Prisoner

by Megan Derr

  Dieter grunted. "Then you are stupid. If one serving girl does not bother to hide her hatred of me, I do not think setting me to train your soldiers is a very good idea. You are either indeed quite stupid or desperate."

  "Desperate, I assure you." Matthias smiled, feeling tired. "I have been struggling over how to help my country relearn to live, and the lives of my soldiers and those living closest to the border have been high on my list of worries. I'm not stupid; people hate you. According to all my reports and every last far-fetched story heard from soldiers, you are all too good at what you do. The Scarlet Wolf. The Bloody Wolf. The Wolf of Kria. More often than not, you are called simply the Wolf." His smile turned suddenly into a grin. "Though I often hear far more colorful names for you as well. While I'm not looking forward to the headaches that are forthcoming for doing this, I would be even more stupid to let a war no one understands keep me from gaining the general who has ever so neatly fallen right into my lap."

  Matthias paused and stared at his brother. "I could go abroad for teachers. Goddess only knows those coastal bastards know how to use a sword." He looked back at Dieter, pale eyes intent. "But Kria has turned combat into an art. You are, by some strange chance, here when I most need one such as you. I assume your country no longer has need of you—or at least I doubt they still hold your loyalty…"

  "No, they do not." Dieter's voice said he would not elaborate.

  "Then whatever I can do to convince you to help me, I will do it. You've only to say."

  Gray-green eyes watched him, pale and muted in the strange light of the chamber. "What should a soldier think of a king so eager to hire an enemy? What should a king think of a man so willing to betray his own country?"

  Matthias grinned. "I wouldn't know. I'm neither a soldier nor a king. I'm a scheming prince who must do the best he can. Anyway, it's obvious Iah trusts you. That's enough for me, though I do wish someone would tell me why you're here."

  "I will help," Dieter said. "At worst, I will simply be put to death again. If you want my assistance, however, you must allow me to do things my way."

  Matthias looked at him, then at his sword, then back up. "I have no idea how to even hold that thing. Swords, to me, are an exotic weapon used by an enemy with a peculiar taste for blood." He sighed. "I'm pretty sure you just told me I'll be getting more headaches, but so be it." His lips twitched. "I'll use them to explain away my bouts of insanity."

  "If this stunt does not dethrone you for insanity, Highness, nothing will."

  "You may as well call me Matthias."

  Dieter looked at Matthias' brother, frozen in the center of the chamber. "So what is this?"

  "He's all that's left of my younger brother. His name was—is—Benji. The royal line has always borne the burden of providing Keepers. The magic is strongest in us. Do you know anything about Illussor magic?"

  "Only that it's supremely annoying and cowardly."

  Matthias winced. "Our powers include manipulation, yes, but that's not the primary focus of our powers. You will not see it here, as the palace renders most people incapable—ironic when the source of that magic lies here. Regardless, the power behind those abilities relies heavily on our minds. We are… linked, I suppose you could say. When it's strong enough we can even read each other's thoughts. That is how we muster the energy for a Scream: all the power goes to one person. Even before we became the Illussor that was how we functioned. It is through that ability that we were able to create all this. It is through the Keeper, Benji, that the power created in this chamber is sent to everyone else."

  He shifted his weight, both legs getting sore from the effort of standing so long. Unfortunately, there would be no chance to rest when he got back. Matthias stifled a sigh. "It was only meant to last a generation or so and primarily in soldiers. Unfortunately, it spread further and deeper than anyone meant or realized until too late, and we cannot simply stop it—we've grown used to it. To take it away would be like ripping off a limb."

  Dieter nodded. "What you have to do is break the limb and let it heal itself."

  "Exactly." Matthias paused then smiled. "If this works out, would you like to join the council? There should be a spot for Minister of War opening up in a few more years."

  "Politicians try my patience."

  Matthias nodded. "Shall we head back? I'll warn you now: don't stand too close to Esta when I tell her what's going on." Dieter nodded.

  *~*~*

  Everything was different and lightly surreal. What did a man do when he found himself alive long after he was supposed to have been dead? Dieter curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword, thumb stroking across the red jewel in the pommel.

  Apparently he got himself hired to train lifelong enemies to fight properly.

  He wondered how soon they would kill him after he sent the first dozen or so to the healers. Dieter looked up from a snow-filled courtyard that was both familiar and different. Familiar because of the snow and cold and the way a handful of people braved it simply to make their journey shorter—mostly servants who had no time to take the long way around the palace.

  Miles and days away across the unending snow beyond the palace, he knew, was Kria. Where a Kaiser no doubt plotted all new ways to torture and kill Dieter for the new set of humiliations. Let the bastard rot. Dieter was finished with him. He had, despite the sour taste the methods left in his mouth, had the last laugh.

  Of his men, only five hundred or so remained; only the regiment he had sent on ahead of him to the Winter Palace, and a handful of men scattered across Kria for various reasons. He wondered if the Kaiser would simply disband them or punish them in his stead. Dieter glowered at his reflection then turned sharply away from the window. His hand still gripped his sword, and he forced himself to let go.

  Why was he here?

  Because of that damned idiot. Dieter snarled and turned his thoughts elsewhere. How could one man train so many who did not even know how to hold a sword? Did they know anything about fighting normally?

  Tits of the Winter Princess, they would not even know how to make such things. Dieter could feel his head begin to ache. Never again would he complain of recruits fresh from the farm and their mother's milk. There were Krian boys on those farms now who knew more about swordsmanship than a full-grown Illussor.

  The Coliseum had been easier to deal with than this.

  He turned back to the window, one thought after another hammering at his brain until he wanted to break something. Preferably Beraht, but that would have to wait until the Breaker—Dieter snorted—did his job.

  A knock at the door broke his musings. "Enter!"

  Expecting another skittish, angry serving girl, Dieter was surprised to see Sol enter with a dinner tray. "I snitched it from the kitchen—probably for the best, from all I heard down there."

  Dieter looked at him. "Can't stop prowling, cat?"

  "Cat?" Sol repeated. He started to laugh, but then sobered. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to do it much sooner, but it did not seem like a good idea to bring it up while we traveled. The going was rough without adding to the tension."

  "What?" Dieter said, sitting down, but ignoring the food.

  "Burkhard," Sol said heavily, still standing. "After I spoke with you in the dungeon, I encountered him in the hallway. My eyes gave me away. We fought; Iah killed him. I wanted to say I'm sorry. I know he was something of a friend—at least he always thought highly of you."

  Dieter grunted. "He thought highly of what he thought I should have been. He was a soldier. He fought, and he died." He looked Sol in the eyes. "He hated Salharans—it was they who ruined his hand. With magic. No doubt he was glad to die trying to kill one." A shake of his head. "He would be less pleased to know he actually died when a blind Illussor stabbed him in the back."

  Sol nodded. "I am sorry all the same."

  "It comes with the territory, as they say."

  "Yet you hold Beraht in great resentment for followin
g the dictates of his territory."

  Dieter's eyes darkened. "There is no excuse for slinking around in the dark killing men while they sleep. It is the behavior of cowards. My men always fought fairly, if brutally. Anyone who did otherwise, I dealt with. Do not try to defend him to me."

  "He saved your life."

  "I saved his first, and my one life does not forgive the hundred who died without being given a chance to defend themselves."

  Sol frowned. "Does it irk you more that your men are dead, or that he got the better of you?"

  Dieter slammed a fist down on the table, rattling the food hard enough that the goblet of water on it spilled over. "Soldiers die. Men win. Others lose. I lost. But it wasn't fairly. The winter halt had already been called. We were three days gone from the Regenbogen. My men died in their sleep believing they were safe. Do not justify his actions."

  "He has his reasons." Sol held up his hands to ward off Dieter's tirade. "I'm not defending him. Until recently I barely knew him. I don't really care if you get along or not, but you keep harping on fair, Scarlet Wolf. Your own country fears and hates you, and they do it without understanding. Do you think it's fair then to turn around and hate Beraht without understanding?"

  "Get out." Sol nodded and left. Dieter glanced at his food, half of which had turned soggy from the overturned water. Muttering an oath, he stood and strode from the room.

  People avoided him as he walked the halls. He wasn't even going to begin noting how poorly defensible the whole place was. Taking the palace would be all too easy to do. Dieter memorized the layout as he went, frowning as he pondered where he would most likely find Beraht.

  "General von Adolwulf."

  Dieter eyed the man who had called his name. "You are the Duke."

  "Kalan, please. What brings you out of hiding?"

  "I'm searching for Beraht."

  Kalan rolled his eyes. "Esta dragged him out to the gardens. She keeps it up, Matthias is going to start pitching fits."

  Dieter said nothing, merely nodded and continued on his way. The gardens he remembered. Once there, locating Beraht was easy enough. He stalked toward him and Esta, waiting until Esta had finished speaking.

  "What do you want?" Beraht asked.

  "To speak with you," Dieter said, biting back whatever else he wanted to say.

  Esta smiled politely. "Then I guess I had better leave you to talk." She winked. "No fighting, all right?" Laughing at her own joke, she strolled from the garden, voice fading as she caught a passing servant in the hallway.

  "What?" Beraht snapped. "Did you need someone to beat?"

  Dieter tamped down on his ire. Would that he'd just killed the damn man when he'd had the chance. "Why did you kill my men?"

  "You really are here to beat me up."

  "If I wanted to beat you, I would not have to ask asinine questions to find a reason." Dieter glared, wishing he'd just stayed in his damn room.

  "Why do you care?"

  "Just answer the question."

  Beraht looked as though he wanted to do no such thing, but did anyway. "No choice. Men like me are good only for one thing: everyone else's dirty work. If I hadn't become a shadow killer, and later gone after your men that night, I'd be dead now."

  "So it's all right to kill a hundred to spare one?"

  "It wasn't that simple!" Beraht snapped. "The Brotherhood is all I have—had. If I hadn't done what they wanted, I would have died slowly, painfully, and nameless." His eyes were a hot, bright yellow. "I'm sure that means nothing to a Krian, but I can assure you to die nameless is far worse than losing a damnable sword. It's like never existing." Beraht looked away. "They said if I killed a hundred Scarlet, they would let me live. If I killed a thousand, they would give me a name."

  Dieter looked at him in contempt. "Name yourself. I do not understand this obsession with names you people have."

  "I wouldn't expect you to understand. Even if you're universally hated, you have a name. Someone gave it to you. Thought you were important enough to identify. You have no idea what it's like to spend your entire life as nothing."

  "Bah," Dieter replied. "You know nothing. Take a name for yourself if one is so important. All you do is make excuses for cowardice."

  "What would you know!" Beraht raged. "People hold you in awe as much as they fear you! You have power, you have a place, you have an identity!" His hands were clenched into fists, trembling in rage. "You come down here to ask me questions, only to turn around and mock me! I don't want to be told I'm a coward by a man who decided the best way to deal with everything was to be hated. Isn't that cowardice? You could have been anyone and anything, and you chose to let the world hate you. The easy way out."

  Dieter snapped and wrapped his hand around Beraht's throat. "Do not pretend to understand what drives me."

  Beraht lashed out, using his legs when Dieter pinned his arms to the stone wall as he slammed Beraht against it. "Then do not pretend to understand me. You chose to be a bastard; I chose to kill your men in their sleep. Live with it."

  He squeezed until Beraht began to find it hard to breathe, then threw him down. "I do not know why I bothered, as it seems I was right after all. Go back to your flirtations; I won't trouble you again."

  "Bastard," Beraht hissed. "You're nothing but a stars cursed bastard."

  Dieter laughed coldly. "I am called that all the time, yet it is the one thing I am most definitely not. My father did not love my mother, but he did marry her."

  "I guess he wanted his precious little gift to the Kaiser to be perfect," Beraht said.

  Dieter stopped halfway across the garden, but then continued walking. He didn't stop until he was back in his room and spent the rest of the night staring at the snow beyond the window.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tawn wiped a smear of blood from his cheek with a scrap of shirt. He stared idly at the bodies on the floor as he dropped it on the floor. The floor was wet and stained in several places; the room reeked of blood and sweat and excrement. Before long, the bodies would start to smell as well. Four men lay unmoving against the far wall, a fifth at his feet. All were covered in blood, most of it coming from the empty sockets where their eyes had been.

  One eye lay before the fireplace. His last throw had fallen a bit short—it was that which had finally made the last Illussor talk.

  Five Illussor in total, taken one by one. At least twice what was normal for the time of year. He'd thought it strange that so many would be camped out along the border. It was almost as if they were waiting for something. Or someone. Three someones, he had learned—and four had shown up.

  Interesting, interesting. Tawn couldn't wait to see the expressions on the faces of his Brothers when he told them their favorite servant was a traitor, as was their newest member—the silly toy soldier they had sent to kill Krians.

  A brief detour through Kria and five Illussor officers had told quite an interesting tale.

  He had known Sol was a traitor—he was too much a schemer to be that compliant—but Tawn had underestimated him. He touched his nose—his only flaw. One he was fast overcoming. Twice now Sol had gotten the better of him; there would not be a third.

  Sol was a traitor, and Beraht along with him. Tawn laughed aloud, thinking of how he'd taken a Krian name. So he'd been a traitor from the start. He'd have to finally get around to letting that detail slip.

  But not yet. The Brothers would know of events when he chose to tell them. Or maybe he'd let them go ahead and die. No. He wanted to see their faces when he told them about Sol and Beraht. All the Brothers would be assembling soon, wouldn't they? Except for two. Tawn laughed.

  He reached into one of his thigh-high boots and pulled out a small, corked glass vial. In the firelight, the arcen burned like liquid fire, a thick dark orange. He pulled the cork and tossed it on to the eyeless corpse at his feet and tipped the vial back.

  It burned like hot honey with just a hint of bitterness as it slid down his throat. His tongue flicked out
to get all the arcen from the vial that he could. When he had finished, it too was dropped onto the corpse, and he stepped over the bodies toward the door.

  Scheming, scheming. So much to do and plenty of winter left in which to do it. Tawn paused before a mirror, combing his hair with his fingers. The last Deceiver had been a bit feistier than his brothers. He'd reminded Tawn of the first Illussor he'd captured. That one had been fun. Screaming, shaking, crying—but not dying, not giving up. Even amongst all the Brothers, that one had tried to be strong.

  Then Sol had stolen him. He wondered now how long Sol had been playing the traitor. Tawn turned away from the mirror and frowned at the room. Hovel, really. Stone and wood to make a tidy little lookout while winter locked them all up. How tiring it must be to be so controlled by the weather. It was the greatest weakness of Kria and Illussor.

  Though apparently Illussor had an even greater weakness. And thanks to a personal feud, Kria's greatest strength was now skulking around the Deceiver capital. He wondered if the Krian Kaiser knew where his Wolf had gone.

  Tawn grinned. He pulled his hood up, shadowing his face and the fire-orange of his eyes. He was too far gone now. They'd never be yellow again. But he would not let himself be completely seduced. No, he was still the master and the arcen his slave.

  He turned back to the mirror and made sure his face was clean. His tongue flicked out to catch a bit of blood he'd missed. He fixed his clothes, smoothing the dark brown wool back to order. They smelled of arcen and blood and winter, but he didn't think the Kaiser would complain.

  With a few muttered words, Tawn left the watch post.

  He appeared in a dark chamber. Only the fire provided light; enough to dispel the gloom, but not reveal the figures in the bed opposite. Two of them, one a woman to judge by the moans. The other was a man. Tawn's eyes flickered orange like the flames of the fire behind him, wordlessly casting a spell to let him see more clearly. Yes, a woman.

  Orange was fun. Everything was so easy. He couldn't wait to see what red would do for him.