She blinked away the wet happiness in her eyes, closed them. His smile, warm, loving, and his open arms, wide enough for her and a family of their own. She opened her eyes. Yes, he’d be happy, too.
A distant whimper—a slave in the far corner.
A slave…
Trapped in House Hazael, her child would be born into the stuff of nightmares. “What am I going to do?”
Soft warmth covered her hand—Samara’s comfort. She climbed onto Rielle’s sleeping mat and wrapped a consoling arm around her. “You will keep your child safe, stay out of trouble—”
A clink of bottles and laughter interrupted the soft breaths and snoring in the room. Samara froze mid-sentence.
A few women gasped, cried. Squeals and whimpers rolled in from the farthest rows and inward.
A shiver rattled her spine. She poked her head out and peeked past her feet to the rows beyond. Two men swaggered between sleeping mats, rolling women over, grabbing at their faces and breasts, moving on. She squinted in the dark, discerning a burst of black hair covering the face of one and—a star tattooed on his neck.
Guards.
No. No, no, no. She curled up closer to Samara and, huddled together, held her gaze. Pass us over. Pass us over.
Clumsy footsteps neared, but she didn’t look, couldn’t. Pass us over…
A hand gripped her shoulder and pinned it to the mat. She stared up into the face of the guard she’d seen on the way to Samara. He looked down on her and winked.
Tremors started at her limbs and worked inward until she quaked all over.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, but he grabbed her arm.
“This is the one,” he said to his friend. “Not working now, is she?” He dragged her up, but Samara locked her arms around Rielle’s waist.
The guard yanked her, but Samara wouldn’t let go and was dragged along.
Rielle clawed at his arm with her free hand, grappled with his fingers, thrashed in his grip. He whipped around and slapped her.
Her face snapped to the side. On fire with pain. Her jaw radiated—
She twisted and stared at Samara, no words coming even as she begged for something, anything—
“Stop!” Samara shouted, her chest quivering like a rabbit’s but her feet planted squarely on the floor. “You must stop this instant, guard!”
Every face in the room awoke and alighted upon Samara. The guard, too, froze in his steps as bidden and faced her, scowling.
“You dare, ahabadah?” he bellowed, throwing Rielle aside to advance upon Samara.
“No, please—” Rielle grabbed at his arm, but he shook her off. Divine, Samara was only a girl, only—
Samara raised her chin. “This slave warms Zahib Farrad’s bed. You risk Zahib’s displeasure with this act.”
The guard grabbed Samara’s upper arm. “You lie, ahabadah, or else she would be there now.”
Samara thrust her chest out and stared him down. “You know who I am, guard. If I lie, Zahib will give me the lash. This slave has the childbearing sickness and was too ill to attend him this eve. I’m treating her myself.”
The guard’s face tightened, his eyebrows drawing together, but he remained still. At last, he pushed Samara away. “If you lie, you will feel the lash, ahabadah. Keenly.”
Her stance rigid, Samara didn’t waver. “So be it, guard.”
For a moment, all the air was sucked from the room. Not a single breath needled the silence until the guard turned to leave and beckoned for his friend to follow. When their steps faded from the servant quarters, Samara’s shoulders slumped.
She backed toward the wall and leaned against it, then raised her wide-eyed gaze to meet Rielle’s.
“What have you done, Samara? You will—”
“You and your baby are safe,” Samara said, her voice hoarse. “At least for tonight.”
Rielle moved to lean next to her and slid down along the wall until she landed on the floor, wrapping her arms around herself. Samara had risked her own safety. Tomorrow, there was no telling what she might face.
But tonight, they were still here together. Safe.
She closed her eyes, and everything escaped—the fear, the shame, the relief. It rolled down her cheeks as she cried into her knees.
Samara knelt beside her, an arm outstretched. “I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but…”
She didn’t finish her words, cut off by a sob, and Rielle leaned into her, burying her face in Samara’s shoulder. Cautiously, Samara embraced her, and together, they wept.
“You will have to avoid this place tomorrow,” Samara whispered. “In the slave quarters, he might… come looking for you.”
This is what life would be like at House Hazael? Biding her time as a scribe was entirely different from living in constant fear and, perhaps, torment, until Jon arrived.
And once he did, would she be full with child, attempting an escape? Her months in Sonbahar had been grim, and despite the compassion of Samara’s sacrifice, there was now the very real possibility of never getting out.
She would never become a magister, avenge her family, or change anything.
Shadow would never pay for her treachery.
Jon would be assassinated.
And their child would be born a slave.
And by the Divine, what had this merciful girl done? Samara had saved her from the guard tonight, but tomorrow, when the lie came undone, this girl would pay for it in blood.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t deserve your kindness.”
“Karak is a hateful man, Thahab. He could have harmed your baby,” Samara said, and several women crowded closer. “As much as we can, we protect our own here, especially the children.”
Murmurs of agreement wove in from the women around them, their faces sunken but their eyes earnest and unwavering; she hadn’t even begun to understand the depths of this life’s despair, but these women were unbroken by sheer force of will, by union, by sisterhood.
“Thank you.” She nodded, the rawness inside softened by Samara’s warmth. These women risked their wellbeing and lives to protect those who needed it most, their strength greater than pain, greater than fear.
Samara gave her a squeeze. “Come.”
She pulled Rielle to her feet, and they crawled into Samara’s sleeping mat. Cuddling close to Samara, she curled up. It had been a long time since she’d slept in the embrace of a friend, warm and safe.
Starlight still shone through the cage of the lattices, glowing on the floor. She stared through it at the stars, as she did every night, the ghost of Jon’s embrace closing around her.
But tonight, she couldn’t sleep, not after the night’s events. A fourteen-year-old girl couldn’t suffer for her sake. Tomorrow, she would have to find a way to spare Samara the lash for her brave intervention, if such a possibility existed. She’d have to talk to Farrad.
She stroked her belly. And then we find a way to endure until your papa comes for us.
Chapter 17
Brennan sucked in a relieved breath. Twelve days had passed before the port city of Harifa was finally visible from the KPV Gorgon in the morning light. It was a cityscape of tall spires, white cylindrical buildings, and brightly colored tents. The bustling docks came into view, where a throng of workers, sailors, merchants, and travelers filled every space. It wasn’t long before their scents hit him in a chaotic wall of odor.
Faster would have been better, but the square-rigged Kezani caravel had made good time, considering that many vessels took fifteen days. The voyage, however, had been unbearable, as the Gorgon, the only vessel immediately departing Suguz directly for Harifa, was a spice trader’s ship. He had spent the entire trip with a headache from the cargo’s overpowering aroma.
When he’d asked for directions to the slave market, the captain of the Gorgon hadn’t hidden his disgust, a rare reaction for a Kezani businessman.
Brennan disembarked and made his way south through the city, squeezing between the en
dless congestion of people, past the outskirts of the sprawling market to the area populated entirely by a coalition of slavers. They had adapted an old horse breeder’s compound of stables and pens into a slave market.
His detour to Suguz had cost him precious weeks during which Rielle had likely suffered. He couldn’t fathom what her condition would be now. There were suspicions that he could not bear to acknowledge, could not bring himself to consider… suspicions for which, if she had indeed suffered, he would never forgive himself.
If he didn’t find her here, there was no telling where she could have been taken, nor under what circumstances.
Yet a voice of hope whispered delusions of blind optimism and would not be silenced: What if she had freed herself? What if she was here? What if today they were reunited?
People eyed him warily; his feet had sped him to a run. The Wolf’s doing.
The slavers would never deal with him if he showed up panicked and desperate. As he neared the compound, he focused on slowing to a walk and gathered his composure until his breath was slow and steady before he finally entered.
The main office was the closest tent to the market—and with good reason: the slave compound stretched on as far the eye could see, and business was better when it was convenient to potential customers. Inside, only one hawk-faced slave trader was present when he had expected a group and, at the very least, guards. The slave trade in Harifa must have been safe indeed, if such bold conditions were common.
“Marbahen,” the merchant greeted in Harifa’s dialect of Standard Nad’i.
His years of visiting Xir as a boy were already serving him well—he understood most dialects of Nad’i, and the High Nad’i that Father had insisted upon Kehani and his tutors teaching him was understood by all but the simplest of commoners in Sonbahar, even if it was spoken only by the elites.
“Sabeh al qir,” he replied, bidding the merchant good morning in High Nad’i. Choosing his words carefully, he told the merchant that he wanted to buy a slave, an attractive woman with golden hair from the North, and asked whether the merchant had any.
The merchant replied in the negative, that he didn’t have any, and that the last one had been sold about a week ago.
Sold.
Brennan drew in a deep breath and held it. The Wolf raged.
Not yet.
He knew exactly how to proceed—naturally, bribery—if he could only master his baser instincts.
“That’s a shame,” Brennan replied casually. “I heard that this market had the best selection. My father vacations in Xir at around this time every year, and I had hoped to have his favorite kind of woman waiting for him,” he explained, sparing the merchant a crestfallen glance. “Do you recall who purchased the last one?” He reached for his coin purse just as the merchant was about to shake his head. “I am prepared to pay whoever bought the slave double her market value, and I’d be very grateful for your assistance.” He tipped the purse and poured out several golden Sonbaharan araqs onto the table.
The merchant’s eyes fixed upon the coins, and as another araq dropped onto the pile, he opened his mouth. “I believe there were a few pleasure houses from Xir that purchased most of the women, a fair-haired one among them,” the merchant said, his gaze never leaving the small mound of gold.
Pleasure houses.
He clenched his teeth, feeling the Change starting in his hands and mouth, waiting on the merchant’s further words. Far away, he heard the voices of three men chatting, the breeze, and the din of the market’s shoppers and merchants.
“House Afzal, House Fakhri, and House Hazael, I think,” the merchant added, bemused.
Afzal, Fakhri, Hazael.
Afzal, Fakhri, Hazael.
Afzal, Fakhri, Hazael.
Again and again and again until he was certain he would remember those names for the rest of his days. The Wolf snarled, louder, closer to the surface, anxious, hungry.
Finally, exposing his teeth in a wide smile, he leaned in.
“Allow me to express my gratitude.”
He grabbed the man’s face, covered his mouth, and twisted his head from his body, relishing the red spray of the motion with an exhalation.
His nostrils flared to breathe in the thick smell of blood.
He dropped the head. It bounced off the corpse and rolled across the ground in the tent. His eyes followed its path, then fixated upon the body.
The raw abundant flesh and seeping fresh blood.
Primal urges spooled within him. His control wavered. His mouth watered. The Wolf’s snout battled to emerge, his teeth turning sharp and lupine. He crouched over the body before he even realized it, his face hovering just above the pool of blood.
He longed to lose himself in it.
He covered his mouth with his clawed hands. The Wolf craved—
He gagged. Each day was worse than the one before. His control was at its limit. Even knowing that, he could barely hold back.
Rielle, he reminded the Wolf and himself, a desperate plea. Rielle. She was one thing they agreed on. The one thing they both needed.
With all his might, he drew away from the body until he stood at his full height once more, inhaling deeply, still eager to breathe in the smell of a fresh kill.
But he took a step back.
And then another.
And another.
The Wolf had begun to recede, and as soon as it did, he exited the tent, more determined than ever to find Rielle… and with her, his sanity.
Chapter 18
Jon gazed toward the horizon as they took the eastern route back to the Kingsroad. The Nivos snows coated the fields and hills that rolled far beyond his line of sight and faded into the steel blue of the afternoon sky. The white-dusted red peak of a small monastery reached high up in the distance, nestled among the snow-covered thatched roofs, smoking chimneys, and sandy clay walls of a tiny village.
If they hadn’t routed the mangeurs before Espoire, what would have happened to this settlement?
He combed his gloved fingers through his white destrier’s immaculate mane. The mangeurs were but one of the Immortal threats, and the cost to defeat them had been enormous. He’d left Courdeval with two hundred and seventy men and women, and he was returning with one hundred and two, a mere fraction. Even before the battle, three hundred and sixty-three lives had already been lost.
And now, after the battle, the number had climbed to five hundred and thirty-one.
Five hundred and thirty-one who would never see the afternoon sky again.
The crisp wintry air chilled as he inhaled deeply. The battle was over, but the war was far from won.
The viscounty of Costechelle faced a harpy invasion. Aestrie reported spirits wielding ice magic. Loud, eerie howls had converged around Maerleth Tainn. Villages went dark. People disappeared from the roads.
The ranks of the Emaurrian military were depleted, and if the county of Bisclavret was any indication, so were local knights and soldiers. The Order tried to maintain stability, but paladin numbers were dwindling—and considering losses, recruitment suffered. And the Emaurrian Tower of Magic wouldn’t intervene but for payment.
Clouds rolled across the steel-blue sky.
He needed to bolster the Crown—strengthen the military, not just with numbers but with diversity, skills and abilities of all kinds. Mages. Paladins.
What if mages, regardless of their religion or affiliation with the Divinity, could swear fealty to the Crown, work for a commission? What if paladins didn’t have to swear the Sacred Vows? What if women were welcome among their ranks?
What if mages and paladins could work side by side?
But the Order maintained stability, and the Tower was a dangerous threat if provoked. He couldn’t afford to risk either. Not now. He would have to bargain from a position of power. Power that the Earthbinding would afford him. If it worked, he’d be one with the land. When he finally began testing the waters with the Proctor about integrating the Tower into the Crown,
any threat from the Divinity might be mitigated by Earthbound abilities.
And if he won over the Tower, he could bargain with the Order from an even stronger position.
All of it relied on the Earthbinding, blasphemy and infidelity. If he became one with the land, his inner state—if his will was strong—would be reflected in the land. If he were happy, at peace, Emaurria would prosper.
Happy…
There was only one thing in this world that would truly make him happy. Rielle.
He stiffened. Derric had tried to dissuade him from pursuing marriage to her, but if she were with him, he’d be happy. And if he were Earthbound, his happiness would mean Emaurria’s prosperity.
He smiled. The Earthbinding wouldn’t just be for Emaurria’s sake. There was no way Derric, the rest of the Grands, Parliament, or the Houses could stand in the way of their marriage. Not if it directly translated to the land’s benefit.
Where marriage was concerned, this was his best chance at a political checkmate. If he became Earthbound, he could ask for her hand, with the Grands, Parliament, and the Houses inevitably agreeing, not just for his sake, but for that of the land.
Whether she’d accept his proposal, on the other hand…
He held a breath and exhaled lengthily. The Earthbinding… He didn’t want anyone else. Ever.
And when she returned, when she learned of it, it would hurt her. The very last thing he’d ever want to do. He sighed. Was having sex with one stranger too high a price for marriage to one’s beloved? Would it frustrate the purpose entirely?
And if Rielle had made that choice? If their places were exchanged?
Pain radiated from his jaw. His hands numbed. He lowered his gaze to the reins, gripped in the vise of his fists. If Rielle were in his place, doing what he was about to do… It would hurt. It would cut to the bone. He popped his jaw and relaxed his hands. But he wouldn’t ignore the greater good nor punish her for choosing it.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 18
