“You are canny. I have only recently become aware of this fact myself. How did you know?” He paused a moment and looked her over, as if deciding if he was going to tell her more. He seemed to make up his mind and he continued, “Does it have to do with the couple you recently visited?”
“How do you know about that?” Katya’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What are you, following me?”
She turned to leave, but he reached out and grabbed her arm to detain her.
“Wait.” As his hand closed over her skin, it felt as though it lit up at his touch and the fire spread through her blood to her heartbeat. As the fire retreated, it left behind a pleasant warm sensation and she turned back to him slowly, confused by the emotions roiling within her.
The King’s breath was coming in short gasps from the contact. “You see? Our blood recognizes its own. You cannot deny it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The mark on your neck, here,” he brushed aside her hair, followed by a sharp intake of breath. “There’s a scar…”
“From where I removed my own collar,” Katya spat at him, “that’s my only mark. A reminder of what I never want to be again.”
“Your own collar,” he repeated softly. Then, as if suddenly something clicked into place in his mind, “Of course.” Katya didn’t bother asking what it was, and he continued, “I see I can’t use the mark to persuade you, I don’t suppose you saw it before you removed the wretched thing?” Katya’s face must have told him what he needed to know. “Perhaps having saved your life will convince you then?”
Katya snorted.
“The assassin that killed the couple and was trying to re-collar you, did he not have a dagger in his back? A dagger bearing this symbol?” He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a symbol identical to the one on the dagger. “The mark of my elite guardsmen, my family crest.”
“That only proves that you did have someone following me,” she pointed out.
“I could not resist once I tasted your aura,” he smiled winningly at her and she felt her icy feelings towards him melting.
“Do you know who sent the assassin?”
The King shook his head negatively.
“And the army, you truly didn’t know of its use on the men?”
He held his hands out as though laying bare his soul. “Truly I did not. Had I known about that particular project I surely would have made certain that it could not be used against me.”
Katya paused a moment longer. She couldn’t control the draw she felt to him. Finally, she spoke again, “I cannot get you out of here. You are stronger than I, and you can’t break out.”
“Yes, but from the inside it is more difficult. And do not let them tell you how strong you are. Just because their bondage stunted your true potential does not mean that it is not still there and you can’t still access it. The God’s blood runs through your veins too. You have only to let him out.”
“Perhaps together we could break it,” she surprised herself by offering. She knew that she should turn on her heel and just leave, but he knew about the assassin and obviously had been watching her. He might yet have some answers.
His smile radiated approval, and her face flushed with pleasure which she quickly dismissed. He was useful, that was all. Katya looked down quickly.
“There is a special spell for the process,” he explained it to her in detail, “which will help dissolve the safeguards so we can break through. I’ve been trying to use it, but as I mentioned, it is more difficult from within.”
Katya withdrew suspiciously. “I thought you didn’t know about its use, how did you come by this spell to escape it?”
“I said I only recently came across the evidence of it, which I did. Once I knew, I set about finding out everything I could. And I didn’t know about the army.”
He held out his hand, and after only a split second of hesitation, she took it, feeling another tingle as they touched which settled into a pleasant hum of energy sparking between them. She opened herself fully to the power and reached out with it towards him.
Again her logical side was screaming at her that she was putting herself in a vulnerable position for a man she hardly knew, but knew enough to know he was dangerous. But for once she paid it no heed. The pull to free him was too strong for her to resist even if she had wanted to.
Their two powers connected roughly, like two magnets suddenly close enough to no longer resist the attraction, and Katya gasped. She felt him drawing off of her strength and watched with fascination as he wove it together into a massive ball of explosive power. He poised to ‘throw’ it against his invisible bonds and then squeezed her hand giving her another rush, and he unleashed it.
Katya tumbled backwards from the force. Not even the wave of power from the border magics had been this intense. She blacked out.
When she blinked her eyes open, the King was kneeling over her, a concerned look upon his face.
“Are you alright?” he asked her with sincere concern.
“Yes,” she answered, slowly sitting herself up and reaching back to feel where a bump was beginning to form on the back or her head where it had smashed against the hard ground.
Her gaze flew to the opening in the tent. “Your captors…”
“Out cold,” he assured her.
She glanced over at him, and pulled her brows together as she saw with dismay that the collar was still around his handsome neck. “It didn’t work,” she lamented, sitting back onto her heels.
But the King smiled. “Oh, but it did,” he said, “I am no longer under their bonds. But I don’t want them to know that just yet.”
“If you’re free, we should go!”
“Not just yet, my dear. I don’t know what they’re up to. I want to learn everything I can about them before thanking them for their hospitality.”
He inhaled deeply. “You need to leave, now,” he said, suddenly urgent, “I can smell those two returning.”
She immediately rushed to the entrance, but surprised herself once more by pausing to turn back to him. She opened her mouth, but he interrupted her.
“Go!” he commanded her, and then in a softer tone, “I’ll find you.”
As she raced away from the campsite, she heard the voices of the invisibles and she increased her pace. There could not be enough distance between her and those two. But she had left the King there alone with them…She shook her head to clear it of the strange emotions that were churning inside of her. Why had she just compromised her safety like that? For someone who may well be creating armies of slaves. She had only his word that he wasn’t. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling like she had known him forever.
Ever since she had gotten rid of her collar, her control on her emotions had become more - tenuous - and she was beginning to be a bit concerned. Frustrated by this fact, and her recent actions, she shoved all her thoughts into the back of her mind and concentrated instead on her running, counting her steps in meditation.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four…
CHAPTER 12
Layna sighed. Noam was giving her another tour of the palace which included going through each of the royal halls and learning the histories of each and every statue, painting, and tapestry that resided there.
“Am I boring you Ms. Layna?” Noam asked her with a hint of annoyance, and she quickly plastered a look of interest on her face.
“Sorry,” she apologized, “just tired, I’m not used to this kind of treatment.”
Noam’s expression softened into the pitying look of understanding that she was starting to become quite familiar with. He seemed to have decided that she was either too dull or too common to quite grasp the concept of things that he thought any civilized person should appreciate, and oftentimes Layna felt that he treated her much like a child. But at least he wasn’t taking her lack of interest personally anymore. She’d rather deal with him assuming that it was s
imply beyond her realm of understanding than moping about at her disinterest as he had been doing previously.
“This piece here was a gift from Lord Emmerson, who you’ll of course remember is the man who was the second cousin to the wife of Baron Grimaldi.”
Layna nodded as if she had any clue as to whom Noam was referring to. Just then, Aria appeared in the doorway and Layna mouthed ‘help me’ when Noam wasn’t looking. Aria gave her a smile and a wink before clearing her throat so that Noam turned to see she was there.
“Ah, Lady Aria, how nice to see you,” Noam greeted her and moved forward to kiss her hand. She playfully batted him away with her other hand, giggling that it wasn’t necessary. He insisted, and his hand lingered on hers a split second longer than was required.
“Do you mind terribly much if I steal Layna away from you? I’d be much obliged, I have a new dress for tonight that I simply must get a woman’s opinion on, and everyone seems to be busy with something else.” She put on a cute little pout and Noam was like putty in her hands.
“Not at all, my lady, please let me know if there is anything else that I can do for you.”
Layna suppressed a smile.
Aria beamed at Noam who fairly glowed with the attention and then looped her arm around Layna’s to lead her out of the room.
“Whew!” Aria exclaimed when they were safely out of Noam’s hearing range, “I only caught the last bit of his speech, but I had to come rescue you. What was he doing, giving you our entire history in one day?”
Layna laughed. “Something like that. I think he means well, but…” she let the thought trail off, especially because she wasn’t really all that sure that he actually did mean well. He was an extremely hard person to read his real intentions. “So do you really have a dress for me to look at?”
“I can find one.”
Aria led her back through the winding palace halls to the suites that were occupied by her and her father, Baron Thebius. The front chamber was a large sitting room where presumably he carried out meetings as one of the Triumvirate, and there were many doors leading out from it into the other living spaces.
Layna couldn’t contain her curiosity so she asked, “Do you think that your father will support Gryffon’s charges against Lady Jezebel?”
Aria looked rather taken-aback, and Layna instantly regretted asking. No doubt Aria had to deal with people trying to get to her father through her on a regular basis. She hesitated a moment before answering, but when she did so it wasn’t with any tone that would indicate that she was upset with her, so Layna relaxed slightly.
“Honestly I try not to talk to him about things like that because I really don’t want to get caught in the middle of his council business. But, if I were to guess I would think that he’d be more willing to look past what may or may not have happened or have been the plan in the past and rather focus on what we can make the future into. So I think that he’d vote to treat it as if these claims were not brought against her and move forward towards opening our borders. He’s been trying to get the rest of the council to see the benefits of coming out of our isolation for ages now. I doubt he’d let Lady Jezebel’s questionable character ruin his chance of doing so.” She paused for a moment and added, reminding Layna that no one here knew what she and Gryffon did about Jezebel, “She doesn’t seem so bad.”
Layna had no polite response to that and Aria shrugged and looked away, obviously wanting to drop the subject, so Layna did so. She spent large part of the afternoon with the woman looking at and trying on different dresses and chatting about mundane matters. Layna was sure to keep the topics steered clear of anything political in nature or of her past with Gryffon, though Aria kept trying to bring him up, asking her questions about the two of them and how close they were. The questions made Layna more than a little uncomfortable and she found herself answering most of them with shrugs, and ‘we’re just friends’ to avoid more probing queries.
After a while she excused herself and she went to find Gryffon to see if he wanted to go for a ride. She needed to get away from the palace which was beginning to feel rather claustrophobic with the constant threat of running into Lady Jezebel always in the back of her mind and Aria’s comments about her and Gryffon before she could be steered away from the subject. She wasn’t sure what had changed with Jezebel, but the single minded hatred that had been present before in her gaze seemed to have dulled somewhat. She wanted to talk to Gryffon about her too.
She found him in the library and he gladly accepted her invitation. As they rode out into the woods, Layna’s mood improved greatly. After a while, she brought up the subject that she had been dreading. She hated to bring up such a difficult subject when she felt as though their friendship was already faltering, but she had to.
“Has your life-sucker been acting up around Jezebel?” she asked him tentatively.
He looked away abruptly and she was half-afraid that he’d simply ignore her. Finally he spoke. “It’s retreated to a dull ache…I don’t notice any difference when I’m close to her other than the reaction that anyone gets from being too near something so wicked. Do you think I’d be able to tell if it was her?” Layna brightened at the question, happy that he seemed willing to discuss it with her.
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but if Aileen’s right about what you have, I don’t see it being anyone else. Did you see when she opened herself to probes during the meeting?” She left the thought unfinished he could fill in his interpretation.
“She hasn’t regained use of her magic yet,” he supplied, “but is obviously trying to portray it as though she never had any talent to begin with so that people think that we’re crazy for accusing her of having hellhounds. I think that maybe she was a little messed up in the head - more so than she was already I mean - when they attacked her. I honestly don’t think she has any real memories of who we are. Either that or someone else is controlling her emotions, because she certainly isn’t capable of controlling them herself. She’s an act-out-of-rage-now-and-have-daddy-clean-it-up-later kind of person.”
Layna chewed on this for a moment. “I’d say you’re probably right. There was definitely something lacking when we saw her. Like she knew that she didn’t like us, but she didn’t know why anymore. That’s somewhat good news, isn’t it? Being burned out and having no memory of us certainly makes the odds of her discovering what she’s done to you and using it tilt in our favor.”
Gryffon raised his eyebrows shortly and sighed. “Hopefully. But that still doesn’t help us know how to get rid of it.”
“Maybe we should ask,” Layna commented softly.
“Ask who though? Aileen and Echo are the most knowledgeable, and neither could give us an answer.” He sounded like he had given up finding an answer altogether.
“Perhaps we should ask the Three. You said it yourself that they actually send you answers through the Oracle down the river here. It wouldn’t hurt to try.”
He looked thoughtful and didn’t disagree, but when he spoke again he changed the subject. They spoke of more trivial matters for the ride back to the palace.
Layna still couldn’t muster up the courage to ask him about Aria though it was tearing her up inside. Now that he was back, would he be interested in regaining his relationship with her? They had one thing in common that Layna could never hope to compete with - a shared past.
They neared the palace and both quickly dismounted upon seeing a commotion. They hastily left the mounts with the stable hands and Gryffon broke into a run with Layna only moments behind. They followed the growing crowd towards the royal suites and Layna got a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach which only grew worse as the people in front of them turned - towards Lady Aria’s suite.
Shrill screams suddenly echoed against the stone walls, growing more and more agitated and Layna soon saw the reason.
Lady Aria was being dragged away from her father’s office, kicking and flailing in the guard’s arms and screaming at the top of her
lungs. Layna only caught a glimpse before another guard hastily shut the door behind them, but she swore she saw a dark red stain underneath the Baron’s desk and was not too naïve to think that this was a simple case of spilled ink or wine.
She watched the horrific scene in paralyzed confusion, but soon had to force her unyielding legs to move beneath her as the guards shuffled her out along with everybody else. Gryffon made as if to follow where they had taken Aria, but they blocked his passage.
They milled about in the hallway with the rest of the displaced crowd until somebody from near the doorway that had been shut against them moved away from it where he’d been pressing his ear and whispered conspiratorially loud enough for the whole room to hear.
“Baron Thebius has been murdered!”
CHAPTER 13
Jezebel gently set the bell down after ringing for a servant. Moments later, one appeared and she smiled at the woman. She was trying to take extra care to build a favorable reputation within the servants’ ranks after having had a rather unfortunate blow up at one of the girls make its way back to the council.
“Would you be so kind as to please relay this message to the Lady Aria?” she forced herself to ask the girl, as if she had any choice but to do as commanded.
The woman took the letter daintily, careful to not brush her fingers against Jezebel’s which was fortunate as she wasn’t sure she’d be able to not flinch away from the unwanted contact. The girl scurried away and Jezebel sat back to await Aria’s arrival. She knew the woman would accept her invitation for tea, she had had Devon make sure that there was nothing in her schedule to prevent her and protocol required it of her as the late baron’s daughter.
Lady Aria was disheveled, her puffy and bloodshot eyes told of nights of crying. Jezebel plastered a look of sympathy on her face. ‘Thank you for accepting my invitation, Lady Aria, I know this must be a difficult time for you.”
Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) Page 17
