Heir of Autumn

by Giles Carwyn

  “And when we are the only four left?” Athyl asked.

  “I’m the best runner. I’ll leave first, then Phanqui, then Tidric. You get one more chance to climb the tower. Except this time you’ll have more energy and fewer wounds than ever before.”

  “You would get to the final four and then step aside?”

  “I would. You this month. Me next month, followed by Phanqui, Tidric, and whoever else joins us and learns how to beat this ugly game.”

  Athyl shook his head, his smile fading. “You paint a pretty picture, Ohndarien, but human nature doesn’t work that way.”

  “No, Physendrian nature doesn’t work that way. I don’t want to win this game, I want to destroy it. If the young men of this country would stop fighting each other, there would only be one man left to fight.”

  Athyl turned narrow eyes on Brophy. “The king?”

  Brophy shrugged.

  “There is a price on the heads of traitors, you know. You just made yourself worth a bag of gold the size of my fist.”

  “I’m betting there is something you want out of life more than a bag of gold.” Brophy held Athyl’s gaze.

  The scarred man calmly glanced to the other practicing contestants before looking back at Brophy. “You have a lot of faith in your judgment of others.”

  Brophy nodded. “We’ll start training in two days. I hope I’ll see you then.” He stood up and walked away. He didn’t look back, and Athyl didn’t call out.

  Tiny fell into step behind Brophy as he climbed out of the arena.

  OSSAMYR CAME to him that night. The door opened as silently as always, but Brophy was waiting.

  “I was hoping—”

  She shook her head, put a finger to her lips. Her white-feathered cloak slipped from her shoulders, falling into a pile on the floor. She climbed naked onto his bed.

  “Ossamyr—”

  Again, she shook her head, smiling. Her fingers slid across his belly, and she roused him with her hands in seconds. Brophy took a quick breath, forgetting everything he wanted to say. Wordlessly, she straddled him. They both gasped as he pushed inside her, and she began to ride him.

  Ossamyr clenched her eyes closed and threw herself against Brophy with a terrifying intensity. He would have cried out if the queen hadn’t kept her hand clamped over his mouth so he could barely breathe. They both reached climax before they even kissed. Brophy screamed into her hand as she shuddered against him over and over again.

  Finally, the wave of desire receded, and Ossamyr collapsed into his arms. Brophy couldn’t catch his breath, he was left utterly dazed and disoriented. Yet the moment she touched her lips to his mouth, his passion came surging back, and he could not get enough of her. They kissed for hours. He touched every part of her a hundred times. She never let him speak. Without words it was like a dream.

  Their hunger built over hours, and finally Brophy couldn’t wait anymore. He pulled her brutally to him. Her nails raked his back, her teeth bit his shoulder. All in silence, deliciously agonizing silence.

  She drew blood from his neck with her teeth as she stifled her scream. Brophy shuddered with her, and they collapsed onto the bed, rocking slowly back and forth on its chains. The queen was covered in sweat, and the room smelled of musk and desire.

  Ossamyr rolled onto her back, closing her eyes as her breathing returned to normal. Brophy reached out to touch the glistening skin between her breasts, running his finger along her breastbone. There should be a stone there, he thought. A red diamond.

  He looked up to find the queen watching him. She put a hand over his eyes.

  “Don’t look at me, not now,” she said.

  He thought he saw a moonlit tear on her face, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “Ossamyr—”

  Her hand moved from his eyes to his mouth.

  “Don’t speak. Just…be still, with me. Just be still.”

  He lay back, pulling her closer, and she laid her head on his chest. Her breasts were warm against his ribs, her feverish thigh draped over his legs. Brophy trailed his fingertips along the side of her body, then rested his hand across her ribs and suddenly squeezed.

  She jumped.

  He tickled her again, and she squirmed away. The queen rolled over and slapped him across the face. “Don’t,” she demanded, her dark eyes furious.

  Brophy grinned and pounced. He pinned her to the bed, tickling her ribs, knees, butt, anything he could reach.

  She fought fiercely, smacking her elbow into his nose. He jerked back, put a finger to his face, and came away with a spot of blood. The bed rocked slowly.

  “I said don’t.” Her perfect, dark eyebrows furrowed. She sat up straight, holding her chin high.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, a slow smile coming to his lips again.

  “Brophy—”

  He leapt on top of her, pushing her down and tickling her again. She tried to fight back, but he pinned her arms and legs.

  “No! Dammit, I’m serious!” She giggled, wrapping up into a ball as he attacked. He didn’t give up until she was laughing in his arms.

  “Hush,” Brophy whispered. “They’ll hear you.” And tickled her some more. She laughed like a little girl.

  Eventually, they collapsed to the bed. Brophy smiled at the queen, and she shoved his face away.

  “I’ll have you thrown in the Wet Cells for this,” she said.

  “How long has it been since you laughed?” Brophy asked.

  The joy left her face. “Too long, Brophy, too long.” She kissed him on the chest and sat up. He reached for her again, but she shook her head, her short silken hair in disarray. Quietly, she slipped to the floor, barely rocking the platform.

  He watched her naked back as she crossed the room to her robe. He wanted to jump from the bed and kneel at her feet, tell her how he felt, but he kept his silence.

  She lifted her robe from the floor. With a flick of her wrist, the light, feathered garment flared about her shoulders and settled into place, covering her glorious body.

  The queen touched a spot on the wall and a crack appeared. She turned back, and her smile made him feel like he was drinking Siren’s Blood, but it disappeared the moment she looked down. “I will come back again,” she whispered. “As soon as I can.”

  And she was gone. The wall closed without a sound. Brophy lay back, staring at the moonlit sky through the open square above him. He wondered how he could feel so wonderful and so horrible at the same time.

  16

  SHARA LIMPED down the sinuous tunnel. The cavernous labyrinth had become a prison cell. She’d been lost for hours, and her torch was nearly burned out.

  She could barely walk. Every step was a little agony, a petty torture. Her memories haunted her, awake or asleep. She tried to use her Zelani training to control them, but the power was gone. Her sexual feelings had fled beyond recall.

  She had been in the Heart for ten days now. Over and over she had done the exercises the Sisters had taught her. Over and over she tried to cut the thread Victeris had woven into her mind. She relived her graduation so many times. She remembered it backward. She remembered it at a frenetic speed and as slow as if she and Victeris had been underwater. She pulled the color out of the room. She relived it upside down. She repeated his words over and over in her head until they bored her. His hook had been removed, his power shattered and broken. She was free.

  Free to limp down a dark hallway, lost and alone. That was what Victeris had left her. He had used her up, stolen everything she wanted in the world. She couldn’t call the magic. Her willpower was fickle and weak. She was nobody.

  Only one thing gave her hope, like an apple dangled before a broken-down horse. Shara had discovered something crucial during her time in the Heart, a possible key to Victeris. That night in the pools, Victeris never once reached his climax. That time and all the other times as well. He never had an orgasm, not once.

  This one thing stood out to her like a glowing moon. Why would he do that? Why would
he refrain? Victeris, though perverted and dark, was a model of self-control. His every action had significance, so what did this mean?

  Shara had been his prisoner for more than a month. He visited her every night, but she was not pregnant. Zelani were taught methods to avoid conception, but Shara hadn’t used those techniques during her imprisonment. She should be carrying his child right now, but she wasn’t.

  Her revelation came quickly when she thought about it. The man must have gone decades without release. That was why he was so powerful. If Shara could shatter his control, she could do to him what he’d done to her.

  The idea stayed alight in her mind like a torch in the dark, but it was a fool’s hope. She would need her full powers to fight him, and those powers were gone, her will destroyed. She couldn’t even find her way out of this damned hole in the ground.

  Shara heard a noise behind her. She turned to see a light flickering behind a patch of stalagmites. A figure emerged, and Shara quickly limped away.

  “Shara, wait!” Baelandra’s voice echoed through the chamber.

  With a sigh that verged on a sob, Shara stopped. She couldn’t outrun the Sister. She couldn’t outrun a snail.

  Baelandra drew alongside her, breathing lightly. She glanced at Shara’s dying torch, at the shawl covering her shoulders. Shara couldn’t tell what the woman was thinking. A month ago, people’s deepest desires would have been laid out on a plate. But no more.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” Baelandra said. The torchlight played on her lustrous red hair, flickered across her features. “We were worried. We thought that—”

  “That the madness had returned? That Victeris had called me, and I had to go to him?” Shara said.

  Baelandra’s expression softened. After a long moment, she asked, “Did he?”

  Shara closed her eyes, managed to open them again without tears. “No.”

  A flicker of confusion crossed Baelandra’s face. “Shara, you don’t have to run away like a thief. You are not a prisoner here.”

  “I know.” She hung her head, feeling like a little girl. A little girl with skinned knees and pig shit on her feet. Crawling naked through the muck.

  A tear did come this time, and she looked away. She rubbed her skinned arms. She couldn’t even master her own thoughts. Everywhere she turned, she came back to Victeris.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just didn’t want to have this conversation.”

  “The conversation where I convince you not to go?” Baelandra asked.

  “Yes, that one.”

  “How does it go?”

  “You tell me that I’m still too injured, and you are right. You tell me it’s too dangerous, and you are right. And you tell me to wait for the right moment before I face Victeris, and you are right.”

  “And you say?” Baelandra asked gently, standing small and beautiful in the light from her torch.

  More tears came and Shara didn’t try to stop them. It was useless. “I say there are fifty students in that Zelani school,” she sobbed. “Eight of them are on the verge of graduating. Maeli or Gwynen could be going through that damned ritual with him right now. They may have already gone through it. I can’t let that happen, can’t let him do that to anyone else.”

  The muscles of Baelandra’s delicate jaw clenched, and her eyes glinted. “Tell me.”

  Shara wiped her eyes. “Tell you what?”

  “What your plan is and how I can help you.”

  With a sob, Shara threw her arms around Baelandra, and the little woman hugged her back tightly. “I need something before I face him. Something you can’t give me.”

  “Come then,” Baelandra said. “I’ll take you where you can get what you need.”

  Baelandra and Shara wended their way through the underground maze. Twice, the Sister of Autumn stopped and opened a hidden doorway by touching the stone on her chest. Shara could never have escaped from this place on her own.

  Baelandra came to a ladder that led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. They both climbed into a room filled with endless rows of costumes.

  “Is this a theater?” Shara asked, running a finger down the racks of clothes. Masks lined a shelf over the costumes. Demons leered down at her. Feathered faces. A jocular fool. A lion’s head. Soldier’s helmets.

  “Yes, the Blue Lily, in the Night Market.”

  Shara and Baelandra picked through the costumes, finally deciding on a poor man’s ragged cloak and rough-spun tunic. Baelandra helped her change into it. When they had finished, the Sister stood back and gave her a critical eye.

  “You look old and decrepit.”

  “That is how I feel.”

  Baelandra leaned in and gave her a quick hug. “May the power of the Seasons and the luck of the sailing stars go with you,” she murmured.

  “Thank you, Bae. Thank you for everything.”

  Baelandra hesitated, then said, “Can I ask you a question before you leave?”

  “I know what you are going to ask, and the answer is no. I’m not going to kill him. Not yet.”

  Shara looked to Baelandra. The petite redheaded woman nodded, her eyes aflame. Shara squeezed the Sister’s hand.

  Baelandra returned to the trapdoor and descended into the darkness. Shara slid the rug over the top and left the Blue Lily.

  She limped through the Night Market as an old man, a cowl pulled low over her face. A month ago, she would have walked naked, free as a dolphin slipping through the water. She would have appeared as everyone and anyone. A Zelani needed no disguise.

  She worked her way through the empty streets. It was two hours before noon and the Night Market was nearly deserted. She paused in a doorway and checked to see if she was being followed. Baelandra warned that some of the exits from the Heart might be watched. There was no way Shara could be sure.

  Finally, she reached the Scarlet Heart and walked cautiously through the open doorway into the common room. The remains of a roasted pig hung on a spit over a huge fire pit. A few coals burned in what must have been a raging blaze last night. Shara stared at the pig. Once again she saw herself crawling through the filth. Closing her eyes, she turned away.

  An old cleaning woman bearing a soapy bucket and a scrub brush walked through a swinging kitchen door. The matron set down the bucket and put her hands on her hips.

  “Sorry, old man.” She shook her head. “We’re not giving out scraps anymore. Can’t feed ourselves or our customers with all the food rationing.” She frowned. “It’ll only get worse, too, when the Physendrians attack. Mark my words.” The woman shook her head again, picking up the bucket. “You think those idiots would learn. Ain’t an army in the world can bring down Ohndarien’s walls.”

  Shara pulled back her hood. “I’m not here for food. I’m here to see a couple of old friends.”

  The woman’s lips pulled together like a wrinkled prune. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who would your friends be?”

  “Gedge and Reela. They were former Zelani students. I understand they have come to work here.”

  The old woman’s face softened. “Why the tears, child?”

  “I just…” Shara drew a shaky breath. “I need to see my friends, that’s all.”

  The cleaning woman pointed with one crooked finger. “Up the stairs, third door on the left. They’ll still be sleeping.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Seasons preserve you, child. The Wheel keeps turning. All sorrow will pass.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  The old woman winked. “I didn’t reach this age by being wrong about such things.” She turned back to her work.

  Shara climbed the steps of the elegant brothel. The lacquered oak banister and paintings on the wall were a stark contrast to the seedy whorehouse where she’d been kept so recently.

  Her fist trembled as she raised it to the door and knocked. Three quick raps. There was no answer. An unreasoning panic gripped her, and she turned to go just as a sleepy voice answered.

 
“Yes?”

  That was Reela’s voice. Shara stopped, put a hand on the old wood of the door.

  “Is someone there?” Gedge asked. His familiar voice sparked the courage within her. She opened the door and slipped inside the immense bedroom. It opened to a balcony that overlooked the bay. The two failed Zelani students lay arm in arm on the bed, draped in a white cloth.

  Reela sat up suddenly. “Shara? By the Seasons! Is that you?” She jumped up, not bothering to cover herself, and ran to her friend, throwing her arms around Shara. Reela hugged her tight for a long moment. Shara could not return the hug and Reela slowly backed away, searching Shara’s eyes.

  “Reela,” Shara began, but found it difficult to speak past the lump in her throat. “I…”

  “Come,” Reela said quietly, taking her by the hands. “Come sit down on the bed.” Gedge jumped out of bed to help. He was bigger than she remembered, with thicker shoulders, stronger arms. His voice had deepened, and there was more hair on his chest. She had known his body so well, once upon a time.

  “Shara,” he asked. “What are you wearing? You look as if you’ve been starved and beaten.”

  “We heard you left the city,” Reela said, “with the ambassador to Ohohhom.”

  They sat her down on the bed. She tried to speak, to tell them what had really happened, but she couldn’t. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Gedge put his big arms around her. “Everything will be all right.”

  Reela joined them, sitting on Shara’s other side and hugging her tightly. Her head barely came up to Shara’s shoulder.

  “It’s Victeris, isn’t it? He’s done this to you,” Gedge asked.

  Shara nodded. “He took…He took everything from me.”

  Gedge stroked her hair like he had so long ago. Reela kissed a tear off her cheek.

  “Then we will give it back to you,” Reela said.

  “We’ll give it all back and then some.”

  SHARA AWOKE that night to the sounds of music and laughter. She smiled and pulled the pillow tighter to her chest. The horrors of her torture were distant now, covered over by the exquisite love Reela and Gedge had poured into her. The scabs on her knees didn’t hurt as badly as they had that morning. The scabs on her heart were healing, too.