Immortal Defiance

by Laura Maybrooke

  “Come now, I promise not to steal it from you.” Mirth suffused his countenance.

  Dulcea bit her lip and glanced at her Golden Staff which stood hidden under concealment charms in the dark corner beside her. He followed her gaze.

  “Ah. So that’s where.” His smile turned feral.

  She was not sure how he did it. Dulcea wanted to refuse him, but almost against her will she ended up altering the invisibility charm placed on the Staff. His eyes widened just in the slightest. The chief smiled, pleased with himself. He appeared to have no further interest in the dragonstone, however. He made a dutiful appreciative comment about her powers, after which he launched into a discussion about the war.

  For a man of his cultural background, Chief Hai’Mezene spoke with surprising wisdom about the world outside his door. He was knowledgeable and was not afraid to flaunt it. Whether the barbarian spoke or was silent, there was always something superior about the look in his eyes or about the calculated curl of his lips. At the end of the half an hour, Dulcea was more confused than enlightened. If someone should have asked her to repeat even a few phrases of the conversation, she felt certain she would have failed. Dulcea listened to him as if in a daze. It was only when he stopped talking that she recollected herself enough to ask about an interest of her own.

  “Captain Raiven?” He stroked his chin. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Sarusean fellow, came here from north. Sraeyn, maybe?”

  “I see. And what of his current whereabouts?”

  “The land due south of the Qu-Seradh Mountains, near the easternmost reaches of this country, is an area of no-man's-land. It is an unclaimed territory. No tribes live there, and no one wants it for themselves. The Minotaurs of the mountains are territorial creatures: they hate intruders. In the last fortnight, however, humans have gathered there.”

  “You mean Captain Raiven?” She frowned. “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged. “They are no one I know.”

  Dulcea thought the news fortunate to herself and made a mental note to discuss the matter with her generals upon her arrival back at camp. She would not take Hai’Mezene’s words at face value, but they were a good starting point for an investigation. She glanced around herself. The sudden thought of Amparo Darksun, waiting outside the city for her return rose unbidden into her mind. She gulped. Dulcea could well imagine his aggravation and worry at her prolonged absence. For the first time since Chief Hai’Mezene had walked into the tavern, commanding her attentions, she realized the passage of time.

  “Chief, I thank you for meeting me,” she said, “but it is time I took my leave. The hour is late; I have been here since the morning.”

  “I apologize for my lateness in coming to meet you and hence the concern this will thus have caused to your generals.” Hai’Mezene looked guilty. “There was a matter or two to settle, and I could not help my tardiness. I have hope for your forgiveness, my lady.”

  “It’s fine. I understand,” she said, although she did not. She would have thought him sensible enough to at least send her a note explaining his absence. “The main thing is we got to talk. I should like to think we both agree on a cause. The Saruseans can have this continent no more; their time here is over. Would it be acceptable for my messengers to contact yours and present you with an invitation for an official meeting so we may discuss the terms of our alliance?”

  “That would be suitable, yes.” The barbarian inclined his head.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I hoped to find you a man of reason, someone who would understand my views, and what I have learned pleases me. I now know your honor and goodness, and there is not even any formal alliance between the two of us yet. That I shall not forget. I wish I could repay you somehow.”

  He laughed. “We could always go upstairs…” The smile was half a smirk, half a seductive grin.

  Dulcea fisted her hands. “No, we cannot! I am no loose woman!”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Easy. I assure you, bedding you is the last thing on my mind.”

  Dulcea scowled, not understanding what else a man could want of a woman in the privacy of a cheap rented room. She huffed, pushed back her chair from the table, and got up. The barbarian chief gazed at her with an amused expression. He did not stand up to wish her farewell.

  She felt angry and debased in the face of his smug attitude. She grabbed her Golden Staff.

  Dulcea raised her chin. “Please make yourself available for negotiations in a fortnight’s time!”

  Not waiting for the barbarian to respond, Dulcea turned and bumped into a man trying to pass their table just as she was to leave it.

  “Oh, sorry!” The stranger held up his hands, looking embarrassed.

  Dulcea took a step back, allowing him to pass their table. He was a bear of a man, all hulking muscle and tanned bronze skin. His hair, dotted with feathers and pearls, was long, curly, and black, and he wore leather clothes studded with chains and crosspieces of metal. A small black goatee shadowed his chin. Although not handsome in the general sense of it, he was a striking sight.

  “It is all right.” She nodded at him. “No harm done here.”

  The hulking barbarian went to sit at a lone corner table. He gazed around himself with a frown, and Dulcea rushed out of the room just as the burly tavern master hurried to serve his newest customer. Out of the corner of her eye, Dulcea spied Chief Hai’Mezene getting up and crossing the room to the barbarian’s table. It did not surprise her to find them acquainted, considering the chief’s current position.

  Her job here was over. It was time to return.

  ---

  Dulcea drew in a sharp breath, opening her eyes. She blinked a few times, and the dream flew from her memory. Something uneasy niggled at the edge of her consciousness.

  She sighed. A new day had dawned.

  Chapter 21

  The Visit

  A few evenings later she was back at Gwyndoorn.

  The opportunity was so unexpected that Dulcea almost missed mentioning it to Krath when he came to see her the evening before it was to occur. Lord Erthann Yarnfall, whose lands bordered their camp at East Ford, by the Ghardar Mountains, had made a formal request for her presence. His only son Lord Galainn, one of the knight captains at West Ford, had a day before met with an accident and lived only because of a subordinate’s intervention. It was to celebrate this and to discuss the terms of a suitable reward that Lord Erthann had requested her presence at Yarnfall. It was a political affair: a mere formality, but it offered her the leeway she was looking for.

  On the morning of the eighteenth, Amparo Darksun and his clan mates flew Dulcea, Lord Galainn, and the soldier who had saved his life to Yarnfall. They met with Lord Erthann and his wife over a sumptuous lunch before discussing politics for the afternoon, their reward a hefty contribution to the Caerynian rebels’ cause. There was no price for saving someone’s life, but Dulcea was not foolish enough to say no to large stores of food and clothing.

  Afterward, they were each shown to a luxurious private room, with hot water and a real bed with down pillows and quilts. Dulcea sat down on the bed to wait, fidgeting with the hem of her attire. Outside the sky was dark, not yet black but fading to it. She did not have to wait for long because then the vampire was there with her, and the intimacy of the setting unnerved her.

  She hoped she was doing the right thing.

  “Good evening, my lady,” Krath said in a low voice, bowing to her.

  “My lord.” Dulcea acknowledged him with a nod of her head, not trusting herself to say more.

  “You are ready?” He held out a hand to her. “Come. You know how this works.”

  Dulcea got up, disliking the weakness of her legs. The walk to him seemed a mile long, and the wry little smile curving his lips did not help. She stopped in front of him, glancing over her shoulder to where she had left her Golden Staff hidden under the down quilts and an intricate concealment charm.

  She detested having to leave her Staff in a foreign
room, without physical guardianship, but Dulcea understood why she could not take it with her. The heavy wooden door locked from the inside, at least, and as long as nothing urgent came up, her secret was safe tonight.

  The room was dark; she had snuffed out the candles already. Dulcea placed her hand on his. In the gray light of the room, she did not have to hide her embarrassment—although he was certain to guess it. His touch felt foreign, but not as unnatural as she remembered it.

  Krath raised his other hand to her face, brushing his cold fingers across her skin. The curious sensation of it reminded her of frost flowers melting on her bare palm, such as she had once witnessed in the wilds of Dranmore. The coldness was only skin deep, however, and the longer that his fingers lingered on her cheek, the more neutral they felt against it. His skin was pliant and smooth, and not at all like Dulcea had once imagined his touch to be. The instinct to recoil was still there, but it was no longer as prominent as before.

  He tilted her chin up, his pale turquoise eyes boring into hers. A moment passed, she blinked, and in that instant everything changed. There was no worry left in the world. Krath’s arms fell to her waist to hold her close, and Dulcea thrilled inside at the strength of his embrace. She bound her arms around his neck and recalled the pleasurable excitement of having him kiss her neck. Perhaps tonight he would repeat the action.

  The scene twisted around them, melting into distorted shapes, distant footsteps, and heavy unnaturalness. Dulcea swallowed. The Netherworld was eerie and terrifying, but he was true and solid against her, and she kept staring up at him in blind adoration.

  The real world soon came back into focus, and Krath released her. Dulcea took an uneasy step back from him, stumbling over nothing. It felt easier every time to fall under his power, and deep alarm grabbed her at the realization. It brought back an unwelcome sensation of helplessness from events she could not recollect. An evening of darkness reigned in her mind. There were blanks in her memory that neither time nor magic could seem to heal. An evening spent in Vyronh while on the long march from Miranma to Dranmore had vanished from her recollection.

  The sudden release from his mind control powers, with the eeriness of the Netherworld still fresh in her mind, felt akin to recovering from a long illness. His presence left her weak, dazed, and out of breath. An urgent little voice inside her head told her she should let him charm her no more.

  “If you would please follow Lucindra.” Krath gestured at the blond woman whose presence Dulcea noticed only then. “I’ve asked Mey to select some dresses for you. It would please me to see you in one of them.”

  Too stunned to resist, Dulcea followed the maid into a familiar tower room, where a great variety of lovely dresses with matching shoes and accessories awaited her perusal. From among the satins, velvets, and silks in new leaf green, pale gold, creamy white, and wintry blue, she chose a shimmering dress of white and pale blue fabric. The dress had a snug white bodice, a long airy skirt, and sheer blue sleeves patterned with white flowers resembling snowflakes. The wintry motif repeated in the intricate blue embroidery of the ribbon and lace adorned skirt and bodice.

  Mey and Lucindra helped her into the dress and then sat her in front of the dressing table to primp her. Dulcea watched their images in the mirror as they worked pins into her hair with deft hands, at a rate that seemed impossible to her. She recalled out of the blue how Krath’s reflection had looked on the surface of the mirror in her tent. The sight of it had frightened her. She had never asked him about it, Dulcea realized, resolving to inquire into the matter as soon as it became opportune to do so.

  “Did you know Lord Krath has no reflection?” she said, unable to help herself.

  “He is not without one, my lady,” a voice said from the open doorway, and the vampire stepped inside. Dulcea had not noticed Mey opening the door for him. “It is just not what you would expect.”

  Dulcea got to her feet and curtsied to him, her head held high despite her embarrassment.

  “You may leave us,” Krath said to the maids who exited the room at his command.

  He had changed his clothes as well and wore his velvet and ruffle like he was born to wear them.

  “If you have no objections, I would like to show you around the castle before we dine.” He offered her his arm.

  No longer a prisoner but his guest on this visit, he had no reason to restrict her from any place in the castle. She was not looking to escape, and it was obvious Krath took pride in the life he had built for himself in Gwyndoorn.

  Dulcea nodded. “Thank you. I would enjoy that.” Her smile was wide and genuine.

  The castle of Gwyndoorn, she learned in the next hour, was a large fortified structure with an older main keep and six newer towers. They began from the third floor of the castle’s southeastern tower, outside her door in the short hallway it shared with another room. Upstairs the similar corridor had only a single door, behind which was Krath’s private study. Downstairs the spiral staircase ended at a spacious room with two doors: one leading out to the wall walk and the other to a long hallway in the main castle. The bottom of the east tower opened to the great entrance hall. It was this door into the main keep that Dulcea had used during her previous stay in the castle.

  At the end of the wall walk, the castle’s southernmost tower functioned as the gatehouse with a mechanism for operating the portcullis. The wall walk continued on the other side of it, ending at a tower on the western side of Gwyndoorn. Together, they contained the castle’s outer courtyard between them, behind a protective curtain wall. The western tower was identical to the southeastern one, both a story over the gatehouse.

  A set of downward stairs, hiding in a stairway alcove at the bottom floor of the western tower, led to the cellar and the dungeons. Dulcea’s step faltered. She recalled at once his threat of perhaps having to put her in the dungeons. That had been but minutes after her failed escape attempt from Gwyndoorn. She pursed her lips. How strange. Was that day soon only a fortnight and a half ago?

  It seemed like more, like she had known him far longer than that.

  They proceeded back into the main keep. The upper hallways from the towers opened to a vast hall, framing the grand entrance hall like a second-floor terrace on both sides. Magnificent stairs dominated the open space. Dulcea took a deep breath, admiring the architecture. She had crossed this hall many times already, but always in a state of hurry or agitation: blind to her surroundings because of it. The beauty she had seen before she could appreciate only now.

  At the high end of the entrance halls’ stairs, there was an open double door into another hall. At the doorway stood a pair of dragon statues. The cool black stone was smooth under her hand; she thought it might have been onyx. The statues displayed excellent workmanship and must have been expensive in their time. He waited for her to move to the other room, and Dulcea gave him a flustered smile as she stepped over the threshold.

  The garden, which was visible from the large windows of the second-floor hall, had three doors for access. Two of these were on the ground floor of both the west and northwest towers and the third in a little storage room under the entrance hall’s stairs.

  The baths, Dulcea recollected, were accessible only from the northwest tower.

  At the end of the windowed hall, past where the wall opened to a grand banquet hall and the kitchens beyond it, large oak doors led to the northernmost tower. It featured various luxurious rooms, the most intriguing of which was the library on the fourth floor. It took up the entire floor and housed rows of tall bookshelves.

  There was a small open study in the middle of the library, in front of a large fireplace. The setting included a small sofa, a few comfortable-looking chairs, and a desk. The library had beautiful arched windows that overlooked the rugged landscape of the north. She liked the view with all her heart.

  “There is also a small tower to the left of us.” The vampire stood with his back to the north windows. “It is difficult to access from the keep, though.
To reach it on foot, one must take a certain path through the main keep’s fourth floor. Alas for anyone who might want to try, it is a maze fashioned by the dark cult that dwelled here before me. There should be none of their traps left in those corridors, but I cannot guarantee it with absolute certainty. I have little wish to visit that tower myself, but on the rare few occasions that I do, I use the Netherworld for that.”

  She tilted her head to look at him. “Oh, how strange! What do you think they did with that tower?”

  “Personally? I think they left their tortured victims there, with an open door and two ways to escape. Yet all freedom was illusionary; I doubt any of them succeeded—the amount of bones I found attests to that. The first way out of the solitary tower was three floors of nothing down from the roofed bridge that led to it; the second was through the maze in the pitch-black darkness with traps at every corner.”

  “That is horrible!” Dulcea clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Man is capable of a lot of evil.” Krath shrugged. “He need not be undead for that.”

  Krath ended the tour at the intimate little dining room on the third floor of the main keep. The upper two floors imitated an atrium, enclosing within a half-roofed inner courtyard square, the floor of which was the stone ceiling of the room below it. Circling the edges of the courtyard was a shallow pool sunken a foot into the stone, meant to collect rainwater and to divert it to the castle wells. The night was dark now, but Dulcea remembered the room had once bathed in sunlight.

  He glanced sideways at her. “Does it please you, this castle?”