The Overlord’s ragged breathing punctured the room again in fast pants as if he had just sprinted across Dramore. His shoulders and spine sagged again beneath some great weight. His flash of power was spent.
Melaine saw his brow furrow through his stringy hair, and when he raised his head, his face was full of a dark but patient fury.
“Knock him down,” he said.
Melaine looked at the prisoner with a frown.
“Why?” she asked without thinking. “What has he done?”
“If you are to serve me, you will not question my orders. Do you understand?” The Overlord was seething, and while Melaine could see his hatred was only aimed at the tortured prisoner, she did not wish to be included in the fallout of his rage.
She summoned crackling magic through her frosted veins to her fingertips with a little difficulty. Purple lightning sparked, and she held out her palm toward the swaying victim.
“Having someone else doing the torture for you now?” the prisoner suddenly bit out, his voice hoarse and cracking through split lips that smiled. The smile widened into a laugh, wild and triumphant.
Melaine flinched in disgust. She looked him over again. Tattered clothes hung from his gaunt frame, and there was a symbol on his torn shirt, yellowed and smeared with sweat and blood. It was simple—a circle filled with a pyramid of three Xs, and everyone knew what that symbol meant. Melaine’s disdain swirled deeper. This man was a Proxy of the Luxian Order. And though he was too young to have been a part of the pre-war massacres of those who opposed the Luxians—including those who made lodestones like her—he was still liable for their atrocities. His brethren had stopped Vintor from selling Melaine’s lodestones outside of Stakeside.
Melaine snarled and pushed her magic against the air, finding a current to ride and shooting a pulse into the man with a force resembling a punch to the gut.
He crumpled with a grunt and fell to the floor. His laughing ceased.
“That’ll shut him up,” she said with satisfaction. She raised her eyes to the Overlord. “What now, my lord?”
“Now we’ll feed the body to the crows, I suspect,” the Overlord murmured, rubbing his forehead and dragging his hand down his cheek.
Melaine’s stomach turned.
“Body?” she asked. Her eyes flew to the man on the ground. “But he…is he dead?” She felt the blood recede from her cheeks. “I didn’t—my lord, I didn’t intend to—”
“The brush of a fly’s wings would have killed him, Stonegirl,” the Overlord said. “You did exactly what I expected of you.”
Melaine looked down at her hand, feeling a mingling of horror, disgust, confusion, and…relief. She had expected she would cross the barrier between life and death at some point in her life. She was surprised at times that it hadn’t happened already, defending herself against some attacker in the streets. From the moment her aspirations to become a Follower began, she had often reminded herself that killing was something the Followers did. At least during the war. She had prepared herself for this moment for years.
Now that she had crossed that line, the future she had chosen didn’t seem so scary anymore, but that didn’t stop the bile from bubbling at the base of her throat or keep the guilty weight from dropping into her stomach. It didn’t stop insidious regret from worming its way down her spine, coaxing her to wish she could fuse with the floor and bury herself in a pit as she looked back at the crumpled Luxian man on the floor.
“You will stay here, Melaine,” the Overlord commanded. “You will make me lodestones whenever I ask, and in return, I will teach you all there is to know.” He looked across the hall, behind Melaine. “Karina. Take her.”
He waved a tired hand in dismissal and then leaned his forehead upon it, shielding his face from the candlelight.
Melaine snatched up her gloves and stood on shaky legs. She turned around, away from the husk of the Overlord and the crumpled mess of a body on the floor beside him. She followed the old woman, Karina, through the great hall. When they reached the shadowed archway that would take them back to the inner courtyard, she glanced back one last time. The rank body on the ground lay still.
In the throne, the Overlord had not moved a single weary muscle.
Chapter 5
From the small inner courtyard, Karina led Melaine up a second flight of stairs. They passed through a longer, wider stone corridor lined with more green everflame torches in sconces. They reached the end of the corridor, where a dark curtain hung. Melaine swallowed, memories of the Hole wafting back into her mind like the head potions that permeated the air within that dank place, the memory of the smells making her nauseous. When Karina drew the curtain aside, Melaine was relieved to see a thin sliver of twilight shining through windows of the next room.
The windows were glazed with thick, slightly green-tinted glass, their frames in the shape of tall pentagons. They only lined one side of the room, and as Melaine stepped inside, she could see a second inner courtyard through them.
The courtyard was larger than the first and was covered in scraggly grass. A stagnant pond languished in the middle, no doubt once stocked with fish, but any underwater creature would suffocate within its current condition. On the far side of the area, broken posts fenced off a little vegetable patch. The patch was haggard, but neat rows of hardy cabbages and turnip sprigs showed it was frequently tended to.
The courtyard was a garden. A space for simply walking and enjoying the sunshine, like she’d heard rich people kept behind their estates’ high walls.
Thrilled, Melaine returned her inspection to the interior of the room, anticipating more grand sights. Shafts of filtered, lingering sunlight illuminated dust swirls that floated around a sitting area established upon a large, dark red rug. Straight-backed, ornately carved armchairs and a worn fainting couch waited to support idle chatter and tea.
The vaulted, arched ceiling descended into stone columns throughout the room, some lining the walls, others supporting the heavy roof down the center of the space. The ceiling was patched with brick and timber in some places where the Overlord’s army had repaired the ancient ruins.
Tables were scattered about, some empty, some covered in stacked books with illegible spines. Others were adorned with dusty silver and gold candelabras, brass bowls, delicate china vases, and other signs of wealth and royalty long abandoned.
What the residents of Stakeside would do if they found this wasted treasure trove. After they’d fought over the spoils, killed over it, the winners would have fettered it away to a middleman for a meager price that was well below each object’s worth. He would then sell it at an exorbitant price to the limited middle class, people who desperately wanted to emulate the rich and powerful by filling their homes with such useless trinkets.
Melaine felt indignance rise within her at the barbaric cruelty the sheer existence of such items could create, but another swelling emotion surpassed it—a smug sense of satisfaction that she was here, and the poor wretches of Stakeside were not. She was separate from that miserable population now.
Never again would she be lumped in with them.
“Come, girl,” Karina said. “Don’t gawk at things that needn’t be paid any mind.”
Melaine frowned at the woman’s stark lack of appreciation for the position and home she was lucky to possess.
“How long have you lived here?” Melaine challenged.
Karina kept walking. “As long as the Overlord has.”
“So, five years,” Melaine said. “Or were you here…before? Before the war?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Karina said.
They passed through the room and into another, which was at a slight angle from the first. A third room beyond was angled farther. Melaine glanced out a window and saw the series of rooms wrapped around the garden in a half-hexagon formation. The end of the hexagon was connected to a large, rectangular structure. Smoke drifted up from the roof on one end, so she assumed the building housed the kitchen an
d larder, perhaps storerooms or more quarters as well.
A stone passage extended from the farthest end of the kitchen and stretched across the opposite side of the garden beyond the pond and the vegetable patch. No doubt it led to the smaller, paved courtyard pocketed with doors. When Melaine raised her eyes, she saw the tall, parapet-lined roof of the great hall stretching west where it met with one of the two high towers. The second tower loomed to the south of the keep. If the Overlord didn’t stay in the living quarters she was being toured through, perhaps he lived within one of those dominant towers.
“Come!” Karina said. Melaine jumped and turned back around. Karina stood near a third open curtain across the room. Melaine crossed another rug, clearly a recent addition, judging by its modern geometric patterns, which differed from the rotting landscapes of the First Era tapestries clinging to the walls. The second room was much like the first, with dusty, expensive items cluttering every flat surface of the chairs and tables.
They crossed the floor to enter a third room, which was centered by a wide, shallow, square pit in the floor. A hole in the ceiling above made it obvious that the pit was once used as a fireplace before actual fireplaces were invented. The hearth was dormant now, but coals and a few stacked logs sat inside, waiting to be lit on a cold night of winter that was swiftly approaching.
Melaine skirted the hearth and followed Karina through a stone archway, devoid of a curtain. It led to a short passage with a solid wooden door at the end. Melaine kept her eyes on Karina, analyzing the woman’s bulky hairstyle, trying to decide if something was underneath the strands to create the beehive shape.
Melaine shivered as a sensation like ice water trickled down her spine.
She halted and looked to her left as if a hand guided her cheek. A grotesque stone face stared back.
Dark magic pounded like a belabored heartbeat from a statue of a twisted and gnarled man. A ghastly yawn filled most of his face, his rolling eyes wide with terror. He looked caged and cornered like an animal ready to lash out.
“Child!” snapped Karina. Melaine jolted and hurried away from the statue, which she saw in horror was not the only one. His brothers hunched with crooked postures and made disturbing faces along the entire left side of the passage.
Karina opened the door and ushered Melaine inside. She shut the door with a snap as if the statue would follow them.
“Do not dwell on any object too long in this castle,” Karina said. “There will be consequences if you do.”
“What kind of consequences?” Melaine asked, unnerved.
Karina eyed her, her lips pressed thin, spreading the wrinkles of her chin tight. “If you care for your life, for your soul, you will do as I say. And know that the dungeons are labyrinthian. I recommend you avoid them.”
Melaine wasn’t sure if that recommendation was a command or not, but she nodded.
“Bathe,” Karina then said, gesturing across the room to a far alcove where a clawfoot bathtub sat. “Put your dirty clothes outside the door. You will find fresh ones in the armoire. Don’t go anywhere,” she finished with a warning look.
“I won’t,” Melaine agreed, her skin still crawling from the black energy of the statue. Satisfied, Karina turned away and left the room with a fresh snap of the door.
Melaine let out a breath and felt her tight, wiry muscles vibrate from shoulders to toes. She was here, in the Overlord’s castle, and she was still alive.
To continue to survive, she needed to stay alert and know every shadow and object that could pose a threat to her.
She scoured the contents of the room. A wooden four poster bed adorned with red brocade curtains sat in the center. The white and red blanket looked fresh, with a rich winter fox fur draped at its foot. The walls were stone, but they were scrubbed, and a large, golden-framed mirror hung on one, showing half of Melaine’s wide-eyed reflection. A tapestry, less moth-eaten than many she’d seen, covered the entirety of the opposite wall. On the fabric, horse-riding hunters chased a deer with massive antlers, shooting glowing arrows and magical daggers at the wild beast.
A large, carved armoire stood in a corner. A small table sat beside it, set neatly with a washbasin, a hairbrush that looked like it had never been used, and, to Melaine’s dismay, a jewelry box, filled with small pearls and gems that she was afraid to inspect lest she be accused of stealing. She ignored it for now, even though part of her wanted to leap right in and try every piece on at once.
Above hung an old First Era chandelier made of an iron ring with candles spaced all the way around like the battlements of the roofs outside. They glowed with yellow flames, not everflame, but the wicks were long and the candles fresh. Their glow made the gold of the mirror look like it was melting, and the subtle pattern on the curtains shone like fresh blood.
The dripping rivulets streaming down the prisoner’s skin in the great hall oozed into Melaine’s mind, followed swiftly by the guilt she had promised herself she wouldn’t feel if she ever had to kill someone.
The luxuries around her felt hollow. She had committed murder to earn them.
She deserved it, she told herself. She was intelligent, capable, and her veins ran with powerful magic. Life had cast her aside, either by her parents’ purposeful neglect or their deaths. Either way, they had ruined her chances of success. She had no choice but to take a desperate leap like this one, and if she had to kill one man, who was already on death’s door, to gain her place in higher society, then so be it.
She shoved the guilt back down and walked toward the alcove that housed the bathtub, passing by a sumptuous blue armchair with a matching footstool on her way. She stroked the back of the chair, reveling in the soft, velvety texture, which was just as nice as the seats in the interior of Overseer Scroupe’s carriage.
She glanced back at the fox fur and soft blankets draping the bed. She was tempted to immerse herself in the sensations, but the fur and bed were spotless. No dust coated this room at all like the ones preceding it. It seemed that the Overlord had been anticipating her stay, something that thrilled her with growing confidence. But she couldn’t help but wonder, why was he letting her stay? She had been so focused on convincing him to teach her. Now that he had agreed so easily, she had the luxury of doubting his motives.
He was weak, disturbingly so. He needed her lodestones, but why? What had caused him to deteriorate from the glowing, young, handsome conqueror who radiated magic in every tale she’d heard? The man whose eyes had pierced her heart with longing to emulate his life whenever she’d stared at illustrations, streaked by rain and dust? Why would someone so powerful need her magic? And…were her lodestones all he cared about? Was he really just like everyone else?
Melaine twitched her shoulder and shook the thought away. Whatever his reasons might be, she had a chance to learn magic she had only dreamed of before. That was her new objective, the only thing she should focus on. All other thoughts were mere distractions.
Her eyes traveled back to the bathtub. The water steamed, and Melaine recognized the sweet smell that emanated from the wealthy who had drifted past her prison cart earlier in the day.
She nibbled the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit she’d never outgrown, as she leaned over the tub’s porcelain edge and breathed in the scent. The water was pure and clean, and she discovered the source of the divine smell. Roses. A flower she had only seen in faded illustrations on book pages that Salma stocked as wiping paper in the pub’s small lavatory.
These roses were real, blossoming in the water as floating palaces of golden petals that drifted through the steam. Melaine’s eyes grew wide, and she stripped layer after layer of worn, dirty clothing off her rail-thin body as fast as she could. The vulnerability that stemmed from being naked in a strange place was overcome by the compelling need to feel that warm, soothing, sweet-smelling water on every inch of her skin. To touch those soft, smooth rose petals with her bare fingertips.
She peeled off her tattered gloves last. She may as well have
still been wearing them; her hands retained the outlines of the fabric in crusted dirt. Every line in her palms and knuckles was grimy, and her nails were uneven and ringed with crud. She felt a squirm of mortification as she remembered grazing the Overlord’s palm with her fingers as she delivered the lodestone. He hadn’t reacted. Whenever he looked at her, the few times he did, he had only met her eyes. If he had noticed her soiled appearance, he didn’t seem to care.
Karina certainly did. Melaine frowned and dropped her gloves onto the wrinkled pile of unclean skirt and bodice and bunched up the armful. She strode to the bedroom door, and in one swift motion, pulled the door inward and tossed the clothes into the hall. She squinted her eyes shut against the eerie statue outside and slammed the door closed again.
She pulled a reluctant hand from the doorknob, experiencing a strange fear that the nearest statue might reach for it from the other side. She wished the door had a lock but found none. She frowned and summoned a simple ward spell, pressing her palm against the door to set it in place. It was weak. The stone she had made for the Overlord was the strongest she had ever crafted and left her magic nearly tapped. But the ward would have to do. She backed away and returned to the tub.
She lifted a leg and slipped her foot into the water. Its purity and warmth wrapped around her skin like a pair of elegant stockings. Melaine let out a damn near lustful sigh and climbed into the tub. She lay back, letting the water embrace her worn, tired bones, and closed her eyes. One rose blossom batted her breast, and another tickled her toes. She breathed in the sweet, floral scent and ducked her head under the water.
A nearby ocean sponge and a cake of soap made short work of removing the grime, dust, and sweat Melaine had acquired over an entire lifetime. When she finally rose from the water that swirled with the grime from her body and stood before the tall, gilded mirror on the wall, she was in awe of how truly clean she looked and felt. Her skin was paler and smoother than she had thought possible, her long hair soft and fluffy as it dried. Even her teeth looked brighter after scrubbing the inside of her mouth.
Lodestone Page 10
