Mistress of Winter

by Giles Carwyn

  She took a sip of the wine and continued toward Brezelle, scanning the crowd for the cowled albino. She couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “Are we leaving already?” Mikal asked, following her.

  “No, I’m just anxious to find out how our young Queen Brezelle is enjoying her reign.”

  Brezelle spotted Shara, and her face lit up. She worked her way over, and the three of them created a little circle in the crush of people.

  “Sorry I lost you,” Brezelle said. She was quite tipsy, and her green eyes glistened as if the rum was leaking out of them. “I lost track of the time, looked up, and you were gone.”

  “No apologies,” Shara assured her. “You were obviously chasing an inspiration. Where is your paramour now?”

  “Alas,” Brezelle said, “he was easily exhausted. I was forced to…” She trailed off in midsentence as a hush crept over the crowd.

  All three of them turned to see Lord Reignholtz striding across the deck, his gaze locked on his daughter. The revelers around him backed up to make room for the Summer Prince. Brezelle took a sharp breath at the sight of her father, but stood her ground as he approached.

  Reignholtz drew abreast of them and spared a cool glance for Shara before addressing his daughter.

  “I thought we had already discussed your attendance of tonight’s festivities.”

  Brezelle seemed suddenly smaller. Her mouth tightened into a line, and she looked at the deck for a moment. But then she straightened, her eyes flashing. “I am Waveborn, Father. I have every right to be at the Floating Palace.”

  The muscles worked in Reignholtz’s jaw. A score of people stood nearby, pretending not to eavesdrop. “I will not discuss this here, Brezelle,” he said in a carefully modulated voice. “We will continue this conversation aboard Laughing Breeze.”

  Brezelle and her father faced off for an agonizing moment. Finally, Brezelle opened her mouth to speak—

  “My dear Lord Reignholtz,” Vinghelt’s rich voice interrupted them. He strode forward, and Mikal took a step back. “What a pleasant surprise. I must confess that I did not expect to see you here tonight. You should have told me if you wanted to apologize for your unseemly outbursts last season.”

  The crowd dropped all pretence of not listening and turned to face the two princes. Those in the back stood on tiptoes to get a better view.

  Reignholtz flicked a gaze at Vinghelt, narrowed his eyes, then looked back at his daughter. “Brezelle, come with me—”

  “I don’t think she wants to go with you, Lord Reignholtz,” Vinghelt continued. “You seem to have lost touch with a great many things, including the heart of your own daughter.”

  Brezelle reached for her sword, but her father motioned with his hand for her to stop.

  Vinghelt sported his ready smile, but his teeth were clenched, his grin stiff. His chin elevated, and he looked down his sharp nose at Reignholtz.

  Reignholtz returned the gaze. His blue eyes shone like sapphires, hard and mirthless.

  “I suppose the depth of your arrogance should no longer surprise me,” Reignholtz said in a dark voice. “But you’ve been lying to our faces and dissembling behind our backs for so long that nothing surprises me anymore.”

  Vinghelt snorted. “Tell me, do you still support the folly of abandoning our interests in the Summer Deserts?”

  “We should never have been there in the first place, and we shouldn’t be there now.”

  Vinghelt looked to the others around him, shrugging helplessly. “Why do the weak always hold such contempt for the strong? Why do they hate those who are fighting and dying for their liberty?”

  “You have no idea what true strength is,” Reignholtz hissed.

  Vinghelt sneered. “I am not the traitor who cozens Physendrian terrorists who would burn every ship in the Summer Fleet to the waterline.”

  “A difficult feat, truly, with your boot on their necks.”

  “Someone must fight the difficult battles.”

  “While others go where the gold is.”

  Vinghelt began to remove his glove, but Reignholtz already had his in hand. He tossed it to the deck on top of Vinghelt’s boot.

  “I call you a liar, a false prince, and a traitor to the Eternal Summer,” Reignholtz said. “And I call upon Fessa of the Deep to bring you to justice.”

  Vinghelt’s eyes blazed. He ripped his glove off and threw it at Reignholtz’s feet. “You’ll have your duel, Reignholtz, and Fessa herself will show who the traitor is.”

  “Indeed she will,” Reignholtz said, turned, and left. Brezelle, red with shame and rage, gave Shara a quick glance before following him.

  Vinghelt turned to the crowd, projecting his voice across the now-silent revelers. “Please have some more wine. Eat! Dance! Verse and steel will illuminate the truth soon enough, but for tonight, let us enjoy the freedom that our valiant soldiers have bought us.”

  The crowd began departing. It was difficult to judge their mood, but the festive roar slowly returned, louder than before. Vinghelt bowed low to Shara before joining his retinue.

  Shara watched Reignholtz and Brezelle until they climbed down between two ships and disappeared from view. She didn’t envy Brezelle’s boat trip back to Laughing Breeze.

  Mikal sidled up next to her. His smile seemed a bit stiff. “So, you shall see a real duel after all. What did you think of our dear Prince Vinghelt?”

  “I found him a bit underwhelming. Are you sure that is the man Lawdon is so worried about?”

  “Oh yes. He is all but King of the Summer Seas, the spider at the center of the web.”

  “He looked more like the fly at the center of the web.”

  “What?”

  “Vinghelt is impeccably polished, but there is no real power in him. If there is a plot, he is only a servant.”

  Mikal’s brow furrowed. “You are certain?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Mikal paused, looked through the crowd after Vinghelt, then glanced back at her. “If he is the servant, then who is the master?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Jesheks pressed the golden tip of his spiked pinkie sheath into his arm. A crimson pinprick welled up on his white skin. He felt the pain like a fine mist on parched skin. Just a little, just enough to whet his appetite for more.

  He rested his fleshy arm upon the edge of the steaming tub so gently that the drop of blood was undisturbed, a tiny spherical ruby of adornment. The water rippled around the drooping nipples of his flabby chest.

  A servant knocked on the door.

  Jesheks blinked lazily, waiting. He reached outside the door with his awareness, feeling the servant’s nervousness. The man didn’t want to deliver the box from Physendria to Vinghelt’s fearsome and repellent physician. There were rumors that some of the servants who attended the physician were never seen again.

  Don’t let him get behind me, the servant thought. Keep the door open. Why isn’t he answering?

  Jesheks smiled, waiting. The man knocked again.

  Is he dead in there? Please let him be dead. My lord would be better off without—

  “Come in,” Jesheks said, his fluted voice cutting through the silence.

  The servant opened the door, and Jesheks nodded that he may enter. The man looked like an emaciated pelican, overly thin, with loose flaps of skin hanging from his weak chin. His expression was blank, devoid of emotion except for a slight tightening around his eyes as he saw that Jesheks was naked in a tub of hot water.

  Disgusting! Fessa of the Deep! How can he even walk by himself?

  The man bowed, a box clutched in his hands.

  “Close the door, please,” Jesheks said.

  The man’s smooth demeanor faltered.

  Fessa, he means to kill me.

  He visibly swallowed, flicking a glance to the door.

  “You’ve let in a chill,” Jesheks said, closing his eyes as the man’s fear flowed to him like a hot breeze, lifting Jesheks’s spirits, touching him with little sparks
of lightning.

  Slowly, as if each move were painful, the servant closed the door behind him. He did not latch it, but Jesheks let that go. For a moment, he considered asking the servant to open the box, just to see his expression. Would he drop its contents onto the deck? Leap away with a shout?

  But no. Jesheks was past the days of his “gentle reprimands.” He’d spent a great deal of time in those years replacing servants, and such petty games were for the benighted.

  Use your pain or it will use you.

  He’d first heard those words when he was still a slave, eavesdropping on his former master chastising an apprentice for letting his anger and ego get the better of him. The old archmage’s wisdom was lost on the hotheaded apprentice, but Jesheks listened from the shadows and listened well. After years of waiting, nurturing his anger and pain, Jesheks had stepped into the light and killed them both, apprentice and master, and became ruler of their bones and their legacy.

  “You may approach,” Jesheks said softly.

  The servant hesitated. His head twitched as though he would look at the door, but his feet moved forward.

  “Set it here,” he said, indicating the towel stand next to the tub. Jesheks touched the servant’s hand as he set it down, smiled as the man’s heart lurched.

  The man yanked his hand back. “I’m s-sorry, sir. I slipped.”

  Ah, the lies of the benighted.

  “Of course you did.” Jesheks looked into the man’s eyes. They were the terrified eyes of a rabbit gazing at a cobra. And just like that rabbit, the servant paused, transfixed, his little heart thumping inside his chest. His thoughts dried up.

  “You may go,” Jesheks said, and the man stumbled backward as if cut from invisible strings. He lunged for the door and caught his balance as he reached it, only then remembering his dignity. He drew himself up straight, but his hand did not leave the latch.

  Clearing his throat, the servant turned and asked, “Will you require anything else, sir?”

  “I have everything I need.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “Please close the door tightly when you leave.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The servant left, gratefully latching the door with himself on the other side.

  May you die a thousand deaths, devilspawn.

  It was nice to be appreciated, Jesheks thought, smiling as his pudgy fingers caressed the top of the driftwood box.

  His thoughts drifted for a moment like the swirls of steam from his bath. He thought back to the previous night. Of course, it was not wholly unexpected. It had been foreseen that the Ohndarien Council might send one of their own down to the Summer Cities to see what was happening. A Child of the Seasons, most likely, a Sister of the Council, perhaps. Or even one of the vaunted Zelani. But never did Jesheks dream that Shara-lani would come herself.

  He certainly thought Issefyn would have sent word if Shara was heading in his direction. Was the old woman playing games with him? He would have to talk with her about that during their next conversation. It would be something their mistress would want to know.

  Despite this new development, Issefyn would no doubt have Ohndarien’s locks open when the time came, just as Jesheks would have the fleet ready. If the council truly suspected what was happening, they would have sent more than one Zelani, even if that Zelani was the mistress herself.

  Still…

  It changed the playing board, and Jesheks would have to keep his attention that much more acute. Vinghelt certainly couldn’t be trusted to hold a steady course. Ever since that night on the beach five years ago, when Jesheks transformed the drunken coward into a glorious tyrant, Vinghelt had proven to be a particularly difficult sheep to herd. The man certainly relished his “divine mandate,” but he lacked the wit or skill to use it. Jesheks smiled at the prospect of telling the man the truth about his little meeting with his goddess before leaving the prince to choke on his new crown.

  Jesheks was anxious to begin his new life on Efften, rediscovering the lost secrets of the City of Dreams. But every moment, every lesson was another opportunity to make oneself stronger. And Jesheks supposed he would think back fondly on this time in the Summer Seas, if he thought back on it at all.

  Turning his gaze back to the box, he touched the corner, ran his finger along the lid. It was as dry as tinder, inlaid with gold designs. Gently, Jesheks lifted the lid and peered inside. It was filled with the twisted, translucent bodies of a half dozen dead scorpions. Frowning, Jesheks scooted their dead little limbs aside with his pointed pinkie sheath.

  One of them moved lethargically, and Jesheks smiled. Good. He would have liked more of them to survive the journey from Physendria, but one was enough. One was more than enough.

  A Physendrian red scorpion could kill an ordinary man within a minute. But Jesheks was no ordinary man.

  He offered his hand to the little creature and watched it crawl uncertainly across his white flesh. The scorpion held its deadly stinger poised over its back as it explored its surroundings. No doubt the creature could smell the water like a heady perfume. Did such a gross amount of water repel or attract a creature so inured to the heat of the desert?

  Another knock sounded at the door.

  Ah, the beautiful Natshea.

  He scooped his prize carefully off his hand and let it crawl back into the driftwood coffin with its fellows. Later, my friend. We will continue our dance soon.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Natshea Vystholtz flung the door open. It swung wide, slowing to a stop just short of the wall. Before entering the room, she withdrew her dagger and stabbed it into the doorjamb at eye level.

  “How many holes do I have in my doorjamb now?”

  She closed the door and leaned against it, cocking a foot up behind her and crossing her arms. “Only one. I hit the same mark every time.”

  He did not doubt it. A dagger in the door had become Natshea’s calling card, telling all the Summer Seas where she chose to hang her hat for the moment. If a duelist was seeking to deliver a challenge, he need not hunt for her. Everyone else was well warned to stay away. The meeting was private.

  Natshea’s thin, gray breeches stretched tight over her smooth hips, and thigh-high boots of soft black leather made her legs look impossibly long. A black belt trapped the billowing gold blouse about her narrow waist, and she wore black leather gauntlets at her wrists.

  Tall and long-limbed, Natshea had the body that blademasters dreamed of. She was the pride of her little-known shiphome. The Vystholtzs were invited to every major event and given seats of honor because of Natshea. Her long-muscled arms had six inches of reach on most other duelists, and her reflexes were already legend. Most importantly, she had an eye for weakness. She was undefeated for the last two years running.

  Most duelists were men, but since Natshea began making a name for herself five years ago, the Waveborn lords had a devil of a time keeping their daughters interested in marrying well and breeding sons.

  But when Jesheks looked at Natshea, he didn’t see the prodigy of the Summer Seas. Natshea was a work-in-progress, a ship half-built. He had recognized her worth when he first came to the Summer Cities, but a worth of a different sort. She had been a skittish young woman, difficult to approach. He’d arranged to be alone with her as soon as possible and confirmed his first impression.

  No, he did not see a legendary poet duelist when he looked at Natshea. He saw his newly made Necani apprentice, barely a minnow in the waters of the Great Ocean. The young woman was still raw, but she had a chance to be everything that Vinghelt was not.

  It had taken over a year to finally work his way into the fold of her trust, and almost another year to make her see what she really needed. And still, the battle was waged every time they talked. She resisted the difficult path, but her eyes were beginning to open. Her arms were slowly embracing him.

  He had already given her three lessons in the Necani form. Her aptitude was remarkable. Not only did she have an
exquisite need for his wisdom—as he had surmised from their first meeting—but she had an amazing threshold for the lessons. That was deliciously unexpected. You could never quite tell who would thrive from the lessons of Necani and who would fold. This willowy creature was no stranger to pain. She seemed equally ravenous for both the giving and receiving of the most primal form of ani.

  She sketched a deep bow, and Jesheks smiled.

  “I am so pleased to see you,” he said.

  She rose to her full height—just over six feet tall—and raised an eyebrow as she walked closer. “Yet I am the one who is getting the eyeful.”

  She glanced at his obese white body, and he detected no revulsion from her. Yet she hid within her little jests as a virgin behind thick layers of clothing.

  “There are many different things to see.”

  “Indeed, and yet—”

  “Take off your clothes,” he said.

  A flicker of a frown crossed her face, but her easy smile returned in an instant. “Really, sir.” She nodded toward the door through which she’d come. “You are so forward. I have many—”

  “Take them off,” he said, closing his eyes and sinking deeper into the tub. A low buzzing filled his ears as he sent his awareness toward her. He did not pry into her thoughts as he had with the servant, but he listened to her body. Her heart beat faster. Sweat oozed from the pores of her skin, prickling her scalp.

  “I daresay you ought to reconsider,” she said in her purring voice, still seeking refuge in her little games. She sauntered closer to put a hand on the towel stand, convinced that she was this person, this flippant, cocksure duelist who could handle everything. “If I shed my clothes, I doubt that you could resist me. We have your reputation to think of. Command me to leave instead, I beg you, before the scandal spreads from this room like wildfire.”

  Ah, the lies of the benighted. The might of an armada is at your fingertips, yet you insist on playing with toy boats.

  “You may leave if you wish, but you will never be welcome here again. If you wish to learn what I have to teach, I suggest you unbuckle your sword and remove your clothes.”