*
A knock sounded at Layna’s door and she put down her book and went to answer it. A squirrely man in a professional looking uniform stood in the hallway, his overly straight posture making it look forced.
He put on a grin for her. “Ms. Layna,” he greeted her with a bow. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am Noam. The Triumvirate has seen fit to assign me to be your guide during your stay here.” He held out a hand and she took it gently. He brought it to his lips and kissed it with a flair of gallantry.
“So you’re to be my keeper then?” she asked him, smiling good-naturedly.
“Keeper?” he asked, plastering a confused look upon his face. “Heavens, no. They simply thought you could use someone to look out for you seeing as you are not familiar with our country or our customs. It must be terribly overwhelming for you so far from home.”
The sympathetic look he gave her was so overdone that she had a hard time believing that any of the emotions he was trying so hard to display were sincere.
“Well, that is very kind of them,” she said politely, opting for simplicity over her previous attempt at joking around with him. Obviously he did not appreciate her humor. “Is there something they’d like us to do?”
“Oh indeed.” The smile was back. “I am to introduce you to some of the circles here so you can become acquainted with the other ladies. Do you have a free moment?”
“Of course,” she agreed amicably, though she was a little hesitant to meet these ladies. “Where to?”
He led her down the many hallways and out into the gardens. As they walked through the maze of flowers, Layna heard the group he was leading her to before she saw them. The tinkling sound of soft music could be heard amidst the chatter of many female voices interrupted by the twittering of laughter every now and again.
Her guide led her to the circle of women, who were gathered around a minstrel entertaining them while they sewed, painted, or simply sat chatting on the patio set in amongst the flowers.
The conversations all paused as she followed Noam into their midst, and she looked around at the group. Several of them she recognized by face, if not by name, and she felt a twinge that the blond that Gryffon apparently knew so well was among them.
They all smiled politely and greeted her with friendly words as Noam introduced them to her each in turn.
The blond was Lady Thebius, though when Noam introduced her, she smiled and rebuffed him, “Oh, don’t be so stuffy, Noam, amongst us girls, it’s just Aria.” She turned to Layna. “Welcome, Layna.”
Noam ignored the rebuke. “As you doubtless all know, Layna is from Gelendan, so she’s probably a bit uncomfortable. Let’s try and get her to open up a bit shall we ladies? Tell us about yourself Layna.”
Layna shifted her weight and gave a weak smile. Noam’s seemingly insincere attempt to integrate her into their circle felt as though it was only further isolating her. She thought she saw a look of disapproval on Aria face, and felt herself warming to the woman as she cut in.
“Why don’t you leave her here with us ladies for a while, Noam, so we can have some private girl-talk. You can come fetch her when it’s time for dinner.”
Noam looked slightly put out, but he nodded and bowed himself out of their presence.
“You’ll have to excuse Noam,” Aria said a bit sardonically, rolling her eyes at his retreating form. “He seems to enjoy making people squirm. It figures that the Triumvirate would be silly enough to assign him as a guide. Men!” She gave a dainty little snort.
One of the other women clicked her tongue at her. “Now Aria, that’s no way to speak of your father!”
Aria waved a hand in the air, “Oh Shannon, I’m only teasing.”
“Still,” Shannon went on in a stern tone, “It’s important to maintain appearances and show the proper respect.” She tilted her head away from Layna and lowered her voice, though it was still loud enough for everyone present to hear. “Especially in front of a foreigner.” She then gave Aria a look that she no doubt thought that Layna wouldn’t pick up on.
Layna raised her eyebrows and looked at Aria who just smiled and winked at her.
“Your father is one of the Triumvirate?” Layna queried, breaking the silence that had spread across the group, though several of them had gone back to their projects content to ignore the proceedings, and the minstrel played on.
“Hmm,” Aria acknowledged, unable to say more around the needle she was now holding between her lips. She removed it, breaking the string with her teeth, which caused another disapproving look from Shannon, and then answered. “Baron Thebius - my father - has been on the council forever, and has been a part of the Triumvirate the last three years. The Gods themselves spoke for him at the last choosing.”
“Choosing?”
“Every five years there is a choosing where a new Triumvirate is determined. Sometimes it ends up being the same people, usually chosen by the vote of the entire council. But every once in a while, Word comes down the river speaking for a particular member and while it is still up to the vote, they are almost always chosen.”
“Oh,” Layna said. She wanted to ask more, but didn’t want to call attention to the fact that she didn’t know their customs here. So instead she asked, “So you know Gryffon?”
“Yes,” she said fondly, “We’ve known each other since we were children. His family’s estate is very close to my own, so we really pretty much grew up together.”
“They were engaged too, until he decided to go all noble and run off to Gelendan to do his duty for his country,” Shannon snipped.
Layna felt her smile falter and she rubbed her nose to cover it.
“Hush you,” Aria scolded her once more, but smiled broadly and shrugged her shoulders. “We were, but you can’t stop a restless spirit I suppose. He’s far too interested in duty for his own good. We could have been married and have our first on the way already. Ah well.” She stared off into space a moment, and Layna found that she had nothing to say.
But Aria wasn’t finished. She giggled, “I remember once we went to a masked ball and he dressed up as a deer. He was doing his mating grunt all night at me.” She shook her head at the memory. “He is something else.”
Layna’s hands were getting cold and she found it hard to plaster on her smile, wishing she had never gotten Aria started on that particular subject. Lucky for her, one of the other ladies seemed to have gotten bored with it, and she steered the conversation in another direction.
Layna’s newness to the group was soon forgotten and they fell back into the conversation that had lapsed upon her arrival. Most of it was idle gossip much like Layna had exchanged with her own friends back home. She was glad that the other ladies seemed to have heard their fill about Gryffon and Aria were disinclined to bring that particular subject up again. Layna’s heart felt as though someone was squeezing it tight, and though she liked this new woman as a person, she felt a strong aversion at the same time. It was a strange mix of emotions to deal with, and Layna wished that Noam would come back and get her soon.
Eventually he did return to escort her to dinner and she excused herself with relief.
“Fit right in did you?” Noam asked, once again with a tone that left Layna wondering what his real intentions were.
She simply nodded.
She felt very alone.
CHAPTER 10
Nathair thrashed around in his sleep, flailing his arms wildly about on the bed as dreams overtook him.
He watched helplessly as his mind replayed his childhood, feeling the exhaustion he had felt as his mother pushed him to excel: running for hours a day, holding his breath far longer than would be thought humanly possible, opening himself to the river of power until its raging torrents burned his insides. And then the first time she had brought him to her bed - at such a tender age - where he had learned the strange pleasure she could arouse, but that was always followed by intense pain. This mixture of sweat, blood, pleasure and pain had molded his
upbringing, made him into the powerful creature that he was today.
Then a form floated into his dream. His mother’s form, radiating sexuality so intense that he could not stop himself from responding.
He tore himself awake, growling in his frenzy and found that his mother stood before his bed, naked and ready for him. He reached for her hungrily, but stopped short as a fury overtook him.
She had invaded his dreams!
His hand balled into a fist and drove it into her face as hard as he could.
She flew backwards and shrieked.
He pounded his fist against her again and again, heedless of her cries until she was raw and bleeding all over. Disgusted with himself, he spit on her limp form which she had rolled into the fetal position to try and shield herself from his blows.
He found that he was ravenous, and he mentally sent an order for his guards to bring him a steak. He was in the mood for some nice bloody meat. He tore a robe from its stand and stepped over his mother’s whimpering body, making his way into the antechamber.
He sat heavily into the chair and drummed his fingers against the desk with impatience. His chest itched and he scratched it irritably. The stone was fully embedded now. He had even removed the chain as it was no longer necessary to hold it there. It annoyingly seemed to be changing his skin around it though which itched terribly. And his scar was burning once again. The two annoyances were almost too much for him to bear.
He was still picking at the scaly skin when the guard entered with the steak.
Nathair tore into it hungrily, not bothering with such niceties like a fork and knife. When it was gone and he had licked his fingers clean, he felt calmer. But he still didn’t feel like going back to bed with his mother curled up in his bedroom.
He pulled a mirror from his desk drawer and sent a calling through it to Jezebel. No doubt she would be annoyed being summoned so late, but she had no choice but to answer it. She was as much his as he hoped both his girls someday would be.
It wasn’t long before the mirror shimmered and her pinched face scowled at him. She looked rather frightening without make-up and in the middle of the night.
“What is it?” she asked shortly.
“I want a report,” he told her as if it was perfectly normal that he would be asking for such a thing at this late hour.
She closed her eyes for a moment, as if trying hard not to say something she would regret and he watched with amusement, almost hoping she would. His earlier rage was not completely gone and it would have entertained him to explode her through the connection. Yes, but then I would have to place another emissary in Treymayne, and explain to them what had happened to her…although I could say it was an assassination by one of them as a reason to go to war. I’ll keep that in mind…he tore his thoughts away in time to see Jezebel regain control of herself.
“I met with the council again to hear the accusations that the supposed spy had against me and they quite honestly didn’t seem to be too worried about what the man said. My memory wouldn’t relinquish how I knew him, but even so I have papers to discredit him should the need arise. The ‘hearing’ was so short that I didn’t even have time to bring these up when they asked to hear both sides. I really don’t think they’re putting much stock in his word, which I really can’t blame them for. He and that girl with him seemed awfully low-born. Probably just looking for some attention and thought they could look important by pretending to know me.”
For having been woken up in the middle of the night, Jezebel had certainly worked herself nicely into a tirade about these two. He wondered though… “What were their names?”
“Lord Gryffon…and something with an ‘L’, to tell you the truth I just didn’t like the look of her. I half wonder if she’s not a whore off the street that this Gryffon picked up to try and back up his cockamamie story. They even said that I had hellhounds. I think I’d know if I had hellhounds.”
“You did, and they tore you apart,” he told her irritably, “Tell me, was the girl Layna?”
Jezebel looked stunned and was staring at him slack-jawed. He mentally berated himself for having just told her about her near-death experience. If he had triggered the memory he could potentially have just made a lot of work for himself undoing the damage it would cause to her state of mind. He repeated his question. “Was the girl’s name Layna?”
Jezebel shook her head, and Nathair sent more power to the spell woven into her mind to keep certain memories blocked. The color returned to her face slowly and she seemed to forget that the previous moment had occurred.
“Yes, that was it. A stupid name if you ask me. Just the look of her made me angry.”
Nathair abruptly broke the connection with Jezebel. His girl was in Treymayne. But how did she get there? He wondered, but brushed the thought aside. That could be dealt with later. Right now he needed to find a way to get her.
He stormed back into the bedroom - and stopped short. His mother was standing there
watching him without a bruise on her. Her magic was good, but not that good.
He eyed her warily.
“Forget the girl,” she told him, in a voice not at all like his mother’s.
His chest throbbed.
“Forget the girl,” she repeated in the monotone voice and she cocked her head to the side.
Nathair winced as a line of blood appeared on her throat, as if drawn by an invisible knife. She didn’t seem to notice.
“The Sleeping God must be awakened.” Blood was fairly pouring out of the gash now, and he watched in fascination as the streams flowed down her. His mind wrenched him into a memory and he was the little boy once again.
Nat panted and stole a glance behind him as he frantically tried to outrun the beast his mother had set against him. It was her newest training; to make him fashion a bloodbeast, only to turn it loose against him and make him defeat it.
But his mother had had too much fun last night with a local drunk and in her power overload from the excitement had improved upon his creation. It was far stronger than he had expected.
He grabbed hold of a branch as he passed, and used it to swing himself around into a small opening in a boulder that had been split somewhere in the ages. The extra time it took for the beast to go around would gain him precious seconds.
He felt the hot breath against his arm as the beast took a bite at him, and he hastily snatched it away. He raced towards the entrance to his secret place, hoping that his mother wasn’t watching. He fairly shouted the magic to open the way and he flung his hands up to protect his head, hoping that the spell making the rock no longer solid worked quickly.
He was in luck, and he tumbled to the ground inside, turning to re-solidify the rock entrance before taking stock of his injuries. He heard something large and hard slam into the wall moments after he saw the shimmer of magic and a shower of rock debris rained down on him. The beast howled its frustration, but the rock wall held. He looked down at himself, ignoring the rhythmic pounding on the rock by the beast.
He was bleeding from several cuts, but none were life-threatening and he spared a small amount of energy to seal the skin to stop the bleeding. He felt along his ribs and determined that several were broken. Though he suspected that at least one of those was from last night.
The pounding stopped and Nat looked up in alarm. Silence filled his little cave, and he sat motionless straining his ears for some clue as to why the beast had gone quiet.
“Be a good beast now and die,” his mother purred. Nathair heard a whimper and a rush of energy flowed back into him as his spells broke as the beast obeyed.
He started shaking. His mother would tell him he had failed. That he had turned heel and ran like a coward. He would be punished. He held a hand out in front of him, watching it quiver like a leaf on a windy day. He concentrated on it, trying to still it with willpower. But the fear was too strong.
He could feel her presence, and he knew she could feel his. It was only a matter of time
now, she was just toying with him. He drew his knees up against him, and sat rocking back and forth whimpering. Waiting. But he also poured his final energies into hiding what was in the cave. He didn’t want her to find out. She could steal from him his childhood, his free will, even his very life, but he would not let her steal this from him. This was his!
The rock shimmered, and his mother stepped through.
“Well, well, well,” she said slowly, looking down her nose at him. “I cleaned up a little mess for you outside. I guess you weren’t man enough to handle it.”
Nat ruthlessly drove his finger into one of his ribs and his eyelids fluttered with pain. He focused on the pain, lest his very thoughts betray him.
“What’s that now?” his mother asked, her expression turning to curiosity.
He drove his finger deeper and tears flowed from his eyes, though he didn’t make a sound.
There is only pain. He rocked back and forth. Only pain.
His mother closed her eyes and he felt her in his head. She roughly pushed aside the thoughts of pain and tore from him his secret.
“NO!” he shouted and stood, his voice breaking in despair.
“Yes,” she whispered back, her eyes widening briefly to punctuate the word. She smiled evilly. “At last, I’ve found it.”
Anger overrode Nat’s fear. He would not let his mother take this from him too. A scream tore from his throat and-
He was abruptly brought back to the present. His mother still stood staring at him eerily, blood pouring from the wound on her delicate neck.
“I killed you,” he told her. He raised his hand to the scar on his cheek. She had torn it open in the struggle, but he had eventually been able to get his knife out of his tunic and he had killed her - he had sliced her throat open. And he had watched her die, bleeding out her neck like a slaughtered animal. He had felt her die. And he had kept the scar on his cheek to remind him.
“Who are you?” he asked it.
Though it still wore his mother’s form, the voice that sounded from the bleeding throat was now more demonic than human. “You will wake the Sleeping God.”
Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) Page 15
