“Yes.”
She could always lie. Besides, what else were they to do? If she could keep him occupied, and learn a little whilst doing so, what harm could there be in it?
“My High Councillor wishes me to jail you for your escape and… anti-social behaviour.”
“That is not a question.”
His dark eyes rested upon her, and a small upturn of his lip appeared. Had she just made him smile?
“More than ten thousand.” He spun the globe, his forefinger running across countless miles.
Kiara nodded, suitably impressed at the number of volumes. Now it was his turn.
“Why did you offer to take Coscian’s beating?”
“Because I deserved the punishment.” She shrugged.
“Do you know what a beating with the lash entails?”
“It’s not your turn.” Kiara was halfway to the window now. Even from here she could see over a hundred buildings. She glanced at the globe which now stood to her left. “What is on the globe?”
“The known world – and the worlds we believe exist.”
She detoured, walking towards the globe, now suddenly interested. “Believe?” she queried.
“It’s not your turn.” He mimicked her voice. She saw he was wearing an open collared black shirt again, the wide opening slung back as he hunched over the globe, showing the colourful top of a marking on his back. “This is Emrilion.” He jabbed a finger at a large oblong landmass on the right-hand side of the globe.
Kiara wanted to see, but she didn’t want to get any nearer to the Prince than she had to. Even in his current, oddly amicable mood, she did not trust him. Beneath it all was tension. He could turn.
Surprisingly though, he stepped away from the globe, that she might get a closer look.
“How did you escape Grûl’s jail?” he whispered it by her ear, having suddenly stepped in behind her. Kiara pulled back, stumbling away and sending a pile of books to the floor from a nearby table.
Instead of acting like a terrified deer in range of a hunter’s bow however, she stooped to pick up the books. “Now look at what you’ve made me do,” she chastised, making the Prince chuckle. It was a nice sound, deep and rich.
“Answer me,” he then demanded.
“I fit between the bars of the window. They don’t build cells to keep women in.”
The Prince looked her over and nodded. “I shall make a note to tell my Councillors.”
Kiara was happy that he did not probe further. She would never tell him she had escaped half-naked.
“What is that to the west of Emrilion? I’ve never heard of any land lying there.”
One of the Prince’s brows rose. “For a street-brat you do know a little.” He turned back to the globe. “It is a land that my explorers believe exists. They are mapping the known world.”
“That more races may be made subject to yours,” she replied bitterly, continuing her journey to the window.
“How did you become a thief?”
Kiara measured this question. What was safe to give away? Realising that nothing but her race was dangerous to recount, she offered the truth.
“I was chosen for the Edict.” There was a slight pause. “I held no desire to be presented for you to sample, as you would a hundred others, but my uncle urged me to go. That same night, I cut off my hair, dressed as a boy, and decided to live a life raiding royal caravans as I had already been doing at night for months.”
She looked at the Prince, challenging him to say something, but he merely continued to stare.
“Robbing my tyrannical regime.”
“Why…” She was almost at the window. There were questions that had been nagging at her mind some for days some for weeks. “Why did you leave the palace disguised as a common thief? Were you in some kind of special envoy?”
“Is it the first or the last question?”
“The first.”
He exhaled again as he paced, eyes falling over the objects that littered his path, his hands picking up various metal implements which lay scattered across maps, before replacing them and moving on.
“I did not want to be here, at the palace. I…I like to be elsewhere. To be unknown. It’s the only place I can be myself. Be free.” The admission seemed intimate.
Suddenly the huge, hall-like room was small. His thoughts voicing themselves to her. He could have answered the last question with a simple no if he had not stopped to ask which one Kiara really wished to know the answer to.
Had he wanted to answer the first? He was the Prince of a scarred land, but in this instant, in this moment, he was simply a man. She wanted to know why. Why was she suddenly seeing more of him than before. Seeing his humanity. The sudden honesty.
She reached the window and looked out at the sandstone buildings a hundred feet below, warped by whirls in the glass. They rose and fell with the land, but all were below her. Suddenly, escape from the palace as she had planned just a few days ago, seemed so foolish in the face of the maze which lay before her. How many thousands dwelt in the capital of Emril city? She was one. One in a thousand, one in thousands more in this Kingdom, and here she stood in the company of the one who controlled it all. Why her?
His voice came from the other side of the room. “Have you lain with Coscian?”
The very accusation was ridiculous. Coscian was married, he was in love with his wife, and if the Prince knew anything about his subjects he would know that. Kiara had learned it in a little over a week. “Of course not!” She jumped, finding him directly behind her.
“Do you always stand so close to people?” she asked crossly.
“No.” He reached up a hand and touched her face, his thumb resting on her full lip. She froze beneath his touch. He pulled it down, exposing the cut running down its centre. “How did you come by this?” He released her lip.
“My question didn’t count.”
“A question for a question, that was the deal.”
Kiara sighed. “One of your women tried to cut the skin from my face.” The defiance was suddenly back in her eyes. “Not even my face would stop her getting into your bed.”
“First Coscian, now this - and didn’t you have a knife in your leg before I met you? Don’t answer that, it isn’t my question.”
“It’s my turn anyway.” She moved her head, but still his hand lingered. “You said to me in the courtyard that if I had known what a beating felt like I would not have volunteered, and just now, you asked me if I knew what a beating with a lash was like. It was as though...as though you did.” She took a breath. “Were you beaten?”
She saw it happen, shutters dropping like armour over his eyes. Whatever had been happening since they had entered this library was at an end. He drew away from her, his hand dropping from her face. She had forgotten it was there, that it had been warm against her skin, that she could smell the spices he had bathed in. It had felt…good. What was wrong with her?
Then it came, anger boiling and spitting. “The Reluwyn, as you said, are a barbarous race.” The embittered words were accompanied by a rapid stride back to the centre of the room.
Kiara leant against a pillar between two of the windows. Had he just admitted to it? He had. He had. She watched his back as he walked away, his shoulders tense beneath his shirt, all calmness evaporated. He had spoken angrily and she could almost feel the rage rolling off him.
“Why did you bring me here?” she said softly, not wishing to taunt an already angry bear.
It was too late.
“Because I can command anything! Because I am ruler here and you are nothing, nothing but a criminal, a thief turned whore.”
Kiara’s chin came up at that. “We had a deal, you said all questions must be answered. Is the deal at an end?” She pushed off the pillar and made her way down the side of the room, towards the door.
“Yes,” he was hissing again. He met her by the door, his eyes darker than ever, his proximity too close. He took her chin but this time without g
entleness. “Once again you have proved us barbaric but failed to tell me who you are.”
Kiara’s blood froze, her heart paused, this was it. He would demand to know her race.
“Or your name,” he carried on, oblivious to her fear. “But now it’s time you discarded your past, after all, you are part of this palace, as such you must become barbaric yourself.”
“I didn’t…” she wanted to defend herself - or apologise for asking a question which so clearly upset him. But he cut her off.
“Tonight.” That was all he said. Then he released her, threw open the doors with both hands and called for the guard to escort her back to her room.
Chapter 14
“I am told you spent time in a cell with my niece while she was here?”
Zeb was busy packing herbs and small colourful bottles into his satchel. He had barely looked up at the entrance of the Elder and the elf, and even in answering he merely nodded. Fidel sat back in a corner observing the conversation.
The next words got his attention. It was not the words per se, though, it was the tone. “Did she…was she well?” There was a brokenness in it.
Zeb paused, his fingers lingering on the corks which plugged each of the bottles that poked out of his bag. His serious gaze found the Laowyn Elder. He only held it for a moment before continuing to pack.
“No,” he said, speaking while he worked, “She had an infected wound, probably caused by a blade. She was unconscious for a while.”
He could hear Zephenesh’s breath quicken.
“And what did you do?” Djeck’s voice was accusing, his look distrustful. He had accompanied Zephenesh promising silence.
Zeb did not bother looking the Northern Elf in the eye. “I treated her. Once we realised she was a woman, she was moved to a separate cell from the other prisoner.”
“Once you found out she was a woman?”
“She was dressed as a boy, her hair was cut off.”
Zephenesh nodded absently. They had not found any evidence of what she had done, nor where she had gone after she had disappeared. They had assumed she would come back after a few days of raiding Reluwyn carriages. They’d had no idea she had left them for good.
Zeb picked up a necklace and dropped it into his bag.
“That’s Kiara’s!” cried Djeck indignantly.
“She lost it when the Prince took her,” Zeb replied without much care.
The command had been given at dusk the previous day, the Laowyn Resistance was moving out. The lair that had been their home for the past two years was to be abandoned to a few guards; the majority of the forces, which were swelling daily as the persecution increased, were moving out. Commander Ikara had not specified their objective, but Zeb was no fool, she was retreating to the broken stronghold of Ishtalia on the Western coast, the old Laowyn capital.
News of the latest Edict was not public knowledge among the tunnels of the Resistance, but it would be soon enough. The Reluwyn had commanded all peoples of the Emrilion Empire to rise up, in exactly a month’s time, and eradicate the Laowyn. It was not just the Resistance who were being targeted now, it was all of them, even the women and children. Every Laowyn was to be executed. Neighbours would turn against neighbours, friends, against friends. In one month, Laowyn bodies would be scattered across the Empire, a race extinguished in the quest for supreme unity.
Zephenesh knew all this, and yet he was here. “She was taken by the Prince – but why?”
“They had encountered each other before. He was alone, and not dressed as the Prince. It seems your niece did not recognise him, for she spoke to him about the Prince.”
“No doubt critically.” A mirthless smile warped Djeck’s face.
Zeb carried on, “I only heard scraps of information as I was knocked unconscious. I have tried to revive my memories and bring clarity with herbal remedies, but it remains fragmented. The forest was crawling with Imperial Guards and he thought she had brought them down upon him - I believe he took her as punishment. Knowing your niece as I did, if only for a few days, I do not believe any rumours of her complicity as a concubine.”
The very thought sickened Zeb. He had seen the fear upon Kiara’s face, he had seen the way the Reluywn had looked at her. Zeb had been formulating his own plan, it differed from Ikara’s, and she would not know it until he was gone.
“If that is true, then she must be saved.”
“You know the Commander’s plan, you would be disobeying if you went to Emril city.” Fidel spoke for the first time out of loyalty to his Commander.
Zephenesh rose abruptly, his chair clattering against the wall. “I will not leave her. You were right,” he gestured at his elvin companion. “I should have told her about my part in the Resistance.” He drew his hands up and rubbed them across his eyes, pressing upon the bridge of his nose.
Zeb had been folding clothes into the bag, taking up a small, delicate piece of armour and he placed it on top of the pack, but he halted at Zephenesh’s words. “She didn’t know about your involvement?”
“Her parents were part of the Resistance, and they died defending what was left of Ishtalia before the Edict of Unification. I lived, for I was in a watch-station some miles out. She became my responsibility, my child, and I was not going to expose her to this, to the danger. She is so much like my sister was.” Tears were coming to Zephenesh’s eyes and slowly falling down the lines of his face, filtering through his beard, dropping onto his robe. “I thought that if she obeyed the Reluwyn laws she would be safe.”
Zeb placed a hand lightly upon the Laowyn’s shoulder. It only rested for a moment, “Take hope. She is stronger than you know.” He hesitated, his eyes darting over to Fidel. Then, a decision made, he spoke, “I… I failed her too. If I had been more observant I might have stopped her capture. She needs to be rescued.”
“We cannot leave the Commander now to go on some hare-brained rescue mission!” Fidel broke in. “Not when the Resistance is moving out and our race is about to be attacked.” He folded his arms across his broad chest.
“Suit yourself,” said Zeb brusquely, picking up his pack. “I know where my duty lies.”
“Wait! Wait a moment!” Fidel held up a hand. “How are you intending on breaking into the most heavily guarded building in the Kingdom to steal a prisoner?”
Zeb halted by the door. “Two things. Firstly, you have heard the same reports that she is a Favourite of the Prince, so we can assume that she has some degree of freedom within the palace. Secondly, what makes you think I am going solely to help her escape?”
“Then what else are you going for?” asked Fidel.
“Have none of you thought of how incredible it is that one of your people has direct access to the ruler who sanctions your persecution?”
“You mean to sway the Prince?” Fidel asked.
“Your race is set to be wiped out in a matter of weeks and you’ve been waiting for the Great Spirit’s providence. What can you lose?” All three men stood staring into Zeb’s determined face. “I have a plan,” he said simply.
They were laid out across the room. A foot apart, arms by their sides, chests still. Each pair of eyes stared at the earthen ceiling, seeing nothing. Each body was covered in a thin swathe of forest green gauze, pulled down from hangings that had adorned the Elder’s temporary meeting hall. Now the hangings kept the dead warm in their eternal sleep.
There were seven. Seven lost. Seven gone. Seven dead. She had sent them on a routine mission. Now they were dead. All they had asked for was food supplies from the small trading community that resided on the southern edge of the forest. A community who had received their copy of the Edict for the Suppression of the Laowyn. A community who had decided not to wait the three and a half weeks until the appointed day. They had slaughtered them, and Calev and Jaik had found their bodies, strung up against the gates of the town, parchments pinned to their chests. Laowyn dogs they had been called, worthy of death as such.
Teo was only seventeen -
Ikara would have to inform his mother. At that moment she would be helping to pack up the kitchen, looking forward to the supplies her son was supposed to bring for the journey. He wasn’t coming.
Ikara knelt there, between the bodies, surrounded by them, her eyes almost as unseeing as theirs. She had looked at each of them, directly in the eyes, then she had ripped the parchments from their chests. She had been the one to place their hands by their sides, to tilt their heads that their eyes could look heavenwards towards the Great Spirit. She had helped to bathe the blood from their faces, their necks where the blade had slit across.
She did not hear Fidel enter. There were two members of the Resistance standing at the entrance to the room, they backed away at a signal from Fidel, drawing the thick hessian curtain across the entrance. The Captain paused for a short while, surveying the bodies, but his eyes were caught upon the figure knelt between them. She was wearing her armour. Her hair unkempt, forgotten. She looked so still, Fidel could not even see her breathing. He came up behind her, dropping a heavy hand upon her shoulder.
“I’m sorry Ikara, I’m so sorry.” His eyes filled with grief, his heart aching as much for her as for the dead.
He felt her shudder beneath his hand but she made no sound.
“Ikara, you must come away. You must eat. Everyone is preparing to leave, the families of the dead must be informed.”
“They were killed as dogs.”
Fidel was not sure she knew to whom she was speaking.
“They slit their throats, they allowed them to bleed out, choking upon their own lifeblood. They tore out their Enspers, now their family will not receive the jewels, their bodies will be carried to the sea with nothing left over. They are gone.” The last words came out as a moan, a deep sound of pain. “They are gone.”
“Ikara, you must come away. We…” Was this the time? What other time was there? Fidel knew that Ikara blamed herself, the responsibility of the Laowyn Resistance weighed heavy upon her. There was no longer any good time to address issues of planning. “I have been in conference with Zephenesh and Zeb. The Laowyn woman we held in captivity, who we believe was taken by the Prince…”
The Edict (The She Trilogy Book 1) Page 15
