Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

said. “And if they plan a move against you, it is your own doing, but I swear I know nothing.”
    Maynard Gemcroft nodded, and the sides of his mouth drooped a little.
    “You have your mother’s wisdom,” he said, “but sometimes you are such a stupid girl.” He turned to one of the guards. “Take her blanket.”
    She felt panic bubble up in her throat as she watched the second blanket leave, and she felt even worse when her first blanket was ripped from her arms. She clawed at it frantically, screaming that it was hers, hers, they couldn’t take it. But they did, and she was cold now, very cold, and it was only day three, and she still knew nothing.
    On the fourth night she was cold, miserable, and suddenly not alone.
    “Do not be frightened,” a voice whispered into the cell. Alyssa jumped like a startled rabbit. Her lips were blue, and her skin a sickly pale color, wrinkled from the moisture that hung thick in the air and clung to the stone walls. She felt wet and disgusting, and her mind leaped to the darkest conclusions about why someone might come calling in the deep of night.
    “My father will find out,” she said from her crouched position on the far side from the cell bars. “He’ll punish you if he…”
    Her voice caught in her throat, for there was no one at her cell. Again she heard the voice, echoing from wall to wall like a magician’s trick. This time she clearly realized that a woman was doing the whispering, a fact that should have calmed her but strangely did not.
    “We are Karak’s outcast children,” said the whisperer. “We are his most fervent, his most faithful, for we have much to atone for. Are you a sinner, girl? Will you lift your arms to us and accept our mercy?”
    Shadows danced around her cell, not cast from the torch flickering outside the bars. Alyssa put her hands atop her head and buried her face in her knees.
    “I want to be warm,” she said. “Please, my father, he’s not bad, he isn’t. I just want to be warm.”
    When Alyssa peered over her knees, she saw the shadows swarm together, grow volume and mass, and then finally fill with color, becoming a woman shrouded in black with a thin white cloth covering the gap left for her eyes.
    “There is warmth in the Abyss,” the woman said as she drew a serrated dagger. “Would you like me to send you there? Careful of what you ask, little girl. Be clear with your demands, or accept the cruel gifts fools and selfish men may give.”
    Alyssa forced herself to stand. She felt skinny and naked before the strange woman, and it took all her willpower to suppress the shaking of her hands and keep them at her sides.
    “I want out of this prison,” she said. “I have done nothing to deserve its cold. Now tell me, who sent you here?”
    “Who else would send us?” the woman asked. “Do not ask questions you should already know the answer to. Remain quiet. We are few, and some things must be done in silence.”
    She wrapped her cloak around her body, its fabric seemingly made of liquid shadow. A sudden jerk and she was gone, her body exploding into dark fragments that splashed across the walls and faded like smoke.
    “You have accepted the help of the faceless,” echoed a whisper throughout her cell. “Remember, the cost you pay is always dearer once it has left your hand.”
    Alyssa sat back down, curled her knees to her chin, and began to cry. She wondered what Yoren would say if he saw her like that. He was so beautiful, and she knew she could be too, but not here, not cold and wet and crying like a pathetic street urchin. Her tears did not stop as she hoped. Instead she cried louder.
    Far away she heard a door open, the sound thick with bolts and metal. Her eyes lifted, and with detached curiosity she watched and waited.
    A hefty man lumbered into view, his thumbs tucked into his belt. His eyes were beady and close together, and his long mustache dripped with grease. Alyssa had never met him before returning home to Veldaren, though she had quickly learned his name. Jorel Tule, master of the cold cells.
    “I got dogs howling up a storm,” Jorel said. “Figure I’d make sure you’re nice and cozy.”
    “A blanket,” she said. Her teeth chattered, and it was no act.
    “Maynard says to wait until you can’t stand no more,” the man said, hoisting up his belt. “I think he means to have me wait until you’re close to dead before warming you up.”
    A hard edge entered his eye. Alyssa recognized it