But he had, and it had made it bearable in some way.
Confusing, yes, and there was something horrible in having enjoyed it, but… well… if it had been painful and invasive like that first time, if she’d been dry and frightened and sober, she…
Maybe that would have broken her.
As it was, she didn’t feel broken at all.
The cracks were still there, but she wasn’t worried about shattering, not anymore.
That didn’t mean she wanted to see Larent in the morning, however, because she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what she felt towards him—some odd mix of gratitude and arousal and connection and hatred. Deep, deep hatred. That was never going away when it came to Larent, no matter what he did.
So, she got up and left the room, telling the guard in the hallway that she was going down to the kitchens early. He allowed this.
As she went by the doors to the outside, she peered out into the cold and wondered again about escape, wondered what was wrong with her.
Why hadn’t she even attempted to escape?
Not since that first night, when she’d tried to leave Larent’s tent, had she truly physically tried to go somewhere. But it was impossible. Looking outside, she could see the tents that filled the courtyard, all the fires burning to keep the militem warm. There were so many men out there. She’d never get past them all.
She didn’t attempt to escape because she could not.
She had made a deal with Larent.
He was honorable. He would see it through.
And besides, he wants me.
Oh, she needed to make that voice quiet. She attempted to bury it again, before it said something else, something horrid, like that she wanted him as well, because she did not.
The sound of chanting filtered into her ears, and she turned to her head, to see that there was a vast bonfire on the far end of the courtyard, and that fae were gathered about it. Now, she also heard the distant sound of drums.
The sound almost immediately transported her back to her childhood, where the sound of fae drums would emanate from their huts on the villa. They would drum and chant in the evenings, sometimes, back when she was young, back when no one was afraid of them, when it was all fine for the fae to amuse themselves.
At some point, the drumming and the chanting had come to signify fae magic. When she was a child, it was thought that piercings in their ears and their noses kept the magic at bay, but as time had passed, no one could be sure what the fae could do, and no humans were taking any chances.
The drums were smashed and burned—they had been handmade anyway, made of whatever discarded parts the fae could fine—and any gatherings were broken up, the ringleaders whipped.
The sound was at once soothingly reminiscent of a simpler, happier time in her life and also alarming.
What were they doing?
The fae were drumming and they were dancing around a huge fire, its flames dancing in the early morning light. Above the fire, she could see that the sky was churning overhead, a concentration of ashy whiteness ominous behind the criss cross of bare tree branches.
She had never seen anything like that before, no real manifestation of fae magic.
“Girl,” said a voice.
She looked up.
A guard, gripping a rifle across his chest, his long crimson hair curling around his pointed ears, sneered at her. “Where are you supposed to be?”
“Th-the kitchens,” she said.
“Best get there, then.” The fae raised his red eyebrows.
She ducked her head and scurried away, leaving the chanting and the drumming behind her as she descended to the lower levels of the house.
The kitchens were empty when she arrived, but soon enough, other women appeared, Marta among them.
“You’re all right?” Marta was concerned. “Did Akiel do anything to you?”
“He wanted to, I think, but Larent wouldn’t let him,” she said. She wanted to tell Marta all of it, but she had concealed so much from Marta thus far, and she couldn’t come out and explain it now.
“You seem…” Marta scrutinized her. “Different. But not in the way I might have expected.”
“I feel stronger,” she said, and she did. It was as if she had gone into the den of horrors and come out the other side, forged in flames.
Marta gave her a nod, as if she understood this.
“And Larent…” Onivia furrowed her brow. “Does it ever, um, feel good with some of them? Feel physically pleasurable, I mean? With Dandren, for instance? You mentioned that things with him are…”
Marta let out a long, low sigh. “We are both doomed, Onivia. You are falling for him, just as I am.”
“I’m not,” said Onivia, shaking her head. She gave Marta a sympathetic look. “Are you truly?”
“I recognize the signs,” said Marta, shrugging. “And I haven’t been following my own advice. I’ve been doing what I can to keep myself from getting with child, because I don’t want him to send me away.” She gave Onivia a sad smile.
With child.
It went through Onivia coldly.
Well, of course Larent had to do it.
Did he? Couldn’t he have pretended? He’d spent inside her body. Akiel would never have known.
I washed it out of me.
Yes, it was odd that she hadn’t thought of it when she’d been doing that, hadn’t thought of children or Larent’s seed taking hold in her, but she supposed she’d been…
In shock.
She raised her eyebrows wryly.
One could not constantly live in a state of being in shock, could one? Well, she probably couldn’t have washed it all out, but she had washed enough of it out that it had stopped seeping out of her, anyway, so perhaps… maybe…
“What’s wrong?” said Marta. “Are you with child?”
“No,” said Onivia. “No, he is… usually careful about that.” This was not precisely a lie. “He has no wish to create more half-bloods like himself, I don’t think. But… with Akiel, he…”
“Yes, Akiel would look at that as weakness, perhaps?” Marta shrugged. “Although, considering how much Akiel despises half-bloods, maybe that makes no sense.”
It really didn’t.
Somehow, Onivia suspected that Akiel would have been more entertained by seeing her bare skin splattered with Larent’s ejaculate. Larent didn’t have to do it, not at all, but he’d spent inside her anyway.
She felt ill.
“It’s all right,” said Marta, touching her arm. “If he gets you with child, it is a good thing. It will go well for you.”
“What will happen to the baby, though?” she whispered. “What kind of life would a child like that have? I’ll be doubly helpless if…” She would never be able to help her sister.
Marta hugged her. “We will survive this. We must survive this.” She whispered it in her ear.
Onivia clung to her friend.
But then the fae women noticed them embracing, and they both let go, each wiping surreptitiously at their eyes.
What would become of Marta when Onivia left in the spring to go to the capital to Magdalia? Would Onivia ever see her again? Was there anything she could do for her friend?
Why was she so helpless?
At breakfast, Akiel took Larent to task for killing some human prisoner, and Onivia was horrified until she realized it was Cassus, and that Larent had freed him as he’d promised.
Her heart surged. Cassus was gone, freed.
“I was in a bit of a mood to hurt things last night for some reason,” Larent said mildly. “I guess I got carried away.”
“You didn’t ask my permission to take the prisoner,” said Akiel.
“What’s going on in the courtyard?” said Larent. “You’re summoning a storm? I thought we spoke last night of what we might do against the approaching legions.”
“You think I need you, your steel and your guns,” sneered Akiel. “Well, we are fae, and we have magic, and when we su
mmon the ice and snow to bury and freeze the human army, you’ll see just how useless you half-bloods truly are.”
“Useless?” said Larent. Then he laughed.
“Shut your mouth, centurion,” snapped Akiel.
Larent’s laughter died off slowly.
The two men glared at each other across the table.
All the other officers seemed tense, exchanging glances with each other.
The air seemed charged.
“Name one victory this cohort can claim in which my centuria wasn’t key to the outcome,” said Larent in an even voice. “Name one.”
“You’re dismissed,” growled Akiel.
Larent let out another laugh, this one in disbelief. But he got up from the table, pushing out his chair noisily. He looked around until he saw Onivia, and then he beckoned her.
She didn’t know what to do, so she started for him.
“Leave your girl,” said Akiel. “She likes fae cock so much, she might prefer to be around some full-blooded fae.”
Onivia’s eyes widened, and she was shot full of fear. No. She hurried over to Larent, begging him with her eyes not to leave her here.
But she needn’t have worried. Larent barely seemed to notice her, since he was furiously glaring at Akiel. “She’s mine. You’re the one who made the rules about officers’ girls, and once a girl has been claimed—”
“I did make the rules, and maybe I’ll change them,” said Akiel.
Larent turned to the gathered officers. “You see? You see what he is? This is the man we serve? This is the man we put our lives on the line for?”
“Dismissed,” roared Akiel.
Larent took Onivia by the arm and dragged her with him.
“Let go of her,” said Akiel.
Larent didn’t. He propelled her out of the room ahead of himself and slammed the door in his wake.
“Larent!” came the barely muffled sound of Akiel’s voice from within.
Larent muttered several oaths to the fae ancestors under his breath, but he didn’t stop, and he didn’t let go of Onivia.
“You can’t give me to him,” Onivia said, and she felt embarrassed at the way she was begging him, but she felt desperate fear more.
“Oh, I will never give you to him,” said Larent.
She sagged into him in relief.
He put his arm around her again, like he had in the hallway when they’d walked back the night before.
“Because I’m yours,” she whispered.
“You are,” he agreed. “Mine.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MAGDALIA WAS FOURTEEN years old when she returned to her father’s villa, leaving the capital behind.
It was quite a blow to go back to the Eeslia after having spent years in the hub of civilization, not to mention that she was leaving behind her magister and Cassus and the promise of coming out in society—maybe even next year. Probably not, of course, because girls were usually sixteen or seventeen, but sometimes girls came out as young as fifteen, and she wanted to go to dances and meet men and do all the things that Onivia had been doing.
The villa was backward and boring, and Magdalia hated it there.
There was only one consolation about being back on Quinta Island, and that was Duranth.
It had been years since she’d seen him, and when she had, she’d been a little girl, and he’d been a gangly teenager who had nevertheless been her very best friend and her favorite person in the world.
Well.
She had not admitted that aloud, and maybe had not really admitted it to herself, because she had learned that she must not have such affection for fae slaves.
It was only that surely Duranth was different than other slaves, because he was so smart and so good to her. When she arrived back at the villa, she promised herself that she would get settled in before seeking him out. Finding him on the third day after she had gotten home was acceptable.
But she went out not two hours after she was home, walking down the path that wound around the fields to the rows of huts where the fae lived. She knew that Duranth had lived in a shack with two other fae youths who had no parents on the villa, and she went directly there.
She didn’t knock; dominissae did not knock at the doors of slaves.
But she wished she had because he wasn’t dressed.
He was sprawled out on a cot, face down, clad only in a pair of loose, drawstring canvas pants. His back was a mass of red, raised scar tissue. She saw it all, the wounds, his skin like carved meat, before she let out a noise and he looked up to see her there, and she ran out of the hut, struggling against the tears that had sprung unbidden to her eyes.
One does not cry over slaves, she scolded herself, but he was her special slave, dear to her, like Csaer had been dear to her, and to see him so badly punished was awful.
She would speak to someone. She would see to it that he was not treated in this way. If he was misbehaving in some manner, then they must come to her first about it, and if she spoke to him, surely she could convince him to mend his ways. He always listened to her, after all.
But she wondered there, fighting her tears, if he had changed in the ensuing years.
After all, she had barely recognized him—wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for his blue-black hair—because he was huge now, no gangly adolescent but a grown man with broad shoulders and muscled arms.
Nineteen.
He was nineteen now.
When he came to the door, he had a shirt buttoned over his chest, but he seemed to wince when he moved and it touched his back. “Little Magda? What are you doing here?”
“No one told you I was coming back?” She was sniffling a little bit, and that was mortifying. She approached him and a stupid, traitorous tear spilled out and ran down her cheek in a long, wet line.
He smirked, reaching out to catch it. “Not for me?”
He would never have smirked before. She should have known then he was different.
She sniffled again, hard, and seized his hand with her own and pumped magic into him. She could feel him from the inside out and she soothed the angry furrows on his back, laid them down and put them back together. She would have made it so he didn’t even have scars, but there were already scars, healed scars.
“How many times have you been whipped?” She was horrified.
He flexed his shoulders, wonder all over his face. “What are you doing?”
She pulled her hand away from his. “Tell me who ordered it. I won’t stand for it. Not you. What have you been doing that would warrant such horrid punishment, anyway? It’s not the least bit like you.”
“You’re… older,” he said, and he was looking at her in a different way, a way that he had never looked at her before.
“So are you,” she said.
“Yes,” he laughed. “I suppose that happens.” He felt under his shirt, touching his back. “You healed me.”
“I have been learning my magic. That’s why I left.”
“Right. Your magic.” He let out a little laugh. “Yes.” He flexed his hand and bounced on his feet. “I feel your magic.”
What did he mean by that? No one felt her magic. Never mind. He hadn’t answered her question. “Who ordered you whipped?”
“Your father, of course.” He was smiling. “Thank you, Magda. How long are you staying here? Was that difficult for you to do that? It seemed so effortless.”
“My father? But why? He always liked you.”
“Oh, yes, he liked me, when I was younger and more malleable and willing to do tricks for him, like a trained monkey. But now, I am less compliant—”
“Well, stop that.” She let out a noise of disbelief. “Be compliant, for Fortune’s sake. What has gotten into you?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Look at you. Older, but still the same.”
“You will obey me, of course. You always have before.”
His smile widened. “What sort of things did you wish to order me to do? Shall we
go on adventures again together? You and me alone?”
What was that in his voice? She drew back, confused by it, stirred by it.
“I can’t imagine what your father would think of that.” He chuckled, as if delighted by this idea.
“What have you done, Duranth?”
“Magic,” he said.
She drew back.
He shrugged. “Well, that’s what they say it was. I say it was only simply a gathering around the fire, a drum circle and some singing. Just a bit of entertainment is all. Nothing to be worried about, but your father is worried.”
“Oh,” she said, thinking about that. “Well, I suppose many dominem are worried about that sort of thing these days. I realize it must be… be hard for you.” She wasn’t sure how to process the idea that she was sympathizing with the plight of fae slaves, because it seemed to smack of a revolutionary idea, and she knew what those ideas were doing to the capital. “Duranth, everything is going to calm down. Everyone says so. The revolts will be put down, and peace will come back, and I’m sure you’ll all be allowed to have the drums again. You must be patient and you must stop causing trouble.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I fear all I do is stir up trouble these days, little Magda.”
“No,” she said. “You’ll stop. For me.”
He regarded her. “I’ll stop.” He nodded. “But you’ll come and see me. In the evenings when I come back from the fields—”
“What are you doing in the fields?” She was horrified again. “You are meant to work in the villa. You are not meant—”
“It’s where I am now,” he said.
“I’m going to speak to my father,” she said. “This can’t stand.”
“It’s actually perhaps better if you don’t just yet,” he said. “Come and see me, though. Show me your magic? I’d like to see it.”
“Of course I’ll come to see you,” she said. “But it will be much easier if you’re not exhausted from laboring under the hot sun all day. I will make him understand that.”
Except her father had not understood.
He hated Duranth, it seemed, and he thought that the fae had become what he called “uppity.” He said it was his own fault for indulging Duranth as a boy, but that now it must be beaten out of him.
Battles of Salt and Sighs (Rise of the Death Fae Book 1) Page 19
