“M’lady is this way.” The servant led Aidane in through the kitchen door, down a darkened hallway. Perhaps Jendrie had dismissed the other servants for the night; the corridors were empty. They climbed up the servants’ steps from the kitchen, then went through a narrow passageway intended for ladies in waiting and kitchen staff, before stopping at a door. The servant knocked four quick times, and the door opened. A woman stood in silhouette in the doorway.
“That will be all, Priscilla. Mind you say nothing of this to anyone or I’ll have you beaten.”
“As you wish, m’lady.”
The servant fled, and the woman gestured for Aidane to enter. “Take off your cloak. I wish to see you.”
Aidane did as Jendrie bid her, letting the cloak fall to the floor. Jendrie eyed her with a combination of suspicion and lust. “How do I know you can channel Nattan’s spirit? Maybe you’re just a good actress.”
Aidane met Jendrie’s eyes with an insolence the woman did not expect. “You know my reputation or you wouldn’t have sought me out. Once he possesses me, you’ll know. His gestures, his way of speaking, his way of pleasuring you… all will be as they were. Only the body has changed.”
“And you’ll remember nothing?”
“Nothing, m’lady.”
“Very well.” Jendrie stepped closer, and Aidane could smell wine on her breath. Apparently the encounter had unnerved her patron just as it had made Nattan’s ghost fidgety. “Let’s begin.”
“First, my coin, if you please.” Aidane’s gaze did not falter. “Sometimes, my leaving is rushed. Best to handle business first.”
An ironic smile touched the corners of Jendrie’s mouth. As she turned to take a coin from a purse on the desk, Aidane got a good look at her. Jendrie was tall and slender. Her coppery skin showed Nargi blood, while her startlingly blue eyes hinted at a mixed heritage, perhaps Margolense or Dhassonian. Her chestnut hair was loose around her shoulders, and Aidane imagined that Jendrie had let it down for her lover, since the long pins and gem-studded combs that most highborn women used to bind their hair lay discarded on a stand. A black satin robe, another piece of contraband, clung to Jendrie’s curves. Jendrie handed Aidane the coin and then loosed the belt of her robe, letting it fall away. She wore nothing underneath.
“I want Nattan,” she whispered seductively, and reached out to stroke Aidane’s cheek. “Bring him to me.”
Aidane resisted the urge to shy away from Jendrie’s touch as she put the coin safely in her purse. She reached out for her magic, letting it fill her, and called out to Nattan. The transition was always unpleasant as the ghost’s spirit forced its way into her body, crowding out her own being. Aidane trembled as Nattan’s spirit filled her, and she could see in Jendrie’s eyes that Jendrie found it arousing. Aidane scurried to the far corner of her mind, to her hiding place, but not quickly enough to block out the depth of Nattan’s hunger. A voice that was not her own spoke from her lips, as Jendrie began to unfasten the brooch and belt that held Aidane’s dress together and Aidane’s own hands, now Nattan’s, fumbled with the unfamiliar clothing.
Aidane reached her refuge and slammed the mental door. The years had perfected the ability to block out the moans and pleasantries even as it deadened her awareness of pleasure and release. Chanting helped. Aidane chanted a series of long poems from the ancient tales, willing herself to pay no attention to the uses made of her body or the unfamiliar voice that spoke from her lips. On occasion, sudden pain broke her concentration as Jendrie’s sharp fingernails drew blood. For that reason, Aidane preferred serving male clients or women who had lost female lovers. She was likely to sustain less unintentional damage that way.
Finally, it was over. In her mental hiding place, Aidane retained a sense of the passage of time, a necessary survival technique. The two candlemarks were ending, and Aidane needed to regain herself in order to leave before they were discovered. She ventured out of her sanctuary, but still not within Nattan’s awareness. Her body lay entwined with Jendrie’s on the broad bed. It seemed both Nattan and Jendrie had discovered that the novelty of the pairing brought new satisfaction. Nattan was talking, stroking Jendrie’s tousled, dark hair.
“What of Zafon?”
Jendrie’s lip twisted. “He’s gone to court for a fortnight. He suspects nothing.”
Aidane could feel Nattan’s apprehension. “That’s what you said before I died. But somehow, Zafon found out.”
Oh, great, Aidane thought, feeling panic rise. Nattan’s not just her dead lover; he’s her murdered lover. Funny how no one mentioned that. Time to get out of here—now!
Before Aidane could force Nattan out of her consciousness, a door slammed open. She felt Nattan’s terror at the sight of a tall, heavily built man in the doorway, and there was no mistaking the rage in the man’s eyes.
“Zafon, no!” Jendrie screamed. She tried to scurry out of the way, but Zafon moved quickly, grabbing Jendrie by her long, slender neck. She wore nothing but her jewelry, which rang like bells as he shook her, closing his large hand around her throat until Jendrie’s face grew red and she wheezed for air.
“Whore,” Zafon spat, throwing Jendrie to the floor, where she lay sobbing.
Run! Move! Aidane tried to fling Nattan’s consciousness out of the way to take back her own body, but the ghost was frozen with fear. Aidane watched helplessly as Zafon returned his attention to the bed. He took in Aidane’s necklace and the heap of clothing that lay at the foot of the bed, and his face mottled with rage.
“Ghost whore,” he hissed, as if his anger had robbed him of the breath to speak. “It’s that good-for-nothing artist, I wager.”
Aidane gave up on pushing Nattan completely away, but she finally got him to roll from the bed, barely missing Zafon’s grasp.
“Didn’t you learn anything when they killed you? They assured me it was painful. Said you shrieked like a stuck pig when they cut off your balls and that you didn’t stop screaming until they slit your whore-spawned throat.” A gleam came into Zafon’s eyes. “But you came back. So I’ll just have to kill you again.”
Aidane tried to run, but without Nattan out of the way, she was clumsy, tripping over the rug. Zafon grabbed her wrist, twisting her arm behind her. Aidane screamed, and in her mind, Nattan whimpered, nearly beyond sanity with fear. On the floor, Jendrie quivered, still huddled on her knees, face down.
“Look at me, Jendrie!” Zafon roared. “I may not be able to kill you without risking your father’s hired blades, but I can kill your lovers. This time, you get to watch.” He pushed Aidane toward where Jendrie cowered. “Look at me, or I’ll tie you to the bedpost and make you watch.”
Jendrie raised her head. Tears streaked down her cheeks, which were already mottling with the bruises from the choking. Her eyes were no longer confident and lively. They had gone dead, paralyzed with fear. She was crying hard enough that she gasped for air, and sobs racked her body.
Aidane’s heart pounded. Nattan’s ghost fled. He left her suddenly enough that it felt as if he had ripped his spirit free, tearing along her magic and leaving her, for a moment, magically blind. She expected Zafon to draw a blade, thought that he would plunge it into her heart. Instead, Zafon’s huge fist slammed into the side of her face, knocking teeth loose and sending her reeling. Blow after blow fell, and his heavy boots kicked hard into her stomach or slammed their soles down on her fingers. Aidane had felt many ghosts leave her body, but now it was her own soul that seemed to hover, gauzelike, in her mind, its grasp fading. Blood choked her as she tried to scream, but nothing appeased Zafon’s rage.
I’m dying. She could feel her heart slowing. It hurt so much to breathe. Zafon lifted his large foot over her chest and cast a triumphant look at Jendrie, who clung to the bedsheet, gray-faced and terrified. “When I’ve gotten rid of the body, you’d better be waiting for me between those sheets, by damn,” he growled. “I paid enough dowry for you to buy a houseful of whores, and I’ll have value for my coin.”
His
boot slammed down, and Aidane was swallowed up by blackness.
Gradually, Aidane became aware of a rocking motion. I must be dead. Perhaps this is what it feels like when a spirit crosses the Gray Sea.
She lay face down on a pile of refuse. As consciousness returned, so did pain. Aidane felt as if she was watching from outside herself, not as she did when she hid during her clients’ couplings, but in an odd way, from a distance. She was still naked, and the cold she felt had less to do with the night air than with the certainty that life was fading. She was in the back of a wagon, and the driver was pushing the horses to a full gallop down a road that made the wagon jostle hard enough that Aidane slipped in and out of awareness.
Finally, the wagon stopped. Zafon came around and grabbed her by the ankles, flinging her to the side of the road with a curse. Too weak to cry out, Aidane lay where she landed as the wagon rattled away. Will I bleed to death before the cold takes me, or will the wild dogs finish what Zafon started? It wouldn’t be long. Dreams and voices came to her, and ghosts pressed all around her, waiting. She had nothing to offer them now, but still, they came. Some of the spirits taunted her, and others tried to force themselves into her dying body for any chance to live again. Still others just watched, sad-eyed and silent, as if her flickering soul were a candle and their gray spirits the moths.
After a while, footsteps sounded along the road. “What have we here?” a man said. His foot nudged her over, and she fell onto her back, too spent to make any effort to cover her nakedness.
“Not much left of her, is there?” his companion replied. Aidane’s vision was blurry, but from what she could make out, the two men were dressed all in black, wearing neither the robes of the Crone priests nor the uniforms of the king’s soldiers.
“Take her. She’ll do,” the first man said.
The second man lifted Aidane gingerly, less to keep from hurting her, she guessed, than to avoid soiling his cloak. He did not put her into a wagon as she expected, but instead, the two men veered from the road down a trail into the darkness of the forest. Branches stung as they slapped against Aidane’s bare skin, and brambles tore at her. She shivered with cold, and the shivering made her injuries hurt more. She lost all sense of time. Even the ghosts fled.
Finally, they slowed. In the moonlight, Aidane could see the entrance to a cave. One of the men lit a torch, and then they began to wind their way down rocky passages. Sharp rocks skinned Aidane’s knees and shoulders. Aidane was beyond fear, sure that death would come soon. Even if her new captors wished to inflict more pain, their amusement would not last long. She knew that. It comforted her. No more pain. No more ghosts. No more clients like Jendrie.
“Put her in there.”
The man set Aidane down in a cage made with iron bars. “She’s not a biter; that’s her own blood. And if she was a shifter, I reckon she’d have made the change and bitten us. Doesn’t look like she’s got fight left in her.”
“Do as I say.”
With a shrug, the man turned a key in the lock. The first man pressed his face against the bars with an unpleasant smile. “Don’t spill any more of that precious blood now, darlin’. We’re going to need it for the Moon Feast.” With that, he turned, and the two men left the chamber.
Aidane managed to shift, just a bit, to look around. It hurt to move much, but she could see other cages, and in them, huddled shapes. In the cage next to her, a man lay with a stake through his chest. He was as pale as a corpse and he did not breathe, but his face was turned in her direction and she could tell that there was consciousness in his eyes.
A groan sounded from another cage. Aidane mustered the energy to move far enough to see. A naked man lay curled in pain, arrows protruding from several places along his body. Aidane’s eyes widened. That many arrows should have killed a mortal. Then she recalled her captor’s comment about “shifters” and “biters.” She knew little of either, but she had heard tell that both vyrkin and vayash moru could withstand injuries beyond a mortal’s endurance.
The naked man seemed to sense her gaze. He turned to look at her and moved his leg to cover himself. His violet eyes seemed to see right through her. “Why are you here?” His voice was tight with pain. “You’re mortal. What do they want from you?”
“Blood,” Aidane managed through swollen lips, barely above a whisper. “My blood.”
It occurred to Aidane that she was naked, and in the next moment, that she was too badly injured to feel shame. The man in the cage drew a labored breath.
“Sacrifice. They want you for a sacrifice. To Shanthadura.”
Shanthadura. A name used to frighten children, spoken only in whispers. The Destroyer. The Great Darkness.
“You’ve heard of Her?” the vyrkin asked.
“She’s not real,” Aidane replied, her voice shaking with the strain of talking.
Those violet eyes locked her gaze. “Oh, yes, She’s real. And we’re all here to feed Her so Her disciples can let Her rise once more.”
Chapter Six
Is there anything I can fetch for you, m’lady?”
Kiara, Queen of Margolan, looked up at the servant who waited anxiously in the doorway. “No, thank you. That will be all.”
The door closed, and Kiara’s attention returned to the baby in her arms. Cwynn looked so peaceful when he was sleeping, but Kiara had already learned how loudly the new prince could cry when he was hungry. Kiara’s auburn hair spilled down, unbound, to brush against Cwynn’s downy scalp. His skin was several shades lighter than Kiara’s tawny hue, a combination of Kiara’s Isencroft and Eastmark heritage and Tris’s Margolan blood.
Kiara stroked Cwynn’s dusky fingertips. “You carry the blood of three kingdoms, little one,” Kiara murmured. “Are you heir to your father’s magic? How can so many fates rest on one small child?”
She nestled him closer, rocking him gently, watching his chest rise and fall. In the shadows along the wall, she could see the dim glow of two of the palace’s ghosts. Ula was a long-dead nursemaid to the children of one of Margolan’s former kings. She had never left Shekerishet, even after her death, and she continued to look after generations of new princes and princesses. Tris had told her that he remembered Ula’s ghost standing over his bed when he was a boy, and the soft sound of her humming, something only he could hear.
Seanna had been handmaid to Margolan’s queens for over two hundred years. Seanna had welcomed Kiara and been a ghostly companion, making Kiara’s transition to a new home in a new kingdom less lonely. Kiara was glad for the company, and she found the ghost’s presence comforting.
The door opened, and this time, it was Tris who entered. “You finally got him to sleep?” Tris whispered.
Kiara nodded, and Tris came closer, careful to move without noise. He looked down at Cwynn, and then at Kiara.
“Can you put him down and get some sleep? Have one of the servants hold him. Lady knows, none of us have slept much these past nights!”
Kiara sighed. “I know. But I’ve just gotten him quiet.” She watched Tris and frowned. “There’s something on your mind.”
Tris withdrew a packet from his doublet and handed it to her, untying the ribbon that bound it so Kiara could read the letter inside. “This arrived by messenger today from your father.”
Kiara caught her breath, and then froze as Cwynn stretched in her arms at her sudden movement. “Is he all right?”
Tris shrugged. “I didn’t read it.”
Kiara’s gaze scanned the familiar handwriting. King Donelan of Isencroft wrote with a bold stroke, pressing firmly enough that his quill sometimes punctured the parchment.
Kiara, my dear—
By the time this reaches you, your young prince will have been born. I pray to the Lady that both you and he are in good health. Please, take care. My seer has read mixed omens, and I don’t know what to make of her portents. I asked her to read the runes for the child’s fortune, and the runes refused to speak. I know little of magic, but I have never had the b
ones be silent. I hope that Tris with his magic will be better able to discern these meanings.
Don’t dwell overmuch on the signs and omens. Celebrate the coming of your first child. I know you’ve had a difficult pregnancy during extraordinarily difficult times. Much the same was your mother’s fate, but she rejoiced in your birth and loved you from the first time she laid eyes on you, as did I. I trust that soon you’ll have one of the court artists make a sketch you can send to me, so that I can see the boy for myself.
Your letter asked me to give you news of Isencroft and not hold back on account of your condition. I know my daughter, and fear if I were to do otherwise, you might arrive on horseback despite the birth, so I’ll be candid.
I don’t remember a time so bleak as these days. This year’s harvest was only marginally better than the last. More people will be hungry, and with the hardship Margolan is enduring, I know Tris has no surplus grain to send this year. I had implored Staden in Principality and Kalcen in Eastmark to send grain if they had any to spare, but they may not send wagons until the plague in Margolan has run its course.
The Divisionists have scattered, but we haven’t completely broken them, and grumblings about food and plague make fertile ground for unrest. I received a vayash moru messenger from Dark Haven a few weeks ago from Cam. He is on his way back to Aberponte via Brunnfen. Cam intended to see to the lands now that they fall to him, and to find out more about Alvior’s treachery. If it is true that Alvior left in a great ship across the Northern Sea, I also fear that we have not seen the last of him. Whether it’s the regent magic or just an old man’s intuition, I believe we’ll see war ere long. My dreams are dark.
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