The Devil's Concubine ARC

by Jill Braden

  “I want to watch the sun set,” she said.

  “You’re in no position to make demands,” Voorus said.

  “Is she under arrest?” Kyam asked.

  “Not officially.”

  “Then there’s no reason to rush her inside, is there? It’s not as if she can escape.”

  It was possible to climb the huge boulders that formed the seawall between the fortress and the shore, but it would be a perilous trip. Waves from the Sea of Erykoli slammed against the north side and sent plumes of spray high in the air. Small crabs and water bugs scurried for shelter as the water crashed down. Anemones, sea urchins, barnacles, and slippery kelp strands clung tenaciously to the rocks. Anyone trying to climb could easily be swept off the rocks by one wave and then slammed against them by another.

  No. Escape wasn’t possible. Not that way. And she couldn’t cast off the skiff before they got to her, even if she somehow convinced Kyam to help her.

  “Fine. Watch your damn sunset.” From the way Voorus said it, it struck her as granting a last wish to the condemned. He probably felt it was more than generous.

  She turned to the harbor, but the fortress loomed in the corner of her vision.

  Past the bow of the Zul junk, the light of the brilliant orange sun smeared across the endless waves. It seemed to flatten as the lower edge met the horizon. The sapphire sea turned to gold.

  According to Thampurian legend, the sun and sea were the lovers Kiruse and Erykoli, reunited every evening after a day apart. Erykoli missed her lover terribly, and so the sea tasted of tears. When they came together, she smiled with radiant light.

  The Ponongese explanation for sunrise and sunset was simply that the planet rotated. “I prefer the poetry sometimes,” she said, even though Kyam had no way of knowing what she was thinking.

  He leaned closer to hear her voice over the crash of waves. Voorus and his soldiers stood ready to stop her from running, as if she had anywhere to go.

  “Wouldn’t it be pretty if the myths were real?” she said.

  “If there were ever a time for faith, QuiTai, it would be now,” he said. “It may be impossible for a regular Ponongese to leave the fortress, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. After all, you would never let me out of my end of our bargain. Not that easily.”

  If he was trying to calm her nerves, he failed. She knew it would take a miracle for her to walk out that iron door again. But Voorus would never have the satisfaction of seeing fear in her eyes. This was merely a grand scene, full of drama, and the only way to play it was with a dignified mask over her face.

  “What happened to the werewolves who killed those people during the full moon massacre?” Kyam asked.

  “Forgive me if I’ve missed something, but I fail to see how the immortal beauty of the sea brought that to mind.”

  “No one ever tells that part of the story. When I ask, the Ponongese become unusually silent.”

  “You can’t let me enjoy the peace?”

  “We need to talk, and I don’t want the soldiers to overhear. Watch your sunset while you tell me about the werewolves.”

  Watching was more than simply seeing the sun set. She needed this moment to collect her thoughts, to reflect… and possibly, to plan. She’d lost what little edge she’d had over him. No longer steps ahead, all she could do now was try to outthink him and outmaneuver Voorus as events unfolded.

  “I warned you not to bring in the colonial government, Mister Zul.”

  “I needed help bringing you safely to the harbor.”

  “They’re the last people you should have trusted.”

  “And the Devil is the last one you should trust, but we both cling to our loyalties.” He lightly touched her arm. “The story about the werewolves, please, Lady QuiTai. The part no one tells.”

  No more Jezereet, no more sunsets. Was there anything fate would let her hold onto?

  She cast a glance at the soldiers. They were far enough away that they wouldn’t hear. “What no one tells is that I hunted them down and poisoned them,” she whispered. “But not enough to kill. Only to paralyze. When people came into the marketplace the following morning and saw the criminals placed there for them, they tore the werewolves limb from limb. The werewolves felt it all, but couldn’t move. That’s why no one speaks of it. No one likes to admit they were part of that mob. You think my people shun me because I’m the Devil’s concubine? The truth is that every time they see me, they feel shame for themselves.”

  She didn’t care if the truth disgusted him. But he didn’t back away or lecture her. Instead, he seemed to concentrate on his thoughts. He slowly nodded, as if things he’d heard and seen suddenly made sense.

  He gestured for her to continue.

  “I’m not a nice woman, Mister Zul. I will do things that others fear to. When justice is in short supply, I will step in and fill the void. That day, I gave the names of the werewolves to these Thampurian soldiers, but since the victims were only Ponongese, and the werewolves were from the continent, Voorus planned to simply deport them. Articles of transport and a free ride home are hardly appropriate punishment for eating a little girl’s kidneys while she screams in agony for her mother.”

  “That’s a bit of melodramatic embellishment.”

  “QuiZhun was my daughter.”

  He flinched.

  She meant to tell him that she hadn’t simply let it happen, how she’d run downstairs and thrown herself at the blockaded doors. If her neighbor hadn’t sunk his fangs into her arm and temporarily paralyzed her, she might have broken through – and let the werewolves inside. She wanted him to know that she’d tried to save her daughter, but emotion clenched her throat and wouldn’t let the words pass.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  He flicked away the glinting tear at the corner of his eye.

  Then I asked the Oracle for guidance. She only whispered a name. The Devil.

  “How can you even stand the sight of werewolves after that?” Kyam said.

  She sniffled and squared her shoulders before looking at him.

  “Would you like me to make a speech? I could say that there are those who are guilty of crimes, and then there are those who merely look similar to the criminals. I could pretend that unlike Thampurian soldiers, I don’t confuse the two. But the truth is that it’s a struggle every day to remind myself of those higher ideas. The werewolves loathe me. They make it clear that if it weren’t for the Devil, they’d feast on my entrails and throw my corpse into the Jupoli Gorge. It doesn’t help that he uses me as a threat to keep them under his control.”

  “Are you sure you got the right ones? Can you tell a man from his werewolf form? From all that horror below you, how were you able to remember who they were?”

  The truth was that she couldn’t. It was too dangerous to be near them when they shifted. Even if she knew, she couldn’t positively identify them from the horror she’d witnessed. Even in her nightmares, they were blurs of fur and fury. The screams she would never forget; the blood was seared into her memory. But the werewolves were hazy. She’d only seen them from above.

  Petrof had handed them over to her. She heard whispers from the rest of his pack that he gave her men who challenged his rule regardless of their guilt in the killings, but she’d dismissed those grumblings much as she ignored everything else they whispered around her. Now, looking back, Kyam’s question planted a seed of doubt. She remembered Petrof laughing when she marched into the den and demanded justice. He could have killed her then; maybe she even hoped he would, because she could barely stand to live anymore. Instead, when he stopped laughing, he told her he admired her bravery, and then he gave her names. He even told her where to find them. After she’d extracted her revenge, her people shunned her, but Petrof wooed her. He could be so charming back then. He said he liked her style. He admired her ruthlessness. They were lovers before he asked her to eliminate his competition. It had seemed like such a small price to pay for justice.


  But now she knew that it would be so like Petrof to put the wrong men at her mercy for his own gain.

  Used. She’d been used. First by Petrof, and now by Kyam. And she kept letting it happen, so whose fault was it? She kept expecting there to be a clear line to cross between loyalty to Petrof and betrayal, but if there ever had been, it was too hazy to see anymore.

  Kyam still waited for her answer.

  “I had a vision,” she said. “I saw every ugly incident building on another. The Ponongese wanted blood. If they couldn’t get it from the werewolves, they would have turned on the Thampurians in reprisal for the lenient sentences. The Thampurian government would have sent troops to slaughter the Ponongese. So I did what was necessary. I did what no one else would do. I sated the mob’s blood lust before it got out of hand.”

  “Are you sure you had the right wolves?”

  “Quit asking me that.” Guilt and uncertainty made her angry. “What does it matter now? The past is past. I’m done with it.”

  “It might not be done with you,” Kyam said.

  Chapter 11: The Fortress

  Behind the fortress’s iron doors was a stone foyer dimly lit by green jellylanterns. The walls were damp and smelled strongly of the sea. QuiTai tried not to flinch when the doors clanged shut behind her.

  A soldier stationed in the foyer led them to a solid metal inner door. He put his palm to a biolock to open it. QuiTai saw a hallway beyond.

  The solider saluted Voorus, turned on his heel, and returned to his post.

  QuiTai stepped in.

  A man with world-weary eyes sat behind a barred window several feet away. He barely looked up as he held a pen poised over a stack of papers. “Name?”

  “Colonel Kyam Zul of His Majesty’s Intelligence Services.”

  The man’s sigh echoed against the stone walls. “The prisoner’s name.”

  “She’s not a prisoner.”

  The man peered through the bars. “She’s Ponongese.”

  Voorus stepped to the window. “She’s QuiTai, the Devil’s whore. She’s here for the execution.”

  They weren’t even going to pretend to give her a trial? It didn’t surprise her. Fear’s icy fingers clutched her lungs and squeezed.

  “What execution?” Kyam’s voice echoed off the stone walls.

  Voorus arched en eyebrow. “That werewolf you had us arrest earlier today for killing the harbor master’s brother.”

  QuiTai couldn’t stop her legs from trembling even though it was Ivitch who would hang. She had no friends here, but Kyam at least had a reason to help her escape, so she lifted her gaze to him. His brows drew tight together as he stared at the floor. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

  “You better hurry if you want to see it,” the guard said as his pen scratched across a sheet of paper. “The chief justice signed the order of execution already.”

  “Wait at the gate.” Voorus pointed the end of the hallway, where floor to ceiling bars covered an arched opening in the wall. “You’ll be able to see it from there.”

  Through the bars, she could see the bare grass yard in the center of the fortress. Her pulse pounded. She had a feeling that matters were about to take a turn for the worse.

  With his hand on the small of her back, Kyam steered QuiTai to the bars.

  “Mister Zul, if I may make a request, whatever you do, don’t let them separate us.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kyam whispered. “So with your permission...” He clamped his hand around her upper arm.

  A soldier in a captain’s uniform crossed the grass toward them. Voorus and his men surrounded QuiTai and Kyam.

  The captain saluted Voorus. “If you would follow me, sir.” He placed his hand on a biolock. QuiTai heard the lock click, but the gate didn’t open until the admitting guard came out from behind his window and placed his hand on a copper plate on the wall beside them.

  The amount of security was daunting. She could handle the individual guards at the inner and outer doors; however, with biolocks on both sides of the gate, and two guards needed to trigger them, there was no way she could open it. The uneasiness in the pit of her stomach grew stronger.

  QuiTai forced her mind to focus on details. From the outside, the fortress appeared round, but inside it was hexagonal. Barracks for the soldiers were on the harbor side. Three sets of stairs led up to the ramparts. The hairs at the nape of her neck stood up when she saw a man in a black hood at the top of the center stairs. He held a noose in his hand.

  The captain spoke to Voorus as he led them across the courtyard. “He’s been a talker. Mostly about the whore.”

  QuiTai thought for a moment the captain meant Jezereet, but he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at her.

  “Nothing about the Devil, even though our best men worked him over.”

  “Damn.” Voorus punched his hand. “What about her?”

  “Said she killed the dirt, not him.”

  Voorus stopped short. “Oh?” He turned toward QuiTai.

  Kyam’s grip on her arm tightened.

  “Two of my men remember seeing him leave the dirt’s skiff yesterday afternoon. They didn’t see her,” the captain said.

  QuiTai shot a warning glance at Kyam as he drew in a breath. She was certain he was about to say something. Now wasn’t the time to talk.

  “Wolf-slayer!” Casmir’s voice carried across the yard.

  “Come this way.” The captain led them to the north wall, where rows of thick metal bars stood under archways of stone.

  The cell was full of werewolves, but in the shadowed cell, she could only make out a few faces. She couldn’t take another step. “Get me out of here, Mister Zul,” she whispered.

  Ivitch paced along the bars. Chains trailed between his legs. “I’ll get you for this, you bitch! The Devil should have killed you when he had a chance!” He grabbed a jellylantern tube from the wall holder and smashed it against the bars.

  Medusozoa glowed like wet slime on the rock floor. Shards of glass reflected the sky.

  Shards of glass. The image of a single bloody shard flashed through QuiTai’s mind as pain shot through her hand.

  Several big soldiers drew nearer to the cell as the captain prepared to open it. “All right. That’s enough. Back up, the lot of you, except Mister Ivitch. It’s your time.”

  Casmir lunged at the bars. The other wolves joined him. They stretched their arms for QuiTai and shouted vile names at her.

  “We can just as easily hang the rest of you too,” the captain barked at the pack. “Back away, or it’s the rope!”

  Voorus shoved her toward the cell. If it hadn’t been for Kyam’s grip on her arm, QuiTai would have stumbled close enough to the bars for one of the werewolves to grab her. Ivitch’s face pressed against the bar as he wildly jabbed the broken glass tube at her.

  She could see them all now. Petrof was not among them. The werewolves’ tawny eyes never left her face. They pulled back their lips in snarls and growled at her. The energy of the pack crackled over her skin.

  “Moon-mad,” a soldier muttered.

  The soldiers used long metal poles to push the werewolves away from the bars. The captain put his hand on the biolock plate.

  QuiTai’s mouth went dry. “Don’t open that!”

  The captain laughed. “Don’t worry, miss. We have them shackled.”

  She put her hand over Kyam’s. “We have to get out of here. They can shift without the full moon. As soon as that door opens, they’ll rush the soldiers!”

  “Come on, get closer. It’s safe,” the captain said. As soon as he said it, though, she knew that it wasn’t, and he knew it too. It felt as if she were laced up in her tightest corset.

  “We have to go,” she whispered to Kyam. “Right now.”

  Voorus gripped her wrist, and the captain put his hand to the biolock. The cell door clicked open.

  The werewolves dropped to all fours inside the cell.

  Casmir said, “Fuck the Devil. You’re
going to die now, bitch.”

  The wolves began to change.

  Kyam’s eye widened. He looked from her to the werewolves. Shackles were made for human wrists and ankles, not slender wolf legs. He yanked QuiTai away from Voorus and pushed her away from the cell.

  “We dreamed about this, Zul,” Voorus said. “All the Devil’s minions rounded up and ripe for interrogation. We can finally break his syndicate. But not without her.”

  “The werewolves are shifting!” Kyam said. “Shut that cell, you idiots!”

  But only Kyam and QuiTai sprinted across the grass, while the soldiers stupidly watched the werewolves shift.

  “You, amazingly brilliant plan, right now,” Kyam gasped.

  The wolves howled. Fear spiked through her. A man screamed.

  QuiTai ran up the stairs to the ramparts as soldiers dashed past them down to the yard. The executioner dropped his noose and reached for her, but she managed to dodge around him. Kyam’s footsteps pounded behind her. She darted a look over the wall to the rocks and waves below.

  Where? Here?

  No place looked safer than anywhere else.

  The wolves bounded up the stairs, headed straight for her. Like the night of the massacre, all she saw was fur and fury, and all those teeth were coming for her. Petrof had told her that he didn’t think like a human while in his wolf form, but she knew from the wolves’ eyes that they knew exactly who they were after. Another Petrof lie exposed.

  “What are we doing?” Kyam called out.

  “You’re a sea dragon,” she said. “You figure it out.” She tucked her sarong into her waistband and climbed onto one of the crenellations in the wall.

  The lead wolf sprang.

  Praying that she didn’t hit the rocks, QuiTai jumped feet first into the churning waves of the harbor.

  ~ ~ ~