Sapient Salvation 4: The Claiming (Sapient Salvation Series)

by Jayne Faith

  “You really didn’t know.” I turned and reached for a tablet and passed it to her. “It’s all here.”

  The tablet showed the test results from Jeric’s blood test, as well as the one I had later submitted to. More sophisticated analysis had discovered approximately how much of our Pirro bloodline had come from each parent, back-calculating an estimate for the percentage of Pirro blood in each of them.

  The calculations estimated that my mother was approximately one-third Pirro.

  “What does this mean?” she asked hoarsely, looking up at me with confusion bordering on fear.

  “You were manipulated onto the throne for reasons you never knew about,” I said. “I don’t know why, either. But this is how I’m going to stop my wedding. The Calistan women I’m supposed to choose from aren’t purely Calistan.”

  That stalled her for a moment, but then her face hardened. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll just find different ones, women who are pure Calistan.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” I touched my earpiece and muttered a few words to summon half a dozen of my guards. “Here’s what is going to happen. Instead of having you arrested for interfering with the Tournament, not to mention attempted murder, I’ll allow you to stay in your quarters. You’ll be under house arrest. Your communication with the outside world will cease. You won’t see or speak to anyone without my permission.”

  My guards began filing into the room and surrounding her.

  Her face reddened and her chest started to heave. “You can’t do that! I’m the queen. I’m your mother!”

  “Stop talking, or you’ll go to jail right now instead of your quarters.” I kept my voice low, calm.

  She snapped her mouth shut. Calvin, the guard in charge, took the tablet from her and placed it on the desk.

  As her eyes flashed with fury and her nostrils flared, the guards took her away.

  As soon as I was alone, I heaved a heavy sigh and leaned one hip against the desk. I gazed out the nearest window, allowing whatever emotions might come.

  But I found I wasn’t particularly angry now that it was done. I wasn’t sad, either. Perhaps it was a tragedy that my mother was such a traitor, but her disapproval of me was so deep and long-standing I realized I’d come to expect very little from her.

  I pushed away from the desk and strode to the door, suddenly renewed. I was ready for the next move in my plan. The information Jeric was leaking through his chain of contacts would be distributed late that night and hit the media channels by the next morning. Quickly following would be my announcement that I was suspending the process of choosing a Calistan wife. My announcement would make it clear I believed the Return was so imminent the need to produce Calistan heirs was irrelevant now. The obvious implication would be that if I’d mated with any of the women, our heirs wouldn’t have been so very Calistan, anyway.

  After, as the miracle commission finished with their investigation, I would announce my engagement to Maya.

  My dark angel.

  I hadn’t even asked her to marry me yet. But I would, very soon. The prospect of it filled me with a wondrous sort of joy and deep satisfaction at finally being able to choose a path for my life. I finally felt a sense of control.

  That evening when I went to the Temple to meet with the High Priestess, I still felt cushioned by the glow of my newfound vigor for life. My life. The life I wanted and was meant to live.

  As soon as I entered the office of the High Priestess, the wrath in her eyes sucked away the warmth of my elation like the frozen vacuum of space.

  “I told you not to deviate, Lord Toric. I told you not to try to pull anything.” Her voice cut through the room, seeming to pierce me. Even through her anger, her tone held an edge of regret. “I thought we were in agreement.”

  Apprehension tightened my gut. Could she have already caught word of my mother’s house arrest? Surely she wouldn’t have been so angered over the news. In her world, Queen Stella was an irritation at best but largely irrelevant to the concerns of the High Priestess.

  I stopped in front of the closed door, still several feet from the chair where I usually sat. “What are you talking about?”

  She stood, and at that moment the low angle of one of Calisto’s suns cast a slash of light through the stained glass window behind her. It bathed one side of her face in crimson.

  “You act as though the stars can’t see what you do. As if the words in these books are mere suggestions.” She raised a hand to gesture at the cabinet where the sacred texts were stored. But her eyes kept boring into mine. “We are finally on the precipice of the greatest military and spiritual achievement in our nation’s long history. And you choose now to act like an irresponsible, love-addled child? You are the Lord of Calisto and Earthenfell, and your duties are binding. You don’t get to make this up as you go! I will not allow it!”

  Somehow, she knew. Maybe not the entire plan, but she knew I intended to thwart the process, to deviate from custom and law.

  “It’s too late,” I said, challenging her. “You can’t stop what’s already in motion.”

  She squinted at me. “Is that really what you think?” She leaned forward at the waist, her opalescent robes shifting around her, and planted her palms on her desk. “If you don’t call off your gossip mongers and halt your ridiculous plot to get out of your duty so you can hole up with an Earthen girl, I will show you exactly what I can do.”

  I crossed my arms and looked at her with every shred of authority the throne granted me. “That sounds like the empty threat of a desperate woman who’s losing control.”

  I was purposely trying to goad her, but apprehension tightened my chest.

  “If you don’t stop, I will publicly confess everything,” She spoke in a slow cadence, a soft tone. “I will make sure Maya Calderon is fed to the flame.”

  My arms dropped to my sides. Perhaps she’d truly lost her mind.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  “But you would implicate yourself. It would mean your death as well. You would cost us Earthenfell.” I began shaking my head. “No, you wouldn’t do that.”

  She pulled herself up to her full height. “This is what you do not understand. I will do anything to keep us on the path. Even if it means my own death.”

  “This makes no sense,” I said, spitting the words as my anger finally boiling over. “You orchestrated Maya’s survival of the flame. You set her up as the harbinger of the Return. You have already falsified steps in the path! Do you not see that? The stars see your actions just as easily as they see mine!”

  “I’ve been thinking lately about your father’s reign.” She laced her fingers together and rested her hands at her waist in an almost pious posture.

  Her abrupt change of topic and mood tipped me off balance for a moment as I struggled to find a connection.

  “He had his own Maya,” she continued. “And for a while, it looked as if the battles for Earthenfell were swinging in our favor. But then everything fell apart. Perhaps the difficulties I’m having with you are just the stars’ way of saying that it’s not yet our time. This is another false start. We got closer, but not close enough. Perhaps we need one more generation, and it will be your son instead of you who leads the Return. I can only push so hard. Your absurd rebellion may be the stars pushing back and telling me this is not our time.”

  Fury built up in me. I wanted to lash out, to prove her wrong.

  “That is the difference between you and me,” she said again. “I’m completely committed. Even if it means my death. Even if it means I never see Earthenfell.”

  The pressure of an angry protest built up in my throat. But there was a tiny voice at the back of my mind that wondered. Perhaps I was not the Lord to lead the Return. My father had been a leader of leaders, a deeply admired man. More so than I ever was. If he had not been worthy, why would the stars choose me?

  “If you want Maya to live, back down
now,” she said. “This is no empty threat.”

  My jaw muscles clenched so hard I thought my teeth would crack.

  I left. There was no point in arguing. The High Priestess was clearly beyond all reason.

  As soon as I cleared Temple grounds, I touched my earpiece and asked Camira to put me through to Jeric.

  “Call it off,” I said, biting off the words.

  “What? Really?” His confusion rang in my ear.

  “Not for good, just for now. Something has changed. I need some time. I’ll get back to you soon.”

  I disconnected, in no mood to try to explain. I couldn’t, anyway. Not safely. I’d have to wait until my brother and I were in a secure room.

  I knew who I needed now: Novia. The woman who’d been Lunaria’s rival for the position of High Priestess. The woman who suspected Maya’s survival of the flame was a hoax.

  I didn’t know Novia well enough to know how ambitious she was. If she still wanted to be High Priestess, I could use that. But if her loyalty to the Temple was greater than her ambition or her disapproval of Lunaria, I’d have a serious problem. I would have to feel her out, and I’d have to do it very carefully—she was no supporter of Maya’s.

  First, I’d have to get Novia away from the Temple.

  Even while one part of my mind was rewriting my plan and running through various scenarios, the tiny voice returned with its skepticism and questions.

  Perhaps there was a seed of truth in what High Priestess Lunaria had suggested . . . perhaps she and I together were not the leaders worthy of the Return. She had created a false harbinger. And here I was, pouring my efforts into deviating from the demands of the sacred texts and Calistan law, and trying to undermine the High Priestess.

  I did not doubt my love for Maya. Nor did I doubt that she and I were meant to be together. But what about the Return? What sort of Lord was I?

  Back in my chambers, I retreated to my private prayer room and sat down on the floor in front of the simple altar. I recited the prayers to Mother Earth that I’d learned by heart as a small child.

  I closed my eyes and reached back in my memory, recalling the events of my life. I examined all that had happened recently, since Maya’s arrival on Calisto.

  In that center of calm, something began to emerge in my mind. It sharpened slowly, like a lens focusing on a distant object.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at the two urns on the altar. One contained soil from Earthenfell and the other ashes from the burnt wood of seven Earthen trees. I always felt their pull, as if Earthenfell silently beckoned me home.

  The High Priestess had insisted that her commitment to her duty and to the sacred texts was so deep she was willing to die for it. So then, why had she seen fit to interfere with the stars by staging a miracle?

  I knew the answer: deep down, she did not truly trust the stars.

  If she had left well enough alone, a true miracle would have saved Maya. I suddenly felt sure of it. Up until that point, all signs had indicated that we were heading for the Return and it would come soon. And Maya wasn’t the harbinger, but she did have a place in the Sequence. She was the Lord’s heart. She would stand at my left in the Return.

  I was not the one pulling us from our path to the homeland. It was the High Priestess. Her intentions were noble, but her actions were misguided. She had religious devotion, but she did not have trust.

  I took a deep, cleansing breath and stood. I paused for a long moment with my gaze upon the urns. I imagined the feel of Earthenfell’s soil in my fingers and the rains upon my skin.

  With new, pure energy surging through me, I left the solitude of my prayer room to reenter the world and pick up the reins of my destiny.

  8

  Maya

  BEFORE MY APPOINTMENT with Sytoria, I had my fitting with the dressmaker. On any other day, I would have thoroughly delighted in the beautiful garments I saw reflected in the three-way mirror. But my mind was so filled with Clarisse’s story and the prospect of beginning my lessons with Sytoria, there was little room for anything else.

  Bernice, the dressmaker’s assistant, helped me try on dress after dress. Some fit perfectly, but a few she pinned for minor alterations.

  After the dresses, I slipped into the first of several feather-light, silky frocks that were for my nighttime visits to Lord Toric’s bedchamber.

  One of the negligees was made of a matte black satin with scalloped lace around the edges. The skirt was so short it barely covered my backside. It made me look more mature, somehow. More experienced. I looked at my reflection, trying to imagine a whip in my hand.

  When we’d whittled the rack of new garments down to two groups—those that fit and would be delivered to my room, and those that needed altering—I tried on a dozen pairs of shoes.

  Looking down at a pair of nude peep-toe heels, I couldn’t help but think of Iris and how she’d taught me to walk in shoes like these. Iris had been trained for the Tournament. She knew the story of the field mice.

  I knew Lord Toric was watching out for her the best he could while she remained imprisoned and under control of the Monitors. I would ask him to find some way I could visit her.

  All through the fitting appointment I felt impatient for it to end so I could to go Sytoria. But after Bernice sent me on my way, I suddenly had the urge to dawdle. My stomach tightened and my hands grew damp as I left the dressmaker’s workshop.

  What if Sytoria wasn’t willing to teach me anything of real value? What if she tried and I couldn’t get the hang of it? What if I couldn’t do it in the way Lord Toric wanted? What if my attempts only made him wish for her instead?

  I felt slightly nauseous by the time I reached Sytoria’s door. I swiped my sweaty hands down the sides of my dress and then knocked.

  To my surprise, it wasn’t Sytoria who answered. It was Rosa, a woman I’d known years ago when she was still back on Earthenfell. She’d lived in our neighborhood and taken care of me and my sister on occasion, before her training for the Tournament completely took over her life.

  My brows lifted. “Rosa! I’m delighted to see you again, but I’m sorry, I must have the wrong room.” I leaned back, peering at the doors on either side.

  She opened the door a little wider and I saw Sytoria emerge from the adjoining bathroom.

  “You’re in the right place,” Rosa said. “We’re expecting you.”

  I tried to hide my surprise once again. Rosa was Sytoria’s roommate? I couldn’t help wondering how they got along. Rosa was all warmth and playfulness. Sytoria was pure sensual confidence, aloof and cool.

  I went in and cast a quick glance around the room, half expecting to see an array of whips or other exotic implements spread out on one of the beds.

  I turned to Rosa. “You’re going to . . .?” I wasn’t sure how to phrase the question. Was she there to help Sytoria teach me? An uncomfortable prickle of heat spread across my chest as I realized I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

  “Yes,” Sytoria answered for Rosa. I wasn’t even sure what question Sytoria was answering.

  She pulled out a vanity stool, sat down, and crossed her long legs. Rosa gave me a little smile and went to one of the beds and sat, too. My eyes flicked left and right, but I already knew there wasn’t an obvious place for me to be seated, and even if there was, I probably needed to wait for an invitation to do so.

  Sytoria peered at me for a long moment, as if evaluating me. I clamped my arms against my sides so I wouldn’t fidget.

  Finally she spoke. “If you truly want to dominate Lord Toric in the way he desires, you must project confidence. It must be a confidence so complete that he feels completely safe in your hands.”

  I felt my brow wrinkle. Safe in my hands? I swallowed, suddenly realizing how dry my mouth was.

  “Could you explain what you mean by safe?” I asked. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering I’m going to be . . . you know, hurting him.”

  Sytoria held up a finger and shook
her head once. “You must lay aside the notion that you’re hurting him. You’re not. You’re giving him something he wants very badly.”

  I took a breath. “Okay. That will take some getting used to.”

  “Your confidence is what gives him confidence that you can fulfill your role,” she continued. “It won’t work if he detects hesitation or uncertainty from you. Any crack in your confidence will throw him out of his role as the submissive, because your weakness will make him feel as if he needs to attend to you. You can’t let that happen. Once you begin, you have to maintain your complete, unwavering confidence through to the end.”

  As nervous as I was, I found myself becoming fascinated with what she was saying. I tried to imagine feeling that bold, that confident in Lord Toric’s bedchamber. I tried to imagine taking command of our intimacy, taking command of him. I wasn’t yet sure how I felt about the idea.

  “And what about the whips?” I asked.

  “Confidence first. If you can’t achieve that, a whip in your hand will do little except make you appear ridiculous. And that will turn him off faster than you can blink your eyes.”

  A grimace tried to twist my expression, and I stopped it by pressing my lips together in a look that I hoped appeared thoughtful. The idea of doing anything that diminished Lord Toric’s desire for me was almost frightening. I already felt as if I had barely enough to offer him.

  Squaring my shoulders, I leveled a look at Sytoria. “Well, I certainly can’t have that. How do I get from here to whip-wielding vixen?”

  Rosa’s little laugh tinkled from the bed, and Sytoria even cracked an almost-grin. She rose and came to stand next to me.

  “First lesson,” she said. “I want you to pretend Rosa is Lord Toric. And I want you to walk over to him and say this.”

  And then she uttered one of the dirtiest phrases I’d ever heard.

  For a moment I couldn’t even respond. I blinked a few times. “You want me to say that to Rosa?”