by S E Meliers
‘Or a threat?’ she retorted. ‘I know the poem, sir, which opens, I believe, with “Farewell to thee!”’
He laughed - a surprisingly attractive sound. She leaned out slightly further in order to better see his face, curiosity needing sating. He was not unattractive, she determined, a little too angular to be considered handsome, but charismatic. ‘No threat intended, my Lady,’ he turned to fully face her, flashing white straight teeth in a broad smile. ‘I am Shade, the Necromancer. This is the lovely Song,’ he rested a hand on the doll-woman’s curly coif. ‘We are newly come to Amori.’
‘Necromancer,’ she repeated, a frown puckering her brows. ‘Did I not hear that a necromancer was holding Lyendar against Prince Cinder?’
He bowed at the waist. ‘My reputation precedes me,’ he acknowledged, cheerfully.
‘How is it that you are in Amori?’ she asked baffled and alarmed. ‘And not captive of the Shoethalian army?’
‘Skill, my Lady, and a compliant dragon,’ he winked. She did not know what to make of that. ‘I am here to offer you my services.’
‘But… did you not work for Honesty?’ she struggled to put her distrust into words. ‘That is rather… treacherous.’
‘I work for Shade,’ he replied evenly and with patience. ‘And merely offer my services to others. I am not particular as to the cause my services are used, therefore I do not believe I can be considered treacherous for my choices. Honesty has no further need for my services therefore I am free to offer them elsewhere, and I am here to offer them to you.’
‘Why?’ she was genuinely curious.
He plucked a rose from the vines and held it to his nose before pro-offering it to the doll-woman, Song, who accepted it with a sweet, serene smile. Patience wondered at her; there was something not quite right about her, but she could not place it. ‘It seems to me that you have a need of us, my Lady,’ he said gently. ‘And rumour has it that you are a kind but strong mistress. I am precariously placed in this court, coming as I do from the battle of Lyendar. A strong mistress is to my benefit, and you hold the Prince’s favour, so can entreat him to kindness in my regard.’
A necromancer would be a powerful ally in equivocal times, she speculated, and one which needed her favour in order to preserve his skin against a wrathful Prince would be compliant, if not loyal. ‘Why come to Amori?’ she demanded. ‘Why not go West - to the King at Garvia? Your reception there would be more assured than here, surely?’
‘Would it, my Lady? My departure from Lyendar, at the most poignant moment of battle, clutched in the claws of one of your Prince’s dragons, only to re-appear hale and whole at Garvia would surely be suspicious to the King,’ he suggested.
‘How is it that you escaped the dragon hale and whole?’ she asked.
‘I think, perhaps, because the dragons and I are not dissimilar in our approaches,’ he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘We do not align ourselves with a cause - merely offer our services for as long as it serves us to do so.’
‘It makes for unreliable allies,’ she reprimanded. ‘Especially when you do not clearly outline the ambivalence of your service to those who rely upon it. At the moment most needed, you disappear.’
‘I am outlining it with honesty to you, am I not?’ he raised an eyebrow.
‘That you are,’ she conceded. ‘I do not know what to make of you.’
‘Is there any harm in accepting my aid?’ he asked.
She considered. ‘No, I do not think so.’
‘Then?’
She tilted her head and considered him. ‘I will accept your services, Necromancer Shade, on the conditions you offer, offering those same conditions back. I will claim you, for as long as claiming you suits my needs.’
He smiled brightly, amused. ‘I think we shall deal very well, my Lady,’ he bowed over her proffered hand.
Rogue
Rogue woke into pre-dawn grey. Dream lay thick upon her limbs, goose-fleshed her skin, and dis-quieted her stomach. She could taste blood in her mouth, and did not know if it were imagination or reality. Her breathing was broken, uneasy. ‘Shhhh,’ Ash rubbed a hand up her arm, his hand hot against her chilled flesh. She turned into his touch, his warmth, his scent. Her vision curtained by his fine, almost transparent hair, she watched the room lighten into early day. He slept; an arm loosely over her.
She tilted her head back in order to see his face. He was vulnerable in repose, as he was not in wakefulness. She eased a little away from him and leaned on her elbow. Behind her, Coal snored softly in his sleep. She glanced over her shoulder at him, but he faced away. She turned back to Ash, and traced her fingers lightly across his brow, down the strong line of his nose. His skin was fine and tanned by the sun, with the faintest of freckles across his cheeks.
She did not know if she could give them what they were after. The life which they proposed was designed for a different type of woman; one untouched and undamaged by violence and horror; one who knew things about making a home and raising children. They were determined, however, to walk her path until she considered her work done, and in fairness she would try, then, to make with them the life they wanted. A life that maybe, she thought, just maybe, she might want too. When all else was done.
In the meantime, she tried to accustom herself to this softness of being; of touching with tenderness, of intimacy and sharing of thoughts. It sat ill at ease with her, and she worried that she was losing that vital edge that would see her through the task ahead of her. And yet, she could not deny it to them; could not withdraw and put up a carapace to protect her inner self and wall them out. How they had managed to do this to her, put her in this predicament, she did not know.
She sculpted his chin. He was awake, now, woken by her touch, but pretending not to be. She could tell by the change in his breathing… and by a give-away stiffness against her thigh. She leaned over him and brushed her lips against his, from corner to corner, before kissing his chin. She ran her lips down the column of his throat, feeling the abrasion of his stubble, before tasting the hollow between his clavicles. She let her hair trail over his ribs as she brushed her cheek across the crisp curls that dusted his chest. This hair was dark gold, whereas that on his head was so pale as to be almost white. She ran her tongue around the rose coin of his nipple, pressed her lips to it in a reverent kiss. He groaned and raised a hand before letting it drop; perhaps concerned that she would stop if he touched her. They were learning her mercurial nature.
She rested her hands on his hips, stroking the valley and crest of muscle and bone between hip and stomach, and kissed his jaw from ear to chin. She kissed each eye, and then his lips, which opened compliantly beneath hers. She explored the hollow of his mouth, stroked his tongue with her own. He rolled to cover her, taking control of the kiss, and kissing her until her blood raced and her loins tightened. She pressed her hips up against him and moaned at the glide of naked flesh against naked flesh.
The sun was bright now, and in the light streaming through the open shutters he was a golden god of a man; dazzling. He kissed her again, brief and promising, before sliding down her, trailing his stubbly chin in a line from collarbone to pubic hair. He used the fingers of one hand to part her flesh, his tongue crafting a circle around her clitoris before drawing down to her core, teasing and stirring her into ragged, primal passions. He sucked her clitoris between his teeth and stroked it rapidly with his tongue, gently pushing first one finger, and then two, into her, delving deep, and stroking upwards to that spot she had thought mythical before she had met them.
She cried out as she came. He used his tongue to tease the moment out until it was almost painful, and just as she reached that point of sensation, as if able to read her mind, he pulled away, gliding back up her body until they were nose to nose and entered her, smooth and slick, so they both groaned on the same breath. She wrapped her ankles around his glorious buttocks and pulled him into her as she sculpted the columns of his back muscles beneath the palms of her hands from hip to s
houlder. He withdrew slowly, pulling back against her imprisoning legs, before entering her again, so slowly that the intimacy of flesh was vividly sensitised. Against his slow seduction, she was frantically feverish, using the grip of her legs on his hips to thrust her hips to meet him. He laughed, a soft, deep, dreamy chuckle against her ear, and resisted her.
‘Too slow!’ she complained.
‘Just slow enough,’ he replied, and kissed her. But, his focus broken, he stroked into her faster, and she moaned her appreciation. He pressed his forehead against hers, caught and held her gaze. This close, she could see each perfect crystal shard of colour within his irises in exact detail. Her orgasm caused his; his eyes ferocious in the moment. They were slick with sweat and stuck together. He laughed at the sucking of their flesh as he lifted his weight to the side, rolling her to face him as Coal, woken by their antics, nuzzled up to her back, stroking a hand up her belly to cup her breast and pressing his lips to the back of her neck.
‘Hmmm,’ she murmured, eyes half closed as his hand drifted down, capturing her calf and lifting it over his leg so he could enter her from behind. Coal caught her earlobe between his teeth and nibbled it, murmuring something in his native tongue as his hand returned to her hip and he began to move against her, his rhythm firm, strong, and determined.
She drifted her own hand down her stomach, to stroke her clitoris, finding it easy to re-ignite the burn. His hand covered hers, guiding her finger. She moaned. ‘Yes,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Yes. Now.’ And she came, for a third exhaustive time, as she felt him twitch within her in his own release.
‘By the Monad,’ she complained in the lassitude of satiation. ‘If you keep this up…’
‘Oh, we will keep it up,’ Ash smirked at the double entendre.
‘Hmmm,’ she swatted at him without force. ‘I have to get up. It is time to get up.’
‘But, it would be nice to stay here,’ Coal suggested.
‘Yes,’ she smiled and leaned over in a sudden, out of character, moment of tenderness, to kiss him. ‘Yes, it would be nice. But there’s war, death and glory to be had, so we had best be after having it.’
‘I would much rather have you,’ Coal was plaintive, but released her as she wiggled away.
‘Hallows,’ Ash sighed. ‘So murder-centric. Who have you to kill today?’
‘No one,’ she smiled, hidden within her hair, as she pulled on her trousers. ‘No one, planned, at least.’
‘Then why the urgency?’
‘I am expecting a new style of cannon to arrive from Shoethal today,’ she shrugged braiding her hair efficiently. ‘It is touted to shoot farther and with increased accuracy.’
‘Is Cinder so convinced that the King will attack Amori?’ Ash was sceptical. ‘King Eminent is an old man, with only a young daughter as heir. He will be unwilling to take risks so late into his reign, and without a mature heir to support him as regent with either the army or at home. It seems to me he would rather cower in his western strongholds, and let Cinder have the easterly edge of Rhyndel. The army at Guarn reflects his lack of motivation. They lack a strong leader to push them into decisive action.’
‘The army at Guarn is on the move, so maybe they have found such a man to lead them?’ Rogue adjusted her breasts within her bodice and tightened it to hold them firm.
‘Who?’ Coal was sceptical. ‘Charity is dead, Obedience is too mired in protocol, Humble and Service are too slow in thought and action. Maybe one of the Lordlings from further west decided to test his mettle in war; a second or third son. There is Lyendar up for grabs, after all; or at least what Cinder leaves standing of Lyendar.’
‘Not much will be left,’ Rogue smiled grimly. ‘You are awfully well informed on the Lords of Rhyndel for someone merely travelling through in search of a missing tribute.’
Ash shrugged. ‘EAery may wish to remain aloof from Rhyndel and Shoethal, but that does not mean we maintain ignorance of it.’
Coal nodded wisely in agreement. ‘After all, skirmishes in Rhyndel and Shoethal could threaten to overflow into EAery.’
‘Hmmm,’ she wisely chose to remain silent on that, as overflow into EAery was something she was considering if things were to go unwell for Cinder. ‘Well, then, my oddly learned ones, I had best be off about my day.’
‘Sneaking out of our chamber like an errant maid,’ Coal sneered.
‘It would not do for a Hallow to be known to be sleeping with us, after all,’ Ash added snidely.
‘It would not do for a Hallow to be known to be sleeping regularly with you,’ she retorted acidly. ‘Once would be in line with a Hallow’s reputation of callous usage; more than once implies an attachment, and that would imply weakness. Sooner or later, where weakness is to be found, there will be someone to use it to their advantage.’ She paused, and added more gently. ‘You could be harmed.’
‘You worry for us?’ Coal was baffled.
‘Our own mother stopped worrying for us once we were old enough to hold our swords by the right end,’ Ash was baffled. ‘I do not know if we should be flattered or insulted.’
She shrugged. ‘I do not care which you are, as long as you are alive at the end of the day.’ She pulled her hood up and left them nursing their egos.
The cannon did not arrive as expected, however from the direction of Lyendar, by afternoon, an odd assortment of travellers could be seen from the battlements. They arrived by nightfall: a party of armed soldiers, a collection of pretty young women and youths, and two dozen young children. Gravel, the soldier in charge of this rag-tag assortment, was keen to hand them into her care.
‘What is all this?’ she demanded, though she suspected.
‘Gifts,’ Gravel replied drinking thirstily from a tankard offered him by a servant. No one offered the prisoners, or ‘gifts’, a drink. ‘Virgins and youths to be sent to Shoethal for sale as slaves. The children are a gift to the Lady Patience from the Prince Cinder, with a message that he wishes her to travel to Truen as soon as she is able. She may take her children with her, or leave them here. You are to arrange her safe travel.’
‘Hmmm,’ she regarded the assembly piqued. ‘Well, give them water and food,’ she ordered a servant, ‘then lock them up for the night in one of the dungeons. Throw bedding in for the children. Tomorrow you can take them all to Shoethal,’ she said to Gravel. ‘I will have someone meet you over the border to take charge of the children.’
Gravel shrugged, indifferent as to their fates.
‘I will pass the Prince’s message to the Lady Patience,’ she concluded, dismissing him.
The Lady Patience was compliant with the Prince’s request. ‘I cannot take my children to Truen,’ she sat in the back of the small chamber where Lord Charm and his tutor worked at his letters, with a sulky Joy on her lap, and absently smoothed Joy’s golden curls as she watched Charm form a rune in chalk. ‘It would be too dangerous and too hard for them,’ she continued smiling encouragingly at Charm who looked up at her for acknowledgement of his achievement with a bright, open gaze. Rogue felt uncomfortable in this domestic setting however she admired it as the perfect backdrop for the lovely matron.
‘Would you prefer to leave them here?’ Rogue asked.
Patience pursed her lips in thought. ‘I can leave them in Rue’s care, I think, now that there is no threat to them from…’ She left the words unsaid, but Rogue knew she meant from Gallant. ‘Will you be staying here, or going to Truen?’ she asked.
‘I have no specific orders, but I think I shall go to Truen,’ Rogue had not decided. No doubt it would also require discussion with the twins she realised with malcontent. ‘Why do you ask?’
The Lady shrugged one elegant shoulder and smiled wryly. ‘I find I trust you,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘On one hand, I would be glad of your company on the journey, on the other I would feel safer leaving my children knowing you were here.’
Strangely touched by the Lady’s admission of trust, Rogue shifted uncomfortably. ‘There is a
Hallow,’ she said, ‘that I trust above all others. He is known as Chain. I will have him make himself known to the Lady Rue, and assign him to watch over your children.’
‘I would appreciate that,’ Patience smiled at Charm. ‘My children are everything to me.’
I know, Rogue thought but did not say. ‘When do you think you will be able to leave?’ she asked.
‘Is there a time frame?’ Patience asked.
‘He has not given one,’ Rogue shrugged. ‘Soon. It is not wise to keep the Prince waiting overlong.’
‘I will make arrangements, and let you know when I will be ready,’ Patience advised.
Rogue accepted this with a nod. ‘There was another thing,’ she offered not sure how Patience would receive news of the Prince’s gifts, or her redistribution of them. ‘The Prince sent you a handful of young children – survivors of Lyendar’s destruction.’
‘Oh,’ Patience blinked, and was silent a long moment. Her hand traced the shape of Joy’s skull. The infant rested her head against her mother’s shoulder and chewed on a finger, a line of drool running down her forearm. ‘That was very…’ Patience struggled for a description. ‘Thoughtful?’
‘Thoughtful will do it,’ Rogue agreed, amused. ‘I will have them sent to join the other children you have saved, shall I?’
Patience nodded slowly. ‘I guess that would be best.’
Gallant
That cunning Spider had woven a wicked web, Gallant acknowledged wryly crumpling the missive in his fist before tossing it into the flames that burnt in the brazier. If he had suspected her to be so clever, he would have claimed her and utilised her for his own plans, however he had not known the extent to which her mind was working, and thus had missed his opportunity. She was now firmly entrenched as his enemy - and as firmly entrenched as Cinder’s ally. The would-be-King would not hear word against her.
Gallant had to quickly adjust his approach. He had grown arrogant, he realised, and prideful with it. It was his pride that had led to him being too obvious in wresting control from Cinder, and that had given the Spider the opening for her wily weavings. Now, his every move was watched by the Prince with suspicion. He had to make a swift change from arrogance to humbleness, or the Prince would retaliate. Cinder had demonstrated his ruthlessness – Gallant had not been immune to the lesson implicit in the torture of Honesty.
