No Demons But Us

by A. S. Etaski

  “What did First Daughter Jilrina Compel to Silence?” When I didn’t respond quickly, she commanded, “Speak, Sirana. Now.”

  I gritted my teeth; after a moment my jaw hurt. “The fact that she likes the taste of a child in her bed. A child, and her younger sister.”

  Even the residual pain faded now, and I felt so light-headed I almost passed out.

  I said it. Braqth tied in Her Web, I said it!

  It would take half of the next span—a full, four cycles—before Kaltra looked me in the eyes again. Although, that wasn’t unusual. We had barely seen each other without Jilrina between us anyway. Not even mealtime had put us in proximity, as meals were often delivered to an office, to one’s quarters, to the garden, or wherever. The few times we had guests of some status were the only times we sat together as a Noble family in the dining hall.

  I didn’t know exactly what happened between the Second Daughter and the Red Sisters during her interrogation, but I had been released back to my Matron unmolested but for that throat-grab. This, I had no doubt, was in large part due to my own effort, cooperation, and relative honesty. The Elder had determined, without physical torture but with a magical will, that I was telling her the truth—I hadn’t pushed Jilrina to her death. The sorceress had also pulled just enough of the lurid story of my oldest sister’s designs on me to understand why I wasn’t upset with the First Daughter’s demise.

  The Elder had brought me out of my chair after speaking my decades-old secret and made me stand. She inspected my body with magic, lightly touching me with her gloved hands now and then. I couldn’t say what she searched for; I knew she was doing something, seeing things I couldn’t. I felt something tickle or flutter along the edges of my ears or at the back of my teeth. I heard her murmur unknown words, watched her hands move with precision. I started to sweat, wondering if her casting on me was permanent unto death, as the Compulsion potion had been.

  The Elder Red Sister had finished, studied me some while longer in silence, and then she and her warrior escorted me back to Matron Thalluen without another word of my fate. Mother had been standing in her office, as poised and quiet as when I’d been taken away, bowing gracefully to the Elder. She watched me sit on a chair with her usual impassive expression and those familiar, scarlet eyes which always cloaked her real thoughts. My Mother waited and said nothing.

  “Consider yourselves under House arrest until we finish our investigation,” the Elder had told the Matron. “I see no reason to take any of the Noble family away, but leave the grounds before I return, and that one will be hunted and taken, unlikely returned. No matter who it is.”

  My Mother nodded, kept her chin high. “What of our business with others, Elder Sister? My liaisons and Guardsvrin must leave House Thalluen to complete our trades.”

  “They are to remain here for three cycles, under the same consequence if they leave. After that time, they may conduct regular business on your behalf, no one else’s. The Noble family will remain here until I return, however long that may be. I trust you can work with this, Matron?”

  “Yes, Elder.”

  As if she has a choice, I thought.

  It also wasn’t much of a restriction. I had never left the grounds around House Thalluen; Mother, Jilrina, and Kaltra had on occasion gone to the city or another plantation for political purposes, but I could count those times on one hand in my short life. As a middle-status House, we were withdrawn from most of society, spending our cycles, our spans, and our quad-spans here doing the same thing through the turns to produce the various mushrooms, fiberstalk, and animals which helped feed all of Sivaraus. We worked seeming to hope we’d avoid being noticed by stronger, more militant Houses who might want to claim what we have by force. We stayed here, taunting and trapping and feeding on each other like too many spiders sharing a single web.

  At least there was one less female spider in the web now.

  The Elder Red Sister had left then with all but one of her Sisters, taking Jilrina’s body plus whatever else of ours they wanted to claim. One Red Sister remained behind to enforce the edict. She wore the same uniform, cloak, and helm, but it wasn’t the same warrior who had handled every item in my room.

  We didn’t know her name, but she had asked—insisted—to dine with us in our great hall while she was here. Of course, we obliged her, and over the first span of the Red Sister’s residence, I watched her leering at Kaltra across the table. I recognized Kaltra’s flustered response, the familiar shame, and that was when I thought I might enjoy having a Red Sister as a guest for a while. Anyone would have told me I was insane for thinking that, but at least it put a particular, prideful Second Daughter in her place.

  “Don’t you look at me like you won anything yet, little slit,” Kaltra muttered to me after one such dinner when we both left in the direction of our quarters. “They’ll come back and condemn you for what you’ve done, and with your disrespectful mouth, I have no doubt they must have punished you as well while they held you in your room so long.”

  “As well?” I repeated slyly, narrowing my eyes in triumph. “Mm, no, I don’t think they did. What did the one dining with us do to you? Make you breathe through your mouth with your face in her cleft?”

  My bigger bully of a sister shoved me against the wall hard enough that it hurt my shoulder. She said nothing else and stomped off. I sneered at her back.

  You deserve that Red Sister’s attention, you dullard, whatever she’s doing to entertain herself. I’m just glad it’s not me for once.

  The Elder Sorceress took her time returning to House Thalluen. She finally did nearly eight spans later, and I wagered it had been a long sixty-four cycles for my dullard sister to become familiar with entertaining another superior besides Jilrina. I stayed out of their way and worked the plantation more than I ever had before.

  Now back in my Matron’s office, we listened intently as the Elder deemed the First Daughter’s death officially an accident. Our Matron accepted the ruling with grace and requested no further resources; she seemed satisfied that no one else would be taken from her House. Yet even as Kaltra was now the Heir, this covetous status seemed to pass right by her as her first response was denial.

  “No!” Kaltra pointed at me, trembling. “Please, Elder, you must know! Sirana did it!”

  “Shut that hole before I fill it again, sweetmeat,” growled the Red Sister who had been with us this entire time.

  That was the end of that argument, at least until the Red Sisters left our lands. I wished my Mother could shut Kaltra up that readily, but I would hear growling accusation over and over again for nearly five turns until I was eighty-four. Be it alone, in front of servants, in front of Mother, Kaltra just would not let it go.

  You are such an idiot. Focused on the wrong source of power, tripping over our dead sister’s corpse when you are supposed to take her place. You can’t represent us. You aren’t worthy to be Thalluendara.

  My instincts told me I had only to wait. I had waited for thirty-five turns for Jilrina to die, to be free of her. I could wait a little longer for the unbalanced Second to make a similar mistake, then I could prove myself. Mother may have ignored me, ignored what was happening between her Daughters right beneath her nose for decades, but she wouldn’t be able to continue ignoring me when I was the only Daughter left to inherit our House.

  I would prove myself better and smarter than all the females with whom I was forced to live. I would make something of myself beyond the “slutty sacrifice” Jilrina had always told me I was.

  I’ll prove it.

  “What?!” I cried, trembling with rage as I heard my Matron’s decision. “You jest! Kaltra tried to kill me! She was so sloppy anyone can see it!”

  “Tried and failed, Third Daughter,” my Mother said, staring at me alone in her office.

  “You agree, yet you won’t call the Red Sisters? They won’t need nearly the two quad-spans they took last time! It’ll be done in a cycle!”


  My Mother shook her head. “It is not required to involve the Red Sisters if the assassination fails. It falls to the Matron of the House to manage her own living offspring.”

  “She’ll try again!” I barked. “You know she will! And if she does, I’ll defend myself again no matter what the outcome!”

  The Matron nodded in agreement. “I believe you. That is why I am sending you to the Palace Court, Sirana. You will be my representative there while I train Kaltra to focus on our holdings. It will be better without you here to distract her.”

  I felt something like a fist slam me in the gut. I stared in disbelief. “You’re…sending me away? And keeping her?” I couldn’t stop shaking. “As if I am sabotaging her lessons?”

  “You are,” she said plainly. “You provoke her with intent. You wanted her to attempt murder.”

  “If you see it that way, then you know I’m smarter!” I shouted. “I’ve learned twice as much as her about managing the plantation since Jilrina died, and I’m half her age! Dare try to tell me I’m not the better choice for Heir if you must send one of us away!”

  My Matron’s icy, formal mask remained in place as she lightly touched the tips of her fingers to her desk, which she kept between us. I’d never forgotten the next words she spoke.

  “Kaltra is still fertile,” my Mother said. “She can bear children. Elder D’Shea told me, five turns ago, that you cannot. You are scarred on the inside. I cannot name a barren Daughter as my Heir, Sirana. I regret it, but it is the way it is. You will go to Court, and you need not be near Kaltra ever again if you do not wish it.”

  The coach which hauled me off the plantation of my birth was damaged on the inside by the time it stopped in front of the tallest structure I had known could exist in the Great Cavern. The driver had been ignoring the noise, and she would guide the less-than-perfect property back to return to my Mother.

  Damaged inside, like me. She can deal with the coach the same way she dealt with me, I don’t give Braqth two fucks!

  I dared not show how angry I remained as I met the liaison who would take me where I was supposed to be tucked away out of my Matron’s sight and forgotten. At least if I needed to cover up fury and resentment, the two were too loud for me to worry about covering up fear, also. That would work in my favor.

  “Thalluensareci,” was my first and only greeting from the older male.

  I nodded confirmation, stared directly at him as he kept his eyes down from mine; he seemed aware of my foul mood all the same. He was my height but easily a century or two older; typical for the smaller Davrin males. His uncovered, white hair was cut straight across at jaw length; his skin was dark and clean, and he wore some powder that kept it dry and smelling sweet. I couldn’t tell the exact shade of his eyes in the streetlights but saw a red that was common enough. He seemed competent and respectful for a Doorsvrin.

  For appearances, I was surrounded by several trunks set to be carried away by Palace servants. They were all locked by a magical inset that required a specific word to release—a reasonable deterrent for non-mages—but I bore in mind not to take their security for granted. Something unpleasant might jump out at me during the very first cycle or span I was here. Nothing in them was important to me, though I was told I would need the variety of clothes.

  There were sources of light which illuminated the dressed pathways and streets around me, even if the lanterns didn’t reach very far up the curvaceous, looming architectures of the Palace and the Sanctuary constructed right next to it. What struck me more than any sight, however, were the smells.

  The scents were dense and foreign to me. I quickly caught strong fragrances clinging to gowns and robes as any Palace resident walked by. There was a hint of a water-and-web garden somewhere nearby, and for me to smell it from here, I knew it must be much larger than the one we had at home. Clusters of nervous bodies and animals living too close together, and a whiff of the garbage in the city streets, which were only a brief jog on the other side of the Palace Wall.

  All this scent and visual movement around me, and I realized I was unsettled. This space didn’t seem as loud as it should be. I heard the low drone of murmurs and the shuffling and clacking of work beasts being moved and work being done, but there was no shouting, no raised voices. They were all hushed, stepping light and often silent. Given how much yelling had been going on at my House lately, with far fewer females, this seemed unnatural.

  “Allow me to guide you to the quarters set for your House, Thalluensareci,” the liaison said when I just stood there watching as the coach pulled away.

  “Go ahead,” I said with impatience. I had my own bag of things I didn’t want servants touching over my shoulder; I jerked away in warning when the Doorsvrin silently offered to take it, and his hand dropped again to his side.

  A lot of eyes were watching me at first as I entered, most of them common-blood servants but a few slaves of the short races: a well-groomed ketro-slave holding a bucket for some reason and several low pytes polishing the floor clean of dusty footprints. I kept my chin up and never looked down—one of the few bits of advice I let my Matron know I had heard her—and walked deeper into the Palace of the Valsharess.

  I was led through wide, opulent hallways made of dark grey stone shaped by magic, yet it was hardly as dark and drab as it looked from the outside. Carved into the stone walls where were symbols of spiders, webs, and Abyssal eyes in many places. At least some of them functional, I wagered. Those walls not etched with decorative inlays of gold, silver, or some other shiny metal were covered with some of the most detailed and finely crafted tapestries I could have imagined, suggesting events and places I had heard about from my tutors. The floor was polished in such a way as to allow candlelight to reflect, seeming to double the number of torches down any hallway I passed.

  The Doorsvrin guided me up both straight and curving stairways fixed with plush, woven carpet which absorbed all sound. I paid attention so as perhaps to be able to find my way back to the front door if need be, although I was starting to get confused already which direction that was. The servants who had taken my trunks weren’t coming to my “quarters” through the same route I walked; I felt sure I’d have heard them ahead of me, or at least seen more than the few little sniffs I got from the other Nobles whose conversation I disturbed by walking by.

  Most female Noble Davrin glanced at me and then ignored me. If the males watched me any longer than a glance, they were subtle about it. I clenched my jaw and kept it level with the floor, still angry and still hiding it.

  “These are the same quarters your Matron used when she was last here, Third Daughter,” my guide volunteered as he demonstrated how to disengage the Ward without breaking it.

  “Oh, are they?” I said, uncaring.

  “They are sometimes let out to other Houses as we cannot afford to have space unused for half-centuries and more, but we are usually able to accommodate the established Houses in intimate spaces for each Worship Ball at least. These should already be clean and ready for you.”

  The Doorsvrin then turned the handle to open the door, entering first and gesturing for me to wait in the frame while he performed a brief sweep to make sure the place was empty. It took him some time—I counted twelve doors being opened and left open. When he returned, he smiled in satisfaction and bowed his head to me, indicating without speaking further that my trunks were already here. He was preparing to leave.

  What do I do now? I wanted to ask, but I bit the inside of my cheek rather than show a servant such drifting uncertainty.

  “Very well,” I said coldly. “You are dismissed.”

  He left me, and I stood alone staring at my trunks in a hollow, quiet, series of rooms intended to contain a visiting Matron and all her children, sisters and brothers together. There would be a lot more noise in any of these suites during the preparation and the seasons of a Worship Ball. Right now, placed neatly where I had been sent, I was the only Noble from
House Thalluen in residence at the Palace. By the Abyss, I was the only Davrin from House Thalluen of any kind.

  Mother had offered a tender, a tutor, a maid, anything. I had refused and come here alone. Just a worthless Daughter with whom my Matron didn’t know what to do, thanks to my oldest sister’s fanatical delusion and twisted tastes.

  I cannot name a barren Daughter as my heir, Sirana. I regret it, but that is the way it is.

  She regretted it? She could have stopped it. Whole turns of the core ago!

  If I could have spoken. If she had noticed.

  I got to work unpacking my trunks with my own hands, distracting myself by inspecting every piece I lifted, searching for anything that didn’t belong. My throat hurt, but for a different reason than forced silence. I kept blinking away any blur to my sight, listening to the silence around me, breathing deeply of this new place that was to be my exile while Kaltra struggled to learn how to keep our heritage.

  She will fail. And I’ll have to watch it fall. What a waste.

  I breathed deep and kept working, unconvinced that I had the privacy I craved to weep my frustration. It felt like someone was watching, and here at the Valsharess’s Palace, someone probably always would be.

  I began my stay at Court cautious and quiet. With no entourage, no announcement, no allies, and no enemies, I had a chance to observe the new rules here and learn my way around the Palace before anyone said or did anything beyond commenting on my blue eyes—always assuming the light was good enough for them to see the actual color.

  “Consort’s lineage somewhere,” I overheard someone say. She was talking about me but not to me, and she let me hear her, I was certain. “One of the fashion statements.”

  “Indeed? Who is she?”

  “I’m not sure. She is very young to be here without an elder female escort, though, isn’t she?”