by Spurrier, Jo
‘Issey —’
‘No! Rhia, it’s healing, and I have work to do! Sierra needs help, and Delphine’s still being difficult. I’d be laid up for weeks and we just don’t have time.’
Rhia sighed. ‘Very well, but promise me you will be wary. If there is poison lurking around the broken bones, it could rise up and kill you within a few days. If you see black or red streaks beneath the skin, you must find a physician as soon as possible, do you hear?’
‘I do,’ he said, and began to wrap the padding and splints around his arm again. She was only being cautious, he told himself. The enchantments had made such an improvement already; surely in a few months it would heal. He would never use the hand again, but at least it wouldn’t be such a wretched nuisance. All he needed was time. To distract them both, he asked about Rhia’s other patient. ‘The girl who was taken ill after the battle — how is she? Did she live?’
‘Her name is Anoa,’ Rhia said. ‘She is recovering. I would like to send her to the surface for fresh air and sun, but she does not want to leave. Mira has her watching over your sorceress when she is not attending the lessons.’
This was the first he’d heard of it, but of course, many decisions must have been made while he was ill.
‘Now, Issey, you should rest. We need you well again, swiftly.’
‘You’re holding your breath again! If you don’t breathe, you’re going to faint.’
With dark spots hovering in her vision, Sierra unclenched her jaw to snatch a breath. Her power pulsed beneath her skin, dragging thorns and barbs across her nerves as she wrestled to keep it contained.
Delphine folded her arms, the glinting golden bands of the bracelets peeking out from beneath her sleeves. ‘Just what did that master of yours teach you? Keeping one’s breathing steady is a novice lesson. How do you expect to fight if you pass out after five minutes?’
Even if she’d wanted to reply, Sierra couldn’t spare the air or the concentration. Keeping her power under control made her feel like she was trying to control a herd of stampeding yaka.
Besides, Delphine knew the answer. By keeping her ignorant, Kell had ensured she couldn’t resist him or Rasten for more than a few minutes. Rasten hadn’t corrected the flaw either, although he’d often reminded her to breathe during their lessons in the winter. Had he seen her weakness and deliberately left it in place? Or had he learnt the lesson subconsciously, and never thought to teach her otherwise?
Now, as she tried to divert part of her mind to remembering her lungs, her concentration wavered. As Sierra glanced up to check the buckets, bundles of cloth and other bits of salvage gently spinning through the air around her, a cord of power escaped her grasp. Energy boiled from her fingertips in a shower of sparks, and one of the bundles shot straight up into the air, slapping into the vaulted ceiling, while a bucket hurtled across the room like a stone from a slingshot, hit a wall and shattered.
Sierra snapped a shield overhead as a second bucket — this one holding icy water — tumbled down. It would have drenched her if she’d been slower, but that was one thing that Rasten and Kell had troubled to teach her.
Delphine retreated at the first sign of overflowing power, and watched her with a scowl. ‘If you weren’t so quick with that wretched shield you might grasp the lesson sooner.’
Still covered with writhing threads of energy, Sierra closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, and began reeling her power in again.
Isidro had said Delphine was a good teacher, but Sierra saw no evidence of it. She was short tempered, abrasive and impatient, delivering instructions in clipped and swift-spoken Akharian, which Sierra barely understood. Delphine made her feel foolish for asking questions or failing to grasp simple concepts, and every time she lost control and had to halt the exercise she delivered a look of such withering contempt that Sierra wondered how it would feel to slap the haughty expression off her face.
She firmly pushed the thought aside. She couldn’t let herself contemplate it, even in an idle fantasy, lest her power react to her subconscious thoughts.
With Isidro lying ill, there had been no choice but to begin training without him. In the last three days, her lessons with Delphine had become as much an exercise in self-control as in mage-craft. It would have been more bearable if she had anyone else to turn to, any other voice to temper the wretched woman’s sharp temper and biting criticism — but the only other mage was Nirveli, and thinking of her made Sierra press her lips together in a sudden flush of anger that threatened to set her power loose once again.
At first, as Isidro had, Sierra felt a certain kinship with the ghost. They’d both lost so much, struggling against those who insisted the power that came as naturally as breathing was something twisted and evil, worthy only of scorn and disdain. In extreme circumstances, they’d both found friends for whom they would risk life and limb. Both had fallen in love with brilliant men who gave all they had to their cause. All that the ghost might have provided — the knowledge of a lost world, the promise of a place where people like her had once been welcomed instead of reviled — had for a few moments seemed like everything Sierra needed to erase the pain of her lost family and her years in Kell’s clutches … only to be snatched away when Nirveli refused to teach her. Because she was Corrupted, defiled by something that was done to her, not because of any choices she’d made or actions she’d taken, but only because Kell had taken her prisoner and made her a part of his rituals.
Just recalling the conversation filled her with a crushing sense of shame; she felt as filthy and befouled as she had in the aftermath of the rituals, when Kell stripped all that golden, glowing power away and she remembered what he had done to raise it.
I’m sorry, Nirveli had said. It’s not fair and it’s not your fault, but there’s nothing I can do. The memory burned like fire, and the apology did little to soothe the sting — Nirveli was the last echo of a lost world, forgotten and alone, but still she rejected Sierra as too polluted to be of use.
‘When you are quite ready,’ Delphine said, ‘we shall try again.’
Sierra drew another deep breath. Her head was still spinning, but time was short and her progress slow — moments spent catching her breath was precious time wasted. She closed her eyes, shoved those thoughts aside, and prepared to begin the exercise once again.
When her power was firmly in hand, Sierra took hold of the assorted objects, this time minus the shattered remains of the bucket.
‘You’re too tense,’ Delphine said. ‘Clenching your muscles makes your power agitated — that’s why it keeps breaking your grip. Relax, girl. And breathe!’
As much as she wanted to curse the woman, Sierra swallowed the words. Better to let the barbs roll off her like rain on a smoked hide.
Then Sierra heard voices in the stairwell, where Delphine’s guards waited at a safe distance. She opened her eyes to see Isidro watching from the doorway. He was still pale, but the flush of fever was gone from his cheeks.
‘Issey!’ she called, and abandoned the exercise. Power pooled around her feet like water, making the metal fittings on the objects scattered around her flare with Black Sun’s Fire, but Sierra ignored it to run to the door and throw her arms around Isidro’s neck and hold him fiercely. ‘Oh, I’ve missed you.’
He wrapped his good arm around her, but looked past her towards Delphine. ‘How go the lessons?’
‘I’m making progress, but it’s slow,’ Sierra said.
‘I listened back there for a moment,’ he said, too quietly for the Akharian woman to hear. ‘Has she been like this all along?’
‘Short tempered and curt? Isn’t she always like that?’
He frowned. ‘No, she’s not. You shouldn’t have to deal with her on your own, I should have been here —’
‘You didn’t choose to be ill,’ Sierra said.
‘There’s no excuse to treat you this way. Sirri, why don’t you take a break? You’re out of breath, and the guards said you’ve been working all day with
out a rest.’
‘All day? It’s still morning.’
Isidro shook his head. ‘It’s well past noon. Haven’t you eaten yet?’
Sierra scrubbed a hand across her face. ‘I … no, I haven’t. In the slave-teams we only ate twice a day. I suppose I’m not back to normal yet.’
‘Then have a rest and eat something,’ Isidro said, and he looked past her, his dark eyes turning hard and cold. ‘I’ll have a word with our guest.’
When the pair embraced, Delphine turned away. You fool, she berated herself. You complete and utter dolt. That’s what you get for having feelings for a slave. If you hadn’t let your bleeding heart get in the way, the Battle-Mages would still have charge of him and none of this would have happened.
Of course, if the Battle-Mages had kept him, he’d be dead now.
As he and his lover talked in soft voices, Delphine clenched her teeth hard enough to make her head ache. You miserable two-faced dog, I saved your wretched life, I protected you from torture, I nursed you back to health and I promised you your freedom … and this is how you repay me? I’ll see you suffer for this. I’ll see you and your girlfriend in chains once again, or by the Good Goddess herself …
But the words rang hollow inside her head. It had become a kind of litany over the first few days of her imprisonment — on the first night, stiff and aching after the beating she’d taken in the basement, those words had soothed her to sleep. She’d clung to them for comfort as the realisation sank in that her career was over and her reputation destroyed. She would take the blame for the defeat — it was she who had broken the law and concealed Aleksar’s talent. It was she who had freed the wretched girl from her chains. Once this was over Delphine could never show her face in Akhara again. She would lose her position in the Collegium, and her students — no one of any sense would want their career tainted by her name.
At first, dreams of revenge had been her only comfort, but as time passed Delphine found it hard to keep the vitriol hot and seething. Every day, it seemed, she was confronted with a hundred little things that stole her fire. She saw the women who had been slaves gathered around a stove, talking and laughing in a way the slave-masters would never have tolerated, sorting through the wreckage of the camp or just washing clothes in the warm water below the cascade, reclaiming their old lives with small freedoms. After the attack in the installation, she was even more aware of what they’d endured night after night in the slave-camps, and how fortunate she’d been to escape the same fate.
And then there was Sierra. Delphine had tried to hate her, this black-haired creature who held the heart of the man Delphine had wanted for her own. How could a child like her snare a man like him? She was an uneducated waif, a common backwoods girl, and though she had power to burn she had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, with no skill, no nuance, and no understanding of what she was.
At first Delphine had been wary of her, but as time wore down her nerves she stopped thinking of the girl as a rabid dog, and began to understand the full extent of the tragedy unfolding in front of her.
She was a sweet girl, kind hearted and hard working if not especially bright; and in her years of teaching Delphine had come to value willingness to work above pure intelligence. She watched the girl struggle with her temper as her barbs hit their mark, fighting for a stoic calm even as she worked to tame her unruly power. Delphine tried to keep her hatred fresh and bright, and yet as she watched Sierra frown in concentration, she couldn’t help but wonder how this fresh-faced woman had fared in the slave camps. What terrors had she faced, what violations had she endured, all to free the man she loved? And what did it cost her now to bite her tongue and bow her head to a teacher who rewarded success and failure alike with sarcasm and biting contempt?
Delphine covered her face with her hands. She felt ashamed of herself … and yet the sight of them together triggered such a sting of loss and regret that she had to lash out to lessen her pain.
Then she heard him coming towards her. ‘Delphine,’ he said, his voice hard and angry.
Delphine gulped and turned to face him, lifting her chin high. ‘Had enough of lounging around in bed, have you?’ Why am I doing this?
She couldn’t think of him as Aleksar any more, it was too painful, but no more would she call him by the name the Sympath and Mira used.
‘I expected better of you than this,’ he said at last.
‘Better?’ she spat. ‘Better? I’ve been beaten and almost raped, kept in squalid quarters, chained like a dog and worked all hours of the day and night, and you expect me to be gracious about it?’
‘Chained like a dog?’ Isidro said. ‘That’s not true, although it could be arranged, and your quarters are no different from ours. I expect you to be civil, as we have been civil to you. You wouldn’t speak to your students the way you talk to Sierra. It will stop, now. I won’t tolerate it.’
‘If she has a complaint about my methods, why doesn’t she tell me herself?’ Delphine demanded. ‘A great defender of her people she’ll be, hiding behind a cripple rather than raise the matter with a mage stripped of her powers.’
‘Delphine.’ Isidro came closer, forcing her to tip her head back to hold his gaze. ‘Sierra has never wanted to hurt anyone in her life. I, on the other hand, have been trained to be the right-hand man of a king, and do whatever it takes to protect my people. Right now, that means getting her the training she needs, and I will do anything necessary to make it happen. Is that clear?’
‘Oh, what are you going to do, have me beaten again?’ Delphine said. ‘Are you going to say I made you do it? The justification used by woman-beaters everywhere.’
Something in his face changed then, and he gave her a look so chilled that Delphine suppressed a shiver. ‘You will treat Sierra with the same courtesy and respect you showed to your students, or —’
‘Or what?’ she sneered.
He tried to keep his expression neutral, but Delphine caught a glimpse of puzzlement in his guarded gaze. ‘Mira tells me you’ve written to tell General Boreas the Spire is valuable enough to make an alliance worthwhile. She said you asked to have a letter delivered to Harwin and your girls in return, isn’t that so? If you want to contact your friends, Delphine, you will be civil.’
Delphine caught her breath. The letter. No wonder he had looked puzzled. The missive to the general had been Mira’s idea, and Delphine had to admit it was a good one, but she’d flatly refused to cooperate unless permitted to write to Harwin. After days of searching for a way to have her revenge, this opportunity had fallen into her lap like a gift from the Gods.
Why, then, was she sabotaging herself? Withholding the letter was the obvious penalty to apply. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Delphine went to turn away, but Isidro caught her shoulder. ‘Don’t turn away when I’m speaking to you!’ he said. ‘Do you understand me?’
‘Of course I understand, you oaf,’ she snapped. ‘Just … let me go. I feel ill, I need to sit down.’
Surprised, he released her, and Delphine tottered away before her legs folded beneath her, and sank her head into her hands.
She realised just what had changed in his gaze. With that outburst she’d lost something she hadn’t realised she still valued. She’d lost his respect.
There came footsteps behind her, swift and light. ‘What’s the matter?’ the girl said.
‘She claims she’s ill.’ His voice was hard and angry. ‘I’m not sure I believe her.’
‘She’s not hurt, but …’ There was uncertainty in the Sympath’s voice. ‘But there’s something wrong. I don’t think she’s faking, Issey.’
The girl was right. There was something wrong. She’d been behaving irrationally, unconsciously sabotaging herself, and now Delphine felt sick to her stomach. While she’d been burying herself in anger, thinking only of vengeance, she hadn’t considered the innocents who would be caught up in her retribution. All at once her head began to pound, a fierce ache that came out of n
owhere.
‘Isidro, she truly does look ill. What on earth did you say to her?’
Back in her tiny, stinking tent, Delphine pressed a damp cloth to her forehead and tried to sleep, but all she could think of was the throbbing in her head and the nausea in her stomach.
Rhia, the physician, came to check on her after a few hours, and Delphine lifted a corner of the cool cloth to peer at her as she ducked through the tent’s low doorway. ‘How do you feel? It’s almost dinner time, are you hungry?’
‘Oh, by the Good Goddess, no,’ Delphine said. Just the thought made her feel like retching. ‘I don’t want anything but some tea. Mint and ginger, if you have it.’
‘Mint we have. Ginger is hard to come by in the north, but the Ricalanis have other herbs to soothe an upset stomach. Have you eaten something bad? No one else has come to me feeling ill.’
‘No, it’s not that, it’s …’ Delphine trailed off. I’ve done this to myself. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said at last. ‘I just need to sleep.’ She lay back, staring at the roof of the tent while Rhia measured and mixed the herbs.
‘Why are you here?’ Delphine asked her on impulse. ‘How does an educated woman from the empire come to be in a place like this?’
Rhia glanced up from the mixing bowl. ‘I was a slave. Mesentreian Raiders took me from a farm on the western coast, near a village called Pereshan.’
Delphine lifted her head. ‘Did you escape?’
‘No. My master, the one who taught me this trade, freed me in his will. His nephew bribed a magistrate to overturn the writ, so I found a ship and bought passage out of the country before he could come for me.’
‘But why don’t you go home?’ Delphine asked. ‘Your family must miss you. They’d welcome you back, I’m sure of it, no matter what you’ve endured.’
Rhia gave her a thoughtful gaze. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps not. The night the Raiders came, Papa locked me in the woodshed because I wouldn’t marry the man he’d chosen. I was in love with a girl on the next farm over, you see. I wanted to run away with her, but she turned me down. My father found out about it, and then the Raiders came … Tell me, madame, does the law still demand that those who lie down with their own sex be sold into slavery?’
