After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  She cried out with each movement I made, plunging farther, my fingers inside her. She ached her back when she cracked, and I felt the muscles grip my fingers, then weaken, and grip again.

  When she was done I slipped my hand free fast and soft as I could, for I’d an idea she’d be upset. Sure enough, she jumped off the chaise like it was on fire, her hands fluttering over the dress without much care to what they were doing, but the hem fell to her knees again on its own anyhow.

  With a sob she rushed to the door leading to her boudoir. But I had a thought, and I said, quick ’fore she could disappear, “I could dress like him.”

  Leika stopped with a jerk, her hand already resting on the frame of the doorway, her back tense, the blades visible, poking out like budding wings. Her hair hung forward for she held her head bowed.

  I kept quiet and watched her. Like stone, she was, for a long moment. I could almost see the struggle inside her. She wanted to run from me, deny I’d touched her—the followers of Tyr would never let a woman please another woman as I’d just done. It was blasphemy. But she wanted me to dress like Raud Gríma. She wanted me to fuck her again, and she wanted Raud Gríma to fuck her, and the two combined was more’n she could deny herself.

  “Yes,” she breathed, and disappeared down the hall.

  ~~~

  I sent a robot with a note to Finnarún telling her I was coming to her apartments in an hour. I wanted a wash, and my little attempt at good manners is no doubt what led to my “accident” in the lift, wouldn’t you know. Sölbói must’ve been watching for a note, or maybe he had robots as spies. Either way, when I stepped in the lift to go down ten floors to Finnarún’s, the doors shut and the next thing I knew, the lift begun falling.

  I’d taken it ’fore then, and I knew within a second something was wrong. In the next second I knew it was falling, broken, and I begun thrashing and kicking and screaming. Then, I felt a rush of strength—like I used to when the rage took me, only my vision never went red—only gold—and all I felt was terror, not wrath—and I hammered the side of the lift so hard with a kick that the metal of the lift wall buckled and bent outward. Sparks exploded. The screeching near tore through my head. I covered my ears and screamed like to drown out the screeching, sure I’d die. Sure the lift’d hit and I’d feel some horrible pain and then be dead.

  Only the buckled side slowed its fall, and when it hit the bottom, it was a strong enough impact to send me crashing into the wall and part of the ceiling, but when everything stilled I found I was bruised but otherwise nowt was broken. Busting that panel with the kick’d saved my life, and no mistake.

  I had to pry the door apart using a strip of iron what come off some of the decorative pieces on the inside of the lift’s walls. I climbed out. The lift’d stopped a bit above the bottom floor, and I had to jump down to reach it. I looked though the lift’s doors, what stayed ajar from my working’em open, at the space under the lift. The massive cable’d piled up under it, as well. So that might’ve cushioned the fall some, don’t you know. The cable was too much of a mess for me to find the end what’d broke and sent me falling. Course by then I’d started thinking and had the idea the end wouldn’t be broke so much as cut.

  He’d worked fast, Sölbói had, cutting that cable within an hour of getting my note. Unless he’d done it right after he left that day, without a care as to whether it was me or Leika what took the elevator next. Course, Leika almost never left her apartments. Once since I’d come to live there they’d had some grand ceremony to open the Temple, and she’d gone. She’d have to go when she finally decided on who to appoint High Vigja, as well, but it was a fair bet she’d not leave before.

  The robots took a different lift—a smaller one, for they’d no need of room like real people—so it was a fair bet the only person what might take that lift was me. Or someone visiting the konungdis.

  She’d had no visitors since Sölbói. Maybe he knew of someone planning on a visit. Maybe this had nowt to do with me, but my stupid luck.

  Leave the city now, while you can. I’ll not warn you again.

  I could hear the words in his voice, hissed in my ear. No. Sölbói’d warned me, and I’d not heeded it. So now, he’d decided to kill me.

  Part 5: Ginna’s Mask

  “And I suppose you didn’t know this’d happen!” I shouted at Finnarún, who was more or less chasing me around the fancy marble table in some small chamber between her grand salon and the corridor what led to her boudoir.

  “Ginna, please! You must sit down and let me see to your cuts. You’re bleeding quite terribly over your eye!”

  “I shouldn’t’ve come here,” I said, still keeping the table ’tween the two of us. I had to confront her, have it out, and if she touched me I’d no confidence in my strength to resist her. I’d just melt into her arms and forget I’d owt to complain of.

  “Well, you did, now kindly desist in this ridiculous game, and let me clean your wounds. The lift crashed! It’s a wonder you’re all in one piece. Let me see the rest of you.”

  “Oh no. Not ’til you admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “You sent me to Leika knowing I’m a whore. Knowing she’d like it if I—you know.”

  “Ginna, you seem very upset, and rightfully so, I’m sure. You nearly died—”

  “You’re using me for something with her. I want to know what it is. What’s your plan? And why would Reister Sölbói want to kill me over it?”

  “Reister Sölbói?” Finnarún looked surprised in truth. I frowned at her, trying to see if I could tell the difference ’tween lies and honesty in her eyes. I wanted to believe she’d not known it would come to this—Sölbói sabotaging a lift to get me out of the way—but I’d no sense for whether she was faking the surprise or not. “What does Reister Sölbói have to do with anything?” she asked.

  “He’s the one what done it,” I said, still scrutinizing her face. “He warned me to disappear, ‘or else.’”

  “What?”

  I sighed.

  “Ginna. You must sit down. You must tell me everything. When did you speak with Reister Sölbói? Did he visit Leika?”

  “Did you send me to Leika so’s I’d bed her?” I demanded.

  Finnarún chewed the tip of her top lip for a moment, then let out all her breath at once. “Very well. Yes. I did.”

  “You bought me from Gaddi with that in mind.”

  Another noisy breath. “Yes. You came highly recommended.”

  “Why not just say so? I sold myself to him. I’d do anything to keep my family safe. Why trick me at all? Why not just buy me and send me directly to fuck the konungdis? Why pretend you cared about me?”

  I was gripping the table so hard I’m sure it’d have taken on fingerprints if it’d been wood and not stone. Also, a tinge of red coloured the corners of my vision. Nothing like a nasty brush with death to make a girl come back into touch with her anger.

  “Ginna,” Finnarún said, sounding like she was talking to some naughty child. “Of course I care about you. I just—need your help, for a little while. But it was never going to be permanent. I do intend on bringing you back to live with me.”

  She made her way, careful-like, around the table, and reached for my hand. The red had passed away from my vision, and all I felt was tired. I knew she was lying. But I still loved her. I wanted to believe her, so even though I knew she was lying, the part of me what wanted to believe overruled the rest. After all, she might be telling the truth, don’t you know.

  Leaning in close to my face, her dark blue eyes sparkling at me like she was laughing, she gave me a little smile, one I’d seen before a few times, when I lived there. It was a smile she saved just for me. Or at least, I’d thought so then. Finnarún knew me better’n I knew myself, it seemed. She had me all figured out. Ginna’d do anything for her family, but she’d do even more for a girl she loved, sure enough. Get her to love you, and she was yours.

  I let her lead me from the small ro
om, though the corridor, and into her boudoir. A door on the left wall of the boudoir led into her private bath chamber, and she sat me on the edge of the tub and set about wetting a hand cloth. She folded it up and pressed it to my head, taking my hand and telling me to hold the towel in place. Then she wet another and started dabbing at wounds everywhere else.

  “Any broken ribs, do you think?” she asked.

  “No, I reckon not.”

  “You were incredibly fortunate,” she said. “But are you quite certain Reister had something to do with it? They rushed the restoration of this place, you know. It could very well be that the lift was on the verge of breaking the whole time.”

  I shook my head, still holding the folded hand towel in place. “It was him,” I said. “He all but told me he’d kill me if I didn’t leave. He knows I work for you.”

  She frowned, wiping gently at a cut over my right knee. “Tell me everything.”

  So I told her about Reister’s visit and what he’d said to me.

  She pursed her lips for a moment, then said, “It was to be expected, I suppose.” She glanced at me then. “Not that he would attempt to murder you, of course.” Of course. ’Cause she’d never have sent me to Leika if she’d know that might happen. “Just that Reister would figure out who you were, and that you’re my… agent.”

  “All he’d have had to do is hear that you brought someone no one’d ever met into your apartments, and all of a sudden Leika has a new reader, and he’d have all he needed to make the connection,” I said.

  “Yes, I expect that’s how it happened exactly,” Finnarún agreed.

  “So what is your plan? What do you need me for?”

  Finnarún didn’t answer, and for a moment I wanted to grab the wet towel out of her hands and slap her with it.

  “I’m very pleased,” she said after a long pause, “that things have progressed as they have. I assume this is a recent thing, your ‘bedding’ the konungdis?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her, but said nowt. I could play her game.

  “Oh, really, Ginna. It’s so unbecoming when you sulk,” she said, leaving off with the towel and standing at the sink to rinse it. “Well. I’m quite certain it’s new. She was upset, I suppose?”

  I just glared.

  “I know her very well, you understand,” Finnarún said. She checked her’n reflection in the mirror over the sink, leaning in a bit to touch up the red on her lips with the tip of her finger. “I bedded Eiflar many times, you know. But sometimes Leika watched.” She turned and raised an eyebrow at me. “We’re no different, you and I. I know that. I’ve used my body just the same as you’ve used yours, though I suspect my circumstances may have been more comfortable.”

  “And mine involved getting food for my family,” I growled. “Why’d you do what you did?”

  “Does it really matter, Ginna? Eiflar’s dead and gone. And it’s my body. I may use it as I see fit, just as you do yours. There’s no shame in it.”

  “You’ve no love of the Reign of Tyr,” I said, changing tactics, for I was still hoping to find out what her plan was. “Why fuck the konunger at all? Why send me to the konungdis?”

  “Well, I couldn’t seduce Leika myself,” she said. “I would have done so a long time ago—but she’s very… conflicted, I suppose is the correct word.”

  “Conflicted about liking it with a girl,” I said in agreement.

  “Yes. It goes against the tenets of the new faith,” Finnarún said, the corner of her mouth quirking in a grin. I knew that grin. She was thinking on some blasphemy herself.

  “Why’d you think I could do it?” I asked ’fore she’d act on the idea.

  “Oh, Ginna,” she said, leaning in so’s her mouth come close enough to mine I felt the breath of her words brush my lips. “You really don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  Well, there’s only so much a girl can resist, you know, and I was fair shaken from the lift crash, and I wanted to touch her, and feel her hands on me, and forget about all of it. I knew she’d not answered my question, hadn’t told me about her plans or why she was doing any of this. But I also knew she’d no intention of doing so. Why not give in? If I pushed her, she’d only get angry, and I’d no other friends.

  ~~~

  So that’s how we wound up in her bed and I never returned to Leika for more’n three hours, and by the time I was headed back I thought she’d be in a fit when I got there. But instead, she sat nice as you please in one of the hardest armchairs in the grand salon, listening to the radio. And it weren’t even that louse Áleifer rattling on about Tyr, neither, just nice enough music—horns, for the most part.

  She said nowt to me as I entered, only nodded when I greeted her, and my shoulders went loose to know she weren’t in a fit even as I started worrying that she’d decided to ignore me or some such. But whatever she was about, I was fair tired, and I went straight to my little room.

  And then it all come clear to me—leastways the bit about why Leika wasn’t in a fit. She’d already had her fit, sure enough, and she’d done it in my room.

  She’d torn apart every book I had.

  The sight of the room knocked the breath from me, and I’ve seen my share of horrors, wouldn’t you know. Pages, everywhere. Broken and torn covers and spines.

  The Elga. The beautiful treasure what Ivarr gave me. I found pages scattered in the mess—I’d fallen to my knees though I’ve little memory of it—I crawled and pawed through the papers, a little moan welling up in my chest. My books. Each one meant the world to me, so many given to me by Ivarr, but many I’d found myself, and saved, each one precious.

  I clutched pages from the Elga I found to my chest and sobs come pouring out of me. I shook with them for some time—I’ve no sense of how long. Only that when I opened my eyes, my vision’d gone red.

  I’d enough of my mind still I found the disguise where I’d hid it, deep behind the books, against the wall. Leika’d gone all the way under the bed to drag out every book, but she’d left the disguise alone, if she felt it there. Had she known what is was? Had she touched it with the tips of blind fingers, yanking away when she recognized it?

  I put it on, vest, dagger, and mask.

  I felt the power of the rage fill me as I strode out into the grand salon, and I stopped just feet from her. I wanted to reach out, grab her by the hair, and cut her throat.

  Leika straightened in her seat, black eyes staring, her face taking on a tilt as she listened to my footfalls. Blood drained from her face and her lips went white.

  “It’s you,” she said in a breath.

  I stared at her, wanting to see the red of her blood. I wanted to tear her apart like she’d torn the books. But some part of me seen her for what she was—a poor mad woman, nowt but a pawn just like me, too weak to free herself and too twisted to face herself. I’d not murder her.

  Sölbói, I might murder, I thought, as the heat of the wrath pumped through me, and I left the apartments of the konungdis behind to hunt for him in the palace.

  ’Fore long, though, a shiver of fear joined the hot rage, as I thought on what’d happen to me if I was caught. And that was a new thing. Never once’d I felt fear when I was Styrlakker’s toady. Never once’d I thought on the consequences of my rampages. It was all I could do not to kill my’n Amma, sure enough. I’d no compassion for anyone, and no thought for myself, when the anger took me. Until now.

  The fury burned hotter as I delayed, standing in a palace corridor—hesitating. It was hard to think. I had to get it out. If I went outside, maybe I could spend the rest of the day and night—however long it took—running from it. Maybe if I ran enough, I’d wear it out.

  ~~~

  Running weren’t the answer, and soon enough I’d seen the truth of that. I prowled the dark city and looked for slashers, but the streets in the northeast, closest to the palace, weren’t a playground for slashers or toadies no more. I took to the Undergrunnsby next. The tunnels were still in ruins. No one’d bothered to cle
an them out, other’n the people what used to live there. Not a rat stirred now, and I’d cause to wonder on it. It was my belief the Officers’d come for the people, but how could it be nothing lived in the Undergrunnsby no more?

  Still, I’d no head for thinking, and I come up to the streets again after a time. It was Sudbattir, and I seen they done little to repair the streets and buildings of the Lavsektor, no more’n the Undergrunnsby. No one’d ever much cared for what happened in the Lavsektor ’fore the city fell; it weren’t no wonder they left it in ruins after.

  That sort of realization did nowt to temper the rage none, so I kept wandering the rubble in Sudbattir ’til I come on old Gram’s shop. It weren’t more’n the burnt carcass of a building now—just some iron bars what used to be encased in cement blocks, but much of the cement was gone, it’d burned that hot.

  I stood outside the shop and felt the anger drain away, replaced with grief and dread.

  I grieved for Gram, and for Dag and Ótti and everyone what’d died since the city fell. And the dread come fast on the heels of the sorrow, for it felt as though I was dying, and I’d no way to stop it.

  Course that’s when the slashers turned up.

  Except they weren’t slashers so much as Officers of Tyr.

  What I mean is, they were Officers, sure enough, but they might as well’ve been slashers, or at least toadies. Come to think of it, toadies fit better. They were just toadies of the palace—not so much Leika, for I knew better’n anyone Leika had little to do with what the Officers were about. They served the Temple and probably some jarls in the palace ’fore they ever served Leika, and that’s a fact. But these Officers weren’t working for anyone right then. Maybe they were supposed to be—they were in uniform. But they were drunk. I smelled brandy ’fore I seen them come round the corner. I heard them, too. Laughing and carrying on just like slashers. Just like toadies what weren’t on duty at that particular moment, and were looking for a good time.

  None of the streetlights in Sudbattir worked no more, so soon’s I heard them I made for a dark spot in the ruins of Gram’s shop, but they carried glims, more’s the pity. They seen movement, I reckon, without seeing much else.