No Demons But Us

by A. S. Etaski

  The decorative glass of the window was rare and a marked expense from a time when House Thalluen must have been rising in status. Jilrina had always preferred the room on this account, probably because she couldn’t have the Matron’s suites herself yet, which had a heavily-protected balcony with glass doors. Web-frosted panes rested in a gold frame which I knew was in good repair but lubricated the hinges all the same and tested for silence as well as Wards.

  My ring warmed strongly beneath my glove as I paused with my hand on the glass. Then the sensation became pleasant, and I smiled, tugging on the window. It didn’t open.

  Physical lock. Maybe she’s not so stupid after all.

  What most Nobles didn’t realize—indeed, I hadn’t—was that locks of this design were stronger from the inside than from out. A new handhold, a new leverage tool, and a sound muffling pellet later, the lock gave way, and I opened the window, climbing in and sliding into the deep shadows of the bedroom.

  Like many Nobles’ bedrooms, it was dominated by a large, wide bed, layered with fine sheets and covered with a canopy with veil-like drapes. I recognized her form even from where I crouched, lying next to a resting, male companion. My nose told me I’d just missed their activity, and neither had bathed yet. A wine pitcher and two glasses—one empty and one still mostly full—had been placed at the bedside table, and my ears told me the companion was deeply asleep. I supposed more than a few paranoid Nobles sedated their mates if they Reveried together. As I crept closer, I was relieved to see that he was mature. One of the House Guard.

  Not as young as I was. Still. Odd to see him here.

  I drew an obsidian blade and stepped silently toward her. Any of my Sisters would have been awake and aware by now, but this one still had her eyes closed. It seemed far too easy when I pressed the tip of the dagger into the hollow of her throat.

  Coup counted.

  Her eyes snapped open, and I looked straight at her. Given a moment for her vision to adjust, she recognized me. Her eyes filled with hatred.

  “Hello, Kaltra,” I whispered, pressing harder. “Swallow that indignance. You’ll impale yourself.”

  My sister gasped in disbelief and hissed, “W-what are you doing back?”

  “It was time for a visit.”

  “You weren’t invited. I know you weren’t.” She glanced down at the hilt of the blade which kept her pressed to the bed for the moment. She wasn’t wearing any clothes, only the thin, white sheet covered her. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near Mother, especially now.”

  “Nor should you be,” I murmured. “I hear she hasn’t been well.”

  Kaltra pursed her lips briefly. “Yes, it has been a difficult pregnancy for her. She’s older now.”

  I smirked, knowing Matron Thalluen was easily two centuries younger than Elder D’Shea, probably four from Elder Rausery. “She’s not that old. And no trouble from the three before? Quite curious, don’t you think?”

  Kaltra’s eyes oddly flicked to the side. My jaw tilted, but I didn’t blink, didn’t look away from her and kept the obsidian in place.

  “Something off?” I asked.

  “You haven’t been here, what would you know?” she spat. “Even when you were, you only acted for yourself. You killed our sister and got away with it, you cunt. Jilrina would have made our House powerful again, not let it stagnate under a weak Matron!”

  “Stagnate,” I said. “That’s a big word, Kaltra. Did you mean stalagmite?”

  That moment of self-doubt in her eyes was what I had lived for as a youth. And when had we ever been that powerful, anyway? I grinned, and her lower lip trembled a little, but not in fear.

  “You don’t even deny it, do you?” she said, her voice caustic as acid.

  “Jilrina died, Kaltra, but not by my hand. We won’t say the same for you.”

  Her eyes widened, and she slapped clumsily at my wrist as she made the motion to sit up. I allowed it to be knocked to the side and stepped back, giving her room to get to her feet. She seemed so slow. Had I truly once been terrified of her?

  Kaltra seized a robe, choosing not to parade defiantly before me though I’d seen her naked so many times. I gave her just enough time to slip into it. As soon as her fists clenched, her face contorted, and she drew breath to speak, I whispered the word to light one of the lamps to full glow in a few flicks. My former sister cursed at the brightness, covering her eyes in reflex. It was the same trick I’d used more than once to slip away into the hall.

  Still the same after all these turns. I could have killed her twelve times by now.

  No faster than she’d ever been, Kaltra wrenched her hands away, blinking to grow accustomed to the new brightness. She froze when she saw the red leather, and as she recognized me once again in a new form, her expression changed from rage to confusion to horrified disbelief.

  “Impossible,” she said. “No.”

  If I had killed her in the dark, I wouldn’t have seen that face.

  My shoulders shaking in silent laughter, I pulled out a small, amethyst crystal rod to hold in my other hand, the dagger remaining in the other. My target watched as though hypnotized as I tapped it against the obsidian, causing a small chime and activating the spell D’Shea had placed on it. I sheathed my blade and held the crystal forward.

  “As one of the Red Sisters, I declare you’ve been feeding your Matron and her unborn child a slow poison to prevent competition to your inheritance. Do you confess?”

  Her bottom lip started to tremble again. This time it was pure fear.

  “Not this,” she whispered. “It cannot be this! Should not be!”

  I shook my head, tucking the crystal in a tight, flat pocket on the torso of my new armor. “That’s not an answer. Try again.”

  It took one step toward her, my hands now free, and Kaltra whirled and lunged on the drugged male in her bed.

  “Wake up! Wake, damn you!”

  He didn’t respond, and she gripped his limp wrist and hand, twisting and preparing to break one or more of his fingers. It was a method of shifting both pain and blame, one with which I was familiar. Swiftly I closed the gap and snatched her wrist, pressing a point where she lost all strength in her grip and pain shot straight up her arm. Kaltra screamed much louder than I had the first time, and she let him go.

  “I’ve never heard you cry like that before,” I said, dragging her away from the unconscious male in her bed and toward the dining table closer to the window.

  “Help! Help!”

  She struggled hard and, once, her vicious strikes had been enough to make it not worth being near her.

  “Mother! Guards!”

  It wasn’t nearly enough now. I laughed out loud in disbelief and threw her into a chair at the small table. She almost fell over backward. I placed my hands on my hips as she recovered her balance.

  “Kaltra. I know thinking is hard for you, but have you ever seen a House Guard attack a Red Sister because a Noble said so?”

  She was shaking so much she didn’t even try to stand back up out of the chair.

  “On the contrary,” I continued, “didn’t they look the other way while a Red Sister had some fun with you? I bet I can describe the dirty things she did. Magical phallus, right? And you yielded like a good little servant. You were held down while she used whatever hole she wanted for her pleasure, right?”

  Kaltra made a face of distaste as she gripped the arms of the seat; even more, it looked like the memory physically tasted terrible.

  “Ohhh, did my Sister make you taste your own shit?” I chuckled, rubbing my mound through my leathers. “Plunged deep in your burning pucker, roughening that up some before she pulled out and made you suck it?”

  Kaltra’s eyes grew rounder as I let her see my own lewd response to what I described. For as long as I had hated her, I wished I could have watched at least one time. Still, she had not suffered anything more than I had, yet she shook her head in angry denial, and I came clos
er, only to see it move faster. My cloak and stance seemed to block her in, I seemed to tower over her, though with her speed, she was not close enough to have a prayer of snatching any weapons from my belt. The amethyst crystal was still listening.

  “Too bad you couldn’t use the same spell-brewer that Jilrina did,” I said. “She kept her silence rather well. The one you picked has already cried your name and what she’d given you multiple times in the dungeon. Brewmistress Whelery.”

  Kaltra went stiff as a corpse.

  “Using Murhalla weed extract, right?”

  My former sister refused to make a peep. I shifted my weight casually.

  “Very subtle. It just took too long. Do you confess?”

  “Wh-what does it matter?” she said. “You have always hated me. You have already judged me.”

  A shake of my head. “My Elders sent me. They’ve judged you.”

  “You are here to punish me. L-like that other Red Sister.”

  My smirk twisted with disgust. “Thank you, but I’ll pass. It would be fun to watch you spread your smelly cheeks for another Sister but, fortunate for you, the others are busy this eve.”

  Kaltra’s dark face was ashen and pinched in confusion; her knuckles were grey from gripping the chair as she waited. I took a lean against the table, seemingly relaxed, watching her with a small smile. The lack of fear I felt, the lack of hatred, was astonishing.

  She was so small, so lost in the chair. I could wait all eve for her to crack. I wasn’t afraid.

  She is nothing.

  “You poisoned your Matron while she is pregnant,” I repeated. “Do you confess?”

  Her nostril curled in loathing as her eyes narrowed at me. “What happens if I confess?”

  “You already knew that when you chose to do it. Valsharess’ law is clear, isn’t it?”

  Kaltra swallowed. “What about what you did?”

  “If you’re still convinced it was something, then I suppose you’ll never truly know.”

  Someone had heard Kaltra’s screaming. Someone had told Matron Thalluen, but no one signaled at the door while I got what I needed from her. It had taken a long time for my Mother to reach the door herself, and she opened it, as she could open any entry in the mansion.

  The pregnant Davrin leaned against the frame as if the mere act of getting here had exhausted her. Her face was gaunt, the white hair at her temples was damp. First, one hand cradled the large, hard swell of her belly, then both as she caught her breath, and her eyes teared up as she glanced at Kaltra’s bloody body in the chair.

  Tears?

  Tears for a stupid retch who got caught was the last thing I expected to see from any female, but our Matron always had shown weakness in odd ways. Kaltra hadn’t been entirely wrong about that.

  “Kaltra Thalluenduv confessed to poisoning you, Matron,” I said formally, cleaning off my blade using part of the pale eve’s robe before sheathing it. “You and your unborn. My Elders didn’t want her taken in. They are satisfied with her death.”

  “Si…” my Mother began, then stopped, licking her lips. “Sister. The Sisterhood comes again to my House unannounced.”

  She might have wanted to say more, but it looked as though she might vomit instead.

  If she has anything in her belly not already claimed by the little cait.

  I withdrew a vial from my belt provided by D’Shea and met Rohenvi Thalluen at the door. I held it out to her; she glanced cautiously at it.

  “A message from my Elder,” I said. “This should neutralize the poison over the next cycle. Healing potions will work again. Remember to eat. You’re losing weight, and the child you carry is female. You can’t die until you have birthed an Heir, Matron. There’s no one left to defend the House but you.”

  Word-for-word, it was what the Elder Sorceress had told me to say. Privately I marveled at the spark of fight I saw in my former Matron’s eyes, how those words seemed to recapture more mind and spirit than I thought she had. She reached out and took the vial, avoiding the blood stains my glove had left near the bottom.

  She asked me, “All at once?”

  I nodded.

  Matron Thalluen drank it as I watched, gagged once and only kept it down with effort. I retrieved the empty container from her and replaced it in a pouch, and she nodded, licking her lips and perhaps searching for something to drink. She didn’t seriously consider the open wine container by the bed, I didn’t think, but she noticed the House Guard unconscious in Kaltra’s bed.

  “Oh, Sibron,” she breathed out, walking into the room and around me with a respectful nod.

  I could have assisted her but was curious what my Mother intended to do. I watched as, like Kaltra, she also tried to wake him with a shake. The Matron merely said his name and checked his pulse instead of threatening to break his fingers.

  The Matron knows him by name, hm?

  Yet I couldn’t place him. It had been too long for me being away from here, and that assumed he wasn’t one who had just come of age.

  “He hasn’t stirred since I arrived, Matron,” I said. “Do you need assistance moving him somewhere else?”

  Breathing carefully, she nodded. “Yes, Red Sister. I would be…most grateful.”

  “Where do you want him?”

  “The healer’s quarters, if you please.”

  I smirked at the irony. “Your House healer was condemned with Brewmistress Whelery. He told you he went out for supplies, but he won’t be back.”

  My former Matron held still, again leaning to better bear the weight of her huge gut. “Who can I trust, then, Red Sister?”

  I shrugged. “Rao’mino, for sure.”

  She sounded baffled, even as she kept her eyes on Sibron. “The kitchen’s assistant?”

  “I was told he provided the lead the Sisterhood needed to follow the connections. He is young but loyal to you.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “I see. Can you still move Sibron to the healer’s quarters, Red Sister?”

  “As you like, Matron.”

  As I once had for an intoxicated young male back at Court, I gathered Sibron close to me after sitting him up. He was naked as Kaltra had been. I bent and pulled him over my shoulder, preparing to carry him out of Jilrina’s former quarters. Per my instructions, I would be leaving the body; I already had the proof of execution.

  Now they are dead. Both of them.

  I felt so strong, standing there with the male Guard braced across my shoulders.

  “What will you do when we get there, Matron?” I asked curiously.

  “I will tend him until he wakes.”

  I almost laughed at that but just held it, imagining she didn’t realize that might include cleaning up his waste if it wasn’t soon enough.

  I glanced at her with a confident smile. “Only after you eat something, Matron.”

  On cue, her belly grumbled, and she nodded with grace even weak as she was. On our way there, however, I noticed we were being followed while taking the staircases leading from the third to the first floor.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, shifting Sibron’s body for balance.

  Matron Thalluen carefully looked behind her, scanned the darkness and spotted the small, pointy-eared form now peeking around the corner.

  “Natia,” she said, sounding dizzy. “Go back to your room.”

  “No, Matron,” she whimpered. “Don’t go with her…”

  Again, my Mother’s eyes shone with moisture, and she blinked them rapidly. Her voice was much more commanding on the next try. “Return to your room. I will come to you soon.”

  Very reluctantly, the cait shrank away and returned to the second floor. Sibron’s dead weight was becoming a strain, and I urged we move on, even as I kept one ear back for anything else that had changed about this place.

  “Who was that?” I asked again. “Do you mean to tend every Davrin in the House this eve by your own hand, Matron?”

  The El
f who had given birth to me heard the edge of brittle sarcasm, I knew she did. However, as it had always been before between us, she pretended not to.

  “That is Natia, a child of one of the House Guards. She was orphaned recently, and I mean to keep her close to me as a handmaid.”

  My Mother breathed in, then out, holding her distended stomach as it seemed to clench without her meaning it to. I watched with more fascination than I should have. How close I’d been to this path, too, after attacking that Consort.

  I could be watching my belly swell and clench like that, after growing up believing that I never would.

  Now I still couldn’t catch; not unless I wanted to meet the Priestesses up close, as I had every Red Sister so far.

  “Very soon, thanks to the Sisterhood and the Valsharess,” my Mother said, “I will need a spare pair of hands and quick feet like hers. A new handmaid can aid me.”

  Thanks to the Sisterhood.

  A new handmaid. A newborn Daughter.

  And the tormentors of my own childhood dead.

  I was reminded how everything handed to me now was a test of being a Red Sister. I wanted to know more; I thought perhaps I should stay and talk, ask questions, even though my mission was complete. I could only report more to my Elder if I knew more, right?

  Yet, I also knew I shouldn’t be this engaged in what was going on within these walls.

  Not anymore.

  “Sounds like you shall need all the aid you can get, Matron.”

  I walked without error to the healer’s quarters, placing Sibron upon a cot, and admitted to myself that I wanted to know more about the “handmaid” that my Mother had promised she would meet soon, in her bedroom on the second floor and not the servants’ quarters. I wanted to know who had sired my unborn sister, and why Matron Rohenvi had chosen him. I even wanted to know why the Matron knew Sibron’s name, said it with familiarity as if she was concerned about him.

  Why was he in Kaltra’s bed?

  It only struck after acknowledging that curiosity that perhaps my now-deceased sister had been trying to test her own fertility before her Matron succumbed to the poison. Only one fertile and ruling female now remained, because Elder D’Shea had sent me.