He sucked in his lips and bit. He was staring at her ears, mainly where the earrings no longer were. She brushed them once, realizing they still bled.
“Yes,” he said.
She felt her heart wince a little, but that wasn’t what mattered. The second question was what mattered.
“Why?” she asked.
Aaron answered without the slightest hesitation.
“Because my father wanted me to.”
Of course. What else mattered in Aaron’s life? He was being steadily created, a work of art only Thren Felhorn could find beautiful. To see such parental devotion twisted and turned to murder and fratricide…
“Listen to me,” Kayla said, lowering her voice. “I can’t love you, Aaron. I can’t even treat you with kindness, and my reason is the same as why you killed your brother. Take the earrings. Don’t hide your hurt. Don’t be ashamed of your tears.”
She took his chin in her fingers and tilted his head upward.
“But you were right,” she said. “I can love Haern. I’m not sure what Aaron might become. He may scare me, may even hurt me at his own father’s request. So you must keep Haern hidden and safe. Keep him alive. Can you do that for me?”
His tears rolled down his cheeks, but he nodded. She saw that strength and felt beyond proud.
“Aaron must never love me,” she said as she turned to the door. “Not while under the shadow of his father.”
She opened the door, paused halfway through it.
“But Haern can.”
“I’ll remember,” Aaron said as she left. Down the hall she went, all the way to Thren’s room, where he waited. She knelt before his table.
“My task?” she asked.
“Were you successful?” Thren asked her first. Knowing her life was on the line, Kayla kept her smile hidden deep inside her breast.
“Beyond expectations,” she answered.
As Kayla left, Aaron grabbed one of his many swords and slammed the side of a training dummy. He had learned another lesson about what it meant to have power. It meant crushing the will of another to meet your own. To learn that lesson, to know that it had been brought down upon him by his own father…
For the first time Aaron felt rebellion growing in his heart at the very notion of wielding that same power. He choked it down. Those thoughts didn’t belong to Aaron. They weren’t who he was, and he could never think them. Not when his father might see.
He cut one of his blankets in half, poked in a few eyeholes, and then wrapped it about his face. Lost in his training, he swung his sword about the room, shifting from stance to stance. Feeling somehow freed, somehow unchained, he let his anger rage and his rebellion grow, for he was Haern now, and those thoughts belonged to him.
CHAPTER
14
Wearing the same disguise as before, Maynard returned to the priests’ temple a week later as promised. He dismissed his guards when he reached the gate, confident his threats were more than enough to keep him safe. It was the ruffians and cutthroats who wandered the streets that worried him. He didn’t want to imagine the celebration that might erupt in the underworld if he was found and killed in the open.
Not surprisingly, his reception was far less warm than on his first visit. He was immediately led to Pelarak’s room and then made to wait. The high priest arrived shortly after.
“You have put us in an uncomfortable position,” Pelarak said as he shut the door behind him.
“Welcome to the rest of Veldaren,” Maynard said. “No one is comfortable, not while vermin pretend to be kings.”
“When men pretend to be gods, things are just as dire,” Pelarak said. Maynard ignored the thinly veiled insult.
“I’ve come for my answer. Will you aid us in destroying the thief guilds, or will you cling to your worthless neutrality?”
Pelarak walked around him and then sat at his desk. He tapped his fingertips together, then put his forefingers to his lips.
“You must understand that I do what Karak desires of me,” Pelarak said. “This decision is not mine, but his.”
Under normal circumstances, Maynard would have paid lip service to Pelarak’s faith. With his daughter missing and his estate lacking a true heir, he had no time or patience. He rolled his eyes.
“Don’t feed me that nonsense. You are in charge here, high priest, not some voice in your head.”
“You doubt Karak’s power?”
“Doubt it?” Maynard said. “Would I be so insistent you help me if I doubted it? I just don’t want to hear any nonsense about prayers or obscure promises and prophecies. I want an answer. The correct one.”
Pelarak smiled a wolfish smile.
“You won’t get it. Not the one you want.”
“I will carry out my promise,” Maynard said.
“And we believe you,” Pelarak insisted. “Listen to what I have to say.”
He gestured to the chair opposite him. Annoyed, Maynard sat down. Part of him knew he should calm himself. He was being hotheaded and rash, something he always dismissed in others. The priests had vexed him for years, however. If diplomacy and bribes did nothing for them, it was time to try threats and brute force.
“Look for a moment from my perspective,” Pelarak said. “Let’s assume I agree with you: the rogues need to be put in line, and this nonsensical war ended. But if I join now after you hold a sword over our heads, what prevents us from being puppets of the Trifect instead of servants to our god? We have killed kings for making the same threats you made.”
Maynard felt a bit of his hotheadedness leave him. Something very dangerous was about to happen. Pelarak did not make threats lightly, and Maynard’s assumption of safety seemed to be arrogance in hindsight. The priests could kill him with a wave of their hands. All his power and gold meant nothing if they felt Karak wanted his head.
“Rudely put, perhaps,” Maynard said, falling deeper into his political persona, “but you do speak a bit of truth. We need your aid, Pelarak. For if you are not with us, then I fear the actions of your female assassins place you against us.”
“I will deal with them in time,” Pelarak said. “I told you, they do not represent us. Karak is our lord, and I am his closest servant. He wishes this war over. How, though, is where you and I will disagree.”
“Presumptuous,” Maynard said. “How will we disagree?”
Pelarak stood, smoothing out his black robe as he did. One hand rubbed his balding head. Maynard did not like this at all. The high priest was very rarely hesitant. This was bad. Very bad.
“We will aid you, but only under the condition that you give us someone into our safekeeping, someone to join our order. Someone you will remember the next time you wave a sword over our necks.”
Maynard felt his heart sink.
“Who do you want?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Pelarak might have smiled or gloated, but that was not the man he was.
“Two of the faceless sisters came to me last night to inform me of their actions. I did not reprimand them, not yet. They have your daughter, Alyssa. She must join our order.”
Maynard felt his world tear and twist in chaotic ways inside his mind. Alyssa, a priestess of Karak? She would be safe from the Kulls, perhaps, and certainly no threat to his estate. But would he ever see her again? And when he did, would she still be the same free-spirited girl he loved? Could that spirit survive cloistered within the walls, battered daily with Karak’s rhetoric of order and obedience?
Then he saw the danger right before him. If the faceless women had Alyssa, then they could do to her whatever they wished. If he refused their offer…
“I must accept,” he said.
“Good,” Pelarak said, a smile spreading across his face. “I am glad we could reach an agreement. We aid one another, as friends, not master and servant.”
“Of course. You speak most wisely,” Maynard said, the lie bitter on his lips.
When he turned to leave, Pelarak stopped him with a w
ord.
“Maynard,” the high priest said. “Make sure she is still heir to your estate. If you render her worthless, we will do the same.”
A shard of ice grew inside Maynard’s heart.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he said.
“Good,” said Pelarak. “Go with Karak’s blessing.”
He did, though if he could have, he’d have tossed any blessing of Karak’s into the foulest open sewer and leave it to rot. If he could have, he’d have had Pelarak suffer the same fate.
“Forgive me, Alyssa,” he said as he left the temple, giving one last look to the priests and priestesses bowed before the giant statue of Karak, their heartfelt wails reaching to the ceiling. He thought of Alyssa on her knees beside them, and the image twisted the ice in his heart.
Alyssa was already dressed and sitting beside the fire when Yoren awoke. It blazed healthily as she tossed on a few extra branches so she could watch them burn.
“Good morning, love,” Yoren said.
“Morning,” Alyssa replied, her voice dull. She might have been talking to a rock.
Seeming not to notice, Yoren hopped up, stepped behind a tree, and began urinating. When he finished, he stepped back around and only then caught the stare Alyssa was giving him.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, turning her gaze back to the fire. “Only nothing.”
He grunted but let her cryptic comment pass.
“Stay here, and keep that fire roaring,” he told her. He retrieved his small bow and bundle of arrows from his tent and slung them across his back. “I’ll see if I can nab us a rabbit or squirrel for breakfast. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. And if the faceless return, tell them to wait for me as well.”
Then he was off, trudging deeper into the king’s forest. Alyssa knew he wouldn’t be gone long. During her time at Felwood Castle, when Yoren had often visited, he’d shown himself a competent hunter. To pass the time she tossed more wood onto the fire, watching it burn and finding comfort in that somehow. When he returned, he carried a dead gray rabbit by its back legs. He dropped it on the dirt beside the fire. Alyssa took it without question.
“I’ll need a knife to skin it,” she said.
Yoren paused, then shrugged and tossed her a slender dagger from his belt. She caught its hilt in the air, doing her best not to show irritation at the idiot for tossing it so carelessly toward her.
Any other time she might have felt squeamish about the blood and guts. She played the tomboy well enough with her foster families, or when she wanted to irritate her father, but it was mostly an act. Though they might never admit it, she’d long ago learned young men treated her better, more respectfully, when they believed she could wield a knife and not squeal at the sight of something dead. But pretending to handle blood and actually handling it were two different matters.
She pretended the rabbit was Yoren’s head. It did wonders for her stomach.
When the rabbit finished cooking, Yoren gave her the bulk of the meat. He was once more playing the dashing suitor, as if the angry condescending brute from the night before had only been an illusion. She flashed her prettiest smile at his jokes. The lies came more easily to her than she preferred.
“Come,” he said when their meal was done. “It looks like we’ll have to trust the faceless bitches to find us. Clean yourself up a little; you’ve got grease on your face.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as she wiped her chin and lips with the inside hem of her dress.
“To meet with my father.”
He looked her up and down, scowling. She was wearing the same clothes as when her father had thrown her into the cells, and they were torn and faded from the recent abuse. Although she’d brushed her hair as best she could with her fingers, it had done little to remove the dirt and damage. She looked more like a haggard maid than an heiress to a mining empire.
“This will never do,” Yoren said. “You must look like my queen, not my servant. Where are those blasted women? Surely they know a thing or two about primping.”
“Yes, because their beauty is seen so often,” Alyssa said. Her sarcasm was stronger than she’d expected, the cut of her comment deep enough to narrow Yoren’s eyes and make him doubt her docility.
“By now Maynard has every cutthroat he owns in the city searching for you,” he said. “Otherwise I’d take you to a bathhouse and make you look respectable. But it looks like I’ll have to bring you as you are to my father.”
He scattered the fire and took her hand.
“Oh, and dear,” he said, smiling at her. “Hold your tongue in my father’s presence. I’d hate for you to make a fool of yourself.”
Her mouth twitched but her eyes remained dead.
“Yes, milord,” she said.
He completely forgot about the dagger that should have been safely tucked inside his belt, the one that had disemboweled the rabbit.
The one Alyssa hid underneath her skirt.
They walked south for over an hour before Theo Kull’s encampment came into view.
“A warm fire, thick blankets, and, thank the gods, horses,” said Yoren.
“Such charming accommodations,” Alyssa said as he held her hand. Safely out of sight of the city’s walls and the prying eyes within, Theo’s camp stretched out for several hundred yards. Wagons formed its outer perimeter, some covered, some not. Several fires blazed within the circle. On one side were twenty smaller tents, shelters for the mercenaries. On the other was a single large pavilion of a faded green color.
She felt his grip tighten, and she wasn’t at all surprised when it slid up to latch onto her wrist.
“Your barbed tongue makes it seem like you don’t appreciate all we’ve done for you,” he said.
“Forgive me,” Alyssa said. “It is only the stress and exhaustion. I will feel better after bathing, I promise.”
Yoren kissed her cheek, then looked her up and down.
“I hope so,” he said. “You need it.”
At their approach a couple of mercenaries drew their swords and beckoned them closer.
“Your name?” one of them asked.
“Yoren Kull,” he answered. “Take me to my father.”
The mercenary spat.
“Follow me.”
He led them through the camp. Alyssa took in what she could. From the way the men lazed about, it didn’t appear that they’d be marching anywhere soon. Most of the armed men were busy eating, telling stories, or gambling with wooden dice. A couple sneered at her, and given the state of her clothing and hair, she didn’t blame them. She hated them for it, but she didn’t blame them.
Theo sat in an ornate chair in the center of the pavilion. He didn’t stand when they entered through the flap. Alyssa had met him only once, what felt like a lifetime ago. He was a big man, with big hands and an even bigger beard. He had a hungry smile, and beady brown eyes that seemed to covet everything he saw. He gestured to two chairs at the table before him. A snap of his fingers, and two servants hurried over with cups, plates, and dinnerware. A third servant filled the cups with wine while a fourth plopped servings of meat and bread atop the plates.
“Welcome back, my son,” Theo said. “And I see you’ve brought your lover back from the Abyss. She looks it too!”
He guffawed. Yoren laughed along. Alyssa only stared.
“Come now, I only jest in good nature,” Theo said. “I would never be amused at seeing a woman in such a state. Would you like some of my girls to bathe and dress you before joining us? Nothing would trouble me more than an uncomfortable look crossing your face.”
“She’s only uncomfortable with me in the bedchambers,” Yoren said as he took his seat at the right hand of his father. “Though I fear I inherited that wonderful fault from you.”
Theo burst once more into laughter. Alyssa felt her heart cool. He might have a silver tongue, but Theo was a piggish brute. If Yoren flung her to the ground right then and there
with the aim of raping her, he wouldn’t bat an eye. If anything, he might try to join in.
Alyssa shuddered, and it did not go unnoticed.
“Forgive my son,” Theo said. “He offends when he means only humor. Let’s see, Mary? Mary! There you are, girl. Clean her up, will you? I remember her a lovely one, so let’s make her match my memory.”
Mary was an older woman with gray hair tied behind her head in a bun. She had been the one directing the other servants who had laid out the food and dinnerware.
“Come with me,” Mary said, grabbing Alyssa’s hand. Her voice was firm but comforting. The look in her eye was one of guarded sympathy.
Next to the pavilion was a smaller tent for the servants. They slept on blankets on the ground, fifty of them crammed together in a tent meant for twenty. Beside the servants’ tent was a giant wooden tub. After a word from Mary, several younger girls rushed off carrying buckets to fetch hot water from the fires.
“It’ll be cold for a bit,” Mary said as she began stripping off Alyssa’s clothes. “Once we get some heat, maybe a few hot coals, you’ll be better.”
Alyssa glanced inside the tub. The water was hazy, but she’d bathed in worse when staying with her foster families. She let Mary strip her naked, glad that the two tents offered protection from the mercenaries who wandered about the rest of the camp.
“We’ll get these washed while you bathe,” Mary said. “Though heaven knows you deserve better. I’ll see what we have stashed in the…”
She stopped as Yoren’s dagger tumbled out of the clothes bundled in her hands. Alyssa’s entire body froze. She’d forgotten it amid the frenzy of servants preparing the bath and tugging at her dress. Mouth locked open, she met Mary’s eyes. In them she saw a hard, worldly understanding.
“A dangerous toy for the bedchambers,” Mary said.
“Not when you want the bedchambers quiet,” Alyssa replied.
Mary guided the naked Alyssa into the bath. True to her word, it was cold. When the first of the servants arrived with a bucket of boiling water, Mary took the bucket from her and poured it in herself. As the steam rose, the older woman leaned closer so that none might hear her.
Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks Page 16
