her face.
His bloodstained nails were long, cloudy, and thick. When he pinched her chin, she said in a seething tone, "Now brother, you know I dislike it when men touch
my face."
When angered-like now-Sabine's surroundings appeared to rock and explode as though from an earthquake, while winds seemed to gust in tempests. Omort hesitantly released her as the court attendees nervously
stamped about.
"I have the coordinates for the road Rydstrom will be traveling," Omort said. "Lanthe can open a portal from the dungeon directly to that location, and you can stop him there. It will be a perfect trap. Unless she's already lost her thresholds power."
Lanthe could still create portals. But her ability was temporarily weakened each time, so she could only
manage it once every six days or so. Sabine only hoped she hadn't burned one recently.
"Why don't you call Lanthe in here and ask her yourself?" Sabine said, making him scowl. For some reason, Omort had always loathed being near Lanthe and had decreed that the two sisters would never be together in his presence.
"Exactly how long do I have to set this snare?" she asked.
"You must intercept him within the next two hours."
"I go at once." She had little time to hatch a plot, which irritated her. She adored plotting-devising plans and subplans and contingencies-and half the fun was the anticipation of a trap about to be sprung. She would dream up scenarios for months, and yet now she had only mere hours.
Before she could leave, Omort leaned down and murmured at her ear, "If there were any way around your sleeping with this beast, I would have found it for you."
"I know, brother."
She did believe him in this. Omort would never willingly give her up, because he wanted Sabine all for himself and had since the first time he'd seen her. He'd said there was something in her eyes he'd never seen before-the dark knowledge of what it was like to die. Something he could never know.