by Julia Knight
“She left you?”
Ilfayne’s lips twisted and he reached for some wine, but it evaporated as he tried to drink it. The smoke was back, stronger than before. It coiled round him and spread out through the room, making the breath catch in Nerinna’s throat.
“To help some stupid soldier who’ll be dead soon enough anyway! To help Hunter, yes. Told me he was innocent. Told me, ’n I didn’t believe her. Oku said! Said it was him. It is him. Bringing down Regin’s name. Can’t have that. Can’t go against Oku. Or I can’t. She’s braver than me. She wouldn’t have it, so she left. Always was too soft-hearted, never could bear to think badly of anyone. ’Specially Hunter. Won’t have anything bad said ’bout him. Thinks more of him than she does of me, I suppose. Thought she’d be back when she found she was wrong. And now you tell me he couldn’t have done at least some of it. Now, when I can’t do a damn thing.”
He shuddered in the chair, as though some invisible beast was trying to pull him apart. “I wish she’d never sworn. I wish she’d gone home with Hunter and left me there dead. It would’ve been easier to bear. He would look after her. He could give her the family she wants, that she’s never had. But she gave her life away for me and nothing I could do to stop her. All I can give her, all Oku gave her, is a life full of killing and blood-spilling. And every time she kills a man a tiny part of her dies too and she becomes less her. All I can give her is that, a long slow death when the time comes and nothing in the afterlife.”
He spoke some harsh words, words that made Nerinna think of a relentless desert sun drying people to a crisp, or a vengeful sea swallowing sailors. Of sudden, unmerciful death. Blood leaked from Ilfayne’s mouth and nose and dried as soon as it touched his skin. He retched uselessly and flopped back. Nerinna wiped the blood that dripped from her nose.
It wouldn’t be long before his whole body burned up. And gods damn it, she needed him. Ilfayne could make Valguard stop the execution. He might at least try now.
“Devanna?” His voice was blurred, not with drink now but with delirium.
Who was Devanna? She took his burning hand off hers and hurried to find some more water for him to drink. It was difficult to see, to breathe, in the smoke that puffed from him and drifted lazily up from the smouldering bed. There, a small pump in the corner. She filled the ewer as quickly as she could and hurried back.
Ilfayne was staring at her in a very odd way. “Devanna, where are the boys?”
“Boys?”
“The boys, where are they? Are they all right?” He lifted the glass to his lips and tried to drink, but the water evaporated when it touched his skin.
Damn! She ran to refill the glass. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about.” She didn’t give him the glass this time. “Open your mouth.”
He obeyed her without comment and she poured the water in and shut his mouth before the steam could escape. The heat of his skin raised blisters on her fingers, but that didn’t matter now. He choked a little and peered at her more closely. “Devanna, what are you doing here? You’re dead. Am I dead too?”
He sagged back into the chair and stared down at his arms, at his hand and the stump that was all that was left of the other. His face crumpled, as though he’d just remembered some crushing truth. “Devanna, I know you’re dead. Why are you here? Why do you keep haunting me? Can you forgive me? Help me get Hilde back? Please, I’m sorry, I couldn’t, I tried, but I couldn’t. I have to get Hilde back. I can’t lose her too. I can’t. I have to keep her safe. I’m sorry.” Steam rose from his eyes, tears that evaporated as they leaked out. His hair curled and sent off a nauseating stench. One of his trinkets exploded in a shower of bright fragments.
Nerinna scrambled to her feet. The poison was burning the magic in him. Mixing with the magic. She might just know the answer. Yinae. She took it for its other properties, but her father had always sworn it fended off assassins, and magic. Maybe it really did. It was the only chance she was likely to get. “You have to hold on. Have to.”
Ilfayne nodded blearily and waved his hand again. A runnel of flame fell on his chair and set it alight. Oh Herjan, she’d best be quick. She dashed out into the corridor and grabbed the first servant she found. The young lad flinched back from her for a moment before he bobbed a nervous bow. “Yes, my lady?”
“I need you to go to my quarters and find one of my maids. Have her get the yinae, as much as she has, and bring her to me here. Urgently.”
His head bobbed again and he scurried off. For what seemed an interminable wait she paced up and down outside the door, checking every few minutes on Ilfayne.
When her maid came and learned whose room they would be entering she tried to run. Nerinna grabbed her back.
“Not in there, please, my lady! He’s a mage, he’ll—”
“Not do a damn thing to you at the moment. How much of the yinae have you got?”
“We brought plenty for the journey, my lady, enough for three months for all your retinue. I brought it all.”
“Good, now get in here and start brewing.”
“But, my lady, he’ll burn us all. He’s been burning the city, and Valguard—”
“What’s happened? Out with it!”
“I’m not sure, but Valguard’s looking for you. He said he wanted to celebrate something with you, and he was very displeased he couldn’t find you.”
“And Aran, have you seen him?”
“No, my lady. Though I heard some of the servants say he’s under close arrest, for ‘his own protection’.”
Nerinna dragged the protesting girl into Ilfayne’s quarters. The maid let out a shriek, dropped the bag of yinae and ran.
Kyr’s mercy! Ilfayne lay sprawled in his chair, his eyes glassy and rolling. Smoke covered him like a blanket. His shirt and waistcoat crawled with flames and Nerinna rushed forward to smother them.
She bit her lip as flame blistered one arm in her rush, and hissed in pain as Ilfayne’s burning hand landed on hers. She threw it off and picked up the yinae. How did the maids prepare it? She normally drank it in cold tea. Did they just sprinkle it in? How much should she give him? She went to the pump in the corner, splashed some water into a cup and dumped in some of the yinae.
She managed to get close enough to hand him the cup but the water began to evaporate even as his hand touched it. “Come on,” she said. “This will do it, I’m sure. You have to get some inside you.”
Maybe he could just eat it? She pulled out a few small leaves and held them at arm’s length. “You have to try.”
He muttered a few words breathlessly and the flames died down enough for him to stuff the leaves in his mouth. Then he sank back and shut his eyes. Nerinna watched him carefully. The flames didn’t flare up again, but they didn’t die either.
Maybe she should give him more. She had no idea how long it took to act, whether she could make things worse if she gave him too much, but maybe she should risk it. She had to. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, she took a whole handful of yinae and mixed it in with some water.
She could definitely get closer to him without singeing. He didn’t appear conscious so she pinched his nose, opened his mouth and poured it in. Did it steam less this time? Was he cooling? The flames were back to tiny tongues here and there. She put a hand gingerly on his forehead. Still searing hot, but it didn’t blister her skin now.
She sat back and watched him critically. The smoke thinned, caught in her throat less, and when he opened his eyes they looked a little sharper, more present. His bangles clinked as his hand trembled on the arm of his chair. “Is there any wine left?” His voice was very soft, so that she had to strain to hear it.
The dregs of a bottle sat at the foot of his chair. She poured him what was left and handed it to him. His trembling hand spilt some but he managed to get most of it to his lips, and it barely steamed at all as he drank it down gratefully. He looked grey, sick and impossibly old, his face lined and pinched where it had been smooth and young before. H
e peered at her closely. “You’re not Devanna, are you?”
She shook her head, aware that she was no longer afraid of him or what he could do. Instead she could feel only pity for him. She, who felt pity for no one in case it stopped her getting what she wanted. “No, I’m not. Who was she?”
Ilfayne toyed with the empty glass and looked around for more wine. There was none and he turned back to her. Was it her imagination, or was his charred hair grey where it hadn’t been before? “Someone I should have let go a long time ago.” He sighed harshly. “Poor Hilde, I never really let her take Devanna’s place. Where is she? Hilde?”
“I don’t know.”
He raised a shaking hand to his lips. “Oh, dear gods. In the square—Oh, Kyr’s mercy. I almost—I have to find her. I have to tell her I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t ever. I have to find her!”
He tried to get to his feet and fell back into the chair. “What in the gods’ names happened to me? I feel weak. Drained. Something’s not quite right.” Lines crept across his face, folded his skin even as she watched. “What did you do?”
“A concoction my father always made me take, for fear of mages, of assassins of all kinds. He always swore it fended off magic. I take it because—” She hesitated, but it was only the truth. She shouldn’t be ashamed for it, never had been before. Not really ashamed now, but wistfully sad that she’d done it. Because she’d been shown something different and better, and wanted it. “Because it’s a good way to make sure I don’t catch certain diseases. It was all I could think of.”
“Well, it worked, or seems to have. Well done. Now what were we talking about?”
“Help me! Help me save Hunter, and help Hilde at the same time.”
Ilfayne shook his head. “No. If I wouldn’t help Hunter for Hilde, wouldn’t break my oath again for her, why do you think I’d do it for you?”
“Because now you know Hunter didn’t do it! He never forced himself on me. He didn’t do the rest either.” Ilfayne didn’t look convinced. Maybe she would have to be crafty. “And if you help him, then maybe Hilde will forgive you.”
He scowled at her. “I’m not doing it, and that’s final. He may not have attacked you but this is my last chance. I’m not wasting it on him. Oku made it plain, Hunter is guilty.”
Gods damn the man, he was so infuriatingly stubborn! Nerinna stamped her foot in frustration. “Then he’s wrong!”
A smile ghosted across Ilfayne’s lips. “You sound just like Hilde. But how can a god be wrong?”
“I don’t know, he just is. Don’t you care what happens to him?”
Ilfayne shut his eyes and turned away. “No.”
But she didn’t believe him. Care etched his face. She grabbed his chin and turned him towards her. “Liar.”
He lifted his lip in a sneer. “You still think Hunter’s innocent? He poisoned me! Never did like me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Nerinna’s voice was sharper than she intended. “When did he have the chance to poison you?”
He stared at her, his mouth open in sudden realisation. “He didn’t, did he? Then who did?”
They stared at each other and both said it at the same time. “Valguard.”
“Now are you going to sit and wallow in self-pity, or are you going to do something about it?” Nerinna glanced out the window. The first hint of light made grey shadows of the spires outside. “Because I think we’ve only minutes.”
Waiting for Death
Hunter lay in the corner of the cell and shuddered uncontrollably. Just the pain from his shattered arm. Just the pain, he lied to himself. Nothing to do with the lack of duria, the blessed numbness it sent through his muscles, his bones and his mind. The numbness that let him carry on when all he wanted to do was lie down and die with grief, when he almost wished he were kyrbodan so that he would.
But he couldn’t have done that. He had promised Amariah, the last words he had spoken to her. He’d promised to look after the children so he had had to bear the pain, both in his arm and in his heart. Had to bear it and keep that word.
The duria was the only thing that had allowed him any relief from it, from all of it. Now, for the first time in five years, he had to deal with not only the pain that ran through his arm and shivered its insidious way through the rest of him, but all the grief he had so long suppressed. For the first time in that long, his mind was clear, sharp as his sword, and he was afraid of what he would see if he looked too deeply.
He willed away the pain in his arm and tried to think of other things. Like how in the gods’ names he had ended up here. A disgrace to everyone. To his father, his family. To Regin, and that burned the most. Hunter could hardly even blame Valguard, because he’d wanted to do every one of those things he was accused of. That he hadn’t done them made no matter. He had wanted to, and that was shame enough.
He allowed himself to think briefly of Nerinna. At least he wouldn’t have to live with that again, loving another man’s wife. Tempted every day to tell her, to hope that she returned his feelings. And Nerinna, even if she felt something for him, and that was very doubtful, it’d not stop her taking other men as and when she felt like it.
Poor Aran. If only Hunter had known before the deal was sealed he’d never have let Aran agree. Why did he love her? What was it about her that made him want to sweep her up and kiss her? She used men like he used armour.
He sat up straighter and winced at the spasm that ripped through his arm. She used men, and let them use her, because she had never known any other way. Because her father had taught her to. Because that was how it was done in her country and she had no inkling it could be different.
A hot surge of pity twisted his heart. At least he would be spared watching her do it, watching her grow cold and hard in her heart, watching the nurtured hatred of men in her as he had seen other women like that do. She was young, far too young for him, and he could only send a prayer that Aran’s young innocence would help her see, would soften her heart. It wanted to be softened, he was sure of it. She wanted to live where she need not trade herself for favours, where she would be adored, not treated as a bargaining chip. A prayer then. A prayer to Regin, not to Oku. He’d lost all love for Oku when he discovered what Hilde had been forced to do, what she had sworn.
As if on cue from his thought, the door slammed open and Hilde was thrust through it, landing awkwardly in front of him. Someone spat on her and the door shut with a thud like the end of the world.
Hunter pulled himself more upright, his pain forgotten. “Hilde?”
She lay propped on her knees and elbows. Hot, raucous sobs made her whole body shake. Hunter had never seen her cry like this, never seen such a raw outpouring of despair from her. She hated tears, would do anything to avoid crying them, and he couldn’t think what could have happened to change that.
Only one thing, one thing could have done that to her. One thing, and that would mean her slow and drawn-out death.
She breathed one word and he knew it was true, knew she had little time left in this world. “Ilfayne,” she said, and her arms would not hold her any more.
He got up with a grunt of pain and went to her, pulled her up and laid her head on his chest. She shook so violently he could hardly hold her to start with, but his voice, his arm around her, seemed to soothe her. Hot tears soaked his shirt and trickled down his stomach. He held her closer, just wrapped his arm round her and pulled her as tight as he could. Not long before she would begin to fade. Begin to die. Every painful thought of his own fled. No grief he had could match a kyrbodan who had lost their mate. He wouldn’t die from his grief, even if he’d wished it a thousand times.
He rested his head on hers and kissed her hair. “I’m sorry, Hilde.” He’d sworn to protect her once, but he could never protect her from her own emotions. If only he could, she would never have been with Ilfayne in the first place.
She shook her head against his chest and pulled away. “No, never be sorry. Never. You did everything for
me I could ever have wished for. Everything.”
The look in those odd, haunting eyes of hers stabbed through him. A cold chill ran through his stomach, and he had the deadliest feeling he knew what she was about to say.
“Hilde, is it…” His lips refused to shape the words. He grabbed at her hand and pulled her back. “Hilde?”
She couldn’t look at him and the coldness spread from his stomach, up to his heart, down under his belly. Gooseflesh rippled all over him and he shivered at the sensation.
She opened and closed her mouth a few times until the words just seemed to fall out of her with a sob. “I should have made sure we got here earlier, should have made sure Ilfayne used his sorcery as soon as I knew. Then maybe I could have spared you this.”
Once she’d said the words she slid down into a corner and curled up like a leaf burned by cruel winter winds. He knelt beside her and took her cold hand in his. Hilde hadn’t brought him to this. Down in the depths of his soul he knew it was him. Somehow he’d brought this on himself. She would never have hurt him; she didn’t have it in her. And Valguard had every reason for it.
Hunter wiped at his beard with his sleeve, mopped up the tears that lurked there and took her hand again. Her fingers flashed hot and cold under his and she shivered and sweated at the same time. He was suddenly glad he was no longer under the thrall of the duria. His mind was clear now. Self-pity had drowned out everything else for far too long. He couldn’t allow her to die in this cell or at the end of a rope, not because of Valguard, or because of what he’d done to make Valguard hate him.
“Not Valguard,” Hilde whispered. Her words came in short, pain-filled gasps. “Not the cause of all this. Jealousy, everywhere. Valguard enjoying it, but not the reason.”
“Not Valguard? But he’s the one put us here.”
