Then, a warm hand touched her face and the fog cleared. Wave after comforting wave washed over her. Bethany floated in the sensation, as Power coursed through her. Hot, delicious Power.
“Lady Bethany? Can you hear me?” a raspy voice asked.
She nodded, slowly, cautiously. “Pearl?”
“Yes.” A wrinkled face came into partial focus. “Lady Bethany, I cannot heal your face, but you will live.
“Why can’t you heal her face?” Allric demanded.
Pearl smiled at Bethany before looking up. “A form of poison was used to cut her.” She averted her eyes. “I wager that ring on his hand is poisoned and cut her. Or, perhaps one of those swords on the floor is his and was poisoned. I’ve healed her ribs. They will ache still, but only for a few days. Her face I cannot mend. The best I can do is sew it with linen and help it heal on its own.”
“Is that safe?” Allric asked.
Pearl looked back at Bethany. “Safer than leaving it open. It will make the scar less ugly, too.”
“Do it,” Bethany whispered.
Pearl ran her hand through Bethany’s hair. “I’ll get my things and I’ll do my best. I promise that.”
“All right, people, let’s get this room cleaned up,” Allric commanded.
“Wait,” Bethany said, “does anyone know her name?” She pointed a shaky finger at the girl’s body.
The eight knights in the room exchanged glances before collectively shaking their heads.
“Find out. Make sure it’s known she died protecting me,” Bethany snapped, looking down at the blood-streaked face in front of her. “Tell everyone that this girl jumped between me and fought a Magi. Make her a hero. She deserves at least that.”
“Of course, Bethany,” Allric said. “I will take care of it.”
Jovan hesitantly touched Joseph’s lifeless body. “Help me roll the bastard up. We’ll burn him.”
“No,” Bethany said. All eyes turned in her direction. Now that the worst of the pain had faded, she could think. “We shouldn’t burn him.”
“What do you suggest we do with him? Dress him up and throw him a tea party?” Jovan shook his head.
“Make an example of out of him. Let everyone know what happens to Magi who cross our path.”
Allric blew out a deep breath. “It’s been a long time since we’ve nailed anyone’s body to the gate entrance.”
“Not here. The road coming into Orchard Park.” Bethany watched Pearl prepare her needle and thread, readying to sew her up like a prayer cushion. “He said more were coming.”
“More?” Kiner asked, stepping forward.
Bethany nodded, “More.”
“Fine. Let’s get him out of here all the same,” Jovan said.
Kiner wrapped the little girl and carried her out himself. Bethany’s chest constricted, but she forced herself to breathe. When Allric confirmed the servant’s identity, Bethany vowed to herself that the family would never want for anything. Assuming she wasn’t an orphan, of course. In that case, she’d build another orphanage in the girl’s honor.
“She needs liquor,” Pearl said.
Bethany raised her hand in protest. “I can’t handle it right now. Just give me something to bite.”
Pearl nodded and offered Bethany a leather strap. Before putting it in her mouth, Bethany said, “I want everyone out.”
“Bethany —” Allric protested.
“Out,” she said, glaring. “I need…I need…” She couldn’t finish. She couldn’t even put into words all the things she needed. “I don’t want anyone to watch.”
Allric gave a short nod. “We’ll find every single person connected to him. All of these Magi butchers will pay. I promise.”
Bethany nodded, knowing that the main butcher was her sister.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Viper will know its enemies. The Diamond will not.
—Aleu’s Agony of the Diamond
A male knight cracked open the door and poked his head in. “Lady Bethany, Arrago is here.”
Her heart began pounding. She glanced up at Pearl, who smiled. “There’s nothing more I can do here. The salve will help control the pain for a few hours. After that, it’s going to hurt for a while, though.”
Bethany nodded. She hadn’t looked in the mirror yet. It seemed…disrespectful to care about vanity when so much death had happened around her. In total, eighteen people were slaughtered. Mercifully, Pearl said a sleeping spell had been used on most of them. They were unconscious when they died. It was a small comfort, but still a comfort.
Five servants scrubbed her floor. The idiot in charge sent five children out first. Bethany banished them out of the tower—she was not ready to risk the lives of children. Now, five women from the laundry scrubbed her floors. It was nearly cleaned, but she could still see the blood, splattered everywhere. She could still smell it on her skin, even though Pearl had helped bathe her and changed her clothes.
“Lady Bethany? Shall I send him away?” the guard asked.
She shook her head. “Ladies, would you please step outside for a few moments?”
Brushes slopped into steel buckets of water and, silently, the women exited the room. Pearl lingered long enough to offer a supportive smile. “I’ll check on you tomorrow. If infection sets in overnight, I’ll be able to control it.”
“Thank you, Pearl.”
Bethany took several deep breaths to steady herself. She was still sore and weak, but enough of her strength had returned to begin her duties again. She’d indulge a few moments with Arrago, and then…then she would begin the hunt.
“Send him in.”
Her knees melted when Arrago appeared from behind the door. He stared at her, his dark eyes piercing her soul. No one had ever made her feel vulnerable and alive at the same time.
However, today proved her life was too dangerous to bring someone into it. Joseph knew Arrago’s name. If he knew, the others could learn, too. She had to be careful.
“Sorry for the mess,” she said, with a shrug. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“You’re alive,” he breathed the words. His eyes glistened. “You’re alive.”
Bethany’s throat constricted and she could only nod.
“Apexia’s mercy, your face!”
Instinctually, she touched the taut skin of her cheek. The cut would leave a scar from ear to mouth, though at least some of it should fade in time.
Arrago stepped towards her, but stopped just inside her personal sphere. He smiled, the soft, kind one he often gave her. “No matter. You are still beautiful.
“Thank the Goddess you are safe,” Arrago said, grabbing her and wrapping his arms around her sore, beaten body.
Bethany struggled to breathe. The bruising was only partially the reason. Arrago held her. He stroked her still-damp hair.
“You have no idea how scared I’ve been.”
She stubbornly dangled her arms at her side. She would not touch him. She could not. His embrace was too soothing, too comforting. It suffocated the sense from her. “Arrago, I can’t breathe.”
He dropped his arms and took a small step back. He lowered his eyes and smiled shyly. “Sorry, I’ve been fussing all day.”
She forced a chuckle and looked at the floor, still wet from blood, soap, and water. Jovan had been right all along. She’d fallen in love with someone she could never have. Avoiding his caring expressions, she grabbed one of the buckets and poured the dirty, rusty water in her marble bathtub. She worked the pump until water shot out, all the while her breath catching in her throat from the pain in her mended ribs.
“Have I ever told you that you are like an old woman?” she quipped, too lightly. With him, in this moment, she was naked. Exposed. Vulnerable.
When Bethany turned around, Arrago already stood next to her. He took the bucket of clean water and placed it on the floor, careful not to slosh it. He ran a calloused hand along her bruised jaw line, just below the stitching. Hot, moist lips grazed her e
ar.
Her initial impulse to pull away lost to her screaming need for the gentleness only Arrago could offer. She leaned against him, cheek to cheek. Both of their hearts pounded. Her sore, aching arms slid to his back. Bruised and swollen fingers coaxed his tunic up enough to expose a hair’s breadth of bare skin. He inhaled sharply when her cold fingers grazed along the small of his back.
She pulled her face back to look at him. How strange it was that she had come to depend on a human man, of all people. A man who would leave her if he ever discovered her parentage. But that all faded away, leaving only her affection for Arrago in its wake. She could not even blame her old vision of him. She would have fallen in any case. No resistance would combat the sweetness of his touch and the longing of her soul.
In that moment, she understood how people could die from love, because it crushed against the walls of her heart.
“Bethany,” Arrago whispered, his voice hoarse. “I…”
In her heart, she already could hear what he wanted to say. “You what?”
Arrago pulled back and his gaze fell to her lips. He looked up at her, perhaps to gauge her reaction. She was grasping for calm, though his chest heaving against hers did not help. His face leaned closer to her. Bethany found herself falling towards his lips, wanting to taste him.
His hand held the uninjured side of her face as his lips pressed against hers. Strangely, he tasted like her best brandy.
You do not have the luxury to choose whom you love, Bethany.
Common sense lectured her and Bethany obeyed. She pushed against Arrago and walked to the centre of her room. Torius’s words echoed in her mind from a lecture he’d given her decades ago when she protested her engagement to Garran.
Behind her, Arrago approached. Surrounded by the memories of bloody fury only hours old, she struggled to get a grip on her better judgement. She looked over her shoulder, pensive, before turning to face him. She was strong enough to defeat the lust that rose within her.
She had to defeat it.
But she underestimated his need. He stepped for her, almost rushing. As though her hands had their own will, they grabbed his head and pulled him towards her. Arrago slammed her against the broken bedpost, hands roving her body. Bethany gasped in both blinding pain and uncontrollable lust. All of his hardness pressed against her.
She ached for him in defiance of any logical sense. She wanted him. Naked. Wrapped around her broken body. She ached to feel something beyond the endless agony of fear and death.
A flash of movement caught her attention. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Kiner’s disappointed face through the glass of her balcony doors. He stared freely at her. She’d forgotten about the guards out there. Her body stiffened against Arrago’s roving lips and hands and she pushed him away, trying to look at him and not Kiner. In Kiner’s eyes, she saw the shame that she should have felt.
“What is it?” Arrago gasped.
She swallowed hard and shook her head. “You can’t do this.”
“Me? You weren’t objecting.” He glanced at the window but Kiner had already turned his back to them. “Is it because of him?”
“It is because of me.”
He stepped back, running an unsteady hand through his hair. “You’re not telling me something. I know you want this as much as I do. Bethany, I love-”
She clamped her hand over his mouth. “Do not say it.” She took a couple breaths to steady herself. “Arrago, look at me. Death follows me. This isn’t the life for you.”
He snorted, anger growing on his face. “Don’t I get to make that decision?”
“No,” Bethany said meekly.
She wanted to tell him that the prophecy would kill him, that anyone near her wasn’t safe. She wanted to tell him that her life was not her own.
As she grappled for an answer, she found a morsel of truth. “I’m Elorian, Arrago. Do you have any concept of what that means? When you are lying on your deathbed, I’ll look just as I do now. I’ll still be out fighting battles and you’ll need my help lifting your chamber pot. That is not the life you want.” It had never crossed her mind before, but that didn’t make it less true.
He shook his head, and an angry laugh came from him. “If it isn’t the life you want, then speak up. Don’t put the blame on my shoulders.”
“I’m not blaming you. A defenseless child was sliced open for no other reason than she was in my room. She wasn’t a soldier or someone with special abilities. She was a servant, picking my dirty trousers off the floor. I do not want that for you.” She screamed the last words.
Arrago seethed. In a hoarse voice, he said, “I never asked for your protection. I asked for your affection.” He turned and stormed from the room.
Silent tears trickled down Bethany’s cheeks before the door slammed behind him. For the first time in her life, she truly hated herself for having to lie.
* * * * *
Sarissa stood as the riders approached her encampment outside Little Bheakom. Now less than a day’s ride from Orchard Park, she bordered on the paranoid whenever strangers approached. As the riders neared, she recognized Robert and his men and relaxed.
“Where is she?” Sarissa demanded once Robert’s horse halted next to her.
Robert scratched his woolly beard. “Don’t yell at me because we can’t find Amber. It was your idea to chase her around the countryside.” He climbed down from his horse. “Next time you want to play games with prisoners, don’t.”
She squinted against the morning sun. Using her hand has a shield, she leaned close enough to him to see the breadcrumbs in his dark beard. She picked them out and flicked the pieces to the ground. “My job was to force her to the temple to get us the books. Keeping track of her was your job.”
Robert slapped away her hand. “Why not just get some sleep and talk to the baby? It can tell you where she is.”
“I haven’t slept in two days. Magic withdrawal.” She tried to be as matter-of-fact as possible, not wanting to concern him. The others started showing signs of it today, but she had been experiencing it for a solid week. Vomiting, pains in her chest, and the total inability to sleep. She hadn’t gone this long without a fresh energy of a kill in decades. Rats and fish were no longer strong enough to ward off the side effects of Magic seeping from her system. She needed a human soul and soon.
Robert stared at her, worry creasing his dirty face.
She frowned. “Don’t look at me like that. This isn’t a complete loss. We need to find this Eve woman anyway.” Rumors about a disgraced knight secretly working for the priests in reading Magic texts for them had reached her. Sarissa really liked the part where Eve was the lover of Jovan. That was the cream on a very sweet pastry. “If someone found Amber, they’d probably take her to Eve since she’s another Rygent.”
Robert considered the suggestion before nodding. “I can take a couple of the younger girls with me and pretend we are her family.” He ran a rough hand along the side of Sarissa’s face and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll bring back a pair of farmers for you. Leave it to me.”
She knew that two humans to share amongst the camp wouldn’t be enough, but she appreciated his gesture all the same. It was a great risk practicing in elven territory. Yet, having seventy Magi in withdrawal was far worse.
Sarissa leaned forward and picked a pale crumb from his beard’s tangled mess. “Comb your chin fur. You look like the kind of man who rapes little girls.”
* * * * *
Bethany crossed and uncrossed her legs as she waited for Torius and Aneese to join the senior Knights in Allric’s study. She gulped down her fourth mug of strong tea and proceeded to pour another, dropping in a dollop of honey to dull its bitter aftertaste. Exhaustion pulled at her, but she remained alert. Not that she could sleep anyway, not with Sarissa sending murderers after her. And Arrago…
Bethany heard Torius long before she saw him. He grumped his way up the corridor, complaining to whoever it was with him about the unusual
time to call a meeting.
“That Allric better have a good reason for waking me up in the middle of the night. I am an old elf. Good on him to show off to his officers that he can stay up all night. I need my sleep. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to fall back to sleep at my age? No? A bloody long time, I tell you that.”
Bethany smirked, followed by a wince as her face burned and tugged against linen stitches. It would be several days, even weeks, before she could smile painlessly again.
“Allric, there had better be a good —” Torius stumbled into the room and gasped. He stared at Bethany. “Oh child! Your face.”
She turned her face away. Only a handful of hours had passed since Joseph’s attack. Not enough time to accept the disfigurement. She wasn’t vain, but she hated the scar already. But she’d never let them see her pain. Bethany managed to muster a shrug and said, “I’ve been a soldier for a long time. I was due for a facial scar.”
“I would like to begin the meeting. It is rather late,” Aneese interrupted in her raspy voice.
Allric nodded. “Does anyone know who this Joseph was?”
Jovan raised his hand enough to motion that he did. “Arrago asked a few of the servants. Apparently, the man posed as a gardener, but since he was dressed as a knight when he gave the book to Edmund Greyfeather, it’s safe to assume he’d been posing as other folks, too.”
“This is very disturbing,” Aneese said, shaking her head. She glared at Bethany. “I’m also disappointed that you were unable to detect this man amongst us. You claim that you can detect Magic and yet this man was able to sneak into your own bedroom. A child died because of your failure.”
“I know, Aneese.” The old priestess’s words did not anger Bethany. A child had died. Protests of innocence would not change that fact.
“Erem found out the girl’s name - Rachel. She was the niece of a chambermaid. Her parents had sent her here to make money to send home.” Bethany averted her eyes under the guise of scratching her neck. “I’ve arranged for a knight to bring the news and my personal condolences.”
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