Lady of Chains

by Scottie Kaye

  Lassyne resisted a scowl. She had spied on her parents enough times to understand that. Those images, her mother’s cries... they would forever be etched in her mind. But spying on the duke and duchess was the only way for her to have even a tiny shred of control. Hiding behind the grates of Castle Read, Lassyne could watch her parents make decisions for her ahead of time, so that she never had to react poorly to the news; and, she could hide from her brother. The heating ducts of her home palace were her only refuge, although she could barely fit into them now.

  Unfortunately, the temple at Reading had no such grates, being far too old for the modern-day ventilation systems constantly being invented in Gusta. Thus, she had zero chance at escape when her mother said, "Oh. Take your brother."

  Five hells. She'd almost made it out of the room too. Plastering on a brilliant smile, she said, "Of course. Ossyne?"

  He nodded and rose. "That sounds lovely. I've finished eating."

  This time, as Lassyne left the room, she was glad for the swarm of guards that fell into step around her. Being alone with Ossyne was the number one cause of her so-called fits. And she didn't want to get sequestered for bad behavior, not this week of all weeks. Her moderate freedom at Reading meant she'd have a chance to prepare for her marriage—to learn something about the men who might buy her hand. If she got holed up, then she'd only see each man once before the damage was done.

  "Lovely day, isn't it?" Ossyne said.

  "Yes, quite," she replied. It was overcast.

  "You know, I've always wondered why anyone chose to build an estate so high up on a mountain," he said. He laughed. "And then to call it a temple. Temple to what, I've always wondered?"

  "A temple to the majesty of the Reads," Lassyne said by rote. Which explains why no one ever comes here to worship.

  "Ah, yes, the Reads. And now, perhaps, the Trues.”

  Lassyne shivered at the word. She and Ossyne both shared a similar magic—truth magic—which gave them both a last name that differed from their parents. Yet of them both, Lassyne's magic was vastly stronger, and the Read family hoped desperately that her children would share her abilities. No mage was more valuable than a truth mage, especially one whose magic had no limiters.

  “You are truly lucky, sister,” Ossyne went on, “to be the one leading our great house into the future. I suppose that, once our parents die, this temple will belong to you, not so? All of this, to you, because of an accident of birth." He laughed again. "To a woman and her foreign husband! Ah, the world we live in."

  Until this moment, they had merely been following a hallway, which wound down into the mansion at an incline. Now, however, Ossyne directed them into a shaft of light and out onto one of the main viewing areas. Built on wooden stilts, the veranda stretched across the entire north-facing side of the temple. The temple's only lift had been built to her left, a clunky iron contraption which used a set of pulleys to ferry servants and supplies up from the base of the mountain. The wealthy visitors rarely used it, preferring palanquins as a sign of their wealth. It did not appear to be in use at the moment; the travel cage hung forlornly at the top.

  Lassyne eyed the balustrade as they approached the edge of the balcony. Ossyne and high places did not mix.

  "Ambassador Ossyne, Your Grace," said one of the guards—a tall, broad man who normally went with her father on hunting parties. "We've express orders to keep Lady Lassyne from the vistas."

  She almost snorted. "Vista" was another word for “anyplace where Lady True could attempt to throw herself to her death.” Bridges, balconies, even treehouses. They were all forbidden to Lassyne.

  Still, she was thankful. The guards might not understand precisely who they were protecting her from, but they were protecting her all the same.

  "Nonsense," Ossyne said, waving a hand. "My sister has been well for several months now. She deserves to see the beauty of her own lands."

  "Our lord is kind," said the head guard, "but Duke Read—"

  "In fact," Ossyne said, tapping his lip. It made him look especially pensive. He was a broad man, devilishly handsome and prone to opulent clothing even when it wasn't strictly necessary. "In fact," he repeated, "I think I'll go alone with her. There's something I wish to discuss. You may leave."

  Lassyne's heart pounded. No. She looked about the ring of guards, trying to express her panic without expressing it too much. She couldn't afford to concern anyone, not now, but if her brother led her to that edge....

  "I'm sorry, Your Grace, but our orders stand."

  Thank the Scented Queen. Lassyne released a pent breath.

  Ossyne lifted a finger at the guard, cocked a half-smile, and said, "You're fired."

  The guard blanched. Ossyne looked around at the others.

  "Anyone else want to deny my lovely sister this pleasure?" he asked. "Next week, she will be wed, you see. I only want to share a few private words with her, before she is a married woman."

  Lassyne's hands were curling into the coins sewn at her hips, the notched edges carving lines in her palms. She told herself to be calm. Ossyne would get his way. But he couldn’t try anything with all these guards watching.

  As expected, the rest of the guards stepped away.

  "You can't—with all due respect, you can’t fire me," the head guard stammered, adding belatedly, "Your Grace."

  Ossyne had already snaked a hand about her wrist, already started to pull her away, his fingers curling threateningly into her nullband. She let herself be taken. Any resistance could be construed as rebellion or madness or both.

  You’ll be with him in plain sight. You’ll be fine.

  "I can’t, can I? Go talk to my father, then," Ossyne said. "He's quite fond of reversing my orders."

  Lassyne looked back at the head guard, trying to smile at the poor man. We'll both be fine this day, she tried to impart to him. You'll still have your job, and I'll still have my life.

  It seemed he believed this a bit less than she did, given his paleness; but finally, he bowed.

  "I will go see the duke, then," he said. The other guards stayed when he left, and she sighed with relief. She would still be watched.

  It wasn't until she and her brother had walked a good ten paces that Lassyne finally risked a tug at her arm. In response, Ossyne's grip closed like a vice on her flesh, his knuckles going pink from the force. As always, he preferred to control her. Not even her arm was her own.

  "Let me go," she said under her breath.

  "Don't fuss now, sister," Ossyne replied. He still sounded carefree and thoughtful. "You'll have to get accustomed to heights, you know. To always looking out at the things that you own."

  Lassyne couldn't help but hiss back at him, "I'm plenty accustomed to heights. No thanks to you."

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. They would no doubt be relayed back to her mother, and Ossyne would claim her "delusions" had returned. She'd be lucky to have a bedroom to herself after this. Jessyne didn't tolerate such "baseless" accusations.

  Yet still, the railing drew closer—the viewing area here was larger than the great hall back home—and with every step, Lassyne grew a little more nervous. She knew that her brother was a murderous lunatic, but he had never dared to hurt her where others could see. And yet the guards were far off—perhaps too far to see clearly.

  Was her brother seizing his chance?

  I should fight, she thought. I should really fight. Claws and everything. Getting locked up was better than death.

  But he'd defeat her. He always did. He was twice her size, and trained in wrestling. Women were not allowed to wrestle. Ever.

  "If you try anything, someone will see," she warned him.

  "Try what, sister?" he replied.

  They were almost to the balustrade. She glanced back again, searching the spindly windows for more witnesses, scouring the porticos for any sign of more guards. Instead, she saw no one—no one at all. Her pulse skipped as she noticed a thin vein of smoke, rising from th
e far side of the temple. The guards must have left to inspect it.

  He started a fire, she realized. The idea would never have struck a normal person so fast, but Lassyne had seen Ossyne use similar tactics before. He made a distraction. No one will be watching.

  With an abrupt jerk, Ossyne thrust her against the fat stone railing. Then he gripped her about the waist so hard that she felt her hip bruising. The act might have appeared brotherly from behind.

  "All this," he said, waving a hand at the scenery. Sharp rocks, glaring caverns, seas of lichen and scrub, and in the distance the stretching fingers of a forest. "Yours." His grip tightened. "Not mine. Yours."

  "It wasn't my choice," she growled, her gaze dropping down the huge wooden supports beneath the platform. If she fell and remained conscious after striking the cliff face, she might only break her legs or arms or spine before she caught herself on an outcrop. More likely, she'd fall and keep rolling, leaving a stain of red down the mountain.

  It had been months—months—since he'd tried this. She'd almost thought it was over. The last time, he'd screwed up his attempt, inhaling water himself when he tried to drown her. The attempt had resulted in him getting pneumonia. She had hoped that this had ended it for good, but now she could see that it had merely given him more time to plan. Stomach sinking, she looked down at the particular stone balustrade on which she was putting her weight.

  Of course. Of course it was cracked.

  Think, she told herself. Earlier this year, she had kept a dagger on her person at all times. To even obtain it, she'd had to get down on her knees for a guard... but it had all been for nothing. The blade had been discovered, and the offending guard fired. None of the others had dared trade with her since.

  "So, you're getting married," Ossyne rumbled. "That must be quite troubling to you. A man you don't know, a stranger. Taking you away from the world you've come to know, from the systems your family built to keep you tranquil and happy...."

  Lassyne's arm jerked, suddenly, and she realized she'd been pulling at her dress so hard that she'd popped a coin right off. She peered down at it as he continued.

  "What if your new husband is abusive?" her brother went on. "What if he doesn't care for you the way your dear brother would?"

  The coin. It was attached to her dress by a cord. The cord ran through fabric loops, connecting all the coins together.

  Lassyne collapsed to her knees and started to sob.

  He knelt beside her, his arm across her shoulders. "Yes. Just like that, sister. Let it out."

  Out of his vision, in her lap and beneath her bent face, Lassyne pulled at her dress. He could hear the clinking, maybe even knew what she was doing, but it must have looked like a breakdown, like despair. Tearing at her dress because she knew she could do nothing. Nothing to stop what was coming.

  "There, there, sister," he said, patting her shoulder. "I'll take good care of the kingdom while you're gone."

  She sobbed and pulled and sobbed and pulled. "Please don't," she begged him. "Please."

  He sighed knowingly, then rose. "It's been fun, Lassyne," he said. "But we both knew it had to end. Your suicide will kill Mother, of course. You always were so selfish."

  With that, he kicked the balustrade. Lassyne cried out in surprise as the stone collapsed, tumbling off the mountain with a portion of the railing, leaving a gap just wide enough for her to fall through.

  He seized her arm and jerked her upward. "Good, your wrist is bruising," he said. His mouth curled into a smile. "I did try to save you, after all."

  Nine

  Lassyne swallowed, and then she let loose.

  She fought with everything she had. She thrashed and screamed and scratched. She raised her knee to his groin, thrust her head at his nose, tore at his throat with her bare hands.

  He dodged it all, laughing. Then he pushed her. It was that easy, and she was that weak.

  The world swung up and over her head, and she knew he'd pushed hard enough to propel her from the balcony, making her plummet twice as far down the cliff face. It was all she could do to remember the dress, to drop her hands to the unspooled cord of coins that she'd tied to another part of the railing when Ossyne was not looking. And then her weight hit the makeshift rope, and she whipped sideways as the cord unwound from her dress in a rapid series of thready pops. Her head struck something—one of the support beams—and she lost all her senses for a moment. When she came to, she found herself bleeding and sore on the ground, her arms wrapped around the beam. She looked up, stunned to see the entire golden chain of her dress had unraveled above her, only breaking off a few feet from the ground. It must have slowed her descent just enough to keep her alive when she hit. She was almost naked now, wearing only the skeletal boning of the dress, her panties, and a few coins left at her bottom hem—where they'd been sewn on one by one, like metal tassels.

  "Really, sister?" Ossyne called, sounding not a little annoyed. "I honestly don't know why you fight this. Well. I'll be right down."

  With that, he disappeared. She knew he must be headed to one of the maintenance stairs that led beneath the viewing platform, where servants could clear it of brush and dead animals. She tried to stand, failed, and then managed it the second time. Her ankle was twisted, but she'd felt worse.

  Her gaze raked the forest of support beams and scree, searching for anything that could save her. At first, she found nothing of use, but she took a few steps toward the cliffs—hoping for a safe path down—and when she neared the edge, she saw it. To her right, out of sight of her earlier position, a series of iron rungs had been hammered into the side of one support beam. The rungs led toward the elevator cage, serving as another maintenance access. She staggered toward it, knowing that she'd never be able to run fast enough to escape Ossyne in any other way.

  Using her weak arms and one foot, she ascended the ladder as fast as she possibly could, which was not fast at all. Her racing heart, however, was not news to her; she had been in this same trouble many times before, so she knew how to think clearly even under the stress. Glancing behind her, she watched the stairs leading down from the platform. Her brother's feet appeared at the top.

  She was still several rungs from the floor of the cage, but she didn't have time to get onto it before Ossyne would see her. Her instinct was to get out of his sight now, and so she reacted, tugging open the small iron door that led into the storage unit beneath the elevator, the place where servants stashed whatever items they were transporting.

  Within seconds she'd curled up in the small dark space, closing the door silently behind her. She didn't hold her breath, but instead forced herself to breathe evenly, quietly. The walls closed in, the darkness like her brother's arms, squeezing her tighter and tighter and tighter. She hated this panic, but it was familiar. Better to be panicked than dead.

  The only light was a thin crack where the door was. She counted her heartbeats, her stomach swirling as the cage swayed slightly from the pulley overhead.

  Was he looking around? Checking the cliffs? Seeing the iron rungs on the beam? Was she only delaying the inevitable?

  She nearly screamed when the floor dropped beneath her, though she rammed back into it a moment later. Now her stomach really did hit the ceiling, and for an instant, she thought Ossyne had kicked the cage, swinging it around just to torment her.

  But it was too heavy for that, and now she understood. Someone was using the lift. Was it Ossyne?

  "I might pity her, if she wasn't so rich," said a voice. She recognized it instantly as Boris, her mother's steward.

  "Oh, Bor, don't be so cold," said a female voice. A maid, one whose name Lassyne didn't know, at least not now, with her heart hammering like it was.

  "I mean it," he said. "I'd raise my own ass to a man like Form every night, if I got to have that kind of money."

  A pause, and unexpectedly, Lassyne heard the sound of lips on flesh. "But she's so fragile," the maid breathed. "It'll take her mind. What good is money, when you've
lost your mind?"

  Lassyne swallowed. They were talking about her—and Housemaster Form. And they were dropping down the side of the mountain.

  "He probably will only bother her when he needs to make heirs," Boris said, breathless. She heard the maid gasp a moment later. "It's not a good look, to have a crazy wife."

  "It's so—so sad, though," said the maid. Then the woman breathed out, long and loud, and Lassyne recognized the pleasure in the sound. "I had hoped for better for her... Rastus is supposed to be a nice—oh—"

  "Nice means—nothing—to the Reads," Boris replied, his voice falling into a rhythm. Lassyne couldn't see them, but it was obvious what was happening; the two servants were having a little fun on their way down the cliffside. The maid was making small, needy sounds.

  Then somewhere close by, the cry of an eagle rang off the mountains. The maid used the sound to hide a cry of pleasure, and Boris groaned. He didn't last long—Lassyne knew this from experience—and she rolled her eyes inside her small metal cavern.

  "You have an orchid, right?" Boris asked the maid once he'd finished. He meant a black orchid petal—the only known pregnancy prevention.

  "Of course," the maid huffed. Lassyne didn't think she had finished. "It's not like men ever carry the damn things...."

  Belts clinked, fabric swished. "I hear Housemaster Form does," Boris said lazily. "But only because he's been backed by the Black Orchid Consortium. And whoever owns that could buy Gusta outright... no wonder he has so much money."

  A sigh from the maid, then silence. Lassyne's mind worked over the things they had said. Every moment that passed brought her further from Ossyne, but closer still to Housemaster Form. She'd heard none of these rumors about him, but she wasn't stupid. Servants knew more about such things than noble ladies. Such dark topics were avoided in the sitting rooms of the wealthy, especially in Olfact.

  So her new husband was a cold man. A rapist, perhaps. And her brother would never stop trying....

  Minutes passed, each one longer than the last. The stuffy silence of the maid's dissatisfaction had a calming effect on Lassyne. She stopped expecting the elevator to be called up, stopped believing that Ossyne would figure out what had happened. With each passing moment, it seemed more possibly that she'd land and emerge into freedom—