by Grace Draven
She finally stumbled into a clearing and exhaled a huge sigh. Here, the air was still humid but not so suffocating. Her gladness at being out of the trees died as she got her first look at Tineroth.
A vast courtyard surrounded by palaces and temples of breathtaking height and grace stretched before her. They were feats of architectural mastery, and Imogen doubted anything built in the Berberi kingdom surpassed them. Berberi, however, wasn’t a dead kingdom.
The majesty of Tineroth lay in ruin, its edifices crumbling derelicts of an age only remembered in legend, its very existence doubted by more jaded folk. The slim, delicate spires that had beckoned her from the far side of the gorge were nothing more than hollow relics. Tineroth reminded Imogen of Niamh—a once beautiful woman diminished by an insidious sickness.
“Welcome to Tineroth.” Her voice fell flat in the thick air.
There were none to greet her or give her a tour, and for that, Imogen was heartily thankful. Tineroth didn’t feel haunted, but that sense of being observed refused to fade, and she eyed her surroundings closely.
The city offered numerous places to shelter, places with a roof and likely a dry floor, but she was hesitant to explore them. Who knew how sound they were? The thought of being buried under a pile of timber and stone that collapsed on her while she slept made her shudder. Death came to everyone, but she didn’t want to die here.
She journeyed deeper into the city, suddenly glad for the light that refused to leave her and now circled her feet in a glowing corona. She felt like a walking oil lamp, but it was better than groping her way through the dark with only a weak torch and limited fuel to light her way.
The courtyard led to a line of roofless cloisters, and she followed their outer walls until she reached a much smaller garden surrounded by low-roofed structures that might have been private temples. The windows of each building looked toward the courtyard with an eyeless stare, and she tried not to imagine what might be following her progress from those black recesses.
The garden sported a fountain in the center, dry except for a small, stagnant puddle that gathered in the shallow bowl. A new worry joined an ever growing list in Imogen’s mind. She had a good supply of fresh water in the two flasks stored in her sack, but she’d have to be careful not to waste it. She’d seen no clear pools or streams in the dark wood or the city so far.
The fountain was not the only statuary in the garden. Straight paths cut from the same stone that paved the bridge spread like the spokes of a wheel in the garden. They led to a center hub on which sat a catafalque of white marble stained green with lichen.
The effigy of a crowned monarch, also carved of marble, lay supine atop the bier. A Tineroth king, forever bound in stone, rested in eternal state. The light at Imogen’s feet cast a golden glow across the marble, and for a moment the stone shimmered in the garden’s darkness, illuminating the king’s features.
Imogen gasped and took an involuntary step back, signing a protective ward with a gloved hand. The marble visage held an unearthly beauty. Either this king had been blessed with looks that made stars weep with envy, or the sculptor had chiseled the face of a god on a man. No one feature stood out. All came together in perfect synchronicity—finely carved cheekbones, a sharp jaw and long aristocratic nose, a sensual mouth set in sleep. The closed eyes were tilted at the outer corners, and a marble crown bound hair that fell across wide shoulders.
These things didn’t make her recoil. For all that divine beauty, there was a cruelty as well. If the sculptor had been unduly kind in carving features so exquisite, he’d also been unduly harsh in capturing a malice that ran deep and corrupted the very stone into which it was carved.
She turned away, unable to look any longer at the king’s profane beauty. Instead, she focused her gaze on the arcane inscriptions chiseled on the side of the catafalque. Like those of the statue on the bridge, they were written in a language she’d not studied under Niamh and doubted existed any longer outside Tineroth.
“My gods, Mother,” she murmured. “What is this cursed place?”
The sudden icy splash of fear against her spine was her only warning of attack before the cold kiss of metal touched her. She froze in a half-crouch, her eyes nearly crossed as she looked down at her warped reflection in the flat of an ax blade. Its razor edge rested steady against her throat, promising a quick and bloody end if she so much as breathed the wrong way.
To her left, a voice—male, soft with an icy humor—spoke. “I think the more important question is: who are you?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Cededa had not expected this—a lone woman wrapped as if she was prepared for burial, striding confidently across the Yinde Bridge to enter Tineroth’s boundaries. The mercenaries and thieves who periodically invaded the ancient city to steal her treasures tended to travel in packs as large as sixty but never less than ten and never alone.
He held the blade of his glaive against her graceful throat, noting the familiar markings of a Tineroth key scarred into her neck. Well, well, this was telling.
She didn’t answer his question, her gaze locked on his blade, her body bent and still as the effigy she faced. Only the shallow rise and fall of her chest betrayed her terror. Cededa admired her composure in the face of her fear. He eased the blade’s sharp edge a fraction away from her skin.
“I’m no longer in the habit of cutting a throat until I’ve had an answer, so you’re safe to speak. Who are you?” he repeated.
Her throat worked in a convulsive swallow. “Imogen,” she said in a shaking voice. “I seek the help of the Undying King, Cededa the Fair.”
A vague anguish pierced his faded soul at that last title, one he hadn’t heard in four thousand years. His hands clenched tighter on the polearm. “Then you seek two different people. Cededa the Fair died even before Tineroth did.”
“Cededa the Butcher then.”
What power did this woman’s words have that they had awakened emotions made dim by the interminable years of immortality? Again, grief sounded a dull cord inside him, followed by the bitterness that had remained a constant companion.
“Ah, well, that’s a different matter entirely. Why would you seek the help of someone so named?” She intrigued him, as did her responses.
“Believe me, I’ve asked myself the same thing since I started this journey.” Her voice no longer trembled, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “May I please straighten? This isn’t exactly the most comfortable position to ask for help or plead for my life.”
Her remark startled a grin from him. Usually his only conversations with visitors to Tineroth were limited to screams of pain and a snarled epitaph of “May your soul rot,” from him. This was new, and if he was honest, delightful.
His admiration for her composure grew. He lowered the glaive to his side, confident that whatever trick she might pull to attack or escape him would fail. She straightened and turned to face him. Cededa didn’t flinch when her eyes widened before she looked away. He knew what she saw—the living image of the effigy on the bier in all his corrupted glory. Immortality had left its mark, as had the sins of his distant past.
“Why would the name Imogen mean anything to Cededa?” He waited for some outlandish story to spill from her lips.
Her gaze flashed back to him and this time stayed. She’s pretty he observed silently. Once one got past the layers of swaddling pretending to be clothes. She didn’t possess the great beauty of his long dead wives and concubines, but he would have noticed her had she walked the corridors of his palace—if not for her face then surely for that stately demeanor she wore as naturally as he wore his armor.
Her chin tilted in faint challenge. “My name means nothing, but Niamh of Leids should mean a great deal to the man who owes her a life debt.”
Memories cascaded in his mind’s eye. Wrenching agony, Tineroth’s endless screaming in his head as it called its last living son home, a woman’s beautiful face as she bent over him and spoke soothingly while
he lay in a soft bed that smelled of sunlight.
“My fair savior with the red hair and witch’s eyes. If ever a woman should have been made queen, it was Niamh.”
Cededa didn’t flatter but spoke truthfully. Niamh had saved him once, not from dying, but from complete, gibbering madness.
“I repay my debts,” he said flatly. “But you are not Niamh of Leids.”
Again, that lifted chin and a spark of challenge in his visitor’s gray eyes. “No, I’m her daughter.”
CHAPTER SIX
Imogen couldn’t help but gawk. Her attacker was the effigy's living twin, only far more painful to behold. The terrible beauty, trapped in marble, was no artist trick but a true reflection of the man standing before her, his malevolence increased tenfold by a piercing gaze that pinned her in place.
Flaxen hair fell past wide shoulders and framed a stern, pallid face. Clad in an indigo tunic and trousers overlaid by a tarnished chainmail hauberk, pauldrons and vambraces, he was heavily armed and armored. A short sword and hand axe were strapped at his narrow waist, and he casually cradled the hook-back glaive whose blade had lightly kissed her neck. Judging by the manner of his dress, he’d not come to talk but to do battle.
Imogen wanted to bow beneath the weight of his scrutiny. He may not be her king, but he was still a king if his resemblance to the effigy was anything to judge by. And not only the king but one possessing the title of The Butcher.
Her back teeth clacked together in a rising chatter as he shifted his stance, and those peculiar eyes narrowed even more. So a light a blue they almost faded into the surrounding whites, his eyes reminded her of the blind Blessed—those whose milky gaze saw into the past and the future but never what was before them. Unlike them, Cededa took in the here and now with a predatory gaze. He was as strange and beautifully eerie as the city he guarded. And just as extraordinary. If he’d been human once, he wasn’t now.
Had she not watched him as closely as he watched her, she might have missed the brief softening in his features at her mention of Niamh. That softness vanished almost as soon as it appeared, and his mouth stretched into a sneer masquerading as a smile.
One eyebrow rose, and those eyes skimmed her, doubt lurking in the blue ice irises. Imogen knew she fell short in comparison to her mother. Neither tall nor curved in the ways that tempted a man, she didn’t possess Niamh’s natural vibrancy or sorcerous abilities. Any who met her mother and then her daughter would conclude that the younger was but a weak shadow of the elder.
“Where is your mother now?” he asked.
The grief resting heavy in her heart since Niamh’s passing swelled. Imogen blinked away threatening tears. “She died.”
The sneer faded, and his stern features gentled. “I’ve lived a long time and amassed countless regrets. I truly regret your loss. Your mother was an exceptional woman. The world is poorer without her.”
Stunned by the unexpected sympathy, Imogen squeaked out a “Thank you.” She glanced down at the effigy and then again at the living king. The malice was still there, and the cruelty—stamped into the set of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. She didn’t doubt he’d earned his ghastly title, but in that moment Cededa of Tineroth seemed almost human in his obvious admiration of Niamh.
That hint of humanity disappeared and the subtle stiffening in his shoulders revealed a growing impatience. “You have the key I gave her. State your business. I will help you in her name, if I can.”
Imogen touched the raised scars on her neck. Though she’d grown used to the warm tingling that remained unabated under her skin, she was eager to exorcise the key from her body. She could find her way back to the bridge and home without it. And she had no desire to seek out Tineroth a second time. She’d manage with her gloves and loneliness. There were worse things than a life of isolation.
“My mother gave me a pendant—silver with snake patterns that sometimes changed. She said you gave it to her as a means to find Tineroth if she needed.” She pulled aside the collar of her shirt to expose the length and breadth of the scars. “I made the mistake of putting it on. This is what happened. This and my vision changed.”
“You can see a lit path to the city.”
“Yes.”
“And now that you’re here?” His long fingers flexed on the glaive staff. An unnamed fear shot through Imogen. He'd made no untoward movement, nor did his expression change, but a sense of menace permeated the space between them. She knew, instinctively, her answer determined her fate.
She swiped at the scars with agitated fingers. “I want this thing out of me. I’ve fulfilled its purpose and returned it to its master.” She sighed. “I made a mistake by succumbing to vanity, and I’m sorry for it. I just want to go home.” The desperation in her plea made her wince, but she didn't look away from Cededa's pale eyes.
He cocked his head to the side, clearly puzzled. "What an odd creature you are."
His remark robbed her of words, and she gaped at him.
He drew closer, smiling faintly when she stepped back to keep the same distance between them. "You might be here to return my key, but Niamh sent you for another reason." His gaze touched on her gloved hands, the layers of protective clothing. “Why are you dressed this way? I’ve seen people bundled less in the middle of winter. It’s spring in your world, yes?”
“Just barely,” she muttered. Cededa’s lips twitched. The itchy sensation at her neck spread to the rest of her body, and she longed to shed the heavy clothing she wore. In the damp heat, her shift stuck to her like a second skin, and the wool gown and cloak hung on her in sodden rags. She had no doubt if she’d kept the veil down over her face, she would have fainted from the heat by now.
“I always dress this way.” She paused, hesitant to reveal what Niamh had religiously pounded into her about keeping secrets—until now. “I am cursed.” Curiosity flickered in his gaze at her statement. “Whatever I touch or touches me with bare skin dies. I’m garbed for the protection of any who might cross my path.” She laced her fingers together and anchored her gaze to his. “Niamh sent me to you in the hopes you could break this curse.”
She took another cautious step back as Cededa went rigid, his fingers clenched so tightly around the glaive staff, the skin of his knuckles looked ready to split. Something ignited in those cold eyes.
Imogen’s fearful cry of “Stop!” went unheeded as he dropped the glaive and closed the distance between them.
“Don’t touch me!” She struggled in his grip, overwhelmed by his sudden embrace and frightened by the expectation he'd drop lifeless at her feet. He couldn’t help her if he was dead, either with the key or her curse.
A cool, bare hand grasped her chin, digging into her cheek to hold her still. He needn’t have bothered. Imogen froze, eyes wide as she stared into a colorless gaze blazing with euphoric wonder.
Moments passed with the slowness of days to her shocked senses, and still the king held her, very much alive and obviously immune to her lethal power.
“Why?” he asked softly.
“Why what?” Her mind was mud, too stunned to accept what her eyes showed her.
“Why shouldn’t I touch you?”
“Because you’ll die.” Her thoughts reeled, blotting out reason and even simple intellect. He was alive. His strong, fine-boned hand caressed her jaw, the underside of her chin, her cheek, before coming to rest against her collarbone.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, roaring in a rush of blood as great as the river below Tineroth’s ensorcelled bridge. This king, ancient and nearly forgotten, touched her skin to skin, and that heated contact was both agony and ecstasy. Her knees almost buckled as he explored the patterns of the Tineroth key welted under her flesh with a callused palm. Deprived of another’s unadorned touch all her life, Imogen drowned in the pleasure of his caress.
"Sweet poison," he said in a reverent voice. "I am dying. Merciful gods be thanked. After four thousand relentless years, I am dying."
CHAPTER
SEVEN
“No one here, Doyen.” The soldier bowed before Dradus, his gaze on his boots.
Dradus growled under his breath, his anger bubbling to the surface. “Someone tell me how a young woman with no magic and no woodsman’s skills managed to walk into the forest and disappear without any one of you imbeciles noticing?”
The two scouts tasked with keeping an eye on the witch’s hovel hunched away from his wrath and said nothing.
Dradus slashed his riding crop down on the shoulder of the scout closest to him. The man flinched away with a gasp and clutched his injured arm. “Well?” the mage said. “I’m waiting.”
The unharmed scout stepped farther out of striking range before answering. “She must have left when we were in the village,” he mumbled.
Were he not so disliked by Hayden’s army and the general populace of Castagher, Dradus would cheerfully turn both men into torches with a few carefully recited spells. Such an action, however, guaranteed he’d never make it back to the city alive. This troop was loyal to its king, not him. Any unfortunate accident might happen on the return journey. The soldiers assigned to help him find the witch and Varn’s daughter would offer platitudes of false regret and swear each other to silence over their roles in his demise.
He clamped down on his wrath and spoke between clenched teeth. “You were supposed to keep an eye on them and their house, not running your hands up an ale wench’s skirts in the nearby town.” The soldier who offered up an explanation opened his mouth again. Dradus raised the crop in warning. “Don’t bother, unless you want a taste of what I delivered to your companion. You said the witch is dead. Buried or burned?”
“Buried. Not far from here, beneath a big tree. It’s easy to spot. Whoever buried her made sure animals couldn’t dig her up.”
“Well we can. Take me there.” Dradus grinned as both scouts paled. “Pray her spirit won’t hold it against you when you bare her bones to daylight.”
