Dark Dreams

by Rowena Cory Daniells

Slowly and deliberately, he withdrew the blade. ‘Dainty, but deadly in the right hands.’ He did not return the weapon.

  ‘I have to know...’ She played for time, trying to guess what he wanted. His fine silver hair was halfway down his back now and he wore clean but ancient peasant garments. He smelled of fresh herbs and dust. Dust? She must not let anything distract her. ‘How did you get in here?’

  He laughed softly. ‘You forget I grew up roaming the palace. I doubt there is a secret passage I don’t know. Our ancestors were great ones for intrigue. Anything built before the Age of Discernment is riddled with secret passages.’

  He looked thinner. His narrow features, so like her own, were more defined, as though he had been living on the edge both mentally and physically. She felt an odd sense of recognition and an unwelcome anticipation warm her body.

  Reothe had saved her life. He knew so much more about his T’En gifts than she. His knowledge both awed her and frightened her. Without warning she felt her T’En senses flex. A strong sense of Reothe enveloped her. He was a drawn bow string, all coiled power. Her heart rate increased in response.

  ‘Why are you here, Reothe?’

  A gasp of pleasure escaped him. ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  His sharp eyes met hers. ‘Your touch is exquisite.’

  ‘I didn’t touch...’ The words died on her lips. ‘I didn’t mean to –’

  ‘Don’t.’ He shook his head, slipping off the table to kneel on the floor beside her. ‘Don’t deny me, Imoshen.’

  She drew back, making him smile.

  ‘Is it me you don’t trust, or yourself?’

  His wine-dark eyes glittered intense and disturbing. For all that he was smiling and his voice sounded reasonable, even indulgent, she sensed a deep anger in him.

  His gaze went to the laces on her underdress, where the swelling of her belly strained the material. She had not bothered to have special clothes made to accommodate her growing child, relying for the most part on the all-covering tabard on official occasions. Imoshen felt vulnerable, and wished she had worn one today.

  ‘This explains much.’ Reothe whispered. He gestured towards her belly with the knife.

  ‘Reothe,’ she warned.

  ‘This should have been our child, Imoshen. You hid its existence from me. I did not think you so cunning.’

  She shook her head, knowing only that the need to protect her child overrode everything else. Yet, when he cut the lacing she didn’t protest. The material of her underdress parted, falling away to reveal the rise of her pale skin and the curve of her breasts, ripe with pregnancy. Her skin was patterned with fine blue veins like marble.

  Reothe drew in his breath sharply. He swallowed and slipped her knife into his bootstrap. As his hand hovered over her flesh, Imoshen’s skin tingled in anticipation of his touch. A luxurious longing crept through her limbs.

  Imoshen looked down, silently cursing herself. It was always this way with Reothe.

  ‘What will you do if the Ghebite rejects the baby?’ he asked. ‘It could be almost pure Dhamfeer.’

  ‘Or more True-man.’

  ‘So it is a male child.’

  She nodded, regretting the slip.

  ‘I heard a rumour. They say the General can’t father children,’ he smiled. ‘They are saying the baby is mine.’

  She flushed, trying to pull herself up, but the weight of the baby made her slow. Reothe casually grasped the back of the day bed. She didn’t want to come in contact with his skin so she stayed where she was, half reclining. ‘But you know that isn’t true.’

  Reothe met her eyes, amused, and she realised he was happy to let people believe the babe was his. Fury curled inside her. It would be the ultimate irony for Tulkhan to finally father a child and have everyone believe it wasn’t his.

  Reothe leaned closer and inhaled. ‘You smell different. I like it.’

  Imoshen swallowed. ‘Don’t do this.’

  He nuzzled the heavy swell of her breast. ‘Tell me to stop.’

  ‘Stop.’

  She felt him smile, his cheek on her flesh. ‘You didn’t mean it.’

  Despair warred with desire. The first time he had touched her he had wakened something in her, something that was his to call, and no amount of logic could sway her body’s response.

  His breath tickled her throat and cheek, as he raised his head, exploring her. She felt his lips on her jaw, travelling across to her mouth. She could turn away or she could turn towards him.

  She chose to do nothing.

  With infinite delicacy he nibbled her mouth, his tongue brushed the crease of her lips. ‘Part for me.’

  She felt more than heard his words. The impulse was there, but she contained it, refused to welcome him. It would be all he needed to destroy her resolve.

  A sigh escaped him and she opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, exasperated yet affectionate.

  ‘You are an annoying creature, Imoshen. How do you know that I won’t take by force what you refuse me? I know you long for me.’

  She swallowed, making no answer because to say anything would be to admit more than she cared to.

  He leant back, ruffling papers on the table. Absently he picked one up, reading it swiftly. Imoshen wanted to stop him. Her lack of skill was a weapon he could use against her.

  Reothe looked up and fixed his gaze on her. ‘You search for information on the T’En.’

  She nodded. ‘Our gifts are mentioned in passing, but –’

  ‘I know. I’ve already travelled the same path. I can tell you why our ancestors came here. I can reveal what has been deliberately hidden from us.’

  She sat up eagerly. ‘Yes?’

  He smiled. ‘Come away with me now. Your general wanders the ranges, harried by my people. We could rout him, you and I.’

  ‘And then you would share your knowledge with me?’ Imoshen heard the bitterness in her voice.

  ‘I would share everything with you.’

  His meaning was unmistakable. A rush of heady longing swept through her. The urge to go to him was almost overpowering. She fought it, desperate to keep some kind of equilibrium. When she opened her eyes Reothe was watching her with intense fascination.

  ‘It is only a matter of time,’ he told her. ‘The General knows it. He drives himself trying to deny it. Come away with me now. Put him out of his misery. He’s only a Mere-man and a barbarous Ghebite, but I have to admit a certain admiration for him. Like a fish caught on the hook he is putting up a mighty battle, but the end is inevitable. He doesn’t deserve it really.’

  A knot twisted in Imoshen’s chest. Tulkhan did not deserve a lingering agony.

  ‘He saved us,’ Reothe said softly. ‘The night I came to find you wandering lost in death’s shadow, he anchored us. I drew on his strength, without it we would have both been doomed.’

  Fear made Imoshen’s heart plunge. She had no memory of that time but the church taught that without the guidance of the Parakletos a soul might wander death’s shadow for eternity, prey to the vengeful beings who were trapped there.

  Heat stained her cheeks. ‘You saved me at risk to your soul, I –’

  ‘Don’t demean what we share by thanking me.’ Anger hardened his features.

  Imoshen understood him only too well. ‘We share nothing!’

  ‘You deny what you know to be true. Besides, I have the Sight. I have seen our future. I recognised you the day we met.’

  Dismay flooded Imoshen. ‘It would be so much easier if I could hate you.’

  ‘And it would be so much easier if I could kill you.’ His smile was bitter.

  Imoshen understood. If Reothe were to kill her now and plant something to implicate the Ghebites, Tulkhan’s tenuous hold on the island would be shattered. Her death would smooth a path for Reothe to retake Fair Isle.

  ‘Why don’t you kill me?’

  He laced his fingers through her left hand, lifting it up so that their forearms pressed
together. The bonding scars touched.

  Reothe pressed her knuckles to his lips. ‘Because I would be alone forever.’

  ‘There are other women, countless willing women, from what I’ve heard!’

  His smile made her wish she could have cut out her jealous tongue.

  ‘True, and I have had so many of them.’ He cast her a teasing glance. ‘But only you share our T’En heritage. For now you believe what you have with this Ghebite is enough. You might even love him a little. But he is only a Mere-man. You don’t know what we could have.’

  ‘Enough, Reothe.’ She pushed him aside and surged to her feet, stalking away from the day bed.

  ‘Go on, run away, Imoshen. You can’t run from what you know is true.’

  She could feel him watching her as she paced. The late afternoon sunlight could not dissolve the knot of cold terror around her heart. She hugged her body, pulling the material of her underdress together. ‘Why are you here, Reothe? Why risk your life to taunt me?’

  He stood across the room from her yet she felt his presence as intimately as if his breath stroked her flesh. She knew he was using his T’En gift on her.

  ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Why? Because you like it? Surely you can’t have forgotten what day this is?’

  She stared at him appalled. No one else had remembered.

  ‘It’s the anniversary of your birthing day,’ Reothe said. ‘Today you are eighteen and we would have been bonded.’

  Her eyes closed as she registered the blow, a cruel reminder of the decision she had been forced to make.

  She sensed Reothe moving towards her. When she opened her eyes he stood before her. The sun’s rays hit the polished floor, bathing them both in light. She read a calculating wariness in his features and suspected he was manipulating her feelings for him, for Tulkhan.

  ‘I’m not going with you, Reothe, and you can’t drag me kicking and screaming from the palace, no matter how many secret passages you know. Someone would notice.’

  Defiant words, but Imoshen knew they sprang from desperation and so did he.

  ‘I brought you a gift, Imoshen.’

  ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

  ‘You’ll want this. It is the last thing my parents gave me before they killed themselves.’ He pulled a slim volume from his jerkin. It was about half the size of the T’Enchiridion. ‘It belongs to the T’En.’

  Despite herself Imoshen held out her hand.

  Silently he joined her. The book looked unremarkable in his hand, its scuffed kidskin cover attesting to its great age.

  Imoshen took it, turning the worn embossing to the light.

  ‘T’Endomaz. The T’En laws,’ she translated, her heart hammering with excitement. Her fingers trembled as she turned to the title page, where a name was scrawled in childlike script. ‘T’Ashmyr? Could it have belonged to Ashmyr the First when he was a boy?’

  ‘He was a pure throwback like ourselves,’ Reothe said.

  Imoshen’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. Could this book really date from the Age of Tribulation? Five hundred years!

  Reverently she turned to the first page. Disappointment made her gasp. ‘It’s encrypted.’

  ‘Then you don’t recognise the code? I thought perhaps the Aayel had taught you.’

  ‘No. My parents forbade her to teach me anything about the T’En. All I now is what she let slip.’ Bitterness tore at her. ‘T’Endomaz. An encrypted set of laws. How do you know they are ours? This looks similar to the T’Enchiridion, which is for everyone. And Ashmyr is a popular name.’

  ‘Close your eyes, Imoshen. Hold the book in your left hand. Tell me what you feel? No. Not with your T’En senses. I’ve tried that. It is as if someone has erased the book’s past. You must rely only on your sense of touch.’

  She frowned but did as he said. What was she supposed to feel?

  To her T’En senses the book seemed blank when it should have held a sense of antiquity considering its age. That in itself was suspicious.

  ‘Feel with your fingertips,’ he whispered.

  Then she understood. Her eyes flew open. ‘There are six smooth patches on the cover. This book’s cover has been worn by the touch of a left-handed person with six fingers!’

  He nodded. ‘It is ours, Imoshen.’

  ‘But we can’t read it.’ She could have wept with frustration and loss.

  His hands closed over hers, shutting the book. His face was suffused with evangelical passion. ‘I give you the T’Endomaz. I charge you to unlock the encryption and reveal our heritage.’

  And, in that moment, Imoshen feared what she might learn. ‘No. Keep it. I don’t want to be beholden to you.’

  She thrust the book into his hands and would have pulled away but he caught her arm. His contained fury made her skin crawl.

  ‘How can you deny what you are, Imoshen?’

  Flicking free of his grasp she turned away. The swelling of her belly hit him and they both looked down.

  Imoshen felt the baby kick in protest.

  Reothe’s free hand closed over the slope of her stomach, pressing through the gap in the material so that his flesh touched hers. There was an anticipation in him which made her teeth ache. She sucked in her breath with an audible gasp.

  ‘Don’t resist!’ he hissed.

  In that instant her guard was down. She felt a wave of tension roll through her body, her knees nearly gave way. The baby twisted inside her.

  Imoshen swung her arms in an arc and broke all contact with him. ‘I won’t let you hurt –’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘You have a strange idea of me.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ she admitted.

  ‘Like you, I am only ensuring my survival,’ he said. ‘Go on. Call the guards. You could have called them any time and had me arrested, had me killed attempting to escape. Ask yourself why you haven’t called them.’

  She drew breath to scream for the guards, but he caught her to him, his free hand covered her mouth.

  His laughter unnerved her. ‘I deserved that.’

  She hated him yet recognised herself in him.

  ‘I am going, Imoshen,’ he whispered. ‘And because I can’t have you discovering my secrets, I’m going to have to do this.’

  ‘What?’ The word was muffled but clear enough.

  ‘Kiss me and find out.’

  His hand slipped from her mouth to her throat, cradling her jaw. His fingers slid up into her hair at the back of her neck.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because if you resist it will be painful for both of us. I am only going to steal a few minutes from you.’

  He could do that? What a useful trick, one she would like to know.

  Imoshen pretended to consider. ‘Very well.’

  He looked a little startled, as if he hadn’t expected her to agree.

  Imoshen kept her face impassive as she smiled inside. She was sure he could not do this without her discovering how. She would have all his secrets out of him. But no – she mustn’t think, he might...

  Lifting her face she felt his breath on her skin. And she knew at that moment she was fooling herself. She wanted to kiss Reothe, had always wanted him.

  ‘Imoshen,’ he whispered raggedly.

  Her heart lurched.

  Then his mouth was on hers and the sweetness of his touch negated all thought. It was the elixir of life. It flowed through her body, unbearably rich and fragile.

  She heard his voice in her head, but his lips didn’t form the words. ‘This is just a taste of what we could have, Imoshen. But I can’t let you learn all my tricks, you’re much too clever already.’

  Then everything faded.

  Chapter Sixteen

  SCREAMING...

  Imoshen wished they would stop. Someone grabbed her.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ Imoshen felt disoriented and nauseous with the sudden swing from deep sleep to awareness.

  ‘T’Imoshen...’ Merkah cr
ied. ‘You’ve come back to us.’

  She was lying on the day bed with a shawl thrown over her. Its silky material covered her bare breasts and that made her recall Reothe slitting the laces of her underdress. As Imoshen struggled to sit up a book fell from her lap onto the floor. Reothe’s gift.

  She picked it up, tucking it under the shawl. She searched the room. A dozen Ghebites and palace servants stood clustered around something near the window. Fear gripped her. Was Reothe hurt?

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He killed him,’ Merkah supplied unhelpfully.

  Imoshen’s world went grey. ‘Who?’

  ‘T’Reothe killed the Keeper of the Knowledge.’

  ‘No!’ Imoshen’s denial was instinctive. Reothe would not do that. The Keeper was a defenceless old man. But she could not afford to defend the rebel leader. ‘What happened? I... I remember nothing.’

  Merkah seemed to accept this at face value. ‘The Keeper was returning to his post. When he opened the door he saw Reothe with you. He was...’ Merkah coloured.

  Imoshen pressed the material to her body. ‘Tell me, I must know.’

  ‘The Keeper says Reothe pressed his face against the bare flesh of your belly.’

  Imoshen’s hand pressed over her baby. Fear was a cold band around her heart. ‘Then?’

  ‘The Keeper was at the door. He called for help. Before anyone could come, Reothe dragged him inside and killed him.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ Imoshen asked.

  ‘He told us.’

  ‘But you said he was dead.’

  ‘Almost dead.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Enough.’ Exasperated, Imoshen swung her legs off the couch. Despite Merkah’s protests she hurried over to the knot of men. They were lifting the old Keeper to his feet. To save the Ghebites from embarrassment she tied the shawl across her breasts.

  ‘The shadows are too deep. Bring candles. Place him here on the table,’ Imoshen ordered. She noted Kinraid the Vaygharian watching her, but there was no time to curse the luck that would bring him of all men to her rescue.

  Imoshen grasped the old man’s hand. Yes, he was dying, but his gaze cleared as she looked into his eyes. ‘What happened?’