Fractured (Lisen of Solsta Book 1)

by D. Hart St. Martin

  “It would be better if it came from you,” Bala tried.

  Lisen swallowed, hard. “I…am…possessed.” Lisen offered all she could. Let them ask their questions, and she’d answer what she knew. What more could she do?

  “What…what does that mean?” Holder Corday asked.

  “It means, my lord,” Lisen managed somehow, the lyrics to “Singin’ in the Rain” reaching out to steal her away again. “It means…that the soul of Jozan Tuane is with me rather than having been properly released from her own body.” Yup, weird and creepy all right, she thought.

  “Oh, Creator,” Holder Tuane said and dropped back into the chair behind him.

  “What?” Corday asked of him.

  “She was interrupted by someone coming up the stairs and ran away,” Bala explained.

  “It didn’t sound like Korin,” Lisen added, the telling of the story getting a little easier now that the possession thing was out of the way. “I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t kill again.”

  “Of course, you couldn’t,” Holder Tuane said, but his face looked older, more worn, than it had when Lisen had first met him earlier.

  “Father, she needs help. She can’t stay here.”

  “It’s the familiar, the known,” Lisen tried to explain. “I need help. If I don’t get it, the possession will take over, and I’ll lose control. Can’t have an insane Empir, now, can we?” It was a pathetic joke, basically not a joke at all. Painful truth had a way of killing laughter.

  “What must we do?” Tuane asked.

  “I’m singin’ in the rain.” Lisen hummed along softly to the inner singer.

  “We need to get her to Rossla, to the master necropath there,” Bala replied.

  “Is this true?” Holder Tuane asked, and Lisen jumped as she realized the holder was speaking to her.

  “Yes, my lord,” she replied. “Just singin’ in the rain.”

  “Then that is what we must do,” Holder Tuane pronounced.

  Oh, God, I’ll never hear the “Ode to Joy” again. The reality rolled over Lisen like a freewheeling freight train. Gone. All gone.

  “What a glorious feeling….”

  The air left her lungs, and that was all she remembered.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN …

  Having ordered every guard on and off duty out of the dungeon, Ariel made his way down the underground hallway to the door to the hermit’s cell. She’d spoken words of treason on the steps of his Keep after his mother’s funeral three days ago, and one of his guards had arrested her. Now that he’d given her plenty of time to reconsider her sentiments, he would confront her.

  He shivered. Hermits could not be trusted, and from everything he’d heard, this one possessed more power than most. He would have preferred to do this with Opseth at his side, but he couldn’t put this off until it was safe to bring his watcher back from her self-induced exile. He had put it off long enough already.

  Lorain continued to argue caution with the hermits. Ariel had refused to admit it to her, but he knew she was right. However, this defiant hermit had spoken out against him. Against him. She had dared to accuse him of vile and horrible things. She had claimed to see the future and his place in it, in the role of a tyrant if there were any truth to what she said. Well, she might possess foresight, but she lacked insight. How could an allegedly humble hermit possibly understand the difficulties he faced? It was laughable, a joke, but one that he did not find funny. So he’d kept her in custody after being informed of her arrest, and he had commended the young guard who had taken the initiative.

  He reached the door of the cell that lay as far from light and comfort as any cell in the Keep could. He paused there, contemplating what to say, how to begin.

  “I know you’re out there,” the woman in the cell said. “And I know who you are.”

  Ariel put a hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp. “Come to the door, Hermit,” he said in the most authoritative-sounding voice he could muster. He heard the shuffle of feet and then she was there, at the small, bar-lined window, staring at him.

  “What do you want, Tyrant?”

  “It will be ‘my Liege,’ or I’ll have my guards kill you where you stand.” He’d promised himself he wouldn’t lose his temper, but this woman infuriated him.

  “All right, then,” she said. “What do you want, my Liege?”

  “I hear you’re from Solsta.”

  “That’s what you want?” She snorted a laugh.

  “Well, are you?” The eyes¸ he thought. There’s something about her eyes. He couldn’t see their color in the darkness, but the shape of them seemed familiar.

  “From Solsta? Once. Seems like a long time ago now.”

  “How long?” He couldn’t stand her evasiveness. It grated on his nerves.

  “You want to know if I was there the night your mother died.” When he couldn’t answer, she carried on. “I was.”

  “Who are you?” he asked, unable to place the eyes even though he knew he’d seen them somewhere before. Did he know this woman?

  “I’m called Eloise. Hermit Eloise.”

  Her name told Ariel nothing, opened no doors in his memory. After a quick shake of his head, he spoke. “Tell me everything you know about my mother’s death.”

  “Me? I know nothing.”

  “And yet you claim to be a sooth.”

  “I have difficulty with my own future, my Liege,” she replied. “It gets hazy when I’m present or anywhere nearby. I was there, but I saw nothing save a swift horse and a guard carrying a body.”

  Ariel frowned and rubbed his bearded chin.

  “Yet, here you are,” he said, “my prisoner, and still you seem to be able to see me, who I am and what I’ll do. Odd that you can do all that without your own presence blinding you.”

  “Beware the one who comes for you,” she pronounced, then turned away from the door, disappearing into the dark at the back of the cell.

  “I haven’t dismissed you,” he shouted after her, but there was no response. “I’m the Empir. You can’t just walk away!” Her silence continued, an insubordinate insult. He wanted to storm into the cell, push her back against the wall and string her up with the manacles he knew were there. But he didn’t have the key and no guard was around to get him one. And…he didn’t want to reveal his strategy too soon.

  He turned, went straight to the entrance to the secret passage, slipped in and headed upstairs to his office.

  “Damnable hermit,” he muttered as he stepped in, tossed his cloak onto the couch across the room from him and went straight to his desk.

  “My Liege?”

  He whirled around to discover the holder of Bedel sitting at the conference table, a calm presence in contrast to his stormy mood. “Lorain? I didn’t see you there.” He sat down behind his desk, and she rose to come and sit in one of the chairs in front of him.

  “Since you went downstairs. I was concerned. You weren’t down there alone with that woman, were you?”

  “I had to speak to her without any prying ears,” Ariel snapped back.

  “Of course you did,” Lorain cooed softly.

  “No, I mean it, Lorain.” He began shuffling papers, burning excess energy.

  “So did you learn anything?” Her voice was comforting, but he didn’t want to be comforted.

  “She as much as laughed in my face, then threatened me with ‘beware the one who comes for you.’” Ariel shivered at how the hermit had said it—so cold, so irreverent.

  “She only says things like that to unnerve you,” Lorain replied, still soothing. “It means nothing. She is a preaching hermit who bears a grudge against the throne.”

  “I tried to get something, anything from her about the night my mother died. She was there, you know. But like all the rest, she saw nothing, heard nothing, knows nothing. Damn it!” He threw his blotter past Lorain’s head and across the room.

  Lorain dodged it deftly, then said, “My Liege, you may never g
et the answers that you seek.”

  “I’ve been thinking, Lorain,” he said, his thoughts shifting to a place where he had control.

  “My Liege?” Her tone was cautious.

  “The hermits are too powerful. Their influence should be curbed.”

  “You’re considering assimilation again,” Lorain responded, and Ariel heard the impatience he always heard in her voice whenever he brought this subject up. “Tell me. How do you expect to accomplish that when nearly everyone on the Council has at least one relative in a haven?”

  “We don’t need to involve the Council.”

  “Leaving the Council out of it might be unwise, my Liege. It would be perceived as an affront.”

  “Unwise, Lorain? Issuing an Emperi Edict to limit the influence of the hermits without the consent of the Council would be unwise? If I give the Council the opportunity to vote it down, I’ll be leaving all of Garla unprotected from a group of people who can control others with their minds. That’s unacceptable.”

  Lorain stood up and slithered slowly around the desk towards him. “My Liege,” she oozed softly as she boosted herself up onto the desk, “although I agree fully with your intent, perhaps…” She reached out to him and slid one finger down one of his cheeks, around his chin, pausing at his beard, and up the other cheek. “…perhaps you should move slowly, sneak up on this rather than approaching it head on. So as not to arouse the ire of those whose siblings and children would be affected by such an edict.”

  Siblings. Siblings! Creators. He remembered. He knew who the hermit in the dungeon was. Eloise Tuane. He took a deep breath, decided to keep this to himself for now, then looked up at Lorain and smiled. “You begin to understand.”

  “Of course I understand. Whatever happened at Solsta was magic-based, I’m sure of that now. Between that and the late Empir’s proximity to all those hermits, it seems clear to me that one or more of them was involved.”

  “My point precisely.” If she only knew, he thought.

  She sat down on the desk right in front of him. “We might want to consider bringing a few of them here for questioning. Find someone with a link to the necropath.”

  “I’d like to find the blasted necropath.”

  “I’m working on that, my Liege.”

  “I’m counting on you, Lorain. Don’t disappoint me.” He needed that one, the necropath, more than any of the others, more than the sooth he already held downstairs.

  Lorain slipped off the desk as unobtrusively as possible. “It is my pleasure to serve, my Liege,” she said with a slight nod to the right.

  She’d talked him out of assimilation—again. Ariel yearned for freedom from the hermits, but Lorain kept harping on caution. But there was no time for caution. Something had to be done. Soon.

  “You’ve had a difficult day, my Liege,” she said, the seduction oozing from each word. “I’d be honored to help you relax before dinner.”

  “The honor would be mine,” he replied. He must keep her close, never let down his guard, or, like a viper, she would turn on him before he even knew she’d moved.

  She waited as he rose, then allowed him to lead her to the opening of the secret passage and upstairs to his suite. Just another afternoon of grapple and tussle. He did, however, love her, despite, or perhaps because of, the danger.

  “What a glorious feeling….”

  “Tak, my kit!” Elsba yelled as he jumped up to help Bala with the poor girl who’d finally reached the end of her endurance. No sleep, a difficult journey on foot through the rain, retelling her story, the relief at learning she’d get the help she so desperately needed. And now this gibberish? Thank the Creator Bala caught her before she crashed to the floor, Elsba thought. Now he and his daughter knelt on either side of the girl, and Elsba began examining her. He checked her eyes, her pulse at the neck, leaned down to her chest and listened to her breathing. All normal, he thought. It had to be exhaustion, nothing more serious.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Nalin asked from behind Elsba.

  “I don’t think anything is actually wrong with her, not physically at least,” Elsba replied as he continued his examination.

  “She’s not wounded, is she?” Nalin would not let go.

  “No, Nalin,” Bala replied. “I would’ve noticed in the bath.”

  “Then what’s wrong with her?” Nalin tried again.

  “Think about it, Nalin,” Elsba said, though his attention remained on the girl. “Ripped from the haven, brought to a large, busy city, forced to learn skills completely foreign to her. Ah, Tak. Thank you.” The servant had returned and now handed Elsba the large basket which served as his medical kit. Tak remained, awaiting further orders. “See that my carriage is prepared, Tak. Only a driver. No attendants. Someone trusted. Make it Plaket. No one else. Understood?”

  “Yes, my lord.” And with a nod, Tak was gone.

  Elsba rummaged through the basket, found what he was looking for—the waking herb, russa—mashed the dried leaves between thumb and forefinger and placed the same digits with their contents under the girl’s nose. The young woman moved her head back and forth to escape the pungency of the herb and finally opened her eyes.

  “Lisen?” Bala said.

  “Oh, Bala. Bala, I’m here. And Father. Oh, Father. I’m here.”

  Elsba’s jaw clenched. He’d kept the grief at bay, but this was more than he could bear—his older daughter speaking through this stranger. “Nalin, go and make sure they’re doing all they can to get that carriage ready.”

  “What?”

  “Nalin, we mustn’t delay. She has to be gotten to Rossla.”

  “All right. All right.” Nalin started out but paused at the hall. “What about Jo? Her body, I mean” he asked barely above a whisper.

  “We’ll see to her,” Elsba replied. “You take care of this one.”

  Nalin nodded and left.

  “Rossla is at least ten days away,” Bala said to her father. “Do you think…?”

  “I don’t know. But if that’s where the master is, then that’s where she must be. If only I could go with them. Nalin’s not prepared for what the girl is going to put him through, but maybe….”

  “What?” Bala asked.

  “Go pick all the comra you can find out in the garden. Maybe if he keeps her sedated, it will give her more time.”

  “No,” the young woman lying on the floor protested. “Father, no. I want to stay.”

  “I’m on my way,” Bala said and rose from the floor, her eyes sad as she left her father.

  “Don’t do this,” the girl said. But it wasn’t the girl speaking, and Elsba wished he dared to succumb to the illusion that his Jozan was there and should be allowed to stay.

  “I know who you think you are,” he replied, “but you are not my daughter. You’re the memory of my daughter.”

  “But you don’t understand. If you do this, send me…us…away….”

  “I understand better than you think. You are a memory. My daughter is dead.” He barely managed to remain firm as he said it, but remain firm he did. “And if you’re allowed to stay where you are, you’ll destroy this girl as well.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  Elsba didn’t reply, but the petulant expression on the young hermit’s face resembled Jozan so closely that Elsba nearly gave in. He hoped the comra would work a miracle and keep her quiet for the trip to Rossla. He hated drugging the girl, but it might be the only chance she had of slowing the progress of the possession. Besides, it would be his gift to Nalin, to help him hold out against the onslaught of the likeness of his childhood friend.

  “I don’t want to go.” The girl began to cry. Elsba lifted her up and cradled her head and shoulders in his arms. He knew he should keep his distance, but his daughter’s soul and this girl carrying it deserved comfort. He rocked back and forth, humming a lullaby his daughters’ mother had often sung for the girls when they were young, hoping it would soothe both the necropath and Jo’s soul.<
br />
  He looked up as Bala dashed back into the room, her arms filled with sprigs of comra.

  “This is all there was,” she said, struggling to catch her breath. “Is it enough?”

  Elsba reached up and took a stem, examined it and nodded. “What’s ‘enough’ in a situation like this? But it will do. Now, go out and show Nalin what to do with it. And send Tak in please.”

  “Father?” Bala said, hesitating to leave.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s bad, isn’t it? This possession?”

  “It’s one of the reasons necropaths are so feared. Some misunderstand and think it happens more often than it does. Still, when it does happen and cannot be undone, yes, it’s bad.”

  Bala nodded, lingered long enough to touch Lisen on the shoulder and then ran off again.

  “I love her, Father,” the young Heir of Garla said after Bala had gone.

  “I know you do.” Elsba resumed his rocking.

  “And I love you.”

  He nearly crumbled, yet he held out against the grief long enough to administer the first dose of comra, forcing the girl to chew the entire sprig, manipulating Jozan into believing that she could best show her love if she allowed it. Once the drug had begun to take effect, he allowed Tak to carry the semiconscious Lisen out to the courtyard where Nalin was supervising the preparation of the carriage. The wagon he’d driven here stood off to the side, its sad burden removed and in the care of the servants. Nalin’s things had been transferred to the carriage along with supplies for the journey. Two horses, the strongest in the Tuane stable, now stood harnessed to the rig, and with the arrival of young Lisen, they were ready to depart. While Tak helped the girl into the carriage and settled her in gently, Nalin turned to Elsba.

  “I found this as I was moving the things I brought for her from Halorin into the carriage,” he said and opened up his hand. On his palm lay a flat, dark silver rock. “It was in the pocket of her robes. What do you think it is?”