by Jack Conner
When she sensed a presence in the room with her, she awoke. Instantly, she smelled him, all musk and primal urges, and she thought for an instant she was still in the dream. She even fancied she smelled the stench of melting gold.
Then he was rearing over her, breathing, and she felt as though she had been drenched in ice water. She shot up in bed, half expecting him to vanish. He was no nightmare, though, at least not one her sleep had conjured.
“How—how did you get in?” she demanded. “The Temple is warded . . .”
He crouched beside her, his eyes shining by the moonlight that flooded in through the nearest window—not like a serpent, no, not at all, but very much like a wolf.
“No ward can stop me,” he said.
Holding her sheet over her breasts, she scooted away from him. She wore only a silken shift.
“So,” she said, “you’re here to end this at last. Do it if you think you can. Kill me.” She only hoped he had gone unnoticed, that he had not been obliged to slay any of her sisters to accomplish this trespass.
“No,” he said, and now his shadowed face seemed quite still, quite serious. “I’ve been an assassin more than once, true—and I’ve enjoyed it—but that’s not why I’ve come to you, and you know it.” He sat down on the bed beside her.
“Then why?”
“You know why.”
She wondered if she should scream, should summon the other sisters to come to her aid. She occupied a large, private bedroom on the topmost floor of the Temple proper, but her sisters could be here in moments if she summoned them.
He leaned in closer. His smell wrapped her. “Play no games with me,” he said. “I want you. You want me.”
“No.”
“I know it. I feel it. I smell it.” He edged closer. “Feel me.” Closer. “Here . . .” He reached out a hand to her. He clasped one of her hands in one of his. “Like this.”
She tore her hand away and slipped from the bed. “Get out of here, you filth.”
“Come, Niara, don’t act coy. You want me, I know you do, and here we are on the eve of battle, with a company of Borchstogs traveling north towards us, and the Eresine Bridge being rebuilt, and glarumri flying up from the South . . . Felgrad is on its last legs. Your world, priestess, is coming to an end. My world is just beginning. But there is hope. For you.”
He swiveled, throwing his legs to her side of the bed, and stood with a flourish. He stepped toward her, almost touching her. “I’m a lord now,” he said. “I can stand beside you. Before you.”
“Never. You’re a killer. A demon. You’re not even capable of love.”
He half-smiled, but it was a sad half. He just stood there, calmly looking down on her. She was as tall or taller than most men of Fiarth, but he towered over her, and his chest was broad and deep.
“I am capable of love,” he said, keeping pace with her, unwilling to let her slip away. “I could have killed you long ago, but I did not. I had my agents preserve your life, time and again.”
“Those Borchstogs—”
“Would not have harmed you. Their instructions were merely to keep you prisoner. Your friend was optional.”
“Lisilli—”
He shrugged. “We’re at war, Oslog and the Crescent. My duty is to win for my side. I did not do it out of malice.”
“But you did. You are malice.” This was it, she decided. This was her chance. She would end him now. It was the only way. And now that he was here, in her realm, she need not fear the retribution of his agents. And she could dispose of his body at her leisure. Nobody ever need know.
She smiled. “Fine. You want me to feel you. I will.”
She spread her palms across his chest and tilted her face up to him, letting her lips part, just slightly. He responded, craning his head down, meeting her lips with his. That was all she needed. She dredged up the light that dwelt within her, feeling it flow up her well and overspill. It poured along her hands into his chest, from her mouth into his, and all in one blinding second she channeled it into him—
Raugst blocked it.
She poured her light into him, and it rebounded. The concussion knocked her away. She landed gasping on the floor, white smoke trailing from her palms and mouth. It burned.
Shocked, she stared up at him.
“You cannot kill me,” he said. “I’m more powerful than you.”
“I s-see.” It hurt to speak. Her ears rang, though she had heard no report. Sparks danced before her eyes.
He stepped forward, and she shrank back, expecting a reprisal. But he only offered her a hand up. She refused.
He shrugged again. “Think about what I said. Your kingdom will fall, your people will die or be enslaved, and the shadow of the Wolf will spread. Towers to Him will be raised in every city from here to the Inland Shores, and sacrifices will be heaped at their bases . . . but there is a place for you at my side, Niara, should you desire it.” He spun about and in a moment was gone from her bedchambers, and she was left staring at the spot where he had vanished, feeling the beating of her heart.
She took a breath, then another. Yes, her attack had failed. His darkness was too strong. But, while she had been connected to him, she had felt something . . .
There might be another way.
In the morning, she heard the latest reports of the war, and they were grim. The Borchstog host that had ambushed Raugst’s men in the Vale of Irrys and razed the city of Hasitlan was marching swiftly north. Some said Lord Vrulug himself had joined them and was leading them to Thiersgald. With him to spur them on, the Borchstogs were expected to reach the city within days.
While the soldiers prepared for war, Niara tended to her duties. Five days after she had returned to Thiersgald, she oversaw the somber ceremony honoring the fallen warriors of the Vale of Irrys and the City of Hasitlan from atop the steps of the Temple. Thousands gathered in the great courtyard to hear her words and pay tribute to the fallen, and many others listened from terraces and rooftops. It was a still, hot day, and the sun beat down mercilessly from clear blue skies.
Even Raugst sweated as he stood beside her, at times alternating with her and Duke Welsly to speak for the dead and to recount the story of their valor. He then gave a rousing speech, stirring the people to defend Thiersgald from the legions of Borchstogs sweeping north even then. It pained Niara to have to share the stage with the likes of him, and it pained her more to look in the people’s faces and see their love for him reflected there. He was a common man made good, a hero from the working class. He was what each and every man here wanted to be, and he was whom nearly each woman wanted in her bed. He was their dreams made flesh.
Only Niara and her closest sisters knew it was a lie. Even the flesh was a lie. His real shape would be monstrous, hideous. Oh, she loathed him with every fiber of her being. She had spent much time trying to devise a way to expose him while not rousing the people to turn on the priesthood—to dethrone him while leaving the throne intact. She and her sisters had spent countless hours plotting and scheming, but they’d come up with nothing feasible. Meanwhile Vrulug’s host drew closer every moment. On the day Niara, Raugst and Duke Welsly gave their speeches, Vrulug’s arrival was expected within hours.
Desperate, Niara knew she must do something. If the wolf-lord arrived at the city while his agent was lord of it, sure its downfall would be imminent. How could she remove Raugst from power, though? She couldn’t kill him. He was too strong. She couldn’t lead her priestesses in open revolt. His soldiers would slay them, especially now that they were weakened, and the populace would turn on the priesthood.
There was a way that occurred to her. It had come to her the night Raugst had tried to seduce her. But it was a mad, desperate, reckless plan that jeopardized all the good she could do if it failed.
For now, there was a better way, a simpler way.
There was Fria.
The Baron’s daughter was quiet and reclusive, an attitude she had likely adopted due to her roving eye and t
he reception it often received, and she had never dabbled much in public affairs. She would have to dabble now. Niara would get her to turn on Raugst, imprison him (for a start) and all those he had appointed to serve him. They were vipers at the breast of Fiarth, and they needed to be removed. Only Fria, the baroness and the only blood Wesrain alive, had the authority to do this. If Niara could get her to turn on Raugst, the realm might yet be saved.
That afternoon after the ceremony, Niara went to Fria at the castle. She took Fria into the chapel to Illiana in the east wing of the castle, where Fria and Raugst had been wed—the birthplace of this whole sad affair—and spoke to her quietly.
“There’s something very important I need to discuss with you,” she said.
“Of course, High Mother. What may I help you with?”
“You will not like it.”
Fria gave a bitter little smile. “There’s little to my liking these days.”
Niara took a deep breath. This was the hard part. She held Fria’s hands, looked into her eyes, and said, “Raugst swore his love to me.”
Fria gasped.
Inwardly, Niara cringed. This was a loathsome task she’d set herself. She wished she could just reveal the truth, but if she told Fria that her husband was a demon in human skin the baroness would only do the natural thing. She would think Niara a liar, even a madwoman. Fria had no reason to suspect her beloved as being anything other than what he appeared to be. There was only one ill thing she would know about him: his womanizing. Rumors of his lusty ways had spread throughout the realm. Even his wife would have heard of it. Strangely, it only endeared him to the people all the more—the Cock of the Castle, they called him.
Thus Niara did the only thing she could think of to sway Fria against him. “Raugst swore his love to me,” she said. “He’s violated the trust of Felgrad and must be incarcerated until he repents.”
Fria jerked her hands away. “You lie! He would never!”
Niara held her gaze as steadily as she could. “It’s true, Fria. You’ve known me your whole life, as your father before you and his father before him. I’ve never lied to anyone in your family, and I am not lying now.”
Fria shook her head. “He would never! He loves me, I know it. I know there have . . . been other women . . . but there was no love there.” Tears hovered behind her eyes, though for the moment they stayed there. She was a Wesrain, and they were proud to a fault. Niara remembered how Fria had refused to attend Meril’s funeral; he had shamed the Wesrain name, Fria had said. Swaying her would not be easy.
Niara remained sitting, looking up at the young baroness. “He may love you, dear—who can read a man’s heart?—but I know what I saw in his eyes. He took me aside and stared into me. He was a wolf on the hunt. He told me he must have me, that he loved me and wanted me to be his.”
“Liar!” Fria’s voice was almost a shriek.
Niara took a breath, letting Fria calm down and making sure she had the girl’s complete attention, then said, “I understand how you must feel. I do. I . . . I was not always a priestess. I was a girl once, just a girl. The daughter of a minor lord in Larenthi.”
It worked. Fria’s gaze fixed on Niara, and some of the rage and confusion left it. This was a change in subject that Fria did not have to instinctually rebel against, and it had the advantage of perhaps gaining Niara her sympathy.
“So it’s true,” Fria said. “You do come from the Elf-lands.” She still sounded wary.
“Father had fallen in love with a mortal woman some years ago, and she with him. He was already married, but the elves are free people, and honest with themselves. It is common for them to have more than one wife, or more than one husband.”
“Truly?”
Niara tried not to smile when she saw the amazement in Fria’s eyes. It was working! Fria was coming around to her side.
“Yes,” she said. “Truly. They were deeply in love, and even my father’s first wife grew to love Silese, my mother. But mortal she was, and time was her enemy. My father used his arts to lengthen her life and ward off some of the worst effects of age, but in time she slipped away, like water in a river. My father and his first wife were deeply grieved, and they built a great statue in her honor. It stands even now on the banks of the Ninis, a stream she loved. My father told me that it was there that he and she conceived me, to the sound of the flowing water and the singing of the birds in the trees. He told me that having me consoled him in the days that followed, and though he vowed never to love another mortal he broke his vow with me.” She smiled sadly. Her words had ceased to be mere manipulation. She remembered those early years well, remembered the beauty of Larenthi, with the golden sun on the vibrant green hills and endless forest-gardens. She remembered her father’s face, so stern yet warm.
“And so I grew up with the elf-ways and lived as they did, and I knew love, and passion. And, yes, lust. Only later did I decide to explore my human heritage and travel to mortal lands. And here at last I came. But ways here are different, and people don’t tolerate physical passion in their priestesses. Yet they need the ways of Illiana most direly.”
Fria looked at her in amazement. In the baroness’s wonder, she had come to sit beside Niara once more and clasp her hand. “You gave up all that just to improve our sorry lot?”
“It is not so sorry, my dear. You are good people. The people of my mother. In days gone by, when Elves and Men were closer, before the age of the Grothgars in Havensrike, Men used to travel back and forth to Larenthi all the time—and the reverse. So it was with my mother. She loved Fiarth dearly. It always pained her that my father refused to leave Larenthi. She’d wanted to return here someday.” She smiled, and again it was sad. “And so I’m here, and I have known love. So hear me when I tell you that Raugst desires me, and not for simple lust, though there is that too.” In her heart, she wondered if that were true. Surely he cannot love. He’s a thing of darkness. She tried to keep these thoughts from her face and voice.
Perhaps she was unsuccessful, for Fria seemed to sense some duplicity in her, or perhaps the truth was more than she could accept. Either way, suddenly the new-found warmth and sympathy in the baroness’s face fled like sunshine on a stormy day. Scowling, she shot to her feet.
“You lie! You lie, you lie, you lie!” She actually stomped her foot.
Niara made placating gestures. “Mistress, I assure you that I do not. Raugst told me he wants me.”
“He’s a good man!” The tears came, finally, but with typical Wesrain pride she wiped them away with impatience. “If he did say such a thing—if he did—then he was only being a man, and all men are weak to such temptations. He may be a good man, but he is still a man.”
He is no man at all! Niara tried to counsel herself to be patient. She realized she must lie further. Looking the baroness in the eye, hating herself for doing it, she said, “He said . . . he said he loves only me.”
Fria stared at her in horror, a wounded deer seeing her end draw nigh. At last she tore her gaze away and balled and unballed her hands at her side. Then she raised her fists and stepped toward Niara. Niara shrank away, honestly worried Fria might try some physical assault, but the baroness reined herself in and turned aside, trembling.
“He has blasphemed and must be locked away,” Niara said. “We must uphold the laws of your land.”
Fria did not seem to hear her. “Out,” she said, not looking at Niara. “I want you out!” She stomped her foot again.
Niara rose and moved toward her, imploring. “Fria, darling—”
“I said Out!”
“Listen, Fria—”
“OUT!”
A priestess poked her head into the main room of the chapel, glanced from Niara to Fria, then, white-faced, ducked back out of sight.
Swallowing, Niara said, “Really, dear, that’s no way to behave.” She must be motherly now. Fria had never known a mother, and Niara had always been there to act the part for her. Maybe she would respond to that role now. “S
it down and listen like a proper young lady. I am only trying to help.”
Fria lifted her head and roared—roared—“You’re trying to tear me and Raugst apart! You’re a monster!”
Niara winced at the pain in Fria’s voice. Fria had, after all, been all but a daughter to her, just as she had been a mother to the girl. She hated to manipulate her, and hated for it to have gone so horribly wrong. She realized she could no longer go on with her pretense. Fria wasn’t having it anyway.
“Raugst is the monster,” she said, looking with her soul bared into Fria’s eyes. “He is a demon sent by the devil Vrulug to destroy us. I don’t know how, but I know that when those Borchstogs get here tonight, he’ll help them somehow, and that will be the end of Thiersgald.”
Fria stared at her, shocked by this abrupt change in topic and by the frank manner in which Niara accomplished it.
But it was too late. Her face red, tears coursing down her cheeks, her one lazy eye rolling like a mad thing, she glared at Niara and said, “Just when I thought you had sunk to your lowest point, you bitch, this.” Her voice wasn’t angry anymore; she had moved past that. She spoke in icily calm tones now. “I don’t know what to do with you. My High Priestess, a liar, a traitor, trying to break up the royal family on the eve of battle. Yes,” she added, apparently pleased with her logic. “A traitor. A foul-mouthed Oslogon sympathizer. A spy.”
“No! Fria, I would never—”
“Guards!”
At all times, Fria was accompanied by at least a pair of soldiers. They were waiting outside the chapel even then. At her summons, they burst into the holy place, hands at the hilts of their swords, though obviously reluctant to draw them here. They stared from Fria to Niara, confused.
“Arrest her!” the baroness said, stabbing a finger at Niara. “Arrest her for high treason. The High Priestess is a spy!”
