by K. C. May
“Let’s try the rune and make sure it works,” Gavin said. “Then we can worry about whether you can re-etch it.”
“It’ll be good to have Hennah back,” Daia said, shooting the former battler a bitter glance. “She’s particularly foul-mouthed. More so than you were.”
With that, Hennah hurled a string of curses. Though they were muffled by the gag, Gavin had little trouble making out the words.
“I’m no better than a scum-stinking, pigeon-shitting goat- what?” Daia asked with a mischievous gleam in her eye.
Hennah cursed louder, turning red-faced as she struggled against the ropes that bound her. Those huge eyes of hers looked like they might pop out of their sockets from the pressure in her skull. “Fornicating, snot-sucking hussy! Your frigid mother eats shit for money.”
Gavin chuckled at the raging storm brewing within the formerly mild-mannered battler. “Leave her alone. She might burst something.”
Daia snorted a laugh. “All right. What do we need to do first?”
“Lend me your strength while I summon the Baron.” He walked a few yards into the woods, away from the hissing and cursing Hennah, so he could concentrate.
“He might be as dangerous here as he was in his own realm. Let’s be on our guard,” Daia said as she and Cirang followed. The two women drew their swords.
Gavin didn’t think that was likely, but it was better to be safe. He pulled out the summoning rune, cracked his knuckles, and drew from Daia’s conduit. “Awright. Here we go.” He shut his eyes.
With the Baron’s face in his mind, he thought Baron Hexx Gnorglsht, and whispered, “Whemorard.”
A crack appeared in the air before him, widening to display that infinite blackness that Gavin had seen last time. A booted foot stepped through, followed by the rest of him.
“Welcome to my realm, Baron,” Gavin said.
The Baron stumbled and caught himself, looking around with an expression of confusion that changed quickly to fear. His white hair looked more otherworldly here than it had in his own realm, as did his clothing—the golden trousers and short, black tunic that showed a couple inches of his hairy belly.
“You,” the Baron said. His face lost its fearful pallor and reddened. “What is the meaning of this?” He looked at the two swords pointed at his chest, at the women who held them, at the trees of the forest surrounding them. “What have you done? This... this isn’t—”
“Your realm?” Gavin asked. “No, it’s not. It’s mine, and here, you’re bound to me. Here, you’ll obey my command. Show me your hands.”
The Baron held his hands out, palms up. Daia’s ring adorned the longest finger in the middle.
“Give her back the ring you stole.”
“No, it’s mine now.” Despite his refusal, the Baron tugged the ring off and dropped it into Daia’s outstretched hand. “What? No, you cannot compel me. Who do you think you are? Give that back. I claimed it fairly.”
“There was nothing fair about it. Your wizards were trying to kill us.”
The Baron gaped at him, but only for a short moment. His expression quickly turned irate. “You invaded my home and killed a dozen of my Clout. Would you not have done the same to defend yourself had I attacked your guards?”
“I only invaded your home after you abducted my champion. Your wizards almost drained her essence.”
“If you seek retribution for the actions of my Callers, why aren’t you accusing them?”
Gavin sighed. “Not retribution. You’re here because I need your help.”
The Baron smiled haughtily. “And why would I help you?”
“Because you got no choice. Come.” Gavin walked back to Hennah, who was now quiet, watching with wary eyes.
“What the hell’s wrong with him?” Hennah asked through her gag. “He got some kind of disease?”
The Baron followed obediently, with Daia’s and Cirang’s sword tips at his back to ensure his cooperation. “How dare you? I’m not your dog to command.”
“How do you want to do this?” Daia asked.
The Baron looked at her with an annoyed snarl. “What did she say?”
“Sit him down next to her,” Gavin said, gesturing to the ground beside Hennah. “I think it’d be easier to do this if they’re close together.”
“No,” Hennah said, trying to shuffle away on her arse. “It’s probably catchy.”
“You heard him,” Daia said, pushing the Baron from behind. “Sit down.”
The Baron stumbled forward and shot her a glare over his shoulder. “Don’t touch me, filth. What kind of idiot can’t even speak properly?” He examined Hennah quickly—and she him—as he lowered himself daintily to the ground. “These clothes are too fine for sitting on dirt. You’ll compensate me for them.”
“You’re lucky I don’t take them as spoils and send you back naked,” Gavin said.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Be glad they won’t fit me.” Gavin drew Aldras Gar and replaced the summoning rune in his hand with the rune of exchange that Bahnna had crafted for him. Now came the hard part, the part where he’d finish with two dead bodies if he got this wrong. “I need to concentrate.” He closed his eyes and took hold of Daia’s conduit. The words Carthis had taught him came to mind.
“What are you doing?” the Baron asked, startling Gavin out of his concentration. “I’m a very busy man. Now, if you don’t mind, I demand you send me home.”
“If I said your life depended on you not saying another word, would you shut up?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I would, though it would ease my mind if you sent me home instead.”
Gavin sighed. “Your life depends on you shutting the hell up. Now.”
“Fine.” The Baron pressed his lips together.
“What’re you doing?” Hennah asked through her gag.
“You shut up too. I’m trying to save your life.”
He closed his eyes once more and concentrated, using his gems to refine his focus. He saw their two dark hazes. They looked identical, with the same balance of kho and zhi and the same swirl pattern. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought they belonged to the same person. The words of the enchantment came to him, and something urged him to speak them, along with the rune’s name. “Paria escamibar. Kembishyrad.”
The two hazes began to flow towards one another, like smoke through an open window. As the hazes drained from their own bodies, they also filled the other’s. This was easier and faster than the Guardians’ way of storing them into gems first, and much less time-sensitive. The process took only minutes.
“Oy! What did you do to me?” the Baron asked. “I’m dizzy.”
“It’ll pass,” Gavin said, standing.
Hennah narrowed her eyes at him. “What was that?”
“You’ll see in a minute. Awright, Baron.” He took the Baron by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “You can go home now. You’re released.”
Like before, a line of blackness opened into a hole, and the Baron was drawn into it, his face registering alarm. The hole snapped shut, and Gavin was once again alone with the three women battlers.
“Do you want to get some sleep?” Daia asked. “That must’ve been exhausting.”
It was. His whole body ached, as if he’d spent hours with every muscle clenched tight. He put the rune away, noticing that its shape was imprinted on his palm, so tightly had he gripped it. He rolled up his bedroll. “I want to get this done. I want my battler back. Let’s go to the lake. I need something to put some water in.”
“We have the leather container you used to mix the putty in,” Cirang said. She untied the knot in the rope and unwound it from around Hennah’s body. “Perhaps you can use that.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Yes, I can.”
She retrieved the container from her knapsack and gave it to him. Gavin took it to the stream, set it on a rock, and put two cupped hands’ worth of water into the container. He set the Nal Disi into i
t.
“Guardians, how long will it take to leech enough essence into this water to change Hennah’s khozhi balance?”
“We would estimate four or five weeks, Emtor.”
His jaw dropped. “Weeks? What the hell?”
“You may draw some of it out,” one of the Guardians’ voices said.
“No,” said the other. “We won’t allow it.”
“One moment, Emtor, while we come to an agreement,” they said together.
Gavin paced along the stream, his feet leaving huge, overlapping prints in the soft earth. They couldn’t stop him from putting the Nal Disi in the water, and so what difference did it make whether he let the essence color the water over weeks or pull it out over a few seconds? They were just being difficult. No, he reminded himself, only one of them was, the one whose essence was kho-bent.
“You may draw enough of our essence out to treat the water for your companion,” they said. “You desire to reverse the khozhi of everyone previously affected by our essence. We wish to aid you in this. It is a small sacrifice on our part.”
“My thanks.”
He squatted in front of the container and put his hands on the Nal Disi. He saw the essence within and pulled gently, the way he had when he returned their leaked essence to the gem at the wellspring.
“That is sufficient,” they told him. “The essence in this water isn’t as concentrated as it was in the wellspring. Your companion must drink roughly a spoonful to reverse her khozhi balance.” The water now had a mystical sparkle to it, deceiving in its beauty.
He lifted the Nal Disi out and set it back in his knapsack. “Bring her over here. I don’t want to spill any o’this.”
Cirang and Daia each took one of Hennah’s arms and hauled her to her feet. The big battler struggled and screamed through the gag, fighting with everything she had. Daia reached back and pulled hard on her shackled wrists, gritting her teeth.
Hennah’s eyes went wide, and she stumbled forward. “Ow, ow, ow, Stop, you bloody trull. Owww!” Daia and Cirang forced their prisoner to her knees, and Cirang pulled the gag out of her mouth.
“Stop it,” Hennah shouted. “I’m not drinking that, you filthy bastard. You can’t make me.”
Daia pulled Hennah backwards by the hair so that she was practically lying down atop her own calves and feet. “Pour it down her nose, then.”
“She’ll drown,” Cirang said.
“No, she won’t. Some will trickle down her throat and she can cough out the rest.”
Gavin made as if to tip the container over Hennah’s face. He didn’t intend to pour the water down her nose, but if he were in her position, he’d agree to drink it rather than take that risk.
“All right,” Hennah screeched. “I’ll drink it.”
“One swallow’s all you need,” he said.
They pushed her back upright, and Gavin offered the edge of the leather bowl to her, squeezing it to form a mouth-sized lip. Cirang pinched her nose shut while Daia held her still. Hennah’s throat bobbed. When Gavin pulled the container away, they watched her with anticipation.
Her large, widely set hazel eyes changed from a hostile squint to a horrified gape. She lowered her gaze, and every muscle in her face collapsed.
He checked her haze: it was back to its natural balance. It worked. The procedure bloody worked. “By the sword of King Arek! That was it. That’s the cure.”
Gavin had what he needed to put Feanna back the way she was and save his unborn son. Relief made his hands quiver, and joy made them feel weightless. He bent his head and wiped the wetness from his eyes. His entire body began to tremble. He rose to his feet and walked out his excitement.
“Oh, my lord,” Hennah said. “I’m sorry, You Majesty. I said some rude, unkind things.” Her voice trailed off in a whisper.
“We’re glad to have you back,” Daia said, helping Hennah to her feet while Cirang unshackled her wrists.
“Glad?” Gavin asked. Though she wasn’t much shorter than he was, he wrapped his arms around Hennah’s waist, picked her up, and twirled her around. “We’re bloody thrilled!” He gave Daia and Cirang each a twirl as well, and soon everyone was laughing.
Everyone except Hennah. She hung her head. “How can you forgive me for what I’ve said?”
“Because the fault wasn’t yours,” he told her.
“It was mine,” Cirang said, “and I’m sorry.”
“It was an illness o’sorts,” Gavin said, “and now you’re cured. You can never get that sickness again. There’s something I need to know, Hennah.” He let his smile drop for this moment of seriousness, though it wasn’t easy to do. His mood was in the clouds.
“Yes, my liege,” she whispered, her head still bowed.
“Will you pledge fealty to me now, in front o’these witnesses?”
She snapped her eyes up to his. Her lips curved into a dim smile. “Yes, my king, gladly. My sword, my service, and my life are yours for as long as you’ll have me.” She went to one knee and bowed her head.
He tapped her shoulder, accepting her pledge. That was one. A hundred more to go. He measured the leftover water with his eye. There was perhaps a half-skin’s worth, and it would be good to have it available when he needed it. Plus, tied to his own knapsack, he could keep people safe from it. He drank what was left of the clean water in his waterskin, shook out the leftover droplets, and then carefully poured the remaining tainted water into it. He pushed the cork deeply into its top and tested it to be sure it wouldn’t come loose without some effort.
“We should mark that skin somehow,” Daia said, ever the cautious one. She scooped up a fingerful of dark earth near the lake’s edge.
“Having it on my back isn’t mark enough for you? Who would dare drink from the king’s waterskin without asking?”
She smiled. “Good point, but I’d still prefer to mark it.”
He held it flat while she drew a bold X across its surface. A ghostly finger ran likewise over his soul.
Chapter 46
Feanna stood in the corner of the room and listened while Edan convinced Liera, her dearest friend in the world, to conspire against her. It was the ultimate betrayal. For a moment, she considered not leaving with Kaoque after all. Once Gavin returned home, Liera would more likely than not try to seduce him—her own brother-in-law. Feanna had captured a king’s heart, not Liera, and she would be damned if she stood by while some back-stabbing traitor-whore used her tears and over-played grief to steal him from her. He was hers, and she wouldn’t let anyone else have him.
“This evening, after supper, I’ll introduce you. Perhaps by then we’ll have found Feanna,” Edan said.
“Then you won’t need me?” Liera asked.
The idea of Liera, simple, homespun Liera, pretending to be majestic, elegant Feanna was not only ludicrous, it was offensive.
“I think it’s best that you play the part of Feanna either way. We stand less of a chance of offending him. The last thing Gavin needs is to return home to find his wife has started a war.”
The temptation was great to march right over there and tell that self-important weasel that she’d already set in motion a plan to bring peace to the two countries once and for all. How dare he assume she was so daft as to start a war? Yes, a war would be more interesting, but not at the expense of the honor and prestige she would receive for receiving the Mark of Zuhlys Fahn. And her tiny prince would be born into even more power than Gavin. A mother’s influence over her child in its formative years was powerful—far more so than a father’s. War was the last thing she would want. For now. Once she had the power of the two countries within her grasp, she would set her sights on grander achievements, many of which would undoubtedly require war.
She followed Edan around the palace for the rest of the day, delighting in his futile efforts to find her. On occasion, when he sat down to do some writing, she playfully knocked items off his desk. Jophet stormed into his office in the afternoon and reported that his guards had
n’t found a single trace of her. She put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Because the guards at the bridge hadn’t seen her try to leave the island, and none of the horses were missing from the stable or pasture behind it, they concluded that she was hiding somewhere on the island, and it was only a matter of time before they found her.
The most difficult moment was during supper, when the smell of food reminded her that she hadn’t eaten, and she had no reliable means to get food without being discovered. While the family dined, the children asked whether there’d been any word from their mother.
“Maybe the ghosts took her,” Iriel said. Feanna smiled, amused at the angst the simple question inspired.
She left Edan and Liera to field the questions and the tears of concern and the wild, childish speculations, and went in search of something left over and unattended in the kitchen. To her great fortune, the cook was preparing a tray, undoubtedly for the Cyprindians. When he turned away, she grabbed one of the plates and snuck off with it, sitting on a bench in the corner of the washroom. She had no silverware with which to eat it, but she didn’t care. She ate the meat first, tearing a chunk off the steak like a mountain lioness devouring its prey. Its juice ran down her fingers and across her hand on both sides, dribbling onto the lace cuff of her gown and staining it with streaks of pale brown. She scooped two fingersful of mashed potatoes and licked them off, chasing the food with a mouthful of bread. She should’ve grabbed some wine too. The dryness in her throat made her cough out half of her mouthful. Even from her seat, she heard the cook shouting curses over the missing plate. It occurred to her that she was eating like Gavin again, but it didn’t matter. No one was watching.
Finished, she wiped the grease off her chin and hands with the bottom of her skirt. What did it matter? No one could see her anyway. From there, she headed upstairs to observe the grand deceit as it played out.
Taria stood guard outside the guest chamber. Without Edan’s clomping boots to cover the sounds of Feanna’s rustling skirt and whispering slippers on the marble floor, she waited down the hall for the two of them to arrive. It wasn’t long before the two traitors climbed the grand staircase and walked past her. Liera was dressed in a pale-blue gown and frosted with diamonds and sapphires. She didn’t look like a queen, but neither did she look like a dead fletcher’s widow. Smiling with anticipation, Feanna fell into step behind them. Their knock upon the door was answered by an invitation to enter.
