by A. M. Manay
You have to get out of here, her mind silently screamed. You’ll die if you stay. You have to get away.
There was no negotiating with this voice, no talking it down. It just got louder and more insistent until, at last, she leapt to her feet and tried to run.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Fenroh scolded. “We can’t have that. You might hurt yourself.”
He flicked his wand and Shiloh crashed to the ground, rope winding its way around her ankles like a snake. Once the rope had immobilized her legs and bound her flailing arms to her sides, Fenroh used his foot to turn her back face-up and gazed down into her horrified face. Her eyes fixed upon the curtains, which appeared to her to be aflame.
“That’s better,” he declared, then pulled over a chair for himself. “It’s all right. You can’t help it. This curse always makes people run. I saw a hundred men run straight off a cliff once, during the war.”
“Gods above!” Shiloh cried out, eyes darting frantically.
“Not so powerful without that steel wand of yours, are you? That wand should have been mine, you know. You’re not the only one the Gods connected to all the elements of their creation. But they doubted me, all of them at the Academy. Confined me to the use of a fire wand. For my own safety, they said. But they had no trouble trusting you with such power. And yet, where has it gotten you?”
She twisted on the carpet in her bonds, desperate to escape. Flames crawled up the walls and across the ceiling, and Fenroh’s eyes had turned red as blood. His robes began to smolder.
“Fire. The room is on fire! Honored brother, we have to get out of here!”
“I see the hallucinations have begun,” Fenroh said with a smirk. “Forty minutes in. Your mind held out longer than most.”
She struggled to understand his words, and they finally penetrated her curse-induced confusion.
“It isn’t real,” she whispered to herself as the fire crept across the carpet. She could feel the heat. “The fire isn’t real. It isn’t real. It can’t hurt you. It isn’t real.” Her lips began to move silently over the words of a prayer as she sought to calm herself, to little avail.
“Well, to be fair, it can hurt you, in so far as the fear itself could give you a stroke or a heart attack. But at your age, I rather doubt that will occur,” Fenroh clarified. He studied her carefully, drinking in every nuance of her distress. “What would my old friend Silas Hatch do if he were here, do you suppose?” he then asked her, eyes full of amusement.
“He would help me,” she declared, eyes blazing. “He would use the countercurse. Give me a calming drought.”
The vision of fire faded, replaced by that of a pack of snarling wolves. She closed her eyes and went back to praying to herself, each exhalation a whimper of fear.
“Would he, now?” Fenroh replied. “I’m fairly certain he would kill me first. And if he could only do one of those things, would he really choose mercy over murdering his enemy?”
“Please stop talking to me. I’m trying to pray,” she managed to reply, half sobbing. She could feel the wolf drooling on her neck, hear it breathing into her ear, smell rotting flesh on his breath. It’s not real. He’s not real. You’re in an office. Mother of mercy, reach down your hand . . .
“That’s good,” Fenroh praised her. “It’s right to turn to the Gods in your time of extremity. Far better than turning to someone like Hatch. Do you think that’s what Silas would do, in your shoes? Turn to the Lords of Heaven for comfort?”
When Shiloh refused to reply, he continued, “Of course he wouldn’t. He’s an atheist whose fondest wish in life is to destroy the church universal. He would have attacked your faith, too, given a chance. Given time. You know that he would. Deep down in your heart, you know that he has no respect for your devotion. He would have undermined it at every opportunity during your marriage. He probably laughs about it behind your back. Mocks you for a fool. That’s why we had to save you from him, Shiloh. Cut him out of you like a cancer. Before he dragged you to hell with him.”
Shiloh could feel herself falling, sense the wind rushing by her ears, hear someone screaming, see the rocky ground rushing toward her. She finally realized that it was her own voice piercing the night.
“Make it stop,” she begged. “Please make it stop.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to do that yourself,” Fenroh replied, his voice placid as ever but his face avid.
Fear and rage dueled in Shiloh’s heart. The last time she had felt so helpless and afraid had been the night the Feralfolk had come, the night they’d slain her father, the night she’d killed half a dozen men with no wand, with no spell. The night she’d made them burn with the sheer power of her agony.
Shiloh erupted with a howl of fury. A sphere of destruction expanded around her and reduced everything in the study to kindling, blowing out the windows in a crash of shards. When the glow faded, Shiloh and Fenroh lay in the center of the wreckage, barely a hair out of place.
Fenroh laughed out loud, shaking his head. Guards rushed through the door Shiloh had just smashed to pieces, their weapons drawn, but Fenroh waved them away.
“Just a little experiment, boys. I’ve got things well in hand,” Fenroh cried over the noise of the cold wind rushing through the empty window frames.
Their faces skeptical, the men retreated back into the hallway. Fenroh then waved his wand and created a glowing shield to keep out the weather. Shiloh looked up at him, wild-eyed and panting.
“Why provoke me?” she asked in a whisper. “I could have killed you by accident.” Or on purpose. I still might.
“Oh, have a little more faith in my wards than that, Shiloh,” Fenroh protested. “I prepared for this moment, after all. Hoped for it. Schemed for it.”
“Why?” she whimpered. A snake crawled over her legs, and she shuddered. It hissed at her.
“What good is a weapon if you don’t know what it can do?” he replied, smiling. “We are building something new, my child, and we can’t do that without destroying the old. And you, Shiloh . . . you have a gift for destruction that you do not wish to acknowledge. A gift that I very much want to make use of. I had to break that iron control of yours. I had to make you let the feral dog off its chain. Find Keegan’s blood underneath all Edmun’s polish. This episode finally provided an opportunity. Call it a proof of concept. And it will show the Patriarch what you really are. You and I, Shiloh . . . we are going to remake the world.”
Shiloh closed her eyes and whined behind closed lips, overtaken by another rush of nauseating adrenaline, another terrifying vision, this one of a monster with three eyes. I am not a weapon, she swore silently to herself. And I’m sure as hell not his weapon. None of this is real, and I am not his weapon.
“But as there is nothing left to destroy in here, and as I don’t want you to be useless to me for a week,” Fenroh continued, “I shall finally give you the help you begged for so prettily.”
Fenroh began to chant the countercurse, and Shiloh’s heartbeat gradually slowed, her breathing growing less frantic, her shaking less violent. He pulled a vial out of his pocket and held it to her lips. She turned away, distrustful.
“Come, now,” Fenroh scolded. “If I wanted to poison you, there is nothing you could do about it.”
“I could throw you out the window,” she spat back. He looked down at her with disappointed eyes and, desperate for relief, she finally complied and swallowed the potion.
Shiloh’s lips moved over her favorite prayers. Her fingers, once more under her control, pulled at the ruined carpet, picking at the threads.
Fenroh watched, smiled, and resumed chanting.
On Your Head
“What’s happening?” little Shiloh asked Edmun. They were walking in the road and had stepped aside to allow a group of men on horseback to pass them by. They wore the gray robes of the Elder’s Order. There was one young woman, beautiful and well-dressed.
Edmun waited for the party to pass them by before answering. “An offering, fo
r the Patriarch’s bed,” he replied, voice dripping with disapproval.
“You don’t mean . . .” Shiloh countered, eyes wide.
“I do.”
“But what about his vows as a priest?” Shiloh demanded.
“He isn’t a priest. Not really. He is a God walking among us, and those poor girls are told it is an honor to be chosen to ‘entertain’ him,” Edmun explained. “The ones he likes, he keeps until he tires of them.”
“But don’t their families object?”
“Not unless they want trouble. Most of them are high born, and their families want the Patriarch’s good will for reasons of politics and wealth. Those few who are low born and beautiful enough to make up for it have families who couldn’t do anything to save them anyway.” Edmun sighed. “It sickens me.”
“What happens to the girls, after?” Shiloh asked, cringing.
“They’re given dowries and sent on their way to find a husband who won’t object. His favorites he might set up in a house in the Fist or the Claw, where they will wait like members of a harem the rest of their days, stared at every time they leave the house. Some make peace with their fates. Some cannot bear it and take their lives.”
“What happens to the children born of them?” Shiloh asked.
“Perhaps he takes precautions, for there was just the one that I know of. Fenroh Templeborn,” Edmun told her. “Mean as a snake and just as ugly. His poor mother hanged herself when he was a young lad.”
“Poor boy,” Shiloh murmured.
“Ha! He’s a vile creature. She should have taken him with her,” Edmun spat.
Kiven sat across from Silas, wary.
“I am going to gut Fenroh like a catfish,” Silas finally declared, his words low and slow as though he savored them. His unkempt beard and long hair made his sharp green eyes more disconcerting than ever.
“What matters is that Shiloh is still alive and well,” Kiven ventured.
“Not only has he tortured her, but he also wants to use her as some kind of human explosive device!” Silas erupted. “How long do you suppose she’ll stay well once they start throwing her at castles, hmm? And how do you think the Patriarch will react to her show of power? Or Esta, for that matter?”
Silas had seen it all. Of course, Shiloh had just broken the magic mirror planted in Fenroh’s study, so he would not be able to see the next time Shiloh suffered under the Purifier’s eye.
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” Kiven said.
“Hopefully? Hopefully?” Silas demanded.
“This is about more than just your wife, Silas,” Kiven pushed back. “I’m trying to protect Bryn from being carved up like a Solstice goose. You, of all people, should understand that!”
Silas deflated. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s hard to . . . maintain perspective, in my current circumstances.”
“I know, Silas,” Kiven absolved him. “Please try to focus on the positive news, which is that Fenroh has no intention of killing her.”
Silas nodded. “Are the Gernish making aggressive moves yet, here in Bryn? Border raids? Vandalism? Land grabs?”
Kiven shook his head. “Not since the wedding. Esta is pregnant, so they are biding their time. King Westan meddles here and there, strengthening lords he likes and weakening those he doesn’t. Brokering marriages for half the students with Gernish noble children. He’s going to want a lot of them to begin attending school here next autumn.”
“That’ll make quite a toehold.” Silas sighed. “Have you seen anything of Esta’s child?”
Kiven shook his head. “I have not seen her with a child. And the throne is wreathed in smoke in my visions. The only child I see of late is a red-haired babe in a coffin.”
“Princess Loor?” Hatch demanded.
“I think, perhaps.”
“You haven’t told Esta, have you?” Silas asked, alarmed.
“Of course not! I might as well kill the poor child myself!” Kiven replied. “As it is, I fear . . .”
“Fear what?” Silas asked.
“The grey-robes have Mosspeak’s wife. I fear she’s a hostage in the Citadel for the day the royal couple decide to eliminate Loor,” Kiven confessed.
Silas grimaced. “I should have hidden the babe while I had the chance. What more news do you have for me? Anything good, or more of the bad?”
“The courtiers are unhappy. Very unhappy,” Kiven shared. “Even the ones who were not entirely in agreement with the Reforms and the Patriarch’s exile. Even the diehard Patrists dislike the Gernish. Centuries of enmity don’t die easily. So at least they’re happily spying on Westan’s men for me.”
“Thank the Gods for small favors.” Silas sighed. “So, what is your pretext for visiting me, Kiven? We don’t want the queen getting suspicious.”
“She wants you to write to her father’s creditors,” Kiven informed him, setting down a sheaf of papers. “They return my letters unopened.”
Silas laughed aloud. “I’ll bet she does,” he replied. “They’re her creditors, now. What do I get in return for her continued fiscal solvency?”
“What do you want?” Kiven asked.
“Better food. More firewood. More books. And I wish to speak to the queen. Alone.”
Shiloh shoveled more remains of Fenroh’s furniture into a wheelbarrow. She’d been at it for hours with no help—exhausting, awkward work. Her limbs trembled with fatigue. She’d never been much good with a shovel, only having the one hand. And she’d gotten almost no sleep the night before, in the throes of her attack, even after Fenroh had actually deigned to treat her properly. She stumbled and fell to her knees, not for the first time.
Fenroh continued to ignore her, as he had all day, sitting in the corner reading over some correspondence. He seemed none the worse for missing a night’s sleep, which only made Shiloh hate him more. The only thing he’d said to her, at the start, had been, “We must clean up our own messes, mustn’t we?”
As she knelt to catch her breath, Shiloh’s eyes fell on one particular piece of debris. It was a little wooden ducky, its once-bright paint dulled by years. It still had both its wheels; Shiloh spun them with her hook. Her mind whirled along with them. She knew she’d seen it somewhere before, but she struggled to place it.
When the moment came to her, laughter bubbled out of her parched throat before she could contain it. It was him—the little boy in the painting in the stairwell at Silas’s house, clinging to his mother’s skirts. It was Fenroh.
She covered her mouth and shook with the effort of controlling her hysteria. She failed. This, at last, prompted Fenroh to look up from his papers and peer at her over his reading glasses.
“Well, that is a sound I’ve never heard from you before,” he observed drily. “What could possibly be so amusing?”
“I’m sorry,” she choked. “It’s just—”
She held the duck out to him. “At least I didn’t break your ducky.” One last, mad giggle escaped through her nose.
His eyes widened, and several expressions passed over his face, one after another. Grief, embarrassment, anger, love, hatred, relief, amusement . . . for an instant, it looked as though he couldn’t make up his mind whether to kiss Shiloh or throw her down the stairs. He crossed to her with rapid strides and snatched the toy from her hand.
“My father gave me this, when I was a boy,” he told her calmly. Then, without warning, he struck her across the face with the wooden figure, knocking her to the ground.
Stars swam before her eyes; her ears rang, and Shiloh looked up at him mutely, dazed with the sudden pain and his loss of temper.
“How dare you touch this with your Unclean hands?” Fenroh hissed at her. “A gift from a living God?”
She touched her face. Her fingers came away red. She checked her teeth with her tongue and spat blood onto the ruined carpet.
“Hand,” she corrected, seized with an untamable impulse to defy him. “Unclean hand. Just the one.” In for a Star, in
for a Sun.
She feared he would strike her again for her impertinence, but he instead looked down at the duck and, with a shake of his head, regained control of himself. He pulled out his wand, and she cringed in anticipation, but he merely mumbled a healing spell, and the sharp pain in her cheek faded to a deep ache.
“Get out,” he whispered.
Shiloh pulled herself to her feet and stumbled out the door as quickly as she could manage, lest he change his mind.
“What the hell happened?” Hana demanded before Shiloh even made it through the doorway.
“And a hearty good evening to you, too,” Shiloh replied. She collapsed onto her bed, face down, her boots sticking off the edge.
“We were worried when you didn’t return last night,” Bluebell said. “And then the whole tower started shaking. It felt like an earthquake.”
“The walls reacted something crazy,” Hana continued. “You could feel the heat through the stone. I heard at work that you lit up the top of the tower. The gray-robes were terrified.”
Shiloh barked a laugh and turned over, with great effort. “And here I thought I just wrecked his study,” she replied. “He kept me all night afterwards, and he forced me to spend all day cleaning up the mess.”
“You attacked Brother Fenroh?” Hana gasped.
Shiloh shook her head. “Not exactly. I had one of my episodes and lost control of my magic. I blew out his windows, smashed up the furniture. He wanted me to do it. He was trying to provoke me by refusing to treat the attack.”
“Why would he want to provoke you into blowing up the place?” Hana asked.
“Because he knows I lost control once before and killed a passel of Feralfolk, the night my da was killed,” Shiloh explained with a pang. “He wanted to see how much destruction I’m capable of. Maybe he wanted his father and Korra to see it, too.”
“Too bad you didn’t blow him right out the window,” Hana muttered.
“This is concerning,” Bluebell declared.
