by Lee Ramsay
Several prisoners wept or cringed while others begged for mercy. A few saved themselves the indignity of being hauled upright by climbing to their feet. Tristan was lucky; uncomfortable as the position was, his height allowed him to stand flatfooted. Several of the women struggled to balance on their toes.
The soldier locked the crank in place with a steel peg. He spoke not a word, nor did he make another move as he stared at the prisoners with a slack face and glassy eyes.
Silence reigned, broken by crackling flames and whimpers. Tristan’s nerves grew taut, his heart crashing against his ribs as sweat coursed along his sides.
The chamber door opened once more. A Dushken, younger than Urzgeth and with a single angry rune burned into his forehead, shoved the liveried guard aside as Ankara swept into the room. Sathra trailed behind the older woman, curious trepidation on her face. Behind them came another huntsman, older and stockier than the first and with a more elaborate series of brands across his forehead. His long leather coat whispered against tall boots as he moved to stand beside the two women.
Bookended by the hulking warriors, the noblewomen appeared smaller and more delicate than he knew them to be. The gossamer white silk of their matching robes left nothing to the imagination. Ankara moved through the chamber, her hips swaying with each prowling step.
“It is time you apply what I have taught you these many years,” Ankara said as she wound her way through the dangling prisoners, sapphire eyes examining their faces and bodies from beneath lowered eyelids. The sorceress paused, dragging the sharpened nail of her index finger along the line of a man’s rib. He shrank away, causing her lips to curl in a predatory smile. “For a kingdom to remain healthy, the weak, broken, and unwanted must be culled. Inasmuch as a healthy population keeps the realm strong, so too must those who rule be strong.”
Sathra looked upon the prisoners with disdain as she trailed behind her kinswoman. “I don’t understand, my lady. Who are these people? I see signs of interrogation—”
“Incorrect. Think on what I have said.” Ankara stopped in front of a woman and gripped her hips, then ran her hands up the sunken sides and across flattened breasts. Satisfied, she gestured for the Dushken to unlock the woman’s manacles and stepped aside as they hurried forward. Her sapphire eyes settled once more on her kinswoman as keys rattled against the prisoner’s bonds. “If they are not being interrogated, why do I engage in the trouble of keeping them like this?”
The hem of Sathra’s sheer robe twisted around her ankles as she turned a slow circle, lips pursed as she considered the question. She stopped when her gaze settled on Tristan. “They’re political prisoners, or those who have found your disfavor.”
The older noblewoman ignored the sound of the selected prisoner being dragged to the front of the room and stepped to the younger’s side. “Some are political prisoners, but they are few. Such individuals must have open trials on plausible charges, for the peerage would ask questions if the scions of powerful Houses disappeared without due process. To do otherwise could inspire rebellion.”
The younger woman’s gaze flicked to the other dangling prisoners before settling on Tristan once more. “They’re not mere criminals. Those we would simply imprison, enslave, or execute.”
“What are they, if they are neither political prisoners nor common criminals?”
“Orphans. I always assumed they were murdered when they were found.”
Ankara’s unbound hair rippled as she nodded. “Generally, that is the case. Some I let escape, which allows others to hope they might as well. I also assisted with the development of networks through which orphans are smuggled beyond our borders.”
“Why?”
The grand duchess stepped closer to Tristan, her eyes roving his body in a way that made the hair on his nape stand on end. His uplifted biceps pressed against his ears did little to muffle the predatory purr of her voice. “A hunted animal clings to life as the predator closes in; in those moments, it is more alive than ever. So, too, with the hunters.”
The Dushken dumped the woman’s limp, nude form on the dais. Comprehension crossed Sathra’s features as the sound caught her attention. “You use the orphans to train the huntsmen.”
“That is not the sole reason I keep some of them alive. We use hounds when hunting foxes. Though we kill the fox because it is vermin, do we let the hounds savage the prey, or do we kill it ourselves and harvest its pelt?” Ankara clicked her tongue as she dragged her fingernail down his sternum. “The answer should be obvious. Take this one, for example; defiance and anger feed his desire to live. Why, given half a chance, he might strike at us in his need to escape. Like any other animal, I suspect he will fight to his last breath when cornered.”
“So you bring them here for entertainment?”
“I suppose you could call it that. What I do can certainly be entertaining.”
Tristan recoiled, pulling against his manacles as a hungriness suffused the sorceress’s expression and set fire to her sapphire eyes. Her body clove to his as she followed his retreat; the yielding firmness of her breasts flattened against his ribs, and the gauzy silk slithered between them as she shifted with his movements. Her breath flowed warm against his flesh as she exhaled, and the sensation pebbled his sweat-dampened skin.
Bile flooded the youth’s mouth as her hand tracked down his body, stirring the tangle of russet hair on his lower abdomen. Her fingers curled around the limp flesh of his manhood in a slow furling movement, trapping his length against the coolness of her palm. A bead of sweat trickled down his ribs as she feathered and tugged on his shaft, coaxing it to heat and stiffen; she caught it on the tip of her tongue, leaving a damp path across his flesh as she followed the bead’s path upward.
Repulsed as much by her touch as his body’s reaction to it, Tristan turned his face away. His eyes found Sathra’s expression as twisted by aversion as his own. The young noblewoman retreated a step, her hand clutching the neck of her robe. “You rut with them?”
“I harvest them,” Ankara corrected as she slithered around his side. The unbound mass of her hair tickled across his skin as she pressed her cheek to his ribs and fixed her kinswoman with a steady gaze. The hand wrapped around his organ continued its methodical stroking while the other rested on the curve of his rump with appalling familiarity. “How do you think I have preserved my youth all these centuries? Like any wise hunter, I use all parts of my prey to sustain me. The difference here is that, rather than meat and sinew, what I harvest is the essence of youth itself and the vitality of their living flesh.
“Through the magic, we can draw off our victim’s life force to replace and enhance our own,” the sorceress said. “It is in their blood and their flesh; the harder they cling to life, the more they fear to suffer, the more potent that vitality becomes. Years become minutes once we yoke it to our needs; injuries become inconveniences, which can heal faster than they otherwise might.”
Ankara’s hand tightened its grip on Tristan’s flesh, drawing a gasp from his throat. A throaty laugh thrummed through her chest, vibrating through his own as she grazed her lips across his ribs. “The essence flows strongest in the seed, but flowers in the bloom of arousal. And in truth, I find the method of reaping what I need to be pleasant in so many ways.”
Head shaking in denial, Sathra backed away. “I cannot—”
“Cannot, or will not?” the grand duchess asked, her voice losing its sultry quality in favor of a sharper tone. “I chose you to be my pupil when you were a girl of twelve because I saw qualities within you that I believed I could nurture. I brought you to Feinthresh at fourteen to oversee your lessons beyond what your mother could teach. I have molded and nurtured your mind and trained you in the techniques at the root of my power. If you are to assist me in my plans, you must learn what is necessary to preserve your health and vitality.”
The sorceress’s eyes shifted, her cheek whispering against Tristan’s flesh as her will commanded the younger noblewoman to follo
w her gaze. Dangling beside him from the apparatus affixed to the ceiling hung an empty set of manacles. “For your sake, Sathra, I pray you have not wasted my time.”
The younger sorceress clenched her jaw hard enough for the muscles to jump beneath the skin. She licked her dry lips as she met her kinswoman’s gaze and swallowed hard. “Your time has not been wasted, Your Grace.”
“I am pleased to hear—” Ankara broke off as the youth beneath her hand gasped and shuddered. Her eyebrow rose as she stepped in front of him and examined the wetness coating her palm. A predatory smile spread across her lips as she licked the substance away. “A maiden boy? My my, quite a surprise with how well-made you are. Orphan or not, surely some young maiden hungered for the meat you could feed her.”
Cheeks burning with anger and humiliation, Tristan said nothing and glared at the grand duchess.
A low thrum of amusement rose from the sorceress’s throat as she turned away. The hem of her robe billowed around her calves as she brushed past Sathra and approached the dais at the chamber’s front. Her shoulders slipped free of the filmy silk as she climbed the steps. She cast the garment aside as she stepped around the crumpled prisoner the Dushken had dumped beside the tub and stepped into the iron basin.
“I can understand your hesitation. Despite my best efforts, your mother filled your head with certain notions of what is and is not acceptable for people to do to each other. She has forgotten that all people are predators, and that we feed on the weak,” Ankara said as she turned toward her kinswoman and sank into the empty basin. She gestured at the waiting huntsman as she settled against the tub’s sloped back. “Perhaps a demonstration of the benefits of what I mean to teach you will ease your squeamishness.”
At a gesture from the grand duchess, The elder Dushken grabbed a handful of the prisoner’s dark hair and hauled her emaciated form to the tub’s edge. The woman’s broken fingernails scrabbled against the metal as the huntsman drew a curving blade from a sheath hidden beneath his coat and dragged the serrated edge across her throat. Blood spurted and bubbled with escaping air as the blade cut deep, severing the veins and arteries in the woman’s neck and laying open her windpipe.
As gore jetted across Ankara’s pale skin and the prisoner grasped at the ghastly wound, the huntsman lifted the woman to her feet with his grip on her hair. The blade sank into her emaciated belly beneath the sternum and cut downward with a sharp jerk. Purple entrails welled up from the gaping wound as he cut down toward her pubis; the ropey mass spilled into the tub, coiling against the grand duchess’s belly and thighs with wet, bloody slaps.
Reclining against the iron tub’s sloped back as gore flowed across her body, the sorceress began a chant. Sibilant words slithered through the air, and the whispering sound built on itself. Layers of enchantment grew thicker with each repetition. Ankara’s emerald pendant emanated a profane radiance, pulsing with her heartbeat’s rhythm as the braziers’ flames guttered. Shadows writhed in the chamber’s corners and cavorted with unholy life as the chant reached a crescendo.
Tristan turned away, tears sliding down his cheeks as the sorceress’s chant climaxed and ceased. In the sudden silence, it was impossible to ignore the gurgle rising from the victim’s slashed throat or the wet splashes of spilling blood in the tub. The dull thumps of the prisoner’s hands beating the metal basin stopped as her heart stilled. When at last the woman’s struggling ceased, the Dushken tossed the corpse aside with a thud of twisted limbs.
The youth dared look upon Ankara’s blood-soaked visage as she lay in her foul bath. Euphoria shone on her face as her breast heaved with an orgasmic release. Gore ran across stiffened nipples and trickled over her belly, black in the weird light burning in her emerald pendant’s depths. After several long moments of silence the sorceress began a new spell, her words' unintelligible cadence different from her earlier enchantment. Her amulet brightened in response as she uncurled from the tub’s depths and rose to her feet. Her caressing hands followed the curves of thigh, breast, and belly as she smoothed gory foulness into her skin. Long, slender fingers climbed the column of her neck, then spread ichor across her sharp features before sliding back through her ebon hair.
Jade fire licked up Ankara’s body as the foulness in the tub ignited, the eldritch flames filling the air with a hiss and the succulent scent of roasting meat. Her eyes blazed with reflected light as the heat caught and billowed her hair, but the flames did not consume her. Her pale flesh shone as it absorbed the blood sheathing her slender form, which began to ripple as the magic coursed through her. The hard planes of her face softened as they took on more girlish plumpness, retaining their general shape while shedding years. So too did her body reform itself; her breasts grew firmer as her hips acquired a lissom sleekness, and her skin radiated a youthful vitality despite its paleness.
Then, with a suddenness that left the ears ringing and the eyes blind, both the chanting and the flames vanished. Braziers sputtered back to life, casting the room in shades of red as the malignant throb of the sorceress’s emerald pendant faded.
So profound were the alterations to the woman who stepped from the tub that she scarcely resembled the one he had met days ago. Then, she had appeared as a woman well into adulthood; now, she possessed a body equal to his own in age and vitality. Yet there was an unmistakable similarity between the features, as though altered by a single generation. Revulsed by the transformation, Tristan understood how the grand duchess had perpetrated the charade of successive heirs to Anahar’s throne.
The sorceress gestured for the elder Dushken to surrender his dagger as she descended the dais’ steps. Untroubled by her nudity, she licked the blood from the blade as she stepped over her discarded robe and sauntered toward Sathra. “Have you made your decision?”
Awestruck and fearful, the younger woman sank into a deep curtsy. “I am yours to command, Your Grace.”
“I am glad you have chosen so wisely,” Ankara said, her voice rife with cynicism. She gave a throaty laugh as her eyes turned from her kinswoman. A chill swept through Tristan as her sapphire eyes locked with his. “Shall we begin your training?”
Chapter 30
Smoky cardamom and blood’s iron tang prickled Tristan’s nose as Ankara sauntered to within arm’s reach. Had he not witnessed her transformation, he might not have believed her the same woman. Her cheeks were fuller, and the sharp edges of her jaw softened. The creases across her forehead and at the corners of her eyes had all but smoothed away. Her body lacked the mature roundness of hip and breast, and had grown sleeker and leaner. Were it not for the keen intelligence and amusement sparkling in her sapphire eyes, he might have mistaken her to be the younger sister – or perhaps the daughter – of the woman he knew as the Grand Duchess of Anahar. The emerald on her breast, however, confirmed the improbable reality of her identity.
“You’re mad,” he managed, pulling away as she sidled closer.
Ankara issued a throbbing chuckle at the disbelief scrawled on his face. Her tongue swiped her upper lip as she lay her hand on his breast, fingernails stirring the fine coppery hair curling across his skin before gliding down the plane of his belly. “I consider it a flair for the dramatic.”
His manacles dug into his wrists as he shied from her touch. She moved with him, her fingernails scraping his skin as they moved through the tangle of hair downing his lower abdomen and circled the base of his manhood. Steel cuffs pressed into his wrists hard enough for his pulse to throb in his hands. The hot scent flowing from her skin threatened to smother him, and was an odd contrast to the coolness of her flesh.
When his words came, they were breathless and trembling. “What do you want of me?”
The sorceress pressed herself against him, the firmness of her breasts flattening against his belly as her hand stroked his stiffening shaft. The dagger hilt clenched in her other hand pressed against his buttocks, and the blade’s flat hissed across his skin. “If you were not paying attention to all I have said and done, you a
re denser than I thought.”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“You had ample time to do so, and your prince as well. Instead of treating with me honestly, you brought lies and deceit. It is time to balance the accounts.”
“By killing me?”
“I have no desire to kill you; quite the opposite, in truth. I want you to live a long, long time.” Ankara chuckled as her lips brushed his chest, soft as velvet against the skin covering his heart, and her hand cradled his stirring manhood. When he twisted in a vain attempt to escape her touch, she tightened her fingers around the organ. Cold sharpness pressed against the base of his member when she tired of his struggling. He froze, eyes wide and breath coming in panting, labored gasps.
A pleased smile curving her lips, the grand duchess eased her grip on his manhood and stepped back. The dagger’s blade tapped against her thigh as her eyes lingered on him, then slid sidelong to Sathra. “I find your orneriness appealing, which is in part why you are here. Stubborn as your mind and your will may be, your body is more stubborn still. It wants what it wants.”
Though directed to the bound youth, Sathra understood by the way her kinswoman’s gaze shifted that the older woman’s words were meant for both of them. She stiffened, and her skin glistened with nervous sweat as the grand duchess prowled toward her. Ankara trailed her fingers across her kinswoman’s shoulders and stirred the cascade of rich, dark hair from the young woman’s nape, which sent a shiver through the younger woman’s body.
“Our will only has so much control over our bodies, you see,” the sorceress lectured in a purring tone. “Separate the conscious mind from the flesh, and we are nothing but animals driven by instinct and base need. We can push our bodies beyond their capabilities, yet they will weaken and become obstinate with hunger regardless of our demands. Whether we desire it or not, our flesh will seek revitalizing sleep when they become fatigued – and even limit functionality to prevent injury, though we can ignore the pain to a degree.”
