Mistress of Winter

by Giles Carwyn

  Vinghelt bit his lip. “It seems a great deal of death and destruction just to…”

  “To what, my lord? To make you king? To reawaken the kingdom of the Waveborn? To change history? If we want to accomplish these great deeds, we must send your people a message written in their own blood.”

  Vinghelt looked away from the albino, again only able to gaze upon his voluminous bulk for a short time. Jesheks held himself still. Vinghelt had always been the weakest link of this chain.

  Slowly, the prince nodded. “I suppose, if it is the only way.”

  “If you can manage more enthusiasm by this evening, it will go better. The moment the blaze is started, you will need to be right in the middle of it. Organizing the firefighters, rescuing children, grieving over dead bodies.”

  “That will not be hard,” Vinghelt muttered.

  “If these people are going to follow you across the world, they need to see your courage, your passion, your rage against the rebels. Arranging a small injury wouldn’t hurt, either. Something that shows a lot of blood but doesn’t make you look weak. Perhaps a cut to the forehead.”

  Vinghelt scowled, crossed to the table, and refilled his wine goblet.

  “You realize you cannot trust anyone with this information. The only other people who know of the plot are those who will be buried alive for it.”

  Vinghelt fingered the jewels encrusted into his cup.

  “And that reminds me,” Jesheks said. “Do not conspicuously remove valuables from the ship, either. Take coins, jewels, anything small and easily hidden. Everything else must burn.”

  “Do you think I care for these things more than my own people?” He shook the goblet, spilling wine down his fingers.

  Actually, Jesheks did think that, but he said, “That is why you must be strong, for the sake of your people. That is why Fessa chose you. You are the only Summer Prince who has the strength to be king.”

  Vinghelt shifted his gaze away again. If only Reignholtz had been corruptible. What a better man he would have been to take this mantle. Alas, that Summer Prince had fallen on the wrong side of the line.

  “Greatness is never easy,” Jesheks said, levering his bulk off the stool. “That is why there are so few truly great men.”

  Vinghelt held himself still as Jesheks approached. A trembling rabbit, wishing the predator would pass him by. Jesheks laid a hand on the prince’s shoulder, whose breath became labored.

  “Fessa herself chose me to be your guide,” Jesheks said, drawing the point of his pinkie sheath across the man’s neck. “The goddess knows what is best for her own people, and she wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice a few fish to save the whole school.”

  Vinghelt shuddered, slowly nodded.

  “In two years’ time you will be Vinghelt I, Lord of the Earth, Sea, and Sky, just as the goddess foretold.”

  “It is Fessa’s will,” Vinghelt murmured. “I am the first among the Waveborn, a people on the edge of greatness.” He swallowed. “I must be bold.”

  “Exactly, my lord,” Jesheks murmured, shuffling to the door. “Be ready, just before dawn. Remember, it will happen very quickly.”

  He left Vinghelt to his dreams of greatness, exiting the kitchen and taking the ladder down to a room on the lowest level of the ship. He felt his trepidation rise as he took slow painful steps along the narrow lamplit passageway. He wondered if this is what men felt like walking to their own executions. His fingers trembled slightly as he touched the handle. He waited until his hand was steady, then he opened the door.

  Shara slept peacefully in his bed, a pool of midnight hair spilling across the thick pillows. She shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her stomach and stretching her slender arms above her head. The sheet covered her naked body from the waist down, like a blanket of creamy snow. His gaze lingered on the curve of her delicate shoulders, the trail of her spine, the slope of her waist, and the rise of her hips. The angry red burns across her back had become a delicate pink. Oh, she was a remarkable creature.

  He touched his pinkie sheath to his leg and pushed, feeling the sweet pain. He didn’t have to let her wake. He could let her die here in the fire, and she would never threaten Arefaine’s plans. And…

  He closed his eyes, swallowed deep, and opened them again.

  And he would never have to fulfill his half of their bargain.

  He watched Shara breathing, and realized that his interest in Arefaine’s vision of an awakened Efften was slowly fading. Shara had brought something to life in him, caused him to remember something he doubted Arefaine had ever known.

  The art itself was what mattered the most. Being a great sorcerer was not his life’s quest. Becoming a great sorcerer was all that mattered, savoring each step of the path for the treasure that it was. Shara understood that. Did Arefaine?

  Jesheks had been reborn twice in his life. First by a fevered king’s blade, and second by an old Necani’s red-hot irons. But the next leap forward must be of his own choosing. Jesheks was no fool. Shara’s touch could rip open parts of himself long closed, long healed over. Everything he had built would cease to exist and some glorious being—or hideously broken creature—would emerge from the ruins.

  Jesheks had never flinched away from blade or blaze, and if he shied away now, if he surrendered to his fear, that would be his first step into ruin. Closing this door, walking away from it, would mark the end of his ascension and begin his long, bitter fall back into the shadows.

  Struggling to lower his bulk, Jesheks knelt next to the bed. He pushed a strand of hair away from Shara’s face as he had done two nights ago.

  Her breathing changed, and a soft sound escaped her lips. Jesheks drank the sound like sweet, rich milk. She blinked, and her hand slid down the silk sheets to cover his. Her fingers gripped his puffy flesh, warm and welcoming.

  Jesheks’s heart thundered. His legs twitched, and he wanted to leap to his feet, rush up the stairs, and light the oil ablaze, but he mastered his fear with his breath, cycling it back into his body.

  Shara opened her eyes, looked up at him, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled his hand to her lips, turned it, and kissed his palm.

  A rush of heat moved up his arm, past his shoulder, and into his chest, warming his frantically pounding heart. She smiled at him, slowly. Shyly.

  He cleared his throat. “How do you feel?”

  “Gloriously empty,” she murmured, her voice rough from sleep. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’m about to die,” he said.

  She gave him a mischievous smile. “But it’s just a ‘little death.’”

  Jesheks almost laughed, but no sound came out.

  “Shall we begin?” she asked.

  He swallowed, looking at her slender neck, wondering if he could crush her windpipe before she could stop him.

  But, no. He had chosen this path the moment he invited her to his ship.

  “Yes,” he said. “Let us begin.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Shara held Jesheks’s hand in hers, keeping his gaze. His muscles were stiff, but he let her touch him. How terrified he must be, she thought, a man who had never felt a loving hand. Accepting her tenderness would threaten everything he had built his life upon. She could feel him hovering within his fortress of scorn and superiority.

  He wasn’t just offering Shara a quick peek behind those walls. He risked their complete destruction. He risked being exposed, naked and disfigured before the world.

  Tears welled in her eyes. “Your courage makes me weep,” she whispered.

  He flinched as if she’d shocked him. “No one has ever wept for me before,” he said, clenching and unclenching his jaw.

  “I wanted to thank you for the other night,” she said. “You were exceptional, so patient, so tender. You took me just where I needed to go, told me just what I needed to hear.”

  He swallowed. “I was certain you would die. I never believed you could go that far, not in one night.”

  Her fingers s
lid up his arm a few inches, then back to his hand. “You would never have let that happen. You were an impeccable guide.” Slowly, delicately, she removed his spiked pinkie sheath. His gaze went to it, and she could see the whites around his eyes. She would begin his way. He would understand that, even if he feared it. He had tied her up, made her helpless. She must take away his escape into pain. Opening a nightstand next to the bed, she put the golden spike inside and shut the drawer.

  She rose naked and stood over him. “Lie down on the bed,” she said, helping him to his feet. With only a moment’s hesitation, he rolled onto the mattress. She crossed the room to the table, taking a thin silk robe from a chair and putting it on. Once she was covered, she brought back a pitcher of water, a basin, a towel, and a sponge.

  Jesheks watched her the entire time, wanting to say something, do something, seize control of the situation.

  “Lie back,” she said. “Close your eyes. Just follow my lead.”

  One at a time, she removed his shoes, short half boots. His toes were broken and discolored. Slowly and deliberately, she began to wash his tortured feet.

  “I broke them,” Jesheks said. He vibrated with tension, hating her touch and loving it at the same time. “Each of them,” he continued. “When I was young and still clumsy in my power. Self-maiming is a mark of vanity, the stupidity of the young. But it taught me to walk slowly, not to rush.”

  He’s bragging, she thought, flaunting his honesty.

  She bent and kissed each crooked toe individually. “I honor you for the path you have walked on these feet. What courage it must have taken, what strength and dedication.”

  His brow creased for a moment, then he smoothed it, but he didn’t say anything.

  She moved up his legs, washing delicately, only going as far as his knees. She was not truly giving him a bath. There was no need, he was spotless, obviously a man who bathed regularly in scalding water. But this wasn’t about washing, it was about going slowly, about touching him in a way that his fevered mind could accept.

  When Shara reached the hem of his robes, she shifted to his hands, brushing them on one side with the sponge, and on the other with her fingertips. Touching his skin was like caressing a corpse, a bloated dead thing with nothing inside it. But his heart was in there somewhere. And she would find it.

  She moved from his hands to his head, wiping his lank white hair with the sponge, caressing his scalp. Fear vibrated through him, and she matched her breath to his, letting her magic permeate them both, gentle and reassuring. With every breath, she showed him how to accept the tenderness, draw it into himself, just as he had helped her accept her pain.

  He followed her lead, cycling though his fears, barely keeping on top of them. He was so strong in almost any other situation, but this part of him was as weak as a baby. Yet he pressed on, trusting her as she had trusted him. He kept his eyes closed, concentrating on the breath as she stroked his forehead, his face, behind his ears, under his neck. His stoic calm began to crack. His hands twitched, tapping his pinkie into his thigh as if he could plunge the needle in.

  She slowed down, reducing her touch to the faintest brushes of her fingertips. It’s all right, she thought. I do not revile you. I see the strong, courageous man inside, and I will not harm him.

  His breath finally evened out, long and deep, and his hands stopped twitching. She smiled.

  “Well done, my friend, well done,” she said, leaning over him, letting her long hair fall softly across his face. She pressed her lips to his forehead, then drew away.

  Jesheks’s eyes shot open, and he pulled away from her.

  “Shushhh, it’s all right,” she said, not reacting at all to his fear. “Embrace my words. Accept the praise. Make it part of you.”

  He settled back down against the pillows, finding his breath again, and Shara unbuttoned his robe and opened it. She washed his pale chest, crisscrossed with hundreds of scars. With every swipe, she sent her magic into the man, trying to find him, trying to draw him closer to the surface, always hitting those walls. But his defenses relaxed with each pass, and she continued touching him, caressing him, pulling closer.

  Finally, she felt it. A distant warmth at the very heart of his being. It was still safely behind the walls, but it was there. It was a beginning.

  Setting the basin aside, Shara stood up. Her fingers untied the sash at her waist. Dropping her robe, she climbed on top of him, straddling his body, sitting down on his heavy thighs. His gaze flicked quickly from her heavy-lidded eyes to her breasts to the short, trimmed hair between her legs. The bright red scars from his gelding were nearly hidden beneath the folds of his stomach. She had touched him everywhere during the bath except there. Not there. Not yet.

  She leaned forward, putting two fingers over his heart, sending a gentle flow of energy into him. He jerked, and his hands trembled.

  “Shhhh, close your eyes, keep breathing,” she said. “Let it be. Let us be. I will not hurt you.”

  Imagining a golden flow of ani, she sent it through her fingers, into his body, through his body, down his torso into his legs, up through her legs and chest and back to him through her fingers.

  He started trembling, but did not open his eyes.

  She continued the cycle, her weight upon his legs, her skin touching his, sharing the current of golden energy again and again. In her magical sight, she saw a golden glow radiating from their bodies. They were both covered in a sheen of sweat, and his white flesh shone like the sun. He was no longer ugly, no longer a dead, empty thing. The wounded heart within was beginning to show through, transcending the pale, puffy, mutilated flesh that Jesheks was trapped in.

  It’s almost time, she thought. Almost time.

  As her heart and mind opened to him, inevitably her body had followed, aroused by the strength within him. Her nipples stood erect, and her skin tingled from her scalp to her thighs, held apart by the width of his legs.

  Keeping two fingers on his heart, she leaned forward, low and close. Her breasts touched his chest as she kissed him lightly on the lips. He twitched, and shivers coursed through her, one after the other.

  “Open your eyes, my friend. Open your eyes and see what I see in you. See what you have done to me, to my body, without ever touching me.”

  His arms vibrated, and his hands started twitching again. His whole body jerked as he forced his red eyes open, saw her above him. He locked gazes with her, and he stopped breathing. She leaned in to kiss him again, and he jerked his head away.

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “Enough. Enough.”

  “Hush, my friend,” she said, setting up the even breathing again. “It is all right. Look at me—”

  “I said enough!” he shouted. His huge arms snapped up, grabbing her with a desperate strength.

  “Jesheks—”

  He threw her from the bed, and she slammed to the wooden floor. The breath shot from her body, and stars burst in her vision. She looked up in time to see him descending on her, moving like an enraged bear. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her onto her feet again. She stumbled backward, hitting the wall, and he was on her, shoving his great bulk against her, pinning her against the wood.

  Gasping, she controlled her breathing, her head pressed sideways by his hand.

  “Enough, you bitch!” he roared. Spittle flecked her face. “You cheap, conniving whore! I’ll crush you where you stand! I’ll rip you apart!”

  Shara took the pain of his grip, the weight of his body against her, and added it to her magic, just as he had shown her, all the while breathing steadily, sending gentle tendrils back to him.

  His heart thumped out of control, hammering against his rib cage. She had pushed him too far, too fast.

  “You’ll never touch me again! Never!” Yanking her back, he slammed her into the wall again. “The other night was a joke,” he snarled. “You know nothing of the pain I could give you. Nothing!”

  With a growl, he shambled backward and dragged her by the neck, threw h
er onto the bed.

  “You can’t do this to me,” he growled. His chest heaved with his quick, desperate breaths. “I won’t let you.” His meaty hands grappled at her neck, squeezing.

  Staring up into his contorted face, she sent a steady stream of serenity into the flood of rage coursing through him.

  “I could kill you now,” he hissed. “I could make you love me when I do it.”

  Without fighting his fierce grip on her throat, she reached up and touched his chest with two fingers, sending her ani into his body.

  I know you could, she said directly into his mind. But you won’t. You won’t hurt me. I trust you.

  His grip eased up enough for her to draw a breath. She forced herself to make it match his panting, then to slow it down, bringing him with her.

  He sneered. “That won’t work, child,” he said, changing his breathing away from hers. He gritted his teeth and squeezed harder.

  We’ve danced with pain together, but you won’t hurt me. Not now. Not tonight. You won’t hurt me, and you won’t hurt yourself.

  The whites of his eyes became smaller, and his grip eased. Panting like a woman in labor, he shook his head, let go of her completely. Droplets of sweat flecked the bed and Shara’s bare skin. “I…”

  “Don’t,” she murmured, kept time with his panting, always looking him in the eye. “It is difficult. So so difficult. I am amazed that you have come this far.”

  His gaze flicked to the bed, back to her, to his hands.

  “You can go just a little further, can’t you?” she asked. “Just a little bit further.”

  His heavy breathing slowed, and he blinked. With soft hands, she guided him backward, pushed him back onto the bed.

  “Lie down, my love. Lie back down, and we’ll go back to the feet. We’ll start again with the feet.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Natshea returned under the cover of the stars and the thin moon. Mooring her boat at an unused tie-up on the northern edge of the Floating Palace, she flew up the frayed rope ladder and landed lightly on the deck, her boots barely thumping.