw herself as her captors did—an animal on a leash, a creature for display, a pet to amuse them, a curious specimen. In her own eyes, she had been reduced to the lowest level of existence possible, but in the eyes of her captors she was being treated exactly as she deserved. Men were less than animals in the world of the Jarka Ruus. Demons and demonkind were at the top of the food chain; Men were little more than an oddity. It was funny, but she had never thought about it before. She had never thought much about the Forbidding at all. It was a fact of life, but one so far removed from her day-to-day existence that it barely merited consideration.

Until now. Until it was all that mattered.

Hobstull stopped before one of the doors, inserted a key into the lock, and opened it. Leading her inside by the chain at her waist, he turned her about, unfastened the chain, and backed out the door. He looked at her again for a moment in that now-familiar way, then closed the door and locked it behind him.

Grianne Ohmsford, Ard Rhys of the Druid order, stared helplessly into the darkness that closed about her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ELEVEN