Read Online Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3) by S.M. Reine - Free Book Online Page A

record-keeper, a librarian. Typically keeps a dozen slaves on hand. He has a small army—about fifty strong, less than a century, although very highly trained. As he does much of his work outside of the Palace, he requires good protection.”
    Fifty strong. Not as many as Elise would have wanted, but better than the nothing she had now.
    “Librarian,” she echoed. “He would know a lot about the Palace, wouldn’t he?”
    “The librarians are rumored to know everything about the Palace,” Devadas said.
    When Vassago’s new slaves were marched off of the stage, they weren’t replaced. The crowd began to disperse quickly with mutters, leaving Elise and Devadas standing alone at the rear of an empty square.
    Humans were loaded into carts. Doors slammed, chains rattled, and wooden wheels groaned as they began to move.
    “Was that all?” Elise asked. They had only auctioned off thirty or so people.
    Devadas twisted his hands together, gazing up at the fissure. “Imports have been increasing in light of the war topside, but few are in condition for the usual reasons we auction mortals. Most are going to immediate processing.”
    Processing . The slaughterhouses. Elise glared up at the fissure, but she couldn’t see it through the smoke.
    “But troop movements have been slowing,” she said. “How many humans could they be bringing down?”
    “The spoils of war are being brought down by the usual means. They are brought through portals to Malebolge or Phlegethon and carried here.” Devadas cringed at her look, like he expected her to strike him. “It’s war , Father.”
    A war she fully intended on stopping, no matter how many fiends and slaves ended up tied around her neck.
    “Show me where Vassago lives,” Elise said.
     
    It took almost an hour for Elise to realize that she had been followed out of the auction square. Normally, she would have been alert enough that she would have sensed the minds of her pursuers before they were even within viewing range. People trying to be sneaky gave off outrageously obvious mental signals. But she had been leading Devadas away from the square thinking about the slaves that had been purchased by The Dark Man. She didn’t hear them coming until they were already picking up their pace to intercept.
    Elise glanced at Devadas first, trying to see if he was alert, if he might be an asset in the fight to come. He was withdrawn and fretting. Not enough time to warn him.
    She listened to the footsteps—it sounded like four creatures, perhaps five, and moving quickly.
    Ten yards away, five yards away.
    There was nobody else in sight. Not a chance that they were there for anyone but Elise.
    “Watch yourself,” she told Devadas, drawing her pistol from the small of her back.
    He gave her a startled look. “What do you mean?”
    Elise whirled and raised the gun in a smooth motion.
    The demons approaching them looked human for the most part, although the waxen texture of their skin and gashed mouths gave them away. They wore the livery of another House—not the black Palace garments, but red robes tied with black cord.
    Corporeal nightmares. Five of them. Elise wasn’t equipped to handle nightmares.
    Damn.
    Elise let her power flare as she had in the House of Abraxas, letting her skin glow and her energy leak. “Don’t come any closer,” she said in a booming voice that echoed over the street. It should have worked on nightmares—they were Yatam’s descendants and just as awed by the sight of the Father as anything else.
    But they kept running at her.
    She fired at the first one without any time to aim. The shot went wild. It missed the nightmare in the front and hit the woman behind him instead. It sank into her face, leaving a wound with ragged edges. But the injury didn’t last long. Even as Elise watched, the skin sealed shut around the bullet wound.
    And then the nightmares were on top of them.
    Two of them seized Elise’s arms, wrenching them behind her back. She