Angry humiliation rushed over Luca. Why was it like this? Why would it always be like this? He clenched his fists in the sheet. “What are you doing here?”
She seemed to start from a trance. “I—I came to see you, Luca.”
“To see me? As an exhibit?”
That seemed to confuse her. “No—no, I came for you.”
You are years too late, he thought, but he managed to keep the words behind his teeth.
“Luca,” she started, and her voice was both pitying and pleading, “you—you...”
Behind her he saw Jarrick, watching mutely, and then Marla, coming up the stairs with an unhappy expression.
Sara gulped. “Why didn’t you write?”
For a single instant Luca was too numb to respond, and then a great hot sphere of emotion burst within him. “Why didn’t I write? Did it not occur to you that it might be awkward to scribe a letter with one’s wrists shackled, even if paper and ink were readily available in the trader’s stable?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide. “No...”
“Did you think it was my own responsibility to inform you that, yes, I was still enslaved? Something along the lines of, ‘Dearest sister, I have a new master this week, and I won’t be writing for a while because I am chained to a wagon in the middle of the Faln Plateau?’ And how exactly did you expect me to send a letter, after I’d stolen ink and paper, given that a slave has no money of his own? Was I to, while on my knees begging mercy from the stick, also beg that my letter be carried?”
“Luca...” she whispered.
Jarrick stepped forward. “Luca, think a moment. She only meant that she missed you.”
“Missed me?” Luca was scraped hollow by the words. “As if I were on a pleasure trip or away on business?” He gulped as his throat closed. “If she missed me, why didn’t she come for me? Why didn’t any of you come? I was in Trader Laren’s stable—not so far! I was kept what, three days before going to the block in Furmelle? And no one came. No one ever came.”
“I would have needed money,” Sara protested. “Where would I have gotten money?”
“Sell yourself!” Luca snapped. “You were willing enough to sell me! Sell Sara, and you still have her when it’s over.”
“Luca!” Jarrick snarled as Sara recoiled.
“Isn’t that what’s happening right now?” Luca demanded, too enraged to be deterred. “What is this marriage if not a transaction? It’s well and good to make her a whore for the sake of the house, but she mustn’t diminish her value merely to buy back her brother?”
Luca spun away from them, aware he’d said too much but incapable of stopping himself. Behind him there was an awkward, shocked silence. He wrapped the sheet around himself and shuffled toward the terrace wall. “Go away.” His voice was ragged. “Please go away.”
Sara was crying. His stomach twisted further within him. Well, let her cry! Hadn’t he wept again and again? He’d given her nothing but words. Words didn’t hurt, not like deeds.
But he couldn’t turn back to face her. He heard her sob something to Jarrick and then she retreated to the stairs. He glanced hesitantly over his shoulder, afraid she would leave and equally afraid she wouldn’t. Jarrick’s arm was about her shoulders, his head bent over hers. Neither of them looked at him as they began to descend.
What had he done? And yet they had not argued, they had not protested, they had not bothered to defend themselves, to insist that they had really sought him. All he wanted, all he really, desperately wanted, was to hear them insist they’d wished to save him, and they could not be roused or prodded into it.
But what had he done?
He pulled the sheet more tightly about him. If only she had not first seen him bared, his past naked to see. If she’d come to him first, and not his stripes, or if she had not begun with such a ridiculous demand...
“My lord?”
He shook his head. He did not want to speak to anyone now.
“My lord, I tried to stop them, but they were quite excited. I’m sorry, but I could not stop them.”
“They wouldn’t have heeded you,” Luca mumbled. “It would not have mattered that I was undressed and asleep. They think they own me as much as any master. I am theirs, and at their call.” He sighed, miserable.
“Would you have me serve them refreshment, my lord, while you dress and recover yourself?”
He stared at his bare toes. “That’s your suggestion, I see.” He turned slowly. “I wish we could start again, where I could receive them with some dignity, instead of being found stripped and striped...”
“I will make them comfortable in the sitting room, my lord, until you are ready for them.”
“I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready for them.” He looked at Marla, seeing her shock behind the servant’s obedience. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be like that.”
“My lord owes no apology to me.”
Her words and voice were perfectly pitched, but the implication was there. Luca sighed. “I loved Sara. We’re only a year apart. She was always closer to Jarrick, but I did love her. When—when—it had to be someone, Father said, and he didn’t want it to be Sara...” He gulped and shook away the memory. “Go and see to them, please. I’ll dress and—be down in a moment.””
Marla was looking over the edge of the flat roof. “They are departing now.”
Luca turned and saw the litter swaying through the gate. “Wait!” he protested, not loudly enough. “Wait!” But Jarrick, walking beside the litter with his head inclined as if speaking to the occupant, gave no sign of hearing. Cole, abandoned by the hastily summoned litter slaves, stood silently to one side and watched them exit.
Luca slumped further. What had he done? He retreated to the bench and sank upon it, pulling the sheet about his neck. They were all that he had, all that remained, and he had driven them away.
“Marla,” he said gruffly, “where does your master write his letters?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MARU DREW A HISSING breath, trying not to shiver. Shivering pained his wing. He leaned forward and pressed his bare arms against his legs, drawn to his chest to conserve warmth. His bruised wrists shifted against the shackles, making him wince.
He did not want to be here. He was not entirely certain where here was, exactly, but he did not want to be anywhere in the human realm. Unfortunately, it was growing more and more certain that he would not be going to his own world again, nor even anywhere else in the human realm.
He had tried to defend himself, of course, and to escape, but his scavenging party had been surprised where they had expected no resistance and they had scattered, leaving him alone against a handful of furious farmers and mages. The consecutive bolts brought him heavily to the ground, and immediately three or four surrounded him and directed spells to Subdue him. The innate power was ripped from him, and Maru lay gasping and helpless in the mud.
Slaves had brought a large chest carved and painted with sigils and runes and symbols in varying depths and several colors, and the human fighters hauled him upright. “In the box, monster. We want to store you under the bed.”
Maru did not move, unable to comprehend, and the men closed on him. He recoiled, reaching reflexively for magic that did not respond, and they overpowered him easily. They lifted him and pressed him into the chest, pushing hard when the fit was tight and scraping a large patch of skin from his shoulder. One wing was trapped awkwardly beneath him.
“All the way!” someone muttered, and they crammed his other wing roughly into the chest, bending it where it should not. Maru struggled, trapped against the unfinished wooden walls, but the hands did not release him. Light bones bowed and snapped as the lid closed, shutting out the light and making Maru’s cry echo dully.
He could not move in the cramped dark, could not shift his broken wing or seeping shoulder or aching limbs. The box swayed as it was lifted, pressing him alternately against the wall or his wings, and hours crawled by in the stifling
atmosphere. Would he die for want of air? Could they not have killed him more efficiently?
Eventually they’d brought him to this dank cell, where he was shackled—as if muscular humans needed to fear Ryuven strength—and left him in the dark. Stone formed three short walls, the dripping ceiling and the floor, while vertical iron bars, rusted with moisture and age, separated him from the walkway where humans passed and gave him cursory, hateful glances or sneered or occasionally prodded him with their polearms. There was no sheltering barrier to shield him from his captors; he had no choice but to shiver or sleep or relieve himself within their view. At intervals, they shoved a bowl of slops through a creaking gate in the lower barred door. Once a day? Twice? Without natural light, he had no way to be sure.
He was not alone. There were other Ryuven in the cellar—he thought it was a cellar, with the musty smell and the dripping stone—in similar cells to his right. They spoke when there were no humans nearby, but Maru had learned little. They were prisoners, captured in battle or upon crossing the between-worlds, all Subdued and restrained.
There had been more, in the empty cells to his left, he learned. Some were bled occasionally, for unknown purposes. Some had been subjected to magical experimentation, testing new spells for combat. Some had been removed and never returned. All had died when the shield had been restored. The two who remained had been protected from the expanding shield by the rune-shielded chests like the one Maru had been brought in.
The humans did not bother to experiment with Maru, coming only to push bowls of soft meat and brown vegetables through the tiny gate. Maru huddled in his cell, miserable and in pain, knowing he could never cross to his own home again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LUCA RAKED HIS FINGERS through his hair and stared at the words covering half a sheet on the desk before him. This was hard, this was excruciatingly hard. How could he hope to convey the depth of his apology and grief through mere paper?
But paper was safer, of that he was certain. Paper could not betray him, could not come upon him suddenly, could not interrupt him mid-sentence with words that would disrupt his meaning. If he were to make a proper apology, it must be through paper.
He absently pushed his hands through his hair again and read over the lines. My beloved Sara, dearest sister, I cannot begin to convey my regret. I owe you the greatest apology. In the hundreds—thousands—of times I imagined meeting you again, never once did I think I could say such things to you.
That was not a very good beginning, but it was the best he had managed thus far.
If I had been prepared to meet you, I think it might have been different. I would not have chosen to present you first with such a graphic view of my years away. But as it was, my first thoughts were of deepest shame, not of my joy at seeing you. And somehow I lost the moment, lost that I was seeing my sister again at last, and all I could feel was my own humiliation, and the fear and the pain and the resentment— yes, I would lie to deny it—and I could not think of anything but escape. I don’t ask you to understand, Sara, because I’m not sure I understand it myself. But I need you to know that I did not mean all that I said.
Marla entered and set a mug on the desk beside him. “Soup,” she offered. “Take some.”
He brushed back the hair which had fallen over his eyes as he read. “Thanks.”
He heard Cole enter the kitchen on the other side of the wall, dropping firewood noisily into the stack. Then the slave came into the room, dusting his hands and tunic. “I’ve raked out the goat shed and cut back the vines. Is there anything else, my lord?”
“No, Cole,” Luca sighed. “Not at the moment. I hope to have something for you later, though. Go and bathe.”
“Where?”
Marla straightened. “We always use the bath beside the storeroom. Go ahead.”
Cole nodded. “All right. I’d wondered, since I’m not staying in the house...”
“Why did you choose the shed?” asked Luca distantly, rubbing his aching temples.
Cole glanced at Marla. “She put me there, master,” he answered with the faintest trace of indignation. “Made me up a nice pallet, sure.”
Luca looked from Cole to Marla, whose mouth twitched faintly. Ah, that made sense; the lone female slave might well place the large stranger in an outbuilding. He nodded dully. “Go and bathe, then. Your clothes, too, or see if you can find something else to wear. I don’t want to send you wearing goat dung.”
Cole nodded. “Yes, master.”
Luca reached for the mug and held it for a moment, savoring the warmth on his fingers as he pinched at his forehead with the other hand. Whatever peace and comfort he’d felt that morning had evaporated with Sara and Jarrick’s arrival, and his head was pounding with unhappy thoughts. He closed his eyes and saw the letter dancing before his mind.
“My lord?”
He shook his head, opening his eyes. “I’ll be all right,” he answered wearily. He took a drink of soup. “It’s only—I wish this morning had never happened.” He sighed. “But then, I could wish a lot of things had never happened.”
“If my lord will excuse me.” She leaned over the desk and rubbed a cloth over his hairline. “You’ve inked your forehead.”
“What?”
“Probably running your fingers through your hair.” She smiled gently. “You’ve done that a few times.”
“I have?” He hadn’t been aware of the habit. Had he always had it? He remembered watching Shianan rake at his hair. Had he adopted it?
“Would you like anything in addition to the soup?”
He sighed. “I doubt you can supply what I need, but thank you.”
She left and he stared at the letter, adding lines occasionally as he considered. He had somehow to ask to meet Sara again—to meet both of them. The thought made him cringe, but he could not hide here forever. He had to face them.
I will come to supper tomorrow night, if you will have me. I do want to see you again, Sara, and talk with you. Will you admit a boorish once-slave, if he vows to comport himself in a more civilized manner?
“I’ve brought some tea, my lord,” Marla said. “The soup was not to your liking?”
“What? Oh, no, it’s fine, I just haven’t gotten to it yet.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “It has been two hours since I left it.”
He was gnawing at his thumb. That was another trait Shianan had displayed when nervous.
“Is there anything I can offer you, my lord?”
“Aside from a brilliant solution to my miserable morning?” He bit down on his thumb. “I was monstrous this morning. Heinous. And I don’t know why I’m saying this, you saw it yourself, and it’s nothing to do with you.”
She blew out her breath. “My lord... As you’ve already spoken, may I suggest a point?”
“What? How?”
She tapped the desk. “Write something to the effect that you understand and appreciate what she meant to do. She needs to know you saw her intentions were true. Her fault today was that she was too eager to see you again to hear a slave’s protest.”
He stared at her. “You’ve guessed at it all, haven’t you? We’ve all said enough, and you know everything.”
“No, my lord. I heard only a little, and I know only as much as you will that I should.”
He tapped the letter. “And you know I’m writing to her, not to him.”
Her eyes shifted nervously. “I’m sorry, my lord.”
Perhaps one became inured to humiliation with repeated exposure. He merely set the pen aside with a sigh. “It will be less awkward if you aren’t reading over my shoulder or upside down from across the desk. And please, go ahead. I clearly cannot afford to refuse help.”
“My lord...”
“Please. If you can help me to reconcile myself with my sister, I’ll be in your debt.”
She gave him an odd look and then turned to the letter. He watched her start again, her lips moving occasionally as she tested a phras
e. Finally she took a slow breath. “I do not know my lady,” she began cautiously.
Luca made a gesture of futility. “Clearly, neither do I.”
“I think, though, you have made an admirable attempt. There are a few small changes you might consider, my lord, and then the assurance that you do understand her intention...”
Luca took up the pen. “Please, help me. I cannot let this morning stand.”
Half an hour later, he finally blotted and folded the letter. “Shouldn’t I recopy it?” he asked.
Marla shook her head. “No, this one looks real. Honest. The ink blots show you were pausing, considering, worrying about what you wrote. You don’t want to send a clean sheet that looks rehearsed and unfelt.”
Luca sealed it and wrote Sara Roald across the outside. “Cole!” he called.
The slave entered, fidgeting with his faintly damp clothing. “Yes, master?”
“I have a letter for you to carry. Take this to the house of Roald in Ivat and give it to the young lady. See yourself that she has it directly; don’t entrust it to any of the servants.”
“Yes, master. Will there be a reply?”
“I—I don’t know.” He extended the letter. “Be careful of it.”
“I will, master.”
The slave left for the gate. Luca slumped wearily. “Thank you,” he said numbly to Marla. “I appreciate your help.”
“Of course, my lord. I only offered my humble opinions. I hope they serve.”
“We’ll see.” He sighed. “So, an aelipto is trained to read and write as well as to treat muscles and ligaments?”
“Actually, I was chosen for training because I could already read and write. Master Thalian was looking for bright new students.”
“He buys common slaves and sells them as aelipto?”
“After training, yes. It benefits all involved.”
Luca nodded. “It was education that saved me, too. I should have been a field slave, coarse labor, but I was able to recite a snatch of history and found myself a tutor instead. It kept me out of the wagon shafts for a while, anyway, until Furmelle.”
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