Tainted (Lisen of Solsta Book 2)

by D. Hart St. Martin

  “The captain and I have firmed up the plan,” he said. “He’ll fill you in.”

  “How long will I stay in Thristas?” she asked.

  “He’ll bring you back in time for the Council session in May. He hopes to have you prepared by then to confront your brother. He tells me you’ve grasped the skills; you just need more practice.”

  “I’ve killed one man,” she countered. “What makes you think I couldn’t challenge my brother now?”

  The holder shook his head. “You need to heal. Hermit Teran was very clear. The possession left you weak physically and emotionally.”

  All bravado aside, Lisen was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded out here in the world. Back there in the infirmary, just a door away, the four rock walls had provided her with a sense of inner solidity. Now, out where she might at any moment run into others, she felt disconnected from her surroundings, this hallway alone potentially more space than her still slightly scattered soul could manage. But she would not let on. “So Korin will fill me in?”

  “Yes. And he’s assured me that he will let me know if anything happens while you’re out there.”

  “Sounds like the two of you have everything figured out.”

  “Not everything,” Nalin replied, “but everything we could think of. It’s all subject to change of course.”

  “Of course. Oh, and then there’s this.” She pulled the hermit ring from her middle finger and offered it to him.

  “I can’t take this,” he said.

  “Then give it to Hermit Teran. Tell him to hold on to it for me.” With no true connection to the hermits, other than the childhood that lay a lifetime ago for her, she still felt odd handing the ring over.

  “All right then,” Nalin said and took it. Then came a brittle silence to which Lisen surrendered first.

  “Well…I guess I should be going.” She felt there should be more to this but knew there wasn’t.

  “Yes, I suppose you should,” the holder replied.

  She didn’t know what she was looking for. Some acknowledgement of what they’d been through together? A magical word that would make the prospect of spending the rest of her life in this wretched world less unpleasant because he was in it?

  But the magic didn’t arrive, and at last she simply nodded and stepped past him down the hall. She’d nearly made it to the turn when he called out, “Lisen?”

  She turned back. Waiting. For the magic. “Yes?” She looked at him—this proud, golden holder of Felane with the deep blue eyes—and waited for him to speak.

  “May One Be, Lisen of Solsta.”

  Well, that shut her out pretty plainly, but it still required a response. So, after a brief hesitation, she said, “One Is, Nalin of Felane.” Then she turned again and left him there, alone, in the hall.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NAVIGATING THE VOIDS

  “Have you had any word about the fate of your other spy?” Ariel asked Lorain as they sat in the private dining room sharing lunch. Lorain looked up from the plate she seemed only able to fiddle with and stared at him. His pouch ached, and despite the fact that they slept apart now, he’d had nothing but restless nights since Lorain’s return from Jozan’s funeral in Seffa, when she’d told him she was pregnant. He was certain that she slept fine, and he was beginning to hate her for it.

  “My Liege?” she asked, an eyebrow raised, hinting at innocence.

  “We know what happened to Arspas, but what about the other one? What was the name?” He didn’t care about the name, so why had he asked? He couldn’t think straight, that was why. The dizzying subtle aroma emanating from her made him desire her, need her, more than ever before.

  “Lazlin,” Lorain replied, apparently ignorant of his discomfort. “Edres Lazlin. And no, I’ve heard nothing from her. Every day that goes by, it becomes more and more likely that Rosarel killed her and got rid of her body.”

  “Or she sold out to the other side.”

  “No. Not Lazlin. She knew I paid her more than she was worth, and she wasn’t worth much.”

  Ariel watched her continue to pick at her food. “What of Nalin and the necropath? Any idea where they’ve gotten to?”

  “It’ll be another couple of weeks before I hear from Rossla.”

  “And if this agent is lost as well?”

  Lorain reached across the table, but he pulled his hand away. “My Liege,” she said, but even she couldn’t soothe the annoyance that her presence produced, like an unscratchable itch. “There are always risks. I assure you. Nalin will be caught.”

  “I don’t care about Nalin. It’s the necropath I want, and I want her in custody now.”

  “Maybe you’d have more luck with the sooth. How long has it been since you talked to her? Do you want me to ‘encourage’ her?”

  “You mean Hermit Eloise? No,” he replied. “I have someone better qualified even than you, my sweet.” He would contact Opseth who had delivered the throne to him with her powers and who had also successfully unbalanced Eloise with word of the murder of Jozan Tuane, Eloise’s niece. Who else to further unhinge the sooth than the woman who had compromised Eloise’s confidence in the first place?

  Lorain sneered at Ariel, and he knew he’d insulted her by implying there was somebody better than she at making people talk. He wished he could explain about Opseth. Perhaps then Lorain would understand. But no, Opseth must remain his secret alone, at least for now.

  “Let me assure you, my Liege,” Lorain noted coldly, “that the agent I sent to Rossla has very specific orders. The necropath in custody and both she and Nalin brought back to Avaret for questioning.”

  Ariel rose from his chair at the end of the table and came around to her. “I know you think I’m obsessed with the necropath.” He reached her and sat down right next to her. “But you must understand. She was the last to have contact with my mother. No one at Solsta seems to know anything, so the necropath may be the only one who can tell me what happened. I need to know.”

  “And you will, my Liege,” Lorain snapped. Ariel pulled back a bit, surprised at her tone. Perhaps she was more affected by this pregnancy than she let on. She lowered her head, shook it twice slowly then looked back up at him. “I promise. You will.” She patted him on the hand, and he felt a shiver run up his arm to places better not thought about in a dining room with servants entering and exiting without warning. He stood and stepped away from her.

  “Lorain,” he said, his back to her.

  “My Liege?”

  He didn’t turn. “They brought the healer in from Solsta this morning. He’s downstairs.”

  “In the dungeon?”

  “Don’t act so surprised, Lorain. You know I can’t trust a one of them.”

  “You didn’t put him anywhere near the sooth, did you?” Lorain rose and approached him from behind. He rubbed his pouch, her proximity once again making it worse.

  “I’m not a fool,” he replied harshly. He clenched his teeth against the urges gripping him and found a kinder voice. “I told Tanres to keep them far apart. No interaction. And once you’ve pouched and he’s been properly instructed on the importance of secrecy to his survival, I will send him back home to his friends.”

  “Thank you.” She spoke softly, directly into his right ear. He brought his shoulder up in response to the irritating blow her breath dealt him, and she backed away. “I mean, I really do appreciate you bringing him here.”

  He turned finally and looked at her. She looks frail. She should be eating better. It’s that damn struggle with her digestion. They said that pregnancy could do that. Once she’d completed the pouching, her appetite would return. They said that as well. His pouch contracted in that symbiotic way of parental partners.

  “How soon?” he croaked through his unwelcome reactions.

  “What?”

  He’d made a leap she’d failed to follow. She’d never had trouble with that before. “How soon until the transfer?”

  “A few days, a week at most.”
>
  “And as soon as it’s done, you can come back and stay with me here.” He felt genuinely magnanimous.

  “It will still be uncomfortable for you to be near me.”

  “But not nearly as bad. I want you here where you’re protected.” He tried to sound like a concerned parent, like a caring spouse, even though he wasn’t one.

  “And hidden from view as I blossom?”

  He laughed and finally dared to touch her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in close. It would have to be their last true contact for a time. She smelled glorious, all ripe and ready for consumption, and he only barely contained himself. “We’ll see about that.”

  She pulled away, touched his lips with the tips of her fingers and then turned to leave. “And how about while I’m in exile,” she said playfully, “I’ll come up with some other ways to locate your necropath.”

  And then she was gone, her fertile fragrance lingering in the air like jasmine at night. She carries my Heir, he thought, amazed that so little time had passed since they’d consummated what had long lain wasting between them. He’d had to put her off. Had she understood that? Had she understood that his mother never would have sanctioned a union between them? Empir Flandari—the late Empir Flandari, he thought with a smile—definitely would have blocked Lorain from the Keep if she’d ever suspect Lorain and her son of carrying on in secret.

  He wanted to believe Lorain had understood perfectly all along. Because if she hadn’t, why would she have remained so loyal these last years? Such loyalty deserved a reward. He would unite with her, perhaps even soon. But first, the pouching. He must know his Heir was safe before making any further commitments to the woman. Ah, already his pouch had relaxed and his thoughts had untangled, and she’d been gone no more than minutes. Now, to contact Opseth.

  Nalin stood in the hall for a long time, staring at the place where he’d seen Lisen last, where he’d watched her turn the corner, leaving him behind. Her passion still filled the space—there, and in between, and within him as well—and he breathed in deeply, trying to hold on to it, to hoard whatever remained here of her. She had managed to walk away from possession, from an experience which had nearly broken her sanity, and she had done so with dignity.

  She remained fragile, of course, but that would pass. Over time, she would heal, out in the desert, with Captain Rosarel. His heart began to ache when he realized how much he envied the captain. He envied the privilege of being allowed to observe as Lisen evolved into the Empir she would eventually be, a privilege denied him. Only when she returned to Avaret would he be allowed to see for himself who she had become.

  He shook his head and returned to the infirmary. It would take upwards of two weeks to get back to Avaret where his duty lay—maintaining a watch on Ariel and Lorain while they maintained their watch on him—so he, too, must get on the road. He threw his few things together and left the room where Lisen had fought possession and won.

  When he emerged from the haven, he headed for the stable. The Tuane’s driver, horses and carriage had set out for the return trip to Seffa the day after their arrival here, so Nalin required a horse to get back to Avaret. Hermit Teran, the necropath who had rescued Lisen, hauling her back from the brink of madness, had assured Nalin that there were always horses to spare. So, he stepped into the stable, spoke with one of the hermits and bought himself a horse, along with a bridle and saddle. Once the animal was ready, Nalin took its reins from the stable hand and led it out into the yard and the late morning sunshine.

  He sighed. Damnable business. The entire matter stank of the poison Ariel’s assassin had used on Empir Flandari. It had all begun there, this unraveling of good plans into bad, this descent of expectations. He hated what he’d been forced to do, what Lisen had been forced to do, and the damage that continued to ripple out from that one moment, relentless. He slapped the reins against one gloved hand, then threw his saddlebags over the horse’s hind quarters. He had begun to buckle them on when a voice called out to him from behind.

  “Holder!”

  He turned and watched as Hermit Teran approached with long, determined strides. “Yes?” Nalin replied.

  When the hermit reached him, he spoke very softly. “I assume the young woman’s stay here is confidential.”

  “Yes. For her sake, definitely yes.”

  “Then I shall see to it,” Teran said.

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” Nalin responded and moved to mount his horse. Then he remembered and turned back to the hermit. “Your Grace?”

  “Yes?”

  Nalin reached into his beltpouch and pulled out the small gold band he’d so recently placed there. “Lisen asked me to give this to you. She wants you to hold on to it.” Nalin handed the ring over to the hermit.

  “Will she be returning for it?”

  The question caused Nalin to wonder if the necropath could be trusted. How specific an answer was the man looking for? “Maybe,” Nalin hedged. “One day. Maybe.”

  “She’s a strong one. I am honored to hold this in anticipation of her return.”

  But never again as a hermit, Nalin thought, then said, “Thank you.”

  Hermit Teran smiled. “May One Be, my lord.”

  “One Is,” Nalin replied with a nod, and then, placing one booted foot into the stirrup, he pulled himself up onto the horse. He took a last look at Teran, allowed himself one final sweep of his eyes across the yard of this, the largest and grandest of the three havens in Garla, then kicked his horse into a trot and set out.

  For two days he stayed off the road, paralleling it instead to avoid exposure. He traveled through the lonely woods along the river’s course, aware of the small sounds that made up the silence of the forest—the first of the season’s feathered creatures chirping away as they returned from warmer climes, the tree-dwellers signaling a warning to their fellows of the stranger in their midst, the occasional crunch of his own horse’s hooves upon a stray twig or small branch. Those trees which provided shade year-round dappled the ground with shadows from the sun which traversed its arch almost directly above. Spring’s Evenday approached—only a week-and-a-half away.

  His third day on the road, the unmistakable echo of a horse approaching from behind interrupted Nalin’s reverie on the nature of nature. Leery of any possibility of discovery, he pulled up where he rode amongst the trees, and there he waited, patting the horse softly on the neck to keep it quiet. Within moments, a figure on horseback cantered by, heading towards Avaret and blessedly oblivious of Nalin. Nalin was sure he recognized the man as one of Lorain’s sycophants, but, then again, his hypervigilant mind sensed spies everywhere.

  He waited long enough to allow the man to get well ahead of him, and then he set out once again, adopting a leisurely pace in the hope of allowing the man to fully outdistance him. If he were right, he’d just missed this one at Rossla, but he wondered what the man had learned before setting out on his return. Had Hermit Teran kept his word? Nalin could only hope.

  Bala Tuane ran. She ran and ran and ran, and still the pall of anger and grief refused to lift. Running had always saved her in the past, but the despair which her sister’s murder had thrust upon her would not release her. So she ran, every day now for the nearly two weeks since the funeral. She knew her father worried about her, but she could do nothing to ease his concern; she had to run until she could barely breathe, and then she could stop. Only to rise the next morning, the dark feelings upon her again, the compulsion again inescapable.

  She caught sight of the rider coming up the road before horse and rider reached the castle, and she detoured down the hill and came up behind the man—no one she recognized—as he pulled to a halt in the courtyard and dismounted.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, still a bit breathless, as she reached him. He was tying his horse to the hitching post outside the stables.

  “I must see Holder Tuane. I have a message for him.”

  “I’ll take your message. I’m his daughter, Bala Tuane.
”

  He eyed her with suspicion, and she realized she stood before him covered in sweat and wearing a tunic that should have long ago been relegated to rags, save for the fact that for running it was irreplaceable.

  “Forgive me, my lord, but my instructions were clear,” he finally said. He pulled a folded piece of parchment from inside his cloak. “I must deliver this to the holder himself.”

  “Follow me then.” She turned and headed to the main doors. She never looked back to see if he was there, but she could hear his footsteps behind her. Tak greeted them at the door.

  “Get my father,” Bala ordered. “Tell him there’s a messenger here for him.”

  “Aye, my lord,” Tak said and jogged up the stairs.

  Bala debated. Should she bring this man into the main hall? It might take a few moments for her father to get down the stairs; he was moving very slowly these days. Then again, this was a messenger, not some noble guest, and it might disconcert him to be treated in a manner above his station. So she chose to stand here in the entry with him.

  “How far did you ride?” she asked.

  “From Avaret.”

  “Oh, that’s quite a ride. How long did it take?” Bala had no idea what she was saying. It was the small talk borne of a lifetime of small talk with noble and commoner alike. It took no thought and required little, if any, attention. Which was good since her run had done nothing to divert her thinking from the empty place in this castle, the void in her heart. She had never realized how much space her older sister had filled in her life.

  “I left four days ago, late,” the man replied, unaware that their communication essentially only went one way. “It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but I had to detour around a bad spot on the road.”

  Bala nodded absently and sighed with relief when her father appeared at the top of the stairs and began his descent.

  “Father, a messenger from Avaret.”